The Second Trial (24 page)

“Uh-huh,” Nixxie replied.

“Well, don't stay out past ten thirty, and if you need a ride home, just call and Dad'll pick you up.”

“Okay Mom,” Nixxie said as she shrugged into a man's large, black overcoat.

“See you later.”

He turned to the door. A dinner plate-sized hoop strung with a spiderweb-like mesh hung from the back of the door. Clear glass beads scattered along the mesh caught and reflected the light. A bundle of feathers dangled from one side and a braided leather thong hung from the other. It was pretty, but why would people bring spider-web things into their house? He was careful not to touch it when he opened the door.

“Good-bye, David. Bye, Nixxie. Have fun.”

Nixxie led the way down the walk. “This way,” she directed, pointing to the left.

“Are you sure Frank won't mind me coming?” Danny asked, his voice rising.

“Nah, he'll be good with it. So what'd you bring to drink?” she asked, pointing at the bag.

“Coke.”

“Share?”

“Sure.”

Frank had taped a note to his front door. The shaky handwriting was meant to look spooky:
Use Back Door
. A bone white plastic skull replaced the back porch light cover. Nixxie rang the doorbell. Danny heard a wolf howl. Captain Hook's hat and eye patch appeared in the window. The pirate opened the door with his hook.

“Hi Nixxie,” he said and then looked down the steps at Danny.

“This is David. He's in my art class. I said you wouldn't mind if he came.”

“OK, yeah, I think I seen ya around the school.” He held open the door. “Come in. We're in the basement, same as last year.”

Danny knew a few names and recognized some faces, but he'd kept to himself so much he'd never talked to any of them. He dropped his drinks on the table and slipped off his jacket. A boy without a costume scanned him head to foot. Danny stuck out his chin and looked him in the eye. He knew he must look weird. He was wearing his first-day-of-school clothes – the stone-washed jeans and black T-shirt that had sat untouched in the bottom drawer ever since his mom bought them.

The boy squinted. “So what're you supposed to be?”

Danny flared his nostrils. “I'm Danny McMillan.”

The boy's brows knitted. “Who's Danny McMillan?” he asked.

“Some dead guy,” he replied, turning his back.

They had chips and pop and listened to some heavy metal. Half the kids were in costume: the Statue of Liberty, a hockey player, a tramp, a black cat. Part way through the evening, a kid named Ian put a movie in the DVD player.

“
Doppelganger
,” Ian said. “It's great. It's about a teenager who has a shadow-double of himself who follows him everywhere and the shadow-double kills people, but he's the only one who can see it, and everyone else thinks he's the murderer.”

“Eeeeewww,” said one of the girls, wrinkling her nose. “I don't like horror movies.”

“Don't watch,” Ian said, carting his popcorn bowl to the couch.

“Do you like horror movies?” Nixxie asked Danny.

“They're okay…sometimes,” he added, not sure what the best answer would be, wanting to please her.

“I hate them,” she replied. “I like action movies – fast cars and things that blow up. And westerns.”

“Me too,” he said quickly. They chatted about movies, actors, music. A few kids danced. He watched them and his palms began to sweat. Before he could ask Nixxie, the Statue of Liberty jumped up.

“Nixxie, let's dance!”

Nixxie kicked off her black boots and twirled in her bare feet. Her hips swiveled to the music. The flared sleeves of her dress momentarily revealed her long, brown fingers. Her hair fell across her face. When she threw her head back, the smooth, clean lines of her jaw and neck drew his eyes down across the soft swell of her breasts to her tight belt.

He wanted to be the one dancing with Nixxie.

The song ended, and Nixxie pulled on her boots. “I've gotta go or I'll be late,” she said.

Danny jumped up. They said their good-byes and walked through the frosty October night. The stars twinkled – suns too far away to give heat, but close enough to light up the sky, the constellations timeless and unchanging. They always made him think about his grandparents.

Nixxie hugged the sides of her oversized coat close to her body. “What time do you have to be home?”

“Eleven o'clock,” he lied.

“My parents don't want me out late. They worry. Sometimes I get mad at them, but I guess I can understand why they feel that way.” She paused. “What about your parents?”

