Twenty Minutes Late

by Caroline Crane

  The other officer, an older man with a gray mustache, spoke to Evan. “You leave the young lady alone, understand? She has a constitutional right to choose her own friends.”

  Evan’s smirk came back. “Where does it say that in the Constitution?”

  That flustered the officer. Maddie felt sorry for him. “It’s actually in the Declaration of Independence, where it talks about inalienable rights. Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. Do you get that, Evan? Liberty.”

  “That’s a basic human right,” said Cutie. “It’s our job to protect those rights.” He made a shooing motion. “You move out of the way so she can come in and swear out a complaint. From now on we’ll be watching you.”

  Evan flipped a finger at Maddie and drove off. She knew she hadn’t seen the last of him.

  “I hope he doesn’t come back and take it out on my car,” she said.

  The older man assured her it was safe. She thought of Cree’s bike but said nothing.

  “Let’s hope you’re safe, too,” he added. “You understand, miss, no matter what kind of order you get, it’s no guarantee against a guy like that. He don’t care what happens.”

  “I know,” she said.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Grandma watched her making a peanut butter sandwich. “I thought you had a half day today.”

  “I do,” said Cree. “I might want to go somewhere after school so I’m taking lunch.”

  Grandma must have caught a whiff of intrigue. “You want to tell me about it?”

  “I’ll tell you later, if there’s anything to tell, but there won’t be.”

  “So that’s your attitude. You’d better not be doing anything crazy with that PBJ.”

  “Who would do anything crazy with a PBJ?”

  Not the sandwich itself. Whatever was crazy, she was doing it with her bike. Maddie would have helped but she had that dentist appointment.

  At school, she reached the side door just as Emerson Santiago came loping up from Grand Street.

  She waited for him. “Emerson, where do you live?”

  “Huh? Me? Live? Both places.”

  “What both places?”

  “Uh—with my dad, other side of the river, and my mom on Indigo Street.”

  Indigo Street was just off Grand, very near the school. By river, he must have meant the Vanorden Kill. That was where she had seen him.

  “My mom’s closer to the school,” he said.

  “Yes, I can see that. I just wondered.”

  He gave her a quizzical look, wondering why she wondered. The bell rang. He went in first and let the door swing back in her face. Such an oddball.

  In homeroom, Stacie’s desk was empty. She must have decided it wasn’t worth the bother for half a day. Cree wondered how it went at the Harvest Moon Dance. She felt a pang, but was glad she hadn’t been obsessing about it all weekend.

  On her way to English class, she saw Troy in the hallway, alone. He looked straight at her, then looked away. His lips pressed together. Did they break up already? Or was he still mortified about that crash through the tennis court fence? He should be.

  The English teacher reminded them that their Shakespeare papers were due tomorrow. Cree had other plans for the afternoon. She would have to dash off something that evening, but couldn’t put her mind on it now. She felt a familiar ooze, or thought she did. And she wasn’t prepared. As soon as she could, she dashed to the restroom.

  It was crowded, even with very few minutes between classes. She got what she needed from the slot machine and closed herself in a stall.

  False alarm. Thank goodness. She was about to open the door when a voice spoke just outside it.

  “Hey, you can’t blame her for not coming to school. I wouldn’t either, a thing like that.”

  Cree’s first reaction was that they were talking about her.

  “What happened? Her dad?”

  “He got arrested. What’s what I heard.”

  “Arrested?”

  “Yeah, you know. For fooling around. With her. It’s against the law.”

  “Stacie? You’re kidding.”

  Cree, her hand on the latch, stood listening.

  The voice went on. “She always seemed so—on top of everything.”

  “I guess she had to,” said the first girl. “But he made it worth her while. He was always giving her stuff. Like she was—you know. Like a mistress.”

  “Ooo. You hear about those things.”

  “Not when it’s somebody you know.”

  Cree opened her door and stepped out. They pounced on her.

  “Did you know about Stacie? You’re good friends with her.”

  “I am not,” said Cree. “And I don’t know a thing.”

  The Marrs had been her neighbors when they lived on Riverview Boulevard. Mr. Marr had a way of making her feel uncomfortable. The word she used then was “icky.” At the time, she assumed he was trying to make up to her for having an absent father, but she thought he overdid it.

  A screech came from one of the stalls. It was followed by a creeping puddle of water.

  “It won’t stop!” said the screech. They could hear a futile rattling of the flush handle.

  Cree wanted to know more about Stacie, but they were on to something else now and she had chemistry in one minute. She rushed out to the hall, nearly knocking down Emerson Santiago.

  “Where’s the fahr?” he asked in the hillbilly dialect he sometimes affected.

  “Not a fire, a flood. You could help. You’re the toilet expert. They’re having a crisis in there.”

  “I’m a what expert?”

  “You said it yourself. Maybe the voices can tell you what’s wrong.”

  “Maybe they need a maintenance guy,” Emerson said.

  She left him and went on to chemistry.

  Daddy’s little princess. So that was why all those gifts. Was it to buy her silence or keep her compliant? Now the whole school knew. She wondered if Stacie would ever show her face again.

