A Shiloh Christmas (4 page)

And then, don't even give us time to raise our hands if we dared, he adds, “And those rules apply to boys only.”

There's a gasp like we're all suckin' air out of the same big straw. Can't believe this. And once again, without any time for us to protest, he says, “My mistake. Girls only.”

This time the girls turn and stare at each other, and then Mr. Kelly starts to smile. “You didn't believe all that, did you?” he says.

And finally we all grin and say, naw, we knew him to be joking, though we didn't, and I decide right then I'm going to like the guy in the purple shirt.

He tells us that this is his first day of teaching at Tyler Consolidated, and he wants us to know that not only did he come in the wrong entrance himself, but he was looking for the teachers' lounge and walked into biology by mistake. “Nobody there but a frog,” he says, and we laugh out loud this time.

Mr. Kelly goes on to say that we're going to be studying nonfiction for the first half of seventh grade, and we'll start with biographies, then move on to autobiographies. One of our assignments—won't be due till
the end of the semester—is to write two five-hundred-word essays. First one will be about an important person in our own lives. Second will be a biography of a classmate, and we'll draw names to see who it will be. Maybe we don't think we've lived long enough to have anything to say, but he's going to show us that we know ourselves better than we thought.

At some point he remembers to call the roll, and when he says, “Rachel Dawes?” I look around and see the new girl answer. The preacher's daughter? She sees me looking at her and stares right back, not a trace of a smile. Must be a rule against it in that family.

Rest of the week goes okay; I like some classes better than others. David Howard invites me to stay over at his place Friday night, so Ma lets me put some clean underwear and a toothbrush in my backpack, and I get off the bus with him down in Friendly.

I don't guess anyone really feels as easy in another person's house as he does in his own, but I like being at David's just the same. It's sure quieter when you don't have sisters. David don't even have brothers.

“How's the new addition coming, Marty?” his dad asks as he spears one of the small red potatoes on his plate and pops it in his mouth. Got his shirtsleeves
rolled up to the elbows—just came home from work. Big lock of sandy hair falls over his forehead, same color as David's. Cheeks are dotted with tiny pits that make him look rugged, like he's climbed mountains or something. Far as I know he's worked for the
Tyler Star-News
a long time.

“Well, we got the frame up and the roof on, but no windows,” I say. “Dad wanted to get the roof on before it rains.”

“No telling how long that will be,” says David's mom. She and Ma have the same blue eyes, but Mrs. Howard wears her hair down to her shoulders, and Ma keeps hers tied back with a rubber band. “Does your mother have a garden? I tried cherry tomatoes this year, but they're not doing very well. Everything needs more rain.”

“Our garden dried up fast,” I tell her. “Preacher told everyone to pray for rain, but I don't see no sign of it yet.”

“I don't see any sign of it either,” she says, looking toward the window, and the way David grins, I know I should have said
any
instead of
no.

I'm trying to get a chance to eat my baked ziti, I think that's what they call it—good, too—but then Mr. Howard says, “What's Judd Travers up to these days?”
and I see David grin some more, 'cause he knows I'm trying to eat.

“Seems to be doing all right. Works part-time at Whelan's Garage,” I tell him, studying the hot macaroni at the end of my fork. And when David's dad begins again, I hurry it to my mouth and swallow it down.

“A woman called the newspaper a couple days ago to say that a man who looked like Judd Travers ran off the road and left tire tracks through her flower garden before he sped off again,” Mr. Howard tells us. “Said it was almost dark, so she didn't get the license number, but it was a blue pickup with only one brake light working.”

I'd managed to get two bites chewed and swallowed in time to say, “Judd's pickup is green.”

“The sheriff evidently told her the same thing, but she says it was too dark for her to tell exactly.”

“If it was that dark, how did she know it was Judd Travers?” asks David.

“She just said she was pretty sure, that's all. Wanted me to do a news story about it.”

“That's ridiculous,” says David's mom. “What did you tell her, Steve?”

Mr. Howard sprinkles more cheese on top of his ziti and says, “I told her there was such a thing as a slow
news day, but we weren't
that
slow, and she hung up on me.”

We all laugh.

The Howards live in this two-story house with four bedrooms, one of them for Mr. Howard's computer and nobody in another. The bed just sits in it waiting for someone to visit.

David's room is full of maps and books and puzzles. There's a map on the wall he got from the Tyler County Highway Department, showing every road and river in the whole county—Sellers Road, Cow House Run, Dancers Lane. We take a blue pencil and trace every single back road and creek we've explored so far.

We play this game—take this plastic robot apart and see how fast we can get it back together—and then we watch TV for a while and listen to a band David likes called Dust and Falling Objects.

When David stays overnight at my house, we spend most of our time outside, playing on the tire swing, or exploring down around the old gristmill by the bridge. But we have to spread our sleeping bags out on the living room floor, and we don't have a minute's peace till the girls have gone to bed. Even then, Ma and Dad are still up in the kitchen—hear everything we say.

At David's, though, we sleep on bunk beds, and he always lets me have the top, even though that's where he sleeps when I'm not there. More than anything, I want a room of my own. I think it was when I had to give up my bedroom when I was nine that I began to fight with Dara Lynn. Who wouldn't, being kicked out of his own bed?

