Читать книгу Taking Terri Mueller - Norma Fox Mazer - Страница 10

THREE

“Shaundra, hi, Shaundra,” Terri said, trying to sound casual. She looked up from tying her sneaker, which she had been tying for at least five minutes, as she waited on the corner near school for Shaundra Smith to pass. The old shoelace trick. If she and Shaundra got to be friends, maybe she’d tell her.

“Hi, Terri,” Shaundra said, and she stopped. Great!

Terri picked up her books. Then, across the street she saw George Torrance, and for a moment she couldn’t say anything. Was it a good luck sign, seeing George the first time she got to talk to Shaundra outside school?

“Where’re you going?” Shaundra said.

“No place special. Home, I guess.” Had George seen her? A few days before, she had noticed him playing the oboe in band during an assembly. A skinny boy with glasses, but something about playing the oboe transformed him. She’d been sitting in the front row and couldn’t get her eyes off him. Since then, everywhere she turned, she saw him.

“What’d you think of assembly?” Shaundra asked. For a moment Terri thought the other girl had read her mind. Then she realized Shaundra meant today’s assembly. “Wasn’t it gross?”

A man from the DA’s office had talked to them on juveniles and the law in Michigan. Forty-five minutes of legal language.

“He was the most boring person I ever heard,” Shaundra went on. She was a chubby girl with masses of dark, coarse hair hanging down like curtains around her face. She had a round face and round, dark eyes.” I think Mr. Hemphill was snoring,” she said. “I know I was totally vegged out.”

“He was boring, but I felt sorry for him,” Terri said. The two girls walked along together.

“I didn’t. He should have arrested himself for disturbing the peace!”

“I guess I just, in general, feel sorry for people like that. I mean, I wonder if they know they’re boring everyone.” Shaundra pushed her hair off her face. “Even if they knew they wouldn’t care. That’s what makes them so boring.”

“Want to go have a soda?” Terri said.

“Not a Coke. They rot your insides.”

“I know, and they have a lot of caffeine, too. Only, did you ever have one with ice cream, milk, and vanilla flavoring?”

Gross.

“No, it’s good. My father and I make it sometimes.” “Popcorn is what I love. Popcorn and garlic.”

“Garlic?”

“I know, isn’t that disgusting? What’d you do this weekend?”

“Well, yesterday Nancy and Leif came over for breakfast. My father made blueberry pancakes. And on Saturday, I went shopping and bought this.” She touched the short, plum-colored jacket she was wearing.

“How neat! Do you get a clothing allowance, or am I being too nosy?”

“My father gives me money for clothes and I buy what I want.”

“Just like that?” Shaundra snapped her fingers. “Do you get a regular allowance?”

“Yes.”

“Can you do anything you want with it?” Terri nodded. “Do you pay for your own movies and records and things like that?”

“Sometimes, and sometimes my father pays.”

“You’re lucky. My mother makes me pay for everything. Even if I want some little makeup junk, or a pair of socks, if she doesn’t think I totally need them, I have to earn the money.”

“Well, I work,” Terri said, a little defensively. She told Shaundra about the summer she took care of Meg and Nate. She liked working, but one of the problems with moving around was that by the time someone got to know you and trust you, it was just about when you were ready to move on. “Anyway, Daddy says I earn my allowance by the work I do in the house for us,” Terri said.

“Like what? Do you mind this third degree?”

Terri smiled and shook her head. She thought it was a good sign when someone you wanted to be friends with wanted to know all about you. “I do cleaning, and fix suppers—things like that.”

“Is there anything you have to do that you hate? Like cleaning bathrooms?”

“If I really hated it, I think Daddy would say, ‘Okay, do something else.’ He’s not real strict about stuff like that.”

“What is he real strict about?”

“That I let him know where I am and when I’m coming home—”

Shaundra rolled her eyes. “Tough life. Anything else?”

“Taking care of Barkley, things like defleaing him. Daddy says having an animal is like having a child. If you’re not going to take care of it—forget it.”

“You sure talk a lot about your father!”

“Well—my mother’s, ah, dead.” Terri’s face got warm. Talking about her mother always embarrassed her.

Shaundra linked arms with Terri. “That’s sad. I’m sorry. Who’s Nancy? Your sister?”

“No, it’s only me and my father. She’s my father’s girlfriend, and Leif is her little boy.”

“What does she do?”

“Work, you mean? Something part-time with computers, and she’s gone back to college to get her degree.”

“What about your father? Aren’t I nosy?”

“I don’t mind. I like to know about people, too. Sometimes I wish I could look right into every house and see how people live. My father’s a carpenter. What about your father?”

“He’s a policeman, a detective, and my mother is a substitute teacher.”

“A detective?” Terri said. “That’s interesting.” But it made her feel uncomfortable to imagine Shaundra’s father putting handcuffs on someone and leading him away. She had seen a man like that on TV, his head hanging way down.

“I was in Detroit over the weekend visiting my father,” Shaundra said. “He moved there after my parents got divorced. Now he’s remarried. Don’t you think parents are gross? Always thinking of themselves! ‘Oh, Shaundra, you wouldn’t want us to live together and just fight all the time!’ That’s what they said when they told me and my brothers they were splitting. You know what I said, Terri? I said, ‘You can fight as much as you like. I don’t care!’ ‘Well, we care,’ they said. They pretended they were thinking about us, but they did it for themselves. Oh, no, don’t let me get going on that!”

“Did you have a good time visiting?”

“Semi-good. My father spent at least fifty percent of the time complaining about my mother. I told him, ‘She spends fifty percent of her time complaining about you!’ They are so dumb, really. I hate it that they do that. At least my stepmother doesn’t say anything about her old husband.”

“Is she nice?” Terri asked, thinking about Nancy.

“Francine’s all right, at least she leaves me alone. We went to two movies and ate at this restaurant, Captain Noah’s. Francine said it was the best fish place in Detroit. Now how does she know that? There was a swordfish over the entrance, looked like he was going to fall right on you. Inside they had dead stuffed fish on the walls staring at you with their fishy eyes. I told Francine, ‘Gee, what a wonderful way to improve people’s appetites.’”

“When will you see your father again?” Terri asked, laughing.

“Maybe in two weeks.”

“You must miss him!”

“I wouldn’t mind seeing my mother every other week, either. That would be great. She drives me bananas. Well, semi-bananas.”

“Well, here’s my corner,” Terri said. Was it too soon to ask Shaundra to come to her house? She wasn’t sure yet if Shaundra wanted to be friends, or was just being friendly. There was a big difference.

“Okay. See you tomorrow then,” Shaundra said. “Right. See you in gym. Bye.”

“Bye.”

Terri walked away. In a moment she glanced back. Shaundra was looking back, too. “Bye!” they called, almost in unison.