Part 11 (1/2)

And then I go straight to the princ.i.p.al's office.

”OK,” I tell the Doc. ”I'll do it.”

That afternoon, the cops come to the apartment. They're wondering about the Ribboning of the Bridge and they read the paper, too, so they figure I'm the obvious suspect.

Dad doesn't like having cops on his turf. He's tough with them. He also tells them that I was asleep in bed when he left for work at, like, two in the morning. Which would have made it impossible for me to vandalize the bridge. Which isn't a bridge anyway-it's just a bridge support. For a nonexistent bridge. And is putting magnets on something really vandalizing it? I mean, they come off.

The cops probably wouldn't be inclined to believe Dad, but when I mention that Reporter Guy was skulking around (probably hoping to get a picture of me peeing on something red, white, and blue, or molesting a bald eagle), they sort of give up.

Score one for the good guys and Flip's ”cloak of plausible deniability.”

For now, at least.

”So. How was school?” Dad asks once we're alone.

”You know.” Don't really want to tell him about all that nonsense. Especially since he got me into it. And if I tell him about the speech I have to give, he might-ugh!-want to help me write it, which will make everything worse. I trip enough over my own words; I can't imagine what sort of verbal land mines there would be in Dad's.

He fiddles with the VCR, trying to get it to cough up the game he taped yesterday. It just makes that scary thunking sound that always convinces me it's eaten the tape.

”Might have to replace this one,” Dad mumbles, glancing around at the stacks of broken VCRs in our own little consumer electronics graveyard.

”Dad, look, I was thinking ... I was thinking that I could use the money and maybe buy us-”

He punches the wall.

No, really. He punches the wall. My whole body tenses up in shock, so sudden and so ma.s.sive that I think a zit just popped all on its own.

”No!” He's cradling his hand a little bit and his face has gone all red and sweaty. ”No, no, no!”

”Dad, let me finish. I just want to use a little bit of the reward money to buy a couple of-”

He kicks the door frame. No lie. He's really beating the h.e.l.l out of the apartment.

”Stop it, Kevin! Just stop it, OK? I don't want you spending that money on things for me or the apartment. I feel very strongly about that.”

Yeah, no kidding. Tell that to Mr. Wallboard, who's smarting something fierce.

”Dad, it's like thirty thousand dollars. That's a lot of money, even after I take out the price of my car.”

”Look,” Dad says, ”I want you to enjoy that money. I want you to use it to make your life better. Go to college, maybe. I know I've messed up my own life, and I'm really trying my best not to mess up yours, too. I want that money to buy you some happiness or some peace of mind or something.”

It comes out in a rush and the look on his face the whole time he's saying it isn't really what you'd expect. He looks pained, uncomfortable.

”So. Don't,” he says, then retreats to his bedroom and shuts the door.

What the h.e.l.l was that all about?

I almost go to knock on the door, just to make sure he's OK, when I spot today's Loco sitting on the rocking chair. I pick it up. Dad's already read it, and he's got it folded to a story on page 3.

LOCAL ”HERO'S” TRAITOR DAD! screams the headline.

Ah, c.r.a.p.

Sure enough, there's Reporter Guy's byline. And there's that same picture of me throwing away the ribbons, but this time there's an old picture of Dad right next to it. He's wearing his army uniform and he's holding up one hand, trying to s.h.i.+eld himself from flashbulbs. He looks bewildered. He also looks young. He looks like I imagine I'll look in three or four years.

”Sergeant Jonathan Jackson Ross tries to avoid reporters in Qasr, Kuwait,” reads the photo caption.

I scan the article. It doesn't have a lot of facts. It recaps my rise and then fall from grace, then adds on, ”That young Ross would espouse unpatriotic sentiments may come as a surprise, but surely fits once one factors in his home environment. Ross's father, who served as an army sergeant, was dishonorably discharged from the military almost twenty years ago for revealing cla.s.sified military secrets.”

The rest of it is just more badmouthing of me.

Revealing cla.s.sified military secrets.

Dishonorably discharged.

No way. I look at the closed bedroom door. No way. I don't believe it. Not my dad.

Chapter 19.

Cali Callin'/Callin' Cali

Twice that night, I come close to knocking on Dad's door and asking him about the story in the paper. But I can't bring myself to do it.

Dad and the army. Like I said, it's the one topic that's always been off-limits in my family. It's not like someone engraved it in a stone tablet or anything: Thou Shalt Not Discuss Dad's Military Service. It's just that we never talked about it. I never really missed it, tell the truth. By the time I was born, he'd been out of the army already, so it's not like I ever had any memories of him being in the army. I found some pictures once of him in his uniform, young and thin in the bright glare of the desert sun. My parents' wedding alb.u.m had pictures of a bunch of guys in their dress uniforms, including Dad. I asked about that once when I was real little-”Why is Daddy in a costume?”-and I just got ”Daddy used to be an army man, like your toys” from Mom.

Even as a kid, I could tell from her tone of voice and from the way she sort of looked away from me that she didn't want to talk about it. Which was fine by me, because really, who the h.e.l.l cares what their parents did ten thousand years ago?

Only now I have to care.

I think back. I try to remember anything I can about Dad and the army. He would sometimes mention it in pa.s.sing, but usually it didn't mean anything. Like, if I complained about not having enough room for my stuff, he would say, ”When I was in the service, I carried everything I owned in a duffel bag.” Or if I said it was hot and could we put on the air conditioning, he would say, ”This isn't hot. Over there, it was hot.”

Over there was as close as he ever came to talking about it.

But there was this one time...

Back before Mom and Dad got divorced. They were arguing because, well, that's what they did. I must have been ten, so Jesse was four or five. We still lived in the townhouse back in the old neighborhood.

I don't remember what started it. It was probably something on TV. Dad's always seeing something on TV or reading something in the paper that sets him off. He got really p.i.s.sed, and when Mom tried to calm him down, he snapped at her and stalked off to their bedroom.

Me and Jesse were playing in the family room. We'd built this big Lego fort for our superhero action figures and now Pandazilla was knocking it down.

Mom looked at us and then stomped off after Dad. I'm pretty sure she said, ”I'm so tired of this” under her breath.

A minute later, the bedroom door slammed. Jesse jumped and looked at me.