We've already taken our showers—they have city water, so they don't have to worry about a well running dry—but David jokes that he can smell my feet, so I hang one leg over the edge of the bunk so he can get a really good whiff. Then he tattoos a word with his finger on my bare sole, see if I can guess what word it is, and when we tire of that, we wait to see who falls asleep first.

David says, “You know what? Dad's writing a story for the newspaper about the oldest residents in Tyler County, and he interviewed a man who knew Judd Travers's dad.”

“Yeah?” I say. “What'd he know about him?”

“Says he kept to himself, same as Judd, and was as mean as a junkyard dog,” David tells me. “Every one of his kids ran off as soon as they had the chance. All except Judd. He was the youngest, I guess.”

“Why'd they run off?” I ask.

“This man said Travers beat and cursed his kids. Told
Dad he was about the most hated man around. Whole place was a dump. Old cars and tires and rusty lawn mowers so you could hardly see the ground. Nobody wanted to live next to that, and there wasn't a single person who liked him.”

Including Judd,
I'm thinking.

David's getting sleepy now, I can tell. Beginning to talk slower.

“Dad won't put any of this . . . in his story, of course. And then their place burned down . . . and finally Judd got a trailer . . . of . . . his own. . . .” His voice trails off, and he's breathing deep.

How come Judd stayed? I wonder. Why was he left to take the beatings and cursing all by himself?

Just another
why
to add to my list, I guess. But if all a kid remembers is a dad telling him what a worthless, no-account boy he is, don't he grow up thinking everyone else looks at him the same way? And wouldn't it make him angry . . . and sad and scared and about every other kind of hurtful feeling there could be?

There's a whole lot about Judd Travers I don't know.

I'
D STARTED HELPING OUT AT
John Collins Animal Clinic last summer, 'cause I love animals and I want to be a veterinarian someday. Takes a ton of money to be a vet, I know—once you get through college, there's even more college. But if that can't happen, I'd like to be a veterinarian's assistant. This takes training too, but I can learn a lot just being a volunteer sometimes on Saturday mornings.

Dad drives me there on his way to work. Dr. Collins's clinic is attached to his house, and I'm early, so I just sit out on the steps, till he comes over and unlocks the door.

“Didn't think you'd be around much once school began,” Dr. Collins says, big old smile on his face. He is one tall man—six foot four. Big head. Big ears. Big hands.

“I'll come whenever I can,” I tell him. He did a good job treating a skin disease Shiloh had last June and I like him a lot.

“Well, I sure won't say no to that,” Dr. Collins says. “You know what to do, so I'll go back and finish my coffee. Be with you in a while.”

I pull on the gray cotton “kennel suit”—shirt and pants like the scrubs a surgeon wears. These have
JCAC
embroidered on the pocket—John Collins Animal Clinic. First thing I do is open the door to the dog run, let out the dogs that are spending the weekend here while their owners are away. The two setters, the spaniel, and the retriever go lickety-split along the fence, jumping around on each other and yipping, so glad to be out and stretch their legs a little. While they're tumbling around out there, I change the towels at the bottom of their kennels and refill their water bowls.

The spaniel comes in once and looks up at me, waiting for breakfast. “Not yet,” I tell him. “Go finish the conversation with your buddies.”

Then I concentrate on the patients. Talk to 'em real gentle. Dr. Collins hangs a little sign on the cage of any animal likely to bite, and I don't mess with those. Every animal has his name on a card above the latch.

“How you doin' today, General?” I say to a bulldog
who had a leg amputated. He'll go home today if there's no infection, I expect. I give him a good rub behind the ears, then lift him carefully and pull out the blanket beneath him, put in a clean one and change his water.

“Oh no, not you again,” I say when I see the striped tabby hissing at me, cage around the corner. Been in a couple times before, after a fight. “You don't never change, do you? How you expect to have any friends, you're so crabby?” And I remember the scratch he left on my arm last time he was in.

I pass him by and go on to the little kitten, got some kind of stomach sickness, mewing pitifully. Pen's a mess. “Hello there,” I say, and pick her up, cradle her in my hands. Mews like a little squeak toy, and I rub the side of her face with one finger. Make a little bed for her in a box while I clean up her pen.

“Good work, Marty,” Dr. Collins says when he comes in. Tells me that Chris, his assistant, won't be in until eleven today. “Could you assist me in surgery?” he asks, and I am at that sink scrubbing up so fast you wouldn't believe.

What we've got, though, is a turtle—a large terrapin, actually, a land turtle. Dr. Collins says a neighbor brought it in early that morning—found it alongside the road with a cracked shell.

I'll bet this happens a lot—people find things and bring them in. Dr. Collins always does what he can, even though the turtle's sure not going to pay any bill. He turns the terrapin upside down to check it more closely—make sure there aren't internal injuries—and I help hold it.

“Probably hit by a car, that's my guess,” Dr. Collins says. “Turtles can't breathe when they're upside down, so we don't want to keep him this way very long.”

I didn't know that, but I just nod, and Dr. Collins shows me how to tell male from female. We got a he-turtle here. The crack's not so thin and fine we can push it back together and brace it, but not so wide that it'll take fiberglass filler and epoxy to fill it up.