Remi

It all happened so fast I barely had a chance to think anything through. First, the backdoor slammed open as I sat in the kitchen with Trevor and Trace. We'd been making pizza bread out of sliced sandwich bread, to put in the toaster oven, and I was helping Trevor, the youngest of the two brothers, with his. Travis, the oldest of the three, flew in the backdoor and ran straight into his room, slamming the door shut behind him.

Glancing up at the clock, I frowned when I saw it was almost four. Travis should've been home from summer school hours ago. As usual, he was likely down at the riverbed, hanging out and smoking with his friends. Oh well. He was Mrs. De Luca's problem, not mine. Technically, I was babysitting all three, but at thirteen, Travis was hardly a baby. Almost since the beginning, when I first started babysitting for Mrs. De Luca, she relieved me of having to worry about him.

“I won't hold you accountable for anything he does while I'm gone. I know he can be stubborn and a handful. Just keep an eye on the other two, and I'll worry about Travis."

She didn't have to tell me twice. I got from day one, almost a year ago, that Travis was not about to be babysat by some girl less than two years older. He may have been younger than I was, but Travis wasn't your typical thirteen-year-old boy. Even a year ago when he was only twelve and I first started babysitting for Ms. De Luca, I'd known that, in many ways, he was far more experienced than I was.

The loud and demanding knock at the door nearly made me drop the tray with the two pizza breads I'd begun putting in the toaster oven. “I'll get it," Trace said, already on his way to the door.

Somehow, I had the presence of mind to tell him to wait. The even more demanding knocks that followed completely unnerved me, and instantly, instinct told me this had everything to do with Travis bolting into the house the way he had.

“Remember what your mom said about opening the door to strangers," I reminded Trace. “Let's see who it is first."

Closing the toaster oven door, I hurried to the door where whoever on was on the other side continued to pound. Travis was now at the hallway door too. We exchanged glances, but only I continued to the door. Travis stopped at the hallway doorway and leaned against it.

Peeking out the window, I was relieved to see Mr. Bishop from up the street. I'd begun to worry it might be one or more of the thugs in the area here to confront Travis—thugs who often went head to head with Travis and his friends. That could get really ugly since Travis was never one to back down from a fight.

“Hi, Mr. Bishop," I said as I opened the door.

“Where is that boy?"

“Which—?"

“You talkin' about me?" Travis interrupted before I could finish asking Mr. Bishop to clarify.

Travis had already begun to walk toward the door. The faint smell of cigarettes hit my nostrils as he neared, but more telling was the smell of the musky body spray. I'd seen him spray it on before when he got home from school. I asked if he was trying to cover up the smell of cigarettes from his mom. He'd laughed, saying his mom couldn't care less about his smoking. But she'd forbidden him from going down to the riverbed. Dead bodies had been found there more than once in the past year. I remembered the nonchalant comment from Travis that made me cringe the day we'd watched the news about it on TV.

“Those bodies are dumped there. No one's actually killed there."

He'd explained how no one would even think of messing with some of the older guys he hung with out there. Guys he was cool with. But he said, while she wouldn't have an issue with the smell of cigarettes, she'd kill him if she got a whiff of the sewage water he sometimes got splashed with down there. Then she'd know for sure he'd been there. He said the last time she'd found out he'd been down there she threatened to send him to his father's home for the rest of the summer. Summer had just started.

Since I'd only recently admitted to myself to having a tiny and very secret crush on the bad boy and I'd be watching his brothers every day, all summer, I was grateful for his covering up the smell. I'd never admit it to him, but he was the only reason I was babysitting instead of working at the mall like some of my other friends.

Mr. Bishop glared at Travis, pointing his finger at him. “You and your friends broke those windows in that house up the street, and you're gonna pay for them."

“I didn't break anything," Travis protested.

“Yes, you did!" Mr. Bishop insisted, raising his voice. “Mrs. Kinsley from across the street said she saw you and your friends loitering in at the vacant property during the day when you were supposed to be in school."

“You mean across from her place?"

“You know exactly which one I mean because you were just there."

“No, I wasn't," Travis said, raising his voice as well. “I was at school and then I came home. Patrick and his friends are always hanging out at that place. You should ask him."

