I.D. Read online

  I.D.

  I.D.

  Vicki Grant

  Orca Soundings

  Copyright © Vicki Grant 2007

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Grant, Vicki

  I.D. / written by Vicki Grant.

  (Orca soundings)

  978-1-55143-696-8 (bound)

  978-1-55143-694-4 (pbk.)

  I. Title. II. Series.

  PS8613.R367I2 2007 jC813’.6 C2006-907053-9

  Summary: When Chris finds a wallet on the street, he is tempted to

  take on someone else’s identity.

  First published in the United States, 2007

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2006940598

  Orca Book Publishers gratefully acknowledges the support for its publishing programs provided by the following agencies: the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program and the Canada Council for the Arts, and the Province of British Columbia through the BC Arts Council and the Book Publishing Tax Credit.

  Cover design: Doug McCaffry

  Cover photography: Getty Images

  Orca Book Publishers Orca Book Publishers

  PO Box 5626, Station B PO Box 468

  Victoria, BC Canada Custer, WA USA

  V8R 6S4 98240-0468

  www.orcabook.com

  Printed and bound in Canada

  Printed on 100% PCW recycled paper.

  010 09 08 07 • 5 3 4 2 1

  For Eliza, Edwina, Teddy and Ed

  with love and awe.

  V.G.

  Chapter One

  I shouldn’t have stopped. I was late already. But if you see a wallet on the sidewalk, what do you do? You stop.

  I picked it up. I looked around. I could only see one person, an old guy, walking his dog.

  Mr. Oxner was going to kill me. I’d already been suspended a couple of times for not showing up, flunking out, mouthing off, whatever. He’d gone crazy at me the day before. He said this was my last chance. If I so much as chewed gum in class—that’s what he said—I was out for good. Expelled.

  Like I cared.

  I wanted to say, “Shove it.” I didn’t need anyone—especially Oxner—telling me what I could or could not do.

  But I needed a place to stay. I needed to eat. If I got expelled, my stepfather would totally lose it. He’d make me go back to working checkout at the grocery store for six bucks an hour. He’d probably try to kick me out of the house. He’d for sure make my life hell. (Like it wasn’t already.)

  I could just hear him going on and on about how I’d screwed up again. How I’d never amount to anything. How I was a waste, deadweight, a jerk.

  Yeah, right. Takes one to know one. That’s what I’d be thinking—but I wouldn’t say it. I’d just have to keep my mouth shut.

  I couldn’t hack that. There’s no way I could just stand there while Ron spat all over me and Mom cried and Mandy didn’t. The kid was only fourteen but she couldn’t even cry anymore. She’d seen it all before.

  I had to get to school. I had to keep Oxner happy for another month. Then I’d graduate. I’d get a job—like a real job—and get out of the house for good.

  I looked at my watch. I looked at the old guy. I could tell he wasn’t rich. I didn’t want his dog to go hungry. I figured I could make it.

  I ran over to him. I went, “Hey!” I said it too loud. He put his fists up like he was going to hit me. It was pathetic. He must have been eighty.

  “Did you lose a black wallet?” I said. He put his hands down and laughed.

  He said, “Whoa, there, young fella! I thought I was going to have to show you what for! And I could have too. Don’t let this gray hair fool you. I used to be a boxer, you know...”

  I cut him off. I showed him the wallet. “This yours?”

  “Could be,” he said. “How much money’s in it?”

  I pulled it open and counted the bills. “About seventy-five bucks,” I said.

  “Nah,” he said, “I wouldn’t take it off your hands for anything less than a hundred!” He had a good laugh about that.

  I could have smacked him. I didn’t have time to waste on some old geezer and his stupid jokes.

  I swore—and scared him again. I stuffed the wallet into my back pocket and ran.

  I made it to math class just in time. I skidded into my desk right as the bell stopped ringing. Oxner couldn’t say a thing.

  I looked straight at him and laughed.

  He put on this prissy smile and said, “So glad you could make it, Christopher.” I could tell he was really pissed off he couldn’t do anything to me. He started writing on the board like a maniac. The chalk snapped in half and he muttered something under his breath.

  “What was that, sir?” I said. “Did you say something?”

  He went all white and twitchy.

  “Nothing,” he said. “I didn’t say anything.” Yeah, right. Like we all didn’t know he was swearing. Poor baby broke his chalk. What an idiot.

  Alexa Doucette turned around and winked at me. She was laughing. She whispered, “Nice job! You so nailed him!” I liked that. I never knew she’d even noticed me before.

  I had a pencil and some paper. I brought my textbook. If Oxner asked, I even knew what page we were on. Everything was going great. I was bulletproof. I smiled back at her.

  It’s funny now, but I remember sitting there thinking, “This just might be my lucky day.”

  Chapter Two

  Nothing makes me happier than pissing Oxner off. I felt so good. I almost liked school. I didn’t skip any classes. I didn’t make any smartass remarks. I even managed to stay awake all through Modern European history. That was a first.

  It didn’t hurt that Alexa was in that class too. Concentrating on her was way easier than concentrating on some dead king or something.

