April

Igor doesn’t want to be famous. He just wants to be noticed. And that’s not as simple as it seems, because he has a lot to hide.

Fame means your picture on the cover of a magazine or showing up on Hollywood Nights more than once. Or being the subject of a manhunt on one of those twenty-four-hour news channels his mother is always watching, which doesn’t help her peace of mind.

Igor just wants to be able to go anywhere and have people notice him: Who’s that new guy? That’s Igor. Started hanging out here a couple of weeks ago. Funny guy. Everybody likes him. Hey, Igor! Somebody wants to meet you.

He’d been to four different schools by the time he got through first grade—which isn’t quite as bad as it sounds because it took him two years to finish first grade. That’s one of his secrets: nobody knows he is really twelve years old instead of eleven. His mother changed his birth year at the second kindergarten he went to and never changed it back. She had her reasons—still does. And Igor can get away with it because he looks younger than his real age. But another advantage is he would have seemed even dumber in sixth grade than he does in fifth.

His grades still suck, though. “There’re a lot more important things than getting good grades,” his mother says in between report cards. “Like you being a good person. If you turn out to be good, Jamie, I don’t care if you’re smart.”

That didn’t come out quite right, but he thinks he knows what she means.

She calls him Jamie, not Igor, because Robert James Price Sanderson is his real name. That’s the second thing about him that most people don’t know or soon forget. When he was in his first kindergarten, one of the teacher assistants thought he looked like he belonged in an old vampire movie because of his pale skin and dark hair that comes to a point in the middle of his forehead. So she called him Igor—who is actually a character in Frankenstein, not Dracula—and soon everybody else did too. And somehow the name traveled with him. At the beginning of every school year, all his teachers know his real name. By the end, they’ve forgotten it. When he graduates from high school, if he ever does, they’ll probably announce him as Igor Sanderson, and there it would be on his diploma, in fancy letters.

But to graduate from high school, he’ll have to get through fifth grade, and it isn’t looking too good right now. Achievement tests are coming up in April, and just the thought of it makes his bones feel like Jell-O. “It doesn’t mean you’re stupid, Jamie,” his mother said after he brought home his last report card. “It just means you don’t take tests so good. And I never did either. There’s nothing wrong with your brain.”

“Are you sure?” All those Cs and Ds (and one B, for P.E.) stacked up like kids’ blocks in a tower he couldn’t knock down.

“Sure I’m sure. Your brain’s better than mine.”

“Better than Dad’s?”

“I don’t know about that. There’s nothing your dad can’t do.”

“I mean my real dad.”

Her hand shot out and slapped him—whack!

One second, that hand was holding up the bottom of his baby sister Jade, and the next it was stinging his cheek. Then it snaked around his neck and pulled him against her soft trembling shoulder. “I’m sorry, honey. But listen, you’ve got to stop saying those things, you hear? I can’t tolerate it.”

He knows that, and he also knows he’ll say one of those things again sometime. Something about his dad, that is. It’s like he can’t help it, and that thought bothers him even more than the thought of three days of achievement tests.

That’s the third thing people don’t know about him: his father is nuts.

Not his stepdad, Al Sanderson. But his real father, Bobby Price. Igor doesn’t remember Bobby Price, or maybe he does. Thousands of people do, because for a little while, nine years ago, Bobby Price was very famous. And so was Igor.

His mom, Vickie Price, had split up with Bobby because he was abusive and unpredictable. They had one little boy, two and a half years old. All three lived in Fresno, California. One day, when Vickie was at work, Bobby Price walked into Wee Treasures Day Care Center with a handgun, pointed it at the day care ladies and kids, threatened to shoot anybody who stopped him, grabbed his little boy, dashed out, and took off in a stolen car.

The little boy was Igor, of course. He sort of wishes he could remember it. But then, maybe it’s a good thing he can’t.

Is Igor dumber than his dad? Bobby Price had done something very stupid but was pretty smart in how he went about it. He drove the stolen car four blocks, allowing bystanders to get a good look at it, before darting into an abandoned garage where his own car, a 2004 Chevy Cavalier, was parked. Then he transferred Igor to the Cavalier, made him curl up on the floor, threw a blanket over him, and motored north for several miles before doubling back and taking a series of county roads headed toward Mexico. In this way, stopping only to dye Igor’s hair blond and his own hair brown, he managed to elude the cops for two and a half days.

It was during that time he got famous—and Igor too, because those twenty-four-hour news channels were showing pictures of them several times a day, along with fuzzy footage from the Little Treasures Day Care security camera and tearful messages from his mother pleading with Bobby Price and anyone who might know their whereabouts to please please please return her little boy.

Tips poured in, and most of them weren’t any good, but the police were finally able to track down the Cavalier, which Bobby had purchased from a private individual the day before the kidnapping. The cops stopped him in Arizona, at a roadblock only sixty miles from the Mexican border.

