3
Why do you have to grow up
Because you age?
Why do you have to grow up
When life turns the page?
—Llama Parade
(Punk band, est. 2015, Los Angeles, CA)
MR. AND MRS. HILL PICKED US UP after Lando’s practice. Mrs. Hill looked amazing, as usual, in a Spock T-shirt that read “Trek Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself” and a blue sparkly headband that matched her blue leggings. Mrs. Hill had the best collection of headbands I’d ever seen.
“Aven’s going with us to Comic Con,” Zion announced from where we sat in the third row of the van on the way to Stagecoach Pass.
“Great!” Mrs. Hill exclaimed.
“What are you going to wear?” Mr. Hill eyed me seriously in the rearview mirror. “Choose wisely.”
Lando turned around and grinned. “Choose wisely,” he mimicked his dad. “Seriously, though—you better.”
“I was thinking of lending her Ma’s Kitty Pryde costume,” Zion said. “I think it will fit her.”
“That’s a good idea, baby,” Mrs. Hill said.
Zion sighed. “Ma, seriously, with the ‘baby.’”
Mrs. Hill narrowed her eyes at Zion. “Oh, I see how it is. Gotten too good for my ‘babies.’ ” She turned around and stared ahead at the windshield. “All right, then.”
Lando leaned back over me and shook his fist at Zion. “Stop being mean to Ma or I’ll kick your butt, baby.”
Zion glared at his brother. “I’d like to see you try,” he grumbled.
Mrs. Hill turned to Mr. Hill and acted like she was trying to hock up a loogie at him. Then he did it back to her. Then Mrs. Hill got into it, hacking and grunting and humphing. I suddenly realized they were actually talking to each other. Like, communicating. What language were they speaking? German? Dutch?
I looked at Zion for answers. His eyes were bulging like they were about to burst out of his head. “That’s not fair! You guys can’t speak Klingon!” he cried. “I know you’re talking about me!”
Mrs. Hill crossed her arms and grunted. “We can do whatever we please. It’s not our fault you don’t want to learn the romance languages.”
“Klingon is not a romance language!” Zion said. “And neither is Elvish! French and Italian are the romance languages. I’ll never be able to put Klingon and Elvish on my résumé!”
Lando and I looked at each other and cracked up. “I’ll never be able to put Klingon and Elvish on my résumé,” Lando mimicked him. “For what job? Pooper scooper?”
Zion turned his fury on his brother. “Shut up!” Then he reached across me and smacked Lando’s arm. Lando reached over me and smacked Zion back. Then they were in a full-blown smack attack.
I pushed myself against my seat, trying to stay out of the line of fire. “Yeah, I’m still here,” I told them from under their flying arms.
“Keep your hands to yourselves,” Mrs. Hill ordered. “Stop torturing Aven.”
The Hills dropped me off at the front entrance of Stagecoach Pass, and I decided to stop in to visit Trilby at the new smoothie place before I headed home. She often worked there with her parents in the late afternoons and on weekends. I figured the more friendly faces I got to see on my first day of high school, the better.
I pushed my way into Sonoran Smoothies and waited while Trilby’s dad finished up with a customer. “Hi, Aven,” he said to me after the customer left.
“Hi. Is Trilby around?”
“No, she’s out with her mom. Do you want me to tell her you stopped by?”
“Yes, please.” I read his T-shirt. “The Square Pegs?”
He smiled and stretched out his T-shirt. “Oh, yeah. That was my band.”
“You were in a band?”
“Yeah.” He sighed. “Before I had to grow up.”
“Why can’t you be in a band after you grow up?”
He scratched at his stubbly cheek. “That’s a good question. I guess we all didn’t have the time for it anymore.”
“That stinks,” I said.
His face grew serious. “It does stink.”
“What kind of band was it?”
“Punk band.”
“Cool,” I said. “Did you guys ever make any albums?”
“Yep. You can still download our songs.”
“I’ll look for them,” I told him. “I’ve never listened to punk before.”
His eyes grew huge like what I said was shocking. “You must remedy that immediately.”
“I will.”
I left Sonoran Smoothies and made my way to the soda shop to visit Henry, opening the door with my chin and shoulder. “Hi, Aven. You want some ice cream?” Henry said from behind the counter.
“No, just ice water, please. Mom gets annoyed when I eat ice cream right before dinner.” Which was all the time. Seriously, I had probably eaten hundreds of gallons of ice cream since moving to Stagecoach Pass. Possibly thousands.
