Inside Hudson Pickle Read online

  Trev whistled as the ball swished through the net. “Nice shot,” he said, stripping off the warm-up pants he’d worn over his shorts.

  “You have a good shot, too.” Willow smiled — not at me, but at Trev. “It just takes practice.”

  And that’s what we did — for almost an hour with hardly any breaks. It was good.

  Willow came up with a bunch of new drills, and Trev seemed to get into it. Total understatement. Trev got so into practice that he increased his game by at least 300 percent. He never played that well in front of the coaches. Was he trying to impress Willow?

  I pushed that question to the back of my brain, refusing to admit that the answer might be right there in front of me.

  There wasn’t much time to chat while we played, and that was good, too. Who knows what I might have babbled about, with Willow nodding and smiling at me? At both of us, actually.

  We were playing Around the World when Trev’s gran came to pick him up. She invited me to come along, but I said no.

  “How about you, Willow?” asked Trev.

  “No, sorry,” said Willow as she pushed back a clump of hair. “I’m going out with my cousin. But thanks for asking.”

  As Trev and Gran left, I went to the bench for a drink of water. When I was done, I threw the bottle in my backpack and turned toward the changerooms. “So I guess I’ll see you Monday,” I said to Willow.

  “Are you kidding, Hudson?” Willow took another shot that sailed through the net. “You still need to work on your pull-up jump shot.”

  “But I thought you had to go.”

  “I have a little more time,” she said with a smile.

  “O” — a hard pass hit me in the stomach, making my voice crack — “kay.”

  And that’s how I ended up playing one-on-one against Willow.

  •••

  “You don’t have to wait with me, you know,” Willow said as we sat on the curb waiting for the bus to the mall. Her cousin was meeting her there.

  “I know.” I picked up a handful of stones and watched as they dropped through my fingers, one by one.

  A bus went by. I started to cough. “Sor … sorry.”

  “Got your puffer?”

  I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure. I hadn’t needed it during our practice.

  I took off my backpack and started feeling around inside it. After a few seconds of no luck, I started pawing through it faster and faster, worry strangling out what little air I had left. I’d used it the night before, and I didn’t remember packing it with my gym clothes.

  Willow stood up and kicked some leaves.

  I stayed where I was, searching through the outer pockets of my backpack.

  “So, what did you end up doing yesterday after school?” Willow asked. “You took off so fast, I didn’t have a chance to ask.”

  My fingers closed around the plastic actuator of my inhaler. I was about to pull it out of my bag when I noticed Willow looking at me through eyes that seemed wider and rounder than usual.

  She took a step back, reminding me of all the kids who had given me a wide clearance in the hallway after my asthma attack at basketball — as if I might suddenly come crashing down on them like some old, rotten tree.

  Discreetly, I palmed the inhaler and stood up. “Yesterday? Nothing … just dumb … dumb family stuff.”

  “Everyone okay?” Willow fiddled with a ring she’d put on when we’d finished playing.

  I nodded. “I don’t have much family.” I wheezed. “Not like you. Is your cousin cool?”

  “Yeah, she’s cool. Do you have any cousins?”

  “Nah. My uncle doesn’t have kids. And my dad, well, you know …”

  “Yeah, I know. How come your mom never remarried?”

  “My mom?” I coughed, mentally gagging on the impossible image of my mom holding hands with a man. Kissing a man. The idea of her letting someone else interfere with her perfectly planned and boring life.

  “It’s hard to see your parents with someone else.” Willow frowned, reading into my reaction. “But you get used to it after a while.”

  I wanted to tell Willow that she had it wrong. It wasn’t the thought of Mom with another man that was so shocking. It was the thought of her with anyone. My dad had disappeared so long ago that I didn’t remember them together. I didn’t have any memories of her with anyone. Ever. She didn’t even have a lot of friends.

