No Passengers Beyond This Point(2)

At school I’m the person you borrow an eraser from or call for the homework assignment. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not a teacher’s pet or anything. Kids like me okay. If you’re inviting a bunch of kids, you include me, but if you’re inviting one, I’m never the one. Everybody knows my first name: Finn. No one knows my last name: Tompkins.





We’re inside now and my mom’s scanning the kitchen, her eyes skittering from cupboard to cupboard as if she’s developed a nervous tic. Oh no! What if she has MS? She’s not going to up and die on us like Dad did. Is she?

“What’s the matter?” I ask her.

She holds her breath, then lets the air out in a nervous burst. “Family meeting.”

Family meeting? Why couldn’t she just have said nothing, like she usually does?

I try not to hyperventilate as we head for the living room, which is also the den, the dining room, and my mom’s bedroom.

Mouse is skipping and hopping next to Mom. In Mouse World, family meetings are fun.

“India.” My mom raps on the bathroom door.

“Do you mind? I’m peeing,” India snarls.

“No she’s not,” Mouse calls. “She flushed already.”

“Shut up, Mouse!” India shouts, tossing something against the door—the toilet paper roll probably, but a minute later the knob turns and she’s out. The skin around her nose is red and irritated as if it’s been freshly tortured.

Mouse is jumping around like Tigger, and India is picking at her zits. At least my sisters are acting normal.

Mouse snuggles next to Mom on the sofa bed. I sit in the overstuffed chair with Henry curled at my feet. Henry is part German shepherd, part who knows what else. The shelter said she was a boy, which is why we named her Henry. You would think the shelter would know the difference.

India doesn’t sit anywhere. She wants to be able to make a quick exit. Quick exits are her specialty. “I have homework,” she announces. “How long is this going to last?”

“I didn’t tell,” Mouse whispers to Mom.

“Good girl.” Mom squeezes her hand, but her voice sounds as if it has been pounded flat.

“Didn’t tell what?” I ask.

“About the moving boxes,” Mouse says.

Moving boxes!

My mom’s eyes dart to me. She takes a ragged breath. “I should have told you sooner. I kept hoping I could make it go away.”

India scowls. “Make what go away?”

“We’re moving to Colorado. Fort Baker, just outside of Denver. We’re going to live with your uncle Red.”

“WHAT?” The question explodes out of India’s mouth.

My mother clears her throat. “We’re losing the house.”

“What do you mean losing?” India demands.

“The bank is taking it.”

The words enter my brain, making me feel distant, as if my ears need to pop. My mom couldn’t have said we are losing our house, could she?

“Banks don’t own houses,” Mouse says. “Otherwise our mailbox would say BANK OF AMERICA and it doesn’t, it says TOMPKINS. That’s how the mailman knows where we live. Five-four-one Morales Street, Thousand Oaks, California.”

“Shut up!” India hisses.

“India,” Mom warns, her fingers automatically forming bunny ears, which is her school’s hand sign for quiet. “Mouse is just trying to understand in her own way. Now hear me out, all of you.

“This house isn’t ours anymore. We can’t live here.” She waits, letting her words sink in. “You can’t believe how hard I tried to work out a deal with the bank. I kept us here through the holidays. We had Christmas in our own house, but—”

“We always have Christmas in our own house,” Mouse interrupts. “Where else would we have Christmas ?”

“But why are we going to Colorado?” I manage to speak through the wind tunnel in my head.

My mother’s left eyelid begins to twitch. “Uncle Red has a lot of room and he really wants us to come.”

“Uncle Red? I hardly remember Uncle Red,” India says.

“You liked him. Both of you did.” Mom nods to India and me.

“I liked him when I was six. What difference does that make? I’m not moving to some stupid hick state,” India snaps.

Mouse raises her hand, waves it in front of my mom. “Did I like him? What about me?”

“Just let me finish, all right?”

Mouse climbs up on Mom’s lap. “Bing doesn’t remember Uncle Red. He’s worried Uncle Red won’t be nice. But I told him Mommy’s going to be there. Mommy is nice.”

Mom runs her tongue over the edge of her teeth. “I will be there . . . but not right away.”