High and Dry

by Sarah Skilton

  He shifted uncomfortably. “Don’t show up. No one will question it. You’ve been skipping practice, you’ve been sick, just stay home on Friday. Everyone knows you’re drunk half the time, anyway.”

  “Not anymore.”

  His eyebrows lifted and he winced, raising his hand and a sodden piece of tissue to lightly touch the swollen area around his eye.

  “That coffee’s not spiked with whiskey?” he asked.

  I handed it over. He took a sip; frowned.

  “Ellie wants me to stop drinking,” I explained.

  He handed the cup back. “That’s my Charlie. His moral compass always points E.”

  I swallowed, unsure if I felt embarrassed or angry. “Lay off, all right? I said I was sorry about the window, and I’m giving you your money back, but I can’t throw the game. What’s with you lately?”

  He laughed, a hollow, bitter sound. It was the laugh of someone who was empty inside and could only mimic sounds instead of create them; could only conjure up the opposite of what a laugh should be, because it had been so long since he’d experienced real joy or humor. “‘Lately’? Now you ask? ‘Lately,’ he says.”

  The day after Ryder threw the bat, we’d had nowhere to go, so we kicked an old soccer ball around. We spent the rest of the summer practicing and reading all my dad’s X-Men comics. Ryder had remembered what I’d said about Lockheed that first day of practice, and he wanted to find out more.

  Turns out I was good at soccer, but I never would have known if Ryder hadn’t sabotaged Little League for himself. He could’ve gone far, maybe even pro ball. The minor leagues? Maybe even the majors? Who knows?

  He always acted like it didn’t matter, but his sacrifice had saved me.

  I paced back and forth around the kitchen table, let the words I’d been suppressing for years pour out of me, unfiltered.

  “Look—you should’ve been on the soccer team with me. You should’ve been on soccer or baseball or football. Hell, I don’t know—any team you wanted. And then you wouldn’t be betting from the sidelines. You’d be the one deciding if we won or lost, the one getting a scholarship to leave Palm Valley behind. It should’ve been you playing all these years and you know that—”

  “Yeah, well, that wasn’t an option.” He got up and slowly, painfully walked toward the door. “Have a beautiful life, Charlie.”

  I moved to catch up with him.

  “You can’t even walk straight. Where are you gonna go? Crash here tonight, get some rest. Tell me what’s going on, man.”

  He reached a hand out to the wall to steady himself; turned to face me. “You know Griffin hates you, right? That he always has?”

  “He’s the one who cut my brakes when I was twelve, isn’t he?” I said. “Egged the house? Crank-called us?”

  Ryder nodded shortly. “I mean, I don’t know if he did all those things. But he blames you for ruining our lives. Thinks if you hadn’t moved here, Mom would still have a job at the school, we’d still have our old house, and Dad wouldn’t be in prison.” He laughed again, the sound like an off-key piano. “Like you guys made him rip off Flynn Scientific! Like you made him sell stolen auto parts! It’s lame, but that’s what Griffin thinks. He promised to leave you alone if I helped him on his deliveries, served as a scout.”

  “Why’d you fail the drug test freshman year?” I blurted out.

  “I wasn’t on drugs,” said Ryder. “I mean, I wasn’t taking them for myself. He forced me to test the product every once in a while, make sure it wasn’t bad.”

  I thought I might be sick. “That’s horrible.” I wish I’d known, back then. But what could I have done about it? I remembered Ryder being summoned yesterday by Griffin and Griffin’s friend. “The nose knows.” A cocaine sample to test?

  Ryder wobbled back into the living room and sat down on the couch.

  “After I failed the test, and I couldn’t be on any of the teams, I had nowhere to go, no group to join; everywhere was a slammed door. I told Griffin I was done with him, but I was getting my ass kicked all the time at school, so it was like … my only way out was through him. He and his friends said they’d protect me if I started working for them again. It’s screwed up, but there it is.”

  “What kind of drugs did they make you take?” I asked.

