by Ted Staunton
I nodded.
“I thought you would. They tell me you’re a reader now. That’s nice.”
“Who tells you that?”
“Lots of people tell me things.” Griffin reached into the back again and came up with a paperback. “Here. This is for you too.”
He held it out to me. I looked at it but didn’t take it. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain. Two scraps of paper stuck out from the page tops. “I already read it,” I said—and I had, a long time ago.
“Try it again,” said Griffin. “I marked a couple of places you’ll enjoy.”
I took it. I figured it was better to see what was on his mind.
He started his car. “Stay safe.”
“You better put your seat belt on,” I said. “You don’t want to break the law.”
I watched him until he pulled away. By then I thought I could move without trembling. I folded the copy of Harley’s pictures into the book and waded back to Gillian through a wave of Bad Time. “What time is the movie?” I asked.
NINETEEN
I wanted to take off for the beach right then and just think it all through, but everything went wrong. Mr. Hunter at Open Book wanted to talk about my “learning plan.” When I got back to Shan’s, Roy made me and Matt wash his pickup truck, because his back was hurting. Then Shan wanted me to help with dinner. While I was spreading fish sticks and frozen fries on a baking sheet, she asked me to take Matt to the movies after supper because Brooklynne was at a birthday-party sleepover and she and Roy wanted a little “down time.” I knew what that meant. When I told her I was already going to a movie with Gillian and her sister, she said, “That’s perfect! Janelle’s in Matt’s class. Ma-att!” and then it was done. What could I say?
The Dewitts picked us up at eight in a white Jeep Liberty that smelled like dog inside. Gillian’s mom had sharp eyes in a soft, tired face. She wore pricey-looking preppy clothes—tan jacket, designer jeans, boat shoes— and her long coppery hair was held back with a velvet headband. I sat in front with her. She was a fast driver, and she talked a lot about not much, which was fine with me. I gave her my nice-boy-in-the-shopping-mall routine. The only time we got close to saying anything real was when she said, “It must be nice for you to be home.”
“Yes, ma’am, and a little strange too.” I knew she must have heard my story. I guessed that meant Gillian knew some of it now too. In the back, the little sister, Janelle, was yakking away. Gillian was quiet, and Matt seemed to be tongue-tied.
The movie was at the same mall as the store where I’d boosted the clothes. When Roy wasn’t looking, Shan had given me money for me and Matt, which was good. I’d forgotten how expensive movies and snacks are. If I’d had to do it on my Garden Fairy money, I would have been screwed.
Janelle got Matt talking after a bit. Gillian and I didn’t talk much. It was better in the theater, where I could sit beside her and just be there. I didn’t want to say, “Your mom knows about me,” so I just said, “It’s been a long time since Danny’s been at a movie.” I’d been to one about a week before Harley died.
Gillian smirked. “Did he go to the beach today?”
“He didn’t have time,” I said. “But I’ll go for him tomorrow.” I didn’t say it, but her joking like that made me like her a lot. I wasn’t going to ask about her. She wasn’t going to ask about me. We were just going to be whoever we were right now.
After the show, we had to wait for Mrs. Dewitt to pick us up. “Everything’s closed,” Janelle complained.
“Green Leaf isn’t,” Matt said. He turned to me. “Let’s see if Grandma is working. Last time, she gave us free candy.”
“Huh?” I hadn’t known the store where Carleen worked was in the same mall. The last thing I wanted was for Gillian to see me with her. A week ago, I would have figured it would get me more sympathy. Now it was different. Not that it mattered. Matt had already started toward Green Leaf, and Janelle was right behind him. I shrugged at Gillian and we followed.
It was ten thirty. The grocery was at the far end of the mall. It was open, but it looked deserted. There was one cashier in a green vest at the row of checkouts and a tired-looking woman pushing a cart through the produce section. Matt and Janelle got distracted by a DVD display. Gillian stopped with them. I kept going. I figured if I went a little ahead, I could come back, say Carleen wasn’t around and get us out of there.
