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  Yowwww!

  My ankle didn’t think it was funny.

  Neither did I, but I was happy anyway.

  I eased myself back into the hole and waited. I knew my Dad. After washing the cut on his shoulder, he would take a quick shower and drive to the Choctaw Clinic, where everybody knew him. He’d fuss and complain about me to everybody. And they would pretend to agree with him.

  I was right. In less than an hour I heard the crazy-loud mufflers of my dad’s pick-up truck. He backed out of the driveway and took off to town. I crawled out of the sinkhole and limped as fast as I could to the backyard. I knew I had at least a few hours before Dad returned.

  Where to start?

  Chapter 4

  My New Digs

  “Hoke,” my music teacher always said, “begin at the beginning.” I wanted a room of my own, where nobody could wake me up and drag me out of bed. I wanted a place to sleep and a place to hang out, maybe with a few friends. I wanted a place to chill out and do nothing if that’s what I wanted to do. Nothing.

  Hoke, let’s get real. I was tired of being afraid, and I wanted a place away from my dad. I didn’t want to spend all day worrying when he might hit me again. Now I couldn’t even eat breakfast without worrying. He might flip my chair over and send me crashing to the floor.

  I picked out a spot under the oldest tree in our yard, a red oak tree with a thick trunk. It was covered with leaves and surrounded by tall grass. Between the oak tree and the fence was the perfect spot. The tree trunk would block my dad’s view.

  I limped to the garage and found a shovel and a trash can. The dirt was soft and easy to dig. For the next hour I worked without stopping. I dug the hole and tossed the dirt in the trash can. When it was half full, I lifted it over the fence and dragged it to the sinkhole. It was more work than I thought, but I couldn’t leave any sign of my digging.

  After two hours and eight trips to fill the sinkhole with dirt from the backyard, I plopped to the ground, exhausted. My ankle was swollen bigger than a softball and throbbed like a powwow drum. But I was determined.

  Dad might be home soon, I thought. I’ve got to cover up the hole.

  I was sitting on the edge of the sinkhole. I lifted my neck high and looked from one side of the field to the other.

  The junkyard! As every young Choctaw knows, if you look hard enough, you’ll find treasures in the junkyard. Car parts, tools, broken toys that only need a wheel, all sorts of treasures. So limp, limp, limp, away I go!

  At the very moment I gazed down at the junkyard below, the sun peeped through the clouds. A single ray of yellow sunshine shone upon my treasure, the answer to all the problems of my life.

  Hoke, maybe that’s a little overboard, but I did find what I was seeking.

  I limp-dashed down the hill and scooted under the fence. Rusty old cars with broken windshields and no engines surrounded me. I climbed over a pile of sliced-up tires till I stood over the door.

  The hinges were broken but I didn’t care. The door was beautiful, pale blue as the morning sky. Where the doorknob used to be was a hole the size of my fist. The door was solid, with no cracks, no rotten wood or termites. It was the perfect roof for my new home!

  The tricky part was getting the door from the junkyard to my backyard. If my ankle wasn’t sprained I could do it. But every step I took was like walking on nails.

  That’s when I heard his voice again, almost like he was standing over me.

  “Stop your whining, boy! We all got troubles. At least you got two legs to walk on. So stop whining and do it!”

  I sat down and smiled. My ankle throbbed, but I had to smile. He was the meanest man I had ever met, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get away. He was my dad and I was stuck with him. Now I was taking his advice.

  I shook my head and laughed. I stood up, limped to the door, and tried lifting it. Not gonna happen, not even with a good ankle.

  “Sorry, Dad,” I said out loud. “I’m needing some help.”

  I saw him standing in front of me. Hoke. I almost saw him. It seemed like I saw him. He had his arms folded and he shook his head. He tightened his mouth and spit on the ground, like he always did when he was disgusted with me.

  But when he lifted his eyes to look at me, I saw something new.

  NO! I don’t want to see this! This was not happening.

