Jess and the Runaway Grandpa Page 4

  “Absent With Out Leave, oh my, no.”

  “So we’ll go together, right?”

  “I could go ahead and scout the lay of the land,” Ernie parried. “Check for snipers.”

  “No soldier should go alone. Remember our motto.”

  “Is that our motto?”

  “One of them.” Jess heaved a sigh of relief. Ernie had moved back into the line of traffic heading past Westmount and onto St. Albert Trail to the north. Other trailers and campers getting an early start were going the same way.

  “Some varmint hid the van keys in the freezer, little lady.” Ernie pulled his tractor cap down over his eyes. “But I found them.” He started whistling the old cowboy song, “Don’t Fence Me In.”

  Except for the frightened look in his eyes, Jess could have imagined they were going on a planned fishing trip back when she was eight or nine. But she missed Brian. He was the deputy in this movie, and he might be able to figure out how to get Sheriff Mather off his horse.

  As they traveled through St. Albert, Jess tried one more time. How she wished she had a cellphone.

  “What about callin’ the wimmen folk so they won’t get to worryin’?” she said in her best Western accent. “Or stopping for some grub?”

  “Where I’m goin’ they don’t need to know. Where I’m goin’ no one needs grub.” Ernie pushed the accelerator to the floor and gripped the steering wheel in both hands.

  Jess made a grab for the dashboard. The van rattled and banged its way along Highway Two heading north. A flock of ducks rose from a slough. At her feet her heavy sports bag slumped onto her left foot. She tugged up her Midas socks and prayed that she had everything with her she would need to survive the journey ahead. Talk about being prepared for surprises – this was a doozey!

  A grey minivan loaded with camping gear honked as it passed. The driver shook his fist out the window. Ernie veered to the right. He’s been taking up too much of the road.

  “Tarnation, those city slickers, in such an all-fired hurry to escape. Don’t they know there ain’t no escape?”

  Jess hunched her shoulders, chewed bubblegum, and felt a lippy remark coming on. She couldn’t help herself.

  “Then why are you running away, Ernie?”

  Chapter 7 – Brian, the Deputy

  Brian climbed on the bus, rolled his eyes up into his head to make the guys at the back laugh. But he didn’t say anything funny.

  “Slow today, Brian.” The bus driver chided.

  “What’s the fuss, just drive the bus.” Brian played to the kids in the seats around him, ambled down the aisle and found a seat by the window. He had to shoo a first grader out of his way. He unzipped his Edmonton Oilers jacket and turned to watch out the window for Jess. He wanted to talk to her. It bugged him that she was acting so cool, like he was a slug and she was in charge of the universe.

  “So, Brian, tell us a funny story,” one kid said.

  Brian ignored him.

  The bus pulled away from the curb in front of Jess’s house with a blast of fumes. “You kids, you think I’ve got all day to wait,” the driver ranted. “Jess Baines is just going to have to suffer. She’ll have to walk. I can’t be responsible for every stupid latecomer.”

  Brian stared through the windowpane, craning his neck to look back. Where was Jess? He’d seen her on the lane, but she must have forgotten something. It worried him. Girls have to be careful, walking to school alone. Bad things can happen.

  He drummed his fingers on his math book and turned towards the window to avoid the eyes of the other kids. Something didn’t feel right. There was nothing funny about this. Where was Jess?

  He had watched Jess Baines walking down her laneway towards the street a few minutes ago. Ruth Mather had driven by in her car. Brian had waved at her.

  Ernie hadn’t been with her.

  He had wanted to wave at Jess, but instead he had started doing back flips on the lawn. Trust him to show off! But she hadn’t even noticed him. Instead the loose change had fallen out of his pocket, including his seven lucky pesos from Mexico that his mom, Marie, had brought back from her last vacation with her best friends, Lucille and Linda.

  Brian had scrabbled in the lawn for the two loonies and the special coins. Just as he dusted off his pants, he had spotted the last coin hidden under a dead poplar leaf. He put them all in the little leather pouch he had found in his dad’s junk in the basement. Brian loved the feel of the old pigskin leather with its pinholes. He loved the way the drawstring worked. It had two tiny brass balls on the ends of the strip of thin leather that kept the pouch closed. Secretly Brian called it his “poke.” Didn’t gold miners have “pokes” that they kept gold dust in?

