Hideout Read online

  Grover, I’d come to believe, was the cause of my problems. If we’d never met, the fight wouldn’t have happened.

  I’d been doing a lot of thinking about just how I’d come to be his friend. On the surface it was obvious. When Dad got his new job as chief of police last September we moved down from McComb. Grover was the first boy I met. I ended up talking to him when we had doughnuts in the fellowship hall after church service. Even had I not been eager to meet some kids my age, he would have been hard to ignore. He’s got wild, kinky red hair that sits on his head like an Annie wig. There’s no way to brush it or do anything with it except let it grow and shear it like a sheep. Contrasting this is skin so fair it looks like he would get sunburned just crossing a parking lot.

  Our friendship was even easier when I found out he was in my same grade at Gautier Middle School and happened to live just down the bayou from the brand-new house we had moved into just two months earlier. I liked video games, and he knew more about them than anyone I’d ever met. So we started hanging out at my new school, and eventually I started going over to his house on weekends. There probably wasn’t a single boy our age who could have walked into Grover’s house and not been envious. Dr. Middleton was a surgeon at the big hospital in Pascagoula, and he bought Grover anything he wanted. He had remote control planes and guns and fishing rods and two iPads and a MacBook. He even had a boat, a brand-new Boston Whaler that he’d never used. But I soon found that, despite having everything a kid could want, all Grover really cared about was his Xbox.

  So it appeared obvious how we’d gotten to be friends. But what bothered me was that I never saw any of this coming. How did I not know that everybody thought Grover was so lame? How could I start off in a new town as the best friend of the biggest chump in school?

  Counselors and parents just tell you whatever they can to make you feel better. It appeared to me that I was just as big a loser as Grover. And it took getting beat within an inch of my life to realize it.

  I think of it as “the fight” in my head, but only because it sounds better. There was no fight to it. Grover and I didn’t do anything but lie on the cold cement and ball up and cover our faces while they kicked us until I thought I was going to die.

  I’d told Dad and the other policeman what had happened at least ten times. I’d replayed it in my head a thousand times more, trying to make sense of it.

  It happened right after we returned from Christmas break. We were leaving the lunchroom when Leroy Parnell stuck out his foot and tripped Grover. Leroy was a full ten inches taller and twice as heavy as either one of us, with size twelve shoes and a tear tattoo just below his left eye. He was in eighth grade, but I heard he’d been held back at least two years.

  Grover’s backpack was always so overloaded and heavy that he smacked hard onto the concrete. Grover’s got a quick temper when something stands in his way. I saw his face growing red, and I knew he was about to lose it. He finally untangled himself from his backpack, got to his feet again, and turned to Leroy.

  “Watch it, dumbass!” he shouted.

  Grover’s not scared of anything, but not in a brave way. He can be so unaware of his surroundings that he doesn’t even consider what’s dangerous and what’s not. I knew Leroy was no one to shout at. No one to even talk to. And I knew he’d tripped Grover on purpose.

  Leroy leaned down close to Grover’s face and said, “Do something about it, wuss?”

  Grover doesn’t care about people calling him names. It’s like he’s above that kind of thing, like he doesn’t even hear it. But he hates people getting in his face.

  “Why don’t you pick my bag up for me, you stupid redneck!” Grover shouted.

  Standing beside Leroy was his friend Gooch. Nobody knew Gooch’s last name. Gooch never said much. He had homemade tattoos of a chain around both wrists.

  Leroy looked at Gooch like he was about to ask him something. But the look was really more like You see, I told you he’d act like this. Then, while Leroy was still looking at Gooch, his arm shot out and his fist punched Grover in the chest so hard it sounded like a hammer thumping a wood barrel. Grover flew backward into the lockers and collapsed onto the concrete walkway. I started to go to him when I felt Gooch’s arm slide around my throat and constrict me in the crook of his elbow. I heard Grover wheezing and trying to catch his breath. As I felt my own breath being cut off I saw Leroy approach Grover and stand over him for a moment. Then he kicked him in the stomach and bounced him off the lockers like a soccer ball. Grover’s body made a huge bang, and I realized other students were starting to gather around. Out of all the faces the one most in focus was Julia’s. She appeared frozen with her mouth open, watching in disbelief. She was the prettiest girl in our class and the last one I wanted to see this.