The answer wasn't something he'd thought out. “Sort of strict,” he replied. “My mom worries, but she mostly treats me like an adult.”

“What about your dad?”

“I don't have a dad.”

“Hey, neither do I. I mean I don't have a biological dad – well I must've had one, or I wouldn't be here – but my real mom and dad are my grandma and grandpa. They adopted me. And they adopted my mom.”

“Oh.”

“It's complicated. My grandma's my A-mom, because she adopted me. Denise is my B-mom, my birth mom. But my A-mom is the same person as Denise's A-mom. Sometimes I think I should call Denise ‘Mom,' too. Like I said, it's complicated.”

He looked past the Goth makeup and glimpsed someone who was perhaps not what she seemed to be.

Chapter 16

It snowed all Sunday morning. Then the sun appeared and spread its light as if it had never hidden its smile. Buddy clamped his Frisbee in his mouth and pawed at Danny's hand until the boy went for the leash.

Danny saw Papa Joe taking short careful steps along the unshovelled walk. The sight of the old man reminded Danny that he had a lock, but he didn't have the tools to install it. He asked Papa Joe if he had some he could borrow.

“Sure, I've got a tool box, what'd ya need?”

“I'm…not sure. A screwdriver. Maybe a hammer.”

“What're ya doin'?”

“Putting a lock on a door.”

“What kinda lock? One with a key?”

“No, just a sort of latch type,” he replied, making a back and forth motion with his hand.

“As long as it ain't too big,” Papa Joe replied. “The management don't like tenants changing things like locks.”

It had never occurred to Danny he'd need anyone's permission to secure some privacy.

Papa Joe bent to scratch Buddy's ears. “They're in the basement, in a red box, beside the furnace.”

Danny carted up the toolbox and set it on the towel Papa Joe had spread on the table. Papa Joe started sorting through his tools.

Danny looked around. Although the fixtures matched theirs – the same appliances, cupboards, counters – it looked homey. Enough keepsakes to fill a gift shop lined the walls. Gold-framed mountain scenes and seascapes elbowed for room with porcelain collector's plates, fancy mirrors, a barometer, and pictures of black labs cut from a calendar. But mostly there were photos that looked like they'd been taken a hundred years ago. Christmas, wedding, and school photos in cardboard frames, candid shots of summer holidays, family dinners and chubby babies: all sticky-tacked to the cupboards.

“I don't see your momma 'round in the days no more. She get a job?”

“Yeah. At my sister's school.”

He nodded. “Working in schools. Pays good.”

“Yep,” said Danny.
Lie.

“And yuh can't get home from school at lunch now, can yuh?”

“No.”

He picked up the tools one by one, inspecting each as if he were worried it had changed since the last time he'd seen it. He sorted them either onto the towel beside his half-full ash tray, or back into the tool box.

“Must be hard on Buddy, bein' in all day.”

“Yeah,” Danny said, glancing at the dog. At the sound of his name, Buddy swished his tail back and forth across the floor. It had been two weeks since Mom started volunteering, and two weeks since the dog had been out at noon.

Papa Joe handed the boy a screwdriver and a hammer.

Danny took the tools. “Thanks.”

Papa Joe scratched Buddy's ears. “So, I been thinkin',” he said. “Buddy here needs a walk during the day. And the doc says I need to have a walk every day so's the new hips keep workin'. But with the ice 'n' snow, sometimes it's hard for me ta get out, 'cause I worry 'bout fallin'. But if I had me a fine dog like Buddy, he could kinda watch out for me, and bark a lot if I fell down or somethin'.”

Danny looked at Papa Joe, then at the dog. It actually sounded like a good idea. “I'll – I'll ask my mom,” he said.

“That'd be right nice,” Papa Joe replied.

His mom drummed her fingertips across her lips. “I'd have to give him a key. I don't really want to do that,” she said.

Danny rolled his eyes. “Like, he might steal something? Like, we've got something
to
steal?”

She pursed her lips. “It's not a question of stealing. It's a question of privacy.”

He crossed his arms. “It'd be good for Buddy.”

She gazed back at him. “I'll think about it,” she finally said.

The portable's steam radiators hissed and ticked but couldn't put out enough heat to keep the room warm. Ms. Nguyen was reading announcements when Chad swiveled to face Danny.