Igor, aside from a bad dye job, appeared to be just fine. He was properly buckled into his car seat, with a very wet diaper, a dirty face, and a full tummy. There were no marks on him except for a bad case of diaper rash. Bobby Price had been driving day and night, getting by on short naps and pills, stopping frequently for Chinese fire drills. Igor was probably ready to stop—he still doesn’t like road trips.

What Bobby planned to do in Mexico with a little boy to support remained a mystery. He never said, not even during his trial. The trial and conviction and sentencing took several months, during which Vickie Price met Al Sanderson: a veteran, ten years older, steady and boring. Once Bobby was safely locked up in Tanglewood Medium Security Prison, they got married, started having babies, and moved a lot.

Hidden Acres is the longest Igor has lived anywhere—almost eighteen months. He likes it, and so does his mom. She likes her big backyard with the garden and her one-and-a-half-story house surrounded by shade trees that make it hard to see from the road, maybe even from the air. She has met her nearest neighbors and likes the fact that they mind their own business. She loves her family: Big Al and Little Al (now almost six), Samantha (three and a half), baby Jade, and Igor. Staying home most of the time with the door locked and the curtains drawn suits her fine, because she’s nervous by nature, and the kidnapping made her much worse.

This has been a rough year, with Big Al’s construction business taking him away for weeks at a time. Vickie has locked Igor out of the house twice since school began. The week after Thanksgiving, she set up the Christmas tree and tore it right down again when Big Al called to say he was taking that job in Louisiana. Igor was sent to the principal’s office twice during December, and Little Al once, which made their mom grab a handful of receipts out of the kitchen drawer and threaten to take their Christmas presents back. They pretty much lived on macaroni and cheese until Big Al returned the day before Christmas Eve (when they got their tree back, with presents underneath). Since work dried up after the holidays, the rest of winter was okay except for less money, meaning more macaroni and cheese.

Big Al started getting long-distance jobs again in the spring, but lately Vickie’s mood has improved with the weather. At least Igor thinks so. So he’s not expecting anything amiss on a lovely spring day, buzzing with bees and popping with apple blossoms, when he walks home from the bus and lets himself in to find the living room rearranged. Two armchairs are turned over on their sides to make a fort, and the couch cushions are piled up on top of them. The drapes are on the floor, and a trail of chocolate syrup leads to the kitchen, where Little Al perches on the countertop, shoveling dry beans down the garbage disposal. None of this, Igor knows from experience, is a good sign.

After pulling his brother out of the sink, he goes looking for their mom. She seems to be passed out in her bedroom with the heavy drapes closed. She looks like Sleeping Beauty in a nest of white pillows, her dark hair spread out and coming to a peak over a face that’s still pretty when she’s not yelling. “Just a migraine,” she whispers to Igor, barely opening her eyes. “Are the girls still asleep? Can you see what Little Al’s up to?”

Jade is awake, with a stinky diaper that Igor changes before returning to the kitchen, just in time to stop his brother from turning the disposal on with all those beans still in it. “You’re not my boss!” Little Al cries when pulled off the counter for the second time. But he settles down with a Popsicle on the kitchen floor (Jade gets one too, but not red, because the food coloring makes her hyper), and Igor starts scooping beans out of the disposal with a spoon. Also slimy old celery tops and potato peels—and a wad of paper.

It’s an envelope, mashed up as though a fist had clenched it and thrust it in the disposal with all its might. One end looks a little chewed, but the other is intact enough to read the return address: Tanglewood Medium Security Prison.

Igor stops breathing for a moment. Here, in his hand, right now, is a letter from his dad.

It’s the first one he’s ever held or even seen up close. He’s heard of them, though. At least three times before. In fact, the only time his mother mentions Bobby Price, it’s because of a letter: “Your father found us. We’re moving to—” Nevada, Kansas, Oklahoma, here.

His father found him.

It’s like an itch, the memory he can’t quite remember: himself tucked like a football under an arm while a huge man yells and waves a gun around a room full of little kids all peeing their pants. Followed by a fifty-hour road trip reported by all the major news networks. Sometimes Igor will hear a piece of a song that sounds very familiar, though he can’t name it, and he wonders if his dad was playing it over and over on their cross-country run. Or he wonders why the smell of gasoline always hypes him up. Or why he often dreams about skidding sideways in a car.

Something different about this time, though. He’s not dreaming, remembering, or guessing—he’s got the actual letter in his actual hand.

The envelope looks like it was still sealed when his mom crammed it down the drain and turned the disposal on. He wonders why she stopped before it got all the way chewed up. Maybe because she had second thoughts, or maybe because Little Al put the cat in the dryer and pushed the “on” button, like he had once before.

Whatever—she’s down for the count and Igor’s holding some kind of communication from Tanglewood Prison, and nobody can stop him from opening it. His thumb hooks under the envelope flap…

And a scream breaks from the family room, where Samantha, just up from her nap, has swiped Jade’s Popsicle. Sighing, Igor stuffs the envelope in his pocket and grabs the Popsicle, now crusted with dirt and cat hair picked up while Jade crawled from the kitchen with it. He dashes to the nearest bathroom to wash it off while both girls bawl. Meanwhile, Little Al turns the dishwasher on.

