A week before Halloween, Kyla screams when we get back from free time. I don’t mean the kind of scream you hear when someone sees a giant spider or even the kind of scream when someone’s anger has reached its very limit. No, I mean the kind of scream that would make a dog squirm or shatter a window.
Mrs. Parkman’s obviously shaken up, probably because she’s deaf now. She gets Kyla to stop and convinces her to chill. For someone who never stops talking, the tears at least slow her up a bit. Through big, sobbing breaths, she manages to get out the problem.
“My… iPad… it’s… MISSING! It… was… right… here… in… my… bag.” Louder now and more distressed, “Where could it be? Did someone take it?” she asks, not waiting for an answer. After she visits all four corners of the room and peers in everyone’s desk, she crumples to the floor, covers her face with her hands, and wails.
Mrs. Parkman organizes a search party. We look in our desks again, through our backpacks, which, by the way, I have managed to keep smelling fine and at school this whole time by some miracle. We look under tables and chairs, in between the millions of books in our classroom library. She even sends Jason and Erin down to the school library to look around and me and Duke to the computer lab. For the first time ever, Duke speaks to me. His voice is squeakier than I imagined it would be.
“You search the left side, I’ll do the right,” is all he says, like he’d been planning his strategy on the walk to the lab. I steal a glance at him. He’s smaller than me. He has on tight black pants and those black-and-white checkered shoes, his basic everyday school look. We are quiet as we look in the lab and come up empty-handed.
The iPad cannot be found anywhere.
Kyla is distraught. I know most of us, including Kyla, are thinking that someone stole it. And we’re probably right. Marisa and Jolie pat her back and try to calm her down.
Denzel says in a soothing voice, “We’ll find it, Kyla, it’ll be okay.” If I’ve learned anything, it’s that Denzel is really good in a crisis.
After a very serious, “I know no one in this class would’ve stolen from our friend Kyla here, so for now it’s a mystery. But a very expensive mystery, so let’s all keep an eye out…” lecture from Mrs. Parkman, we move on to a grammar lesson on prepositional phrases, but I can’t pay attention over Kyla’s loud sniffling and blowing her nose every five seconds. She sure is dramatic.
I guess I can’t blame her though. I’d be upset if I lost something that important, too. The good news is that I don’t have anything that important. If I did, though, I don’t think I’d bring it to school. Oh well. Kyla’s parents will probably just buy her a new one anyway.
We have a couple of extra minutes at the end of class, so Mrs. Parkman reads a few more pages of Hugo. He’s in trouble now, because this strange old man caught Hugo stealing from his toy booth.
Mrs. Parkman stops reading, closes the book, and asks, “So, is stealing wrong?”
Everyone stares at her like, duh, but Marisa’s the one who says it.
“Of course it’s wrong! You should never steal! It only hurts other people when you steal!”
“But,” Mrs. Parkman says, “if Hugo didn’t steal food, he’d starve.”
We all stare at her some more. Does she mean to say it’s okay to steal? I have to hand it to her; she knows how to shut us all up. And make us think.
Caden speaks out, quietly at first.
“Well,” he starts, “Hugo needs the food. But he just wants the toys. So maybe stealing the food is okay, but not the toys.”
“Interesting point, thank you, Caden,” Mrs. Parkman says.
Kyla, who’s taking this whole stealing conversation pretty hard says, “No. Stealing is wrong, period. Always.”
Erin says, “But Hugo would die, Kyla. He needs food. It’s not like your iPad.”
Kyla gives Erin her best scowl as Jason asks, “Mrs. Parkman, what do you think?”
She grins. “I think the world isn’t all black and white.”
“You mean like those lame old movies?”
“No, I mean lots of things in life aren’t going to be always right or always wrong. Sometimes we have to look at a situation from all of its angles. And at the people involved. Because every person has a story. I still don’t think it’s the right thing to steal, but knowing why someone might have to steal to stay alive helps us to understand better.”
“Yeah, like if I met Hugo in real life and heard his story, I wouldn’t be mad at him for stealing as much as I would feel bad that he doesn’t have any food,” Erin says. There’s a murmur of agreement.
“Exactly.”
Kyla relents. “Okay, fine. Hugo can steal all the food he wants. But nobody needs my iPad!”
And she bursts into tears again right as the bell rings.
Maya has to run to catch the bus. Who knows where she’s been. She spends every day from free time until the bell in her special class, so she doesn’t line up with the rest of us. I bet she’s just been wandering around. There were like five times last year when the bus driver had to turn around because we left her at school and nobody noticed. And one time, the janitor found her taking a nap right in the middle of the lost-and-found pile. I told you, she’s weird.
But today she climbs on, out of breath, and sits in the front, hugging her backpack to her chest. She got a backpack from her teacher too, but I guess she’s not ashamed of the smell because she carries it everywhere. She’s acting weird, even for her, looking around at people but avoiding eye contact, and I swear she’s got an iron grip on that backpack. Plus, she never sits in the front.
When we get to our stop, she moves faster than I’ve ever seen her go. Before I can even touch one foot down on the pavement, she’s running toward home. Now I’m curious, so I pick up the pace.
De-vine’s on the couch when I open the door. She must be feeling better, because she’s elbow-deep in a giant bag of potato chips. Most of them are on the floor or her shirt, but she doesn’t care. She just grins up at me and points to our room like she knows I’m going to ask about Maya.
But do you know what? That little psycho locked the door! And no amount of banging on it or calling her names will open it.
I give up and join De-vine on the couch to watch dumb cartoons. She hands me a potato chip with two greasy fingers. The TV looks funny because someone knocked the antenna loose. De-vine doesn’t care. She’s shoving chips into her mouth like it’s her job and giggling at some dumb little—monkey? bear? aardvark?—named DW who sounds like a giant pain in the butt. Right as DW’s about to get put in time out, there’s a knock at the door.
