Chapter One
At 4:36 in the afternoon, Raymond Hurley sat waiting in the front office of River Mill Middle School. Apart from the school’s basketball team, the only other students in the building were the few who stayed to study in the library. Mrs. Bradsher, the front office secretary, stood with her arms crossed, impatiently tapping the toe of her shoe on the floor, checking her silver wristwatch more often than was necessary. This was not the first occasion that she had been made to stay late waiting on Raymond Hurley. Raymond could hear the little charms on her bracelet impatiently clinking against the watch. The phone rang and Mrs. Bradsher picked it up.
“River Mill Middle—Yes, I’m still here … I know I am … Yep, same kid…” She hung up and crossed her arms again, glaring at Raymond.
Raymond had enrolled in the seventh grade at the middle school only two weeks prior and his mother had been late every day. Some days, he would start walking the three miles home and his mother would pick him up on her way to their trailer, still wearing her clothes from the night before. On other days, Raymond would make it all the way home without passing a single car, tired and sore.
Raymond stood up from the office bench and tried to appear apologetic. “I think I was supposed to walk today,” he said. Mrs. Bradsher huffed, rested both hands on her hips, and pinched her lips together.
“Tell that mother of yours that school ends at three thirty,” she said. “Some of us have plans.”
“Yes ma’am,” he said, and hitched his book bag up on his shoulder, pushed the doors open, and began the long walk home. Raymond was used to being forgotten. His mother and father wouldn’t win any awards for their parenting, but they were the only family he had so he tried to forgive them. They moved around so much that Raymond never truly unpacked his small collection of belongings. This was his third town and third middle school this year alone and it was only November.
When Raymond was in the fifth grade, his dad got a job roofing houses in a town on the coast and they had stayed put for almost a year. That was the year he found his dog, Rosie, digging through the trash outside a seafood restaurant. He had fallen in love with her instantly, her sandy-brown hair, her stubby legs that were too short for her body, the way she licked his hand instead of smelling him like most dogs would. Raymond remembered one night that year when his mom actually cooked them dinner. Rosie lay at Raymond’s feet while they all ate together at their kitchen table. Spaghetti with meatballs and buttered toast. It was the first time they had ever eaten a meal together. That had been the best year of Raymond’s life. He kicked a rock along the side of the road.
River Mill was an old farming community, spread out across miles of country highway that paralleled the school. Raymond hadn’t spent much time in town. He had only ventured as far as the woods surrounding the small trailer that his parents rented, or he was at school. On a few afternoons, he had gone fishing in the river that ran through the woods between the school and his new home. And on the nights that his parents stayed up late, he would take Rosie to the river and camp out under the stars, thinking about the year that he had lived at the coast, falling asleep to the sounds of the water.
When he finally made it home, it was almost dark. Bright orange and pink rays split the sky as the sun sank into the earth. For a moment, Raymond marveled at how different the sunsets were here in the South. When the sky was clear, you could see every color. Just two months earlier, he had been living in Maryland. And now, somehow, they’d ended up in North Carolina. They were just supposed to be stopping for gas in River Mill but there was a MILL WORKERS WANTED sign posted in the gas station window. Before Raymond knew it, he was being enrolled in school.
Raymond took a deep breath, watching the sunset. He exhaled and adjusted his book bag. His feet and back ached from walking. Rosie was sitting next to a blue duffel bag on the small stoop of their trailer. She jogged forward to meet him and happily licked his outstretched hand. “Hey girl,” he said, patting her head. “I missed you too.”
Raymond stared down at the duffel bag. It was half-open, sloppily stuffed with his few belongings. He sighed. We must be moving again, he thought. He tried the door. It was locked. He cupped his hands to his eyes and peered through the dirty window. “Mom?” he called. “Dad?” Apart from a few pieces of scattered trash in the kitchen, the trailer appeared to be totally deserted.
He went around the side and tried the back door. It was also locked. “Hello?” he called, jostling the doorknob. There was no answer. Raymond looked across the yard. The crickets were beginning to chirp. Feeling nervous, he walked to the front steps and sat down. Rosie, who had followed him around the house, whimpered and leaned in to lick his face.
The light was still on in the rental office across the lot. “Stay,” he said to Rosie, and he made his way across the gravel. After a few minutes of knocking, a very hairy, very dirty man answered. He was wearing a stained T-shirt that stretched over his round belly and he was sporting a fat lip full of tobacco. The man scratched his chin, leaned his head out the door, and spat. A brown stream of spit slopped out and trailed back to his chin. “Yeah?” he grunted.