Henry placed a plastic cup of ice water on one of the little metal bistro tables and dropped a straw into it. I sat down and sipped. “How can anyone go to school in this heat?” I said. “I wish I could hibernate until November.”
“I don’t think Joe would approve of that,” Henry said.
“Joe’s at the retirement center, Henry. Remember? My mom is Laura.”
He rubbed at his head. “Right. Sorry.” He sat down at the table with me. He leaned forward, his elbow on the metal table, still rubbing his temples.
“Are you feeling okay?”
He shrugged. “I feel foggy. And I’m tired. Always tired.”
“Maybe it’s this heat,” I said. “You’ll feel better when it cools down. I think we all will.” I watched Henry as he stared down at the table. “Henry?”
He didn’t seem to hear me. He’d been going in and out like this a lot. He would be here with me one minute, and the next minute, his mind was off somewhere else entirely. Sometimes he remembered who I was. Sometimes he mistook me for my mother. And sometimes he was so confused he couldn’t remember my name at all. I never knew what to expect.
And then I realized I wouldn’t know how to get in touch with his family if he got really sick or something happened to him. Did Josephine? Did my parents? He was getting more confused all the time. Older. Weaker.
“Henry, don’t you have any family?”
He smiled a little down at the table, traced the metal flower design with his shaky finger, hummed something to himself. Eventually he looked up at me like he was just noticing I was there. “Hi,” I said.
“Hi. Did you ask me something?”
“I asked if you have any family.”
Henry shook his head slowly and continued tracing the flowers. “No. No, I don’t.”
“No brothers or sisters?”
“You mean you can’t remember?” I had a hard time believing he was so confused he couldn’t even remember if he had any family at all. Denise, the woman who worked in the petting zoo, once told me he had trouble remembering recent things, but that he was better at remembering things from the past.
“No, it’s not that.” Henry tapped on the metal table, making a tinging sound.
“I don’t understand then. What is it?”
“You should understand, Aven. You know, you and I have something in common.”
“What’s that?”
He stopped tracing the flowers. “We were both orphans.”
Mom already had dinner on the table when I walked in the door so it was a good thing I didn’t fill up on ice cream. I stared at the glass casserole dish of macaroni and cheese sitting on the table. I knew she would never make macaroni and cheese under normal circumstances.
“So, Sheebs, how was your first day as a high schooler?” Dad asked through a bite of cheesy goodness.
“Apparently Mom doesn’t think it went well since she made comfort food for dinner.” I eyed her suspiciously across our tiny kitchen table. “Why are you trying to comfort me, huh?”
She scoffed and flung her long dark hair over her shoulder. “I happen to enjoy macaroni and cheese, I’ll have you know.”
“No, you do not. You call it toddler food.”
“It’s a special day so I made you a special dinner.” She waved a hand in the air. “That’s all. I should not have to defend my dinner choices.” She took a bite and made exaggerated pleasure sounds. “It’s so delicious and sophisticated and not at all like toddler food. I elevate macaroni and cheese to a whole other level. I am a world class macaroni and cheese cooker.”
“So school went well then?” Dad said.
“It went fine,” I said. “Except for one thing.”
“What’s that?” Dad asked.
“How can anyone go to school when it’s still over a hundred degrees outside?” I complained. “It should be mandatory that the temperature drop below ninety before we have to go back.”
“The school has air conditioning,” said Mom.
“But the bus doesn’t have air conditioning,” I said. “It’s like riding in a toaster oven on wheels. And I have to walk outside from class to class. And the outside doesn’t have air conditioning.”
“That’s only for a couple of minutes before you can get back inside,” said Dad.
“A couple of minutes feels like hours when you’re walking on the surface of the sun.”
“I’ve heard the surface of the sun is cooler than the area around it,” Dad said. “So it’s probably not that bad. Maybe we could vacation there sometime.”
“Yeah, when we need a break from this heat,” I retorted.
Mom tapped her finger against her chin. “You could bring one of those miniature fans. Some of them even have little misters on them.”
I frowned at her. “How am I supposed to hold one of those and walk to class at the same time? And how am I supposed to use one of those in public when I’m not eighty years old?” Lots of people at Golden Sunset had those.
Dad grinned at his macaroni and cheese. “Tell us something amazing that happened today.”
I thought for a moment. “My granola bar seemed to have extra chocolate chips in it.”
“Now that’s something positive,” said Mom.
