The Way to Stay in Destiny Read online

  “The needle on the record player broke. I don’t have time to find another one,” she says. “My little dancers are full of beans!”

  Unable to come up with a good reason to say no before Miss Sister drags me into the studio, I quickly stash the clean laundry under a bench. Yikes. Little girls cluster so close I can’t hardly breathe. When she asked if I wanted to play for her recital, I figured I’d have more time to practice before being thrown to the leotarded wolves. Miss Sister claps her hands, and they stand with their feet together. From the end of the line, Mamie sticks out her tongue. The rest of the girls hold up their arms, making little circles over their heads. Sort of.

  “Dancers, this is Theo. He’s helping us today.” Miss Sister points to me sitting at the piano, about to break out in a cold sweat. “Ready, set. One, two, three.” She sings out the words, “ ‘Shine little glowworm, glimmer, glimmer.’ ”

  When I touch the smooth keys, it all comes back. Miss Sister’s shoes tap out the beat in time to my perfect glow-wormy tune. If I forget there are twelve little girls wearing tights and tap shoes two feet away from me, I can do this.

  Till Mamie shuffles over and elbows me. “Did you see me twirling?” Just in case I missed it, she spins around, then does another bow.

  “Mamie! I seem to be calling your name an awful lot today.” Miss Sister holds up her hands, clap-clap-clapping her way across the floor. “In line, tiny tappers!” They start again, but every time Miss Sister shouts out, “Slide to the right!” they shuffle off to the left. “This way! Now, one and two — the other way!”

  They all end up smack-dab in the middle. Man, I can see why she needs my help.

  But before Miss Sister can line the dancers up again, the studio door bangs open like a fierce wind blowing through. Dressed in pointy high heels and a bright red scarf and sun hat, Anabel’s mom stands on the polished dance floor, arms crossed. Her face is lit up the color of the silk scarf wrapped around her neck.

  “Miss Grandersole, may I have a word?”

  Why’s she staring at me?

  “I’m in the middle of rehearsing,” Miss Sister answers. “Please wait outside.”

  “I cannot wait. This is important.” Mrs. Johnson glares. “I prefer to speak in private.” Another glare. “Where others can’t eavesdrop.”

  The only others in the room are me and a bunch of five-year-olds.

  Mrs. Johnson turns on her high heels and sashays out of the room like she rules the dance academy. Miss Sister jabs a long fingernail toward the dancers. “Sit in a circle and listen to Theo!” She follows Mrs. Johnson, shaking her head the whole way.

  Through the slightly open door, I see them talking in the front hall. I play soft notes on the piano, trying to ignore the glowwormy noises surrounding me.

  But when Theo Thomas pops loud out of the whispers in the hall, it stops my music dead still. Daring the glowworms to blink, I move closer to the door.

  “I don’t want false accusations made against my tenants.” Miss Sister’s voice is rising. “Do you have proof it was stolen?”

  I can’t hear her answer, but Anabel’s mom storms off like she’s late to a fire and she’s the driver of the fire engine. In a quick flash, Miss Sister’s back in the studio, smiling. Ready to start dancing again. As if Mrs. Johnson hadn’t just waltzed into her front hall and said the words that boy Theo and thief in the same breath.

  After the last dancer finally flitters off, Miss Sister moves close to the piano and says, “I guess you heard. Mrs. Johnson thinks you stole something. She’s wrong.”

  I push my hands in my jeans pockets, clutching my lucky coin.

  “She claims you took the money.”

  I jerk my head up. “Money? What money?”

  “That the parents were collecting for a gift. In a little basket closed up tight on the radiator.” Miss Sister turns up her nose and jingles her bracelets toward the front hall. “So Beatrice Johnson says.”

  Anabel’s mom thinks I stole money from Miss Sister? My whole heart slows down and feels broken. “I didn’t take any money.”

  “That’s what I told her. Of course you didn’t. Ridiculous!” Miss Sister squeezes my arm, but her dancers are already lining up on the front porch. The show must go on, and all that. I trudge around to the backyard. The notes of “Glow Worm” fade from my memory with each step.

  Anabel’s waiting by the shed, holding a softball, skipping out on dance class. Again. “Did you see my mother?” she asks.