  Dad, my dad, had a look in his eyes, one I never saw. And his face changed, too. Hoke. This sounds crazy, even to me. But Dad almost looked like he was proud of me, proud that his son was trying to lift a heavy door with a bum ankle.

  “You are dreaming,” I told myself. “You can’t trust him. You know that.”

  I looked over my shoulder to my house. It was maybe half a mile away. Hoke. Time for some math. A half mile away was around eight hundred yards. I knew that from watching my cousin run track.

  If I dragged the door a hundred yards a day, it would take me eight days to get it to the backyard. Too long. But two hundred yards a day—four days—that could work. That would give me plenty of time to dig the hole. And if Johnny helped me, if he dragged the door two hundred yards a day, I could have the door by late tomorrow!

  “You lazy little punk! Stop whining and get to work!”

  So I did. I dragged the door maybe ten yards and plopped to the ground. I lifted my pant leg to get a look at my ankle. It was purple. I could see swirls of blood veins, all purple and blue.

  I need a new way of walking, I thought. I stood up and put my bum foot on the ground flat, without moving my ankle up or down. I used that leg like a cane. I put almost no weight on it. Then I stepped big and strong on my other leg. I let it take all the weight.

  This was a funny way of walking, but it worked.

  By sundown I had dragged the door all the way to my back fence. I thought about asking Johnny for help, several times. But when I considered how far it was to his house and that maybe he wasn’t home anyway, it just seemed easier to do it myself.

  “If you want something done right, you gotta do it yourself!”

  “Will somebody make please make him shut up?” I heard myself asking.

  Chapter 5

  Living in a Hole

  I dragged the door through the back gate and sat down, leaning against the tree trunk. In two seconds I was asleep. But not for long. I don’t know what woke me up, but I jumped to my feet. I thought I heard Dad’s truck coming down the street.

  No, I must have been dreaming. But he would soon be home and I had work to do. I couldn’t leave the door where it was. He could see it from anywhere in the house.

  I hurried to the garage and found a big tube of powerful wood glue. I raked leaves and yanked weeds from around the house, where nobody would notice. They were my “camouflage,” a word I’d learned from my Vietnam-vet uncle, Danny.

  I glued the weeds and leaves to the door. I dug dirt from behind the fence and scattered it over the glue till the door was covered.

  “When you do the right thing, you sometimes get lucky.” Nope, not words from my dad. My mom always said this. My mom. I was so worried and working so hard to get away from Dad, I almost forgot that Mom was gone. Then I heard it.

  Vrooom! Vrooom!

  Dad’s mufflers. Like a drop of blood falling from the ceiling in a vampire movie, Dad’s mufflers meant everything was about to change. I saw the beams of his headlights against the back fence. I felt like a prisoner climbing over the prison wall when the searchlight catches him. I froze, just like the prisoner always does.

  But I wasn’t a prisoner. I had worked through pain all day so I could be free of him. I pulled the door to the edge of the hole and jumped inside, then slowly lifted the door over myself and the hole.

  I wished I could climb outside, just for a minute, to see if the door looked natural, covered in dead leaves and weeds. But that wasn’t possible. I was in the hole and Dad was in the kitchen by now. Even when he wasn’t hungry or thirsty, he always went to the kitchen first.

  It d
idn’t take me long to see that this hole, my new home, needed some improvements. For one thing, I couldn’t see or hear anything. Just me in the dark, dirty hole. This was not only boring but maybe dangerous.

  What if?—I always made crazy stuff up by asking “what if?”

  Hoke.

  What if Dad sold the house and the new owners discovered oil in the backyard? What if I was sound asleep when they start the drilling? What if the giant oil drill pierced my stomach, and when it rose from the ground, my bloody body was dangling from it?

  And what if my dad was watching, still mad that he never thought of drilling for oil in the backyard? What if he saw my bloody body hanging from the drill blade? I can hear him yelling at me.

  “I don’t care if I sold the house. Stop bleeding on the patio furniture!”

  Hoke. Too much thinking. My hands went to my stomach. No bleeding, no oil drill. But I still lay in a hole. Soon it would be dark enough for me to climb out. Very quietly, in case Dad was sitting on the patio.

