It took me ten minutes to reach the town dump, and I turned left down the pebble-strewn street that led to the housing development where this kid lived. Peggy’s address had been in the book on my mother’s desk, and now I hopped off my bike and pushed it slowly, trying to read the numbers on the doors. The Finns’ house was number 25.
I’d lied to Kat. I wasn’t there because of what this Elliot kid said to her about the divorce. I was there to tell him to stop picking on her.
I couldn’t make Kat stop worrying about my parents, but I could tell this little bully that if he called my sister Kat Poop one more time, the varsity wrestling team was going to show up at his house and twist him into a human pretzel. It was an empty threat—I didn’t know anyone on the wrestling team—but he wouldn’t know that.
Of course, if he wasn’t outside playing, my plan was useless. But Kat had told me he carried a basketball with him everywhere he went. It was a hot Sunday in June. Worth a bike ride over to see if this kid was outside shooting hoops in his driveway.
I was lost in this thought when I heard a train whistle, right on top of me, it seemed. My heart flipped and I flinched, catching something out of the corner of my eye. On the steep incline across the street, a train rumbled by, chugging past the houses sitting below it. When it was out of view, the air had a dead silence to it.
Then came the sound of a ball bouncing. The thump, thump, thump of it coming from a house down the street. I pushed the bike in front of me until I stood a house away from two boys playing basketball in a driveway. A large tree stood on the strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street, and I leaned my bike against it, shielding my body behind the wide trunk.
Number 25 was a small box of a house, sandwiched between two others. Chipped-gold-plated numbers sat above each plum-colored door. A black metal mailbox was mounted next to the door with the word Finn stuck on it in individual stickers, each letter sitting lower than the last, with the last n hanging off the bottom edge of the mailbox, as though even the name wanted to run away from the house.
Train tracks sat high on a steep slope behind the row of houses, and a massive chain-link fence ran as far as I could see to the left and right. From where I stood on the street, the rooflines of the three houses seemed to be holding the tracks up. I studied number 25 and imagined there were times in that house that it felt like the train was rumbling right through it. A hundred tons of smoking black metal steaming around the bend into your pancakes, all warm and syrupy on a cold winter morning.
No wonder why this kid was hassling Kat. I’d be angry if I lived here too.
I was leaning against the tree, staring at the house when I felt a puff of air on the back of my neck, thick and earthy, like the smell in the back of my father’s pickup truck after he hauled the wet leaves from the lawn to the dump.
I turned quickly, the sharp teeth of the bike pedal digging into my ankle. I hopped to get away from the bike, my foot slipping off the street curb, twisting as I fell. I landed on my butt on the street, my hands slapping the pavement underneath me.
I looked up. Standing in front of me with a half-burned cigarette in one hand and a plastic cup in the other was Mr. Finn.
“Boo,” he said quietly.
He wore a shirt that said Plumbers Lay Good Pipe. The sleeves were cut, the fabric torn and stretched, giving the impression that his huge muscles had ripped through the material.
I heard something over my shoulder and turned to see the two boys pointing at me and snickering. My ankle was throbbing, my hands pulsing from smacking against the street. I bit the inside of my cheek, forced the tears back into my eyes, and stood up.
Mr. Finn sucked on his cigarette, blew the smoke out of the side of his mouth, and said in a short bark to the boys, “Get over here.”
They stopped laughing when they heard him, and the smaller boy lagged behind the tall one as they walked over to us.
“You think that’s funny?” Mr. Finn asked, gesturing at me with his elbow.
The tall boy looked at me, and I could tell by his eyes that he thought it was funny, and when he looked at Mr. Finn and shrugged, the smaller boy took a step back, away from all of us.
“Go home, you little pissant,” Mr. Finn said, and the smaller boy took off down the street like he knew what would happen if he had to be told twice.
“Here,” Mr. Finn said, holding the cup out to me, his cigarette in the other hand.
I took it, and he reached out with his free hand and slapped the back of the boy’s head. It was a sharp clap in the air, and I dropped the cup. It hit the ground and splashed onto Mr. Finn’s pants.
The liquid was clear, small drops on my hand that felt sticky and thick.
“Ah, shit,” he said, swiping at his pants. “So much for a little hair of the dog.”
I reached down and picked up the cup. My hand shook when I held it out to him.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
He took the cup, waved off the apology, and flicked the boy’s chin up with his index finger. “Who raised you? Don’t embarrass me. Apologize to this young lady for laughing at her when she was in pain.”
“Sorry,” the boy mumbled, looking at his feet.
“Hey, ding-dong. Look her in the eye. Like you mean it.”
I saw the words in Kat’s handwriting. Ding-dong.
So this was Smelliot.
Damp strands of dark brown hair were plastered to his forehead, and a bead of sweat rolled down his round cheek. He looked about Kat’s age, but she was right about his size. He was big for his age, chubby, though, the baby fat on his still growing body more noticeable next to his father’s sculpted frame.
He’d dropped the basketball when his father whacked the back of his head, and now it rolled down the street, wobbling to a stop on the iron grate over the street sewer.
Mr. Finn had his son’s neck pinched between his thumb and his forefinger. Before I could tell him I didn’t want an apology, Smelliot said he was sorry again, this time looking straight at me, and Mr. Finn let go of his grip on him.
We both watched him walk away and disappear into the house marked 25.
When Mr. Finn looked back at me, he narrowed his eyes.
“You’re that girl from last night, the older one.” He crossed his arms, studied me. “You look like your mother,” he said, his eyes moving down the front of me.
I took a step back from him, and his eyebrows went up. His eyes were glossy, the alcohol on his breath turning my stomach.
“Did I scare you with my boy just then?” he asked, taking a step closer to me.
I froze, stopped breathing, a lump in my throat. I shook my head.
“I sure hope not. I was just teaching him his p’s and q’s. Nobody likes a boy to grow into a man with no manners. Know what I mean?”
He ducked his head so he was looking up at my face.
“I bet your Daddy taught you all about that, huh? Right from wrong.”
I heard the sneer in his voice. I met his eyes and promised myself I wouldn’t look away. I’d come for a bully. A harmless one, I thought. And instead, I got Mr. Finn.