Living Rough Read online

  “I guess, but…”

  He cut me off. “Isn’t that what calculators are for?”

  I smiled. He had a point.

  For the rest of the period he let me help him with the equations. When the bell rang, we still had five questions to finish.

  “Guess this will be for homework,” said Ben. “Any chance you can—”

  “Give you a hand?” I finished for him. “No problem.”

  After class, Ben wanted to grab lunch at the Happy Mart Food & Gas. They had a self-serve coffee bar in the store, and their Grin and Win contest was on. A happy face always adorned their cups during the contest. The tongue became a pull-tab that you peeled to reveal prizes, like $1000. I didn’t have much cash, but what money I had, I used to buy coffee. I hoped to win something in the contest. I was aiming for the car, but even the $100 gift card would be all right.

  As we approached the entrance, some guy nearly took us both out as he squeezed his Mercedes into the No Parking spot. He pushed through the door without holding it for us.

  I stood by Ben at the cooler while he decided what he wanted. In the mirror above us, I could see the guy fixing his beverage at the coffee station. He placed two extra Grin and Win cups under the one he already had.

  “What a creep,” I said loudly. I glanced at the cashier.

  She eyed me suspiciously. I wanted to say, Save that look for him! I nodded toward the guy, hoping she’d catch my drift. But she shook her head at me, like I was a loser, and then went back to reading her paper.

  As I poured my coffee, I realized there weren’t many prize cups left. The contest was nearly over. I could take extras too. My dad and I really needed the cash. I didn’t think Mr. Mercedes was that desperate. But I knew it was wrong to take more than I’d paid for, and I didn’t want to throw off my karma.

  As the Mercedes driver left the store, I yelled, “Next time use a sleeve, buddy!”

  He slid into his vehicle and slithered out of the parking lot.

  “What was that about?” asked Ben as we left the store.

  “Nothing, just another privileged jerk that doesn’t know how to appreciate it.”

  “Sometimes, Poe, I think I should call you Mr. Philosopher.”

  I didn’t answer. I felt riled up. Thinking about how hard this winter had been for my dad and me made my temples burn. Images of cold nights and hunger blurred my thoughts. I pushed them aside by counting one, two, three…986 steps back to school.

  I finished my coffee as we reached the north doors. Several students were hanging around the entrance. “Let’s chill a minute. Wait for the bell.”

  “Right,” said Ben. He moved over to the wall, away from the group. “I have English next. We just started our Shakespeare unit.”

  “Which play are you doing?” I asked.

  “Macbeth,” he replied, pulling his collar up to keep his neck warm. “It had this awesome scene with witches.”

  “Right on,” I said. “In my old school we read Something Wicked This Way Comes by Ray Bradbury. Pretty cool stuff with a witch in that book too.”

  “Hey, that title comes from a line in Macbeth.” Ben’s eyes wandered to three girls near the door. His cheeks flushed as one of them looked his way. “Maybe Saturday we could find movie versions of both? We can hang at my place and see if my folks will order us a pizza?”

  I nodded as the bell rang. Before heading for our separate classes, we agreed to meet after school to do our homework together.

  Chapter Five

  The whole time we worked on our math at the coffee shop, trucks passed by and distracted me. Some were filled with dirt. Others had tree trunks and branches loaded in the back. It looked like heavy-duty clearing was going on nearby. Not that I’m surprised. It seemed like the trees on every patch of land disappeared in the blink of an eye. As long as the trees around my place stayed put.

  “So what do you think it’s like in the Ukraine?” asked Ben, slurping his drink.

  “I dunno. I wonder what made Inna’s family move here,” I said. I watched a kid from our school take a bite out of a sandwich. My stomach growled.

  Ben followed my gaze. “Hey, I’m still hungry,” he said. Wanna share a sandwich with me?”

  “Naw…that’s okay.”

  “Dude, I’m really craving one, but if I eat it all, I won’t have room for supper. Then my mom’ll get after me, for sure.” He headed toward the counter to order.