  When he got to school he hung out with the boys by the back fence. They tossed pennies against a loose fence board. He kept watching for a sign of Jess.

  “What’s with you, Brine, you’re nervous as a cat,” one of the kids asked. “No jokes today?” Stupid nickname. When would they stop using it. Just because he liked pickles in his lunch. Was that a crime?

  His mind raced from one thing to another. Dead cats and doing back flips and when did he become the class clown and why did people expect him to be funny even when life wasn’t? He knew how to be serious.

  After all, he’d been the one that found Ernie feeding the fish in the fountain at the giant mall and taken him back home. Ernie had been tearing up bits of paper napkin and tossing them in the tank, watching them float, get wet, and sink. Float, get wet, and sink. Brian could still remember the tight feeling in his throat as he’d watched Ernie, as he’d talked him into going home, as he’d looked in Grandpa Ernie’s once clear eyes and seen a stranger. He remembered shutting the door to Ernie’s house after Ruth had welcomed Ernie home and thanked Brian. With the snap of the lock he had closed more than a door. He’d felt really torn up inside, just like those scraps of paper sinking in the pond. But a guy has to move on, doesn’t he?

  He pushed his hand through his tangled mass of tight black curls and walked into the school. He checked the hooks to see if Jess’s jacket was there. He checked by the girl’s washroom. He looked in the library and the office.

  “Something wrong, Brian?” the art teacher asked as he peered in her door.

  He shrugged and went on down the hall. The bell rang. Several of the kids were missing. Their folks had gotten a head start on the weekend.

  Mrs. Slater came in the door. She started with a math quiz, so Brian took the sheet and whizzed through it. Every few seconds he’d lift his head and check the door to see if Jess had arrived. He finished the quiz and put it on the corner of Mrs. Slater’s desk and cruised slowly past the door, peering through the glass.

  “Are you looking for someone,” Mrs. Slater asked, “or just admiring the view, Brian?” She was used to his jokes.

  Brian didn’t feel like saying anything funny. He was worried. Couldn’t a guy be worried?

  “I wondered if Jess was coming. She missed the bus.”

  “Oooh, Jessie, where are you, Brine wants you,” one of the boys hissed under his breath.

  “Maybe she’s gone already,” Mrs. Slater said. “She’s going to Banff.”

  “She was standing on the laneway with her sports bag three minutes before the bus arrived.”

  “Mrs. Slater, the bus driver was mad at her for taking so long,” one of the girls said. “Brian was too busy doing flips and rolling in the grass to notice anything.”

  “I’m sure there’s a perfectly logical explanation, Brian. Go back to your seat.”

  The room went silent except for the scratching of pencils on paper. The next fastest students put their papers on Mrs. Slater’s desk.

  Brian was sharpening his pencil over by the windows, staring at the street, praying for Naomi’s or Ruth’s car to show up. It wouldn’t be the first time a kid had been kidnapped in Edmonton. He knew he was an awfulizer, his dad told him he always thought of the worst possibilities first.

  “Brian, will yo
u kindly sit down? You’re making me nervous,” Mrs. Slater sighed.

  Brian shoved his pencil in his pocket, felt the leather pouch with the seven coins in it. “I’d feel a lot better if I called my dad. He’s got a new cellphone and could check up on Jess.”

  “Oh, all right, Brian, if it will allow us to get on with life.”

  Brian ran down the hall to the office and picked up the phone, dialed his dad’s office number, let it ring until the secretary answered. “Your dad is visiting a client in the west end. Should I have him call you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Just a minute, Brian, your dad is on the other line,” she said.

  Brian told his dad the whole story.

  “Look, I’ll check with Ruth and Naomi,” he said. “You go back to class.”

  “What if she’s gone?”

  “Brian, how many times do I have to tell you….”

  “Don’t awfulize. I know.” Brian sighed. “It’s just, she was right there on the curb and then she wasn’t.”

  “Go back to class.” His dad hung up.

