Runaway (10 page)

Summer is going by fast and I haven't even seen the ocean, let alone frolicked with dolphins. I wasted yesterday sleeping. I swear, except for stuffing my face during breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I slept the whole day away. And I wasn't wide awake at night, in case you're wondering. I slept the whole night away, too.

It felt so good.

And still no questions about my mother.

         

Shanana made me go to church this morning. “Time to give thanks,” she told me. “Time to let Him hear your gratitude.”

“I'm grateful to you, anyway,” I muttered.

“I'm just the messenger,” she said with a smile. “Tell Him.”

So I went into the “chapel” (a cramped room with a very low ceiling and dilapidated folding chairs), and I listened to Reverend Raynaldo sermonize about the bounty of blessings the Lord has laid on the table for our feasting, and how the Light is the way for God's lost flock to find its way Home.

I also listened to a lot of snorting and hacking and snoring from the homeless gallery. Plus, this one really spaced-out guy kept shouting stuff like “I am the One, the Way, and the Light! Follow me! To the desert! I have camels!”

I've met a lot of guys who think they're Jesus. Maybe it happens when your beard gets long and scraggly and you start looking like a guy who's walked across the desert in sandals. But this particular Jesus had the worst slur and most bloodshot eyes of any of the “prophets” I've ever seen. Shanana finally got him to leave, but she was amazingly nice about it. I'd have grabbed him by the ear and tossed him out on his rear.

I was surprised to see so many children at the service. I don't know why any mom would bring her kids to this church, but a lot of them did. Maybe it's the bounty of donuts and orange drink and coffee that the reverend and Shanana put out. After the sermon, everyone pigged out, tanked up, and took off.

         

Talking about God made me remember the Blue Lady. Have you ever heard of her? (What am I saying. Of course you haven't.) The Blue Lady's a secret among street kids, and the sad thing is, I used to believe in her. I really, truly used to believe in her. I wanted so badly for her to be real.

I'm not supposed to tell you about the Blue Lady, but I'm going to.

Ready?

Here's how the legend goes:

Years ago now, God fled his beautiful marble palace in Heaven to escape a treacherous attack of Hell's most powerful demons. The demons, with their scaly skins and eyes of dripping blood, smashed the palace until it was nothing but dust. The angels in Heaven were stunned. Where had God gone? Why didn't He return? How could they defend Earth from the demons of the underworld without Him?

Time passed. God did not return. And demons found doorways into our world through abandoned refrigerators, mirrors, and limousines with blackened windows. Once on Earth, demons thrived on dark human emotions like fear and hate and jealousy.

The most feared demon of all (feared even by Satan) is a woman whose black dress billows backward, even on the stillest of nights. Blood drips from her ghoulish empty eye sockets as she screeches and howls at lesser demons to obey her. She is called the Crying Woman, and she is the one who led the attack on Heaven. And now that she is on Earth, she grows in power and strength by feeding on the terror of children.

There is one angel who can fight off the Crying Woman. She is beautiful, with long, flowing hair and glowing blue skin, and she lives in the ocean. She wants to save children from the Crying Woman but can only do so if they call out her secret name: the Blue Lady.

When the Blue Lady hears a child cry to her for help, she quickly gathers an angel army to protect the child from danger. Flying bullets, demons disguised as men, fever, or famine…if you call out to the Blue Lady, she will find a way to rescue you. You will hear her gentle voice whispering in your ear, “Hold on. You will be safe. Hold on.” She is good and kind and strong, and if you hold on, you will be safe. So hold on.

         

I used to love that story. I first heard it when I was nine. An older boy, maybe eleven or twelve, whispered the story to a group of us in the children's corner at a shelter. “No adults can know about her,” he told us. “Adults don't believe. Adults make fun. But it's true. I swear on my father's grave, it's true.”

Some of the other kids nodded and whispered, “I've seen her.” “She saved me.” “She's like an angel ghost, only blue.”

I heard the story of the Blue Lady many times, from all sorts of kids. And then at one shelter, I was the oldest, so it was my job to tell it. I loved seeing the younger kids' eyes grow wide with awe as they heard the story for the first time.

I also loved the power of the Blue Lady. The strength she gave us on the inside. Like we
could
hold on because she and her army of angels were on a mission to protect us from evil, and somehow, some way, we would win.

I used to cry out to the Blue Lady when things got really bad. I used to think I heard her voice whisper, “Hold on, Holly. You will be safe. Hold on.”

But then I found my mother.

Dead.

And now I know:

There is no Blue Lady.

There's only wishful dreaming.

         

4:45 p.m. I think it's Thursday. I've lost track again.

