by Susan Vaught
“No, but—well, maybe yeah, I guess.” I didn’t see Ryker shrug, but I could imagine it. “I don’t think he means to be a total butthead.”
Silence again.
Long.
The breeze blew, and one of them coughed.
“Do you think he took that money out of Mr. Broadview’s desk?” Ryker asked, his voice so quiet I almost didn’t hear him.
It took long seconds for me to process, to understand that—
Oh.
Oh, wow.
My fingers slipped deeper into Sam-Sam’s fur as we both strained to listen.
“No!” Trisha said, her voice harsh. “Why would you even say that?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean—it’s just, he was broke at the movies, then he bought a new basketball and some shin guards and a skateboard yesterday—it was weird.” Ryker sounded concerned, even though I was pretty sure he didn’t possess that emotion. “Plus, Chris got even more riled up after what happened in the hall outside Mr. Broadview’s class.”
“He just hates that the little weirdo gets special treatment even with all the fits she’s had,” Trisha said. “You remember kindergarten and first grade, right? I used to think my brain would bleed out my ears from the noise. And last year, she knocked your teeth out.”
“Yeah. I guess.” Ryker laughed. “I probably hit her first, though.”
“Well, she would have deserved it,” Trisha shot back. Then her voice totally changed to something softer. “I want it to be like it used to be, Ry. The three of us hanging out together. All of us going to basketball camp for the summer.”
“Me too,” Ryker said. His voice turned so gentle I couldn’t believe it. “I really miss going to camp.”
Trisha didn’t say anything back.
Ryker gave a really loud sigh. “Come on. Let’s go back and see if we can talk some sense into him.”
“You go ahead,” Trisha said. “I’ll come in a few minutes.”
“Okay.” Ryker’s last word sounded distant. He was probably walking, not running, so I couldn’t hear him moving away, but at least he was leaving.
I sagged against the tree—and accidently mooshed Sam’s foot.
He gave a startled yip.
Everything in my body went stiff, like some kind of fear-freeze. I held Sam close and tried to figure which direction to run. Not toward Ryker. Needed the clubhouse—or better yet, my actual house. I felt too turned around—
“You.” Trisha’s cold voice froze me even more solid.
Sam growled.
Trisha had come around my tree, and she was standing right in front of me, arms folded. I took in her pulled-back hair, the glitter of her stud earrings, her green blouse and pressed jeans. She was smiling, all teeth and no warmth. It looked more like a snarl.
When I didn’t say anything back or try to move, her eyes narrowed. “If you tell anybody what you heard, I’ll spend every minute of my life making you miserable.”
My heart slammed against my ribs, and I held tight to my rumbling dog, smelling his Sam-Sam scent and imagining I had the strongest muscles in the world, because I absolutely wouldn’t let anything happen to him, no matter how bad I wanted to just start screaming and run away.
Trisha stepped toward us, and I finally unfroze. I backed up a step, then circled around a few more, putting Sam and me between her and the path.
“If you hurt my dog, I’ll crack your face open,” I said, surprised by how low-pitched and loud my voice sounded.
Trisha’s head snapped back like I had slapped her. She looked more surprised than I could have imagined, and she shocked me when she said, “Jeez, don’t go all warrior princess. I would never hurt a dog.”
She honestly sounded like she meant it. But this was Trisha. This was one of Jerkface’s cockroaches. I couldn’t take a chance on believing her, but . . .
“I would never tell people about somebody having a cry in private, because I’m not a hateful bully,” I told her.
Trisha stared at me. A shadow seemed to pass over her face. Maybe leaves moving in the breeze. Maybe a bird flying overhead. Maybe her witchy, shriveled heart trying to actually warm up enough to kill her.
For a few weird seconds, she looked like she might cry again. For another few seconds, she looked like . . . someone else. Just a normal girl. Just a normal, sad girl. Then she turned her back to me, and I saw her fingers curl into fists.
Her voice came out almost like a growl. “What you heard—Chris didn’t take that money. I mean it.”
