Shelter Read online

  Five minutes later I heard giggling and my phone vibrated. The text read: My friend thinks you're cute. I didn't respond.

  After class, I approached Mrs. Friedman.

  "Ah, Mr. Bolitar," Mrs. Friedman said with a smile that lit up her face. "I'm glad to have you in my class."

  I wasn't sure how to reply to that, so I went with, "Uh, thank you."

  "I never had your father," she said, "but your uncle was one of my favorite students. You resemble him."

  My uncle. The great Myron Bolitar. I didn't like my uncle and was really tired of hearing how swell he was. My father and my uncle were very close growing up, but then they had a major falling-out. For the last fifteen years of my dad's life--basically from the moment I was conceived to the moment he died--the two brothers hadn't spoken. I guess I should forgive Uncle Myron, but I'm not much in the mood.

  "What can I do for you, Mr. Bolitar?"

  When some teachers call you Mister or Miz, it comes across as either patronizing or too formal. Mrs. Friedman hit the right note.

  "As you probably know," I said slowly, "Ashley Kent has been absent."

  "And so she has." Mrs. Friedman was a short woman and it took some effort for her to look all the way up at me. "You two are close."

  "We're friends."

  "Oh, come, Mr. Bolitar. I may be old, but I see the way you look at her. Even Ms. Caldwell is upset she isn't catching your eye."

  I reddened when she said this. Rachel Caldwell was probably the hottest girl in the school.

  "Anyway," I said, dragging out the word, "I was thinking maybe I could help her out."

  "Help her out how?"

  "I thought maybe I could get her homework and then, you know, pass it on to her."

  Mrs. Friedman had been cleaning off the blackboard. Most teachers used a Smart Board, but as Mrs. Friedman liked to joke, she was "old-school--literally." She stopped and looked at me. "Did Ashley ask you to get her homework?"

  "Well, no."

  "So you just took it upon yourself?"

  This was a dumb idea. Even if she did give me the homework, where would I bring it? I didn't know where Ashley lived. "Never mind," I said. "Thanks anyway."

  She put down the eraser. "Mr. Bolitar?"

  I turned back to her.

  "Do you know why Ashley Kent has been absent?"

  My heart started doing a slow thud. "No, ma'am."

  "But you're worried."

  I didn't see any point in lying to her. "Yes, ma'am."

  "She hasn't called you?"

  "No, she hasn't."

  "Strange." Mrs. Friedman frowned. "All I can tell you is that I got a note saying that I shouldn't expect Ashley back."

  "I'm not sure I understand."

  "That's all I know," Mrs. Friedman said. "I guess she moved away. But . . ."

  Her voice trailed off.

  "But what?"

  "Never mind, Mr. Bolitar." She started wiping the blackboard again. "Just . . . just be careful."

  At lunchtime I waited on line at the cafeteria.

  I always figured that there would be more drama to a high school cafeteria. Yes, it was full of cliques. The jocks here were called "Lax Bros" (Lacrosse Brothers). They all had long hair, big muscles, and started every sentence with the word Yah. There was a table for the "Animes"--white kids who think they're Asian. They loved manga comics and video games that matched. The pretty girls weren't so much pretty as skinny with too-high heels and expensive clothes. Then there were the gamers, the hipsters, the skaters, the druggies, the geeks, the theater kids.

  There didn't seem to be much class warfare here. These kids had been together for so long that they didn't really notice. The so-called outcasts who sat alone had been sitting alone for so many years that it wasn't so much cruelty as habit. I wasn't sure if that was better or worse.

  A kid who would definitely fit into the geek camp came up to me with a tray in his hand. His pant cuffs were set at flood level. His sneakers were pure white with no logo.

  He pushed up his Harry Potter glasses and lifted his tray in my direction.

  "Hey, you want my spoon?" he asked me. "I barely used it."

  I looked at the tray. "Barely?"

  "Yeah."

  He raised the tray a little higher so I could see. The spoon sat in his syrupy fruit cup.

  "No," I said, "I'm good."

  "You sure?"

  "Are they out of spoons or something?"

  "Nah. They got plenty."

  Oookay. "Then thanks, no, I'm good."

  He shrugged. "Suit yourself."

