it’s not handed in precisely at the start of class second period, do you know what’s going to happen?”
He cocked his head in interest—a gesture I did not trust.
“What?” he asked.
“Well, I’ll tell you, Harnett,” I said, lacing my fingers in mock patience. “There are only so many assignments in a given semester, and each assignment is worth a certain percentage of the final grade. Each time you are late, another certain percentage is taken off the grade for that assignment, no matter how well you do. And eventually, you end up like me, looking at the last eight weeks of class with absolutely no room for error.” I waved my paper. “Even if I nail this—which is more and more unlikely the longer you keep asking me questions—even if I nail it, if I turn it in any later than the start of second period tomorrow, the percentage taken off would make it mathematically impossible for me to get an A in the class.”
“And this is important to you.”
“What, getting an A?”
He nodded again.
I gave him a good hard stare. His eyes might have looked like mine, but the brain behind them could not have been more dissimilar. Good grades—no, perfect grades—were the only possible escape route from Bloughton. It had been my mother’s dream, and mine. I couldn’t expect the Garbageman to understand.
“Yes.” I snatched up my pencil. “It’s important to me.”
He planted his hands on his knees and gave me a sharp nod as if to say “Good enough,” and then rose and crossed the room, dropped himself into his chair, reached for the new stack of newspapers, and once again pretended that I didn’t exist.
27.
IT WAS A TRICK. When I awoke, my calculus book was on the floor next to me—not where I had left it. I sat up and squinted at my watch. It was just past five-thirty. Harnett’s bedroom door was open and the fire had long ago died. I pulled on some jeans and a hoodie, tiptoed across the cold floor, and peeked out the front door. The truck was still parked. Where was he?
The dewy grass darkened my shoes as I walked through the glossy violet of predawn. As I moved past the garden, I made out Harnett standing in the yard between the cabin and the Big Chief River, his right hand curled around Grinder.
The hole I had dug had been filled in. Indeed, its gentle rise looked uncomfortably like a grave. Harnett stood a good twenty feet to the west. It was too dark to see his face. I ventured another few steps. The water sounded like grinding glass.
“When you dig, time is against you,” he said from the darkness. “Time is always against you.”
Something about his tone made me think of my mother, his Val, and how time had thwarted all three of us.
“But you dig anyway,” he continued. “Because there’s something you want at the bottom of a hole, only it’s not a hole yet, because you haven’t dug it. Got it? Now. The Merriman grave up in Lancet County is just sitting there, waiting for us. We’re losing time and money every day. So let’s not drag this out.” With alarming quickness he drove Grinder into the earth. It made a sound like a sheathed sword and stuck there, wobbling gently against the dark sparkles of the river.
I squinted and yawned. Obviously the man was nuts. It was too dark to see much of anything aside from my breath. I hid my hands inside my sweatshirt and crossed my arms tight against my chest. “Can’t we do this later?”
“Start when you want.” He shrugged in silhouette. “But you’ve got a couple hours till school and, like I said, there’s something you want at the bottom of a hole.”
He left Grinder and walked past me without a word. I shivered and looked at the shovel. She still vibrated. Like a divining rod, I thought—and then it hit me. My calculus homework. Those questions about due dates.
The asshole had buried my homework.
“You gotta be kidding me!” I cried, clutching my head in panic. I whirled around and caught a glimpse of Harnett disappearing around the cabin’s corner. “Are you crazy? Wait! Wait!”
In the distance, I heard the front door open and close. The bastard was going back to bed. I was motionless for a moment, resolved to freak out but uncertain of the best way to do it, and then sprinted toward Grinder and wrapped both hands around her