CHAPTER 13

WHAT’S IT REALLY WORTH?

With Dad downstairs talking to Mr. Collins, I strolled around the shop. I was embarrassed to realize that I had never really looked at Mom’s and Dad’s artwork before. Sure, I’d seen it. But I’d never really appreciated it the way that I should have.

With nothing else to do, I studied the vases and pots and paintings. There was so much detail, all sorts of neat curlicues, intersecting lines, and colors I could swear I’d never seen before. I don’t think that I’d ever felt prouder of Mom and Dad, even if all this art was still in the shop, unsold.

If you looked closely, there were even some jokes. Mom had made a painting of the bulls that live on the farm across the road from my grandma’s house. On their cowbells, in the smallest letters, she had written their names: One was Kevin, the other was Mitch. Another of the oil paintings showed a boy going to school in Paris, with the Eiffel Tower in the background. She named it French Schoolboy, Yves Dropper.

Speaking of eavesdropping: When the Grateful Dead music Dad had put on the stereo got through its last track and stopped, the showroom got quieter and I could hear some of the discussion coming from downstairs. I could only pick up little bits of the conversation, but I sure didn’t like what I heard—words like “renegotiate” and “penalty” and “debt.”

I wanted to get closer, but figured I had already gotten in enough trouble for one week. Or month. Or year. Or for a kid’s lifetime. Besides, just then the wind chimes over the door jingled. A customer!

A woman walked in, talking on her cell phone. She was wearing sunglasses and a Jonasburg baseball cap. “Yeah, I’m in Sloans’ Creations,” she said into her phone. “That new art store. Yeah, my kid is friends with the owners’ kid. Lemme call you back.”

Hmmm, I thought to myself. She’s the mom of which of Kevin’s friends? Neil Butwipe? Or maybe Julio Haberberg, the punter on the football team, who everyone says is worse than Clint Grayson, but who has been getting more action than he wants this season. Or maybe her “kid” is a girl and it’s one of the sophomores or juniors who have a crush on Kevin.

Looking at this woman in her baseball cap made me think of Jamie. I tried to picture her as a grown-up. Maybe she would look like this woman when she got older. But no way would she ever wear those fancy designer sunglasses.

“What can I help you find?” I asked her, trying to sound as charming and professional as possible. This was another trick I had picked up from watching business shows and reading articles online. When you walk into a store and the worker says, Can I help you find anything? it gives you the chance to say no. Politely, of course. But still, no is no. When you say, What can I help you find? you’re kind of setting up the person to find something.

“Oh, a nice piece of art for our new living room,” she said. “Something warm and inviting.”

She strolled around the store, looking like an art critic. I thought about how weird it must be for my parents to have people come into their store, look at their work that they spent hours and hours, days and days, trying to make perfect, and then walk away. I’d be so tempted to say: Wait, what don’t you like about it? You think you could do better?

The woman stopped right in front of the picture of the covered bridge. I kind of cringed inside.

“Wow,” she said. “This is beautiful.”

“It’s great,” I agreed. “Notice the shade of red on the roof?”

“Perfect,” she gushed. “But it doesn’t seem to have a price. How much is it?”

I probably should have gone downstairs, interrupted Dad, and asked. But instead I blurted out, “Well, what do you think it’s worth?”

See, if you want to buy something like a pizza or an airline ticket, you can figure out a fair price by checking around. But with art, it’s different. It’s not like there’s another store selling paintings of covered bridges. Or maybe there is, but not exactly like this painting. Each piece of art is unique, one of a kind. So the price is unique, too.

“Oh, gosh, I don’t know,” she replied. “Maybe three hundred dollars?”

Sweet!

“I think that’s fair,” I said.

“Don’t you want to check with your folks first?” she asked.

“Nah, they trust me,” I said, trying my hardest to sound grown-up.

“Yes, we do,” said Dad’s voice.

I jumped. I hadn’t even heard him come up from the office. But there he was, leaning in the doorway, grinning at me and the customer.

“Mitch is in charge of the business end,” he said. “Couldn’t handle things without him. Let me get that wrapped up for you.”

When Dad had her painting safely wrapped and she was about to go, I asked her something. “I heard you talking on the phone when you walked in. Who’s your kid, the one who’s friends with Kevin?”

“Kevin?” she asked. “I don’t know Kevin. My son says he’s friends with you.”

Friends? With me?

“My name is Catherine Barnes,” she said. “My son is Ben.”

“Nice to meet you, Mrs. Barnes,” I said, holding out my hand. “I like Ben a lot, too.”

“A pleasure,” she said, shaking my hand. “Ben told me that you’re really smart and clever.” She smiled. “And it’s nice to see you putting those smarts to good use this time.”

Uh-oh. Was I about to get yelled at by another adult? “I’m sorry if I got Ben in trouble. I didn’t mean to.…”

“It’s okay,” she said. “No one else got suspended. The school just gave every participant a stern warning. And Ben knows he did something wrong, too. He’s not blameless.”

“Well, please tell him I said hi.”

“You can tell him yourself,” she said with a smile. “He’d like to hear from you.” She started to walk out, then paused and turned around. “But just to be clear, you’re not going to start another scheme—”

“No way!” my dad and I shouted at the same time before she could even finish.

The Sunday night before I went back to school, life started to feel normal again. Mom and Dad gave me back my TV and Internet privileges. Once I finished the last of my homework, put out my clothes, and packed my lunch, I could watch football. But after everything that happened, I realized I wasn’t as excited to watch as I used to be.

I also knew things were getting back to normal when Kevin asked for a loan again, complaining that he had blown through his weekly allowance. “I only need a few dollars,” he whined. “It’s for lunch tomorrow. I’ll pay you back. With interest.”