  I have to admit, the sandwich filled a void that was getting bigger and bigger every day.

  I tested Ben with questions from our lessons. “Think you’re ready for the exam?” I asked after I’d been quizzing him for twenty minutes.

  “Yeah. No…I guess.” We laughed. I thanked Ben for the food, then started home.

  Twenty-six suvs passed me before I reached our place.

  As I rounded a curve in the road, the air was sucked from my lungs. What I saw totally caught me off guard. I swallowed and took a deep breath.

  The trucks I’d seen from the coffee shop must have come from here.

  I stared at a gaping hole that had been a forest this morning. Now bulldozers pushed dirt into piles. Trees were ripped right out of the ground. Men in hard hats stood around talking and pointing.

  There’d been no warning this was coming.

  A hand on my shoulder made me jump.

  “Easy, kid. It’s just me.” My dad climbed off his bike. He put his hands over his eyes to block out the sun as he surveyed the devastation.

  Even though the rain had stopped, I felt as though I needed to find shelter.

  “When did this start, Dad?”

  “After you left for school. I don’t know what time, but it was definitely early. Made an awful lot of noise.” My dad shook his head. “You hungry?” he asked.

  “Naw. Ben and I shared a sandwich. How about you?”

  “Oh, I had a fabulous lunch,” answered my dad.

  He probably hadn’t eaten.

  “Since there was such a racket going on here,” he continued, “I headed over to the library. I got a couple of books you might like.”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I’ll check them out after I finish up my homework.” I left my dad surveying the damage.

  When I got settled in, I found it tough to concentrate on my social studies assignment. The subject matter was heavy-duty. And my mind wandered to the problem of the trees being cleared so near our place. I felt the beginnings of a headache, so I decided to go for a walk. I was just heading out when my dad came in.

  “Leaving so soon? I thought we could play cards or something.”

  “Cards?” I felt my temples squeeze together, like Theo had my head in a vise grip. My dad had this delusion that things were all right. He thought that if we acted as if everything was normal, it wouldn’t matter where we were. I didn’t have the energy to argue with him, so I agreed to keep him company.

  We played three games of cribbage. Dad won every game by a mile. I pegged lots, but that was it. When we tallied our hands at the end of each round, I mostly had nothing that counted for points. My dad had the knack for getting jacks and fives…together. He may not have been lucky in life, but he sure had good luck with cards.

  As he put away the game, Dad said, “This reminds me of the old days when we lived in Merritt. Remember how we used to play crib by candlelight whenever the power went out?”

  My throat tightened and I bit my cheeks. It hurt, but it helped keep my emotions in check. “That’s in the past, Dad.”

  “I know I promised we’d go back,” he said. “This was meant to be a temporary solution.” He put his hand over mine.

  I pulled my hand away and immediately felt guilty. Looking at the ground, I mumbled, “It’s okay, Dad.”

  But I didn’t believe that. I’d been dealing with our temporary situation for six months. With the city clearing the forest beside us for a development, there was a new threat.

  What would happen next?

  My insides felt tig
ht. I didn’t feel like talking anymore. I told my dad I had homework to read for English class and slumped to bed. I pulled the covers around my shoulders, but I couldn’t get warm. After reading thirteen pages, I realized none of it was sinking in. My mind was on Inna, the social studies project and the cleared land by our home.

  When I finally drifted off to sleep, my dreams were strange. First Inna and I were watching a movie and eating licorice. Then I was at a picnic with my mom and dad in a forest where fiddleheads and cedar trees reached for the sun. Mounds of food covered the picnic blanket. As she offered me a piece of blackberry pie, my mom smiled. Her hair fell over her shoulders like a waterfall.

  She leaned in to hug me. But instead of feeling her soft arms, I felt metal clasps, like an oversized Transformer. A machine grabbed me. It whipped me into the air then pulled me out of the forest and left me dangling over a gaping hole in the earth.

  Just as the machine released me, I heard a scream and woke up.