I held Sam against me, protecting him because Trisha had morphed back to the hateful creature I usually dealt with, and I just looked at her.
“Go away, Messy,” she said.
And I went.
13
Monday, After the Train Came, I Don’t Know When Because Time Stopped Ticking
My sneakers ground into grass and bits of wood and black hunks that looked like pieces of pavement. Something cut my ankle. I didn’t stop.
My phone rang in my pocket. Probably Dad. And he was probably following us—but that was okay because Dad was okay and I knew he wasn’t hurt, but Sam-Sam—
I reached in and switched off the sound. When it buzzed, I pulled it out long enough to turn it off, and somehow managed not to bust my face in the process.
Springer and I made it to the road outside the school. At least I thought it was the road outside the school. Nothing looked right. Nothing smelled right. The air seemed way too still after all that roaring wind, and my nose got clogged with the stench of dirt and oil and wet and something yuck like sewage.
Cars seemed to be everywhere, but none of them were moving. Some were on their sides and some were upside down. Alarms beeped and blared. Rain drizzled into my face. I kept jogging, even though I wasn’t sure, couldn’t really figure what—how—
From somewhere seemingly on another planet, Springer said, “Please don’t let there be people in those cars.”
I glanced at him.
He jogged beside me, eyes wide, cheeks red.
“Which way?” I yelled, using all my willpower not to start counting upright cars and turned-over cars and cars on their sides, because they would all need different totals, right? And then I might need to divide them by color or type or size. My chest ached from panic for my dog. I didn’t have time to count cars. Why did my head always try to do stuff that I didn’t need it to do?
Springer grabbed my arm and stopped me before he let me go. Together, we breathed really hard and squinted through the rain until he pointed. “There. That’s Spruce. That way. Oh, wait.”
He took out his phone and looked at it. “Mom. She says she and Dad are fine.” He tapped at his screen, talking his message out loud. “Fine, too. Helping Jesse find her dog.”
“My dog,” I echoed, staring at Spruce. I had no idea how Springer knew the street name, because the sign was gone. Something that looked a lot like it lay about thirty feet away, upside down and stuck through somebody’s car door.
We ran toward the corner, dodging around cars and hearing their alarms and not looking, not looking because maybe people—no. I didn’t want to see people hanging upside down in busted cars and I didn’t want to count the cars or even see what color they were because Sam needed me.
But there were people.
Some in those cars, trying to get out, and getting out, and helping other people get their doors open. It kept raining. The flat air and toilet-mud-oily-nasty smells kept smothering me. We kept running.
When we got to Spruce, the yellow house, it wasn’t yellow anymore. More brown-and-black-streaked. It looked like a giant had stepped on the roof and crushed half the house’s rooms, then ripped stuff out of the yard and thrown it all over the place. Those bushes, the thirty-seven little bushes I had counted five days ago, there were maybe three left, and they weren’t right side up. Springer and I almost tripped over two of the bushes and their roots. We had to get in the road to go around them, and we realized part of the pavement had b
een cracked.
I caught Springer’s hand, and we moved around the torn-up road, and I tried to imagine how strong something had to be to rip pavement in half like paper. Before I could even begin to figure that out, a fountain blocked our view of the next section of road, only it wasn’t a real fountain.
“I think that was a fire hydrant,” Springer wheezed as we jogged through the spraying water. Car alarms seemed to be going off everywhere. My hair got soaked. Our shoes got soaked. Here and there, people seemed to be wandering out of toothpick houses that had all been stomped by the same giant that crushed the yellow house and tore up its thirty-seven bushes. One lady had on a blue bathrobe, and she was standing beside a turned-over car, crying.
I ground my teeth together.
Don’t count people. Don’t count busted houses. Don’t count anything. Just move. Just get to Sam-Sam.
Seconds went by. Maybe minutes. I couldn’t make sense out of time because nothing looked right, not even the light from the sky. Too cloudy. Too rainy. Weirdly green. And all the noise. My chest started to hurt from running so far.
