John Number One grunted. “Just about got it. If I could only”—more grunts—“get this one valve . . . durn it!”
A stream of water nailed him between the eyes, and I clapped my hand to my mouth.
“Don’t think you got it,” John Number Two observed.
The water chugged from the pipe. Christina looked like she was about to cry.
“Oh God, I am so sorry,” I said. “Please make your face go back to normal. Please?”
“Why, look at that,” John Number Two said.
The gurgling sounds slowed. A drop of water trembled on the rim of the pipe, then sploshed to the floor. After that, nothing.
“It stopped,” I said in amazement.
“I disconnected the main line,” John Number Three announced, emerging from the back room with a towel.
“You did? That is so cool!” I exclaimed.
He tossed the towel to John Number One, who dabbed at his pants.
“You’re supposed to mop the floor, not your pants,” John Number Two said.
“I already did mop the floor,” John Number One grouched. “With my pants.”
“I better call an actual plumber,” Christina said. “And Addie . . . I think you should take your break.”
“Don’t you want me to help clean up?” I said.
“I want you to take your break,” she said.
“Oh,” I said. “Um, yeah, sure. That’s what I was going to do before, but then Crazy Travis showed up, and then Crazy Mayzie—”
She pointed toward the back room.
“It’s just that you were the one who asked me to stay. I mean, who cares, right? But it was—”
“Addie, please,” Christina said. “Maybe it isn’t about you this time, but it sure feels like it. I need you to go.”
We stared at each other.
“Now.”
I jumped and headed for the back room.
“Don’t worry,” John Number Three said as I passed him. “She’ll be over it by the next time you break something.” He winked, and I smiled wanly.
Chapter Eleven
I sloughed off my wet shirt and borrowed a new one from the shelf. It was for Starbucks’ DoubleShot and read, BRING ON THE DAY. Then I fished my cell from my cubby and punched in Dorrie’s speed dial.
“Hola, cookie,” she said, picking up on the second ring.
“Hi,” I said. “Do you have a minute? I’ve had the weirdest day, and it just keeps getting weirder, and I have got to talk to someone about it.”
“Did you get Gabriel?”
“Huh?”
“I said, did you get—” She broke off. When she spoke again, her voice was overly controlled. “Addie? Please tell me you remembered to go to Pet World.”
My stomach slammed down to my feet, like an elevator whose cables broke. I quickly closed my phone and grabbed my coat from the hook. As I was leaving, my phone rerang. I knew I shouldn’t answer, I knew I shouldn’t answer . . . but I gave in and answered anyway.
“Listen,” I said.
“No, you listen. It’s ten thirty, and you promised Tegan you’d go to Pet World at nine o’clock on the dot. There’s no excuse you can give that’ll justify why you’re still at Starbucks futzing around.”
“That’s not fair,” I argued. “What if . . . what if an iceberg fell on my head and left me in a coma?”
“Did an iceberg fall on your head and leave you in a coma?”
I pressed my lips together.
“Uh-huh, well, let me ask you this: Whatever your reason really is, does it have to do with you and some ridiculous new crisis?”
“No! And if you’d stop attacking me and let me tell you all the weird stuff that’s happened to me, you’d understand.”
“Do you even hear yourself?” she said incredulously. “I ask if it’s about some new crisis, and you say ‘No, and by the way, let me tell you about my new crisis.’”
“I didn’t say that.” Did I?
She exhaled. “Not cool, Addie.”
My voice went small. “Okay, you’re right. But, um . . . it has been an unusually bizarre day, even for me. I just want you to know that.”
“Of course it was,” Dorrie said. “And of course you forgot about Tegan, because it’s always, always, always about you.” She made an impatient sound. “What about the sticky note that said Do Not Forget Pig? Didn’t that ring any bells for you?”
“An old lady stole it from me,” I said.
“An old lady . . . ” She broke off. “Yeah, uh-huh. It’s not that you spaced it; an old lady had to steal it from you. It’s The Addie Show all over again. Every channel, every network.”
That stung. “It’s not The Addie Show. I just got sidetracked.”