  Chapter Six

  Bulldozers rumbled nearby. Trees crashed to the ground. I pulled myself out of bed and checked on my dad. Amazingly, he was still asleep. Sleeping was something he was good at.

  When my mom was alive, we used to get up early. Fridays were the best. Mom didn’t work Fridays, so she would make us a big breakfast. Banana pancakes with real maple syrup. Before Dad left for work, he’d give my mom a wet, slurpy kiss.

  Now my dad slept most of the day. He had gone from trying to find a job to trying to find money for food. I guess it’s hard to get out of bed when you don’t have much to look forward to.

  Another tree came crashing down. It sounded like it was only a few feet away. I panicked and rushed to my dad’s side.

  “Dad! Dad…Get up!” I rolled his shoulder back and forth in an attempt to wake him.

  He slowly opened his eyes. “What’s the trouble, son?”

  “I think they’re clearing too close. What are we going to do?”

  My dad rolled out of his bed and stood on shaky legs. Yawning, he tousled my hair. “It’ll be okay, Edgar. They’re a good hundred feet away.”

  I knew my numbers. “A hundred feet is not enough! We need to do something.”

  “You need to go to school. Leave this with me. I’ll take care of it,” Dad said as he pulled on his pants. He had already made two extra holes in his belt, and it looked like he was going to have to make another one. He used to be strong, but now he was a rack of bones. He looked like an old man.

  “Go on. Get to school. Everything will be fine.”

  I wasn’t so sure.

  I trudged off to school. Once I was out of the range of workmen and noise, I remembered I’d be seeing Inna. Her smile motivated me up the hill. I ate my muffin but felt a little off-balance after eating.

  Once I arrived at school, I headed straight for the office to wait.

  Sixteen phone calls and three visitors later, Inna walked through the door. My heart beating a hundred miles an hour, I rushed out to greet her.

  We had a different set of blocks today, so I had to read Inna’s schedule again so I’d know where to take her. Outside her room, I pointed to a spot for her to wait so I could guide her to her next class. After each bell, she’d be scrunched up against a locker, biting her nails, her eyes wide, scanning the halls. She smiled with relief when she spotted me. We repeated this routine all morning.

  At lunch she agreed to sit with me. Being a tour guide had its perks. We found a spot outside, away from the crowds. I laid my coat on the ground for a blanket.

  Inna smiled. “Tsank you.” She opened her lunch bag and pulled out a plastic container with cabbage rolls in it. I realized I should have grabbed something from the breakfast program. I sifted through my backpack and found a mangled-looking granola bar. It would have to do.

  “You like?” Inna held out the lid of a plastic container with a cabbage roll on it.

  “Cool. Yeah, I like cabbage rolls. How do you say this in your language?”

  She wrinkled her nose at me. I tried asking the question again, with my index finger pointing first at the food, then at her. “How would you say this in the Ukraine?”

  “Ah. Holubtsi. Ho…lub…si.”

  “Hol…butt…si,” I tried.

  She laughed. “Holubsti. Ya. Is good. Holubtsi. You like?”

  I took a bite. I remembered having warm cabbage rolls, but never cold. They tasted great anyway.

  Inna smiled as I downed the food way too quickly. She took small bites of her cabbage roll, then placed another one on the lid I was using as a plate.

  “Why did you have to go home yesterday?” I said each word slowly, to give her time to absorb the meaning.

  “Home.” She reached into her backpack and pulled out a piece of crumpled paper. She passed it to me, while rummaging in her pack again.

  I read the paper she offered me. It had her street address and phone number scrawled in tiny letters with purple ink. As I stared at the note, she handed me a blank piece of paper and the purple pen.

  “You give me…home?” She nodded.

  “I…I…” I couldn’t think of a response and felt my pulse quicken. My eyes searched the ground for something to focus on.

  She took my hand and opened my tight grasp. I had crumpled the sheet in my fist. Inna took the blank paper and replaced it in her bag. Then she put her fingers through mine and leaned her head on my shoulder.

