From Ant to Eagle(4)

I knew better than to believe anything Dad said but Sammy was as gullible as a crow.

“Really?” he replied in a shrill cry.

“A-ha, I knew you weren’t asleep,” Dad laughed.

“That wasn’t nice of you, Harold,” I heard Mom say from somewhere behind the door.

Dad left the serious side of parenting to Mom. He wrote a humour column for the London Free Press and I guess he had trouble living outside that column. Sammy was his biggest fan; I was a close second.

“Good one, Dad,” I heard Sammy say laughing from the bunk below as he climbed out of bed.

I continued pretending I was asleep.

“Come on, Cal, I know you’re awake up there too, we can’t keep God waiting all day.” I heard Dad turn and walk out of the room.

“He’s not asleep,” Sammy said, stepping up onto his bunk so he could peer over the railing into mine. He stuck his hand out and shook my shoulder.

In one swift motion, I shot up in my bunk and caught him with a punch in his upper arm. He cried out and jumped back down to the ground. For a moment he stood looking up at me, rubbing his arm with a defiant look on his face. I could tell he had it in his mind to say something but instead he stuck out his tongue and walked out of the room.

Church started out the same as it did every other Sunday. Reverend Ramos spoke in his funny voice about news from around town—of which there really was none—then droned on and on about something that might as well have been in Latin because nobody was listening.

We had arrived late that day and had had to squeeze into the second-from-last pew. If the sermon hadn’t already started, I would have protested when I saw Tom and Joey in the pew in front of us.

Joey took the first pause in the sermon to turn around. “Hey, Pudge,” he said, addressing Sammy, “you’re looking fatter than usual. Ever think about getting some exercise? I’d let you ride my new bike but you’d probably just break it if you sat on it.” He looked up at his older brother for approval.

Joey was Sammy’s age and had tormented my brother endlessly in grade one. Sammy was a bit doughy, but I didn’t like someone else saying it. Especially not a Riley. They were known for being mean. Probably because their dad was mean.

Sammy didn’t reply. He just looked down at his feet.

Now it was Tom’s turn. He turned to me and took a less obvious approach to being a jerk. “You been practicing your basketball?” he asked.

It wasn’t really a question; Tom was never interested in anyone but himself, so I didn’t answer.

“I have,” he continued, “Pops paved part of the driveway so we can dribble.”

“Yeah. Maybe you can fetch Tom’s water bottle when he’s thirsty next year,” Joey added.

Sammy had been sitting silently trying to ignore their taunts but that was it. He was fine with them picking on him, but as soon as anyone had something to say about me, he was all fists.

“Yeah, right,” he bellowed, way too loud for church, “Cal isn’t going to be fetching water bottles for anyone. He’s already got his Eagle Level. He’ll be the best basketballer at the school next year.” His big eyes narrowed into tiny slits as he glared at Joey with such hostility that I thought he would lash out and hit him right there in church.

There was a collective shush from a few people and Mom glared down the pew at us. Tom and Joey quickly turned around when their dad looked at them. He was the only person they listened to.

I didn’t mind getting in trouble. I was worked up and ready to add my own two cents. And I would have, had something else not caught my eye.

Not something—someone.

Three people had just walked into the church.

Huxbury wasn’t a big town and the church community was even smaller. Everyone knew everyone. So when three newcomers turned up late that Sunday, everyone noticed. Even Reverend Ramos paused momentarily and smiled at them.

There were two girls and a man who I guessed right away to be their father. The girls looked eerily alike and were wet from the rain. Their dark hair was tied up in matching green bows and their bangs lay matted to their foreheads. The man was tall with a greying beard and a stern look. He ushered the girls into the empty pew behind us and sat stiffly watching the reverend. The older of the two girls looked like she was already in high school and had a similar serious and unwavering look as her father. The younger girl looked to be about my age and didn’t for a second seem interested in the sermon. Instead her eyes danced around the church taking in everything. They stopped momentarily on me and I felt the thumping in my chest pick up.

Gosh, she was pretty.

Her crayon-green eyes stood out against her dark hair and I could see the reflection of the candles around the church in them. I looked away quickly with an awkward realization that I’d been staring.

For the rest of the sermon, I managed to secretly watch her while pretending to pay attention to the reverend. She continued to glance around the church for a while before stopping to grab a hymnbook from the pew in front of her. She thumbed through the pages at a pace that made it obvious she wasn’t really reading.

After a while, she lay the hymnbook open in her lap and slowly reached her hand inside her raincoat pocket. As she did so, she wore an expressionless look on her face and stared toward the front of the church. She worked slowly and carefully, withdrawing her hand in slight increments every few seconds so that it was almost unnoticeable. When her hand was finally free from her pocket, it was tightly wrapped around a small paperback.