“Go to Pet World,” Dorrie said, sounding tired. She hung up.
Chapter Twelve
Sunlight glinted on the snow as I hurried down the road and over to Pet World. The sidewalks were mostly clear, but there were spots here and there where the shoveled-off drifts had crumbled down, and my boots made oomph sounds as I trudged through those deeper stretches.
As I oomphed, I kept up a running monologue inside my brain about how The Addie Show was not on every channel. The Addie Show wasn’t on the monster-truck channel, and it wasn’t on the pro-wrestling channel. It most certainly wasn’t on whatever channel aired Let’s Go Fishing with Orlando Wilson, and I was tempted to call Dorrie back and tell her that. “Is it called Let’s Go Fishing with Adeline Lindsey?” I’d say. “Why, no! It’s not!”
But I didn’t, because no doubt she’d find a way to turn that into an example of my being self-absorbed, too. Worse, she’d probably be right. A better plan was to get Gabriel in my hot little hands—well, my cold little hands—and then call Dorrie. I’d say, “See? It turned out okay.” And then I’d call Tegan and let Gabriel oink into the phone or something.
Or, no. I’d call Tegan first, to spread the joy, and then I’d call Dorrie. And I wouldn’t say, “Ha-ha,” because I was bigger than that. Yeah. I was big enough to admit my wrongs, and I was big enough to stop cowering when Dorrie scolded me, since the new, enlightened me would need no scolding.
My cell rang from within my bag, and I cowered. Holy crud, does the girl have ESP?
A worse possibility entered my mind: Maybe it’s Tegan.
And then a wildly unworse possibility, stubborn and fluttering: Or . . . maybe it’s Jeb?
I fumbled in my bag and snatched out my phone. The display screen said DAD, and I deflated. Why? I railed silently. Why couldn’t it have been—
And then I stopped. I cut that whiny voice off midsentence, because I was sick of it, and it wasn’t doing me any good, and anyway, shouldn’t I have some say over the endless thoughts running through my head?
In my brain—and in my heart—I experienced a sudden absence of static. Wow. I could get used to that.
I hit the ignore button on my phone and dropped it back into my bag. I’d call Dad later, after I’d made things right.
Eau de hamster hit me as I stepped inside Pet World, as well as the unmistakable scent of peanut butter. I paused, closed my eyes, and said a prayer for strength, because while eau de hamster was to be expected in a pet store, the smell of peanut butter could mean only one thing.
I approached the cash register, and Nathan Krugle glanced up midchew. His eyes widened, then narrowed. He swallowed and put down his peanut butter sandwich.
“Hello, Addie,” he said distastefully, á la Jerry Seinfeld greeting his nemesis, Newman.
No. Wait. That would make me Newman, and I was so not Newman. Nathan was Newman. Nathan was a super-skinny, acne-pocked Newman with a taste for shrunken T-shirts inscribed with Star Trek quotes. Today his shirt said, YOU WILL DIE OF SUFFOCATION IN THE ICY COLD OF SPACE.
“Hello, Nathan,” I replied. I pushed my hood off, and he took in my hair. He semi-snorted.
“Nice haircut,” he said.
I started to say something back, then restrained myself. “I’m here to pick up something for a friend,” I said. “For Tegan. You know Tegan.”
I’d thought the mention of Tegan, with her bottomless sweetness, might distract Nathan from his vendetta.
It didn’t.
“Indeed I do,” he said, his eyes gleaming. “We go to the same school. The same small school. Surely it would be hard to ignore someone in a school that small?”
I groaned. Here it came, again, as if we hadn’t spoken for four years and still had to process that one regrettable incident. Which we didn’t. We had processed it many times, and yet apparently the processing was one-sided.
“But wait,” he said in the robotic voice of a bad infomercial host. “You ignored someone in a school that small!”
“Seventh gra-ade,” I said in a gritted-teeth, singsong voice. “Many many years ago.”
“Do you know what a Tribble is?” he demanded.
“Yes, Nathan, you’ve—”
“A Tribble is a harmless creature desperate for affection, native to the planet Iota Geminorum Four.”