“Er…,” said Raymond. “The door is locked to trailer 408. It’s getting dark and I can’t get in.”
“That 408, you say?” The man scratched his belly and adjusted the wad in his lip. “Folks that rented 408 dropped off their keys and left a little after lunch today.”
Raymond’s brow wrinkled. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I’m sure. They left that dog,” he said, gesturing to Rosie. “I was just about to call animal control.”
Raymond felt like his head was filling with water. He stood frozen, hooked by some invisible line through the throat. He blinked a few times, confused. “She’s mine,” he said finally. “I’m just picking her up.” Raymond didn’t like the way the man was looking at him. He began to back away, hardly noticing that his feet were moving. He tripped over a rock and tried to right himself.
The man looked like he was going to say something else but then he shrugged and said, “If you talk to those folks, tell them they owe me fifty bucks. They never paid no pet deposit for that thing.”
Raymond nodded and walked quickly back to Rosie. The man was still watching him from the rental office porch. “Come on, girl,” he whispered. Raymond grabbed his things, fumbling with the straps of the bag. “Maybe they went to pick me up from school. Maybe we are taking a trip for Thanksgiving. Maybe I just missed them,” he said. That had to be it. He must’ve been so lost in thought that he hadn’t seen their rusty Dodge pass him on the road. Raymond did not allow himself to think anything else. Not yet. His hands were shaking as he grabbed the fishing pole that was propped against the trailer. He gestured for Rosie to follow. He just needed to get back to the school and they would be there waiting for him.
* * *
It was a cool night but Raymond had started sweating. He was practically running along the road and his breath was quick and sharp. He unzipped his coat. It was dark now and the road and forest looked different in the light of the moon. Rosie was walking too close alongside him and he tripped over her. Could she sense his anxiety? “It’s okay, girl. We’re okay.” He tried to sound reassuring but even he didn’t buy it.
By the time he made it back to school, he had two bleeding blisters on the backs of his ankles and he was drenched in sweat. The school building was dark but the parking lot was lit up by a single overhead light that automatically turned on when the sun went down. Raymond looked around. There were no cars in the parking lot. His parents weren’t waiting for him. His heart sank. His ears were ringing and he shook his head, trying to focus.
He forced himself to take a few deep breaths and decided it was best to get out of the light. Now wasn’t the time to panic, he told himself. “Come on, girl,” he said to Rosie and walked around the side of the building. He stopped at the spigot in front of the baseball field and drank so much water that his belly bulged. Rosie lapped up the water from the puddle and whined. Raymond made his way to the wooden dugout and dropped the blue duffel bag into the dirt. He set his book bag on the bench and sat down, his fingers gripping the fishing pole.
A car drove by the school and Raymond turned eagerly toward it. He could see the headlights from the baseball field but couldn’t make out the model of the car. But it didn’t stop. It wasn’t them. Rosie licked his hand. “I don’t know what happened to them,” he said out loud. But he did know. How many times had his parents told him what a burden he was? How often had they said that they would be better off without him? But he never thought that they would actually leave him. Sure, his parents had left him at home before for a few nights at a time, sometimes longer. But they had always come back. Raymond had done his best to stay out of trouble and help out as much as he could. He fed himself, took care of whatever house they were living in, and cleaned up after their parties. He had tried. Just last weekend, he’d made plans to make Thanksgiving dinner for them, using all of his meager savings to buy groceries. He’d made Thanksgiving dinner last year too and thought he might make it a tradition. But it didn’t matter. They had left him again and this time felt different. This time, they hadn’t left him with a place to stay. Where was he supposed to go? How would they know where to find him if they came back? When they came back, he corrected himself.
When Raymond was nine, they were living in the mountains and his parents had said they were running out to get dinner. They had been gone for six days when a neighbor reported him living alone. Then the police showed up. He was taken away from the house and placed in a children’s home, living with at least twenty other kids. When his parents finally did come back, it took them over a year to get him out of the system. They had promised him that things would be different.
After that, they moved to the coast together. His mom was sober. He found Rosie. Things were better. And then his dad lost his job and his mom stopped trying. Raymond would suffer through anything rather than end up stuck indoors at another children’s home, sleeping with one eye open, fighting for his meals, and hiding in bathrooms and broom closets.
Raymond couldn’t help but admit that lately his parents had been getting worse and worse. Forgetting to pick him up, forgetting to get groceries, forgetting to come home. He felt like he should’ve been more prepared for this.