  As for Mr. Marr, she could still feel his hands. Not in the wrong places. He never quite got there, but he must have been working up to it. People like him had their way of handling those things, convincing a frightened and naïve kid no one would believe her if she told. In her case, he would have guessed wrong. She’d like to see him deal with Mom and Grandma.

  Poor Stacie. Cree had never wished anything like this on her.

  At least she tried not to.

  * * * *

  School finished for the day at twelve o’clock. It would have been fun to race home and give Grandma the dirt, but that would only waste time. Grandma, being Grandma, probably knew it already.

  She tried to tell herself that she wasn’t looking for Ben, but couldn’t help being curious. His first day at Southbridge. She saw him in the parking lot, resting an arm on his truck and talking with Emerson Santiago. It didn’t take two weirdos long to get together. She scurried past and pretended not to see them.

  At Grand Street, she had to wait behind a truck that was trying to park. She observed it with interest, a black pickup like Uncle Jake’s, but it wasn’t his.

  Was he really Davy’s uncle? Sometimes, for the children’s sake, a woman would refer to her boyfriend as “uncle.” Jake didn’t seem to have much to do with Olive. He might have been Lina’s boyfriend.

  Anyway, who cared? Not after what she’d heard about Stacie. That was awesome news. She felt a rush of gratitude to her own father for only being in Borneo.

  The traffic thinned and she pedaled through a stretch of scattered houses and a lot of trees. In the distance, she could hear the Vanorden Kill splashing over its rocky bed.

  And there was the bridge. After yesterday’s gloom, the sun shone brightly on dull steel.

  She had been over it only occasionally and never on a bike. The road, where it crossed, was not solid pavement but a kind of grillwork that made for a bumpy ride. Even worse, she could see the river right through it, all those rocks, and f
oam where the water hit them. She tried not to look at it as her bike slipped and bounced over the grid.

  Halfway across, she couldn’t take it anymore. She dismounted and pushed the bike. Two cars squeezed past her. Their occupants stared. It was a rare sight, someone trying to take a bicycle over the bridge.

  At last, the grid ended and she was on solid pavement. She dreaded only that she would have to cross it again on her way home.

  Now came the worst part. She started up the hill, pedaling hard. Almost immediately, she had to shift gears. Her legs were strong from years of ballet, but she seemed to be making no progress.

  She looked down at the river shining through trees, then up at the cliff towering above her.

  It moved.

  Chapter Fourteen

  She had no time to think. She twisted the handlebars and fell over. The rock crashed down where she would have been if she hadn’t turned.

  She lay tangled in the handlebars and frame. This couldn’t be real. The trees above her weren’t real. The sun shining through them was all in her mind.

  With an effort, she turned her head. She saw the rock barely three feet away, a giant boulder with earth clinging to it. The sight of it filled her, leaving no room for anything else, even pain.

  She couldn’t miss the sound. A car crossing the bridge, starting up the hill straight toward her. She was in the middle of the road with the bike wrapped around her. She tried to move.

  Then pain came. Bumps and scrapes all over. And the approaching car.

  It stopped. She heard a door slam. A voice said, “Cree?”

  She knew that voice. It wasn’t Troy.

  He came around to where she could see him. Chocolate eyes looked down at her, at a helpless wreck smudged with dirt.

  “What in hell were you doing?” he said.

  She could move her mouth. “I didn’t do it on purpose!”

  “You were bicycling up the hill. Nobody does that.”

  “Well, I did.” And this was the result.

  She flexed her hands. They were scraped and bleeding. “It’s a good thing I had on my jacket, my lucky tiger.”

  He would think she was superstitious. She said, “I mean the padding. I’d have a lot more scrapes without it.”

  “Did you bump your head?” Because she wasn’t making sense.

  The coat only protected her upper part. Her knee felt smashed.

  He tried to ease the bicycle off her. “Do you have acute pain anywhere? Like a broken bone?”

  Only Ben would talk like that. Acute pain. “No, but I think my bike is broken.”

  He freed her enough so she could move just a little. He made her wiggle her feet to be sure she didn’t have a spinal injury. Again, she heard the bridge rattle and clank as a car drove over it.

  “Ben, just leave me here.”

  “Don’t be crazy. They’ll have to hit my truck first.”

  And push the truck right into her. The approaching car, a white SUV, drove around it and stopped.

  A woman goggled. A man said, “Holy mackerel.”

  “Did that fall on you?” screeched the woman.

  Ben ignored them. He was still untangling the bike.

  Cree said, “Almost. I saw it just in time and I stopped so fast, I fell over.”

  The woman looked up at the cliff. “They should do something. You could have been killed. Are you sure you’re all right?”

  Another car came toward them down the hill. Unable to pass the SUV, it stopped. A man got out.

  Ben seemed irritated by all the attention. “We’re okay. I’ll get her in my truck and then I’ll phone the Highway Department about that rock.”

  “They really should do something,” said the woman. “It’s not even marked a falling rock zone.”

  Ben got the bicycle off her and helped her to her feet. She needed his support to stand. The lingering shock made her weak and shaky.

  “My knee.” She looked down at it. No blood seeped through her jeans. It hurt, but she didn’t think the bone was broken.

