by April Henry
Roy thought about this for a while. The other three were silent, watching him.
“On the way to the airport we can slip up into Washington and drop her off along a logging road or something,” Griffin said. “Point her in the right direction and tell her to start walking. And by the time somebody finds her, we’ll be on the beach. With our mai tais.”
“Of course,” Roy said. Griffin was pretty sure Roy had never said “of course” before in his life.
At least not when he meant it.
INTELLIGENT DISOBEDIENCE
For a few minutes after she woke up, Cheyenne didn’t know where she was. And then she remembered. And wished she hadn’t.
By the sliver of light she could see with her left eye, Cheyenne decided that it was morning. Real light was warmer, somehow, than light that came from a bulb. But when she felt her watch, she was surprised to find it was one twenty. So afternoon, not morning. Then someone opened the bedroom door. Cheyenne braced herself.
“Are you awake?” When she heard Griffin’s voice, relief flooded through her.
“Yeah.” She pushed herself up until her back was against the wall.
“I brought you some Advil to keep your fever down and another one of those antibiotics. Plus OJ to wash it down with and some crackers. I’ll put the crackers at nine o’clock.”
She felt him settle on the bed by her feet, and then he put the glass in one hand and the pills in the other.
“Thanks,” she said, trying to sound like she meant it. “When am I going home?”
“Soon. My dad’s just making the final arrangements. There’s going to be a drop tonight at three, and then we’ll drive you someplace and let you go.” His voice changed to a whisper, and he leaned close enough that she could feel his breath stir her hair. “The thing is, you can’t let on that you know my name or my dad’s name. You have to act like you don’t know anything.”
Cheyenne nodded, biting her lip.
Griffin’s soft whisper continued. “You know how you told me about how many enemies your dad must have? They’ll probably say some stuff to try to make you think that you being kidnapped is connected to Nike. Pretend like you believe them.”
Cheyenne didn’t know who to believe. “Griffin, you’ve got to promise that they will let me go. Promise me.”
He was quiet for a long time. Finally he whispered, “I promise.”
Cheyenne started shivering, and it wasn’t just from being sick. She was afraid that Griffin’s hesitation had said more than his words.
In a more normal voice, he asked, “So how do you get to school? In a limo?”
“Are you kidding? Danielle usually takes me. My dad might make a lot of money, but he doesn’t flaunt it. He’s not one of those gross balding guys who drives a Hummer so he can feel more like a real man.” She decided not to mention the housekeeper and the cook. She wanted Griffin to continue to think they had things in common.
“On TV, your dad said you have a guide dog. Do you use your dog or a cane to get places?”
The thought of Phantom and her ruined cane made Cheyenne’s head feel liquid again. She wouldn’t cry. “Mostly I take Phantom, but I took my cane yesterday because my stepmom thought it would be easier.”
“Is it weird being towed around by a dog? Can you really trust it?” From the way he said it, Cheyenne wondered how many things Griffin trusted.
“I’ve only had Phantom three months, but it feels like forever. I wish it had been forever, but you can’t get a guide dog until you’re sixteen.” She thought of how she had woken the first morning after she got Phantom to find his head draped across her neck. At that moment, Cheyenne had known they belonged together. “And I totally trust him. He watches out for anything that might hurt me – curbs, low-hanging branches, skateboarders, telephone poles, holes in the sidewalk. Once he even saved my life.”
Griffin touched her knee. “What happened?”
“I was crossing at an intersection when this car turned right without even stopping. Phantom threw himself against my legs and pushed me until I stepped back.” Cheyenne remembered the screech of skidding tires, the rush of air as a car whizzed by so close that the fender must have ruffled Phantom’s fur. Other drivers had honked and yelled, but the car never stopped. “If Phantom hadn’t pushed me out of the way, we would both probably have been killed. And if I had just had my cane, I definitely would have been killed.”
“So using a dog is better than using a cane?”
