Read an Excerpt

SHIFTY

When I come out with my burrito the cop is gone, but the ticket is right there on Martha's windshield. At least no one wants to see my driver's license-the license I don't have.

"Expensive burrito," Martha says when I get back. Two hundred and seventy-five bucks Martha has to pay for that ticket. She says I owe it to her now, and I got to repay her-one way or another.

"Why'd you get a burrito anyway?" Martha asks. "We're going to Hong Sing's tonight."

"I was hungry," I say.

Martha usually splurges on Friday nights with Chinese takeout. Sissy holds the door open at Hong Sing's for Martha and the baby. I'm already inside, checking out the specials and taking a number so we won't have to wait all night. I like the steamy windows in this crowded place, the sizzling garlic smell, and the yelling back and forth.

"The Hong Sing special ribs look good," I say.

"I know, Soli," Martha says. "But I've still got some food in the fridge at home."

Martha must be worried about that expensive bus zone ticket because she only orders half as much as usual-just pot stickers and the green bean garlic chicken. Back at Martha's the pot stickers are perfect. The garlic chicken and Martha's leftovers aren't bad either. One thing about Martha is, she doesn't skimp on meals. The food might not all match up, like tonight's Chinese takeout, leftover hot dogs, and canned beans-but for the ten months or so I've been here, there's always been plenty of it. Not like some places I've lived, where they put locks on the refrigerator and cupboards and you got to listen to your empty stomach grumbling all day and night.

Sissy eats head-down, silent as usual, with one hand in her sweater pocket. But she perks up a little at the fortune cookies.

I open mine first.

"What's it say?" Martha asks.

"A sly rabbit has three openings to its den. Whatever that's supposed to mean."

Sissy looks at hers but it's got too many words. She hands it to Martha.

"Keep a green tree in your heart and a songbird will come." Martha pats Sissy's hand, then gives the fortune back. Sissy tucks it into her pocket.

"You both did better than me," Martha says. "Listen to this: You will come to the attention of those in authority. I hope not. That's the last thing I need."

Martha crumples her fortune and tosses it in the trash. I should have paid more attention. Because Martha and me, maybe we got our fortunes crossed.

A few days later, I'm minding my own business, staying out of trouble, looking for another parking place-this time at that new Mission shopping center. You'd think it wouldn't be so crowded on a weekday morning. You'd think a big city like San Francisco could create more parking spots.

I look for a parking space while watching out for "authorities." I see a cop in front of the Jamba Juice a couple of stores down from Toy Mart and Rite Aid. So Sissy and me, we're stuck driving around and around that lot with no place to park. It's not my idea to take Sissy shopping. But Sissy's never been to any birthday party and all of a sudden she's invited-Sissy's so nervous about it in her no-talking, no-smiling, watching-everything, seven-year-old-self kind of way. And Martha says I have to take my little sister to the store to help her choose a present for her new school friend. Well Sissy, she's not my real sister. And Martha, she's not my real mom either. But I have to do it because "we got to help each other out," Martha says, and now she's so busy with that new crack baby.

"He's not a crack baby," Martha tells me. "He's a baby first. A baby born addicted to drugs."

Pitiful, the way he shakes and all, and I doubt he's got a chance in this world, but no use telling that to Martha. Martha believes in lost causes like Sissy and that scrawny little baby-first crack baby.

Sissy is not her real name, but she wants to be called Little Sister or Sissy all the time. And according to Martha, Sissy and I are not "foster kids" either. We are "kids first." She makes us repeat her "people first" language, and now it's starting to stick in my brain. Sissy and me, we are "kids living in a foster home." Not foster kids. Nope, not according to Martha.

There's still no place to park. But that cop finally disappears, so I pull into the handicapped zone in front of Toy Mart. We're only going to be here a few minutes, and besides, I'm staying in the van. Martha told me and Sissy to walk to one of those cheap stores on Mission Street and "hurry back." But walking would've taken too long. The fastest thing to do was borrow her van. Plus, I want to look at the radar detectors at the auto-supply store on the way back. Martha lets me drive her old van, especially when I'm late for school, or her knee is sore, or that jittery baby won't stop crying. Of course, she usually comes along for the ride.

I like how Martha is all trusting of me. Not too many people trust me like that. No one besides Martha, in fact. I got a whole file full of people saying how I'm shifty and not to be trusted. But Martha, she trusts the good in people, even when the bad part is showing up more than anything else.

When I first came to Martha's house, she asked me if I had a driving permit. I said yeah. She never asked if the permit had my name on it, or if I was old enough to drive. I'm old enough. Just not according to the State of California.