  I felt fear and panic surge through me like I’d never felt before. I began to struggle against Gooch, trying to break free. Then I felt a sharp blow to my ribs, and what breath I had left me and everything went blurry. I heard Julia scream. I felt Gooch’s arm loosen, and I slipped to my knees on the concrete. Things were getting louder around me. More people were screaming and yelling. Gooch kicked me in the stomach, lifting my backpack and the rest of me off the concrete. I came down on my face like I’d been slapped with a brick wall. I don’t remember much after that except the screaming and yelling. It seemed like the beating wasn’t ever going to stop. Blows to my face and stomach and arms until it didn’t hurt anymore. And I thought, This is what it feels like before you die.

  I woke up in the hospital with Dad and Mom standing over me. I learned the police, including my dad, had locked down the school while they pursued Leroy and Gooch, who had run off across the soccer field. While the ambulances took me and Grover to the hospital, the officers tracked them down in the woods and arrested them.

  Later on, I saw Grover in the hospital room a couple of doors down. He had a brace on his nose and bruises all over his body. Leroy and Gooch got expelled and transferred to a juvenile detention center. The rumor around school was that they’d done it all on a bet.

  Why me? I kept asking myself.

  I’m not the smallest in the class. I’m actually a little on the tall side, but skinny. I play on the basketball team, even though I’m not very good. I’m not one of the smartest in my grade, but I’m usually in a couple of advanced classes. I’m not outstanding in any way. I doubt that many people even knew my name before the fight.

  So why me?

  “Those boys are not just bullies,” Dad said. “They’re criminals. I imagine both of them will live in jail most of their lives.”

  That didn’t help.

  “Sam,” Mom said, “it was a terrible thing that happened, but you have to know it had nothing to do with you.”

  That didn’t help either.

  I heard that, while we were in the hospital, Principal Hartley held a schoolwide assembly about bullying. He said there was a zero-tolerance policy about it and he’d put a letter box outside the main office for students to make anonymous reports.

  It makes things even worse to have the entire school make an example of you.

  Most of all, it’s an empty, dark feeling when you realize adults can’t fix everything. Just like the counselor, they were going to tell me what I wanted to hear, anything they thought would make me feel better. Which isn’t always the truth. But even the truth doesn’t always fix things.

  I got beat up because Leroy and Gooch thought I was a loser and I wouldn’t fight back and people would think it was funny. And with friends like Grover, I figured, I’d always be a loser.

  4

  When I returned to the house I found Dad on the dock in his black police uniform. His shirt collar is decorated with stars, and his badge glinted in the sun. He wears a utility belt that weighs nearly ten pounds, with his 9mm Glock pistol, two sets of handcuffs, Taser, and flashlight. As if the badge and the belt weren’t enough to scare a criminal, his arms are nearly as big around as my leg and his muscles strain again
st his shirtsleeves.

  Dad’s project of the day was wiring the engine on the new boat lift for the Bream Chaser. That’s what Dad had named my boat. I think it was his attempt at making a joke, a bream being a small perchlike fish. Since the fight, he’d been making more jokes and I figured it was his way of gauging my enthusiasm. Outside of his occasional not-funny jokes, Dad’s pretty serious. He’s always thinking about work and projects, but even more so since we’d moved to Kings Bayou.