  But I didn’t say any of this to Willow. I didn’t want to look or sound stupid in front of her — not again — so I kept quiet and focused on breathing. One. Two. Three …

  “The cousin I’m meeting now is actually the daughter of my stepdad’s brother.” Willow hesitated. “Or, wait, maybe she’s my stepdad’s cousin’s daughter.”

  “There must be a lot of them if you can’t keep track.”

  Willow laughed. “Yeah, I guess. We’re all just one big, happy family. It doesn’t really matter who’s related to who. Or how.”

  “Huh.” Every time I exhaled, I could hear the faint whistle of air exiting my lungs — or trying to. But I was determined not to use my inhaler in front of Willow.

  “Family is what you make it.” Willow spoke in a deep voice with a Spanish accent. “Family is everything!”

  “Your dad?” I guessed at the origin of the accent, hoping I wasn’t missing something obvious. Did someone on TV speak like that?

  Willow nodded.

  We fell into silence as a truck drove past the bus stop.

  Exhaust filled my nose, and my chest squeezed shut as I stepped away from the road.

  “So …” Willow fiddled with the zipper of her fleece track jacket. “Have you heard about the Halloween dance?”

  I shook my head, even though I’d seen the posters. They were kind of hard to miss — werewolves, vampires and zombies, surrounded by black-and-orange block lettering with lots of exclamation marks. Plus, they were plastered all over the school.

  “I was wondering —”

  Another truck zoomed by and Willow stopped talking.

  “Uh-huh?” I managed to mumble, keeping my mouth closed.

  Willow moved the zipper up and down, up and down. “You okay to practice again this week?”

  I rubbed my hand over my chest and spoke slowly. “Not sure it’ll make much difference.”

  “Of course it will. You just need the right attitude.”

  “Attitude?” I kept taking small gulps of air, hoping she wouldn’t notice my distress. Would her bus ever get here?

  “Confidence and determination.”

  “I am determined. It’s just that …” I tried to take a deep breath, and then, with stars floating in front of my eyes, I let it spill — the truth, or at least some version of it. “Look at me. I’m a freakin’ giant.”

  “What’s wrong with being tall?” Willow’s eyebrows shot up like the arm of a referee. I should’ve taken the misconduct penalty and gone straight to the box. Instead, words kept coming out of my mouth until I ended up with a game suspension.

  “Everything,” I wheezed, forgetting that Willow knew nothing about my hockey disaster. “What is it good for, except reaching the top shelf? Average is better.”

  “Thanks a lot.” I felt the air frost as Willow spit the words at me.

  My mind raced, trying to make sense of what I’d just said. Or what Willow thought I had just said. Why hadn’t I just kept my big mouth shut? “I-I didn’t mean —” I stuttered.

  “Whatever.” Willow’s bright face was suddenly as dark as Darth Vader’s. “No one can control how tall they are, and I’m tired of being teased about it. So I’m not cute and petite? Big deal.”

  “But —”

  Willow cut me off. “This is me,” she said as her bus finally pulled up to the stop, showering us with more exhaust.

  She jumped on b
oard as soon as the door swung open. She didn’t look back.

  “See you Monday …” I watched the bus pull away as Willow walked down the aisle, looking for a seat.

  Then I leaned against the shelter and took a long pull from my inhaler.

  As my lungs filled with air, the rest of me filled with regret. What had I just done?

  Chapter Sixteen

  Early Monday morning, we had our first big dump of snow. Everyone was running around with their magic carpets, snow runners, GT racers and flying saucers. Even the kids at my school abandoned their cool junior-high personas for quick trips down The Hill, the only hill in town steep enough to slide down.

  Everyone seemed happy.

  Everyone but me.

  Both girls’ volleyball teams had home games after school, so we didn’t have basketball.

  Instead, I invited myself over to Trev’s place to play video games. He tried to blow me off, but Gran welcomed me in and even served up some hot dogs with my favorite sauerkraut — homemade from her own special recipe that stunk up the basement every summer.