  After class, a bunch of guys said they were going to Joe’s Big Slice for pizza. Alexa was going too. She said, “Are you coming, Christopher?”

  It really burns me when Oxner calls me by my full name, but it didn’t bother me at all when Alexa did it. I shrugged and said, “Sure, why not?”

  It was a dumb question. If she thought about it, Alexa could probably have come up with lots of reasons why not. Like, for starters, my stepdad is a truck driver for her dad’s construction company. She’s rich. I’m not. She’s smart. I’m not. She lives in this big fancy house. I don’t.

  Believe me, I don’t.

  But I wasn’t thinking that then. I was thinking, Alexa Doucette is hot for me. I was all right with that. I wouldn’t be skipping any classes for a while.

  I never go to Joe’s after school. I can’t stand the frigging lineups. That day, I didn’t mind them. Alexa was standing right beside me.

  She hates Oxner too. “He’s such a dork,” she said.

  I laughed.

  She said, “What’s so funny?”

  I said, “I bet dork is the worst thing you’ve ever said about anybody.”

  Her neck got all red and blotchy. She looked away.

  “It’s true, isn’t it?” I said and poked her with my elbow. She didn’t say anything. I poked her again. She slapped my arm away and laughed, even though you could tell she was trying not to.

  She said, “Well, what am I supposed to call him?”

  “I could give you lots of suggestions,” I said. I opened my mouth like I was going to let rip with a couple of good ones.

  “Shhh,” she went. “I don’t want to hear them!”
She was pretty cute.

  “Okay,” I said. “So tell me why you think he’s a...dork then.”

  She really got into it. Her face went all serious.

  “Remember that assignment he had us do on famous mathematicians? I did a lot of research on it. My mother’s a professor and she checked it all for me. I thought I was going to do really well, but then Oxner went and took five points off just because I printed it on the wrong size paper. Five whole points! Just for that! It’s going to totally blow my average.”

  “Gee,” I said. “I wonder how many points he’s going to take off my assignment for not turning it in at all?”

  “You didn’t turn it in?” she said. She was all shocked. Rich kids are so funny. She looked at me like I’d just told her I’d kidnapped an old lady or something. “How come?”

  “Didn’t get around to it.”

  She stood there just shaking her head at me until Joe asked what we wanted.

  “Extra pepperoni and a Coke,” I said.

  “Vegetarian and a spring water,” she said. I should have known.

  “Is this together?” Joe said.

  I said, “Yeah.”

  Alexa said, “No. No.”

  I put my hand up and said, “Yeah. How much is it?”

  I should have found that out first. “Eight dollars and fifty-six cents—before the tip,” Joe said, like he always does. The guy’s got one joke.

  I forgot he charges more for vegetarian. I had maybe six bucks and change in my jeans. I put it on the counter. I checked my jacket, both pockets. I found four cents. I was getting nervous. I don’t like looking bad. Alexa was making these little noises like she was going to say something. Joe— Mr. Funny Guy—wasn’t laughing anymore. He didn’t like me holding up the line.

  I didn’t want to have to ask one of my buddies for some cash.

  Then I remembered.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I forgot I put my money in my back pocket.”

  I took out the black wallet and handed Joe a ten. “Keep the change,” I said.

  Chapter Three

  Alexa gave me her phone number. She didn’t want to at first. She said her parents didn’t like her giving out personal information to boys they didn’t know.

  “It’s just in case I have a homework question,” I said. I winked. She smiled and went all blotchy again.

  “You wouldn’t want me to get in trouble with The Dork again, would you?” I said. She sort of laughed at that. She tore a little piece out of her notebook and wrote the number down. I put it in the wallet. Something feels so great about slipping a girl’s number in between a couple of twenties. It made me feel like I was the type of guy who’d have a car parked out front.

  I hung around talking to Alexa until she had to go study. I missed my bus. It took me forty-five minutes to walk home. It was pouring by the time I got there. I was soaked.

  You’d think I’d get some sympathy.

  Right.

  My mother went ballistic. I didn’t even have a chance to get my jacket off and she was screaming at me.

  “Where were you?” She slapped a pot down on the stove and spaghetti sauce splashed all over her store uniform. My sister took off upstairs.

  Mom was screeching at me. “I told you! I told you fifty times you had a job interview today! My boss didn’t want to stay late today, but he did. He’s a busy man, but he stayed late because I put my job on the line and I begged him to. Why? Because I didn’t want you to have to miss any more classes. I begged my boss to stay late in order to make things easier for you. Not me. You.

  “Then you don’t even show up! You don’t even bother calling! How could you possibly miss your interview? How could you humiliate me like that? What’s the matter with you? Are you lazy? Are you mean? Or are you just stupid?”

  She stared at me as if she actually expected me to answer. I turned away so she couldn’t read my lips and hung my jacket on the bannister.

  “And don’t leave your clothes all over the place!”

  She ran over and threw the jacket on the floor.

  I couldn’t even pick it up. She was about six inches away and yapping at me like some little bulldog.

