There Will Be Bears (9 page)

“Shut up, Timmy. I do not.”

“That’s not what Bright said.”

Bright stands there, sipping a can of Dr Pepper, acting like he didn’t do anything wrong. Why am I a topic of discussion with his new group? What else do they know?

This is why I’m here. He brought me over to embarrass me, not in front of his new friends but in front of Karen.

“You know, I should get going,” I finally say. “I got to study for Ms. Hoole.”

“You’re leaving?” Nico says. “You got here like two minutes ago.”

“I just came over to say hello. My mom’s waiting out front.”

Bright follows me up the staircase and closes the basement door behind him. I march to the front door.

“Tyson.”

“Thanks for punking me.”

“Dude, I’m sorry. Timmy shouldn’t have said that. He’s such a butthead.”

“
You’re
the butthead.” Guh, my eyes are getting all wet, but I refuse to cry just because Brighton sucks now. With my back turned I say, “Is this what you guys do all day? Sit around and make fun of me?”

“Dude, it’s not like that.”

“Why did you tell them about Karen? Now she thinks I’m a psycho.”

“I don’t know. We were at the field after practice and we were just talking. And they asked about you.”

“Because they think I’m a joke.”

“It’s not that.”

“I’m not an idiot.”

“Dude, okay, you wore a Taylor Swift T-shirt last week to school. You bought tickets to her concert the day they went on sale. I mean, come on. You were asking for it.”

“What? You don’t like her? Did we not sing ‘Mean’ at Party Fiesta Karaoke for your birthday?”

“Well, yeah, but I don’t go broadcasting it,” he says, almost whispering.

“What’s so wrong about liking Taylor Swift?”

“Are you serious? We’re in eighth grade. Next year we’ll be in high school. Only girls like Taylor Swift.” He points at my belt and says, “And that rattlesnake belt buckle is just the ugliest thing.”

Okay, don’t punch him in the gonads. He knows Gene got me that belt last Christmas. And I mean, yeah, the buckle is practically the size of a salad plate, but it means a lot to me.

I say, “So did you tell them all my secrets?”

“Not
all
your secrets. But these guys have known each other since last year, and I had nothing to say. And they wanted to know everything about you. I didn’t mean to throw you under the bus — honest — but they just wouldn’t stop asking. It was Timmy’s plan to bring you over here and do this.”

“You’re such a butt. How would you feel if I told them all your secrets? Like the time you wet the bed in the fourth grade. Or I’ll tell them you have all the
Gossip Girl
episodes on your computer.”

His eyes sharpen. “Dude. Don’t.”

“And it’s so obvious you put makeup over that zit.”

Bright immediately faces the floor, his face shadowed. In a small voice, he says, “It’s tinted acne cream.”

I open the front door. “Thanks for ruining my only chance with Karen.”

With his hand covering his nose, he says, “You know, you wouldn’t have even talked to her if it weren’t for us.”

“Yeah-huh.”

“You’re too scared to talk to girls.”

I close the door. But then I open it again and
slam
it.

That’s so not true. I’d planned this for weeks — I was going to talk to Karen after I went hunting, because I wanted to have something interesting to say to her. Instead, I blathered on about beards.

I walk. It ain’t bad — maybe two miles, all on lit roads with little traffic. We live in a pretty nice town and I don’t know of any creepers. No sketchy white vans. It just sucks how quickly the temperature drops when the sun goes down.

My phone moos. A call from Bright. I hit
IGNORE
.

That’s it. I’m asking Karen out, and I don’t care if she turns me down or laughs in my face. I have to do this.

When I get home forty-five minutes later, I go into the living room and the TV’s on — a Country Music Channel presentation on Taylor Swift. Ashley’s asleep on the couch with her hands tucked beneath her head. She looks cute, like a little kid all tuckered out after some intense frolicking.

It still smells like popcorn in here, but like always, Mom and Dad went to bed way before the movie ended.