I cut down the next aisle, glancing back to make sure they weren’t following. Voices jumped out at me. I stopped just in time. A scarecrow in shapeless jeans and a faded hoodie stood with his back to me, twitching as if his wiring was faulty. “Come on, I come all the way down. You know how hard it was to—”
“I don’t care about that. I got nothing for you. You shouldn’t be here and you know it.”
“I know, I know it. I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have to. All I need is once.”
“Are you crazy? Forget it. There’s no way I—”
I knew the second voice. I was trying to back away when the scarecrow bobbed and Carleen saw me. It was a different Carleen. Her face was knotted with anger. Now her eyes flared, then her whole face wobbled, like in a bad horror movie.
“Get out of here,” she hissed, flapping a hand furiously at me as if she was scatting a cat. “Get out.”
The scarecrow twisted around. I barely recognized him from Shan’s photos. Under the hood, Tyson’s face wasn’t much more than a skull with a wisp of moustache and dull, crazy eyes. He looked at me blankly, arching his skinny neck as if it was stiff, his jaw wagging back and forth like a dog’s tail.
Then Matt’s voice floated toward us. “Hey, Danny, where—” and he barged around the corner with the rest of them. “Danny, what’s goin’—”
At the second “Danny,” Tyson’s body arched and he stumbled back, screaming, “NO! GET…GET…” He lunged for the nearest shelf and started throwing things at us, bags of pretzels and potato chips. Janelle screamed. Carleen grabbed at him, but he shook her off. I think the rest of us were just stunned. At first I almost laughed. Then, as Carleen wrestled with him, Ty got his hand on a jar of something and heaved it. It sailed over our heads and smashed against a shelf. I ducked. Bits of glass and something wet pattered down. The smell of salsa filled the aisle. I think we all shouted then.
“Get outta here,” Carleen spat, wrestling with Ty as he scrabbled for something else to throw. We ran.
TWENTY
It wasn’t something you could keep secret. For one thing, we were all splattered with salsa. It was lucky none of us had been cut by the glass. It wasn’t a happy ride back. Janelle spilled to her mom. Matt blurted it all out to Shan and Roy as soon as we got in the door. I didn’t know what to think, except that Ty was on drugs and now I knew what Griffin meant by “stay safe.”
“Oh God,” Shan moaned. “He’s using again. And how did he get down here?” She looked at us mournfully and started to cry. “Matt, you know Ty has a problem, right? I’m sorry you had to see this, hon. And Danny, don’t take it hard. You remember, it’s not him when he’s like that. After you disappeared, he blamed himself. He was so, so sorry you’d fought that day. So sorry. He just tore himself apart. Said he should have gone to pick you up when you called. So now…he was just so surprised, probably, and he can’t handle it when that stuff is in his system.”
I nodded. “Like seeing a ghost, almost.”
Her face blanched as if she’d seen one. “Oh God. Don’t even—” She was in her housecoat. It had blue and yellow flowers on it. Where it fastened I could see something lacy underneath. She motioned Matt to her and gave him a hug, salsa and all. Then she tried to call the Dewitts, but their number wasn’t listed. Roy just shook his head. I wondered how often he’d shaken his head after he got saddled with Shan’s family. His own family lived in some faraway place called Truro. I was supposed to know where that was, but I didn’t. It sounded as if the wildest thing Roy’s family ever did was go bowling.
Matt and I got cleaned up. Shan
let Matt stay up with me to play a video game. We killed things until we calmed down. Then I tried to sleep and shut it all out. By then, I’d forgotten all about Griffin’s book.
I remembered it the next day, though, while I was working with Dave the Garden Fairy. We finished around two. I got forty dollars. Then I asked to use Matt’s bike, and I rode out to the beach with Huckleberry Finn. I left the bike hidden in the weeds at the top of the bank and climbed down. It was breezy, and warm when the sun was out. Mountains of mashed-potato clouds drifted across the sky. The ripples on the lake had a new glare, like Danny’s mirrored shades, when the sun caught them. It made the water look cold, reminding me that it was fall. I hunkered down in my shelter, using the Styrofoam block and the log for a windbreak. It was good there. I’d lined up bits of green frosted glass like pebbles along one log and hung a cracked orange Frisbee on a stick, like a flag, beside the running shoe.