  “I am so sick of you and your mess and your screw-you attitude! It’s time you grew up. It’s time you started paying your own way, contributing to this family. And I know the perfect place for you to start. I just got a letter from the school asking for twenty dollars for graduation fees and saying you still owe thirty-two bucks for that history textbook you lost last year. Well, we’re not paying for them. You are!”

  That’s when Ron walked in the door from work. “Paying for what?” he said.

  Mom clearly didn’t expect him home that soon. She handed me my jacket and said, “Oh, nothing,” like we were just having a friendly little chat. Ron wasn’t going to take that for an answer. He slammed his lunch box on the kitchen table.

  She told him.

  I knew it was going to be bad. He didn’t say anything for a while. He just stared at me and took these long slow breaths.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I forgot.”

  He went nuts at that.

  “Forgot? Forgot!” According to him, I’d forgotten everything they’d ever taught me. Manners. Common sense. Discipline. Respect for authority. Ambition. He went on and on.

  All I could think was, “Yeah. Some fat-assed truck driver talking to me about ambition.”

  I couldn’t take that kind of two-faced crap anymore. I picked up my jacket and started to walk out.

  Ron pushed my mother aside and started coming after me. “You’re not going anywhere, boy!”

  “Yeah,” I said. “So you tell me.” I didn’t even have to run. That slob couldn’t catch me. I just walked out and slammed the door.

  Chapter Four

  It was still pissing rain. I walked around with my hood up and my hands in my pockets until I couldn’t stand it. I found a Burger King and went in to warm up. I wasn’t going to eat, but the fries smelled so good I couldn’t help it. I ordered a combo. Lucky I still had the wallet with me.

  By the time I finished eating, the rain had stopped. It was only about nine. I couldn’t go home yet. My mother worked the early shift, so she’d be in bed, but Ron would still be up, cursing at the tv, just dying to get his hands on me. I didn’t need him telling me what a loser I was again. I’d had enough of that for one day.

  I guess I could have gone to Matt’s, but he’d know something was up. I don’t like talking to my friends about my life. His parents are normal. He wouldn’t get it.

  Somehow that made me mad again. This guy across from me tucked a napkin into his collar. I guess he didn’t want his cheeseburger dripping on his fancy suit. Like we’re all supposed to be impressed he wears a suit or something. I wanted to chuck my Coke at him so bad.

  I had to get out before I did something stupid. I had to burn off some energy. I had to be too frigging tired to care by the time I got home. I needed to do something.

  I didn’t have a lot of options. I hate running, and it’s not like I belong to a gym.

  I decided to just return the wallet.

  I checked the id cards for an address. The guy lived at 27 Waterloo Crescent. It was a bit of a hike, but I didn’t care. It was something to do.

  It took me about half an hour to get there. Waterloo was in the good part of town, near the river. The houses were huge. They made our place look like a frigging garden shed.

  Number 27 was a big brick house with a three-car garage and this giant tree out front. There wasn’t a light on in the whole place. It looked like everyone was either gone or asleep. I walked up to the front door anyway. I’d come that far, why wouldn’t I? I figured the guy would be glad to get his wallet back even if I woke him up. I rang the doorbell and waited.

  No answer.

  I rang it again. I tried to peek in through the curtains. For a fancy place, the room looked pretty bare. Just a leather couch and a big flat-screen tv. It could have used a car
pet, but otherwise it looked okay to me. I didn’t mind it so empty. Our living room was full of stuff, but everything was crap.

  There was a mailbox on the wall beside the door. I thought about leaving the wallet there. I took it out of my pocket. The guy would find it the next day when he went to get his mail.

  But what if he’d moved? Maybe that’s why the place looked so deserted. Or what if he never got any mail? Or what if some crooked mailman took the wallet before the guy found it?

  I thought of something else too. That old man. I’d told him there was seventy-five bucks in the wallet. He saw my face. What if, by some weird coincidence, he knew the guy who owned the wallet? What if he found out there was only sixty bucks left in it? He’d know I’d taken the money. It would be just my luck for something like that to happen. I’d be screwed.

  There were lots of good reasons not to leave the wallet in the mailbox. I put it back in my pocket. I’d replace the money. I’d call the guy beforehand to make sure he was there. I’d come back another day.

  Chapter Five

  Ron was passed out in front of the tv when I got home. The guy was too lazy to even stay up and get mad at me. He was gone to work by the time I woke up the next morning.

  My mother called in sick that day. She was waiting for me in the kitchen when I came down for breakfast. She tried to apologize. She said that money was tight. That she was just upset. That she didn’t mean that stuff about me being stupid.

  Yeah, right. So why did she say it then?

  I don’t hate her. She’s my mom. She’s stuck with Ron—but still. I wasn’t going to let her off that easy. I didn’t say anything. I just shrugged. I grabbed my backpack and a cold English muffin and left. I had to get out of the house.

  I made it to school fifteen minutes early. That was lucky. I’d forgotten to do my math homework. I’d kind of had other things on my mind that night.

  Oxner would kick me out for sure if it wasn’t done. Other teachers might cut me some slack if I told them about the “problems at home,” but not him. I wouldn’t give him the chance. There’s no way I’d even tell him. I wasn’t going to let him feel sorry for me.