I sit in Gramps’s reclining chair and turn the volume up. They’re talking about the making of the video for “You Belong with Me.” I haven’t seen this one yet.

Ashley looks up, her hair messy. “Hey.”

“Yo.”

“Dad said you were spending the night at Brighton’s.”

“Change of plans.”

She looks at the TV and then back at me, confused. “You can change the channel if you want.”

“Are you kidding? I love Taylor Swift.”

“Really?”

Ashley and I don’t talk often. Come to think of it, we don’t talk to each other at all anymore.

“Yeah,” I say. “She’s a musical genius.”

“Now you’re messing with me.”

Bright might be embarrassed by the things he likes, but I refuse to be ashamed of loving Taylor Swift. She writes all her own music, her first album came out when she was only sixteen, her songs are super catchy . . . and she’s hot.

My phone beeps. A message from Bright, or, as he’s saved in my phone,
B-Right-On
. That was my nickname for him. I thought of it in the first grade. Now everyone uses it, so I don’t anymore.

I put my phone back in my pocket. “I know everything about her,” I say. “Did you know she did magazine ads telling girls to drink low-fat milk?”

“Of course I know that. Wow, but I can’t believe
you
know that.”

“Yeah, well, I tend to surprise people.”

She sits up a little. “Did you know she won a national poetry contest when she was a kid?”

I roll my eyes. “It was called ‘Monster in My Closet,’ and she won the contest when she was in the fourth grade. She also wrote a three-hundred-and-fifty-page novel.”

“Yeah, right. How come I never heard about it?”

“Isn’t it obvious? You’re not the Taylor Swift fan that I am.”

Her confusion turns into joy. “How come you never told me? Ooh, we could go to the concert in Denver!”

“Tickets already sold out.” I don’t tell her I have a pair. I was originally supposed to go with Bright — he even asked me to get him a ticket. But I can’t go with Ashley. I mean, she’s my sister.

She goes, “Well, if I can find tickets, do you want to go?”

“Only if you can keep up with me, ’cause I was planning on going all out. I’m talking face paint, matching shirts, glow sticks . . .”

“Okay, now you’re starting to freak me out.”

I take the remote and crank the volume. I jump on the couch one cushion away from her and jam out to the bridge of “You Belong With Me” on my air microphone with a death-metal voice.

“Tyson!” she cries out in a whisper. “Mom and Dad are upstairs!”

I do one more hop and collapse, my legs stretched across her lap. I wiggle my feet in front of Ashley’s face, and she pushes them away.

“You’re gross.” But she’s laughing so much. This feels like the time to ask her something that’s been bugging me since last Friday.

I say, “How come you didn’t care when I told you they put Gene in a nursing home?”

“Huh?”

“You were all whatever about it.”

“Oh. Um, I don’t know.”

“You really don’t care?”

“I care. I mean, of course. I just . . . don’t like to talk about things like that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’m tired of everything being bad all the time. Dad losing his job and getting depressed, and then our living in a motel. We were, like, homeless. All of my stuff is still in boxes. And then when you told me about Gramps . . .” She lets out a long sigh. “I should have seen it coming. But why would I say anything?”

“It would have helped me.”

She tucks her knees up to her chest, looking me in the eyes. “I thought you never wanted to talk to me.”

“Tell me something about yourself I don’t know. What do you like to do?”

“Study,” she confesses, like she’s ashamed.

“Are you smart?”

“Yeah. I can help you get ready for your test if you want.”

“But you’re eleven.”

“I’m in Advanced American Civ. We studied the Revolutionary War three weeks ago.”

“Really? Wow, okay.”

She gathers up her things. “I’m going to bed. ’Night.”

I steal her spot, cover myself with the blanket, and watch a marathon of Taylor Swift stuff.

Okay, tomorrow I’m going to study my yamhole off. No excuses.

My phone goes off so early, the sun isn’t even up. I hear my ringtone.

Moo
.

Who the heck is calling me at . . . what time is it? God, it better not be Bright.