  “I saw her. Talking to Miss Sister.” The words stick in my throat, matching up with the knots in my stomach.

  Instead of looking at me, she tosses the ball up and down. “She say anything?”

  “That I stole the gift money.” I jam my fist into my hand. “Don’t know why she thinks that.”

  “I guess ’cause you live here and you’re new in town.” Anabel leans against the shed and shuts her eyes. “Ma has some crazy ideas about who belongs in Destiny and who doesn’t,” she says quickly.

  “Guess she’d be happy if I left town and never came back.” Kind of like my uncle.

  “My mom dreamed up the stolen money, right?” A catch in her voice makes me wonder if she’s sure about that. When she looks up, she answers her own question. “She dreamed it up. Yeah. But it’s okay. If you needed it. I mean, you’d pay the money back, right?”

  “I didn’t take anything, Anabel.” I’m too mad to talk to her. She can disappear from Miss Sister’s and I won’t even notice. “I gotta go. The next class is coming.” I storm off toward the back door, turning to spit out the words, “I don’t steal!”

  “Wait up, Theo! That’s not what I meant.” She takes a step toward me. “Meet me Monday after school. We’ll finish our baseball project. Together!” she calls out. “Please?”

  I shove open the door and don’t look back. Some friend Anabel’s turning out to be.

  When I stop outside the studio door, Miss Sister’s next class is sitting on the floor while she rearranges music on the top of the piano. All I want to do is run upstairs and hide in my room, but she sees me.

  “Theo? Come in here, please!” I step up close to the piano and she lowers her voice. “Don’t you fret a bit about what Mrs. Johnson said. That money will turn up. Stop your worrying this minute.” She pats the bench next to her, and I sit down to play the hat dance song.

  Right now, that missing money is all I’m thinking about. But when Miss Sister taps out the beat, my fingers dance across the keys. Pretty soon, almost every mean thought floats away on the notes.

  For the rest of the day, I hide in my room.

  I’m embarrassed to confess to Uncle Raymond that his relative has been called a thief. And what’s worse? My one friend in Destiny thinks I did it. I’m an outcast. All I can do now is change my name and run away from what I thought might be home.

  All night, while Uncle Raymond snores happily in the next bed, I stare at the peeling wallpaper. With the moon shining bright through my little window, the pink flowers fade to nothing. Kind of like I’m feeling right about now.

  On Sunday, I read my baseball book, cover to cover. By Monday, I have to face the music.

  Without saying good-bye or hello to anybody, I slip out of the Rest Easy and into Johnson Junior High. When I open the door to the school’s front hall, I want to throw up. All those class pictures may be giving me their fake Smile for the camera looks, but the actual kids open up a wide path for me to pass through. It’s not my bad haircut or my dorky T-shirt. Nope. Word spreads fast. Theo’s a thief. Steer clear of the new kid.

  Except Anabel must not have gotten that steer clear message. By second period, she’s standing at my desk. “You ready to finish our project? Wanna work together after school?”

  “Huh? Your mom’s actually letting you in the same room with me?” I open my social studies notebook and pretend not to care.

  Anabel rolls her eyes. “Ma doesn’t know. But I told you, that missing money doesn’t mean anything to me.�
�

  Not exactly the same as saying she believes me.

  I take out my notes, ignoring loud whispers drifting across the room from the kids sketching their manatee mural. But when two girls in the front row look up from gluing leaves onto a fake banyan tree and whisper “Stole a lot of money,” a bad stomachache hits me. In my entire life, I’ve never been to a school nurse. Okay, maybe we didn’t even have a nurse at my school in Kentucky. But I’ve never had a stomachache. Or a reason to pretend I have one. Until now.

  “Mr. Wyatt.” I raise my hand. “I’m not feeling so great. I need to go home.”

  “Wait! I’ll go with you to the nurse,” Anabel says. But I grab my books and dash out without so much as a hall pass. Nobody cares if I’m leaving. Let Anabel work on the project by herself. She needs the extra credit, not me.

  Racing up the stairs to my room, I slam the door and collapse on the bed. Loud radio music drowns out the remembered, whispered words of those kids at school. And if Anabel believes I stole that money? I might as well cash in my Hank Aaron baseball card and ride the next bus to somewhere.