“Jamie! Please do something!” his mother calls forlornly from her bedroom.

Igor runs back to the kitchen and separates his brother from the dishwasher (after checking to make sure there’s no cat inside). Then he collects Samantha and Jade and sits all three of them at the table for a snack of raisins and graham crackers. He’ll probably be responsible for dinner too. That happens every time his mother gets an afternoon migraine. Little Al demands a drink, which makes Samantha want a drink, and after Igor has poured strawberry milk for them and is looking for Jade’s sippy cup, Samantha knocks her cup over and freaks out when her graham crackers get soaked.

“Jamie! Please…” moans his mom.

He slams a dishrag on the table, picks up Jade, grabs Little Al by the hand, and dribbling Samantha between his feet like a soccer ball, herds all three of them outside. He puts the baby in her swing and runs for the back door before Little Al catches on. He reaches the door a second before his brother, latches it behind him, and lets Al holler and kick to his heart’s content. Then he calls Miranda, whose number is stuck on the refrigerator door with a magnet.

She picks up on the second ring. “Are you busy?” he asks without saying hello.

“No…” She sounds uncertain. He’s never called before.

“Could you come over and help me watch the kids? My mom’s down with a headache and I’ve got…a lot of homework. Just for an hour?”

“Oh. Sure!” She sounds so eager he wonders why he never thought of calling her before.

He manages to stop Little Al from kicking all the sand out of Samantha’s sandbox just about the time that Miranda arrives with a nylon rope. “Good idea,” he says. “We can tie him to that tree.”

She laughs. “Silly Igor! I want to try something with the rope. But that tree is perfect.” She loops the rope over a low branch of the birch tree in the backyard. Then she dares Little Al to climb up the trunk and rappel down.

“That’s cool,” Igor says with real admiration. He kind of wants to try it himself.

Miranda smiles. “I saw it on TV. You know Treehouse Family, that reality show on cable?”

“Not really. Okay if I split so I can do a little reading before dinner? Since I’ll probably have to cook it?”

“Sure—I’ll watch the kids.”

He escapes to his room, which Little Al shares, unlocks Cornelia’s cage, and drapes the snake over his shoulders. She likes the warmth of his neck. Then he climbs to the top bunk and opens the envelope at last. He didn’t lie to Miranda about “a little reading,” since he doesn’t think it will take long to read whatever was in the envelope. But he’s wrong.

It’s a letter, all right. Handwritten. Igor feels his head wobble, because he’s never seen anything written by Bobby Price, not even a signature on a Christmas card.

But after the first glance, it’s a big disappointment. The letter is almost impossible to read. For three reasons: 1) the ink has run; 2) at least a fourth of it got chewed up in the garbage disposal; and 3) his father’s handwriting is terrible. Kind of like Igor’s, in fact—now he can understand what his teachers are always griping about.

He can make out a few words—like his own name. Not Igor, or course, but Jim. Somehow that combination of letters jumps off the page, even if smudgy: Jim. Or Jim…? Or even JIM! It’s like a whole lifetime of calls: calls to come in for dinner, or come and explain what happened to the bathroom mirror, or just come and say hello to the old man when he gets home from work. Calls he never heard, saved up in this letter to be spilled all at once. Big Al’s probably the best stepfather a kid could have, but he calls him Igor like everybody else.

“Jim” is his other life, running with ghost-steps alongside the real one. It may even be who he really is on the inside.

And it’s too much for now. Igor sits up in his bed, overwhelmed with too-muchness. Another reason why he can’t read the letter so good; his eyes are all watery. So he just sits there as Cornelia’s snaky heart beats against his neck and happy shouts ring from his half-siblings in the yard and a big gaping hole of silence fills the house.

After a while, he flattens the letter carefully and presses it between the pages of his math workbook.

Miranda’s poking around in the pantry when he returns to the kitchen, while Jade sits on the floor banging a set of measuring cups. “I don’t mean to be nosy,” Miranda says. “But your mom still isn’t feeling well, so I told her I’d see what we could do for dinner.”

“No; that’s great.”

“Here’s some tuna cans. How do the kids like tuna noodle casserole?”

“Not much.”

“Macaroni and cheese?”

“Barf. Don’t even think about it.”

They settle on teriyaki meatballs found in the back of the freezer, with rice and glazed baby carrots. Miranda pulls out a couple of pans while Igor rolls a can of pork and beans toward Jade, who shrieks with joy. “How’d you learn to cook?” he asks.

“Oh, I usually do two or three meals a week because my mom works late on Wednesday and Thursday. And I did most of the baking for Shelly’s bake sale last weekend.”

“Right. I remember.” Shelly was advertising the bake sale two weeks before and selling leftovers on the Monday after. “How’d that go?”