  “Mostly it was coke,” Ryder said. “Occasionally weed, if the grower changed. I didn’t mind the weed so much. But tonight, it was supposed to be LSD. After what happened to Maria, I said ‘Hell, no.’ She might’ve overdosed, or it might’ve been a bad batch—Griffin doesn’t really know what he’s doing; it’s all an experiment for him. I wasn’t gonna take that risk, so I refused, and I fought him off and I ran here.”

  I wiped a hand down my face. “He’s the one who drove my car to the hospital, isn’t he? Tried to make it look like I dosed Maria Salvador?”

  Ryder hesitated. “Yeah. If Salvador died, and word got around, his business would go with her; no one would buy from him anymore. He’s trying to expand through Agua Dulce down to the San Fernando Valley, the edge of Van Nuys.”

  “Since when do songbirds do drugs?”

  “Posey asked me for LSD. Said she was going to teach the Other Maria a lesson, trick her into taking it.”

  “She wanted her out of commission so she could have the concert solo,” I muttered.

  “Whatever her reasons were, I didn’t care. I know what it’s like to be force-fed, so that was off the table.”

  “That’s when she called you a cylon?”

  “We had a fight and I left. That’s when you saw me at the party, on my way out the door. I think after that, Bridget must’ve called Griffin, and he came over to make the deal. Bridget is, like, Posey’s henchman.”

  Bridget always told me I was too nice, too bland, too sweet. Had she found what she was looking for in Ryder’s older brother?

  “We were gone by the time he must’ve showed up,” I said. “Bridget dropped me off at home by nine.”

  As I said the words, something clicked into place for me. She hadn’t been my alibi. I’d been hers.

  “So Griffin probably sold it to Posey and stuck around, maybe to see if any high school girls would hook up. And when things got bad, he used your car to drop Salvador off at the hospital,” Ryder theorized.

  “Hold on. Ellie said the Marias made up, though,” I pointed out. “They were getting along at the party. I think Posey changed her mind. I don’t think she dosed Salvador after all.”

  If it wasn’t Sound of Music Maria who’d slipped her the huge amount of LSD, who was it? When did they do it? And why?

  “We have to tell the sheriff’s department about Griffin, what he’s been doing, what he’s been making you do,” I said.

  Ryder looked away and let his head swivel around on a kind of figure-eight track. “No, man, I don’t know … If Griffin found out I squealed, this’ll be a pleasant memory.” He pointed to his face.

  “Stay here tonight, and we’ll go in the morning; I have to go down there anyway to get my car back. We’ll tell them everything you told me. They have him on tape dropping her off! They’ll arrest him; you’ll be free—you’ll never have to do any of this shit again.”

  A brief spark of hope ignited in his good eye. “The reason I asked you to throw the game …”

  “It’s okay, I get it now. You had to get out of here.”

  “It wasn’t so I could make money. I mean, it was, but it wasn’t just that. It was so I could nail Griffin. He’s betting you’ll win.”

  I flashed on Griffin at the trailer, grinning his sick grin at me and whispering, “Go get ’em, killer.”

  “He thinks you’re on his side. Thinks I brought you over yesterday to make sure you did everything you could to win. He doesn’t know I have my own bet going. I want him to lose big, put a dent in his cash flow, so he’ll have to cool it for a while.”

  I looked at Ryder and I didn’t see a beaten young man, desperate and half ruined; I saw him as a kid, strong and proud a
nd defiant in the summer sun, throwing his bat against the chain-link fence. That kid was still in there somewhere, and I had to help him.

  “I get it,” I said. “This’ll all be over tomorrow.”

  THE SHORT ARM OF THE LAW

  MOM MADE US WAFFLES FOR BREAKFAST. ON RYDER’S WAFFLE, she placed a chocolate chip in each minisquare, the way she used to when we were kids. When he smiled at her, it was more like a wince that traveled up his face to squeeze the pain out of his black eye.

  As an afterthought, Mom asked if I wanted chocolate chips on my waffle, too.

  I opted for a box of Total. When my mom was growing up, her parents had no money, so the only thing she and her sisters got for Christmas were common grocery store items, like a variety pack of twenty small boxes of sweet cereal (Froot Loops, Lucky Charms). After they ate the cereal, they kept the boxes and played “grocery store checkout” with them.

  When my mom looks at Ryder, I think she sees those Christmas days, the idea of going without and emerging tougher and leaner. She learned to cherish the kinds of things her classmates threw away.