  She smelled like a summer picnic, like flowers and watermelon.

  I loved that she didn’t ask me more questions and pretended nothing happened. I loved that her quiet breathing was so hypnotic.

  Twenty-four breaths—in and out. Then the bell rang.

  Chapter Seven

  In social studies, Mr. Brock began the class by telling us we were going to preview the social justice course. At our school, social justice classes were only for grade eleven and twelve students. As Mr. Brock circulated around the room, he handed various newspaper stories out to each table of students. My table got the story that he’d projected onto the screen yesterday.

  I felt my knees wobble.

  “I want one member of each group to read the article aloud to your table. Then I want you to talk about what you’ve read and what it means to you. I hope you understand the importance of what we’re discussing today.”

  Mr. Brock was a blur, and his words just as fuzzy. I kept trying to count the number of branches on the fir outside the window, but I couldn’t keep track. “Sean, your table will look at the statistical information, and Kelsey, your group will look at the global picture.”

  Mr. Brock stopped pacing as he reached our table. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “Edgar, your group will look at our local scene.”

  I felt like I might black out. I needed to chill.

  “Any questions?” Hearing none, Mr. Brock urged us to begin.

  My group looked at me. What? Did Mr. Brock make me the leader when he said my name? I wasn’t about to read the story.

  I had managed to keep my secret since the beginning of the school year. I wasn’t going to blow it now.

  “Well? Aren’t you going to read the article?” Janie was eyeing me. Shane looked bored, and Paul was snickering.

  “Hey, if one of you wants to read it, I don’t care.” I hoped someone would bite. It would be easier to get through the next forty minutes if I wasn’t the focus of attention. But no one offered to take my place. The knot in my stomach seemed to be reaching up to my throat. I had to swallow several times before I could find my voice.

  “Jack, as he likes to be called,” I began, the paper rattling in my hands, “once held a prominent position in a bank, but now likes to keep his numbers simple.”

  I looked at the group. No one was really paying attention. Other groups were only half listening to the person reading their article too.

  Why couldn’t I have been at the table with the stats?

  I continued, “One blanket, one pair of shoes, one picture.”

  “What�
��s the picture of?” asked Janie.

  “Dunno,” I replied. I scanned the column for an answer, glad for a distraction. “Oh, here it is. It says the picture is of his daughter. According to this article, he hasn’t been in contact with her for several years.”

  Janie shook her head. “Why would anyone do that? Why would they leave their family behind?”

  Shane still looked bored. Paul was doodling on his notebook.

  “I like the tone of the conversation here,” said Mr. Brock as he approached our table. “Are you wondering what causes people to live on the street?”

  “Yeah. Laziness. That’s all. People like them don’t like to work.” Paul flipped his book over so Mr. Brock couldn’t see the picture.

  “Do you all agree with Paul?” Mr. Brock was eyeing me as he waited for someone to answer.

  No one was biting.

  When would the bell go? Why couldn’t he have stuck to the regular curriculum?

  “Edgar. Any ideas?”

  My days of low profile were over. I couldn’t blend into the woodwork anymore. “Well,” I started tentatively, “I guess lots of things cause a person to become homeless.”

  There. I said it.

  Homeless.

  At least the article wasn’t about my dad and me.

  Chapter Eight

  I could hear Casey saying something about how over 200,000 people could be homeless in Canada on any given night. Mr. Brock and the rest of my group were still looking at me, waiting for me to continue. But I didn’t know the answer. I didn’t know why other people lived on the streets. I only knew what happened to my dad and me.

  “Maybe something bad happens in their life?” I looked at Mr. Brock. He nodded, encouraging me to go on. “Maybe people can’t keep a job because they lose someone special to them.”

  “Then they should see a shrink. They’re supposed to help you deal with that crap,” snickered Paul.

  “Language,” cautioned Mr. Brock, as he moved toward Kelsey’s table.

  “What could happen that would be so bad you’d rather live in a dirty alley than sleep in a real bed?” asked Janie.