  In a short while I climbed out and hid behind the tree. Dad was at the kitchen table, eating fries and a burger. He was wearing a T-shirt and bandages were wrapped all around his shoulder. As I watched, Dad closed his eyes and his head hit the table, scattering French fries all over the floor.

  He must be taking painkillers, I thought. I remembered the look on his face when he pulled the glass from his shoulder.

  I slipped through the back gate and limped to the park. The lights stayed on till ten o’clock every night. Johnny and some of his friends were hanging out, shooting jumpers and lay-ups. Nothing serious.

  “Hey, man,” Johnny said. Though I tried to hide it, Johnny saw me limping. “What’s up?”

  “Nothing. What’s up with you?” I replied, ignoring his real question.

  “We’ve been playing ball,” Johnny said, bouncing the basketball and taking a long shot. “We’re about ready to head home.”

  “Yeah,” one of his Cherokee buddies said, “it’s getting late.”

  They started leaving the park, but Johnny gave me a look that said, Stay around. We should talk.

  “I’ll see you guys tomorrow,” he said. Once they were gone, he dribbled to the free-throw line. We didn’t say anything for a long while. He shot ten free throws and I rebounded for him. Then I shot my ten. He made five; I made nine.

  “You can still shoot, even with a bum ankle,” Johnny said, shaking his head.

  He stepped to the line and started on his second ten.

  “How’s things with your dad?” he asked. He was hinting for me to tell him what happened.

  “Same old, same old,” I said.

  “He’s sure got a temper.”

  “Yeah. And now that my mom is gone, it’s worse than ever.”

  “What are you gonna do? I couldn’t live with my old man if he was like that.”

  “I’m not living with him,” I said.

  “Where are you living?”

  “In a hole in the ground. I’m living in a hole in the ground.”

  “Yeah,” Johnny laughed. He dribbled a few times and shot another free throw. “I know what you mean. I’m living in that same hole!”

  I waited a minute before I replied. I wasn’t sure I wanted anybody to know.

  “No, Johnny,” I finally said. “I really am living in a hole.”

  Chapter 6

  Backyard Submarine

  “His pickup’s gone,” I said as we neared my house. “My dad’s not here.”

  “We don’t have to go through the house, do we?” Johnny asked.

  “No way we’re going through the house. I just wanted to see if his truck was in the driveway. Let’s go around back.”

  Soon we stood staring at the door, the roof of my new home.

  “So that’s it, huh?” he asked. “How did you drag the door from the junkyard, with your bum ankle?”

  “Wasn’t easy. But it was that or living with the old man.”

  “Easy choice,” Johnny said. “Uh, how long have you been down there? You haven’t spent the night yet, have you?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I got a question.”

  “Fire away.”

  “Where’s the air hole?”

  “The air hole?”

  “Yes, the air hole. How do you breathe?”

  “I breathe through my nose. Like anybody else. Why are you asking me that?”

  “Because, my one true basketball friend, I do not want you to die of suffocation. With the door closed, you’re gonna run out of air. I’m guessing in a few hours. Good thing you didn’t spend the night down there.”

  “Johnny!” I said. “What kind of an idiot do you think I am? I thought of that.”

  Johnny laughed so loud I was afraid Dad would hear him, wherever he was.

  “You don’t lie that well,” he said, still laughing.

  I had to laugh, too. “Hoke, hoke, my one true basketball friend. So maybe you saved my life. What’s the big deal?”

  “The big deal is this. We better dig you an air hole.”

  We didn’t say anything for a while. Johnny flipped the ball to me in an around-the-back pass. “Any ideas?” he finally asked.

  “I’m thinking we should dig the air hole close to the tree. And we need some kinda pipe, so the ground doesn’t cave in while I’m asleep.”

  “We can glue leaves over the end, so nobody can see it,” Johnny said. “We’ve got some old plastic pipe in my garage. How long do you think it should be?”

  I stretched my arms three feet apart. “How about this?”