  I think she really believed the work she did with Fresh Start was supposed to level the playing field—give every student a fairer shot. And maybe it would have if Ryder hadn’t failed the drug test, and if Ryder wasn’t, in fact, stealing Mr. Donovan’s test questions to tilt the scores in favor of the kids who could pay for them.

  I consoled myself with the thought that soon Ryder wouldn’t have to do that anymore. With Griffin locked up, he wouldn’t need to make money to escape—he could just live his life. But what kind of life would he have at this point?

  Dad wasn’t scheduled to teach his New Media journalism class until ten on Thursday mornings, so he took us to the sheriff’s department before school. I marched up to the counter and requested an audience with Deputy Thompson, our private protection service all those summers ago when we first moved to town.

  From that point on, nothing happened the way I expected it to.

  Turned out the deputies had tangled with Ryder before.

  “You catch him breaking and entering?” said Thompson, walking up to my dad and ignoring me and Ryder completely.

  “What? No!” I said. “That’s not why we’re here.”

  “I knew this was a bad idea,” muttered Ryder, looking ready to rabbit.

  Thompson didn’t even glance at us. He was immobile, a brick wall, waiting for Dad to reply.

  “Absolutely not,” said Dad firmly. “We’ve never had problems with Ryder. He’s an old family friend, and he’s in trouble, and we came here for help. Is that a problem?”

  “No problem at all,” said Thompson unconvincingly. “Come on back.” He led us to a private room with no windows, just a long table and a landline phone. Dad and I happened to take our seats on one side of the table, with Ryder on the other. I immediately regretted it; now it looked like we had brought him in for questioning. But Thompson sat next to Ryder before I could get up and move.

  “All right, what’s this about?”

  We went over Griffin’s history of dealing and forcing Ryder to be the guinea pig. I filled in the blanks whenever Ryder faltered. Thompson took notes on a legal pad.

  “These are pretty serious allegations,” he said, turning to face Ryder at last. “What made you come to us now? Trying to get out of your own mess by turning your brother in?”

  “No, I’m not—I’m just sick of it. I want out.”

  “Can you help us or not?” I said. Dad gave me a look, but I let it bounce off me.

  “I’d like to, but as far as Charlie’s car, we haven’t been able to lift any prints, certainly none that match Griffin’s. I believe you’re telling the truth, or part of the truth, but we have nothing to hold him on. Unless you want to press charges for that?” He motioned to Ryder’s black eye.

  Ryder looked at Thompson like he was crazy. “He’ll deny it, and the most you can do is hold him for, what, seventy-two hours?”

  “We handed you Griffin on a platter, and you’re not going to do anything?” I sputtered, standing up and slamming my hand on the table.

  “I knew it,” said Ryder, standing as well, his eyes darting anxiously, looking around like Griffin was about to show up and finish the pummeling he’d started the night before.

  “Wait, hold on,” said Dad. “The other deputy told us about a baseball cap, how the driver caught on tape was wearing a Flynn Scientific cap. Charlie saw Griffin wearing it.”

  “Circumstantial,” said Thompson. “Hey, I wish I had a better answer for you, and I appreciate you coming down here, but we can’t move on this information without something more concrete than a vengeful little brother’s testimony. A vengeful little brother with priors of his own.”

  “Thanks for serving and protecting. Truly. I think I might be tearing up at your dedication to this community,” I said.

  “Charlie—”

  “This is bullshit, Dad, and you know it.”

  “Arguing and making smart-ass remarks isn’t going to help your cause. I think—”

  “What if …,” said Ryder quietly, his Adam’s apple bobbing nervously. We all leaned forward to hear. “The next buy is two days from now. Saturday night. I can tell you the time and location and you can see it all for yourself.”

  “On Saturday nights most of my men are stationed at check points for DUIs, but I’ll see what I can do.”

  It didn’t sound very promising.

  “I’m in,” I told Ryder the second we were outside, waiting for the deputies to pull my car around and release Amelia back to my custody. Dad had already left for work.

  “What do you mean?” Ryder asked.