“How come you an' your mom always walk to the mall?” he asked, leaning forward. “Too poor to have a car? Your mom a drunk and lose her license?”

Danny's face flushed. Chad kept eyeing Danny's clothes. “So where'd a poor boy like you get such a pretty watch?” he sneered, pointing at Danny's wrist.

Danny's hands sweated and his heart thumped. For a moment he was lost for words. Then he remembered Andy telling him that Chad liked to push people around, get them into trouble, and even to steal for him.
He's not going to push me around.
“I stole it.”

“Yeah? So, how'd ya like to steal me one?” he dared, narrowing his eyes.

Danny clenched his jaw and held his face taut. “No problem, Chad,” he said.

They met behind the mall. Most of the boys Chad hung with were older. They seemed to have easy access to cigarettes. Chad was smoking, perched on the top rail of a metal fence, his feet propped up on the bottom rail and his shoulders hunched forward. His head was tilted downward so the smoke drifted up across his face and in front of his eyes.

Chad didn't say a word. He just stared at Danny, not moving, except to bring a cigarette lazily to his mouth. Danny didn't say anything either. He was still wearing his shapeless anorak, much too thin for the zero-degree weather and brisk prairie wind. He clenched his bare hands, refusing to shiver.

The mood was as tense as a drawn bow, and neither of them wanted to loose the string. It was an older boy who spoke first.

“So this is
Dav-id
,” he said, pronouncing the name as if it were exotic. He fingered the silver studs along the bottom of his black leather jacket and spit into the snow. “So, ya wanna piss with the big dogs?” he asked, his upper lip curling.

Danny said nothing. Stay focused on Chad, he thought. Don't shiver.

“I guess we'll see if he's a rottweiler or a poodle-boy, hey?” Chad said in an oily voice. The boys snorted and laughed.

Danny struggled to breathe naturally, sure they could hear his racing heartbeat. He had started to sweat and his palms were slick with moisture, chilling them to ice. His head told him to run, but fear of humiliation clamped his gut and sucked up the adrenaline rushing through his body.

“David is a poodle-boy! David is a poodle-boy!
Loser!
” a pimply-faced youth sang in a falsetto voice.

“Shut up,” said Chad. He took another drag on his cigarette and stared Danny down. “So, what's it gonna be?”

“By the end of the week,” he replied, hoping they couldn't hear his voice tremble.

“What's wrong with now?”

“End of the week,” he repeated, keeping his voice flat. He squared his shoulders, flicked up his collar, turned his back, and sauntered away.

By the time he got to the condo, he was shaking. Buddy circled Danny, rubbing his ribs across the boy's legs. Danny knelt to stroke the dog, and Buddy licked his frigid fingers. “Hey, Buddy-boy,” he said, drawing comfort from the dog. Buddy's tail started its familiar beat against the floor – happy to be with Danny, to be where he belonged.

Chapter 17

He decided it would be easiest to return to the store where he'd bought his own watch. He knew where they were, and he figured if he got there just as the store was opening, there wouldn't be many clerks or store detectives working yet. He settled on Thursday. That would give him enough time to lift bus fare from his mom's purse. And an extra ten just in case.

On Thursday, he pretended to get ready for school, but as soon as his mom and Julia left, he went to his room and turned on his music full blast. The downtown stores didn't open until ten. Plenty of time to install the lock.

The phone rang as he was leaving. He didn't answer it; he knew it was the school calling to see where he was. Once you'd been marked as a “skipper,” the office red-flagged your file and followed up every absence.

He sat at the back of the bus, planning his strategy. He'd never tried to lift anything bigger than the lock, or as expensive as the watch. He knew the case would have an electronic tag glued to the back, and it would be too hard to pry open without someone noticing. He'd have to deactivate the tag. He closed his eyes and pictured the store – the floor plan, the exits, the exact location of the jewelry department. Jewelry counters were always monitored by security cameras, so he'd have to be careful.

He strolled into the store, his heartbeat speeding up with every step. He browsed through the magazine racks. Casually holding up a copy of
Sports Illustrated
, he angled himself to face the nearby jewelry department. He scanned the ceiling for the telltale darkened glass bulbs.