Chapter Eight

WE TAKE OUR TIME ON THE PATH TO Lyle’s house. There’s no smoke on the horizon and if Lyle hasn’t forgotten about the drawing I made, at least he doesn’t mention it again.

As we cut through the cow pasture, Lyle plucks a piece of grass and presses it between his thumbs and then up to his lips. When he blows on the grass, a shrill whistle fills the air. I expect the cows around us to kick up their heels, but they continue chewing, unperturbed.

“Where’d you learn how to do that?” I ask him.

“My dad taught me. We had a field of grass behind our house in New York. Green grass, not like this dried out stuff here.”

“New York?” I stop walking. “You’re from New York?” I remember hoping the new kid in our class would be from New York, yet it never occurred to me to ask Lyle where he came from or why he moved to Thornville. “I’ve always wanted to go there, to go to the museums, to be somewhere more exciting than this dumpy old town.”

Lyle sneezes. “I’m not sure you’ve always wanted to go to Albany. When I say New York, I don’t mean New York City.”

“Oh.”

“But I was born in New York City,” he adds as if he senses my disappointment. “My dad was in school there and my mom was an artist there for years. They moved to Albany when I was two. My dad got a job at the university teaching chemistry.” He blows on the grass again. This time it sounds like a trumpet. “My dad died three years ago and we’ve been moving around from place to place ever since.”

“How’d he die?”

“Cancer.”

“I’m sorry.”

We continue in silence for a while before Lyle asks, “What about your parents?”

“What about them?”

“I mean, do you live with your mom and dad?”

“Just my dad. My mom, um, died too. Of pneumonia.” I feel guilty for the lie when Lyle’s dad really did die, but Walt’s answer is easier than the truth. It’s not like I know what happened to whoever left me on Walt’s stoop all those years ago anyway. And I’m not about to talk about the car seat and the yellow note.

“It’s really hard, you know?” Lyle says quietly.

“Yeah, but it’s different because I was really little so I don’t remember anything about her.” To avoid further questions about my family, I quickly ask, “Is your mom still an artist? I’d like to see her stuff.” I don’t know anyone in Thornville who would call herself an artist. The closest thing we have to art in Thornville is one of Carmen’s pastries. Not that her pastries aren’t fabulous, but I’d love to meet someone who could teach me how to paint better, someone who would appreciate talking about different art I’ve admired in books.

“She draws stuff for medical textbooks to make money, but she’s given up painting the way she used to do it.”

I think of the pale face behind the blinds.

“Maybe she’d start up again?”

“No,” Lyle says. He doesn’t explain beyond that and I sense that I shouldn’t ask.

“Thanks for showing me a different walk home,” Lyle says as we get near his house. “Might keep me alive for a while longer.”

“What?” I nearly choke on the word. The image of fire flashes before my eyes.

“I’m just joking. I don’t think Axel will actually kill me, but at least this way I can get to school and back without any broken bones.” He spits out the last words. I look at the scab on his chin.

“Oh,” I say. “I wasn’t thinking about that.”

Lyle snorts. “What were you thinking? Is there some other threat to my life I don’t know about?”

“No, no. I mean, no, of course not,” I stutter. I’m not about to try to explain that I can see the future. “But you need to tell someone about what Axel did. You should tell your mom, or tell Mrs. Whipple or something. It’s not right.”

“It doesn’t help to tell people stuff like this. It only makes it worse,” Lyle replies.

That sounds wrong to me, but I’ve made my own choices about secrets, so I don’t argue.