I freeze.
It can’t be anyone from the trailer park. Everyone knows that, like the rest of them, we have nothing to steal and we keep our door unlocked. They’d just walk in. I wonder for a second if it’s the cops again. They did say they’d be sending someone to check on us. But “someone” hasn’t shown up yet.
The knocking gets louder. Loud enough that Mom stumbles from her bedroom and looks at me like, “Who’s that?”
I shrug, but get up to open the door.
When I do, I freeze again. Right there on the rotted-out piece of wood that’s supposed to be a porch, Mr. Mark stands there grinning at me.
This is bad.
“Hi, Dragon!” he says brightly.
This is really bad.
I don’t know if you’ve ever had a principal show up at your house, but my guess is, it’s never a good thing.
Mr. Mark says, after the most awkward eternity, “Is your mom home?”
Mom decides to step into view right as I’m muttering, “Yeah.”
His face tells me all I need to know about what he’s thinking as he takes in the full picture that is my mom. She hasn’t brushed her hair in days. It’s sticking out in every direction. Her faded hair-band t-shirt is from the 1980s and probably used to be white. The gray sweatpants she has on are frayed at the bottom and covered in spots of toothpaste or soda or potato chip grease or who knows. There’s at least one obvious cigarette burn near her right knee. This isn’t her best look.
“Who are you? Whaddya want?” Mom asks, annoyed that her afternoon nap has been so rudely interrupted.
Mr. Mark must realize what his face is doing because he seems to snap out of it.
I speak up. “Mom, this is the assistant principal, Mr. Mark.”
By this point, my cheeks are burning and the shame of this place, where I live, and of my mom, threatens to burst right out of me. I can’t look at him, so I study my shoes.
Mr. Mark straightens up and smiles at Mom. “Ms. Cortez. How nice to meet you.” He looks like he’s about to extend his hand, but then seems to think better of it.
“It’s Stewart,” she snaps. Like she’s offended by the other name. I don’t know why it bothers her. It’s not like my dad was any better. “Whaddya want? Did Dragon do something?”
Now I look up. Because I want to know the answer, too.
Mr. Mark steps forward. “No, no, not Dragon. He’s my pal, right?” He reaches over for a fist bump. I roll my eyes but give him one anyway.
Mom just stares at him.
“I’m so sorry, Miss… uh… Stewart. May I come in?”
“I guess.”
Mr. Mark barely clears the door. I told you, the dude is tall. His eyes widen at the full scene of my life. I don’t know if he’s reliving his own childhood in a trailer just like this one or if he’s truly horrified by what he sees. Either way, I hear him ask if Maya’s home and Mom goes back to our room to get her.
“Good luck,” I mutter, more to myself than anyone else.
Mr. Mark’s eyes land on the couch that has a rusted metal spring sticking out of one seat and De-vine’s bag of chips sitting on the other. De-vine hasn’t taken her eyes off the TV once. Then he glances at the floor, which is littered with cigarette butts and fast food wrappers and chip crumbs. To my horror, I notice a dead cockroach the size of a mouse right next to the TV stand. It looks like it’s been there a while. I can tell the minute Mr. Mark sees it too because he sucks in his breath but manages to keep his face still.
No one speaks. We all pretend to care deeply about what’s happening to a white bunny named Buster on the TV.
Mom finally comes back with Maya, who has put on her dumb I-don’t-know-anything face.
Who am I kidding? This is her usual face.
“Okay, here she is. Spit it out.”
Mr. Mark looks at Mom and says, “I don’t know if Dragon told you, but an iPad went missing from school today.”
“No. So?” she says, challenging him.
“Well, er…” Mr. Mark’s cheeks redden. This is painful. “We had some reports that the iPad was seen in Maya’s backpack.”
Oh. Dang. Now all that stuff after school makes sense.
Mom scowls at Maya. Maya looks at Mom with these innocent doe eyes and says, a little too loudly, “No! It wasn’t in there!”
Mom looks back at Mr. Mark. “Got any proof?”
“Actually, yes. We have her on a hallway camera putting the iPad into her bag.”
Mom’s mad now. She turns on Maya and gets right in her face. “Where. Is. It?” she growls.
“I don’t have it!”
Mr. Mark tries to diffuse the situation, explaining to Maya in a calm voice that it’s better to tell the truth sooner than wait until it’s too late. But Maya’s not having any of it. She puts her hands over her ears and shrieks, “I don’t have it! I don’t have it!”
I know better. Before anyone notices I’m gone, I’ve found the iPad, complete with a strip of pink duct tape with Kyla’s name on it. What a moron. She didn’t even take the tape off.
I hand it over to Mr. Mark, who says, “Thanks, pal. I know the young lady will be very happy to get this back.”
I shrug again.
“Well, you got it back so get outta here,” Mom grunts and stares at Maya like she’s going to murder her. Maya runs back toward our room, and I decide to show our guest out before he has to see what happens next.
I grab De-vine, who whines about missing her show, and say, “C’mon let’s go for a walk.”
We follow Mr. Mark to a giant truck that is way too nice to be in this neighborhood. He’s lucky no one’s keyed it. He waves goodbye, and I turn to go the opposite direction, holding tight to De-vine’s hand. As he drives away, I can hear Mom screaming at Maya.
We walk four houses down to Denzel’s. He opens the door and, understanding the look on my face, lets us in with no questions. We sit down to play an old Xbox game, and De-vine snuggles into my lap. Even from inside, I can hear Maya’s wailing. I decide we’ll stay out a little longer.