Back on the Map Read online

  Also by Lisa Ann Scott:

  School of Charm

  Copyright © 2017 by Lisa Ann Scott

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without the express written consent of the publisher, except in the case of brief excerpts in critical reviews or articles. All inquiries should be addressed to Sky Pony Press, 307 West 36th Street, 11th Floor, New York, NY 10018.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously.

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.

  Cover illustration by Christiane Engel

  Print ISBN: 978-1-5107-1353-6

  E-book ISBN: 978-1-5107-1354-3

  Printed in the United States of America

  Interior design by Joshua L. Barnaby

  To my wonderful editor, Rachel Stark, for taking in my orphaned book and loving it like her own. And especially for demanding the very best from it.

  CHAPTER 1

  It was a day for high fives and cheers, but I sat in class with that nervous hum buzzing inside me like a warning bell. Like a hive of bees. Sometimes big things happened on the last day of school. Bad things. Like getting bounced to a new town because we’d become too much again. Any minute now, we could get called down to the principal’s office and find Grauntie waiting with our stuff. I could just imagine the horrible message booming through all the speakers in school: Penny and Parker Porter, it’s time for you to leave.

  I closed my eyes and pictured all my things neatly folded on the bed. I’d left them there so Grauntie wouldn’t miss anything if she decided to pack up for us. I lost my only photo of Mama three years ago, when Cousin Janice showed up with our stuff in garbage bags on the last day of school. Uncle Dean had come to take us that time. I’m not even sure who it would be this time. We’d used up all our relatives. The ones we knew about, anyway. We didn’t know our daddy’s name, or where he was. No one did.

  Ever since that day three years ago, the last day of school’s been a great big worry day. Even more so this year, the way Grauntie was getting. So today I had everything ready to go, except for my pink hair clip shaped like a rabbit. I’d searched all over, and I couldn’t find it, so I’d have to let it go. But my two most important things were right with me, stashed in my desk. I touched the book and the letter and felt better, knowing they were there. At least I wouldn’t lose those if we got bounced.

  Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. The darn clock by the door was beating away the moments like a drum. Half an hour of fifth grade left. Seemed like time was slowing down while my heart was speeding up. And all I could do was wait, wait, wait.

  I wondered if Parker was sitting in his class feeling the same way. Probably not. I did the worrying for the both of us. I sighed. Waiting for a bad thing is much harder than waiting for a good thing.

  I fanned myself and looked around the stuffy room. Sally Kenney was snoozing, ready to topple over. No one was squirming and chattering or bouncing in their seats. You’d think they’d be ready to bust out the door smack dab into summer break, but not the kids in this town.

  Even so, I didn’t want to leave New Hope. Parker and I had never lasted this long anywhere else, and things were nice and easy here. No one took much notice of us. No people picking on Parker and his weird ways. No kids refusing to play with us because we looked different. Every other town we’d lived in had been full of busybodies, always nosing around. “These white folks are your family?” “What are you? Mexican? Black? Mixed?” Most of those folks didn’t like not getting answers. Well, guess what? I didn’t like having none to give.

  Not that life in New Hope was perfect. Grauntie was old, and her memory was breaking off in bits. And the whole town was still moping around about the Great Disappointment: New Hope’s Finest, the great big building that was supposed to reopen as something brand new but never did. It still sat empty, high atop a hill in the middle of town, its face to the row of shops on Main Street and its back up against the highway.

  Even here in the classroom you could see it. I shifted in my seat, staring out the window at it while I waited for school to wind down. It had once been an orphanage. It was on a big plot of land surrounded by a tall wooden fence, but you could still see the top half of the building. The sign on the roof read NEW HOPE’S FINEST, with an empty space after “FINEST,” still waiting for that final word to be painted in. Ten years later, that space on the sign, like the building itself, sat there empty and forgotten. Unwanted.

  No wonder people here were sad all the time, with that great big misfortune staring down at everyone.

  Mr. Hanes didn’t notice me not paying attention. Maybe ’cause it was his final day, ever, at our school. He was more excited than the students.

  “One more thing before you leave,” he said. He pulled out a file from the bottom drawer. “I want to give you back the just-for-fun sheets you filled out on the first day of school.”

  Kids shifted in their seats. Most of them yawned.

  “That’s neat,” I said, just so he’d know at least one person was listening.

  “It sure is, Penny.” The color in Mr. Hanes’s cheeks was blooming with the promise of leaving New Hope.

  Parker once told me no one else saw folks in shades like I did. But I had to believe someone else out there could spot a person filled up with color, or find folks practically drained dry. Most everyone in New Hope was nothing but walking, talking, black-and-white sketches. Sometimes they seemed to move in slow motion, too. Suppose that’s what happens when a town’s been stewing in sadness for so long.

  To me, it didn’t matter if a person was mixed, or what their skin looked like. What mattered was how strong your color glowed. Those poor folks in New Hope didn’t glow at all. But I did, and so did Parker. We were solid color, through and through.

  Mama had always been full color, until she got sick. Then she faded and faded until she was gone. I could still remember her face: her green, green eyes, her crooked front tooth. She had bushy, copper-colored hair, just like mine. The same shade as a penny. The reason for my name.

