Hidebehind

Nine

Later that evening, Great Grandma put on the news while she was getting dinner ready. I was sitting in the front room, slumped in the couch, wondering whether, if I sat there long enough, I'd eventually just sink into the cushions and could avoid going back to that lame school. Penny was drawing at the coffee table.

"I already have homework!" she cheerfully chirped. "We have to make pictures of our summer!"

I wanted to tell her that if I had to do that, I'd draw a big pile of puke, because that's how my summer had felt—but I didn't have the gumption even to speak.

"Don't you have anything constructive to be doing, Robbie?" Great Grandma called to me from the kitchen. It was like she could see through the walls.

It took me a moment to answer; I felt like I had a sock in my mouth. "There's no homework on the first day of school."

"Yes there is," Penny said so sweetly I knew she was being a smart-aleck.

"Not in my class."

"I bet there is but you just don't want to do it."

"Mind your own business, butt-nugget!"

"Robbie!" Great Grandma cried, halfway into the room. I hadn't seen her coming and sheepishly sunk further into the couch as her eyes bored into me. "Don't talk to your sister in that manner! My lord. The last thing I need is a grandson with an attitude. Didn't you like your first day of school? Didn't you meet some friends?"

I really didn't want to answer either of those questions. If Great Grandma knew I'd eaten in the bathroom she might have yelled at me some more. Fortunately, I didn't have to say anything else, because her attention turned to the television.

"Now that's plain odd!" she said, her voice shifting from a scolding tone to one of subdued awe.

In spite of myself, I turned to look at the news. The reporter was saying something about our school. I didn't really pay much attention to the words until the camera zoomed in on a tree-shaded brick wall, where somebody had scrawled something in black spray-paint. I narrowed my eyes to see if I could figure out what it was, but before I could tell, the camera zoomed out and refocused on the face of the reporter speaking.

" . . . unknown perpetrator," she was saying. "Students starting their school year here at Oxcart today arrived to this surprise act of vandalizing. Police have yet to figure out what the markings mean, let alone who made them, but so far, no suspicion has been placed on any of the school's students. Live at Oxcart Elementary, I'm Marian Gregg. Back to you, Rhoda."

Neither Great Grandma nor I said anything for a minute. My ears tuned in to Penny's crayon scribbling across her paper. I didn't know if I was supposed to care about what I'd just seen on the news. I was too young for news.

"That's a crying shame," Great Grandma said, hands on her hips. "We've got to be in the nicest town in all America, and some hoodlums decide to muck it up, coming in here with their graffiti pictures, marking up our buildings. I hope they catch whoever did it and make them lick that paint right off the bricks!"

I chewed on my tongue and raised my eyebrows at my sister, but she wasn't looking in my direction.

"Robbie, why don't you go outside and get your grandpa. Tell him dinner'll be ready in about half an hour."

Sighing, I got up and walked through the house. The door to the back yard was open; just a screen door kept the bugs from getting inside. I pushed through it, wincing at the squeal its springs made, and peered out. Grandpa was sitting in a wicker chair on the back porch, looking out at a bunch of sickly looking trees that were lined up in rows. I couldn't tell if he was with it, so I quietly walked over to him rather than call out. He heard me coming and turned.

"Robert," he said with a smile that matched the late afternoon sun's warmth. "Come and have a seat with me."

"I . . . er . . ."

"I won't bite. I promise."

I was still reluctant. "Great Grandma says dinner'll be ready soon."

"Yeah, that's well and good. But let's just have a few more minutes out here. It's so nice, today."

Seeing he wasn't going to let me get away so easily, I decided that he seemed in an ok-enough state of mind and pulled up an old lawn chair next to him.

"You see the orchard over there?"

I looked. "Those trees?"

"Right." He waved an open hand at them, as if casting a spell of some sort. "My dad planted every one of them, grew each from seedlings. They were his pride. Lots of fun, when I was a kid. We'd play under those trees, waiting for the peaches to fall. Maybe gobble some up before mom noticed. She'd make cobblers and peach ice cream and jams and all sorts of good things. Sometimes, there'd be so many that no matter how much we picked, they just kept coming. Then they'd fall and rot, and we'd stomp them to mush. Best smell in the world—peaches."

The taste of peaches was on my tongue. But then I frowned. "Those trees all look dead, to me."

"Dead, probably. I keep hoping maybe just dormant. They haven't grown peaches in years. Not since my father died, since I was a young man. They even buried him here, in the orchard; it was his favorite place."

"There's no grave marker?"

"No," he sighed. "He wouldn't have wanted one, and I'm not sure he earned one."

Something inside me stung, but I swallowed and focused on my grandpa. Why couldn't he always be this way? Aware and easy to talk to ? This was the Grandpa I liked best. "Where do you go?" I said before realizing it.

"Go?"

"When you aren't here. When you aren't yourself. This self."

He turned and looked at me. I hadn't noticed how deep his wrinkles were, until just then. "I don't know," was all he said, and I thought he looked like a kid, then—like a scared little kid.

"Dinner's on!" Great Grandma called from inside.

I realized I'd failed on my job of getting Grandpa in, so I jumped up, and he followed me back into the house.