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“Hide! Wait!”
No. I didn’t want to talk to him. I didn’t want to talk to anybody. I’d purposely avoided Kirk, Jackie, and the others all day long. More notes had been passed to me, but I refused to even open them let alone answer them. Instead I made a big show of dropping each one into the trashcan.
It had been such a long day. I’d found it nearly impossible to stay in the classroom with so many eyes focusing on me. All kinds of excuses to leave the room filled my head, and I acted on most of them. First, I went to the library to look at encyclopedias for my history report. The bathroom got frequent unnecessary visits. I told Ms. Hill that I had diarrhea. The water fountain was a good excuse even though I never drank from it. I offered to clean the art room. I volunteered to take the attendance to the office. I even stuck my hand up to help in the cafeteria at lunch so I wouldn’t have to sit at the lunch table. Ms. Hill must have grown tired of handing me the hall pass.
There were times when the note passers couldn’t be avoided. The line. Free time in the classroom. P.E. But I stayed as quiet as possible, and since Jackie and the others were having so much fun with their “anonymous” notes, they didn’t speak about it either. Kirk avoided my eyes all day. Maybe he felt bad. I hoped he did.
So that’s why I rushed home after school. I actually ran out of the classroom seconds before the dismissal bell rang, with Ms. Hill hollering after me to stop. I didn’t want to face anyone. If I could have ridden my bike home with my eyes shut, I would have.
And I didn’t care that Kirk was calling my name. Pretending like I didn’t hear him, I left him far behind, wondering what the expression on his face looked like.
I was a fast bike rider when I wanted to be, so I sped all the way home, taking shortcuts and rushing dangerously through stop signs. Luckily traffic wasn’t typically a problem at 3:00, and drivers tended to be extra careful because they expected kids to do exactly the crazy kind of riding I was doing.
I was within blocks of my house when I heard a noise that made me want to scream.
“Whoo-hoo! Ooo-yip! Ooo-yip!”
Donald.
He was close by, riding home from school too. As usual, he was sounding off. He enjoyed riding his bike. That’s what the strange sounds meant. Maybe he saw a dog and was imitating its bark. Maybe he was making sounds for the gnats flying in his face. Maybe he was singing along with his squeaky bicycle chain or the wind rushing past his ears. Who could know? All I knew was that I didn’t want Donald to see me. Couldn’t I have just a few moments of peace?
No.
“Heidi!” Donald called. He rushed up to meet me. His white helmet was practically falling off of his head, and his pant legs were stuffed inside his tube socks to keep them from getting stuck in the chain. I didn’t acknowledge him. Donald didn’t seem to notice.
“Did you just get out of school?” he asked.
“No,” I said sarcastically, the way I always did when Donald asked questions that he didn’t need to ask. “I just got off a train. I’ve been traveling with the circus all weekend. Didn’t you notice I was gone?”
Donald stared at me for a second, processing my words. If he ever got my sense of humor, he didn’t show it. All he did was focus back on the road in front of him. “I just got out of school too.”
“I know,” I said. “Where else would you be coming from?”
Some teenagers drove by in a yellow car and catcalled out the window at us. Their words were a blur, just like their faces, but I knew the words hadn’t been kind. Something about the baby on his bike.
Donald squinted into the sun. “Daryl Peck.”
One of the bullies from the park. Neither of those guys who bothered us was old enough to drive, but they certainly could have friends with licenses. Too bad Donald couldn’t drive. He could run over their stupid bikes when they were stuck without their car-driving friends. The image of Daryl Pike and Matt Tonkovich spread out on the asphalt like cartoon characters made me burp up a giggle.
I wondered whether Donald ever had gonna-get-you-back notions. With the amount he’d been picked on, it would seem likely. Probably not Donald, though. He was too gentle.
I, on the other hand, desperately wanted to get back at Cathy and the kids at school. It was all I could think of as I pedaled along. I didn’t know how yet, so I took my anger out on Donald. It was all his fault anyway.
“Race you home,” I suggested. He took me up on it, and I was glad. There was no way his gawky legs could ever pedal that ten-speed of his as fast as I could go on my cruiser. He was dust in my tracks in no time.
When I got home, I jumped off my bike while it was still moving and shoved it carelessly against the inside wall of the garage. I ran inside and locked the door leading from the garage to the house. A moment later I heard Donald’s whooping noises nearing the house. He’d lost the race, but he didn’t care.
I sat down on the family room couch and flipped on the TV. Mom wasn’t home from work yet, so no one would care if I caught a couple of my favorite cartoons.
Donald’s bike squeaked loudly as he squeezed the brakes. I could hear him clinking around in the garage, trying to maneuver his bicycle against the wall next to mine. I could picture him trying to figure out the best way to place his bike so there would be room for Mom’s car when she got home from work. Anyone would know that my bike just needed to be pushed forward a little, but Donald wouldn’t be able to reach that conclusion. He would knock things over and push and prod at his own bike until, at last, he would give up, and Mom would complain about it later.