  Even though Trev hammered me on every platform — especially the one where avatars gave out truth points (something he gloated over big-time, pointing out my history of dishonesty) — it was fun. Almost like old times, or at least enough to reassure me that our friendship hadn’t totally gone up in smoke.

  But then he started asking questions about Willow, and I hightailed it out of there.

  First her about him, and now him about her? I didn’t want to talk about it. Talking had only gotten me into trouble.

  When I got home, I went straight to Mom’s office, hoping to do some sleuthing before she finished work. I felt guilty about sneaking around, but finding out more about my dad was like a scab I couldn’t stop picking at. Especially now that I knew about alpha-1.

  Joseph Novak. Was that really him? I thought so, but I wanted to be sure.

  So far, the only thing I’d found on him in my online search was connected to Uncle Vic. Was it possible that he’d disappeared off the face of the earth after he ditched us? Or did someone — Uncle Vic? Mom? — still have contact with him? It was a long shot, but maybe some document locked away in Mom’s secret filing cabinet held the information that no one seemed willing to share.

  I grabbed the keys from the desk drawer and went straight to the closet. After getting tangled in some coats, I angled the cabinet so it faced the open closet door. But then my body blocked the office light, making it hard to see the lock. I needed a flashlight. I backed up through the closet door …

  And straight into Uncle Vic. “Hey, kid.”

  I froze. “What are you doing here?”

  “I got back from the sustainability tour this afternoon. I was downstairs in my room, unpacking.” He nodded toward the closet. “Question is, what are you doing in there?”

  “Just looking for something.” I gulped. “Does Mom know you’re back?”

  Uncle Vic shook his head. “I made a surprise dinner. It’s already in the oven.”

  I put the office back together as best I could and grabbed my backpack from the floor. I joined Uncle Vic in the kitchen. Pots and pans littered the stovetop. The sink was full of bowls and gadgets from Mom’s prized food processor. Almost every cupboard door was open.

  It had been one week since Uncle Vic had stormed out of the house, and now he was back, making himself at home as if nothing had happened. I didn’t know how Mom was going to react, but for some reason, Uncle Vic being home made me feel grateful — like the first deep breath after a puff from my inhaler.

  “How was the tour?” I asked, pulling at a patch of dark hair that had sprouted on my forearm, seemingly overnight. “How’s Sage?”

  “Good and good,” Uncle Vic replied. “Every concert was a sellout. And Sage told me to say hi. To you.”

  “Oh.” I blushed and then tugged hard on one particularly long hair to cover my embarrassment. I decided to try some more sleuthing. “So … did you ever find a replacement?”

  “Replacement? Oh, for Dex?” Uncle Vic squinted at a cookbook lying open on the counter. “Yeah, a young kid. Did great at backup vocals.”

  My mind worked its way back to the text messages. Dex? A band member? That explained a few things. Was the Rox a club?

  Uncle Vic added salt to a pot on the stove. “How’ve you been?”

  “Okay.” I sat down on the stool and threw my backpack on the counter between us. “Mom’s going to freak when she sees this mess.”

  “She’s going to freak even more if she finds out that you’ve been snooping around,” Uncle Vic replied as he dug through the utensil drawer. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

  “I want to know about my dad.”

  Uncle Vic continued to search through the drawer, humming under his breath. Finally, he pulled out a large slotted spoon and slammed the drawer shut with his hip. “I already told you, kid, that’s between you and your mom. I’m staying out of it.”

  “But we’re family, and the tripsy thing is genetic. So it involves all of us. Including my dad.”

  “I’ll talk to you about alpha-1,” he said. “But not about your dad. Sorry, kid.”

  “I already know about alpha-1. Darwyn had it and so do I.”

  “Your mom said that?”

  “She said that I have to make good choices, so I don’t get sick like you. Lifestyle management, she called it.”

  “So, you know there are jobs you can’t do?” A dark shadow crossed his face. “Like being a firefighter?”

  It hit like a shot between the pads. “What?”

