The Off Season (19 page)

"The address is..." He gave me a street I'd never heard of, of course, and a number, and I wrote them down but I sure didn't register them because I was so in shock.

I was in shock for a big chunk of the drive too, heading to Eau Claire at eighty miles an hour so my little brother wouldn't get arrested for cutting school and driving underage. Then the shock kind of wore off enough for me to get angry. To get furious. What the heck was he thinking? Taking the pickup to school, that's understandable—once. But joy riding to a city two hours away, cutting school with your girlfriend? Plus stealing a truck—is it stealing when the truck belongs to your dad? Is it stealing when the truck is dead?

Damn. Even Bill wouldn't have pulled a stunt like this, not in eighth grade. Curtis had always seemed so levelheaded. Weird as heck, yeah, with his skull collection and his chess-playing girlfriend, but I never would have thought he'd do this. Curtis hadn't really gotten in trouble for sleeping over at Sarah's. I guess Mom figured her blowing her back out was punishment enough—it sure
seemed
like it was. But I guess not, not if Curtis was now doing something ten times worse. Only I couldn't even call Mom to tell her what had happened, ask her what to do because, duh, I'd forgotten my cell phone. Left it on the counter charging, which was incredibly brilliant but it's not like I didn't have a number of other things on my mind as I was racing out of the house, things about my little brother the felon.

I got to Eau Claire at last, and then I had to ask a guy at the gas station for directions, which he didn't know although you'd think gas station guys would, but a guy filling up his car helped me out, and then I had to stop this lady walking her dog and ask again—both times just about dying because asking for directions isn't one of my greatest skills—and finally I got to the street number Curtis had said, but I must have written it down wrong or he said it wrong, which was more likely, because it was a huge middle school. Which is not where most kids go joy riding to, right?

Only there was the pickup, sticking out like a sore thumb on the side of the road. Right next to a no parking—fire lane sign. Another law he'd broken. And Curtis wasn't anywhere in sight.

I was so furious that I almost blew out the Caravan's tires, I backed into the curb so hard turning around. I got the jumper cables out of the truck because it's not like this is the first time the battery died, and got it jumped all by myself, not a soul in sight and me with steam coming out of my ears, I was so angry. At least the truck started right up. And at least there was a note under the windshield saying the battery was dead and they were waiting for a jump. In girl handwriting—probably Sarah. Who also wasn't around, not that I'd been counting on her help, but still.

I couldn't believe Curtis. Could not believe him. To call me on my big day of rest, make me drive all the way to Eau Claire, and then not even
wait
for me? Maybe he was hiding somewhere, like I was in the mood for
that.
He certainly wasn't in the parking lot, though if he had been, wandering around slashing tires, I wouldn't have been a bit surprised.

Just then someone walked out of the building, and all this noise poured out of the gym—you could tell it was a gym just from the way it was shaped—and I raced up and grabbed the door before it shut. Maybe Curtis was in there. In fact, he'd be pretty lucky if he
was
in the gym because that meant I couldn't kill him, not until we got outside.

Only he wasn't, or at least I didn't see him and he's really easy to pick out because he's so tall. There were kids everywhere making that enormous ear-bending racket you always get in gyms, and tables holding booths with flowers turned a couple different colors, and water soaking through different materials, and robots being displayed by kids who looked like robot builders ... A science fair. Great. Right in front of me people jostled around one booth, and through the racket I heard, "That is so totally disgusting" in that tone people use when they can't stop looking, and then someone moved and I could read the sign, really neat computer printing,
DESICCATION AND ITS EFFECTS
, and then someone else moved and—

Remember back a zillion years ago when the milk house roof got smashed? And I found a bunch of dried-up rats that Curtis took away like they were diamonds or something? Well, here they were. Only now they were in little glass boxes, the kind you see in a museum, one in each box, or rat parts in some of them. And next to each box was a little paragraph in that same nice computer printing, and arrows going to one thing, like teeth or hair, or their dried-up skinny bald tails. It was the sort of exhibit you didn't even want to look at, and then once you started, you couldn't stop.

