Freaky Fast Frankie Joe (20 page)

Mr. Puffin and my other customers will be fine, too. Someone else will take up my delivery business. Maybe Mandy. She's a natural at business. I grin, picturing short Mandy on her short bike delivering pizzas to Mr. Puffin and Mr. Lindholm.

Mrs. Bixby will find someone else to be her assistant in the after-school program, too. Some of the fourth-graders have shot up this year—almost as tall as me.

And Matt will be in hog heaven because he'll be the number-one Huckaby again. With me gone, he can get a cell phone . . . and the others can get the new electronic games and other things they didn't get for Christmas. And Lizzie and FJ won't have to buy me any more clothes at a fifteen-percent discount. Or pay for me to go to The Great Escape. They'll save money on food, too, and won't have to open another Christmas Club account.

Everyone will be better off when I'm gone. Everyone.

Thunder in February? Billowing black clouds on the horizon throw lightning bolts at the ground like an alien spaceship attacking the planet. I decide to cancel my test run to Mr. Puffin's farm to check the roads to see if they're free of snowdrifts. Turning around I pedal hard. The wind rattles and shakes my Rover Sport all the way back to Clearview.

I reach the house just as icy rain begins to pelt the slushy streets and pound the porch and bounce off the roof. I hurry upstairs, wondering if I should add a rain slicker to my list. I remember seeing one colored like camouflage in the hunting section of the hardware store—

“What are you doing here?”

Matt's sitting in my desk chair looking at me, eyes round. Glancing around the room, I see my escape plan in his hands . . . my supplies scattered across the floor . . . my money stash lying on the desktop.

“I was gonna borrow your History book, and then I got to looking around and. . . .” Matt stares at me, a confused look on his face. “You're . . . you're running away?”

I reach him in two steps. Grabbing his shirt collar in my hands, I throw him on the floor. The next thing I know, I'm straddling him. “You had no right!” I feel my fist connect with his nose.

“Get off me! Get off!” Matt twists away from me. “But—but I thought you wanted to take my place.” His nose is bleeding. “You really want to leave?”

“You had no right.” I begin gathering up my things. “Get out.”

“It's a stupid idea. It'll never work.”

“Yes it will. I made a plan.” I wave my notebook in front of his battered nose.

“They'll find you. They'll hunt until they find you.”

“I got that figured out, too.” I sit down on the bed, feeling really tired.

Matt plops down in my desk chair, dabbing at his nose with a tissue from the box on my desk. “So that's why you wanted that tarp, isn't it? You've been planning this ever since you got here.”

“Yeah, stupid. That's why I wanted the tarp.”

Matt looks bewildered. “But that means you don't want to be adopted.”

“Right again! Would you want to go somewhere hundreds of miles from home to live with strangers—especially if they called you Sneaky Freaky Slow
Matt Huckaby? And you were made to look stupid in school—on purpose? And your shorts got soaked in the toilet because you finally got to take a hot shower? I hate it here!”

Matt squirms, looking uncomfortable. “I have to tell Dad.”

“Would you get over being stupid? All this time, you've hated me 'cause you thought I wanted to be number one. I don't want to be number one. Once I'm gone, you'll be number one forever.”

“But this is dumb—dangerous dumb. I'll . . . I'll be responsible if I don't tell and you get hurt.”

I walk over to him, put my fist in his face. “You owe me. Remember the contest?”

“Yeah . . . yeah, I know.” He still looks dazed. “So when were you planning on leaving?”

“You gonna tell?”

“No, I won't tell. I still think it's dumb, but I'll keep your secret. And we Huckabys keep our word.”

“The week before spring break. That's when I'm leaving.”

“What? But . . . but the bike race is the next week. I've told everyone about that race. I was gonna clean your clock, sweep you under the carpet.”

“Yeah, well now you don't have to. I'll be gone, and you can go back to being number one—at everything.”

“That's not fair.” His eyes turn fiery. “The kids would always wonder if you could've beaten me.”

“Hey look, that's when I'm leaving.”