We came to another corner and both stopped at the same time. Springer bent over and heaved a breath as I looked around.
We were at the shutter house, where I would have trespassed to count if I hadn’t been with Springer last Wednesday. Maple. Yes. We needed to turn right by the shutter house. But . . .
“It’s half gone,” Springer said, breathless. “It’s just broken wood and turned-over cars.”
“And some people.” I pointed to a group pulling boards off a leaning doorframe. One was a tall man in green shorts with a cast on his hand. Another looked familiar, with her scarf and short-sleeved blouse. “Is that Coach Sedon and Ms. Jorgensen?”
“I think so.” Springer sounded scared now. “I thought Coach Sedon was supposed to be getting his hand fixed?”
“Why are they at that house?” I mumbled. “Dad said the police—this is all kinds of wrong.”
Mom’s voice whispered through my mind, like she was standing right next to me. Trust yourself, Jesse. Trust what you know . . .
Fear flickered in my chest, too. “Let’s go, Springer. Now.”
Without another word, we ran to the right, down Cedar. Or what was left of it. The sidewalk had chunks missing. The road looked like somebody had shaved it with a knife and dropped the pieces to either side. My teeth started to shatter. My soaked clothes and shoes squished as we hurried through the drizzle.
In a few minutes, we passed a fallen flamingo statue, and another, and another. The redbrick house was there on the corner ahead, but it had no roof. All the flamingos in the yard were gone. I didn’t try to look for the six gnomes. They were heavier than pink birds, I was sure. Maybe they didn’t get thrown or busted.
As we got past the house, we wheeled to our left—and stopped again.
My street—
There was nothing on my street but pieces of board and pink insulation and turned-over cars.
I started crying.
“Okay to touch?” Springer asked.
I nodded.
Springer put his arm around my shoulder. “Let’s get to your house.”
“It’s not there.” I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t feel my toes or my hands or my body. Maybe I was gone, too. “My house is gone.”
“Let’s get to what’s left of it and call Sam,” he said. “Dogs are smart, you know?”
Air. I had to breathe. I didn’t want to breathe. It hurt. But I had to. “Sam-Sam was in a crate. He couldn’t—he couldn’t get out.”
“Let’s go call him.” Springer’s voice sounded too high, almost like a scream.
We stumbled ahead, and the rain got harder. I still couldn’t breathe. Too much water in my face. Too much nothing and broken awful everything, everywhere around me.
Was this my house?
No, wait. There. I recognized the driveway, the part of it not covered up with a door and a sink and a mattress. Were those Aunt Gus’s shirts in the oak tree?
Without saying a word, Springer and I picked our way closer and closer to what had been the front of our house. Then we just stood staring at the rubble and I couldn’t stop crying because Sam, because my baby dog—the whole house had just fallen down or exploded or something. What chance did a tiny, tiny fluffy white dog have against a tornado?
“Sam?” Springer called. “Hey, Sam-Sam!”
Nothing but car alarms and rain sounds and busted hydrant spraying.
My insides twisted.
Springer elbowed me.
I tried to speak, to say a word, to call out my dog’s name, but I just sobbed.
The next thing I knew, Springer’s arm settled on my shoulder. “Come on, Jesse. You can do this. Sam needs you to try, right? So try.”
It didn’t bother me, Springer giving me a hug. In fact it felt kinda good. It kinda helped. I kept crying, but this time when I opened my mouth, I squeaked out, “Sam-Sam?”
We listened.
Alarms. Spraying water. No dog sounds.
“Sam!” we yelled at the same time, and waited again.
Alarms and water, water and alarms.
I got a bigger breath, a huge one I pulled all the way from my toes. With every bit of volume I could manage, I hollered, “Sam-Sam! Here, boy! Where are you? Sam!”
Nothing even remotely dog.
Springer let me go and sat down on the torn-up grass and bricks and glass and wood. His butt made a huge crunch. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I’m so sorry. I thought—”
“Hush!” I shouted, because I thought I heard—
Alarms? Water? Something else?
My imagination.
