It was a running joke between her and Dad. Every year they’d talk about changing the color. Every year they’d end up sticking with white.
We’ve still got gallons of that paint in the shed.
Mr. Kalman told me to stay away from his house. But the fence is at the property line and faces the street. Besides, it’s not even his fence.
He never took care of it.
She did.
I start at six o’clock and make my way slowly along the outside, the street side, first. By eleven I peek in through his living room window and see him in his recliner with his glasses on. He’s watching PBS.
By two o’clock I’ve made it all the way around the inside, and all that’s left is the gate. I give it a nice clean coat. Soon I hear the mail truck squeak to a stop in front of our house. The engine purrs there for thirty seconds, which means a lot of mail in our box today. Finally I hear the mailbox door clap shut and the truck drive away.
Sadie must’ve heard it too. She comes out of our house, sees me across the street with a paintbrush in my hand, and just shakes her head like I’m an idiot.
She unloads the mail. Unloads more mail. Unloads more mail. I didn’t know our box was that big.
Finally she reaches the end. She opens one of the envelopes, and her face goes all frowny.
She opens another. And another. And with each one, I see her face getting tighter, madder, and, well, frownier.
She looks up. Her twin lasers land on Mr. Kalman’s house.
Sadie barrels across the street and kicks open the gate. She marches up to the front door and pounds louder than his TV.
Mr. Kalman opens fast, as if he was hoping for her knock.
“Did the mail come?”
She reads out loud from a brochure in her hand. “Blue Ridge Academy is a therapeutic wilderness program for teens aged thirteen to seventeen who are struggling with defiant behavior or other emotional issues.”
She reads another. “Island View is a residential treatment center for teenage girls that focuses on oppositional behaviors.”
Mr. Kalman just stands there, grinning.
“You sent them?!”
“You’d be surprised what one phone call can accomplish in the twenty-first century.”
Now I really want this guy to be my lawyer!
“It’s not funny, Mr. Kalman.”
“Neither is this.”
He holds up his stack from the retirement homes.
“I guess we’re even,” Sadie says.
“I guess so,” he says, tossing the retirement home brochures onto his bench. That’s when he looks past her and sees me standing at the gate with a wet paintbrush in my hand.
“I thought I said no more chores.”
He comes out onto his porch and down the steps like he’s about to run me off his land, or worse. But before he gets to me, he notices the fence.
White the way it used to be. The way it hasn’t been in five years.
The fresh paint stops him cold.
“I didn’t do it for you,” I say. “I did it for her.”
“Her?”
“Mrs. Kalman. She let me help her once, when I was too small to see over the top.”
He walks slowly along the whole inside. He leans over the top to see the whole outside. When he turns back to me, he looks pale. Like instead of seeing a fence, he just saw a ghost.
“Why did you do it?” he asks.
“I don’t know. Because it needed to be done, I guess. And because you can’t do it yourself.”
He brings his hand to his forehead. Also to his eyes. The color in his face comes flooding back. From anger or something else, I can’t tell.
Then, pointing to the gate, he says, “You missed a spot.”
“That’s Sadie’s fault. It’s where she kicked it open.”
He glances at her purple Vans. Purple with a white smudge. He comes over to me, takes the paintbrush out of my hand, dips it in the tray, and leans low to touch up the gate.
He takes his time.
When he’s done, he says, “I can’t promise we’ll win.”
“What?”
“I can’t even promise we’ll get on the docket.”
“Huh?”
He stands up now and looks straight at us. “If you still want me to, I’d like to file a lawsuit on your behalf, Sam. Against the Board of Education.”
“Why, Mr. Kalman?”
“Because it needs to be done. And you can’t do it yourself.”
“You mean it?” I say. “You’ll be my lawyer?”
“Yes, Sam, I’ll be your lawyer.”
Sadie and I have the same urge to throw our arms around Mr. Kalman. But too big a hug might tip him over, and that would be the end of our lawsuit. So instead we pat him warmly about twenty times on each shoulder.
He turns to Sadie. “We’re going to need some help.”
7
We Build a Team
“Mr. Kalman,” Sadie says, “this is Sean, my speech and debate partner.”
“And, Mr. Kalman,” I say, “this is Alistair, Jaesang, and Catalina. My handball team.”
Sean is seventeen and has a full beard. Sadie says school never came easy to him because he had a hard time reading. He’s in the regular school, not the Highly Gifted Magnet, at North Hollywood High, and even though he has a C average, he’s supersmart—on the speech and debate and the Academic Decathlon teams. He’s also an ace at technology. But most of all he loves my sister.
Sean opens his laptop. “Where’s your router, sir?” he asks.
“End of the hall, last door on the right,” Mr. Kalman says. “And don’t forget to flush.”
We stare at Mr. Kalman like he’s from another planet. Or century, which of course he is.
Sadie translates. “Sean means your wireless, Mr. Kalman. You do have an Internet connection, don’t you?”
Mr. Kalman shrugs. “I’ve got cable.”
We call the phone company to update our neighbor. The first available appointment is a week from now, but Sadie asks to speak with a supervisor. She says she’s the primary caregiver for an old man next in line for