  He boosted her into the truck and put her bicycle in back. He avoided looking at her face.

  She knew she was bruised, probably covered with blood and road dirt. Her mouth felt swollen.

  “I fell on my face,” she said, and tried to see in the rear view mirror. It was tilted the wrong way. She had a mirror in her knapsack but Ben had put it in back with her bicycle.

  The other cars drove away. He got out his BlackBerry. “Where were you going on this insane expedition? Maddie’s not home.”

  “I know. She’s at the dentist.”

  “Then what?”

  How could she tell him? “I thought it was a nice day for a ride.”

  “On this hill?”

  She tried to meet his eyes. They looked at her swollen mouth instead. If he hadn’t been so quick to make friends with Emerson, she could have given him part of the truth. He would still say she was meddling.

  Would Emerson go to his mother’s house for this half-day, or his father’s? Probably his father, if he wanted to hide something, like a kidnap victim. She made up a story.

  “I was trying to find a car. It belongs to someone I know and I wanted to see where she lives.”

  “Why not ask her?”

  A tangle of lies. Shakespeare had something to say about that. She thought it was in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but couldn’t use it for her paper. That was supposed to be on Macbeth.

  “I can’t. Did you know we’re blocking traffic?” There wasn’t much, but somebody was bound to come along.

  “They can get around us,” he said. “If she’s a friend of yours, why can’t you ask her?”

  If this was what he did to Kelsey, badgering her for answers, it was no surprise she felt hassled. But carrying a knife seemed a little extreme.

  “I didn’t say she was a friend, I said I know her. I know a lot of people I wouldn’t consider friends. And I can’t ask her anything until I find her.”

  Two cars passed, with difficulty. The people stared. Would Emerson come on the bus, or in that car she had seen him driving? The bus would have gone by long since.

  Finally, Ben noticed they really were in the way. He still didn’t move. It took him a while to get a number for the Highway Department. When he reached it, he gave exact information as to where the rock was, estimating in feet its distance from the bridge.

  “Could you really figure that out?” asked Cree. “Or were you putting them on?”

  “Figure what out?”

  It must have been the sort of thing he did all the time and he assumed everyone else could, too.

  He got out of his truck and walked around the rock, studying it, then took a few pictures with his BlackBerry.

  “What’s that for?” she asked.

  “Fasten your seatbelt.” He started the engine.

  “Just dump me on Fremont. If my bike is rideable, I can take it from there.”

  “Take what where?”

  “Where I’m going. Along Fremont.”

  “Do you happen to recall that you just had a serious accident? Or did it wipe out your memory? As soon as I can turn around, I’m taking you home.”

  “I don’t want to go home! I didn’t come all this way for nothing.”

  When they reached the top of the hill, she clutched at her door handle, ready to jump if he didn’t let her out.

  But she wouldn’t have her bike and most likely would land on her bruised knee.

  He turned to the right. Not along Fremont, but Lake Road. Toward his house.

  “Ben—”

  Not his house. He turned onto a spur that ran along the top of the cliff.

  “Ben, what are you doing?”

  “I want to check on something. Then I’ll take you home.”

  He wanted to be rid of her. He could have just let her out on Fremont. Maybe the bike wasn’t rideable.

  The pavement came to an end. He braked, then drove slowly over a rutted track. Even that soon ended
in a clump of bushes. The entire area was overgrown with weeds. And way too near the big drop. If one rock had come loose, others could follow. The whole cliff would crumble away with them on it.

  Ben seemed unaware of that possibility. He went to the edge and crouched down for a closer look at something. He ran his hand over the ground, then stood up. “Can you walk?”

  “Why?” she asked. “What happened?”

  “I want to show you something.” He looked around as though to be sure they were alone.

  He was going to push her off the cliff. She stayed in the truck. “What if we fall?”

  “We won’t fall. I want you to see this. About what happened.” He took her arm to help her out. Or force her. If the latter, at least he was being nice about it.

  Her knee felt stiff but she could walk. She had to, or look like a wimp. Like Kelsey. She had to show that she was made of stronger stuff.

  “See that?” He pointed to a scraped out place in the earth, about the size of a large dishpan. “That’s where it came from. See those marks? Like a crowbar. As if someone pried it loose. There were scrapes on the rock, too.”

  It took a while to process what he was saying.

  “Maybe somebody wanted the rock,” she said. “People use them for landscaping. Maybe they almost had it and it fell over.”

  “You can believe that if it makes you feel better.”

  “Why would it make me feel better? It just seems so—is this one of your conspiracy theories?”

  He gave her a look of disgust. “Do you really think it’s somebody wanting a rock for their garden? Why go to all this trouble? There are plenty of rocks around. You can see it wasn’t near enough the edge to fall by itself.”

  “Why would anybody—oh.”

  Stacie and Troy. Stacie might be extra spiteful because of what happened with her father. Cree’s dad was only in Borneo, not in jail.

  “But how would they know I’d be here? I didn’t tell anybody where I was going, not even my grandma. It must have been stupid kids. Like my bicycle tires.”

  “You’re saying this is childish stupidity? I don’t think so. It’s too much coincidence. Why are all these things happening to you?”