  Thirty minutes later the intercom fluttered and wheezed. “Would Brian Dille come to the office.”

  Brian loped down the hall. His dad was standing in the vestibule, nattering away, his mahogany face beaded with sweat. “Ernie must have found the van keys. The camper is gone. Ernie’s gone. Jess is gone. Naomi is frantic.”

  “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Brian, it’s not our business.” His dad stood stock still in his expensive sage suit, silk shirt, silk tie. His black shoes shone.

  “I bet he’s gone fishing if he’s taken the camper.” Brian bounced up and down on his sneakers. “I wish I’d been there. Jess and I used to go.”

  Sonny Dille ran his hands in and out of his pants pockets a couple of times.

  “Dad, we should go by the house, at least. See if there’s anything we can do. Ruth might need us,” Brian pleaded.

  Time stood still in the vestibule of Whitemud School while Sonny Dille decided what to do. It was as if father and son were linked telepathically. By the time the minute hand on the hall clock pinged, Brian had raced for his jacket while his dad spoke to the principal, and then the two of them were running down the sidewalk to the jeep.

  “The biggest question is – which way did they go?”

  Chapter 8 – Where Are We Going?

  At the new light at the T-junction in Landis, Ernie brought the camper to a grinding halt. A lumber truck barreled through, heading towards the pulp mill. A high ridge of clouds blocked the sun, giving the dusty main street of the small town, built on the bank of the mighty Athabasca, a desolate look. Late Friday morning of the long weekend and traffic moved slowly – pickups, half-tons, loungers outside of the Landis Hotel and Bar. Two women with babies in strollers came out of the IDA drugstore.

  “Ernie, I need sunscreen.” Jess tried once more to get to a phone. By now her mom would be frantic. Ruth would have called Naomi. One of them would have checked the school. “You don’t want me suffering from the harmful rays of the sun.” She was using her best damsel-in-distress voice. Only it wasn’t fake. She was scared. Maybe she had made the wrong decision. She clenched her teeth, turned a plaintive, begging face towards Ernie.

  Ernie ignored her and scratched the stubble on his chin. The light turned green. The camper behind honked.

  “Which way?” he asked.

  “If we’re going to Baptiste Lake, we go left. If we’re going to Calling Lake, we turn right.” Jess shook her head. This wasn’t any Hansel and Gretel story. She couldn’t leave any breadcrumbs to mark the path. Wait a minute! Maybe she could. She bent down and took off one of her Midas Socks and stuffed it in her jacket pocket.

  Ernie turned right and parked the van beside the road. He was clutching the steering wheel and shouting. “I can’t even remember which is left and which is right. I had a plan. I had a plan.” He took his left hand off the wheel, scrabbled in his pocket as if he was searching for something, and when he couldn’t find anything he banged his fist on the dashboard. “I won’t go to that place. I won’t spend my days with strangers. Ruth shouldn’t ask me.”

  Jess Baines was tired, thirsty, and she had to go to the bathroom. Ernie must have been really upset by that visit to the Seniors Centre. Meanwhile Jess’s brain felt like it was in the middle of a tough exam and nobody knew the right answers.

  She had a choice again. She could dash from the van and call Ruth’s house and risk Ernie driving away – but there was something about the steely light in his eyes when he wasn’t foggy that made Jess extra worried – or she could let things ride, go with him, hope she could…. What was she hoping for? That she could bring him home safe and sound? That was impossible. Ernie would never be sound again. Jess wanted to cry. An ache filled her chest. She couldn’t do this. She was a kid. Kids didn’t have to make choices like this. Adults did. But Ernie wasn’t an adult any more. He’d forgotten how to be an adult and Jess didn’t know how yet.

  She put her hand on the door handle. As they sat in the van, Ernie had been singing and tapping the dashboard rhythmically. “‘When you walk through a storm,’” he sang, “‘hold your head up high, and don’t be afraid of the dark. At the end of the storm is a golden sky and the sweet silver song of a lark.’ If Ruth was here, she’d sing along. It’s all about being brave and it’s got larks in it. What a good song for a trip like this! I remember where I’m going. I’m going back to where I started.”

