Freaky Fast Frankie Joe

LUTRICIA CLIFTON

This book is a work of fiction. Names characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2012 by Lutricia Clifton

All Rights Reserved

HOLIDAY HOUSE is registered in the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

ISBN 978-0-8234-2904-2 (ebook)w

ISBN 978-0-8234-2905-9 (ebook)r

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Clifton, Lutricia.

Freaky Fast Frankie Joe / by Lutricia Clifton. — 1st ed.

p. cm.

Summary: Twelve-year-old Frankie Joe Huckaby, forced to live with the father he never knew, a stepmother, and four stepbrothers in Illinois, starts a delivery service to finance his escape back to his mother in Texas, not realizing he is making a better life for himself than he ever had with her.

ISBN 978-0-8234-2367-5 (hardcover)

[1. Stepfamilies—Fiction. 2. Family life—Illinois-Fiction. 3. Delivery of goods—Fiction. 4. Mothers and sons—Fiction. 5. Community life—Illinois—Fiction. 6. Illinois—Fiction.] I. Title.

PZ7.C622412Fr 2012

[Fic]—dc23

2011019976

ISBN 978-0-8234-2867-0 (paperback)

for Jeffrey and Christopher

Special thanks to my agent, William Reiss, for his encouragement and support. Special thanks also to my editor, Julie Amper, at Holiday House for her guidance and patience.

I don't like the way some of our neighbors look at me when I walk past. Mom calls them meddling busybodies because they sit on their front porches and whisper all the time—just like they're doing now. “Oooh, there's that boy,” they're probably saying. “You know, the one whose mother was in the newspaper.”

I sit down at the picnic table outside Mrs. Jones's trailer. Mr. O'Hare and Mr. Lopez are already there. They know about Mom, too, but they're my friends so they don't say anything. They want my last day to be fun.

“Look what I made, Frankie Joe.” Mrs. Jones brings out a cake. Chocolate with rainbow frosting that spells out
HURRY BACK HOME
.

I think Mr. Lopez must have had a hand in decorating it. He's a house painter—only he calls himself a “house artist.” He's a nut for wild colors. If he can't find a color he likes, he mixes his own. Sometimes he lets me
help do the mixing. He says I have a good eye for color. He lets me help name them, too.

“And something to wash it down.” Mr. O'Hare hands me a glass of punch. He smiles at me, and his face folds up in wrinkles. His skin is brown as leather because he spends every day in the Chihuahua Desert. When he was a mechanic in the air force, Mr. O'Hare traveled all over the world. That's why he doesn't have a family of his own—because he was always moving around. He told me once that I was the grandson he never had. I've learned all about the places he's been to.

I take a big gulp of punch. Guava and strawberry, I think.

“Have another piece,” Mrs. Jones insists. “You have a long trip ahead of you.” Strings of white hair stick to her forehead. Though it's September, it's ninety degrees in the shade. While I eat, they talk.

“We'll watch out for your trailer,” Mr. Lopez says. He's not wearing his painter's cap, so his forehead is half-white and half-brown.

Mr. O'Hare nods. “Like a hawk.”

“Maybe I'll paint the front steps while you're gone,” Mr. Lopez says. “They're in bad shape—could get a splinter if you're not careful.”

Mom worked split shifts at the café. Mornings some days, evenings others. She didn't make a lot of money, so there wasn't a lot left over to fix up our place. She didn't worry about it because she said we weren't going
to be here much longer. “This dump is just a stepping stone to something better,” she said.

“I'll take care of the splinters,” Mr. O'Hare says, looking at Mr. Lopez. “I have just the tool for that. You take care of the painting.”

“That'd be great,” I say, glad to have such good friends.

“I know how you feel about writing, but let us hear from you now and then.” Mrs. Jones puts another piece of cake on my plate. “Maybe a Christmas card?”

I nod. Between chocolate cake and rainbow frosting and punch, I'm on a sugar high. I eat like it's my last meal.

Mr. Lopez looks at his watch. “Better open your presents now, Frankie Joe. Your dad's gonna be here soon.”

“Presents . . . but . . .” I never expected a party
and
presents.

“Well, not real presents,” Mrs. Jones says. “They're more like mementos.”

A retired librarian, Mrs. Jones is a real stickler for words. I started staying with her after school when I was younger, and she read to me a lot—adventure books were my favorite. She won't allow a TV in her trailer because she thinks it's a bad influence. Her bookshelves are running over because the new librarian gives her “retired” books. Her son and his family live in England, so she doesn't get to see them much. She would invite
me over to stay on nights when Mom worked late or went out with her friends.

She hands me a rectangle-shaped package wrapped in red tissue paper. The paper's probably recycled from Christmas, but it fits right in with the rainbow cake and guava-strawberry punch. I know it's a book before I open it.