  When I finished buying lunch, Spoon--that was how I thought of him now--was waiting for me.

  "Where you going to sit?" he asked.

  Since Ashley had vanished, I'd been eating alone outside. "I'm not sure."

  Spoon started to follow me. "You're big and you keep to yourself. Like Shrek."

  Not much to say to that.

  "I could be your Donkey. You know?"

  Oookay. If I went outside, he'd follow, so I looked for a safe place inside to sit.

  "Or your Robin. Like Batman and Robin. Or Sancho Panza. You ever read Don Quixote? Me neither, but I saw the musical Man of La Mancha. I love musicals. So does my dad. My mom, not so much. She likes cage fighting, like the MMA. That's Mixed Martial Arts. Dad and me, we go to a musical once a month. Do you like musicals?"

  "Sure," I said, scanning the cafeteria for a safe haven.

  "My dad's cool like that. Taking me to musicals and stuff. We've seen Mamma Mia three times. It's awesome. The movie, not so much. I mean, Pierce Brosnan sings like someone shot him in the throat with an arrow. Dad gets discount tickets because he works at the school. He's the janitor here. But don't ask him to give you access to the girls' locker room, okay? Because I asked and he said no dice. Dad can be strict like that, you know?"

  "Yeah," I said. "I know."

  There was a nearly empty table in the so-called outcast corner. The only person sitting there was my unappreciative damsel in distress--Ema or Emma--I still hadn't learned her name.

  "So about being your Donkey?"

  "I'll get back to you," I told Spoon.

  I hurried over and put my tray next to hers. She had the heavy black makeup thing going on, shoe-polish black hair, black clothes, black boots, pale skin. She was goth or emo or whatever they called that look now. Tattoos covered her forearms. One snaked up her shirt and around her neck. She looked up at me with a face that could not look more sullen without actually being punched.

  "Oh, great," she said. "The pity sit."

  "Pity sit?"

  "Think about it."

  I did. I had never heard that one before. "Oh, I get it. Like I pity you for sitting alone. So I sit with you."

  She rolled her eyes. "And here I pegged you for a dumb jock."

  "I'm trying to be a Renaissance man."

  "You have Mrs. Friedman too, I see." She looked to her left, then her right. "Where's your preppy girlfriend?"

  "I don't know."

  "So from sitting with the prissy pretty girl to sitting with me." Ema/Emma shook her head. "Talk about a big step down."

  I was getting tired of thinking of her as Ema/Emma. "What's your name?"

  "Why do you want to know?"

  "I heard a kid call you Ema. I heard Ms. Owens call you Emma."

  She picked up her fork and started playing with her food. I noticed now that she had pierced eyebrows. Ouch. "My real first name is Emma. But everyone calls me Ema."

  "Why? I just want to know what to call you."

  Grudgingly, she said, "Ema."

  "Okay. Ema."

  She played with her food some more. "So what's your deal? I mean, when you're not rescuing the fat girl."

  "Your bitter act," I said. "It's a little over the top."

  "You think?"

  "I would dial it back."

  She shrugged. "You might be right. So you're a new kid, right?"

  "I am."

  "Wh
ere you from?"

  "We traveled around at lot," I said. "How about you?"

  She grimaced. "I've lived in this town my whole life."

  "Doesn't seem to be too bad."

  "I don't see you fitting in yet."

  "I don't want to fit in."

  Ema liked that reply. I looked down at my tray. I picked up my spoon and thought of, well, Spoon. I shook my head and smiled.

  "What?" Ema asked.

  "Nothing."

  It was weird to think about this, but when my father was my age, he sat in this very cafeteria and ate his lunch. He was young and had his whole life ahead of him. I glanced around the room and wondered where he would have sat, who he would've talked to, if he laughed as easily back then as when I'd known him.

  These thoughts became like a giant hand pushing down on my chest. I blinked and put down the spoon.

  "Hey, you okay?" Ema asked.

  "Fine."

  I thought about Bat Lady and what she had said to me. Crazy ol' bat--hey, maybe that's where she got the nickname. You don't just get a rep like hers for nothing. You get it for doing crazy things. Like telling a boy who saw his father die in a car crash that the man he missed so much was still alive.

