Buster by Caleb Huett (ebook reader library txt) 📕

he slid down in his seat, like Devon could show up any second and stare right into the window of a moving car.

When we got to Dr. Jake’s office, that tension was replaced with a different one: the fake-happy smile and weird vibe Tonio put out when he was trying to pretend everything was okay.

“You look a little tired, Tonio,” Dr. Jake observed. I moved to him for a treat, and he had one ready in his hand. What a guy. “Is everything all right?”

He’d spent a long time thinking since Mia left. I didn’t know what about, exactly, but I hoped he would at least talk to Dr. Jake about it this time.

“If I did something bad,” Tonio said, “would you tell my parents about it?”

Concern flashed across Dr. Jake’s face, and before he could say anything, Tonio was already talking again. “I don’t mean that I did anything bad. But like … if you saw me doing something that you thought was bad, would you tell my parents or anybody about it?”

“We’ve talked before about how our sessions are confidential. Anything you tell me in here is between us, unless you or someone else is in danger.”

“Yeah, but if you weren’t my doctor. If we were friends.”

“I would need more information to know for sure. But if there’s something you want to tell me, I promise you’re safe. I’m here to listen.”

Tonio shook his head. “Oh, thanks, but I didn’t mean anything specific. I was just wondering.”

“Are you sure? If something’s bothering you, I want to know. I care about how you’re feeling.”

He shrugged. “No, I’m just making things up, but do you think that if you hear about something bad, and you don’t say anything or do anything to stop it, you kind of did the bad thing, too?”

A pause while Dr. Jake considered his answer. I found the squishy ball and chewed on it again. To me, this sounded a lot like what Tonio had told me about what happened with Devon—he’d been concerned for Devon, because of the way those other kids talked about him, but never spoke up. And now, I realized, he’d seen what Mia was doing with the Bug Bites.

“There are a lot of reasons why you might keep a bad thing secret. Like if you are trying to protect someone, or if talking about the bad thing would only hurt somebody.” Dr. Jake stretched out his long legs and leaned over more toward us. “Plus, if we made ourselves feel personally responsible for every bad thing in the world we heard about, we wouldn’t have any time to be our own selves.”

Tonio stared at the carpet.

“We don’t always know what’s ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ ” Dr. Jake continued. “Not really. And looking for those labels will waste a lot of your time. But if you feel like you want to do or change something, to make life better for you or someone else, then I think you should listen to that feeling. That feeling tells you who you are.”

I thought Tonio might try to stay away from Mia, but instead, he asked his parents if he could go over to the shelter-park the next day.

Tonio’s parents had two vehicles: “the nice car” and “the truck.” The Lins’ shelter was down a dirt road on the north side of town, so Mrs. Pulaski decided to take the truck. The truck seemed to imagine bumps even on regular roads, so I spent the drive bouncing between them in the middle seat.

Mrs. Pulaski talked to Tonio as she drove. “You know, I got your dad into Beamblade back in college. He did what he always does and got totally obsessed with it. Memorized the cards, tried to collect every ultra rare.” The car leaped two hundred thousand feet in the air, and my paws scrabbled on the scratchy seats for balance. “Didn’t they change that? Are those called ‘epic rare’ now?”

Tonio’s fingers tightened around his box of Beamblade cards. Before going downstairs, he’d written a series of questions and concerns on note cards—a list of everything he wanted to talk about with Mia, so he didn’t get nervous and forget anything. He neatly ordered them in a box next to some of the Beamblade cards he’d drawn, which he must have brought just in case Mia was interested in the game, too.

“I think so,” he said.

“You think? You’ll have to know these things if you’re ever going to be a Beamblade master!” Mrs. Pulaski smiled at Tonio, but he stared out the window with a tense expression and didn’t acknowledge her teasing at all. She looked out the opposite window before he could notice her disappointment. I licked at her hand on the wheel, and she patted my head.

The red truck curved into one of its very slow but somehow still extremely jumpy turns. I spread my front legs and tried to wedge them under the humans’ legs so I wouldn’t go flying off the seat. A whine wriggled its way out of my jaws, despite my best efforts.

“Wow, he hates the truck, huh?” Mrs. Pulaski said.

Tonio looked at me sympathetically. “Sorry, buddy.”

No problem, guys. I can handle a little—ugh—being thrown around inside the stomach of an angry monster.

Mrs. Pulaski leaned out the window to hit a buzzer and open the gate at the edge of the Lins’ property. She parked close to their house, which looked like it was as old as Bellville itself.

“Do you remember going to the fall festival here when you were little?”

Tonio nodded, his eyebrows still pushing painfully into each other. “Did they stop doing it?”

“No, the festival still happens. We just—you didn’t—” Mrs. Pulaski was trying not to say something, working her way around it.

“You didn’t want to take me anymore.”

“That’s not it. Of course we wanted to take you. You just didn’t seem like you wanted to go.” She took her hands off the wheel and reached out toward