“That’s me,” I said. “Always finding the positive. And I got to watch Lando’s football practice with Zion. Too bad they also practice on the surface of the sun.”
“Yes, I heard about your afterschool activities.” Dad said afterschool activities like they were dirty words.
“You better get used to it. I’m probably going to be watching football a lot since Zion wants to play eventually.”
Dad sighed. “I guess I can live with it then. Feels like soccer season is a million years away.”
“Oh, and we’re all going to Comic Con together in a few weeks. I think the ticket is like fifty dollars, so I will accept payment now, thank you very much.”
Dad’s mouth dropped open. “Fifty dollars to go look at a bunch of comic book stuff?”
“You don’t just look at it,” I said. “You dress up, too.”
Dad gaped at me. “Do they give you your costume?”
“No.”
“So you pay fifty dollars to wear your own costume and go look at a bunch of comic book stuff?”
“I’m sure we can figure out a way for you to earn the fifty dollars, Aven,” Mom said. “There are plenty of chores to be done around here.”
“Yeah, okay,” I said. “You can’t blame a girl for trying.” I took a bite of my macaroni and cheese and swallowed. “So what are we doing to bring in more customers this fall besides the horse show? We should do something before that. What’s next? Ideas? Go.”
Mom laughed. “Straight to business. I think you’ll make a great manager here in a few years.”
“More like in a few days,” Dad said.
“While I was restocking the fudge the other day, Henry mentioned that Stagecoach Pass used to have a bonfire to kick off the fall season every year,” Mom said.
“Can’t do that,” Dad said. “Too dry. No burning.”
“But the fire would be contained,” Mom said.
“Laura,” Dad said in his let-me-explain-this-to-you voice that made Mom look like she might launch her fork at him. “You’re not even allowed to have indoor fires in your own fireplace in your own home, and I would say that’s pretty contained. No burning at all. It hasn’t rained in six months.”
Mom glared at Dad as she continued tapping her fork on her plate. “We could use an alternative source of heat for our bonfire. It doesn’t have to be wood burning.”
Dad grinned. “Yeah, let’s throw a space heater in the fire pit. That will be a lot of fun for people.”
Mom lit up. “Yes, it will be a bon-space heater!”
“That will draw the crowds,” Dad said. “It will only take four hours to melt a marshmallow.”
“Hm,” Mom said. “A bon-toaster oven then?”
I laughed. “Okay, forget the bonfire thing. Henry also mentioned something interesting to me today.”
“He said that he and I were both orphans.”
Mom and Dad stopped their forks midway to their mouths. “Really?” Dad said. “Did he seem, you know, with it when he told you this?”
Mom frowned at Dad. “Ben, I don’t think with it is the proper medical term.”
“What then?” Dad asked. “Did he have all his marbles?”
Mom shook her head at him. “That’s worse.” She turned to me. “Did he seem clear when he told you this?”
“Not totally,” I said. “He was a little confused. But he remembered that I was an orphan when he said it, so . . . ”
“Josephine is his emergency contact,” Dad said. “He doesn’t have any family listed in his medical forms, and he’s never mentioned anyone else before.”
“Where did he come from?” I asked.
Dad shook his head. “I don’t think anyone knows. I’m not even sure Henry knows.”
“Well, I can certainly relate,” I said. “I know how it feels to not know where you came from.”
Mom reached over and tugged on my hair. “You know now.”
“No, I don’t. I mean, not totally. I don’t know anything about my birth father.”
“What is it you want to know about him?” Dad asked.
“I don’t know. Did he work here at the park? Was a he a rodeo clown?”
Mom laughed. “I like that idea. Or maybe he was a stunt man who threw himself off the buildings.”
“They never did that, Laura,” Dad said.
“Yes, they did,” she snapped back. “Josephine told me. They used to have a big mat they landed on until mice chewed it all up, and they had to throw it away.”
“Maybe he fell into one of the holes,” Dad raised an eyebrow at me, “and they accidentally threw him away with the mat.”
I rolled my eyes at Dad, but couldn’t help giggling. “All right, can we please get back to Henry?”
“Why the sudden interest in Henry’s past, Sheebs?” Dad asked.
“He’s getting weaker and more tired all time,” I said. “I was wondering if there was anyone he’d want us to contact if something happened to him. You know, before he forgets everything.”
“I guess only Josephine,” Dad said.
I stared at my macaroni and cheese. “There has to be more.”
Mom smiled at me. “I think you just need a new mystery to solve.”