“Bullshit!" Mr. Bishop said, surprising me. In all the years I'd known the older man, I'd never heard him swear. “You and those good-for-nothing hood rats you run with are always up to no good. You're the reason this neighborhood—"

Mr. Bishop stopped short when Mrs. De Luca's car pulled into the driveway. Something beeped in the kitchen, prompting Trevor to run back into the kitchen. Knowing he'd try to get the pizza bread out of the toaster oven on his own and possibly burn himself, I went after him. “Trevor, let me do it. That oven is really hot."

I grabbed the oven mitts from the counter, glancing over to the front door as I pulled open the toaster oven door. Mrs. De Luca was at the door, holding a grocery bag in one hand and her purse in the other. Travis took the bag from her as Mr. Bishop ranted on about Travis and his friends being a menace to the neighborhood and if they didn't pay for those broken windows he was going to call the cops.

“Don't touch it yet," I whispered to Trevor as I handed him the plate with his pizza bread.

Handing Trace the other and two juice boxes, I glanced up at the huddle in the front room. “Take your brother into your room. Keep him in there until Mr. Bishop's gone. I'll bring you more as soon as I make more, okay?"

Content with their snacks, the boys walked off to their rooms. I inched my way back into the front room slowly. “Mom, Mrs. Kinsley can barely see and can't keep names straight," Travis made his argument. “She calls me by a different name every time she talks to me."

Mrs. De Luca turned to Mr. Bishop. “Do you know what time this happened? Because Travis is in school all day. He doesn't get out until two in the afternoon."

“I heard the sound of glass crashing no less than fifteen minutes ago," Mr. Bishop said, looking down at his watch. “He's been out of school over two hours now."

Mrs. De Luca turned to Travis, lifting a telling brow. “Mom, I swear to you—"

“Travis hasn't left the house since he got home from school," I said because, technically, it was the truth.

The three turned to me, all a bit surprised I was still in the room. Travis appeared more stunned than any of them. “What time did he get home?" Mr. Bishop demanded.

Without a flinch, I shrugged. “I don't remember exactly, but he's been here a while. We've been making pizza bread."

I motioned to the kitchen as Mrs. De Luca turned to Mr. Bishop. “With all due respect, Mr. Bishop, I know Travis has gotten into some trouble in the past, but you can't blame everything that happens in this neighborhood on him . . ."

Travis continued to stare at me as his mom went on schooling Mr. Bishop about the seriousness of making false accusations. I was nearly fifteen, in high school even. How in the world could a thirteen-year-old make me feel the things he did with just one look? But at that moment, as the twinkle in his eye brightened, followed by a slow-rising smirk, it made my insides all kinds of crazy.

My head knew the odds were Travis and his friends did break those windows in the house Mr. Bishop was trying to flip. But my heart wanted to believe he was telling the truth. Travis may have been prone to getting into trouble, but he didn't lie—at least not to his mom. I'd picked up on it more than once since I'd met him with little incidents here and there where he could've lied to save himself from getting in trouble. The day he answered my question about the body spray he'd confirmed what I'd already suspected.

“If she asks, I'm shit out of luck. The spray is just to keep her from asking if I've been down there."

Just as Travis had been labeled a hood rat, not only by Mr. Bishop but many others in the neighborhood, including my parents—I'd been labeled the neighborhood sweetheart. Both labels were completely biased. In a prevalently white neighborhood, the very Italian De Luca family, with a single mom raising boys from different dads, had stood out as somewhat undesirable. They'd been labeled as soon as they'd moved here a few years ago. I, on the other hand, came from an affluent and very respected lily-white family. Add my screaming red hair and adorable freckles to the mix, and you couldn't ask for a better Anglo-American youth walking outside and representing the neighborhood to potential white buyers.

With no other recourse but to accept that Travis had a solid alibi, Mr. Bishop grudgingly apologized and left just as quickly as he'd arrived.

“Thank you, Remi," Mrs. De Luca said as she started toward the door, “for speaking up. That man is always so quick to blame Travis for everything that goes wrong on this block. I'm glad we were able to make him eat his words."

“Yeah, thanks," Travis said, still staring at me with that same twinkle in his eye.

“I'm not done with you, Travis," his mother said as she took the grocery bag from him. “There's more in the car. Go get them and then we'll talk."