“Pretty good. We made sixty-seven dollars. And I gained three pounds,” she added, self-consciously tugging at her jeans.

Igor retrieves the can that Jade kicked under the pantry door, then rolls it toward his baby sister again. She kicks her feet and claps her hands. He wonders if Bobby Price ever played this game with him.

“Are you ready for the tests next week?” Miranda asks.

He groans out loud. “Why’d you have to say that? I’m trying to forget.”

“Sorry. But it might be better if you did just forget. Relax and let the answers come out of your subconscious.”

“My subconscious doesn’t have any answers. I don’t know why they do this every year. How does spending two days filling in little ovals with a pencil prepare us for adultery?”

Miranda pauses, staring at him. “You mean adulthood?”

“What’d I say?”

She laughs and shakes her head, and all of a sudden, he has an idea.

It may be the kind of idea he should forget, but it’s like a booger that won’t shake off his finger. Even after dinner, and stacking the dishes in the dishwasher, and straightening the overturned chairs and coffee table in the living room, and checking on his mom (who is finally sound asleep), and bathing Jade and Samantha (Miranda is really working overtime), the idea sticks.

When the babies are in bed and Little Al is playing Alien Wars (which he’s not allowed on school nights, but Igor figures it’s educational because you have to count the aliens you vaporize), Miranda seems reluctant to go home. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?” she asks.

“Yeah, I’ll set the alarm so I can get up early in case Mom doesn’t.”

“But who’ll take care of the babies when you leave for school?”

“She’s usually awake by then. If not, I’ll wake her up.” Igor is sharing more about his family than he probably should. “I’ve done it before when she gets…nervous.”

“Does she get…nervous a lot?”

“No…I mean, not really, but… Hold on a minute.”

He’s made a decision. He runs to his room, grabs his math workbook, and runs back to the kitchen. After a glance at his mom to make sure she’s really out like a light, he sits down at the kitchen table and opens his notebook. “She got this in the mail today.”

Mystified, Miranda sits next to him. “Who’s it from?”

“From…my uncle. Her brother.” (Liar! Liar! he thinks.) “He’s in jail.”

To his relief, she doesn’t ask For what? He hasn’t made that part up yet. “What’s in the letter?”

“That’s just it. I’m not sure.” He opens his workbook to where the paper is, flattened but not quite dry, and smudgier than ever. “I think it upset Mom a little because she crumpled it and put it down the garbage disposal.”

“Oh.” Miranda carefully turns the letter toward her and squints at it. “Who’s ‘Jim’?”

“His, uh, little boy. I think.”

“You mean your cousin?” Igor nods, because it doesn’t seem as much like lying if you don’t actually say anything. Miranda goes on, “Okay, this says, ‘I’m taking a course in…psychology?…and reading about…’ Hm. That word’s totally gone. ‘I’ll be…something…parole.’ Maybe, ‘I’ll be up for parole.’”

“What’s parole?”

“It’s when you serve part of your sentence and you’ve got a good record so they think about letting you out early.”

“Really?” Igor’s voice comes out squeaky. “Like, if you’ve served maybe half of a fifteen-year sentence? Like eight or nine years?”

“That sounds about right.” Miranda is still studying the letter. “This says, ‘Tell Jim I’ll…’ uh…‘see him then’? ‘See him there,’ maybe.”

Igor feels a little twinge on the back of his neck. “Are you sure it says see him?”

“Not really. Maybe saw him. Or sew him.” She notices his face. “Are you okay?”

“Sure.”

“Look—down here? This says ‘Watch out.’ The ink’s run but it’s clear enough to read. And look—” She turns the paper over. “It’s marked so hard the impression’s on the other side.”

“Let me see.” He leans closer, and sure enough, the pen marks have raised the paper on the back. Like the writer really wanted to emphasize that point. “Are there any more words like that?”

Miranda tilts the paper and sights down the slope. “Not that I can see. Wonder what she’s supposed to watch out for?”

“I don’t know.” Igor can feel his face freezing, like all the blood was streaming out.

“It might be a joke.”

“Yeah, but if he’s up for parole, it might mean he’s headed this way. Like, watch out for me.”

“Maybe.” She places the letter on the table and spreads out her fingers on top. “Is he…uh…violent?”

“No. No.” Unless pointing a handgun at a bunch of little kids could be considered violent. “No…I don’t really remember him.”

Miranda keeps smoothing the paper with one hand. “Are you worried?”

“I don’t know.” Though in fact, he probably was a little worried, and a few other things too, like anxious, excited, afraid…

“Look, Igor, it’s probably nothing to worry about—or be ashamed of either. Lots of families have a black sheep.”

“Like yours?”

“Not really, but… Well, for instance. Shelly’s Uncle Mike has been in all kinds of trouble with the law. It started in high school when he hung out with this wild kid who was, like, the prank king. Shelly’s told me about her uncle’s problems with bad checks and stuff, but I don’t think she even knows about the worst—” She stops herself abruptly.