  Yeah! I’ll get it right now! I jerk open the dresser drawer and dig around. Nope. Can’t do it. I stuff the envelope holding my baseball card and Granddaddy’s postcards back in the drawer. When I slump against the bed, I knock my uncle’s lamp crooked. Who cares! I’ll toss it out the window. But I straighten the lamp and the dresser tilts forward. Something falls to the floor. Planning Your Alaska Vacation. I throw the magazine hard across the room.

  A dollar bill floats out.

  Then three tens. Three more singles. Two quarters roll across the floor. $34.50. The exact amount of money I’d counted in Mrs. Johnson’s basket just before she accused me of stealing it.

  All afternoon I play the sick card. When Miss Sister knocks at my door, I moan a pitiful “Come in” and barely open my eyes.

  “Theo, honey. You hungry?” she says softly, holding a bowl of Mrs. Hernandez’s chicken soup right under my nose. Even though it may be my last meal once all of Destiny discovers my uncle’s a thief and we’re run out of town, I don’t look up. “Anabel’s downstairs,” she says. “She claims you need to work on your baseball project. I told her you were feeling poorly and not up to studying.”

  “Anabel’s here?” I sit up in bed, maybe too quick for somebody as sick as me. “She’s downstairs?” I almost blurt out at your dance studio where she’s vowed she’ll never show her face? Instead, I say, “I don’t feel like talking.” I flop back on my bed and wait for Miss Sister to leave the soup and leave me alone.

  She touches my forehead and says, “Call me if you need anything.” Before Miss Sister’s out the door good, Mamie sticks her nose and her wild snake hair into my room.

  “Why’re you in bed?” She steps closer. “Are you sick? Or just sick ’cause you did something terrible? What’d you do? You in trouble?”

  I guess the lie about my stealing money hasn’t made it to kindergarten yet.

  “Shut the door. Leave me alone,” I say pitifully.

  When Mamie backs into the hall, I turn on the radio again, hoping a baseball game will keep me from thinking about my uncle and that money.

  * * *

  At midnight, Uncle Raymond squeaks open the door into our dark room. I’m in bed, curled up in a ball, still as a mouse playing possum. Except my stomach’s really doing flip-flops by now.

  When he bangs his leg and lets out a cuss word loud enough to wake the dead, I sit up. Uncle Raymond sinks onto his bed, rubs his shin. “Shoot. This room’s so crowded with the two of us in here, can’t hardly turn around.”

  Switching on the dim light near my bed, I say, “I wasn’t asleep. Something bad happened at school.”

  He leans closer, staring a hole through me. “What happened? What’d you do?”

  “My friend Anabel’s mom accused me of stealing,” I answer. “Everybody believes her. Maybe even Anabel.”

  My uncle stands up and pounds his fist on the dresser. “Stealing? Your granddaddy claimed you were perfect.” He narrows his eyes at me, his question a snarl. “Guess you’ve gone and shown your true self now. What’d you steal?”

  “Didn’t steal anything. Mrs. Johnson stormed into the dance studio and said I took money.”

  “Dance studio? What were you doing near that piano?”

  “Did you even hear me, Uncle Raymond? Don’t you care if somebody calls me a thief?” When I look sideways at my uncle, all I see is mad. But I’m madder. “She told Miss Sister I took her gift money from the basket.”

  The room goes quiet, like every breath of hot summer air’s been sucked out. When my uncle turns his back, his shoulders move up and down in a deep breath.

  “Well, I got a thing or two to tell her,” he says, quieter now. “It ain’t right, that too-big-for-her-britches lady accusing you like that. One more reason we won’t never be welcome here.” Uncle Raymond pulls off his dirty work shirt and flings it into the closet.

  I want to tell him that here in Destiny, I was beginning to belong somewhere again. Everything was going good. Until now. Instead, I hold up his magazine and shake it. I shove the money at him and say, “Found this. Hidden in our room.”

  My uncle starts chewing on his thumbnail. “I needed it,” he finally answers. “For a friend.”

  “A friend? What friend?”

  “The one who got me my job, that’s who. He’s in trouble, needed money quick. He paid me back. I was waiting till nighttime to put it back.”

  The words that have gnawed a hole in my stomach all day spill out. “You’re wrong, Uncle Raymond. I’m in trouble. My friend, her mom, and maybe even Miss Sister think I swiped that money. Everybody at school heard. You got me in trouble.”

