Ghost (Track #1)(20)

“What’s wrong with that?” I asked. Shoot, having your own store seemed like a sweet deal. You ain’t never gotta pay for no groceries.

“Nothing is wrong with it. Not to me and you. But to them? Oh, they look at me like some kind of letdown. You know what they call this place? Charlie’s little store,” he said, his voice now more serious. “Little. Don’t ever let someone call your life, your dreams, little. Hear me?” I nodded. He continued, all fired up, “Because while they’re out there sniffing their own butts, I get to hang out with a big man, like you. A future World’s Greatest. And that’s cool.” Mr. Charles smiled big. Warm. “So we got a deal? No more skipping school?”

“No more skipping school,” I agreed all quick.

He lifted his hand from the bag, but before I could take it, he slapped his hand back down on it.

“You’re not just saying that to get the seeds, are you?” he said, now glaring.

“Nah, man. For real. No more skipping school!”

He let go of the sunflower seeds, and I snatched the bag before he changed his mind again.

But I didn’t breeze on out of the store like I normally do. I was still kinda paranoid about being busted by the cops, slammed up against the wall, searched, caught with fancy running shoes in my backpack, and thrown in jail where the cafeteria food is worse than my school’s and the hospital’s. So I just hung around the store eating my seeds while Mr. Charles went through inventory. He had just gotten a drop-off of new stuff: sodas, chips, cleaning products, cereal.

“You can’t just hang out here, Castle. I mean, you’re my guy, but you see that sign?” Mr. Charles pointed to the one on the window. NO LOITERING.

“Ain’t nobody loitering. You don’t see me just spitting seeds on your floor or nothing like that,” I protested. I opened my hand so he could see that I had been spitting them into my palm.

“No, not littering. Loitering,” Mr. Charles said, ripping open a box. “Means you can’t just stand around.”

“Oh, well, you want me to help you with some of these boxes?” I asked, hoping he’d say yes, because the only other place I could go was the bus stop, and that was too out in the open. Either that or the track, but I was going to end up there later anyway, and after yesterday, I wasn’t down for another double practice. Plus, if the cops were out looking for a kid who stole track shoes, they might show up where the kid might be using them. So it was best to not be out there in the middle of the day, alone.

Mr. Charles studied me for a moment, then thrust a box of cat food in my arms. “Here, help me unpack this.”

The process was simple. There should be five of everything, everywhere, which was really just a weird way for Mr. Charles to keep the store looking neat and organized, and also an easy way for him to know if people were stealing from him. So for instance, in the fridge, there should be five of every soda. Five of every juice. On the cereal shelf there needed to be five of every kind of cereal, even the nasty ones that taste like dirt until you put sugar on it. Same went for chips and cookies. So my job was to look around the store and let Mr. Charles know what was missing.

“We need two orange juices,” I said, thumbing through the juices like I was looking for a shirt in the coldest closet ever. Mr. Charles, as usual, didn’t hear me. I looked over; he was reading another piece of paper. This time it was one that he pulled from a box. I think it was like a receipt or something to tell him what he was supposed to have in each carton. He never even looked up, didn’t hear me at all. Dang. I wonder what it must be like to be hard of hearing. I bet gunshots sound like knocks on the door, which is a scary thought. Sheesh. Anyway, I repeated myself, louder. “Mr. Charles!” This time he looked up. “We need two orange juices.” Mr. Charles nodded, pulled two from a box, and handed them to me.

Of course, while we were doing all this, I kept an eye on my backpack. I had set it down in a corner at the back of the store. Every time we’d restock some cookies or some dishwashing liquid, I would double-check to make sure it was still there, that my sweet silver babies were still safe.

After the counting and restocking was done, Mr. Charles asked me to move all the leftovers into the stockroom.

“No problem,” I said, struggling to get a grip on the sides of one of the bigger cardboard boxes. “Is there any order you want me to put them in?”

“Nope,” Mr. Charles said, now wiping down the counter. “Just stack it all up toward the back so I can get in there and move around. That’s all.”

One by one, I picked up boxes of ramen noodles, six-packs of beer, and cases of Worcestershire sauce (war-sess-ter-shyer . . . worst-tester-shier . . . gotta be a world record for hardest word) and moved them into the stockroom. Mr. Charles seemed to have relaxed and was now standing behind the counter, staring at his old TV again. That made me feel kind of good, like I was doing something to help the old man out. I mean, he had always been so cool to me, such a good dude, so it felt nice to be able to do something for him. Plus, he was getting up there in age. He even had that weird, flappy, turkey-neck thing. So lifting these boxes was probably getting pretty hard for him.

The sixth (or was it the seventh?) box was the heaviest. It was filled with gallons of water, which was crazy because it just doesn’t seem like water should be that heavy. I mean, it’s clear. Like air. And air don’t weigh nothing. I couldn’t even really lift the box. I just kinda held my arms straight and did the caveman walk to the stockroom, bumping into everything, including the stockroom door, hoping I’d make it there before my shoulders popped out the sockets.