  “I’ll be back in half an hour,” Johnny said. “Keep everything under control while I’m gone. If your dad comes, hit him with a full-court press.”

  “Will do,” I said. “And Johnny …”

  “What?”

  “Yakoke, big time.” (You guessed it. Yakoke means “thank you” in Choctaw.)

  “You’re welcome. Big time, too.”

  While Johnny was gone, I sat behind the tree. A bright summer moon shone through the leaves. My ankle was throbbing and singing that old pain song, but I was used to it by now.

  I pulled up my jeans. The purple streaks had turned black. I wiggled my ankle back and forth, real slow. It was stiff and sore, but getting better. I leaned against the fence.

  “I’m lucky to have a friend like Johnny,” I whispered to myself. Almost in reply, a robin flew from the tree, rustling the leaves above me.

  That’s when I had my first hint that I was not alone.

  I glanced to the tree limbs and caught a quick motion from the house next door. Somebody yanked the curtains closed. Somebody was watching me from their upstairs window.

  I was kidding myself. I knew who that somebody was. Carolina Faye. That’s what they called her at school. She was a grade behind me, so I didn’t know her that well.

  What’s she doing looking at me? I thought. It felt funny not knowing how long she’d been watching Johnny and me. Maybe she’s been watching me the whole time. Maybe she watched me dig the hole.

  I knew she wouldn’t tell anybody. She didn’t have any friends. She didn’t play basketball or volleyball or run girls track. She didn’t play the clarinet or twirl the baton. I tried talking to her once or twice, but she acted like she didn’t hear me.

  Faye and her mom and dad came from the mountains in Carolina. She was thin, but not too thin. She had shiny brown hair and she wore it long. She was a little shorter than me. Maybe she had nice eyes, but I never saw them. She always hid her face whenever I came around.

  Now three people knew about my new home—Johnny, me, and Carolina Faye. For some strange reason, this didn’t bother me, not one bit. Carolina Faye wouldn’t tell anybody, and now I had an excuse to talk to her next time we met.

  When Johnny returned, he carried a plastic pipe.

  “It’s the biggest pipe I could find,” he said. “You should be able to move it around like a telescope and see everything in the backyard.”

&nb
sp; Johnny was right. He stuck the pipe through the ground and poked a branch in it to clean out the dirt.

  “Give it a try,” Johnny said.

  He lifted the door and I eased myself into the hole. Looking through the pipe, I could see the patio and the back of the house.

  “I bet I can hear Dad’s truck,” I said. Johnny was standing above the hole. He heard every word I said.

  “You gotta remember,” Johnny said, “if he’s sitting on the patio, he can hear you too.”

  “You have a flashlight I can borrow?” I asked him. “It’s dark down here.”

  “I thought you’d never ask,” he said. “Careful. Here it comes.”

  He pulled a flashlight from his back pocket and put it in the pipe. The flashlight twisted and rattled down the pipe, landing in my lap.

  “Thanks,” I told him.

  “No prob,” he said.

  I turned on the light and saw my new world for the first time. The dirt wall was dark brown and covered with tiny white roots. Somehow it seemed alive. I shined the flashlight beam from one wall to the other.

  I wanted my rug, the rug from my bedroom. I wanted a picture on the wall, a picture of Johnny and me playing basketball. We didn’t need anybody else.

  After Johnny left, I climbed out of my room. Dad was staying gone a long time. I hope he doesn’t drive on those painkillers, I thought.

  I looked to the moon and had the strangest feeling. I wished my dad was home. I was worrying about my dad. That had never happened before.

  Chapter 7

  My Horror Movie

  Hoke. So he swerved his truck when he turned into the driveway. Hoke. So he smashed the plastic trash can. Hoke. So what if it was the neighbor’s trash can? Hoke, already!

  I knew Dad would blame me for everything that happened. He always did.

  “I never drank before you came into my life!” That’s what he’d yell at me. I heard him tell Mom the same thing a few weeks before she left.

  But he was home and I was glad. That night, when I climbed into my underground room, I could fall asleep knowing he was safe.