  Dad’s originally from Bay St. Louis, a coastal town not far west of Pascagoula. He grew up fishing and boating the Gulf of Mexico with his friends and my grandfather. While we were living in McComb and he was still a sergeant, all he talked about was moving south again. Then he got the new job at the end of last summer. Being chief of a police department was the goal he’d been working toward since the academy. As soon as we moved he bought a waterfront lot on the bayou and began building his dream house. The construction workers had finished in March, and we’d been living in it for almost four months.

  I tied the Bream Chaser to the dock, trying to remember the knot Dad had taught me.

  “Catch anything?” he called out.

  “No, sir,” I said. I knew he was watching me fumble with the rope. The knot is called a bowline. It’s supposedly the best knot in the world. It looks easy when he makes it, but I only get it right half the time.

  “Make a loop,” he said. “Then the rabbit comes out of the hole and around the tree.”

  I fumbled it again.

  Dad walked over and knelt beside me. “You just gotta make your rabbit hole the right way,” he said.

  He made his first loop and quickly pushed the rope end out of the hole, around the stupid tree, and back down the hole, cinching the knot tight.

  “Takes a little practice,” he said.

  I didn’t see how it was possible to learn everything he knew, but I wanted to try.

  “I’m going inside to get something to eat,” I said.

  I walked up the dock and into the house and saw Mom in the kitchen putting a corned beef into the Crock-Pot.

  “How was it?” she asked me.

  “Fine,” I said. “But I didn’t catch anything.”

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “This corned beef won’t be ready until supper, but you can grab a snack to tide you over.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “I’m going to put my stuff away.”

  “Grover left two messages for you on the answering machine.”

  “Okay,” I said. “Thanks.”

  The television in my room was full of Xbox messages from Grover. The good thing about him never using his boat was that he couldn’t come after me. But I doubted he even realized I was avoiding him. Things like that didn’t seem to register with Grover.

  Where are you?

  Call me.

  Something wrong with your stinking phone?

  Ignoring Grover’s communication attempts just annoyed him and made him pound out text messages in all capital letters.

  WHERE ARE YOU????

  GET ONLINE!

  I turned away from the screen and flopped onto my bed. I lay there and stared at the blades of the ceiling fan and got my head back into the adventure I’d had that morning. First I thought about Davey and how strange it was that he was out there by himself. Then I thought about the dead body and how ridiculous it was to think I could find it. Davey and the swamp camp were suddenly more interesting than the dead body. But the more I thought about it, the more Davey’s story didn’t sit right with me. There were a lot of pieces missing. The mystery of it was enticing, but I also couldn’t think of ever doing something that made me feel so different.

  The Xbox chirped.

  ANSWER ME!

  I grabbed my backpack off the floor and returned to the kitchen. Mom had gone onto the sun porch to touch up one of her paintings. She used to work as a legal secretary when we lived in McComb. She was always coming home late and dumping stacks of take-home work on the kitchen counter. She said as soon as she and Dad saved up enough money for the move to Pascagoula she was going to find less stressful work and take up painting again, something she’d enjoyed in college. She works part-time as the secretary at our church now, and when she’s not working she spends a lot of her free time creating oil paintings of the water and the wildlife outside the window. She doesn’t sell them, but to me they look as good as anything you’d see in a gallery. I was sort of surprised by how good they were, but Mom’s like that. It seems like she’s quietly good at everything.

  Mom had left out a sandwich for me and I stuffed it down. Then I put my backpack on the counter and began to fill it. I got three cans of ravioli, two cans of corned beef hash, two bananas, a bag of potato chips, four hot dogs, and several slices of cheese. Then I filled an empty milk jug with water and set it on the counter beside the pack. Finally, I filled an empty pill bottle with milk and put it in a Ziploc bag with an eyedropper Mom used to use to give me medicine.

  A sleeping bag was going to be a problem. There was no way I could get one into my pack and it was probably too hot for one anyway. I decided to take two old bedsheets instead. It was enough to give Davey a little comfort and to block mosquitoes until his family arrived.

  Just as I was about to go out the back door I heard the phone ringing.