“Everything is better with a guide dog. The difference between having a dog and a cane is astronomical. Before, it was like I was invisible. Now people talk to me. They tell me how smart Phantom is, even if he’s just lying down. They tell me stories about their dogs. They want to pet him. Sometimes I have to be kind of snippy, you know, ‘My dog is working.’ But the biggest difference is just in getting around. Now I zip through people and it’s smooth. Phantom is so good that I can walk down the hall at school and never even rub shoulders with anyone else.”
When Cheyenne had first gone back to school, with only her cane to guide her, it had been so hard. Except for Kenzie and Sadie, most of her friends had hung back as if Cheyenne was a different person, someone they didn’t even know.
The thing was, they were right. Before the accident, Cheyenne had been outgoing. She sang to herself, chattered, laughed, called out to everyone she saw in the halls. After the accident, she quieted down. It was more than just sadness. Without her sight, her ears were her connection to other human beings. Blindness took away the nonverbal cues that let her know whether someone else was tired, sad, happy, or worried. If she listened closely, she could still pick these emotions up in voices. But as a result, her own voice was muted.
The rehab center had corridors just wide enough for two people to pass each other. At Catlin Gabel, the walls seemed like they were miles apart. If it was crowded, she was forced to walk in the middle of the hall, without the security of a wall. The worst part were the breaks between classes, when she had only a few minutes to get to the next room. If she was hurrying and ran into someone, it embarrassed them, which meant it totally embarrassed Cheyenne.
Then once she was in the right classroom – and before she got Phantom, she could never be completely sure that she was – she had to find her chair with a minimum of bumping. Wondering who the boys were on either side. Who was watching her. If they were laughing. She wanted to be cool and graceful, but instead she felt clumsy and sweaty. Now with Phantom, Cheyenne walked with poise and speed. He had returned her body to her.
Just thinking about Phantom made Cheyenne’s eyes sting with tears. She loved the soft fur of his ears, his long, slender muzzle, even the sound of his toenails on the floor. Phantom tried to keep quiet when he was getting into mischief, because he had figured out that Cheyenne couldn’t see him. When he was thirsty, he scraped his bowl along the floor to let her know. When he wanted a treat, he barked and put his paws on the counter. And when he was tired, he curled up under Cheyenne’s desk or inside the empty fireplace, even in the shower stall.
Cheyenne hoped it wasn’t really obvious that she was crying again. At the same time, she didn’t want to stop talking, not when Griffin seemed interested. She wanted to bind him to her with gauzy ropes of words. She took a deep breath and said, “But a dog’s not just a machine. You don’t work your dog when you’re at home. A dog needs time to just be a dog. How about that dog you’ve got outside? When is it ever just a dog?”
“Duke?” Griffin let out a surprised laugh. “Duke’s not a dog. Not really.” He snorted again, as if the idea was ridiculous. Then he asked, “So how does your dog know where to take you?”
Cheyenne shook her head. “He doesn’t. It’s not like Phantom’s a cab driver. I can’t say ‘McDonald’s, please’ and have him take me there. I do half the work. I need to have a map inside my head of all the streets we’ll cross and tell him when to make all the turns. When I get to an intersection, I’m the one who has to decide whether t
he light is red or green just by listening. To a dog, red, green, and yellow look the same. Then when I reach the right block, I have to listen or feel for clues to help me find the building I want. I’m the navigator. Phantom is the one who makes sure I can walk there without running into anything or being run over.”
“Wait – you just get to a street and then listen to see if the cars are stopped? That sounds kind of dangerous. What happens if you tell Phantom to go but a car’s coming?”
“Your dog is trained to judge whether your command is safe,” Cheyenne said. “It’s called intelligent disobedience.”
A BIG MISTAKE
“Intelligent disobedience, huh?” Griffin echoed. He liked the way it sounded. Whenever he didn’t do what somebody wanted, they always assumed he was making a big mistake.