So I can't exactly tell Martha that the permit isn't mine. It's not my fault I'm tall and I look older than fifteen. I was just helping out Wired at my last group home. He needed all the help he could get. I took the written test for him at the DMV and I only got three wrong. Wired never would've passed. He was so grateful he gave me a copy of his permit. Of course the permit has Wired's name on it-his real name, Franklin. The flimsy black-and-white photo is faded and doesn't look much like me unless I tilt my chin up and smile with all my teeth showing, just like Wired does. Luckily Martha's eyesight isn't all that good.

And now, with her leg bothering her, it seems a shame to all of a sudden tell Martha that I can't get my own real permit until I'm fifteen and a half. That's five months from now. I like driving and I'm good at it. Besides, Martha keeps saying she needs my help since she's so busy with that jittery baby-first crack baby. And I'm not the only one bending the rules. I looked in Martha's wallet. Her license is expired too.

I don't want to get another ticket, so I plan to take Martha's blue handicapped tag out of her glove box and hook it on the rearview mirror. With her knee swollen most of the time and the bottom half of her left leg missing all the time, Martha has a right to those handicapped spaces. Martha usually keeps her blue tag in the glove box and pretends she's just fine. Like if she pretends she's fine, no one will notice she's got a fake leg below her knee. Her prosthesis, she calls it.

"I get around," she says. "I get around just fine."

Yeah, I could've parked farther away like Martha usually does. But the way I see it, she's wasting a perfectly good blue tag, and those parking spaces are empty most of the time anyway. That's what I'm thinking when I pull into the handicapped space up front. Sissy gives me one of those sideways looks of hers, but she doesn't say a thing.

I stay in the van and send skinny-legged Sissy in with her ten dollars scrunched in her fist. I'll watch for cops-and if anyone really handicapped comes along, of course I'll move the van. But Sissy, she takes too long. And when she comes back out, she's empty-handed.

"What?" I ask her.

Sissy shrugs and slides her hands into her sweater pockets.

"Where's the present?"

She looks down, then back at the store.

"You better hurry up," I say. "Or I'm leaving."

"What if ...," she stops mid-sentence.

"What if what?"

"What if ... I get the wrong thing?" she says.

That's a lot of words from Sissy. She's been at Martha's three months now, and she barely says more than three words at a time.

So I tell her, "Choose something you'd like for yourself, and your friend will like it just fine. And hurry up while you're at it."

I listen to four or five more songs on the radio. But Sissy's not hurrying. She doesn't even come back out. So I have to go check on her. That's what big brothers are supposed to do, right?

I find her standing in the dollhouse aisle, but she's not looking at baby dolls or doggies or toy cars or furniture. Nope-she's got a row of little plastic mamas lined up. A brown mama, a black mama, and a white mama. She can't decide which.

I tell her, "The brown mama's good-it looks like a skinny version of Martha."

I switch some price tags around so we'll get more change and we buy it quick, but not quick enough. As soon as we're out of the store, I see I forgot to hang Martha's blue handicapped tag on the mirror. Sissy should have reminded me, because now that Jamba Juice cop is right in front of Martha's van. And she's pulling out her pad, all ready to write me a ticket.

So of course, I have to stop her.

Chapter Two I run up to the van and start talking.

"Good morning, Officer," I say.

She hasn't started writing the ticket yet.

"My little sister and I are heading home. Get in, Sissy," I say.

Sissy, she comes up real slow. She's silent, squeezing her bag with that new plastic mama inside. Sissy's got the right idea. Why didn't I keep quiet? Too late now.

"This your car?" the cop asks me.

"Yes, ma'am," I say. I unlock the front passenger door, and Sissy gets in.

The cop looks me up and down. She doesn't trust me, I can tell.

"You know you're in a handicapped zone?"

"Yes, ma'am. My mama's handicapped. She's in the Rite Aid, buying a lot of stuff. I better go help her."

Sissy's eyes get big, but she's not saying a word. That's one of the good things about Sissy.

"Sissy, look-you forgot to put Mama's sign on the mirror!" I reach into the glove box and pull out Martha's handicapped tag. But I can tell that cop isn't satisfied and she's not putting her ticket pad away either. I'm thinking about Martha and how I already owe her two hundred and seventy-five bucks for the last ticket.

This cop might ask to see my license. That'd be bad. And I'm not supposed to drive Sissy around by myself. Besides that, only Martha is authorized to use the blue tag.

"I better go help my mama," I say.

I leave Sissy where she is and walk into the drugstore. I look out the window, waiting for the cop to move on, but the clerk keeps eyeballing me.

He comes up and says, "Can I help you?"

He doesn't want to help me. He wants me to steal something so he can call security.

"No thanks," I say.

I peer through the dusty window display, and that's when I see her-the old lady walking along with her arms full of bags. She looks like she's wearing all the clothes she owns and she's lugging bags full of bottles, newspapers, and stuff.

I leave the store, but the cop is still there-ready to write me a ticket. And Sissy's sitting in the van all quiet. Martha's back at the house, rocking and singing to that shaky new baby, I'm sure. She's trusting me. And me? I'm messing up, as usual.