“The worst what?” Igor asks.

“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you, because it’s like gossip. My mother just happened to write an article about it for her school newspaper in seventh grade. That’s how I know.”

“If it was in the newspaper, it’s not gossip,” Igor points out. Makes sense to him.

“Well…just to help you feel better about your uncle. This guy Shelly’s uncle used to hang out with—Jason somebody—wanted to do the ultimate graduation prank. So he got a bunch of guys to go along with the plan, which was to fill Ziploc bags with little balls—mostly bouncy rubber balls, but also marbles—and hide them under their gowns. Mike was a junior that year, so his job was to bring the bags in a box and hide them in a certain spot that the gang would know about. Nobody knows for sure how many were involved, but it was at least a dozen.”

“How did it work?” Igor is very interested in earning the title of Prank King for himself someday, so he’s always collecting ideas.

“Well. Back in the day, they had graduation in the stadium, and all the seniors were supposed to gather in the upper bleachers at the end zone. When ‘Pomp and Circumstance’ started playing, they all stood up and marched down to the seats in front of the speakers’ platform.

“So the music starts and everybody stands, and while they’re marching, all the seniors who were in on the plan opened their bags, and the balls and marbles fell out and bounced all over the place. They were supposed to wad up their plastic bags right after that and hide them in their pockets or clothes—which would be easy under a graduation gown—so nobody would ever know who actually did it.”

“Cool!” says Igor.

“Except for one thing. The seniors who didn’t know about it weren’t prepared, so there was some slipping and falling, especially with the marbles. That was supposed to happen. Nobody was supposed to get really hurt. But somebody did: Troy Pasternak.”

“Pasternak? Like the Pasternaks we know?”

“Yep. You’ve seen that plaque on the gazebo—‘In Honor of Troy Lawrence Pasternak’? He was Jay’s dad’s little brother. Jay’s uncle. He was senior class president and a football hero and all that. So he slipped as he was coming down those concrete stairs and couldn’t get his balance back and fell all the way down the steps and landed on his head.

“They didn’t know how bad it was at first—somebody called an ambulance, and as soon as he was off to the hospital, they went on with graduation. But Troy was in a coma for two months, and when he finally came out of it, his brain was totally messed up. He’s been in a nursing home ever since.”

“Oh.” Igor makes a mental note to pass on the bouncy-ball trick.

“None of the seniors admitted to anything, but everybody knew who the ringleader was. And somebody saw Shelly’s Uncle Mike with a box of Ziploc bags, so they searched his car and found extra bags with marbles—Shelly says he’s not too smart. Mike blabbed about whose idea it was, but the Jason guy skipped town right after graduation and nobody’s seen or heard of him since. That was all in my mom’s article. She did a good job of reporting.”

Miranda suddenly stands, and the letter flutters in the draft. “I’d better go! I told her I’d be home by nine, and it’s five past.”

Igor jumps to his feet. “Thanks again. For coming over and everything. Oh—and don’t mention this letter to my mom, because she’ll get all upset. Or anybody else, because…”

“Sure, I understand. Do you ever write to him?”

“Uh…no.” He’s never had the address.

But now he does.

“Sometimes it’s easier to communicate in writing,” Miranda says. “It is for me, anyway. Like, I’ve always had a hard time talking to my dad on the phone, but since Christmas, I’ve been trying to email once a week. I just write about what’s going on and stuff—nothing big—but he’s been writing back. Last Saturday when he called, we had a real conversation.”

“That’s good.” For some reason, Igor feels an overwhelming urge to throw his arms around her and squeeze hard, even though she’s two inches taller and not his mom. Also a grade ahead of him, even though they’re really the same age.

Instead, he sticks out his hand. “I guess I’ll…see you tomorrow.”

She takes it, and it’s funny, but he gets the feeling that she would have hugged him back. “Okay. I hope your mother’s better soon.”

• • •

His mother seems to be feeling okay in the morning. She’s stirring oatmeal for Jade when Igor stumbles into the kitchen yawning, because he and Little Al stayed up past eleven playing Alien Wars. “Thanks for taking over last night,” she says. “I’m sorry.”

“’S okay.” He takes a bowl from the cupboard and a box of raisin bran from the corner cabinet. “Miranda helped a lot.”

“She’s such a nice girl. I’m glad you thought of calling her.”

“Uh-huh.” Next, a gallon of milk from the fridge. “Mom, do you ever, like, write to anybody?”

“What do you mean?” A spoon stops halfway to Jade’s mouth.

“Like letters. Or email.”

“Sure I do. That’s how I keep up with your Aunt Beth. I’d rather call, but she likes the emails. Or that crazy Facebook. I just can’t get into that stuff.” She shoves a spoonful of oatmeal in Jade’s mouth and goes for another. “I mean, why stick yourself up on some website where anybody can find out all about you?”

Igor takes a breath. “Do you ever write to…my dad?”

His mother’s hand stops again then glides on toward Jade’s mouth. “Why should I? He calls almost every night when he’s gone.”