“I thought it was Iota Gemi-blah-blah Five.”
“And not that many years ago”—he arched his brows to make sure I understood his emphasis—“I was such a Tribble.”
I slumped next to a rack of dog treats. “You were not a Tribble, Nathan.”
“And like a specially trained Klingon warrior—”
“Please don’t call me that. You know I really hate being called that.”
“—you obliterated me.” He noticed the location of my elbow, and his nostrils flared. “Hey,” he said, snapping his fingers repeatedly at the offending body part. “Don’t touch the Doggy de Lites.”
I jerked upright. “Sorry, I’m sorry,” I said. “Just as I am very sorry I hurt your feelings four years ago. But. And this is important. Are you listening?”
“In galactic terms, four years is but a nanosecond.”
I made a sound of exasperation. “I didn’t get the note! I swear to God, I never saw it!”
“Sure, sure. Only, know what I think? I think you read it, tossed it, and promptly forgot it, because if it has to do with anyone else’s woes, it doesn’t matter, right?”
“That’s not true. Listen, can we just—”
“Shall I recite the note’s contents?”
“Please don’t.”
He gazed into the distance. “And I quote: ‘Dear Addie, will you go steady with me? Call me with your answer.’”
“I didn’t get the note, Nathan.”
“Even if you didn’t want to go steady, you should have called.”
“I would have! But I didn’t get the note!”
“The heart of a seventh-grade boy is a fragile thing,” he said tragically.
My hand itched toward the tidy rows of Doggy de Lites. I wanted to peg a pack at him.
“Okay, Nathan?” I said. “Even if I did get the note—which I didn’t—can’t you let it go? People move on. People grow. People change.”
“Oh, please,” he said coldly. The way he regarded me, as if I were lower than a straw wrapper, reminded me that he and Jeb were friends. “People like you don’t change.”
My throat closed. It was too much, that he would come down on me in the same way that everyone else on the planet had.
“But . . . ” It came out wavery. I tried again, and in a voice that wobbled despite my best intentions, I said, “Can’t anyone see I’m trying?”
After a long moment, he was the one who finally dropped his eyes.
“I’m here to pick up Tegan’s pig,” I said. “Can I just have him, please?”
Nathan’s brow furrowed. “What pig?”
“The pig that was dropped off last night.” I tried to read his expression. “Teeny-tiny? With a note that said, Do not sell to anyone but Tegan Shepherd?”
“We don’t ‘sell’ animals,” he informed me. “We adopt them out. And there was no note, just an invoice.”
“But there was a pig?”
“Well, yes.”
“And it was really, really small?”
“Maybe.”
“Well, there should have been a note attached to the pet carrier, but it doesn’t matter. Can you just get him for me?”
Nathan hesitated.
“Nathan, oh my God.” I envisioned Gabriel alone through the cold night. “Please tell me he didn’t die.”
“What?! No.”
“Then where is he?”
Nathan didn’t reply.
“Nathan, come on,” I said. “This isn’t about me. It’s about Tegan. Do you honestly want to punish her because you’re pissed at me?”
“Someone adopted him,” he muttered.
“I’m sorry. What’s that?”
“Some lady, she adopted the pig. She came in about half an hour ago and forked over two hundred dollars. How was I supposed to know he wasn’t for sale—I mean, adoption?”
“Because of the note, you idiot!”
“I didn’t get the note!”
We realized the irony of his protest at the same time. We stared at each other.
“I’m not lying,” he said.
There was no point pushing the issue. This was bad, bad, bad, and I had to figure out how to fix it, not get all over Nathan for something that was too late to change.
“Okay, um, do you still have the invoice?” I said. “Show me the invoice.” I held out my hand and wiggled my fingers.
Nathan jabbed the cash register, and the bottom drawer sprung open. He drew out a wrinkled piece of pale pink paper.
I grabbed it. “‘One teacup piglet, certified and licensed,’” I read aloud. “‘Two hundred dollars.’” I flipped it over, zeroing in on the neatly penned message at the bottom. “‘Paid in full. To be picked up by Tegan Shepherd.’”