“Sam-Sam,” I whispered, tears and raindrops running together on my cheeks and chin and neck.
And somewhere in that pile of sticks and rocks and pink fuzzy junk that used to be a house, something shifted.
And then, something barked.
14
Thursday, Four Days Earlier, Afternoon
Ryker totally likes Trisha,” Springer said.
“What?” The thought almost made me sick. “Why would you even say something like that?”
“Because,” Springer said, and I would have looked at him to figure out if he was joking with me, but the two of us were huddled so tight behind a bunch of scrub pines that if I turned my head, I’d poke a pine needle up my nose. We had been there for a while, half an hour maybe, in our green-and-brown shirts and shorts, camouflage like Mom would have worn if she was stationed in a forest instead of a desert. In front of us lay the cul-de-sac where Ryker, Chris, and Trisha lived. We were closest to Chris’s house, facing the other two houses, and far enough away that we could talk quietly to each other.
So far, our surveillance mission to see if Jerkface and the cockroaches talked about the stolen money was one big giant bust. The dead-end street seemed so quiet. No cars parked at curbs. No cars in driveways, because they had garages. Nobody was around Chris’s house, where we were hiding. In front of Trisha’s house, her older sister Meredith sat in a porch swing with some sharp-faced girl I didn’t know. They were looking at stuff on the sharp-faced girl’s phone.
Springer nodded toward Ryker’s driveway, where Jerkface and the cockroaches were taking turns shooting baskets. “See how Ryker always catches the ball for Trisha and hands it to her?”
I watched them play a round, wishing I had Sam-Sam in my arms to kiss and pet, but no way was I putting my dog in danger. “Okay, you’re right, but isn’t that because it’s her turn after his?”
“He doesn’t catch the ball for Chris,” Springer said.
“That makes no sense.”
After a few long heartbeats, Springer said, “This stuff is hard for you, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” And just like that, I felt sort of awful, even if I couldn’t quite say why.
Springer shifted his weight from one foot to the other, making pine branches twitch. “I’m sorry, Jesse. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”
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br /> “You didn’t.” I traced a finger down the branch closest to my face and tried to focus on the rough bark. “The—whatever’s broken in my brain makes me sad.”
“But your brain isn’t broken.” He sounded genuinely shocked. “Why do you think it’s broken?”
“It doesn’t work like everyone else’s,” I told him.
“That doesn’t mean it’s broken. Your brain is fine.”
This conversation was making me itch inside, not just in my broken brain, but everywhere. “So how come Trisha doesn’t look at Ryker like he looks at her? She catches Chris’s basketball shots, and she gives him that sort of goo-goo face.”
“Oh,” Springer said. “Ooooooh. Good observing. Then Trisha likes Chris.”
I kept rubbing the branch bark with the pad of my finger, because it felt different and strange and sort of good, and it kept that itchy feeling away. “That’s all kinda awkward, isn’t it? The wrong ones of them liking each other?”
“Kinda,” Springer said.
Just then, a thump made us both jump. The branches around us shivered like a breeze had caught them. Ryker and Trisha and Chris looked almost directly at us, and I thought about running—but Coach Sedon came into view from the front yard, wearing basketball shorts and a jersey like always, though these were University of Kentucky blue, not school green. He jogged across the street, heading to Chris as he called, “Hey, bud, where’d you leave the screwdrivers? I need to tighten the legs on your mom’s computer desk.”
Chris took his shot, made the basket, then turned toward his father. “I left them in the garage next to my bike. I’m sorry.”
“Did he sound scared?” I asked Springer, since I didn’t always get emotional stuff correct.
“I think so,” Springer answered quietly.
That was weird. Why would Chris be scared over screwdrivers? In fact, all three of them, Jerkface and both cockroaches, seemed pretty stiff. They stood, arms to their sides, sort of smiling but sort of not, like people did when they wanted to be nice but they really wished somebody would go away.
The front door of Ryker’s house opened, and his mother came out. Ms. Morton had on basketball clothes, too, only hers were University of Louisville red.
