Chapter 3
When Keme staggered into the kitchen, I said, “You’re going to be late.”
He made a rude gesture as he struggled into a Quiksilver hoodie.
It was seven a.m., and I was going to die.
But not yet. I had a mission to accomplish.
The problem was Keme’s attendance. His tardies, in particular.
Apparently, Keme didn’t always make it to school on time.
As in, he never made it to school on time.
Which, I thought through my sleep-deprived haze, was reasonable.
I mean, what monster had decided that school should start at 7:26 a.m. It was too early.
And it was a weird time. And did I mention how early it was?
Keme’s tardies had accumulated to the point that they resulted in afternoon detentions—which Keme skipped.
And the skipped afternoon detentions became Saturday detentions—which Keme also skipped.
And those skipped detentions culminated in a round of phone calls from the principal of Hastings Rock Public High School.
First me. Then Bobby. And then Indira, who had finished her phone call with a grim “We’ll take care of it. ”
And take care of it we did. Or, in my case, we were going to die trying.
I stumbled to the coffeemaker, and on the way, I caught a whiff of something. Grabbing Keme’s hoodie—which he was still wriggling into—I yanked it off his head. In answer to his glare, I said, “Not that one. On the chair.”
He stomped over to the clean hoodie I’d set out for him (Rip Curl, and formerly Bobby’s).
As he dragged it on, I pitched the dirty hoodie toward the stairs and shambled for the coffeemaker again.
The coffee was almost done dripping, so I switched my attention to the toaster.
I dropped in two slices of Indira’s homemade bread, set the dial to level five, um, toastiness, and pushed the lever down.
Back to the coffee.
The machine beeped to let me know the nectar of the gods was ready, which was when I realized I’d forgotten a mug. I turned around to hustle over to the cabinet, but Keme was already there. He tossed me a mug. And, by some miracle, I caught it.
I was pouring coffee into the mug when I realized Keme was hacking a continent-sized slab of brownie out of the pan Indira had made the night before. After a sip of life-bringing bean juice—okay, a few sips—I croaked, “Unh-uh.”
Keme scowled at me.
The toast popped up. I grabbed two bananas—Keme liked a lot of banana—the jar of peanut butter, and a knife. “You can take a brownie with your lunch,” I told him. “Not for breakfast.”
Still scowling, Keme opened the fridge and grabbed the lunch box Indira had bought him. It was simple. It was brown. It was butch—if a lunch box could be butch. He was obsessed with it.
“Eat,” I said as I set the plate peanut butter banana toast in front of him.
He took a huge bite and made a gesture at his lunch box.
“Indira already packed you something,” I told him.
He shook his head as he took another bite.
I leaned into the pantry, snagged a single-serving bag of potato chips, and tossed them to him underhand.
Indira was not a believer in chips at lunch.
Indira was a believer in vegetables. And lots of them.
And not smothered in peanut butter or ranch dressing or any of the things that neutralize all those vegetable toxins. So Keme and I had to be vigilant.
Keme caught the chips out of the air, took another savage bite, and made an unhappy gesture.
“If you’re taking a brownie as big as an ice floe,” I told him, “yeah, one bag of chips is enough.”
Outrage painted his face. Another time—like when I wasn’t dying of sleep deprivation—I would have loved it.
I gulped down some more coffee, grabbed the keys to the Pilot, and then said, “Shoot, my hair.”
(I did not say shoot.)
But somehow, Keme was already there, tugging a beanie down over my I-get-advice-from-the-Bride-of-Frankenstein hairdo. He grabbed his backpack and, still carrying the plate with the rest of his toast, started toward the door.
I grabbed the stack of homework from the corner of the table, caught up to him, and shoved it in his backpack.
7:13.
We ran for the car.
Bobby had been nice enough to let me use the Pilot (when he didn’t need it, of course), and since I was being a responsible, upright citizen and doing my moral duty by forcing Keme to go to school, Bobby had gone an extra step and caught a ride to work that morning.
The Pilot started easily. I wedged my mug between my legs, prayed it didn’t spill, and drove.
7:20.
We lost a full minute outside Hastings Rock, waiting for Althea Wilson to turn her boat of a car.
Then we had to stop at a crosswalk where Mr. Li was shepherding a bunch of elementary schoolers.
Then there was a parade of geese.
It wasn’t fair. It didn’t make sense. It had to be a conspiracy.
And then we turned the corner, and I saw the drop-off line for the high school. It stretched most of the block.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said.
I had one job. I’d gotten out of bed at seven in the morning to do this job. I’d basically sacrificed everything.
And I was not going to let Althea Wilson’s yacht-sized Cadillac, or Mr. Li’s outrageous friendliness, or a goose parade, or a line of helicopter parents ruin it.
(A small voice suggested maybe getting up a little earlier. I told that little voice to shut up or I’d stab myself in the brain with a pencil.)
And then: a miracle.
An open spot that somehow everybody else had missed. Right in front of the school. I cut around the line of cars, accelerated, and swerved into the spot. Keme shoved the last of the toast in his mouth.
I stretched past him to open the door. “Go! Go! Go!”
He dropped out of the Pilot and ran.
That’s when I saw his backpack.
Muttering under my breath (words that would have gotten me sent straight to the principal’s office), I grabbed his backpack and sprinted after him. I caught up to him at the door, shoved the backpack into his arms, and then planted a hand between his shoulder blades and shoved him inside.
7:26.
The bell rang.
A moment of unreality washed over me.
We’d done it.
I’d done it.
I was practically a parent now. Scratch that. I was parent of the year.
I was on my way back to the Pilot, wondering why people always made raising a child sound so hard, when I saw Bobby.
He was in uniform.
He was holding a clipboard.
He was staring at me in what—in the friendliest of terms—might be called disappointment.
And that’s when I saw the red curb. And the words NO PARKING. And the sign.
“Bobby,” I said, “no, please, you don’t understand. There were geese. It was out of my control. An act of God. Force majeure. I’m the victim here.”
He sighed. And then he clicked his pen.