“What’s funny is that when Phantom doesn’t do something I tell him to, I still get annoyed,” Cheyenne said, “like he’s being stupid. And then I figure out that he’s right.” She drank her orange juice in one long gulp and then wiped the back of her mouth with her hand. She had already gobbled the crackers.
Belatedly, Griffin realized she must be hungry. “Would you like some lunch?”
She nodded. “Sure. That would be great.”
“I’ll go see what I can find.” He got up, already mentally rummaging through the kitchen. There was some ramen in the cupboard and maybe some peas in the freezer. And he could cut up some hot dogs and put them in, too. He would break up the noodles so they wouldn’t be too messy when Cheyenne ate them. He thought he would tell her how ramen was kind of like stone soup, because it was only good when you added a bunch of stuff to it. And maybe she would laugh, or at least smile.
While Griffin was digging through the fridge, looking for eggs, TJ came in. “You making something to eat?”
“For our guest.”
“Got enough for TJ?”
Griffin didn’t like to say yes about anything to TJ, but he couldn’t think of a good reason to say no. He nodded. As TJ went down the hall to the bathroom, Griffin took the pan off the heat and added more water so that the food would stretch further. It was only as he was slicing the hot dogs over the pan that his brain translated the sounds he had heard. It hadn’t been the door to the bathroom that had opened. It had been the door to his own bedroom.
TJ was alone with Cheyenne.
Griffin dropped the hot dog as well as the knife, although later he thought about how he should have taken it. He ran down the hall and flung open the bedroom door.
TJ was leaning over Cheyenne. Her back was against the wall, her knees drawn up against her chest, making a barrier between them. Her eyes were narrowed in concentration, and her lips were pulled back from her teeth, like a dog silently snarling. TJ had one knee on the bed and both of her wrists in one fist, pinioning her to the wall. And he was trying to take off Cheyenne’s coat with the other hand.
With a roar, Griffin launched himself forward. His fist landed on the side of TJ’s head.
TJ fell on the bed and rolled over on his back, howling. His cap had fallen off and slid down his skinny ponytail.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing, TJ?” Griffin shouted. He had been afraid of what TJ would do to Cheyenne, but he wasn’t as worried about what TJ would do to him. TJ always knew when to put his tail between his legs. And right now, Griffin was ready to kill him.
Cheyenne scrambled off the bed. She tried to run for the door and fell when the cord around her ankle yanked her back.
Griffin leaned down to help her up, and she clawed him. “It’s me,” he said, but Cheyenne still pushed him away and then got to her feet without anyone’s assistance. She squeezed herself between the bed and the desk until her back was against the wall. She was panting, but she wasn’t crying. Griffin suddenly thought that if he had brought the knife into the room, Cheyenne would have sunk it into both of them, in turn. Without a second thought.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?”
“Look at her, all shiny,” TJ whined. “I just wanted to take a little bit of the shine off. It’s just like Jimbo says. She’s so rich she probably wipes her ass with twenty-dollar bills. She probably thinks her crap doesn’t even smell. I was just going to teach her a little lesson. Make her understand how the other half lives.”
TJ was saying all this with snot running out of his nose.
Griffin’s hands were clenched into fists. He wanted to hit TJ again so bad. “Say that again. What did Jimbo say?”
Something like hope played across TJ’s face. He half sat up. “Oh, you know, he was going on about how she probably thinks she’s too good for us. And that she needed to be taken down a notch.”
“And you listened to that BS?” Griffin rubbed his fist. His middle knuckle was swelling. “Get out. Before I change my mind.”
After TJ scuttled out carrying his hat, Griffin locked the door behind him. He pressed the button more for Cheyenne’s benefit than anything else. He walked back and stood in front of her. She was trembling.
“It’s okay. He’s gone. I’m sorry I left you alone. I won’t let that happen again.” With the tip of his index finger, he touched her cheekbone. “I’m sorry.”
