Unexpected Dismounts Read Online Free PDF Page B

alley.
    The present. Did she mean the present where wealthy blue-veined women heard two words from my mouth and tucked their checkbooks back into their purses? That present?
    I mounted my own bike and flipped down my visor.
    “God?” I whispered. “You’re going to have to be a whole lot clearer.”
    Then I remembered my long-ago breeding and added, “Please?”

CHAPTER TWO
    I barely made it to the gym at Muldoon Middle School before the presentation started. Between having to climb over several rows of parents to find a seat on the aging bleachers, and the fact that I was still in chaps and bandanna and had an ashen cross smudged on my forehead, it was hard not to gather stares.
    The only pair of eyes I cared about, though, was Desmond’s. It wasn’t hard to locate the big ol’ head perched atop the skinny body with enough arms and legs for an octopus. Before I started having his ginger-colored Brillo pad cut every other week, Chief used to say the kid looked like a mulatto Q-tip.
    He was sitting on the speakers’ platform, already sending me a “Where you been, Big Al?” look and pointing at the Harley watch dangling from his bony wrist. I’d let him wear it to school only for this special occasion, since it usually provided too much of a distraction in the classroom. Although, what about Desmond wasn’t a distraction in a seventh-grade classroom?
    I grinned and motioned for him to pay attention to the fluffy woman approaching the microphone. Desmond always referred to her as Vice Principal Foo-Foo. She did sort of have the air of a Pekingese show dog, but I’d threatened Desmond with permanent loss of his motorcycle helmet if he ever called her that to her face.
    While she thanked everybody and their mother for attending and sang the praises of the two art teachers, I shifted into mother mode. That was still a grinding move sometimes, since I’d only been at it for a few months. At age forty-two, it was hard to take home a twelve-year-old baby whose previous home life had consisted of abandoned storerooms and whatever food he could rip off without getting caught. The only thing harder to believe than the fact that I was this kid’s current mom was the fact that he was stepping up to the microphone to receive an award for something besides the ability to charm the change out of just about anybody’s pocket.
    “Our first award,” V.P. Foo-Foo was saying—what was her real name, anyway?—“goes to a young man whose artistic talent just amazes us.”
    “Ain’t nothin’ amazing about it,” Desmond’s voice shrilled through the mike. “It’s just what I do.”
    The audience laughed, and Foo-Foo shuffled her notes. Desmond grabbed that opportunity to take over the sound system. “And I couldna done it without Big Al,” he said. “That’s my mama. Well, she almost my mama. And Mr. Schatzie. Where you at, Mr. Schatzie? Stand up and take you a bow. You, too, Big Al. Come on, both of y’all.”
    Down on the bottom row of bleachers, my next-door neighbor Owen Schatz rose and doffed his golfing cap, revealing a sun-leathered scalp. His dentures gleamed at the crowd like he’d coached Picasso. I only let my backside come a few inches from the bench and sank back down.
    “You’ve got yourself a character,” said the father next to me. His eyes glanced over my forehead and looked away as if he’d just noticed I had an extra nose growing there.
    The woman in front of me was less appreciative. “There are other kids getting awards,” she said, sotto voce, to her husband.
    Desmond waved his blue ribbon at his adoring fans and did some kind of hip-hop move back to his seat. I smothered my mouth with my hand and shook my head at him. He pumped the ribbon up in the air until I finally acknowledged with a large nod that he was, indeed, cooler than cool itself.
    If, as the miffed mother had pointed out, there were other kids getting art prizes, I barely noticed. I kept my focus glued to Desmond, vigilant