  “Can you get that, Sam?” Mom called from the sun porch. “It’s probably Grover again.”

  “Okay,” I said with a groan.

  I went into the kitchen, put everything on the floor, and picked up the handset.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Why haven’t you been communicating with me?” Grover said. He was always impatient but even more so on the phone.

  “Because I’ve been too busy to play Xbox.”

  “Busy doing what?”

  “I’ve been in the boat.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been fishing.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know, Grover. Because sometimes people go fishing.”

  “What’s the point in it?”

  “It’s just fun.”

  “You never liked to fish before.”

  “Yes I did. Dad just hasn’t had much time to take me.”

  “What about me?”

  “Geez, Grover. It’s only been like a day since I was online.”

  “Well, you have a lot of catching up to do. I’m at level three on Demon Quest.”

  “I’ll catch up.”

  “When?”

  “Tomorrow, I guess.”

  “Come over after church. We can stay up late.”

  I looked at the floor. It was easy to avoid Grover in my head, but it was much harder to avoid him face-to-face, or ear to ear in this case.

  “Okay,” I said, feeling like a coward. “Are you going?”

  I hadn’t seen him at church in weeks, and I assumed his mother had been traveling. Dr. Middleton didn’t attend service, and I never saw Grover there unless his mother took him.

  “Yeah, I’ll be there,” Grover said, like it was a dumb question.

  “All right, then,” I said.

  “Good,” he said. “See you tomorrow.”

  The phone clicked and went silent.

  * * *

  Dad was still working on the boat lift at the end of the dock. He straightened and eyed my backpack.

  “Getting serious about fishing, I see.”

  “I guess. Mostly exploring.”

  “You’ll get the hang of it. Look for structure along the bank, and fish against it. Before you know it, you’ll drag a big redfish out of there.”

  “I’ll try.”

  He studied me, beaming. It was obvious that he liked nothing more than to see me enjoying the boat. It was just the type of outdoor thing he thought I should be doing.

  “You show Grover your boat yet?” he said.

  “He doesn’t care about that kind of thing.”

  “Maybe he j
ust doesn’t know what he’s missing. I’ll bet some pretty girls would love to go riding with you two.”

  I thought of Julia in my boat. I imagined her sitting on the front seat and looking back at me with that smile and that blond hair blowing about her face.

  I frowned. “I doubt it.”

  “You might be surprised,” he said.

  He wasn’t even close to understanding.

  “I haven’t been hanging out with Grover as much lately.”

  I studied Dad’s face, searching for some sign of approval, but his expression didn’t change.

  “Why not?” he said.

  “I don’t know. I’m just not into the Xbox as much, I guess. That’s all he likes to do.”

  I’m not sure what Dad thinks of Grover. Like everybody else I know, he probably just can’t imagine how you connect with him.

  Dad turned back to the lift. “I think you’d be doing him a favor to stop off and get him out of the house some.”

  “I’ll see him at church tomorrow.”

  “Suit yourself,” Dad said. “Have a good time.”

  I got into the Bream Chaser with my backpack, started the engine, and sped away toward the strange world of the swamp and Davey. Where, if even for just a little while, I didn’t have to worry about who I was and who I hung out with.

  5

  Davey must have heard my boat approaching, because he was already standing on the dock when I rounded the bend. I tossed him the rope, he tied it to the nail, and I got out with my pack and water.

  “I thought you might not come back,” he said.

  “Take this stuff,” I told him. “I’ve got to cast at least once.”

  “Did you get milk?”

  “Yep.”

  He took the pack and water from me while I got my fishing rod.

  “There’s a lot of fish out there,” he said.

  I made a cast, reeled the line back in, and returned the rod to the floor of the boat.

  “You got to try more than that,” he said.

  I climbed back onto the dock.

  “I told Dad I was going fishing. So now I have. You hungry?”

  Davey nodded. “But I need to feed Baldy first.”