Free Memento Nora by Angie Smibert

something there. Micah was not who Dad or my friends would pick for me. Still. She was like thirty-five or something. It was not the same thing at all.
     
    But Micah was right. Someone was watching us, although maybe not for the reasons he imagined.
     

15
     

A Man Can Dream
     
    Therapeutic Statement 42-03282028-12
Subject: WALLENBERG, MICAH JONAS, 15
Facility: HAMILTON DETENTION CENTER TFC-42
     
    Dreams suck. Not all dreams do, obviously. But this one did. Big-time. Most mornings I don’t even remember them. I just roll out of bed and see what’s for breakfast. Okay, I feed the cat, do my chores, shower, and then see what’s cooking. By the time I’m shoveling oatmeal into my mouth, any trace of a dream is out of my head.
     
    This time, though, it was like something important was there, something I couldn’t quite see, as if a wall were blocking it. I remember being in a crowd of people, all way taller than me. They were moving and shouting, not angry shouts but more like chanting. A guy—I think it was my dad—lifted me up and put me on a fence or wall so I could see over the crowd. He told me to stay put as the crowd started to surge forward, carrying him with it. All I could see were heads. Hundreds of them. Then there were sirens. And angry shouting. And shots. Smoke. People running. A man called my name. And then nothing. This big, fat wall of nothingness I couldn’t see around.
     
    I sketched what I remembered, meaning to show Nora later. Somehow that thought made me feel pretty mellow. Glossy even.
     
    Then Mrs. Brooks knocked on the door. I knew it was her because Mom was working the night shift. Again.
     
    “Young man,” Mrs. Brooks said in that mock stern voice she puts on to get me to do stuff. “You’re going to be late for school if you don’t shake a leg. And you promised me some firewood for the ovens. We’re making a big batch today.”
     
    I could already smell the bread baking across the square.
     
    “I’m up,” I told her.
     
    “Sure you are.” She chuckled. “I saved you some muffins for breakfast. Those Peterson kids eat enough for an army.”
     
    Mrs. Brooks always has my back.
     
    I rolled out of my cot, banging my cast on the dresser that doubles for my desk. Our shack is a definite improvement over living in our car, but I still miss a real, person-sized bed. I pulled on the cleanest-smelling T-shirt I could find out of the pile on the floor, fed Mr. Mao, and wrestled a shopping cart out to the woodpile.
     
    Sometimes we used salvage wood, the stuff we’d ripped out of old houses that was too damaged to use again. Today we had proper logs for the bake ovens. A guy traded us a truckload for some bathroom fixtures and a half-dozen loaves of rosemary garlic sourdough. Mrs. Brooks has connections.
     
    I wheeled the cart over to the pavilion and told Mrs. Brooks I’d get the rest after school.
     
    “Sure you will,” she said, nodding. She handed me a warm paper bag filled with blueberry muffins and a to-go cup of coffee. The smell of the blueberries and the coffee (and that little dash of vanilla the old lady dabbed on her wrists every morning) was the smell of pure love.
     
    “Marry me, Mrs. Brooks,” I said as I slung my bag over my shoulder.
     
    “Get to school, child,” she said, this time not so stern. She pointed toward the gate.
     
    I stopped on the King footbridge just outside the school gates to eat all three muffins and gulp down the coffee. The late bell rang as I was licking the crumbs out of the paper bag.
     
    Morning classes were a real snooze as usual. I like my afternoon classes—art and shop; but the morning ones—English and algebra, especially—give me a headache. I know I’m not stupid, but sometimes I have trouble wrapping my brain around stuff that I can’t do with my hands. Or my mouth. I dozed off while Mr. Finchly droned on about the attack on Pearl Harbor in the 1940s.
     
    At lunch I caught up with my usual crew. Spike.