Free House of the Red Fish by Graham Salisbury

was all that was there. Every part we’d removed before was gone.
    “Somebody stole everything,” Mose said. “The tiller, the lead weights, the ropes and buckets … all of it.”
    No, no, no! This was a disaster.
    “I bet I know who took it,” Billy said.
    Mose spat.
    Keet Wilson. Had to be.
    “Man, he going had it, now,” Rico said.
    If Keet took it what could I do? Not one thing. My mother worked for his mother. We lived in a house they owned. If I accused him of stealing, he would make such a stink he’d get Mama fired and we’d get kicked out of our home.
    “Call the cops,” Billy said. “Stealing is stealing.”
    “No,” I said, “we can’t call anyone.”
    Mose groaned. “Come on, Tomi, you can’t just do nothing.”
    “We live on his land, Mose! I can’t make trouble.” Those words were so cowardly and so hard to say. But it was the truth. I could not make trouble for my family.
    “You joking, right?” Mose said.
    I shook my head. “If the Wilsons kicked us off their land, where would we go? Where would Mama find a job?”
    Silence.
    “Listen,” I said. “First we have to find out
if
he took them. Then, if he did, we can decide what to do about it. We got to think, do this right.”
    “Yeah, well, he can’t get me kicked out of my house,” Mose spat.
    Billy scowled, his arms crossed. “Now it makes sense.”
    “What does?”
    “Something my brother said a couple days ago. I didn’t think anything of it, except that Keet Wilson was getting weirder by the day.”
    “What did Jake say?”
    “Couple things. First he said if Keet messed with us again he was going to go have a little face-to-face with him.”
    “Now you talking,” Rico said.
    “You told Jake?” I said. “He knows about the boat?”
    “Jake’s okay. He’ll keep quiet about it.”
    I scowled. “Billy, you got to tell Jake not to mess with Keet, okay? No trouble. Just like I can’t go to the police.”
    “Fine. I’ll tell Jake we can handle it ourselves.”
    “What else did he say?”
    Billy thought. “Well … this one is weird. Late in the afternoon, last Wednesday, Jake was cutting across the Wilsons’ yard over to ours. He heard a truck coming up the driveway, so he turned to look. The truck passed by close enough for him to see Keet inside, not driving, but up front with two other guys. Jake knew the guys from school, and the driver waved at Jake.”
    “What’s so weird about that?” I asked.
    “Nothing, except that the truck was loaded up with something covered by a tarp. Jake wouldn’t havethought anything about it, but then they did something strange.”
    “What you mean, strange?” Mose said.
    “Instead of parking the truck in the driveway, they drove it right over the grass and into the trees, blazing a trail into the jungle.”

“Ojii-chan,” I said when I got home late that afternoon. “Go for a walk with me.” He needed to walk, anyway. Mrs. Davis had stopped by to check up on him. “Remember to get him moving,” she said, “but not too strenuously.” I said, “He’s moving around a lot,” but I didn’t tell her about Fumi.
    Grampa Joji was sitting on the front steps deep in thought, keeping the dogs from bothering him with his foot.
    Mama sat two steps above him. They weren’t talking, just keeping each other company, I guess. Mama winked at me.
    Ojii-chan scowled. He never went for a walk just to go for a walk. There had to be a reason, but he knew keeping the strokes away was the most important reason. He wasn’t that dumb. Sometimes he got dizzy, and sometimes his vision got blurry, but other than that he was as good as he ever was. He was faking, was what I thought. And I was starting to thinkmaybe Mrs. Davis knew it too—but was staying quiet about it to keep him out of that camp.
    I glanced around for Little Bruiser. Nowhere in sight. “Come on, Grampa. This is important.”
    “Confonnit.”
    But he creaked up and stepped into his muddy rubber boots. I was