“You know who I mean.”

The spoon dives into the oatmeal and sticks up like a flag. “Do I?”

“Come on, Mom. What if he gets out on parole?”

Her eyes shift to the disposal and back again—really quick, but he sees it. “I’m not going to talk about it.”

“But, Mom—”

“I’m not talking about it!”

“Not even when he shows up?”

“What do you mean?”

“He will sometime, won’t he? He’s not dead!”

Jade winds up her I-want-my-breakfast siren, but the spoon is now flipping little chunks of oatmeal at Igor. “Keep your voice down!”

“Why? Afraid the neighbors will find out my dad’s a jailbird?”

“Shut up! And listen, mister, I don’t know what kind of game you’re playing with all these questions, but don’t think I haven’t noticed!”

“Noticed what?”

“All these questions!”

“About what?”

“You know what!”

“I don’t know what,” says Little Al, now dragging himself into the kitchen. “What?”

“Out!” yells their mother, standing up and pointing to the door while Jade cranks the decibel level up to a ten.

“But I haven’t had breakfast yet!” Little Al yells back.

Mom fumbles in the cabinet for a package of Pop-Tarts and throws it at them. “There’s breakfast! You can share.”

“But—”

“Out!!”

Igor is already on his way. He snatches their jackets off the hook by the back door. “Let’s go, Ally.”

“But my lunch! And I didn’t brush my teeth!”

“That never bothered you before. Come on!”

They leave without lunches, snacks, or even backpacks; if anybody asks, Igor intends only to say that his mom threw him out of the house ten minutes early.

“What’s the matter with her?” Little Al whines as they trudge across the common.

Igor shrugs, even though he knows. But he doesn’t know enough! That’s why the crazy thought that occurred to him last night, which seemed so far out it might have been Jupiter, is now speeding toward earth like a comet.

It’s a soft spring morning, all pink and cream about the edges with a touch of lilac in the air. Bender and Matthew are already at the gazebo, arguing over some science thing. Jay arrives soon after, flinging his backpack on a bench and collapsing beside it. Spencer is close behind.

“What’s the matter?” Bender asks Jay.

“Shut up.”

“He lost the soccer game last night.” Spencer climbs the gazebo steps with his backpack over one shoulder and his guitar case in the other hand. Lately he’s been taking the guitar to school on Tuesdays so he can jam with the junior high jazz band during lunch. “Had the ball lined up with the goal and kicked it with the side of his foot so it went out of bounds. Coach ripped him a new one, right there on the field.”

“Soccer’s a stupid game,” Jay mutters, pushing his glasses up on his nose. “Sissy, European runaround.”

“So stick to running,” says Spencer. “You’re a great runner.” Jay makes a noise, something between a snort and a laugh. “No, seriously. You ran over seven miles that day, and it might have been farther if—”

“Dude,” Jay says warningly.

“If what?” asks Bender.

Spencer says, “Remember that night he was late and everybody was looking for him?”

Jay rounds on him furiously. “Dude!”

“He found some kind of hermit’s hideout on the old railroad bed. Hey, let go!” Spencer squirms out of the half nelson Jay locks on his neck. “Scared the crap out of him.”

“I told you not to tell!”

“I didn’t promise!” Spencer rubs his neck. “It’s not the kind of secret you ought to keep. What if he’s somebody wanted by the FBI?”

Bender is all over it: Where? When? Who? Igor, preoccupied with his own thoughts, can’t muster much interest in some old hermit, whatever that is. Bender pulls a piece of newspaper out of his pocket. The other boys are gathering around it when Little Al tugs on Igor’s shirt. “There’s Mom.”

A blue station wagon pulls up, hand frantically waving from the window. Sighing, Igor slouches over. “Here’s your lunch,” his mom sniffs. “And Little Al’s.” She hands over two paper bags, and Igor imagines the contents: a slapped-together PB&J, a bag of chips, and maybe an apple if she had one to throw in. “And here’s your backpack. I couldn’t find Little Al’s. I’m sorry, honey, but I wish you wouldn’t bring up…certain things. It makes me crazy.”

“I know,” Igor says simply, his arms loaded with stuff. He doesn’t say I’m sorry.

“I’ve gotta go—Jade’s in her playpen and Samantha’s waking up.”

“Okay.” Igor steps back from the car, hands Little Al his lunch, and is all the way back to the gazebo before he hears the station wagon rev up and make a wide U-turn.

“Zip it,” Bender is saying. “Here come the girls. If Kaitlynn gets hold of this, we’ll have to have a neighborhood garage sale for the guy.”

“Just forget I said anything,” Jay says. “Or he said anything,” he adds with a kick at Spencer. “My dad would have a cow if he finds out I didn’t tell him first.”

“My dad would think it’s a hoot,” Spencer says.

“My dad wouldn’t hear even if I told him,” Bender says. “Even if he still lived with us.”

“My dad doesn’t seem to exist,” Matthew says.