A
CTUALLY, IT TOOK ME
a couple minutes to realize these were Schwenk Farm rats. At first I could see only that they were rats that had been all dried out, which rang a little bell in my memory because as you know I have some experience with that kind of rodent. Then I worked my way close enough to see the little rat bodies, which looked a
lot
like the rats I'd seen, and then as I went over each little description I happened to come across the words
BY SARAH ZORN AND CURTIS SCHWENK
, and I even thought to myself how bizarre this was because I had a brother with that exact same name, and it wasn't until I got to red bend middle school that it really began to sink in that this was Curtis's handiwork.

My anger—it was like it had been sucked up by a vacuum cleaner or something. Now all I felt was amazed. And slowly this other feeling just bubbling up inside me—proud. Proud and happy. He wasn't cutting school at all, not if he was here at a science fair—that's as school as you can get. And he wasn't joy riding—he'd just needed the pickup to carry the booth. Sure, he was driving underage, which wasn't so smart, but my brother wasn't a felon lawbreaker at all.

Just then a couple kids started whispering, "It's them, it's them!" and there were Curtis and Sarah walking up, both pink with embarrassment, holding—ready for this?—a trophy.

Curtis saw me and his pink embarrassment turned to white-faced fear. "I'm sorry—I meant to wait out there ... they made me come in—"

"This is
awesome,
" I said. "I can't believe you did this."

Curtis gulped, and then slowly managed a smile. "Yeah, Sarah has a laser printer."

"That's not what I meant—" I began, but right at that moment they were mobbed by folks asking them questions, wanting their picture in front of the booth.

Anyway, it turns out Curtis and Sarah came in third, which really ticked me off because their exhibit was
so
much better than anything else there, and so much more popular. But the winners were this kid who built a refrigerator "by himself" even though his dad owns an air-conditioning business so you can imagine, and a girl who recorded all these bird songs and made little charts of them, don't ask me how, and had the charts up and the recordings going and you had no idea what it meant but it obviously took her a huge amount of time.

We packed the rat display into the back of the Caravan because I didn't want it getting jostled in the truck, and luckily the truck still started and I gave Curtis my best imitationMom lecture about driving safely because he'd get arrested if he got caught, and they followed me out. only before we even got on the highway I pulled into a pancake house because I was totally ravenous and because we needed to celebrate that third place trophy. Sarah ate a ton of food, which I would never have predicted, though not as much as I did, or Curtis who doesn't have a hollow leg, he's just plain hollow. The waitress was impressed, even. And I found out the whole story, though getting information out of the two of them was a bit like dentistry to tell you the truth, how Curtis skipped practice to buy the Plexiglas and then stayed up all night with Sarah arranging those dried-up bodies, Mr. Larson helping them out and keeping their secret, which is just one of the things that makes him an amazing teacher. He was supposed to drive them to Eau Claire but then his mom died, which is why Curtis had to take the pickup and Sarah and the display because he was too scared to ask another teacher, or me, for a ride. Too scared to let on about the science fair.

"The guys would make cracks," he said. "And Dad. You know..."

I had a little pang when I realized I was one of the people Curtis was afraid of. I'd already teased him even, last fall, pointing out how gross the rats were. "Forget about Dad," I said. "I'll take care of him." I meant it too. It was the least I could do.

I paid for lunch with all the cash I had, and Curtis and Sarah chipped in, which I very much appreciated, and we managed an okay tip with all the change we could find behind the Caravan cushions, and then we bought gas with Mom's credit card, which I'm only supposed to use in emergencies, which I considered being stuck in Eau Claire to be.

Then, totally stuffed, we set out for Red Bend at an extremely legal rate of speed, and I finally had some down time to collect my thoughts, and then my heart did a midair somersault because I remembered Brian. In all this Eau Claire rat drama, that one extremely exciting fact actually slipped my mind. Now, though, I could barely wait. I spent most of the drive getting more and more psyched. Brian would bust a gut about Curtis. He'd barely believed it last summer, Curtis driving Dad around after his hip transplant, and the notion of Curtis heading to a city with a
girl
for a science fair—that was pretty amazing. Although I'd stress the not-teasing part, just so you know.

From the way dusk was falling, I could tell that football practice was due to end soon. Then Brian and I could just sit in a car and talk the way Amber and I used to, or go to the movies. Or he could help with the evening milking for all I cared. Whatever he wanted, I was up for it. I'd meet him anywhere. Which of course might be a bit difficult to arrange seeing as I didn't have my cell phone. But there were other options.