No, I wouldn’t go out and help him. No, I didn’t feel sorry for him. I’d done this on purpose. It was high time Donald started to think like a sixteen-year-old—or at least like an eleven-year-old. Maybe by getting in trouble enough he might learn something. I was so tired of him being my “baby” brother.
The ruckus stopped outside. After fifteen minutes, Donald had finally given up. Now a new challenge awaited him. He didn’t know how to unlock the door. Sure, he knew how to turn a key in a knob, but this door was more difficult than most. To unlock it, the knob had to be pulled as it was turned. It was harder than a baby-proof medicine jar. Donald could never get the hang of it, no matter how many times he practiced with Dad, Mom, or me.
He tried the knob. When it didn’t turn, he knocked on the door. I didn’t budge. I pretended like I couldn’t hear it.
“Heidi,” Donald called. “Heidi, I’m home. Can you unlock the door?”
I stared straight ahead at the TV, but I didn’t know what the villain on the screen was talking about. All I heard was Donald.
“Heidi?”
He made a funny sound like “Zzhhwuu.” That meant he was preparing to do something that was tough for him. There was a bumping against the door and then the sound of a zipper. Donald was getting his key out of his backpack. A jingling preceded the sound of Donald fitting the key in the lock. So far so good.
Then the twist. And the stop. Twist. Stop. Jiggle. Jiggle. Twist. Take the key out and put it back in again. Twist. Stop. Jiggle. Jiggle.
“Heidi?” He knocked on the door again. “Heidi can you open the door? Heidi?”
I could hear the panic in his voice. I wondered whether he had to go to the bathroom. He could, of course, go to the front door, which was easier to open. Or he could go to the sliding glass door in the back, but he wouldn’t think to do either of those things. He was pretty much stuck.
I let him fuss for another few minutes before guilt wore me down. Mom would be home soon, and she would get really mad at me for locking my brother out of the house. She wouldn’t understand.
I got up and dragged myself to the garage door. I opened it to find Donald’s hand still attached to the knob on the outside. He swung into the house with the door, losing his balance and falling to one knee.
“I couldn’t do the lock,” he said.
“Oh, sorry. I was in the bathroom. I didn’t realize I’d locked you out.”
Any normal brother would have seen right through me. Any normal brother might have threatened to kill me. But not Donald. He smiled and stood up.
“That’s okay.”
He didn’t mention the bikes. He may have forgotten about them already.
I left him and went back to the couch. Donald went past me to take his backpack to his room. Moments later I heard him in the kitchen making himself a snack. A peanut butter sandwich. Always. Every afternoon. The same thing. I called out, “Can you bring me a soda?”
“Sure,” Donald called back. “In a can or glass?”
“Can is fine,” I said. One thing that was good about Donald: he made an awfully good servant.
Just then the phone rang. I was too slow picking it up. Donald got it in the kitchen. Ooh! I hated it when Donald answered the phone. As if he ever got phone calls.
“Uh, hello?” I heard him say in his unsure way. “Heidi? Uh, yeah. She’s here . . . Uh, who is this?”
Just give me the phone already, I thought.
“Kirk Mannings?” Donald sounded it out as if the name were a foreign word.
Kirk!
What now?
I grabbed the receiver from the coffee table.
“Get off the phone, Donald,” I ordered, covering the mouthpiece with one hand. I heard his voice over the phone and from around the kitchen wall. “It’s Kirk Mannings.”
“I know, Donald,” I said with too much emphasis.
“Isn’t his brother Randy Mannings, on the Varsity basketball team? Number 24?”
“What if he is?”
Donald paused, said nothing for a moment, and then finally hung up. I felt like groaning, but I held it in.
“Heidi?” Now Kirk sounded unsure. “Are you there?”
“Yeah. I’m here.”
“Look, I wanted to say I was sorry about today. I didn’t mean for you to think I was joking.”
“You didn’t?” I wasn’t ready to believe him. How did I know Jackie wasn’t standing next to him right then, telling him what to say?
“I meant it about the movies,” he said. “I’d really like to go. I’ll pay. I’ll get popcorn and everything.”
Like a date? This was too much. “You don’t have to do this. Tell Jackie it isn’t funny.”
“Jackie?” Kirk sounded honestly confused. “This has nothing to do with Jackie. I just think you’re nice is all.” He paused. I think he said more than he intended. “So, do you want to go?”
“Saturday?” I confirmed.
“Yeah. We’ll pick which movie on Friday at school when the new listings come out, okay?”
“Sounds great,” I said. And it really did.
Until Donald walked into the room right after I hung up and informed me, “But we go to the park on Saturday.”
“Not this Saturday,” I said, grinning, not really interested in Donald’s opinion about it. “I’m going to the movies.”
“Which movie?” Donald wanted to know.
I knew what he was really asking. He was asking whether he could go with us. I gave my brother a hard look and told him, “None of your business.”
But I felt certain that Donald would make it his business.