Then I opened Huckleberry Finn. Like I said, I’d read it before, back when it was all I’d had time to boost from a bookmobile somewhere. Fresno, maybe. I remembered thinking it was good but tough, because it was set in olden days down south. Everyone talked funny. I knew it was about Huck, who bailed on his drunk dad and rode downriver on a raft with this escaped slave, Jim. They met people and had crazy adventures before it all ended up somewhere with this other kid, Tom Sawyer. I’d liked Huck because he kept on the move and he was good at lying and faking and because once, by coincidence, I was reading it when we were riding in the van after a job and Harley merged us from a ramp onto the interstate, popped his gum and said, “We’re in the river now” as we blended into the traffic. The rest was a blank.
The first slip of paper Griffin had stuck in the book was at chapter eleven. It was a part where Huck pretends to be a girl and an old lady spots that he’s faking.
The second slip said 25–29. The chapters were about Huck and two scammers showing up in a little town and pretending to be long-lost relations of a rich guy who’s just died. Huck gets confused and lies his face off and then feels bad because the dead man’s daughter is so nice.
I didn’t read it all. I didn’t have to. By now I knew what this was really all about. Griffin knew. How much didn’t even matter. He was telling me he knew.
At first, the feeling wasn’t even panic, just this sick sureness. I closed my eyes, then opened them, because I thought I might throw up. Another paper was sticking out of the book. I pulled out the folded sheet of mug shots. I looked at Michael Bennett Davidson. He looked back at me, just the slightest bit cocky. I could see how he’d turned into the Harley I knew. That was then. I needed him now. I needed Harley to pull up in the van and take me and Gillian away with him. But he wasn’t going to, was he? In my world, no one came back, especially me.
As I folded up the mug shots and stuffed them in my pocket, the panic set in. All at once it hit me: who else knew? My brain was fast-forwarding through every talk I’d had since Shan got me on that plane. Did Carleen know? Roy? Shan? All of them? What was going on? Was I being set up for something? Who was conning who?
TWENTY-ONE
Maybe I’d been too long out of the Bad Time, getting soft. I scrambled up off the stones. At first, all I could think was, Run. I looked across the glaring lake. It hurt my eyes and there were no boats to see. I don’t know why that made it worse, but it did. I grabbed the stick the Frisbee hung on and started smashing it against the log. Then I took Huckleberry Finn and threw it as far as I could into the lake. It wasn’t very far. It floated. I heaved rocks, rocks and more rocks at it and missed every time. Then I stood there, staring at it, panting.
I had to float too. To do that, I had to chill. I’d been alone before. I’d spent my whole life alone. This was nothing compared to being a little kid in the Bad Time. It was them against me again. If I could get out of Josh’s office, I could get out of this, whatever this was.
I took a big, shaky breath and picked up what was left of the stick. It was bent in the middle. I tried to straighten it. The pieces almost fit back together, but it was still bent. Unless they were all Oscar-winning actors, the family believed me. Gram and Grampy, Uncle Pete…all of them. Nobody was asking questions. I figured Carleen and Ty were too wasted to know better. Shan had said Carleen was sober, but anyone could tell that hadn’t lasted. And Shan…Shan…Was I wrong about her? Needles of doubt came back to prick me. But why would she do all this if she knew? It made no sense. Did it? I threw the stick away.
Okay then, what did Griffin know? What could he know? What could anybody know? Danny had been gone three years. There were no fingerprints to check. There was DNA, but Shan had joked that my DNA was the same. Why would she do that if she didn’t believe me? They couldn’t check mine if we didn’t agree to it. Would she say no if Griffin asked her for a DNA sample? I could tell she didn’t like him.
By this time, I was tromping circles on the beach. If Griffin had proof, he’d just have me arrested me, right? If he didn’t, he couldn’t do anything unless I blew it. Maybe he was jerking my chain, trying to make me run and give myself away. He’d said people thought Danny ran off. Shan had almost said the same thing on the plane. What was that about?
The waves had almost brought Huckleberry Finn back to shore. I kicked at it and got soaked. The last part of those chapters, the part I hadn’t read, I remembered. Huck and the con men get caught when what look like real relatives show up. Did Griffin know where Danny was? Was the real Danny going to show up? Was he telling me to run before it was too late? Why? Why, why, why? I thought I’d calmed down, but now I had to move again. I had to get out of there.