  Uncle Vic put down the spoon and rested his hands on the countertop so we were face-to-face. “Lifestyle management? Things you can and can’t do if you have alpha-1? You just told me you knew all about it.”

  I felt numb. “I thought she meant eating more stuff like that.” I pointed to the leafy greens sticking out of the colander in the sink. “I had no idea …”

  “Sorry, kid.”

  The buzzer sounded on the oven, startling me out of my trance. As Uncle Vic pulled out a casserole, I struggled to make sense of everything. It was like I was watching my life unfold from the nosebleed section.

  Once he’d judged the dish to be done and set it on the cooling rack, Uncle Vic picked up his guitar from the open case on the floor and sat down next to me. “Did your doctor actually say you had alpha-1?”

  “Yes,” I lied.

  Uncle Vic bit his lip as he plucked at the guitar strings.

  I thought about how he’d disappeared for a week without saying goodbye. Could I trust him? Would he cut me off — just like my dad?

  “Do you still talk to him? My dad, I mean?”

  Uncle Vic’s fingers stopped moving. “No. Why? What do you know?”

  “I know a lot,” I lied again. “About the band. About the drugs.”

  Uncle Vic inhaled sharply and then coughed.

  “Tell me,” I insisted.

  “But —”

  “Please.”

  “There’s a reason your mom doesn’t want you to know.” Uncle Vic made silent chord changes on the guitar.

  “But I need to know.” My voice cracked on the last word. A cough rose in my throat. I swallowed it, trying to erase the similarity between me and Uncle Vic. Coughing, coughing … always coughing.

  “Why?”

  My chest felt like it was in a choke hold. I grabbed the inhaler out of my backpack and took a puff, breathing in as much as I could. I didn’t use the peak flow meter, either before or after, even though I was supposed to. After a minute, I managed to croak, “Because he’s part of me.”

  “You’re a Pickle.” Uncle Vic put his hand on my arm. “Trust me, kid. And there’s nothing wrong with being a Pickle.”

  “No one wants PICKLE on the back of their je
rsey!” The words tasted bitter as they burst out and were louder than I’d intended. “I’d much rather be NOVAK!”

  I studied Uncle Vic for a reaction, but he gave nothing away. Just as I was about to dig deeper, the lock on the garage door clicked open.

  I froze.

  Uncle Vic jumped up, laid his guitar on the stool and started throwing things into the dishwasher. I hadn’t seen him move that fast since he’d moved in. Still, there was no way he was going to return the kitchen to Mom’s magazine photo-shoot standards.

  I pulled my backpack off the counter and onto my lap, hiding the inhaler underneath.

  It was time to face the wrath of Pickle number three.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “You’re back,” Mom said to Uncle Vic as she came into the kitchen.

  “Making dinner.” Uncle Vic waved the fumes from the pot toward his nose. The room filled with a delicious, spicy smell. He ground in some pepper.

  “Did you save some trees?” I could almost hear the ice cracking off Mom’s words as steam rose from the pot.

  “Sure,” Uncle Vic replied, his back to us.

  She glanced down at his guitar and scrunched up her nose like it was the recorder I’d brought home in elementary school. It was the only instrument I’d ever seen her touch — and that was only to disinfect it.

  Uncle Vic sampled his concoction as it continued to bubble away on the stove. “Dinner will be ready in ten.”

  Mom put the guitar on the stand in the corner — the one that had suddenly materialized after she’d yelled at Uncle Vic about leaving his guitar lying around everywhere — and perched on the edge of the stool next to me. “How was your day, Hudson?”

  “Okay,” I muttered.

  Mom shifted in her seat, uncomfortable, like there were ants crawling up her back. “Why do I get the feeling that I’ve walked in on the middle of something?”

  I shrugged.

  Uncle Vic kept his eyes fixed on the stove.

  She dug in. “Who’s been hanging out in my office?”

  “What?” It was my turn to squirm. My backpack fell to the floor.