A canvas sign hung on the baseball fence, shining in the moonlight. SHOP-N-SAVE GROCERY: FROM THE FIELD TO YOUR TABLE. Raymond’s stomach growled. Rosie whimpered in agreement. He opened the duffel bag and riffled through the contents. “Aha!” he said, pulling out a pack of peanut butter crackers. He ate the crackers slowly, sharing three with Rosie. He dug through the bag again and pulled out his toothbrush.
In the second grade, a dentist had come to visit Raymond’s classroom. He had shown them pictures of teeth with cavities and of mouths rotting from decay. Then he had passed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and little white boxes of dental floss. Ever since that day, Raymond was diligent about his oral hygiene, never forgetting to brush his teeth each morning and night. He walked to the spigot and wet the brush. He hated not having toothpaste but water was better than nothing. He brushed until his gums bled.
Back in the dugout, he leaned his head against the high bench. Rosie turned a few circles and then curled up at his feet. He sat staring past second base and into the night.
Chapter Two
Raymond snapped awake at the sound of car tires on gravel. A burgundy Honda was creeping into the gravel side lot, the first one there. Raymond sat frozen as memories of the day before flooded him. His heart began to thump. He was certain the driver would see him sitting in the dugout. Rosie could feel Raymond’s stress. Her ears stood straight up and she nudged his leg, whining. “Shh, Rosie! They’ll see us.” She whimpered again. “Quiet, girl,” he pleaded. He put his hand reassuringly on her neck and she fell silent. “Don’t move,” Raymond whispered.
His science teacher, Mr. Rosen, got out of the car whistling and walked to the side door. He let himself into the school without a backward glance. As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Raymond sprang up from the bench. “C’mon, girl!” He grabbed the duffel, his book bag, and his fishing pole and took off in the direction of the woods behind the field.
Raymond paced the tree line as the sun rose. His ears were ringing again. He tried to concentrate but he felt dizzy. Rosie stayed close behind him. He tried to tell her it would be all right but no sound came out. His head was pounding so loudly that he knew someone would hear it. He bent and heaved in the dried leaves, gripping a tree trunk. He slumped to the ground and tried to pull in slow breaths of air. Rosie lay down beside him, pushing her back against his legs. He rubbed her head. “Good girl,” he said over and over, finding his voice. “Good girl. Good girl. Good girl.”
Raymond took a deep breath. He would just have to look for his parents after school. He could still get a warm breakfast if he went to school and the thought made his stomach clench. He opened his duffel and pulled out a clean shirt. He ran the dry toothbrush over his teeth and tongue and winced at the taste of bile clinging to his throat. That would have to be good enough. He closed up the duffel, set it against a large tree, and piled leaves on top to disguise it. He propped his fishing pole up against another tree close by. “Stay here,” he said to Rosie as he lifted his book bag onto his shoulder. “I’ll be back after school.” She whimpered in protest but lay down by the pile of leaves covering the duffel. Her fur was good camouflage. Raymond turned toward the school.
Getting into the middle school from the woods wasn’t as hard as Raymond thought it would be. He walked just inside the tree line, concealing himself until he reached the edge of the woods by the bus lot. He watched as the buses pulled in. Their brakes hissed as they finished for the morning. He waited for kids to pile off and then he slipped into the crowd and into the school cafeteria.
He made himself eat the pancakes slowly, worried that he would vomit again. He took a bite of a sausage patty and then wrapped the rest of it in a napkin, tucking it away for Rosie. He drank all of his milk and peeled an orange, devouring the whole thing.
“Want mine?” a boy asked from the other side of the table. “I don’t really like oranges. Or any fruit for that matter. But they always make you get it even if you don’t want it.” The boy was taller than Raymond by about a foot and Raymond could tell he was too skinny, even sitting down. He had a country accent and his collarbones stood out, prominent from the faded Dale Earnhardt Jr. racing shirt that hung off him, at least two sizes too big. The boy held the orange out to Raymond. “Your name’s Raymond, right? You’re in my art class.” Raymond couldn’t remember seeing the boy in art class but then again, he never paid much attention to other kids. He tried to keep his head down at school, blend in. Moving around as much as he did never left much room for making friends and Raymond was out of practice. Raymond reached out and took the orange.
“Thanks,” he said.
“I’m Harlin,” the boy said. It was quiet for a few seconds and then, “You like cars?”
Raymond shrugged.
Copyright © 2023 by Maggie C. Rudd