  I flashed to the day just eight months ago when we landed in Los Angeles--my father, my mother, and me. My parents wanted to give me a place where I could go to high school and play for a real basketball team and maybe go to college.

  Nice plans, right?

  Now my dad was dead and my mother was shattered.

  "Ema?" I said.

  She looked at me warily.

  "Do you know anything about the Bat Lady?"

  Ema frowned. When she did, the mascara on her eyes folded up and then spread out like a fan. "Now I get it."

  "What?"

  "Why you sat here," Ema said. "You figured--what?--the crazy fat girl would know all about the crazy old Bat Lady."

  "What? No."

  Ema rose with her tray. "Just leave me alone, okay?"

  "No, wait, you don't understand--"

  "I understand fine. You did your good deed."

  "Will you stop that? Ema?"

  She hurried away. I took a step to follow her and stopped. Two big muscle-heads wearing varsity football jackets snickered. One came up on my right, the other on my left. The one on my right--the name stenciled in cursive on his chest was BUCK--slapped me too hard on the shoulder and said, "Looks like you struck out, huh?"

  The other muscle-head--stenciled name: TROY--laughed at that. "Yeah," Troy said. "Struck out. With the fat chick."

  Back to Buck: "Fat and ugly."

  Troy: "And you still struck out."

  "Dude."

  Buck and Troy high-fived each other. Then they turned and put their hands up for me to high-five. Buck said, "Up top, bro."

  I frowned. "Don't you guys have a steroid needle that needs an ass cheek?"

  Their mouths both formed surprise Os. I pushed past them. Buck called out, "We ain't done with this, dead man."

  "Yeah," Troy added, "dead man."

  "Totally dead."

  "Dead man."

  Man, I hoped that nickname didn't stick.

  As I chased after Ema, I saw Ms. Owens, who was working as cafeteria monitor, move quickly to cut me off. There was a gleam in her eyes. Ms. Owens hadn't forgiven me for the team-building fiasco. Still with the painted smile, she got right up in my face and blew her whistle.

  "We don't run in the cafeteria," she said, "or we get a week's detention. Do I make myself clear?"

  I looked around me. Buck made a gun with his finger and dropped the hammer. Ema dumped her tray and headed through the doors. Ms. Owens smiled and dared me to run after her. I didn't.

  Yep, I was making friends fast.

  chapter 3

  MY COMBINATION LOCK NEVER OPENS on the first try. I don't know why.

  I had just done the numbers: 14, back to 7, over to 28 . . . Nope, it didn't open. I was about to try again when I heard a now-familiar voice say, "I collect bobble-heads."

  I turned to see Spoon.

  "Good to know," I said.

  Spoon gestured for me to move out of the way. He pulled out a huge key ring, found the one he was looking for, and stuck it in the back of my lock. The lock opened, presto.

  "What's your combination?" he asked me.

  I said, "Umm, should I tell you?"

  "Hello?" Spoon jangled his keys in my face. "You think I need your combination to break in?"

  "Good point." I told him the numbers. He fiddled with the lock and handed it back to me. "It should work with no problems now."

  He started to leave.

  "Wait, Spoon?"

  He turned toward me. "What did you call me?"

  "Sorry, I don't know your name."

  "Spoon," he said, looking up and smiling as though trying the word out for the first time. "I like it. Spoon. Yeah. Call me Spoon, okay?"

  "Sure"--he looked at me so expectantly--"uh, Spoon." He beamed. I wasn't sure how to ask this, but I figured what the heck. "You have a lot of keys there."

  "Don't call me Keys, okay? I prefer Spoon."

  "Yeah, of course. Spoon it is. You said before that your dad is the janitor here, right?"

  "Right. By the way, the White Witch in the Narnia series? I think she's sexy as all get out."

  "Yeah, me too," I said, trying to get him back on track.

  "Can your dad really get you into locked places in the school?"

  Spoon smiled. "Sure, but I don't really need to ask my dad. I got the keys here." He dangled them in case I didn't know what keys he meant. "But we can't go in the girls' locker room. I asked him about that--"

  "Right, no, not the girls' locker room. But you can get into other places?"

  Spoon pushed the glasses back up his nose. "Why? What do you have in mind?"

  "Well," I said, "I was wondering if we could get into the main office and check a student's file."