  He put the van in gear. Jess took her hand off the door handle. She remembered the words to this schmaltzy old song. Her mother had been singing it the other day. It ended with the words Ernie was now singing in his thin baritone voice, all about never walking alone. She had to go with Ernie. If she didn’t he’d be out in the wilderness alone. There was no telling what kind of trouble he’d get into.

  They pulled into traffic and headed out of town on the road north towards Calling Lake. Jess rolled her window down and waited. On the far side of the wooden bridge over the Athabasca River, near the Landis Golf Club, a stand of diamond willow grew close to the road.

  “Look, Ernie, a flock of geese,” Jess pointed towards the sand and gravel company on the left side of the road. Ernie glanced that way. Meanwhile she tossed her Midas sock with all her might. It caught on one of the limbs of the diamond willow. It hung crooked, like a peculiar woolly surveyor’s tag. But anyone who knew her would spot it and know which way they had gone. If anyone figured out they were up here.

  Ernie was still humming. “You shouldn’t have come,” he said. A pickup truck passed, blowing its horn. Ernie had been driving too close to the middle of the road again. Jess was jittery just watching him manoeuver the van. “It’s not in my plan.”

  “Don’t say that. It’s not nice.” Jess wanted to hit Ernie – this Ernie – not her old friend. He was like a mouthy kid. She chewed her lip and tried to calm down.

  She studied her hands clasped in her lap. It was nearly noon. If she’d gone to school, she would have been at gym club. Doing a gymnastics routine was so straightforward. You practiced your approach, rehearsed your moves in your head and for real, and worked really hard at your dismount. You did what the coach said. Jess rubbed her hands together, wishing she was with her teammates and there was chalk on her hands and a set of uneven bars. Instead here she was with Ernie, heading into the northern bush.

  They sailed past the deserted rodeo grounds, a shed with two shiny brown horses and a black colt, and a white-and-blue house the size of a garage, attached to a trailer. Early bright geraniums waved in the breeze in a painted white tire planter on the lawn. A huge brown farm dog barked.

  Ernie slowed and peered off to the left. Another van roared by. “I think it’s down here, little lady. We’ll have to take the horses slowly from here on. Might be rustlers and other mean critters.”

  “The lake’s not here, Ernie.”

  “I know that, gal.”

  “Ernie, if you�
�d tell me where we’re going, maybe I could help.”

  “You aren’t playing the game, Yvonne. What about the game?”

  “I’m Jess,” she whispered. Oh, how she longed for the old Ernie, the one who knew her, the one who loved her.

  They had just passed a new small sawmill and lumberyard when Ernie put his foot on the brake, nearly tossing both of them through the windshield. Jess’s seat belt dug into her neck as it flung her back against the seat. Ernie pulled onto a gravel road to the left, with the TV and radio tower flashing on and off, on and off. They were heading towards the Athabasca River.

  Rocks spat at the windshield as a gravel truck roared past. Dust coated the van and Jess coughed, held onto the dashboard.

  “I wish you hadn’t come. It complicates things.” Ernie didn’t look at Jess, he just stared through the window and drove. He had stopped playing cowboy.

  The more Ernie said he wished she hadn’t come, the more Jess was clear it was a good thing she had. Her chest felt as if a weight was pressed on it, a heavy, immovable weight.

  “Maybe we should go home.” She kept the anger, the fear, out of her voice.

  “I’m going home,” Ernie said. They passed a tiny cemetery overgrown with wild rosebushes and clover. A big wooden cross with peeling white paint tilted to the right.

  “It’s a wonder the Olnichucks don’t fix that. I should talk to them. They’re good people, related to my wife Ruth. Too bad the boy died, the one who drowned in the dugout. He was in grade six, you know. Nice boy, hard-working. I don’t remember his name.”

  “It was a long time ago, Ernie.” Jess patted his trembling hand. Maybe if she touched his hand he would remember who she was. She wanted him to remember her. Please, Ernie, come back.

  “Was it? Was it long ago?” he looked really hard at her. “Weren’t you in my class?”

  “No, Ernie, I’m Jess. I lived next door to you in the city.” In her ears her voice sounded shrill, like her mother’s when she was upset.