  Our skin was different, though. So many times I set my arm next to hers, comparing her snowy skin with my light-brown skin. Parker had the same color skin as me. I figured that meant Daddy must’ve had darker skin, to mix with Mama’s and make ours. Suppose he had freckles, too, cause Mama didn’t—and I do. Lots of them. I tried counting once, but had to stop at five hundred fifty-two. Somehow, lucky Parker was freckle-free.

  I examined my arms, imagining the shapes the dots made, while Mr. Hanes passed out our sheets. “Here you go, Penny.”

  “Thanks, sir.” I took my stack of sheets from him. They were filled with questions about my family, and my dreams for the future.

  I ripped them into tiny strips. Not ’cause I was mad about the questions. I hadn’t answered most of them, anyway. I was just itching to make confetti. How exciting to have a celebration too big for words and applause, like Mr. Hanes’s last day of school in New Hope—you needed a flurry of paper in the sky to show how important it was. Plus, it settled my nerves some, as I worried about it being my last day in New Hope, too.
/>   I kept shredding my sheets and dropping the tiny bits in my empty lunch bag. Once I finished the dreams and family sheets, I tore up the family tree. It was blank. Didn’t have enough family to fill it in with.

  But I’d been working on one at home—a secret one. The one I wished was real. I come from proud, great people. The people on my tree.

  I blew into the bag like it was a paper balloon and shook the confetti inside, waiting for the bell to ring in three, two, one … “Happy very last day of school, Mr. Hanes!” I popped it just as the bell rang. A tiny cloud of confetti rained down, sprinkling my desk and the floor.

  “Why, thank you, Penny,” said Mr. Hanes.

  I smiled at him, keeping my lips pressed together. I wasn’t one to flash my teeth, especially seeing as how most of ’em were crooked.

  The kids shuffled out of the room, some of the confetti sticking to their shoes.

  I waved goodbye to my friends Carly and Chase. They lived on our street, and sometimes, if their color glowed enough, Parker and I could drag them along on our adventures. They waved back, but left the room without a word.

  Then I waited. And waited and waited for the principal’s voice to boom through the speaker next to the clock. I held my breath and crossed my fingers. Please let us stay here.

  CHAPTER 2

  The speaker was quiet. The classroom phone didn’t jingle, either. Relief whooshed through me; we were in the clear. For now.

  I stayed put so I could talk business with Mr. Hanes. He was full color now, but it was faint, like he’d been filled in by a kid pressing lightly with his crayons to make them last longer.

  “What are you going to do with all this stuff?” I asked, once the room was empty.

  “Most of it will stay for the new teacher. But the rest,” he said with a shrug, “I’ll just pack up and leave for the janitor to take care of.”

  “I could save him the work and take what you don’t want for our trading cart. I brought it to school today. It’s locked up on the bike rack.”

  He smiled and shook a finger at me. “That’s a great idea. I’ll call Mrs. Johnson, and she can tell Parker to bring it in.” He picked up the phone.

  “Sounds good.” Schools usually kept me and Parker in separate classes, ’cause we distracted each other.

  Mr. Hanes hung up the phone and pointed to the pots by the windows. “Why don’t you take the plants, too?”

  “Lots of folks will like those.” I surveyed the room and stared at the poster of a cat clinging to a tree limb that said, HANG IN THERE, BABY!

  “You can have all those posters, too. The new teacher will want to put up their own things.” He pulled the tacks out and laid the posters flat on a desk.

  “You should probably get rid of these tacks so no one steps on them. Want me to help out with that?” Thumbtacks would make perfect eyes on my tin can critters. I always found a use for things cast aside. It was my talent.

  “Sure. And take any of those books you’d like,” Mr. Hanes said, pointing to the bookcase in the corner.

  I’d take ’em all; they’d be good for trading. The ones I didn’t keep, that is. Books were as good as friends.

  I heard the squeaky wheels of the trading cart coming down the hall. Parker walked into the room and gave me the handle of the first wagon. There was a second wagon, just like it, tied to the back.

  When I thanked him, Parker shoved his hands in his pockets and nodded. Parker was either silent or a chatterbox, no in-between. When we stayed with Mama’s grandma, Nanny Gladys, a few years back, she always called him an odd bird.

  Mr. Hanes set a box of paint bottles and craft supplies in my wagon. Parker collected the plants.

  I walked over to the huge map of North Carolina on the back wall, its corners tattered and curling. “What’s going to happen to this?”

  “It’s yours. No need for it now. I’m leaving North Carolina today. U-Haul’s packed and hitched to my car outside. One year in this town was more than enough.” Mr. Hanes was probably going to get a speeding ticket on the way out of town, he was so eager to skedaddle.

  I nodded. Since we’d be saving the janitor work, it was a fair trade to take the map. I stared up at it, looking for New Hope. I knew it was between Winston-Salem and Asheville, but I couldn’t find it. “Where are we?”

  “New Hope’s not on the map,” Mr. Hanes said.

  “Why not? Shouldn’t every place be on the map?” How had I not noticed that before?

