The family sat silently in the car as we drove home for one of the last times. As Mr. Roberts had said, we planned to leave in a couple of days for Lucan. Dad was taking a job as a freelance writer and photographer with the local Lucan newspaper. Mom began her new nursing job in nearby London soon, too.
Mixed with the guilt was the resentment of the move. Jennifer and I had been born in Toronto and had lived our whole lives in the small two-storey three-bedroom house in suburban Etobicoke. Since the trial had begun, I’d had no time to really say goodbye to my friends, especially my best one, Sam.
To top it off, working with Granddad on a community history project appealed even less to me. I knew it would only be three or four hours on Saturdays after the museum closed, and that by March break my sentence would end, but Granddad, a retired history teacher from the local high school, was rather eccentric.
On previous visits I’d noticed that people politely smiled with what appeared to be pity upon greeting Granddad. I saw, too, that they shrugged and shook their heads as they passed by. I loved Granddad dearly, but his research project on the Donnellys, an Irish-Canadian family that had been slaughtered by a vigilante mob more than a hundred years ago, and the ghostly sightings at their former homestead, only made people see him as a kook even more. On some occasions, unknown to Mom and Dad, teenagers teased Granddad in downtown Lucan. Nothing serious enough to call the police, but enough to make me angry and embarrassed.
Granddad always laughed them off, simply saying, “Kids will be kids!”
As soon as Dad turned into our driveway and shut off the engine, I pushed open the rear passenger door and stalked into the house. Jennifer tried to catch me as I fumbled with the key in the lock, but I broke away from her, went inside, scrambled up the stairs, and slammed my bedroom door. Turning on my stereo, I parted the curtains to look at my family, who were still outside. I never wanted to hurt anyone — especially Jennifer — but that’s exactly what I did every time.
My sister was wiping away tears as she leaned against Mom’s shoulder. When my stereo erupted in an echoing thud of heavy metal music, Jennifer glanced up at my window. Quickly, I jerked the curtains closed.
“Let him be for now!” I heard my dad say as he tried to soothe Jennifer. “He’ll be fine in a day or two. You’ll see!”
Chapter 2
A couple of days later I awoke with a terrific headache. Opening one eye, I glanced at my bedside radio clock — 7:30 a.m.! I sat up. How could that be? Hadn’t I just gone to sleep? Rubbing sleep from my eyes, I heard a relentless pounding that wasn’t in my head.
“Jason!” I recognized Jennifer’s voice. “Get up! Dad wants to take us out for breakfast before the movers get here.”
“Go away!”
It was moving day. We really were going to Lucan. Anger flooded through me again. I knew I’d been particularly mean to Jennifer and unfair to my parents the past few days, but it was my life, too. What right did they have to take me away from my home and friends just because they thought it would be good for me?
“Come on!” she pleaded. “Mom and Dad are waiting.” “Tell them no thanks!” I snarled. “I’m going to stay behind.”
“Jason!”
“Get lost, Stilts!”
I threw my pillow at the opening door. In my sleepy stupor I missed and knocked the lamp off the bookcase, which grazed Jennifer’s shoulder as it crashed to the floor. I froze under Jennifer’s stare. What was I doing?
Jennifer and I could always talk in the past. Now I tried to speak, explain things, but my jaw just flapped. I got off my bed and reached out to Jennifer as tears welled in her eyes, but she turned away and slammed the door behind her.
Slumping back onto the bed, I started punching the other pillow. I hit it even harder when I heard Dad ask in the hallway, “Jennifer, where’s Jason?”
“He’s not coming!” Jennifer said, seething.
“Not coming? We’ll see about that. Jason, get down here!”
I wrapped the pillow around my ears and covered my head with the blanket as I waited for him to burst into the room. I really couldn’t blame him for being angry, but I didn’t care. Instead I steeled myself for another fight with him.
“Wait, Tom!” I heard my mother say. “Let him be. He needs time.”
“But, Ellen!” Then he sighed. “Come on, Jennifer, get your coat. I’m buying breakfast.”
When I heard the front door close, I slipped off my bed, went over to the window, and looked out. Mom and Jennifer were walking arm in arm ahead of Dad. Jennifer rested her head on my mother’s shoulder, a burst of frosty breath shrouding her. Dad tightened the scarf around his neck and buttoned his overcoat. Before climbing into the car, he glanced up at my window. At first he seemed dejected — not angry or disappointed, just sad. Then, slowly, he raised a hand in a gentle wave and smiled. After that he got into the car, started it, and reversed down the driveway. In a few moments the car disappeared in the morning fog.
“Why do they have to be so nice?” I muttered.
After flipping on the stereo to my usual brand of heavy metal, I flopped face first into a pillow and closed my eyes. As I lay there and let myself be enveloped by the electric skirl of guitars, I barely heard my cell phone ring. Fumbling for the phone, I picked it up, punched the talk button, and mumbled, “Hello?”
“Hey, man!” I knew Sam’s voice right away and turned down the volume on my stereo. “You must be having some kind of blast there, kiddo! What’s up?”
“You know what’s up!” I shot back. “I move today. Remember?”
“Yeah ... I know.”
Sam resented the move as much as I did, if not more. I smacked my hand across my forehead, regretful that I was even being snarly with my best friend. “Sorry for snapping, Sam!” I struggled to keep the quaver out of my voice. “It’s just that ...
“Tough, isn’t it? I’m coming over. See you in a bit.”
“Thanks, man.”
I tossed the cell onto the bed, got up, and threw on jeans and a Toronto Maple Leafs T-shirt. Then, from outside, I heard the rumble of a big engine and the bleeping whine of a reverse signal. The moving truck was backing into our driveway. I wanted to shout, “Go away! Leave us alone!” Instead I turned up my stereo to block out the noise of the movers.
“Anyone home?” a voice called out.
I pushed myself out of bed, trudged out of the room, and looked over the banister of the upstairs landing. A burly man was standing in the foyer. He tilted his sweat-rimmed baseball cap on his head and quickly surveyed the hall, then took some measurements of the front door and tapped out the hinge pins to move it out of the way. As he straightened, he spotted me. “Hey, Jason! It’s Fred! The door was open. I know we’re a bit early, but I thought we might as well get started.”
I didn’t answer. We’d met the first time he’d come to give an estimate on our move, and he’d seemed friendly enough then. Now I was in no mood for chatter.
“Mom and Dad not home?” he asked.
“Gone out for breakfast,” I grumbled. “Be back whenever!” His smile faded.
“It is okay if we start, isn’t it?”
“Whatever!”
I returned to my bedroom and shut the door. When I heard the rattle of the moving truck’s back door and then the crash of the loading ramp on our front steps, it just made my mood blacker. With all the noise from the shuffle of furniture, the barking of orders, and my blasting stereo, I didn’t hear the tap on my bedroom door at first. When