Freaky Fast Frankie Joe (3 page)

I don't care, I think. I bet my bike's every bit as good as those—no,
better
.

In a field at the end of the block, I see corn and soybeans growing.

“Where do your kids ride their bikes?”

“Why, on the street. But there is a park a few blocks away with a paved bike path, in case you'd rather ride there.”

Paved bike path? The Chihuahua Desert doesn't have an unpaved bike path, much less a paved one.

“Meteors ever fall out of the sky around here?”

“Meteors?” He looks confused.

I was afraid of that.

Four boys burst out the front door and grab FJ around his shoulders, arms, middle, and knees.

Matt, Mark, Luke, and Little Johnny.

They're wearing T-shirts and jeans like I am, except theirs are clean. Mine have mustard and catsup and grease down the front and are wrinkled because I've worn them for two days.

The second-shortest boy wears glasses, but other than that, the four legitimate Huckaby sons look pretty much the same. I don't look anything like them. Their eyes are chocolate brown, not blue like mine; their hair and eyebrows are thick and brown, too.

I hear a door slam again. A short, round woman with curly brown hair and chocolate-brown eyes runs down the front steps. She's dressed in slacks and a plaid shirt, which billows when she stretches out her arms. A tent with legs.

Lizzie.

Mom is about as opposite of her as you can get. Mom's hair is short and blond, all shiny and spiky, and she likes capri pants and bright T-shirts. Lime green is her favorite color because her eyes are green. Sometimes she paints her fingernails and toenails to match
what she's wearing. Just thinking about her makes me homesick.

Squealing like car brakes when someone stomps on them, Lizzie reaches over the four boys and grabs FJ around the neck. I wonder how he's able to breathe, but he just gathers them up in his long arms as if trying to squeeze the life out of them. When he lets them go, they turn and stare at me.

“Hey.” I nod, holding tight to my suitcase.

“Oh, yeah,” FJ says. He walks over to me, puts his arm around my shoulders. “This is Frankie Joe, my . . . my oldest son.”

“That's why he's named after you,” the boy with glasses says. “Right, Dad? 'Cause he's the oldest.”

“Does that mean he can boss us around?” the smallest boy asks. “Like Matt does?”

“Do not,” the tallest boy says.

“Do too! 'Cept now, he can boss
you
around.”

“Can
not
.”

“Can too—”

“Enough of that.” Lizzie gives me an ear-to-ear grin. “Why, he's the spitting image of you, FJ.” She frowns suddenly. “Except he's thin—way too thin.”

My face burns. What does she mean, too thin? Mom always told me I was tall for my age and would fill out sideways when I stopped growing skyways. I begin to squirm, waiting for someone to notice that I'm just tall
for my age. But FJ and Lizzie say nothing, while the four boys just stare at me some more.

Finally Lizzie cuts short the staring, saying, “I can fix thin. People don't stay thin for long in
my
house.”

Before I can blink, she's pulling me up the steps, the half brothers hot on my heels like a posse keeping herd on me.

I brace myself for my first meal of corn and soybeans.

Lizzie sets out a spread the likes of which I've never seen before: crispy fried chicken, mashed potatoes with cheese sprinkled on top, gravy shiny with pan drippings, orange Jell-O with shredded carrots, hot rolls with butter, and apple pie for dessert.

“Did Frank tell you I'm a quilter, Frankie Joe?” Lizzie smiles at me.

I figure out that FJ is Frank and shake my head no.

“My Quilt Circle meets here every Saturday afternoon. A quilt takes hours and hours to make. My quilts have won many a blue ribbon at the county fair.”

“The fair is held every August,” FJ explains. He helps himself to another helping of chicken and lets Lizzie talk on.

“I work part-time at the JCPenney store, that's in the next town over. But I'm home by six o'clock, soon after the boys get home from The Great Escape—that's what the after-school program is called.” She pauses to
catch her breath. “I get a fifteen-percent discount on anything I buy, which helps out a lot with four boys growing like weeds.”

Lizzie smiles around the table at her four “weeds,” who respond with ear-to-ear grins of their own. I notice she stops short of giving me a grin, and I wonder what I am if not a “weed.”