Moo. Moo
.

My phone isn’t in my pants pockets, not on the end table.

“Seriously, Bright, I’m going to kill you.”

My phone moos again.

There! I fish it out from between the couch cushions.

It’s five a.m.
GRAMPS
is flashing on my screen.

Gene never uses his cell phone for anything other than emergencies. He kept it in the cup holder of his pickup in case of an accident. This call has to be important. And I have a feeling it’s about the hunting trip.

“Gene,” I say. “Hey.”

“So you’re calling me Gene now?”

“Um . . . yeah.”

There’s an awkward moment where I think about what happened yesterday at the nursing home. But I won’t bring it up. And I know he won’t, either.

He says, “You still coming to see me next weekend?”

“That depends. Dad says I have to pass this test tomorrow.”

“Good. I can’t have my hunting partner be a middle-school dropout.”

“Hunting partner?” I say with fake excitement. I want to go. I really do. But guys on dialysis don’t hunt elk. Gene has gotten weaker and skinnier, and I can’t have him go on this trip just because I need to prove something. I mean, God, what if something happened out there?

I say, “How is that going to work out?”

“I had dinner with Marjorie Henry last night.”

“Oh, yeah? She’s cool, isn’t she? So did you get a kiss?”

“Always looking out for the important things.”

“You know it.”

“Tyson, Marjorie is the widow of Martin Henry.”

“Your old boss?”

“He owned a ranch in the Bridger-Teton National Forest. It’s where we would hunt back in the day. Marjorie owns the ranch now. She said we can use it whenever we want, free of charge.”

“That’s fun.”

“Her nephew Mike runs the place with his girlfriend. They have horses, all-terrain vehicles, and . . .” He gets into a coughing fit.

“Are there going to be hunting guides?”

“No.”

“But Dad hid your rifles.”

“Mike has a couple set aside for us.”

“But Mom won’t let me go to the Tetons ’cause of the bear attacks.”

“Just tell them that we’re going camping someplace, maybe in Idaho. No grizzlies in Idaho.”

“You want me to lie?”

“We bear swore that we’d go on this hunt. And you
never
break a bear swear. I don’t care what your mother thinks, what your father thinks, what my nurses think, or what anyone thinks. We’re going.”

What about what I think?

I say, “What about your kidneys? Don’t you have to do dialysis three times a week?”

“I have an appointment Friday. We’ll leave for the Grand Tetons early the next morning.”

I swallow hard. An image appears: Gene getting sick in the middle of the wilderness, and me the only one around to help him.

I feel a heavy weight on my shoulders that makes my bones ache. I’ve never had to worry about anything other than tests or middle-school drama, but now I’ll be in charge of a sick seventy-seven-year-old man in the heart of grizzly bear country.

Am I up to it? Heck, no. But I can’t show weakness. I can’t say what I truly feel. So I say, “You didn’t answer my question. Did you get a kiss?”

There’s silence on the other end of the line.

Finally he says, “I got
two
kisses. That old lady is crazy.”

What does this trip mean to him? I don’t know why, but I think of Grandma. They were one of those perfect couples you only see in movies. They held hands and kissed in public and they were together for years and they never got bored with each other. He called her his angel.

Grandma’s been dead for four years, and as much as Gene acts like it doesn’t bother him and as tough as he is, he has to be sad. And now his health is gone, and now the people he calls his family live three hours away.

Gene deserves this trip. But does that mean we should go? I have no idea. All I know is I at least want to see him this weekend. He lives a state away, but I won’t let that change things between us. We’ll be just as tight as always.

I go upstairs and knock on Ashley’s door. “Ashley,” I whisper. I say her name two more times and get nothing.

So I try “Hey, yamhole.”

She opens the door with crazy hair and sleepy eyes. “Yam
what
?”

“It’s a word I made up.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Talk to me in a year when everyone’s saying it. It’ll be in, like, rap songs and kids will be saying ‘That’s totally yam.’ ”