Spare Change (Wyattsville #1)(52)

She took a peek at the price tag and shook her head.

“But,” he reasoned, “if I had this bike, I’d be riding it morning till night. I’d never be inside dirtying up the house.”

Although such a prospect was tempting, Olivia shook her head again. She led the boy out of the shop and across the street to the luncheonette. After lunch they made one last stop; at the pet shop she bought a small bag of dog food, some flea control shampoo, a leash and a harness. “You could of saved your money,” Ethan Allen said, “cause he hates baths and really hates being tied down.”

Within days of his arrival, the boy and his dog became the best kept secret at Wyattsville Arms. Everyone knew but no one uttered a whisper, lest the Rules Committee catch wind of it. Residents who spotted a shaggy-haired dog darting down the back staircase would hold the door open, then signal when the coast was clear. People on the seventh floor began to discreetly pluck loose dog hair from the hall carpet and carefully dispose of it in their own waste basket. Others began stopping by to bring some silly thing Olivia would never in a million years have need of. First it was Bessie Porter, who came trotting in with a sack of Hershey bars that she supposedly brought just in case Olivia was to have a craving for sweets. Next Harry Hornsby dropped off a baseball mitt his grandson no longer used. Fred McGinty, who found it in his heart to forgive the boy for thinking of him as a dead man, brought over eight cans of dog food then stayed for hours playing checkers with Ethan. “He’s a fine lad,” Fred whispered into Olivia’s ear, “why, anybody would enjoy having him around.”

“Maybe so,” Olivia sighed, in a way that had questionable undertones. “But remember, his being here is temporary. Once I’ve located his real family, he’s sure to be moving on.”

Fred shook his head. “That’s unfortunate,” he said, “losing a lad like this, what a shame.” Olivia, however, remained blank-faced and voiced no opinion.

True, she’d noticed the way the boy had made an effort to cut back on his cussing and spoon up some cereal for breakfast, but that didn’t change the fact that he was eleven! Not just eleven, but also attached to a scraggly looking dog which, likely as not, would get her evicted. Olivia could name a thousand reasons why it was better for the boy to move on, but although she never once mentioned it aloud, the number one reason was the nightmare that kept recurring. It was a painful thing to imagine you could turn into Francine Burnam, and even worse when the thought haunted you all night long and caused you to wake up gasping for breath.

In an effort to speed up the finding of Ethan’s true family, Olivia began spending more time with the boy. Night after night they’d sit together and play poker or work on fitting pieces into the picture puzzle he had spread across the dining room table. “This looks like Hoot Evers’ ear Ethan would say, and while he was fixing that piece in place, Olivia would start asking about his mama and daddy.

“Did your mama ever mention wanting to go to some special place?” she asked, “Her hometown, maybe?”

“New York City,” Ethan Allen answered, as he rummaged through a pile of pieces in search of Brooks Robinson’s nose.

“New York; was that where your mama was from?”

“Uh-uh,” he answered, shaking his head but focusing his concentration on the finding of a foot. “That’s where she wanted to go.”

“She ever mention any cousins? Distant cousins maybe?”

Although he’d eased off the snippiness of his answers, Ethan Allen still claimed to have no knowledge whatsoever of any other relatives; which exasperated Olivia to no end. Finally, after running out of questions relating to the life of his mama, Olivia asked how exactly her death had come about. The boy turned red-faced and bolted from the chair like he’d been charged through with electricity. Before Olivia had time to think, he swept his arm across the table and sent the pieces of the puzzle they’d been working on for almost a week, flying to the floor. “Just leave it be!” he screamed. “I was sound asleep when it happened, and I don’t know nothing! Nothing!” He turned on his heel and slammed out the door, leaving Dog behind.





Tom Behrens

I sure hope little Jack Mahoney got hold of his grandpa in time to get help for his mama. It’s an awful thing, seeing a boy small as him, saddled with more worry than a grown man ought to have.

I can still remember back when my own Mama died. I was the same as that kid. There wasn’t a single soul to look out for me, not even a grasshopper to care whether I lived or died. It ain’t right for a boy to go through such a thing, it ain’t even the littlest bit right.

Human beings ought to look out for one another. If I was a decent sort, I’d do something to help that boy out.

Maybe, by God, I will.





Righting a Wrong

After Tom Behrens watched the boy ride off in the chicken truck, he returned to the ESSO station. That afternoon he swept the office floor five times without recalling he’d done it before; then he opened up a second case of oil cans, figuring to stack them in a display rack which he’d already filled. Tom thought he had forgotten that summer when his life took such a terrible turn; but now, here it was—back again, haunting him with a slew of memories bitter as hardpan kale.

Even now, some twenty-two years later, he regretted not running his daddy through with a pitchfork. Tom moved a stack of tires from one side of the doorway to the other, all the while wondering if he would have been able to do it. At the time, he was taller and more filled out than this boy, but still a kid. Tommy, his mama had said, wiping the tears from her eyes, you’re the man of the house now—but such a responsibility should never have been shoved onto a kid’s shoulders. What, he wondered, did she expect from a thirteen year old boy? What could he do? Nothing, that’s what!