Early Monday morning, we had our first big dump of snow. Everyone was running around with their magic carpets, snow runners, GT racers and flying saucers. Even the kids at my school abandoned their cool junior-high personas for quick trips down The Hill, the only hill in town steep enough to slide down.
Everyone seemed happy.
Everyone but me.
Both girls’ volleyball teams had home games after school, so we didn’t have basketball.
Instead, I invited myself over to Trev’s place to play video games. He tried to blow me off, but Gran welcomed me in and even served up some hot dogs with my favorite sauerkraut — homemade from her own special recipe that stunk up the basement every summer.
Even though Trev hammered me on every platform — especially the one where avatars gave out truth points (something he gloated over big-time, pointing out my history of dishonesty) — it was fun. Almost like old times, or at least enough to reassure me that our friendship hadn’t totally gone up in smoke.
But then he started asking questions about Willow, and I hightailed it out of there.
First her about him, and now him about her? I didn’t want to talk about it. Talking had only gotten me into trouble.
When I got home, I went straight to Mom’s office, hoping to do some sleuthing before she finished work. I felt guilty about sneaking around, but finding out more about my dad was like a scab I couldn’t stop picking at. Especially now that I knew about alpha-1.
Joseph Novak. Was that really him? I thought so, but I wanted to be sure.
So far, the only thing I’d found on him in my online search was connected to Uncle Vic. Was it possible that he’d disappeared off the face of the earth after he ditched us? Or did someone — Uncle Vic? Mom? — still have contact with him? It was a long shot, but maybe some document locked away in Mom’s secret filing cabinet held the information that no one seemed willing to share.
I grabbed the keys from the desk drawer and went straight to the closet. After getting tangled in some coats, I angled the cabinet so it faced the open closet door. But then my body blocked the office light, making it hard to see the lock. I needed a flashlight. I backed up through the closet door …
And straight into Uncle Vic. “Hey, kid.”
I froze. “What are you doing here?”
“I got back from the sustainability tour this afternoon. I was downstairs in my room, unpacking.” He nodded toward the closet. “Question is, what are you doing in there?”
“Just looking for something.” I gulped. “Does Mom know you’re back?”
Uncle Vic shook his head. “I made a surprise dinner. It’s already in the oven.”
I put the office back together as best I could and grabbed my backpack from the floor. I joined Uncle Vic in the kitchen. Pots and pans littered the stovetop. The sink was full of bowls and gadgets from Mom’s prized food processor. Almost every cupboard door was open.
It had been one week since Uncle Vic had stormed out of the house, and now he was back, making himself at home as if nothing had happened. I didn’t know how Mom was going to react, but for some reason, Uncle Vic being home made me feel grateful — like the first deep breath after a puff from my inhaler.
“How was the tour?” I asked, pulling at a patch of dark hair that had sprouted on my forearm, seemingly overnight. “How’s Sage?”
“Good and good,” Uncle Vic replied. “Every concert was a sellout. And Sage told me to say hi. To you.”
“Oh.” I blushed and then tugged hard on one particularly long hair to cover my embarrassment. I decided to try some more sleuthing. “So … did you ever find a replacement?”
“Replacement? Oh, for Dex?” Uncle Vic squinted at a cookbook lying open on the counter. “Yeah, a young kid. Did great at backup vocals.”
My mind worked its way back to the text messages. Dex? A band member? That explained a few things. Was the Rox a club?
Uncle Vic added salt to a pot on the stove. “How’ve you been?”
“Okay.” I sat down on the stool and threw my backpack on the counter between us. “Mom’s going to freak when she sees this mess.”
“She’s going to freak even more if she finds out that you’ve been snooping around,” Uncle Vic replied as he dug through the utensil drawer. “Did you find what you were looking for?”
“I want to know about my dad.”
Uncle Vic continued to search through the drawer, humming under his breath. Finally, he pulled out a large slotted spoon and slammed the drawer shut with his hip. “I already told you, kid, that’s between you and your mom. I’m staying out of it.”
“But we’re family, and the tripsy thing is genetic. So it involves all of us. Including my dad.”
“I’ll talk to you about alpha-1,” he said. “But not about your dad. Sorry, kid.”
“I already know about alpha-1. Darwyn had it and so do I.”
“Your mom said that?”
“She said that I have to make good choices, so I don’t get sick like you. Lifestyle management, she called it.”
“So, you know there are jobs you can’t do?” A dark shadow crossed his face. “Like being a firefighter?”
It hit like a shot between the pads. “What?”
Uncle Vic put down the spoon and rested his hands on the countertop so we were face-to-face. “Lifestyle management? Things you can and can’t do if you have alpha-1? You just told me you knew all about it.”
I felt numb. “I thought she meant eating more stuff like that.” I pointed to the leafy greens sticking out of the colander in the sink. “I had no idea …”
“Sorry, kid.”
The buzzer sounded on the oven, startling me out of my trance. As Uncle Vic pulled out a casserole, I struggled to make sense of everything. It was like I was watching my life unfold from the nosebleed section.
Once he’d judged the dish to be done and set it on the cooling rack, Uncle Vic picked up his guitar from the open case on the floor and sat down next to me. “Did your doctor actually say you had alpha-1?”
“Yes,” I lied.
Uncle Vic bit his lip as he plucked at the guitar strings.
I thought about how he’d disappeared for a week without saying goodbye. Could I trust him? Would he cut me off — just like my dad?
“Do you still talk to him? My dad, I mean?”
Uncle Vic’s fingers stopped moving. “No. Why? What do you know?”
“I know a lot,” I lied again. “About the band. About the drugs.”
Uncle Vic inhaled sharply and then coughed.
“Tell me,” I insisted.
“But —”
“Please.”
“There’s a reason your mom doesn’t want you to know.” Uncle Vic made silent chord changes on the guitar.
“But I need to know.” My voice cracked on the last word. A cough rose in my throat. I swallowed it, trying to erase the similarity between me and Uncle Vic. Coughing, coughing … always coughing.
“Why?”
My chest felt like it was in a choke hold. I grabbed the inhaler out of my backpack and took a puff, breathing in as much as I could. I didn’t use the peak flow meter, either before or after, even though I was supposed to. After a minute, I managed to croak, “Because he’s part of me.”
“You’re a Pickle.” Uncle Vic put his hand on my arm. “Trust me, kid. And there’s nothing wrong with being a Pickle.”
“No one wants PICKLE on the back of their jersey!” The words tasted bitter as they burst out and were louder than I’d intended. “I’d much rather be NOVAK!”
I studied Uncle Vic for a reaction, but he gave nothing away. Just as I was about to dig deeper, the lock on the garage door clicked open.
I froze.
Uncle Vic jumped up, laid his guitar on the stool and started throwing things into the dishwasher. I hadn’t seen him move that fast since he’d moved in. Still, there was no way he was going to return the kitchen to Mom’s magazine photo-shoot standards.
I pulled my backpack off the counter and onto my lap, hiding the inhaler underneath.
It was time to face the wrath of Pickle number three.