“I'm the best colorer in first grade,” the youngest boy says, taking over. He's the one called Little Johnny. “My teacher puts all my pictures up in the room for everyone to see 'cause I never color outside the lines.”

“I'm really good at math,” Luke says next. He's the one who wears glasses. He announces that he plans on being a “gazzillionaire” when he grows up. “I can count to a hundred, and count by twos, and count by threes, and count by fours, and count by fives. I can even count by sevens!” He looks at me. “Can you count by sevens?”

I stare at him, wondering what's so important about counting by sevens.

“Of course, he can count by sevens,” Lizzie says, laughing. “Frankie Joe's twelve years old.”

“I'm the smartest one of all,” Mark chimes in. “I skipped third grade and went straight to fourth. I have an excellent brain. You like games? We have a Game Boy. What's your favorite game? Bet I can beat'cha.”

That would be a safe bet. A couple of my friends back in Laredo have Game Boys, but Mom doesn't make enough money to buy me one. Besides, who needs
pretend games? I'd rather do real things—like help Mr. Lopez. Or important things—like finding space rocks with Mr. O'Hare.

“I don't play those games,” I tell him.

“You don't play games!” Mark looks at me like I've just admitted to crossing the Rio Grande illegally. “We knew you'd be a freak!”

Freak? So that's why I'm not a “weed.” I'm a freak.

“More potatoes, Frankie Joe?” Lizzie shoots Mark a look to kill as she plops more potatoes on my plate. I concentrate on eating, listening to the rest of them talk. Which, except for FJ, they sure like to do.

Oldest-brother Matt is the least talkative of all the brothers. I learn that he's in the fifth grade, but he makes no announcement about being the best at anything. What bothers me about him is the way his eyes spark when he looks at me. They're like two chunks of smoldering charcoal, ready to ignite. I haven't been here thirty minutes, and already I feel like I've stepped on his toes.

“So,” Lizzie says, “tell us what you're good at Frankie Joe?” She gives me the big smile again.

Everyone grows quiet, waiting for me to speak. I feel myself blink. And blink some more. I blink a lot before FJ takes over.

“That's enough talk for now. It's been a long trip, and Frankie Joe's got to be worn down to a nub. I know I am.” He looks at me. “You get enough to eat?”

“Yes sir.” I've had seconds on everything—even thirds on fried chicken. If corn and soybeans were any part of the meal, I don't know which part it was.

I turn to Lizzie. “It was good.”

Her eyes glow. “If you want a snack later, I made cookies. Chocolate chip.”

Chocolate chip!

Mom bought packaged cookies, Oreos mostly because that's her favorite kind. She doesn't eat sweets much, though. She's been on a diet as long as I can remember. “Guys don't like fat girls,” she told me once when she was getting ready to go out on a date.

“Chocolate chip's my favorite,” I tell Lizzie.

Even if I am the freak in the bunch, I begin to think Clearview, Illinois, might not be a bad place to bunk . . . for a few months.

“Matt and Mark share a bedroom, you see.” FJ talks as we make our way upstairs, the posse of half brothers right behind us. He opens a door to a room on the second floor.

I see two corner desks loaded down with school-books. Math. History. Science. English. Under bunk beds, I see a Battleship game and a Game Boy, plus a stack of disks.

Four alien-looking creatures wearing eye masks leer at me from the wall: a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
poster. Mom took me to see the movie when it came out. The four dark-eyed half brothers remind me of the turtles.

I eye the crowded room, wondering if I'll be sleeping on the floor. On the drive from Laredo, I never dreamed I would be sharing a bedroom with one mutant ninja, much less two—and sleeping on the floor.

“Luke and Johnny share another room,” FJ says. He opens the door across the hall. “The rooms are small, you see.”

Inside are two more desks, crayon drawings taped on the wall, books and games stuffed under bunk beds—and another
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
poster. It makes sense: FJ tests grain for chemicals, and the ninja turtles mutated because of toxic waste. I figure I'll be hearing
kowabunga, dude!
a lot.

“Uh-huh,” I mumble, looking at the floor again for space to roll out a sleeping bag. When FJ walks farther down the hall to another door, my heart starts doing flip-flops.