And my dad, Igor is thinking, is going to hear from me. He’s made up his mind; the comet has crashed.

• • •

Dear Dad Bobby Mr. Price,

This is Jim. Even tho evrybody calls me Igor. I am in 5th grade now. I dont do too good in scool but evrybody likes me. Almost, ha. My step dad is cool. He got us a snake for Cristmas. Its a corn snake. She belongs to both of us but I get to keep her in my room. I want to know if you will get out on peroll soon. Thats all for now.

Love,

Igor (Jim)

p.s. Dont tell mom I wrote to you.

Rereading the letter, he realizes he should have started over after the cross-outs on the first line rather than going on. His teacher is always making the class turn in a sloppy copy, then rewrite after corrections, so he was probably thinking he’d make a neat copy after the first draft. But the joke is on him: aside from the first line, the letter is almost painfully neat, much better than his usual work. If he tried to copy the whole thing, it would probably look worse than the original.

But how does it sound? Does he say too much about his stepfather, like enough to make his real father jealous? Probably okay—there’s more about the snake than about Big Al. Is it bragging to say that (almost) everybody likes him? Even if it’s (mostly) true? Should he include one of his wallet-size school pictures from the kitchen drawer or wait to see if Bobby Price writes back?

But wait—what if his dad does write back? What would that do to Mom, to receive an envelope addressed to “Jim” from Tanglewood Medium Security Prison? After pondering for a minute, Igor adds one more postscript:

p.s.s. If you write back, dont send it to me. send it to Miranda Scott at 370 Courtney Circle ect.

That raises the stakes. He’ll have to admit the truth to Miranda: that the man in jail is a closer relative than he’d said. It would also mean breaking numerous promises to his mother that he wouldn’t tell anybody—but the promise is half-broken already.

Igor decides to let the letter go, just as it is. He sneaks a stamp and an envelope from the desk drawer in the family room, copies the return address on the face of his envelope, slides his letter inside, and slaps a stamp on it. Tomorrow morning, he’ll slip it into the Mulroonys’ mailbox and raise their flag—they both leave for work early, so nobody will know.

It’ll be easy. So why is his heart pounding like a jackhammer?

• • •

On Wednesday, achievement tests start. For two days, he sits in strange classrooms filling in ovals in test booklets, pushing his brain like a wheelbarrow past rows of words and numbers. It seems tougher this year than usual, and maybe that’s because the letter is on its way west, taking his brain with it.

Friday is an early dismissal day. In the morning, he and the bus arrive at the gazebo at the same time. He lines up with the others, feeling perfectly still inside. So much so that Mrs. B remarks, “Are you okay, Igor?”

Bender, Matthew, Jay, and Spencer are holding a conference in the back. As Igor takes a seat by himself, Shelly climbs aboard with a pair of sparkly pompoms, which she pumps up and down while screeching, “I have an announcement!!”

From the back, Bender groans loudly.

“When I got home from school yesterday, there was a letter waiting for me. From Shooting Star Camp.” She pauses. “I got a partial scholarship! And…I’m…IN!”

Shelly waves the pompoms again and leads three cheers. On her way down the aisle, she slaps high fives with the littles, Kaitlynn, even Alice, finally dropping down beside Miranda.

“Does this mean you can stop selling stuff?” asks Jay.

“And making announcements?” asks Bender.

“Congratulations,” says Mrs. B. “Let’s roll.”

Sitting one seat behind her, Igor can feel the energy radiating from Shelly. But Miranda seems to wilt like yesterday’s french fries. He hears her ask, “Why didn’t you call and tell me last night?”

“Last night? I had a ton of people to call. My grandmas and Aunt Maria and Aunt Shonda and my dance teacher and voice coach and everybody on the Y-Team and this booking agent I’ve been talking to. Plus I had to write a letter of acceptance, and then Mom and I went through all my costumes to see if I should take any with me, and we made a list of the supplies we had to buy—the baby crying all the time—and listen to my dad wonder how we were going to find money for the airfare and…”

Shelly chatters happily all the way to school. At every single stop, she jumps up to wave her pompoms and make her announcement. Miranda barely says two words. Igor notices—funny how feeling quiet makes him notice stuff. Like the little sniffs Miranda is making and the way she flicks at her eyes with her index finger.

When they finally pull into the bus line at school, Shelly is first to pop up. While she’s hurrying to gather her stuff, one of the pompoms flips to the floor under Miranda’s feet. “Oops! Hand me that, would you, Mir?”

Miranda picks up the pompom. Then she stands and hurls it with all her might to the rear of the bus where it bounces off the seat Bender and Matthew just vacated.

Shelly looks more puzzled than angry. “Wha—What’s with you?”

“Get your own stuff from now on!” Miranda clutches her backpack in both arms and pushes past Shelly, marching up the aisle like she’ll plow right through the windshield if Mrs. B doesn’t let her off. Mrs. B is not supposed to let anybody off before they’re all the way in the bus lane, but she takes one look at Miranda’s face and pushes the door lever without a word.