  “See. That’s what’s the problem in this two-bit town.” Uncle Raymond pounds a fist into his hand. His voice gets louder, and I’m hoping Miss Sister, Mamie, the Hernandezes are all asleep. Or at least not listening outside the door. “First thing people think about. Blame the new boy. Nobody likes us here nohow.”

  “You didn’t think about me when you took Mrs. Johnson’s money? That somebody might think I did it?”

  “My friend helped me, so I was helping him. Tit for tat. Pays to look out for your buddies. Learned that in the army.”

  “I guess you didn’t learn about looking out for your family in the army.” I fall back on my bed. “Nothing about stealing in your rule book,” I mumble, half to myself.

  “Ain’t stealing if you put it back.” Uncle Raymond slips the money into his shirt pocket. “It’s going in that basket right now. I’ll explain to Miss Sister tomorrow,” he says, pulling the door shut behind him.

  So his stupid rules are just for me. No Piano Playing. Homework After School. Laundry on Saturday. Keep Your Business to Yourself. For him, it’s different: If you steal, pay it back and everything’s A-OK.

  I lie there with my fists balled up and my head full till I hear Uncle Raymond open the door. He sits to take off one big work boot and drop it next to the bed.

  The other boot slams hard on the floor.

  His belt rattles when it hits the chair.

  Bedsprings creak.

  Soon, my uncle’s snoring like nobody’s business. But all I can think about is that money. And how I’ll never be one of those kids whose class pictures decorate the halls of James Weldon Johnson Junior High School. Kids who stay put longer than it takes to make a friend and then make her mad.

  I hear the clock counting down the minutes, tick-tick-ticking next to my bed all night long. My uncle calls out once, his nightmares acting up. Who cares about him, about his army friend who’s more important than me. Pulling my pillow tight over my head, I block out every trace of Uncle Raymond.

  When I wake up early the next morning, Uncle Raymond’s still sleeping. Good. Don’t have to talk to him. Forget about the money he needed.

  Downstairs, Miss Sister’s on the front porch holding a china plate under my nose. “Morning, Theo. You feeling
better now?” She hands me a biscuit. “Put some meat on those skinny bones,” she says, smiling.

  My stomach’s too knotted up to take more than a bite, but I grab the hot biscuit. When she reaches up to brush crumbs off my cheek, it’s all I can do not to lean into Miss Sister’s hand and start bawling like a baby.

  “Theo, honey, you’re not still worrying about Mrs. Johnson, are you?” she asks. “What that woman thinks doesn’t make a dime’s worth of difference to me.”

  Not looking at Miss Sister, I fib, “No, ma’am. I’m worried about my Destiny Day project. Anabel and I have work to do.”

  I stand up straight and reach deep to touch the last thing my granddaddy slipped me before I left Kentucky. The flat quarter that stays in my pocket. My good-luck piece. Maybe it will push away all the bad. But for sure I’m not telling Miss Sister about Uncle Raymond and the money. That’s his lie to confess to.

  “Anything I can help you with?” She takes my hand. “You and your uncle doing all right? That man’s as hard to crack as a coconut,” she says.

  Oh man. If she only knew.

  Maybe I should own up about the tackle box inside my knapsack. Tell her I found it in the attic of the Rest Easy. The way I figure it? Taking Miss Sister’s box was borrowing something she didn’t need. Didn’t even know she owned. My uncle stealing her money — that was bad.

  “Not now, Miss Sister. Maybe later, thanks.” I grab my knapsack and drag myself down the sidewalk to school.

  Where Anabel waits under the big jacaranda tree. I’ll just drop the tackle box next to her on the bench, let her have it. Take off, never thinking about Destiny’s baseball players again. What do I need with a box full of baseball stuff? Do I even need a fair-weather friend like Anabel?

  She plucks at a purple blossom that’s fallen on the bench. “Hey, Theo. You still mad?” she asks, not looking at me.

  “You still believe what your mom said?” I answer.

  “I didn’t believe her. Really. I promise, Theo. She’s always trying to tell me what to do. And with who. But I told Ma you would never steal anything.” Anabel takes my arm, pulls me onto the bench next to her, and looks right at me. “Sorry if it sounded that way.”