I was tempted to use a line from the Shakespeare play Hamlet. Some of my homework over the last four days had been to try to read it. I didn’t really understand much, but this one line made a lot of sense: “Neither a borrower nor a lender be. For loan oft loses both itself and friend, and borrowing dulls the edge of husbandry.”

I was pretty confused at first because I thought “husbandry” probably had something to do with being a “husband.” But then I looked up the definition and found out that it means “working hard.” The whole line basically says: When you borrow or lend money, you can lose both money and friends. Kind of like when you make bets, I guess. Plus, borrowing money (and maybe winning bets, too) makes you less willing to work hard.

But I didn’t quote Shakespeare at Kevin. For one thing, you know how I was feeling about money right then? Kind of like a guy who’s just won a hot dog eating contest would feel about hot dogs. Ugh. No thanks, no more. I found a balled-up five-dollar bill in my pocket and tossed it to Kevin. “Keep it,” I said.

“Hey, thanks, Mitch,” he said in a low voice, sounding extra grateful.

“I’ll give you a tip, too,” I said.

“It’s okay,” Kevin said. “I just need a few bucks. You don’t have to give me more than that.”

“No, not that kind of a tip,” I said. “A tip like free advice.”

“What’s that?”

“When you get your allowance this week, ask for it in one-dollar bills. Then get seven envelopes, one for each day of the week, and put three dollars in each envelope. You have three dollars to spend each day. Do that and you won’t spend all your money before the seventh day.”

Before he could respond, Mom walked into the room and handed me a bag. “Your father and I wanted you to have this present, since Indiana’s going to be our new home for a while.”

She looked at me like she wanted to be sure I’d heard that last part of the sentence: “for a while.” Still, I thought this might be some sort of joke, seeing as how presents are usually rewards. And I hadn’t exactly done much in recent days to deserve a reward. I opened the bag anyway, and it was an Indiana Hoosiers basketball jersey.

“Dad and I figured that since you’re going back to school and starting fresh, you should be wearing something new and fresh.”

“Thanks, Mom,” I said. “That was really cool of you.”

“And groovy of Dad, right?”

I laughed for the first time in what seemed like forever.

As I walked into school on Monday, I was more nervous than I’d been on the first day of classes way back in August. Knowing how fast gossip bounces around the walls here, I was sure that tales of the Rookie Bookie, his gambling, his bust, and his suspension had already made the rounds.

After Dad dropped me in front of the main entrance, I walked quickly along the B corridor staring at my shoes. Kind of like I used to do in California. I wanted to get to my locker and then right to class.

Nobody yelled my name, nobody high-fived me. And it was the first time in a lot of Mondays that there wasn’t a crowd gathered around my locker to greet me.

Actually, they were never really there to greet me. They’d been there to get paid.

I wasn’t exactly surprised that Jamie wasn’t there either.

The first two periods whizzed by. Then it was time for math. It seemed like a lot more than a week had gone by since I last saw Mr. Rafferty standing before the class. Today, he looked like he had a personal grudge against fashion. (He was wearing a black jacket with patches on the elbows, gray corduroy pants, and a turtleneck shirt the color of applesauce.)

When the bell sounded and the class grew quiet, he stared right at me. Well, not stared. He looked at me as if he was glad to see me.

“Mitch, are you unhappy to be back with us in math class?” he asked.

What did he mean by that? Why would he bring up the fact that I had been suspended?

“Um, what?” I asked. “What do you mean?”

“Are you unhappy to be back in class?”

“No,” I said uneasily.

“Hear that, everyone?” Mr. R. said, his voice rising with excitement. “Mitch is not unhappy to be here. So, that’s good. He’s glad to be here. And we’re happy to see you, Mitch.”

That’s nice, I thought, but where’s he going with this?

“Someone who is not unhappy is happy. The same way someone who is not thoughtless is thoughtful. Or someone who did not disappear is here. And someone who is not malnourished is fed just fine. Two negatives make a positive. And the same holds true in the wild and wonderful world of mathematics.”

He then went on to explain that negative four times negative seven is positive twenty-eight (−4 x −7 = 28) and that eleven minus negative eight is positive nineteen (11 − −8 = 19).

Not bad to be back with you, Mr. R., I thought to myself.

At lunch, I walked right by some of the kids who had hung around my locker and fist-bumped me on Monday mornings. Now they pretended like they had never seen me before. You know those songs they play on the radio that are popular for a while, but then sort of fall out of the rotation? That’s how I felt.

But as I sat down at an empty table near the milk dispenser and ate my slices of pizza alone, I realized that I was okay with it. Weird, but true. It had been fun being the guy everybody talked to about bets and money and football, but, deep down, all those kids had been more interested in winning eighteen dollars than getting to know me. And I kind of knew it all along, even if I’d ignored it for a while.

“Hey, Mitch,” somebody said, and Ben Barnes flopped down in the seat across from me. He was digging into a bag of Cheetos and licking his orange fingers. “Want some?” He waved the bag at me.

“No, thanks,” I said, but I grinned.

“Did your mom really do that painting of the bridge? The one my mom bought?”

“Yeah, she did.”

“That’s cool. It’s really good.”

Wow. Ben didn’t seem mad at all. I guess his mom was right.

I popped open my ginger ale. “Yeah, she is really good. I’ll tell her you liked it.”

Maybe everything was going to be okay. Maybe not everybody hated me and I really could start fresh like Mom said.

But that good feeling disappeared as soon as I looked across the lunchroom and saw Jamie come in by herself. I tried to catch her eye, but she headed for a corner of the room as far away from our usual table as she could get.