  "What student?" he asked.

  "Her name is Ashley Kent."

  School ends at three P.M., but Spoon told me that the coast wouldn't be clear until seven. That gave me four hours to kill. It was too early to visit Mom--I was only allowed night visits because Mom was supposedly working on her rehabilitation during the day--so I headed back to Bat Lady's house.

  As I walked out of the school, I noticed a voice mail. My guess was it was from an adult. Kids text. Adults leave voice mails, which are a pain because you have to call in and go through the prompts and then listen to the messages and then delete them.

  Yep, I was right. The message was from my uncle Myron. "I booked our flight to Los Angeles for first thing Saturday morning," he said in his most somber voice. "We'll fly in, then back the next day."

  Los Angeles. We were flying out to see my father's grave. Myron had never seen the final resting place of his brother. My grandparents, who would meet us out there, had never seen the resting place of their youngest son.

  Uncle Myron went on: "I got a ticket for your mother, of course. She can't be left on her own. I know you two want a private reunion tomorrow, but maybe I should be around, you know, just in case."

  I frowned. No way.

  "Anyway, hope you're fine. I'm around tonight if you want to grab a pizza or something."

  I didn't feel like calling, so I sent a quick text: Won't be home for dinner. I think it will be less stressful on Mom if you're not around.

  Myron wouldn't like it, but too bad. He wasn't my legal guardian. That was part of the deal we struck. When he found out that my father was dead and that my mom was having problems, he threatened to sue for custody. I countered that if he did that, I'd run away--I still have enough connections overseas--or I would sue for emancipation.

  My mom may have some issues, but she's still my mom.

  It wasn't a pretty fight, but in the end, we came up with, if not an agreement, a cease-fire. I agreed to live in his house in Kasselton, New Jersey. It was the same house both Myron and m
y dad grew up in. Yes, that was weird. I use the basement bedroom, which had been Myron's room, and do all I can to avoid the upstairs room where my father spent his childhood. Still it's a little creepy.

  Anyway, in return for agreeing to live in the house, Myron agreed to let my mother remain my sole guardian and, well, to leave me alone. That was the part he had trouble handling.

  When I looked now at Bat Lady's house, I shivered. The wind had picked up, bending the bare trees in her yard. I had seen every kind of superstition in all four corners of the globe. Most seemed downright silly, though my parents always told me to keep an open mind. I didn't believe in haunted houses. I didn't believe in ghosts or spirits or things that go bump in the night.

  But if I did, man, this place had them all.

  The place was so dilapidated it actually seemed to lean, like if you pushed too hard it might just crumble to the ground. There were loose boards. Some windows were gone, replaced with wooden planks. The ones that remained were fogged up as if the house just took a hot shower, which, judging by the dirt, wasn't really possible.

  If I hadn't seen her with my own eyes, I would swear the house had been abandoned for years.

  I approached again and knocked on the door. No answer. I put my ear close to the panel--not too close because I didn't want to get a splinter--and listened. Nothing. Not a sound. I knocked some more. Still no answer.

  So now what?

  What could I really do here? Something. Anything. I decided to try the back door. I circled to the left because, like I said, the house tilted and if it suddenly collapsed, I didn't want it to fall on me. I looked up. There was a widow's peak way up high and for a moment I imagined the Bat Lady sitting up there in a rocking chair, still dressed in white, looking down at me.

  I hurried my steps, wondering what I'd find in her backyard.

  Nothing.

  The house came right up against the woods. It was the strangest thing. It was as though the house was built half onto a plot of land, half in a forest, like it was emerging from the trees. From the street, it just looked as if maybe there were a ton of trees in her backyard. But it was all trees. The roots seemed to merge right into the foundation. Thick, ugly vines ran up the back walls. I don't know if the house was originally built in the woods and then a clearing was made in the front, or if it was the opposite, if the woods behind it had sneaked up and started to swallow Bat Lady's house whole.

  "What are you doing?"

  I bit back a scream and jumped high enough to dunk a basketball. The voice had come from behind me. I spun quickly, taking two steps back and banging into a tree.

  It was Ema.

  "Scared you, huh?" She laughed and lifted her arms into wings. "Did you think I was the Bat Lady coming to take you away?"