“Then we'll move the date up.” Matt faces me. “You don't race me, I'll tell.”

“Okay then, we'll move the date up. Right before I leave town, okay?”

I hold out my hand to shake on the deal. Matt takes it reluctantly.

After Matt leaves, I put my things away and lie down on the bed. I listen to the rain pound the house, the house answer with groans and creeks, and let out my breath. I'm down to counting days now. Days until I'll be riding past cornfields, smelling sun and rain and freedom. Nothing stands in my way. Nothing.

“I'm just gonna take a test drive,” I tell Matt as I slip into my backpack. I've loaded it with four of my school-books to get a feel for the load I'll be carrying.

“Want me to come with you?” He's been working on his bike, which he hauled out of the storage shed this morning. “In case you run into trouble?”

“That's the whole idea of doing a test run,” I say. “Where'd you leave your smarts, Mr. Honor Student?”

“Oh, right.” He grins at me.

I wheel my Rover Sport away from the curb. It's still cool, but the snow is melting fast. As soon as I'm out of town, I begin to pedal faster, and soon I'm cruising past big brown squares of ground waiting to be planted. In the stillness, the same questions that have been bugging me for days pop into my head.

Why hasn't Mom called me? Will she call FJ instead? Or have her lawyer call FJ's lawyer?

“Frankie Joe! Hey, Frankie Joe!”

Looking over my shoulder, I see Matt behind me, pumping hard. I pull to a stop and wait for him to catch up. “What is it?”

“You're supposed to come home. Dad needs to talk to you—right away.”

FJ has heard from Mom—the adoption is off! Wheeling around I head back toward town.

“Wait up,” Matt calls out. “I need to tell you something else.”

I wait for him to catch up. “You didn't tell FJ about my escape plan, did you? You promised you wouldn't tell.”

He shakes his head. “I don't break my word. When I make a promise, I keep it.”

“Then, what?” We start pedaling again, side by side.

“I'm, uh, I'm gonna call off the race.”

“What? But, why?”

“I couldn't catch you, Frankie Joe. I pumped the whole way, and I couldn't catch you.” He shakes his head. “You know what that means?”

I don't.

“It means you're faster than me. I figure it's because of your delivery service, all that biking you did this winter.”

“Well then,” I say, “we'll have the race, and I'll let you beat me. You'll be number one again.”

“Why would you do that? Why would you let me win?”

“Won't matter to me 'cause I'll be leaving right after the race. Who cares?”

“You can't let me win. That's not fair. You forget what Dad's always telling us about being all we can be?”

We park our bikes on the front porch. “I'm not sure being all you can be always means being number one, Matt. Know what I mean?”

He shakes his head a little and says, “Hey, I'm supposed to be the smart one. Remember?”

I just grin.

FJ hands me two letters the minute I walk in the front door. They're the ones I sent to Mom.

“But I don't understand.”

“They were returned.” He looks at Matt. “Your mom's in the kitchen and your brothers are upstairs. Why don't you give Frankie Joe and me some time alone.”

“Sure,” Matt says. “I'll, uh, I'll take your backpack upstairs, Frankie Joe.”

As Matt leaves, I look at the letters. They're both still sealed, so I know FJ hasn't read them. Something has been stamped on the front of them:
RETURN TO SENDER. ADDRESSEE NO LONGER AN INMATE
.

“What does that mean?” I ask, looking at FJ.

“Your mom's in town, Frankie Joe. She got out of jail early.”

“I knew it!” I blurt out. “I knew she wouldn't let me get adopted! She's come to get me, hasn't she?”

“Come on,” he says, hurrying me toward the door. “I'll explain at the attorney's office. She's waiting for us there. We don't have a lot of time. She wants to see you before she and Ricky leave.”

What?

“M-mom?”
I whisper. My tongue feels numb. I feel numb all over.

She looks the same, except her blonde hair is longer and her skin isn't tanned—and she's sitting next to a dark-haired man I don't know. When she sees me, she jumps out of her chair and runs over to me.