“
Kidnapped
!” My favorite book! It's about this guy who leaves home and gets kidnapped by thugs and has to escape. A lot of the words were hard for me, but Mrs. Jones helped me when I got stuck.

“It's great,” I tell her.

“Just a reminder of all our good times,” she says. Her eyes begin to look wet, but I don't say anything. I don't want to make her sadder.

“Open mine next.” Mr. O'Hare hands me a brown paper bag. Another book, I can tell from the shape. But it's floppy, not stiff like the other one, so I know it's not a retired library book.

“
Woo-hoo
.” It's one of Mr. O'Hare's field guides to rock collecting. “This is great, too!”

“When you get back, we'll find it,” he tells me. “We won't stop looking till we do.”

“It” is a space rock, a meteor that broke up when it fell out of the sky over the Chihuahua Desert. Mr. O'Hare looks for pieces of it every day, and I go with him when I can.

“Maybe you'll find some new kinds of rocks up there
in Illinois,” he says. “You bring them back, we'll add them to our collection.” Rocks are lined up clear around his trailer—sandstone, granite, limestone—all kinds of rocks.

“Yeah, I'll look for some new ones.”

Mr. Lopez looks at his watch again and hands me a stiff piece of paper. “I didn't wrap mine 'cause it's colorful enough.”

I grin because he's right. It's a strip of paint samples showing some of his “creations.”

“Maybe you'll see some new colors on your trip,” he says. “You tell me about them when you get back—to inspire me.”

“Thanks, Mr. Lopez. I'll keep an eye out.”

He taps his watch, and I know it's time to leave.

“Well, I guess I gotta go.” I thank them again for the party, my throat so tight I can hardly speak. “See you . . . soon.”

“I know it seems like a long time, Frankie Joe,” Mr. O'Hare says. “But the time will fly by.”

Mr. Lopez nods. “Yeah. July will be here before you know it.”

“Look upon it as an adventure.” Mrs. Jones's eyes are running over now. “Just pretend you're looking for treasure.” Her eyes go round. “Oh dear, maybe I should have given you
Treasure Island
.”

Everyone laughs.

“Yeah, adventure,” I say, laughing like I'm excited, too.

But as I take my mementos back to our trailer to pack in my suitcase, I don't feel excited. I feel sad and a little scared. I don't want to leave my friends and go live with my dad. What if he doesn't like me? What if I don't like him?

“Hello there, Frankie Joe,” the man says, getting out of a Chevy van with Illinois license plates. “I'm your dad.” He's tall and has red hair, the same color as mine, and freckles on his nose like I do.

“I figured,” I say. I'd never known I looked like my dad. I couldn't remember anything about him.

Well, not much. There were birthday and Christmas cards when I was little. Mom would read them to me and show me the money that was tucked inside, then we'd go out on the town. New jeans and shirts for me. A cheeseburger at McDonald's for both of us. And sometimes, a Blizzard at the Dairy Queen.

He looks at the country back of our trailer, which borders on the Chihuahua Desert. “Well, your mother always wanted to go to faraway places.” He shakes his head slightly. “Looks like she succeeded.”

I don't say anything.

He looks at me. “I can't believe those people at the courthouse left you on your own.”

“I stay by myself all the time. It's no big deal.”

His face wrinkles up in a frown. “Well, it's a big deal
to me. There are rules about leaving a child on his own like that.”

Rules. My head starts to throb like I'm coming down with the flu.

When I don't respond, he shakes his head. “Did you say good-bye to your friends?” He looks around the trailer park. “I didn't see many kids when I drove in. Looked like mostly retired people.”

I look around, too. “Yeah, I guess . . . but I've got friends. They ride a different bus home so I see them at school mostly.”

He sighs. “Okay then, let's get your stuff.” He looks surprised when I load my suitcase and bike into the back of his van. “This all you've got?”

“Yes sir.”

“What about the money I sent for your birthday? You know, for a new bicycle. That thing's sure not new.”

“You sent money for my birthday . . . 
this
year?” He doesn't answer. Instead, his mouth goes straight as a plank, and he jerks his thumb in the direction of the passenger-side door.

“I need to be back on the job by Monday,” he says as he climbs into the van, “so we'll just be making pit-stops. You know, to fill up with gas and hit a McDonald's for takeout.”

“I like McDonald's.”

“Plan on using the toilet there, too. We've got a lot of ground to cover.” He starts the engine. “I'll probably
pull over at a Walmart™ down the road, catch some shut-eye.”

“Um, maybe we can get a Blizzard at the DQ, too. You know, for dessert?”

Like Mom and I did when I used to get birthday cards from him.

“A Blizzard? Yeah, guess we can do that.” He turns the air conditioner to high. “A lot hotter down here than I thought it would be. Something cold would be good.”