CHAPTER 39

 

The next day, Ms. O’Mara and I are hanging out at the church before rehearsal.

It’s just the two of us. She’s sipping hot tea with honey out of a cardboard cup (it soothes her vocal cords, she tells me). I’m slurping a cherry-flavored Icee. Fast. I give myself a brain freeze.

We both arrive half an hour early for rehearsal all the time because that’s what theater nerds do.

We’re making small talk when, all of a sudden, Ms. O’Mara thanks me for making sure Schuyler has some kids close to his own age to hang out with over the summer.

I’m trying to muster up the courage to tell her about the attempted shoplifting episode at the taffy store. But I’m torn. Maybe I didn’t see what I thought I saw even though I’m pretty sure I saw it. Plus, I don’t want to hurt Ms. O’Mara’s feelings. Then again, they might be hurt even worse if Schuyler does something stupid and ends up in jail.

But then, as if she’s reading my mind, Ms. O’Mara says, “Jacky, there are some things you may not know about my nephew.”

Oh, good, I think. She knows the truth. She’s going to tell me she already knows that Schuyler is a one hundred percent kleptomaniac. That he’s seeing a psychiatrist and they’re working on a cure for his sticky-finger-itis.

“Schuyler’s mother, my sister, died two years ago,” she says.

I put down my Icee. I have a feeling this is not the kind of story you want to slurp slushy mush through.

“His dad is still over in the Middle East,” she continues. “He was one of the ones who didn’t get to come home right away.”

My mom, like I said, came home almost as soon as the bad guy with the bushy mustache, Saddam Hussein, was back in his Baghdad box and Operation Desert Storm was over.

“Schuyler’s father is still in Kuwait—sweeping the desert for land mines and unexploded bombs. He also has to help them put out all the fires in the oil fields that the Iraqis started. It’s dangerous work and it may not be finished until sometime next year.”

I nod. I realize how lucky we are that Mom was a reservist who came home with the first wave of returning warriors.

“Anyway,” says Ms. O’Mara, “this school year, Schuyler lived outside Philadelphia with his grandparents.”

“Your mom and dad?” I ask.

Ms. O’Mara shakes her head. “His father’s folks. They’re kind of old and kind of old-fashioned. They’re also extremely strict. So Schuyler, being a sixteen-year-old boy who’s still grieving his mother and super-angry about his soldier father not coming home with everybody else, started acting up.”

“He got into trouble?”

“Big-time. The authorities were about to ship him off to a juvenile detention facility. I went to Philly and promised everybody that I would take care of Schuyler this summer. That I’d have him crew this Shakespeare show. That I’d supervise him and keep him out of trouble. So far, it’s been working.…”

“That’s great,” I say, because I don’t want to burst her bubble.

“So, thanks again, Jacky. You guys are helping Schuyler have the normal summer a teenage boy deserves. Especially one who’s been through everything he has.”

I smile nervously and don’t mention that my big sister Sophia is also trying to help Schuyler have a great “teenage boy” summer, what with the romantic rendezvous under the boardwalk that I interrupted.

We finish our drinks and run a few lines.

And I don’t say a word about Schuyler’s taffy snatching.

If the “authorities” find out, they’ll probably come cart him off to that juvenile detention facility Ms. O’Mara was talking about.

It sounds like they already have his bed picked out for him.