Her shaking intensified, and he was afraid he had frightened her all the more. But when he tentatively reached out his arms, she put her face against his chest. Her breath smelled like orange juice. He held her tight and rocked her back and forth. It reminded Griffin of the one school dance he had gone to, when slow dancing just meant shuffling your feet.
Just as he was getting used to the feel of her in his arms, Cheyenne stepped back. She pulled her coat into place. “He was going to hurt me. Rape me, maybe kill me. And I think he would have, too, if you hadn’t come in. What kind of person could feel like I deserved that?”
Griffin sighed. “Jimbo got him riled up. He likes to wind TJ up and watch where he goes. Out in the real world, nobody pays them any attention. To them, rich people aren’t real. They’re people in magazines and TV. Those two aren’t around rich people very much.” He let out a little self-conscious laugh. “Of course, I’m not either. But just like rich people would probably look at us and see white trash, those two don’t think rich people are human either.”
Cheyenne’s next words were a surprise. “What happened to your throat? The skin felt different there.”
Griffin kept his answer short, letting his tone make it clear that he didn’t want to talk about it. “It got burned.”
“How?” It was like she wanted to make him feel as vulnerable as she did.
“In an accident.”
“What kind of accident?”
“My dad was cooking, all right?”
“Cooking?” He could hear the disbelief in her voice. Even Cheyenne had figured out that Roy would never cook anything.
“My dad was making some meth, and a little of it spilled on a burner.”
“Meth?” She didn’t seem sure about what it was.
Griffin envied her innocence. “Crystal, Tina, crank, ice. Basically, it’s speed. Amphetamines. You used to be able to make it with stuff you could get at the grocery store. That’s how my dad made extra money before they started locking up some of the ingredients. Then he lost his job and switched to stealing cars.”
“So to make it, you have to cook it?”
“Yeah. It smells terrible. Like cat piss. I went out to the barn to ask him something and then, when it flared up, I got burned on my throat and chest.”
Griffin remembered how at first it had felt either really, really hot or really, really cold. He hadn’t been able to tell which, and then suddenly it was hot, red hot, eating through him. He managed to rip off his shirt or he would have been burned even worse. The pain had been so great he had wanted to die or pass out. After a few seconds, he narrowed his choices down to just one: He wanted to die.
He did neither.
It was his mom who took him to the emergency room, his mom who made up some story about the woodstov
e. The doctors asked her to leave the room and then questioned Griffin about it again. He knew they didn’t believe her.
Griffin stuck to the same story. Not out of love for Roy, but because he was afraid his mom would get in trouble, too.
He had spent a month in the burn unit. IVs in the backs of both hands and a tube in his throat to help him breathe because the mucous lining had been burned, too. Even with the tube down his throat, he had still been able to smell. The burn unit had been full of smells. The strongest came from the Silvadene salve, which was the color and consistency of lard and smelled like peppermint. Twice a day, the nurses spread it over his oozing burns. And underneath the Silvadene was another stench, sweet and rotten.
Every night Griffin lay in the dark and listened to monitors beeping, ventilators whooshing, machines monitoring the thin threads of life. He heard other patients pleading, praying, screaming. Most of them frightened him. One was a homeless man who had been set on fire by bored teens. Another was a boy only a few years older than Griffin who had tried to kill himself by soaking his clothes with gasoline and lighting a match. And there was a little kid, two or three years old, who had tugged on the cord of a deep-fat fryer and pulled it over on himself. One woman had been burned in a car accident. She had died on the third day he was there.
In Griffin’s nightmares, the nurses in their blue plastic gowns, rubber gloves, and paper bonnets were again wheeling him to the debridement room to scrub off his dead flesh with wire-bristled brushes.
Even after his burns healed, he was reminded of them constantly. Every morning, his fingers traced the red, hairless scars when he soaped his chest and neck in the shower, or touched the shallower scars on the insides of his thighs where they had taken the skin grafts. Strangers stared at the shine of tight skin on his throat. Every touch, every stare, brought it all back: the lights, the screams, the whispers, the smells.