  “I’m in. The soccer match. Whatever you need me to do. I’ll give Steve three penalty kicks if that’s what it takes. We have to bankrupt Griffin.”

  “We don’t have to do anything. This is my problem, not yours.”

  “I want to help.”

  He told me the spread, the money on the line, and what the different scores and outcomes would mean. Griffin had bet that Palm Valley would either win or tie. Ryder had bet that Agua Dulce would win flat-out. If Agua Dulce won by any amount, Ryder stood to make three grand and Griffin stood to lose one. If Agua Dulce won by two goals or more, Griffin stood to lose three.

  I had to make sure we lost, preferably by two goals.

  Amelia had never looked worse and had never felt better. Her fender was scratched and she still had white fingerprint dust all over the wheel and dash, but she ran like a dream. Autonomous again, I dropped Ryder back at my house so he could recuperate some more, and I took off for school.

  It was time for Phase Two of my plan to break into the principal’s office.

  LIBERATING THE FLASH DRIVE

  THERE WERE THREE WAYS TO GET SENT TO THE PRINCIPAL’S office:

  1. Pick a fight

  2. Sass a teacher

  3. Cause a public disturbance

  To expedite the mission I went for all three.

  As I pulled into the parking lot at Palm Valley High, I received confirmation from Jonathan that he’d completed his end of the heist. Ellie’s jacket was planted in lost and found.

  “Bammity bam,” his text said. I guess the new generation had their own lingo. Or maybe it was just Jonathan being weird.

  In second period, I made sure to sit behind the infamous Fred, lincoln-douglas extraordinaire, he of Ellie’s bad macking session at the party on Sunday. I was going to enjoy this part.

  “Yo, Fred-day,” I said, five minutes before class ended. “Did you hit on my girl at Maria Posey’s party?”

  “What? Um—no—I thought—”

  I kicked out the legs of his desk, with him in it, and he went sprawling.

  “Charlie Dixon, what was that?” Ms. Daniels roared. “Sit back in your chair.”

  That was it? What did it take to get sent to the principal’s office these days? Short shorts and a crop top baring my belly button? I had to step up my game.


  When Fred staggered to his feet, I whacked him in the midsection with my textbook like I was golfing. He doubled over, shocked and furious.

  “Charlie, what’s gotten into you?” Ms. Daniels sputtered.

  I held my hands up. “You should’ve heard what he just called you. I won’t repeat it because we’re in mixed company, but wow.”

  “What?” Fred gasped. “I didn’t say anything!”

  “I mean, I could come up and write it on the board, but I think we’d all be suspended just for looking at it. In fact, I’m not even sure I understand it—”

  “He’s lying! I don’t really even know any bad words!” said Fred. “On the debate team, we argue eloquently.”

  I should’ve hit him in the mouth.

  “It starts with the letter C,” I said.

  Fred tried to swipe at me, but I dodged him.

  “Both of you are getting Cs for the day. I mean, Fs!” Ms. Daniels said, flustered. “Go to Principal Jeffries’s office, now.”

  I scooped up my backpack and skipped down the hall, urging Fred to follow suit. “Time’s a-wastin’, hurry it up now.”

  “What’s wrong with you?” he cried. “I didn’t say anything about Ms. Daniels, and as far as Ellie—”

  I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Fred took a step back, even though we had almost a full hallway length between us.

  “Don’t even think her name, let alone say it.”

  “It was just spin the friggin’ bottle,” he protested. “Everyone was playing. I’m surprised you didn’t hear about the beckham drama. Delinsky kissed Patrick’s girlfriend, Josh kissed Delinksy’s chick, the Marias kissed, some dot-govs showed up at the last second, even Thomas’ English Muffin was playing. Trust me, I wasn’t thinking much about Ellie.”

  I’m only human. I had to take a moment. “The Marias kissed?”

  “It was only like time stopped, but yeah, sorry for kissing your ex-girlfriend for two seconds.” He rolled his eyes.

  That’s what Ellie meant when she said, “They made up at the party. If you’d been there, you’d understand.” They’d kissed! They hadn’t just made up, they’d made out. Were the Marias in love with each other? Was that why they fought all the time? Did Ryder know? It gave new meaning to the phrase at each other’s throats.