Igor’s eye falls upon a lunch sack listing sadly on its side where Miranda’s feet used to be. He squeezes past Shelly and scoops it up. Hurrying up the aisle, he waves the bag at Mrs. B and points out the window. “She left it. Can I—”

With a sigh, the driver opens the door again. Igor glances back; every face has the same stunned expression except Shelly, who throws up her hands in total cluelessness. “What?” she asks Igor. He shakes his head and leaps all three steps with a single bound.

Though she’s moving right along, Miranda’s not hard to catch up to. “You left this,” he says, holding out her lunch bag.

She snatches it out of his hand, walking a little faster as their bus inches up beside them. Soon the doors will open and spill everybody out, and he knows she wants to get out of range. They turn the corner of the bus lane and head up the big curve of sidewalk leading to the main entrance. Two flags snap on the wind as they pass the flagpole.

Miranda says, “She could have called me.” Her voice sounds weepy. “I helped her with all that. I managed her campaign, made most of the Christmas ornaments she sold, let her steal my poem, collected canned goods—”

“Steal your what?”

“My poem.” Miranda sniffs loudly. “My poem about the empty bus stop, that Shelly got me to turn in with her name, and she got a one on it and it was in the book. But somebody knew it was mine, because I got an anonymous Christmas card with a copy of the poem in it. My poem. And besides”—sniff—“I did almost all the baking for her bake sale—which was my idea too. She—she could have at least called me.”

He recognizes the sounds of an oncoming meltdown from long experience with his mom and has already started feeling the side pockets of his backpack for a wad of Kleenex.

Miranda almost runs the last few steps, aiming at a spot under the porch roof where a shadow waits to hide her. Pressing her back against the concrete wall, she gulps out, “I’m not jealous or anything. I’d be happy for her if she’d let me be happy with her. I don’t mind being the ugly boring friend, I just—just wanna be—I just—”

He found it! Digging out the scrunched-up package, he pulls a scrunched-up (but clean) tissue from it just in time. Her breath is chugging and her nose is running as she snatches it from him.

“You’re not ugly,” he says. And means it, even though, with her red eyes and wet nose, she has looked better.

The first bell rings. “Thanks,” she sniffs then stuffs the tissue in her pocket and bolts for the door before she has to meet anyone from the bus.

Igor follows more slowly. If he’s late, it won’t be the first time.

• • •

When school gets out at noon, Shelly tries to talk to Miranda but soon gives up and takes her assigned seat. She’s still pumped but not so obnoxious about it. Igor is starting to pay more attention, and he notices that when Bender and Matthew board the bus, Bender stops for a quick message to Spencer and Jay. The four of them, now that he thinks about it, have been very chummy for the last week or so, and it’s starting to bother him. What’s up with that? Are they cooking up a plan? And why can’t he be part of it?

It’s a rowdier ride than usual and seems twice as long, but finally the bus reaches its final destination. As the last riders pile off, Igor falls in behind Spencer and Jay, who are heading in the same direction as Matthew and Bender. He lags back, watching the four of them meet at the gazebo.

Sometimes acting impulsively is a good thing—if he’d stopped to consider his next move, someone would have noticed him. He jogs across the grass as though taking a shortcut toward home, then angles back in a straight line that ends in the rose of Sharon bushes beside the gazebo entrance. From here, he can pick up almost every word.

A plan is being made. After a few seconds, it seems the plan has some glitches, and a few seconds more reveals the glitch is Spencer.

“Tell your mom you can’t do it,” Bender is saying. “So what if you miss one Space Camp orientation?”

“I can’t tell her that,” Spencer says. “She’s already ticked off at my dad because I took up the guitar—says it distracts me from academic pursuits.”

Bender makes a rude noise. “This is an academic pursuit. It’s all about knowledge.”

“But what are we supposed to do with it?” Jay flops on the bench over Igor’s head, making it creak.

Matthew says something, which Igor can’t make out because Matthew’s on the other side of the gazebo and his voice is quiet.

“Never know what?” Jay replies. “Yeah, okay, so it may fill some gaps, but—”

“We could fill one gap really easily,” Bender interrupts, “if you could just find out what happened to your uncle.”

Igor’s ears perk up. They actually tingle. Might “your uncle” be Uncle Troy?

“I told you,” says Jay. “My dad said he slipped on some marbles and fell down a flight of concrete steps.”

“We all know there’s more to it than that—” Bender gets no further because Igor has popped out of the bushes and run around to the gazebo entrance.

“Is that what you want to know?”

“Where’d you come from?” Bender demands.

“You want to know what happened at high school graduation? Class of ’85?” They’re all staring at him in surprise, an expression that usually turns to impatience or worse. But he has something they want, for the first time since he can remember. He’s received all kinds of attention in his life—laughter, mockery, anger, and frustration—but this is the best.

He says, “I know exactly what happened.”