“Hi kiddo! Guess you're surprised to see me, huh?” She pulls me close, then pushes me back and gives me an up-and-down look. “Looks like you haven't missed any meals.”

“But how'd you get here? . . . Why didn't you call? . . . I don't understand.”

“Oh things just got moving too fast,” she says, brushing her hand through the air. “And you're the one got me here—got
us
here.”

She nods toward the man sitting at the table. “This is Ricky. Remember, I told you about him. Would you believe I raffled off that quilt you sent and got a bundle for it—enough to pay our way here. And FJ's staking
me to a new start—
us
a new start.” Again she looks at the dark-haired man.

What?

“Martha Jane,” FJ says, frowning. “I didn't have time to explain things to Frankie Joe—”

“You were right, FJ,” she interrupts. “He is doing better up here than he would do tagging along after me.”

What? It's like my ears can't keep up with her mouth.

The man named Ricky walks over to me. “Don't worry, kid, I'll take good care of her.” He looks at his watch, then at Mom.

“Okay,” she tells him, then looks at me again. “Time to hit the road, hon.” She kisses me quick on the forehead. “Now do what FJ tells you. He showed me your report card. I'm real proud of you.”

The man named Ricky takes her arm, and she says okay again.

“I really gotta go,” she tells me. “We got a lot of ground to cover. Ricky got us both jobs in Reno. I'll send you my address soon as we get settled. Keep those letters coming.”

“No—wait!” I grab her arm. “What about our trailer in Laredo? Mr. Lopez and Mr. O'Hare fixed the front steps.”

“Trailer? Oh, I guess I forgot to tell you. The bank took it back for nonpayment.” As the door closes behind her I hear her say, “There's nothing there for either of us to go back to.”

FJ drives quietly for several minutes. “I'm real sorry, Frankie Joe. I didn't know she was coming, either. She just showed up and”—he goes quiet again—“she, uh, she wanted a stake and wouldn't sign the papers until . . .” He sighs. “One day you'll see it was the right thing to do.”

I go straight upstairs when we reach the house. Rushing to my desk, I rip my escape plan out of my notebook and tear it to shreds.

“I fixed a surprise for breakfast,” Lizzie says, opening the curtains to let light into the room. “Just for you. Breakfast burritos.”

I pull the quilt over my head.

“Come on, Frankie Joe,” FJ says. “The boys are waiting for us.”

“I'm not hungry,” I say through the quilt. I hear FJ sigh.

“He just needs time, Frank,” Lizzie whispers. “Let's give him some time.”

Creaking stairs tell me they're gone. I slip out of bed and pull the curtains closed again.

“Dad sent us up to get you,” Little Johnny says. “You have to come down to eat.” Luke and Mark are standing behind him.

“Go away,” I say.

“But—”

“Tell them I'm not hungry.”

“But you gotta be hungry—”

“Just leave!” I pull the quilt over my head.

FJ sticks a thermometer into my mouth. “Make sure you hold it under your tongue.”

“Could be he's caught something,” Lizzie says. “He's been working awfully hard, and this winter's been a bad one. Might be the flu. There's a new virus going around, too.”

FJ sighs as he reads the thermometer. “Ninety-eight point six. His temperature's normal.”

I crawl back under the covers.

“Come on, Frankie Joe,” Matt says. “We got a test in English today. What am I gonna tell Mrs. Hoople if you don't show?”

“Tell her the big, dumb Huckaby isn't coming.”

Matt blows the air from his lungs. “Look, I don't mind that you're number one.”

“Right.”

“No, really,” he says. “I've been thinking about it—a lot. So come on, get out of bed.”

“Go away, Matt.” He doesn't move.

“Um, what about your stuff—your running-away stuff? If Dad finds it, he's gonna know. That would hurt him bad—Mom too. How about I put it in the shed, mix it in with the other things. You can do what you want with it later.”

“Whatever,” I say.

“Okay then.”

Thumps come from the storage boxes as he drags
my escape gear out. From under my quilt, I see him put my money stash in my desk drawer.