We drove our Schwenk convoy straight to Sarah's house, parking the pickup around the corner so no one could see who'd been driving, and I rang the doorbell holding the trophy, Curtis pretty nervous because her folks haven't cared much for him since the basement incident. But when her mom answered—pretty mad about seeing her daughter with that troublemaker—I explained what they'd really been doing (skipping the part about the pickup, duh), and Mrs. Zorn was so shocked, and then so pleased, that she came out to the Caravan to see the exhibit, Paul right behind her just amazed I was at his house, and they both had that reaction I was getting used to, a barfing face followed by real curiosity.

So Curtis went from being Troublemaker to Good Guy again, and Mrs. Zorn invited us in for some ice cream, and I said I'd love to but I had to run an errand, and would it be okay if Curtis hung out there for a few hours? And she said of course, and Curtis and Sarah looked even happier if that was possible, and I took off for Hawley.

If you'd told me way back in September that D.J. Schwenk would be driving up to Hawley High School as cool as a cucumber, I'd have told you to go get your head examined. But after everything I'd been through these past few months, the whole Red Bend–Hawley rivalry seemed just a little tiny bit pathetic. Besides, Brian had said even his friends said good things about me. Not that I lay awake nights worrying about their opinion of me or anything, but it had to help Brian, hearing that.

Hawley High School is a lot newer than Red Bend, which you'd expect given our two towns, and its football stands were a lot bigger and nicer-looking. Practice was already over, and I panicked for a second until I saw Brian's Cherokee in the parking lot still. I pulled up nearby, admiring the stars and wondering what the two of us would say after hello. Whether we'd make out a bit. Not that I'd driven over for that, but I wouldn't, you know, turn it down.

A group of guys came out of the gym, hard to see in the twilight, only I heard Brian's laugh and I knew he was in the crowd. They ambled toward the parking lot and I got out of the Caravan, nervous now because I wasn't exactly sure how to act with all those guys around, and wishing I'd been able to call Brian first. Plus I couldn't help thinking how crappy the Caravan looked next to all those cars the football players drove. Not that they all drove cars as new as Brian's, but they were all a lot newer than mine.

The guys got closer and now I could make out Brian, his hair so shiny the way it always is. He turned in my direction and all of a sudden he saw me. He had this little start of recognition, and then his mouth dropped open. Not in surprise. In shock. In total, what-the-hell-is
-she
-doing-here shock.

F
OR ONE INSTANT
, Brian and I stared at each other—him with that shocked face and me with my heart basically stopped—and a few of the guys caught sight of me and froze, looking back and forth between me and Brian while he didn't do a thing. Then I climbed into the Caravan and drove off.

Which wasn't quite the exit I was looking for because the Caravan has some exhaust issues and it backfired a couple times, which is something you never see on TV when the hero peels out. Plus peeling out is something else our Caravan isn't too good at.

But I barely noticed because all I could think about was that expression on Brian's face. What
was
that? I didn't get it. It was like that time in Taco Bell, only worse because this time his friends weren't even being jerks. Not that they were jerks in Taco Bell, but they could have been—I mean, if they'd seen me, and seen the other Red Bend players. And they sure were jerks last summer, calling me names right to my face. And roughing me up during the scrimmage.

It made me feel sick inside. If Brian was, you know, sleeping with me or something and then blowing me off in front of his friends, that I could understand. That happens all the time, boys using girls like that. But his behavior just now I didn't understand at all. AH those long talks we'd had these past weeks as he'd told me how great I was, listening to my depressing life. All those times he came to the farm super early on weekend mornings when he could have been asleep, the meals he had with us and all the help he provided without even being asked. And all that kissing too, which he didn't have to do but that, duh, he really seemed to enjoy ... Call me crazy, but isn't that the stuff you do when you like a girl? Like her for her company and her family, and her feelings? Whenever the two of us were together, we had a special connection. I felt it, and I know he felt it too. He
did
like me. He liked me a lot. Which meant his expression now wasn't just blowing off some dumb girl you really don't care about. It meant he was embarrassed about me.