Cool
. I get my own bedroom.

But through the door, I see a flight of steep, narrow, dark stairs and have another thought:
Dope, they're gonna to stick you in a dark, drafty attic
.

“So,” FJ says as we climb. “We thought—Lizzie and me, that is—that this might be better for you. Being the other rooms are so small.”

“Uh-huh,” I mumble. I know small rooms are not
the reason I'm being isolated. It doesn't take an excellent brain to figure that out.

“You can use the boys' bathroom there on the second floor. Lizzie and I use the one on the first . . . and it doubles as the guest bathroom.”

The steps are steep. I bounce my suitcase off the wall like a basketball. Reaching the top, I step into a large, open space. Walls slant to a peak and there are windows on opposite ends. An old metal bed sits under the back window, and beside it is a chest with an alarm clock on it. A small desk sits under the other window, a bookshelf beside it, and a calendar on the wall. Cardboard boxes stacked in between tell me that the attic is normally used for storage.

All this is mine? It's bigger than our trailer in Laredo!

FJ says, “You think this'll do all right? I mean, you're just here temporarily, you know.”

I like the sound of that word
temporarily
.

“Yes sir,” I say. “This'll do all right.”

“Stairs are hard on Lizzie,” FJ says. “You'll need to run the vacuum and keep things picked up. Change the sheets once a week and carry them downstairs to the laundry room. But take your dirty clothes down every day so Lizzie can keep up with the wash. She'll iron your clothes and fold your socks and underwear. You'll need to haul them back upstairs. The other boys have to do the same thing.”

Ironed clothes? Folded underwear? At home I use things right out of the dryer.

“That clear, Frankie Joe?”

“Yes sir.”

“Those all the belongings you got?” Matt points to my suitcase. The ninja posse is clumped by the stairs, watching us.

“Well, except for his bicycle,” FJ says. “Guess we might as well unload that, too.”

I watch as FJ hauls my bicycle out of the van.

Matt looks at me. “That's your bike?”

“But . . . but that can't be,” Lizzie sputters. “We sent money to—”

FJ shoots Lizzie a fast look, and the rest of her words fade away. “Here you go, Frankie Joe,” he says. “Set your bike up there on the porch with the others.”

As I wheel the old ten-speed up the sidewalk, I feel like a germ under a microscope. The bike had been bright yellow when it was new, and up close, traces of yellow can still be seen among the dents and scrapes and rust. The words
Rover Sport
are partly legible on the frame.

“Isn't that a girl's bike?” Little Johnny asks. “The girls at school have bikes with baskets on the front, just like that.”

The ninja posse laughs.

“No, it's not like that,” I say, feeling my face turn hot. “I just put this basket on the front so I could haul stuff. But it's not a girl's bike.”

Mark asks, “Where'd you get that thing?”

My face gets hotter. “I found it in a trash Dumpster. Rich snowbirds that go south in the winter throw things away they don't want to haul back. I figure some guy wrecked it out in the desert. Mr. O'Hare helped me fix it up, but I earned the money for new tires myself.”

“You're a Dumpster diver?” Mark looks at his brothers and laughs. “He's a Dumpster diver!”

“That's enough, Mark,” FJ says.

“How'd you earn the money for new tires?” Luke asks.

I remember that he's the one who wants to be a “gazzillionaire.” He examines the fat tires on my bike, twice as big as the skinny racing tires on theirs.

“I run errands and haul things for people. You know, pick up groceries for Mrs. Jones or smokes for Mr. Lopez. They're my neighbors at the Lone Star Trailer Park where we live. They give me tips, which Mom says is generous since they're on Social Security.”

“Not gonna win too many races with that thing.” Matt examines the scraped-up frame and wheels, which are missing a few spokes. “Wrong kind of tires for racing.”

But great for off-road.

“Like I said, I use it for hauling stuff.” I want to
shove the pushy kid away from my bike, but I don't. Like it or not, I'm stuck here for a while.

“Yeah? Just what else you haul in that basket?”

Matt's eyes burn a hole in me. Mark saves me from a need to respond, his “excellent brain” asking the question that Lizzie had not finished earlier.