  “There’s not room for every little town and village.” He shrugged. “New Hope’s not big enough. Not important enough. No reason for anybody to be looking for it.”

  That felt like a kick to the gut. Without a place on the map, couldn’t a town get swept away? Forgotten? I scanned the map for the other places Parker and I had lived: Old Fort with Mama’s mama, Granny Lynn; Black Creek with our Nanny Gladys, the crabby old lady; Delway with Mama’s cousin Gert and her seven kids; Keener, with Mama’s other cousin Janice; and then Woodland with Mama’s brother, who didn’t keep us but four months. None of those places were on the map, either.

  Parker stood with his arms wrapped around a big, leafy plant, staring at the map, too.

  Then a thought started beating my brain, thumping and pulsing faster and louder. It was so huge I had to sit down from the pressure of it. Parker and I had never lived anywhere big enough or important enough to be put on the map. No one had ever pushed a thumbtack into the thick paper to mark the place we’d called home.

  I blew out a breath so the idea wouldn’t swallow me whole. If you couldn’t put a pin in a place like New Hope, how could I ever expect us to be tacked to one place? Parker and I needed to live somewhere that was on the map to keep us from being pulled to the next forgotten town. A town special enough to hold us.

  I stood. “We’ve got to get New Hope on the map!” I cried. It was the key to staying. The truth of it hummed in my brain, so loud it hurt. My best ideas always hurt. That’s how I knew when a thing was important. And getting New Hope on the map was more important than anything. I could feel the truth of it rattling in my bones: Get on the map, and you’ll never be bounced again.

  I’d have to put Sacagawea on my secret family tree right away. Since she’d gone with Lewis and Clark on their journey to map out the unknown western territory, her skills would be good to have. She helped them make their way across the land. And she was only seventeen! Without her, maybe Lewis and Clark couldn’t have charted and claimed the west for America.

  I’d read her story dozens of times in my Notable People book, which was sitting safely in my desk so I wouldn’t lose it. It was my number-two most important thing, since Mama used to read it to me and Parker. I knew all the people’s stories by heart. Sacagawea would be a fine, fine person to have on my family tree, and a big help with anything related to maps, for sure.

  Now, I wasn’t absolutely certain she was kin, but since I knew nothing about my daddy there was no way of knowing she didn’t belong on my tree. I looked down at my light-brown hands. That color could be from Sacagawea. I could be from the Shoshone tribe. So, she would join the amazing people I’d been adding during the past two years, ever since the first time one of my teachers passed out a family tree sheet and I realized mine was half empty, sadder than a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. I closed my eyes and thought I could feel her in my heart. I am the descendant of a great explorer.

  I didn’t have a real family that loved me, but I had a wonderful imaginary one that did.

  Feeling inspired by my link to Sacagawea, I stared at that map on Mr. Hanes’s wall for a while, tracing my fingers over the smooth paper, wondering exactly where New Hope would be.

  Mr. Hanes walked over, shaking his head. “Get New Hope on the map.” He chuckled. “Good luck with that. This town can’t even get a proper road sign on the highway. I always figured once you lose hope, it’s gone forever.”

  He was probably right about that. Years ago, before Parker and I had moved to New Hope, someone
had used spray paint to cross out NEW HOPE on the highway sign and write NO HOPE underneath it. That was the first thing we’d seen as we were driven into town, the bright-yellow paint glowing in the blur of all those green trees as we whizzed by.

  “I can’t believe someone did that to the sign,” I said, mostly to myself.

  “I imagine people were upset when … you know.” Mr. Hanes’s color was fading a bit from even mentioning The Great Disappointment.

  “People need to get over that. It’s been, what, ten years?” Mama had died six years ago, and I’d moved on. And that was way worse than The Great Disappointment.

  “Well, this is an unusual little town, I’ll tell you that.” He brought over a box of odds and ends and set it in my wagon. “I’m just going to consider myself lucky I’ve spent my year here without finding a doom painting on my doorstep.”

  I blinked at him. “Doom painting?” I whispered the words to myself and got chill bumps. “What’s that?”

  His color drained some more. “Folks don’t mention doom paintings much, but one of the other teachers told me about them. Joe Jinx paints them and leaves them on people’s doorsteps overnight. Something bad always happens after a painting shows up. That’s why they’re called doom paintings. And that’s why he’s called Joe Jinx.” He looked around the room like he was nervous. “And that’s one of the reasons I’m leaving this town.”

  My mouth hung open. “I can’t believe I’ve never heard about them.”

  His eyebrows rose. “I’m not surprised at all. Some people think just talking about them will bring you one.”

  I clamped my mouth shut, and my mind spun, thinking about the very idea of cursed paintings. What kind of person would paint them? Someone crazy? Someone mean? “I’ve never heard of Joe Jinx, either,” I said. And here I thought I’d met everyone in New Hope.

  “Sure, he’s around. Lives in that big white house on the edge of town.”

  I nodded, understanding now why he was a stranger. No one ever answered the door when we stopped by that house with the trading cart. So we quit going. There were lots of old, abandoned homes around town, and we skipped them all.