The lady with too many bags is walking slowly-closer and closer to the van.

So, what do I do?

I shout, "Mama, there you are. Let me help you with those bags."

And that raggedy lady squints like she's trying to recognize me. But of course she doesn't.

"This is your mama?" the cop asks me. She looks back and forth between me and the old lady.

That old lady's got deep wrinkles like someone ironed them in. Her gray hair is sticking out of a purple flowered scarf. The scarf isn't too clean and she looks kind of dazed.

"Actually, she's my grandma, but everyone calls her 'Mama.' Isn't that right, Mama?"

"Is this your grandson, ma'am?" asks the cop.

The old lady doesn't answer. I bet that cop is wondering why I don't look anything like her. But hey, this is San Francisco and they got all kinds of different-looking people here. Sissy's sitting in the front seat getting silenter and silenter.

"Mama," I say. "You ready?"

I slide open the door to the backseat. That lady lets me take her bags and says, "Thank you, son."

She climbs in and I help her with the seat belt, even though she smells a little. I jam her bags in there too. And Sissy, her eyes couldn't get any bigger. She doesn't look at the backseat. She doesn't look at the cop who's shaking her head and gazing up at the sky like it might rain any minute. But I look at the whole situation as I slide the door closed. I ease into the driver's seat. I see that cop finally tuck her ticket pad away, and then I look at myself in the rearview mirror-me without a ticket.

I put my seat belt on, shift into reverse, and I back out real careful.

We are out of there.

When we pull out of the parking lot with no ticket, I am so happy I thump on the steering wheel. I haven't been this happy in a long time. But Sissy doesn't look too pleased. She steals a quick glance at me.

"Don't worry," I say. "Martha's not going to find out."

It starts drizzling, so I turn on the wipers. We drive a couple of blocks with the radio turned low and those wipers going swush-swush real slow, and that parking lot getting farther and farther behind us. The lady in the backseat starts to hum a little, but not exactly along with the music.

Sissy keeps facing front but she slides her eyes-those dark brown eyes-sideways at me and whispers, "Where we taking your new grandma?"

Chapter Three Sissy doesn't talk much, but I guess her brain's always thinking.

I look in the rearview mirror and I say to the lady, "Thanks for helping me out back there. You saved me a lot of trouble."

"Heavy bags," the raggedy lady says. "Weighing me down, weighing me down."

"Just tell me which way to go," I say. "And I'll take you home."

"Home?" the lady says, like she's asking herself a question. Then she directs me every which way like she forgot where she lives.

Now we're driving in an area that doesn't look so safe. The radio commercials are getting louder and louder and the van is starting to smell. If we don't drop off this bag lady and get back quick, Sissy's going to miss her party and Martha's bound to ask questions. She'll figure out I took her van. More papers will be added to my file and I'll be switched to another foster home, just like before, and before that, and before that.

Martha never should have trusted me.

They'll take away Wired's expired permit. I'll never get a license or my own car, or take that road trip with Wired we mapped out. My plan of chowing down and laying low at Martha's till I find Wired again is never gonna happen. They'll put my name in some computer database for troublemaking kids, maybe send me off to some work camp. "Shifty kid," they'll say. "Shifty, good-for-nothing kid."

That's what happened that time with Janice and J.J. and his stupid knife. I had nothing to do with any of that. And the summer with Pat and Louise-how was I supposed to know what they kept in their glove box? But I still got hauled in to juvie. Just thinking about it makes my hands tighten on the steering wheel.

Finally the lost lady in the backseat stops humming. "Let me out," she says. "Right here on the corner."

It's hard to get her and her bags out of the van and Sissy refuses to help. After the old lady finally wanders off toward those warehouses, I open all the windows with the power switch for some fresh air. A little drizzle won't hurt Martha's peeling upholstery. Sissy's been looking straight ahead. But now she turns and glares at me. Then she turns her whole body around and looks behind us. She watches that raggedy lady disappear.

"No telling any of this to Martha," I say. "Okay?"

Sissy keeps looking behind us-like there's a movie playing in the back window.

"It's raining," Sissy says. "She's getting all wet."

"She'll be fine. She's right near her home."

"No home," Sissy says.

"Sure, she's got a home. She told us where to let her off."

"She's got nowhere...."

I stare straight ahead. I keep driving and I try being quiet like Sissy. I don't say a word.

Sissy keeps looking back, but me-I have to face forward, look ahead, and pay attention to all the traffic signals. I don't need any more tickets.

"Martha's waiting for us," I finally say, but Sissy doesn't respond.

(Continues...)

---

Excerpted from SHIFTY by LYNN E. HAZEN
Copyright © 2008 by Lynn E. Hazen. Excerpted by permission.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

---