I was starting up the bank when they came over its crest. For half a beat I didn’t recognize them; I hadn’t seen them since my first day at Open Book, when I spotted them from the window. The guys from the high school hallway. One was lugging a grocery bag that looked to be stuffed with beers, another had newspaper—to start a beach fire, I guessed. The one I’d jumped was lighting a cigarette or a joint. Now we were face to face, maybe ten feet apart, and it was all downhill for them. “It’s him,” one of them shouted. Smoker Boy—Dillon or whatever his name was— looked up, startled.
I’ll tell you a good reason not to smoke: you have a better chance of outrunning a smoker who wants to kick the crap out of you. I took off along the beach toward town, the beach stones sliding and crunching crazily under my feet. I could hear him—or maybe them—behind me, swearing, their steps out of time with mine. It felt like forever. Then their noise fell back and something whirred past my head. A rock smacked into the clay bank, then another. One smashed into my left shoulder, and pain rocketed down my arm. I stumbled and went down over a piece of driftwood. My head banged something, my knee something else, but I kept rolling forward and then was back up again, gasping, running. I kept on running, around a bend in the shore and until I was far out of range and couldn’t run anymore.
My breath tore at my throat. My head and shoulder were throbbing, and I could feel stinging on my forehead. It was bloody when I touched it, and a big goose egg was coming up. At least I could move my arm. My new jeans were torn at one knee, and I could feel more stinging there. I limped along the rest of the beach to town and came out in a tired little playground by the harbor. At first it felt deserted.
A dog barked. A voice I knew called, “Buster!”
I looked up and there was Gillian.
TWENTY-TWO
She had one of those retractable leashes and a plastic bag. She clipped the leash back on Buster’s collar and he calmed down, sniffing me as I stood there aching. “Are you all right? What happened? Did your brother—”
“Not Danny’s brother. I had an accident.”
“On the beach?”
I closed my eyes. “Remember the place I like? You said kids went there to party. Those guys I had trouble with showed up while I was there.”
“Oh God. Did you have a fight?”
The yes was almost out of my mouth. I looked at her. “I ran. They got
me with a rock.” I looked away, across the lake. “Sometimes,” I said, “I just want to go to the other side.”
“It’s not very exciting,” Gillian said.
“You’ve been?” For a second, I didn’t hurt. “How’d you get there?”
She shrugged. “Well, our boat. I went across one time with…” Her voice trailed off. I should have paid more attention, but I was too excited.
“Your boat? Do you have a boat? Where is it?” I had a crazy picture of the two of us just taking off.
“It’s over there.” She tilted her head. I looked and saw Mrs. Dewitt talking to a man in a pickup truck. Behind the truck was a big boat trailer with a cabin cruiser on it. “Only it’s not ours anymore,” Gillian finished.
“Oh.”
“The season’s over anyway. That’s why everyone’s taken their boats out.”
I looked again. She was right, of course. No wonder the place looked deserted.
“Anyway, it wasn’t so great. It rolls more out there. I got sick. And Oak Orchard isn’t exactly exciting.”
“Well,” I said, “at least it’s not far.”
She squinted behind her glasses. “It took us all day.”
“Oh,” I said again. “Where Danny used to live, it was less.” I didn’t know if that was right. It didn’t matter. The main thing was, escaping across the lake was a goner. Everything started to hurt. The sun had gone behind those mashed-potato clouds. It was chilly. “I should probably go.” I limped a step. I’d stiffened up standing there.
“Do you want a ride?” Gillian asked.
That’s when I remembered. I swore. “I left Matt’s bike behind.”
“Where?”
“I hid it in the long grass on top of the bank.”
“Come on,” Gillian said. “My mom can drive us.”
I limped over to the Jeep with her and we waited until her mom had finished talking to the guy taking the boat. “That’s another job done,” she said as she joined us. She didn’t look any too pleased to see me. Then again, why would she after I’d gotten a jar of salsa thrown at her kids’ heads?
