The Removed(30)

When I woke, it was time for Wyatt to be heading home. The bus was supposed to drop him off down at the end of the road. I told Ernest we should stand on the porch rather than wait for him at the stop even though he said he wouldn’t be embarrassed. We waited for fifteen minutes after the bus was supposed to arrive, but there was no Wyatt. The road was empty.

“Where is he?” I said. “Maybe the bus is late?”

“Call someone,” Ernest said.

I went inside to get my phone and called the school. I started thinking the worst: he was attacked, assaulted, got into trouble, had to stay in the principal’s office or detention. A nightmare, having to deal with that. But the office receptionist was no help.

“Did anything bad happen at school to him?” I asked. “Did he get picked on?”

While I was on hold, waiting for her to check with the teachers, I told Ernest we needed to start looking for Wyatt. We started down the road, Ernest walking beside me, looking confused. I felt a quick jolt of panic, wondering if Wyatt had run away after getting off the bus. Maybe he didn’t like it with us after all. Maybe he wanted to be elsewhere and would send Bernice to pick up his belongings. It didn’t seem right, though. In the morning he had been happy. Maybe he’d gotten picked on during the bus ride home. Maybe another kid made fun of him. Had he gotten into a fight? What else could possibly go wrong?

“I knew it,” I said aloud, but Ernest didn’t respond. “I knew he’d have a bad day.”

When the receptionist got back on the line, she said there were no problems with Wyatt at school. The buses had all left. I hung up and thought about calling Bernice, but Ernest and I kept walking quickly. As we got to the end of the road, I saw Wyatt up ahead and felt a strong surge of relief. There he was with a group of other kids from school, huddled in the open field across the road from where the bus dropped them off. There were ten or twelve kids total in the field, in two separate groups, which surprised me until we walked closer.

“They’re playing football,” Ernest said.

Sure enough, Wyatt had organized an entire game of touch football. We crossed the road to the edge of the field. He was giving directions to both teams, playing referee. We heard him shouting, calling one boy “Captain Oblivious” and another “Blockhead.” They were both bigger than Wyatt, but taking his orders like lost children. He removed his cap and threw it to the ground, stomping on it in mock frustration. Then he laughed, telling Captain Oblivious and Blockhead to run back to their respective teams.

“They’re having fun,” Ernest said. “He’s with friends.”

The game continued, full tackle without pads, both teams seemingly coached by Wyatt, who ran back and forth along the sidelines to give instructions in huddles or demonstrate head fakes and leg tackles while the boys kneeled and watched. Eventually the game came to an end, and they gathered around him. He showed them speed and agility drills, full circles and half circles, and then ran a receiving route while the quarterback threw a long, perfect spiral to him. He caught it with ease, jogging into the makeshift end zone. The rest of the boys chased after him, cheering.

There were high fives and fist bumps before the players separated. “Catch you guys later,” Wyatt told them, walking toward us with his backpack.

“We were worried you weren’t coming back,” I told him.

“What?” he said. “We were playing football. I’ve known those guys since sixth grade.”

We headed back down the road toward the house. Out of nowhere, Ernest started laughing, patting Wyatt on the shoulder in a proud, fatherly way.

AFTER DINNER Wyatt took a shower, got cleaned up, and spent some time in Ray-Ray’s room, doing homework. When I knocked on the door to check on him, I found him typing an essay on Ernest’s old typewriter, which we kept in the room. It hadn’t been used in many years, maybe not since Ray-Ray used it. Wyatt typed with two fingers slowly, and didn’t look up when I entered.

“We have a computer in the living room,” I told him. “You don’t want to use this old thing, do you? It’s kind of junky.”

“I don’t mind,” he said, staring down at the keys as he typed.

I watched him a moment. “Well, I can leave you alone if you want. Or maybe you need help?”

He stopped, rolled the paper out, and read it silently. With a pencil he wrote something on it, then inserted it into the typewriter and began typing again.

So I left him alone. Ernest was standing outside the door, waiting for me.

“Well?” he said. “What did he say?”

“About what?”

“Is he giving any clues about the Spirit World? I think the Great Spirit may have sent Ray-Ray back to us in another form.”

I saw the seriousness in his face and was confounded. We could hear Wyatt typing on the typewriter on the other side of the door. I motioned Ernest to follow me into the front room and told him in a quiet voice that Wyatt was doing homework and didn’t want to be bothered. “Let’s let him settle in,” I said. “Don’t be disappointed if he doesn’t seem like Ray-Ray.”

“He’s a spitting image.”

“Let’s let him work.”

We sat in front of the TV for a while, watching a detective show. I didn’t care for police dramas, but Ernest loved watching them on TV. Sometimes I watched, but most of the time I did the crossword or crocheted.