I should know better than to walk along main streets. Cops use main streets. But when I left The People's Church, I wanted to get out of Cement City and to the ocean as fast as I could. And I didn't want to get turned around again. So I headed west the way I'd memorized from the map at the library: Follow Wilshire Blvd. (By the way, just so you don't think I'm stupid, I decided to go west instead of south because on the map there were more green spaces along Wilshire, and following the Los Angeles River south to the ocean seemed very depressing. Plus, I started thinking that with the way they pour cement around here, the Cement River probably leads to Concrete Beach.)

I almost asked Shanana about the beaches and which one she thought was the best (because according to the map, there are miles and miles of them), but I really didn't want her or the reverend to know where I was planning to go. And I'm glad I didn't because Shanana started bringing up my mother.

“Sweet child,” she said, “I think we should get you some help. That mama of yours is just not showing up.”

“Oh, she's coming,” I told her, like I really believed it. “We've done this before. You don't
mind
me staying here, do you?”

“No, of course not! I'm just hopin' everything's okay.”

“Everything's fine,” I said. “And you've been really, really nice.”

So I acted like I was planning to stay on longer, but the first chance I got, I stashed away a ton of food and took off.

I found Wilshire Blvd. and I tried to pace myself as I walked. Not too fast or you look suspicious. Not too slow or you look unsure. But it's been really, really hot here, and it's hard to move at a steady pace. According to a big billboard temperature sign that I saw, it was 101 degrees yesterday. Actually, I'm sure it was even hotter than that. You know how they factor in wind chill when it's really cold, which makes the temperature even
colder
? (“Last night's low was thirty-one degrees, but with wind chill, that figure dropped to nineteen.”) Well, around here there's the opposite of wind chill. There's asphalt heat. I swear heat radiates off the street and jacks the temperature up another ten degrees. And all the air conditioners that are cranked up to cool off the inside of buildings pump hot air
outside.
So up in the sky where they've got that temperature sign it may be 101 degrees, but down here on the street with the fire-breathing air conditioners and asphalt, it's more like 120 degrees.

WHERE'S THE OCEAN???????

Too late to find that today, so let me finish telling you about the cops:

The same cop saw me, two days in a row. I recognized her, because how many cops do you see with wraparound shades and bleached cornrows? And she recognized me, because how many twelve-year-olds with green corduroy pants (that's all they had at The People's Church that fit me) and an overstuffed backpack do you see hiking down the same street,
miles
from where you'd spotted them the day before?

But instead of doing something really constructive like offering me a lift to the ocean so I could jump in and COOL OFF, she pulled over and called, “Excuse me?”

I didn't pay one bit of attention to her. I just kept walking.

“Excuse me?” she said again, and this time she came onto the sidewalk.

I smiled at her and kept walking.

“Stop!” she commanded. “I'm talking to you!”

I turned and did something my mom used to do. I asked her,
“Pardonnez-moi?”
like I didn't understand a word she was saying.

She frowned at me and said, “You some two-pint tourist?”

I only know about three French words, but that's all my mom knew, either, so I did what she used to do: I made up whole sentences of phony French, shoving them through my nose as I spoke.

“Stop!” the cop snapped. “You don't understand English?”

“Oui! Oui!”
I said, then spoke a bunch more phony French. And, in an effort to get away from her, I channeled my phony mother,
Louise,
as I curtsied and said,
“Au revoir!”

It worked. The cop threw her hands in the air, made some grumbling sounds, and got back in her cruiser.

Inside, I felt really good. Like both my mother and Louise were watching over me, helping me.

         

Crud. There I go again. I hate getting all weepy about my mom. Why isn't she here with me? Why did she have to go and OD? I hate Eddie for getting her hooked, you hear me? I hate him, hate him, hate him! If he wasn't dead already, I swear I'd kill him.

Lousy good-for-nothing creep.

But I really don't want to talk about him or her. I was working up to telling you about this dog named Knobs, so that's what I'm going to do.

After I ditched that cop, I got off the main drag quick, thinking it would be smarter to follow a parallel, less patrolled road. That's when I spotted Knobs coming out from between some buildings. All of a sudden it seemed like ages since I'd seen a dog. You know,
petted
a dog. So I started walking quicker and called, “Here, boy!” (I didn't know his name yet.) I whistled and said it again. “Here, boy!”

He glanced over his shoulder as he pranced along the sidewalk in front of me. So I said, “Hey, wait up, fella! What's your name?”

He walked a little faster but kept looking over his shoulder. Not like he was afraid of me. More like he had someplace to get to and sort of wanted me to come along.

So I followed him. Up the street. Over. Up another street. Over. Up another street. Zigzag, zigzag we went until we got to a park. It was small and scroungy, with a lot of dead grass and scrawny trees and graffiti. But Knobs waited by the water fountain, tail wagging, obviously wanting me to push the button so he could jump up and get a drink.

See? Dogs are smart.

After we'd both lapped up about a gallon of water, I read his tag and started calling him his name and just ruffled and hugged and let him happy me up. He was so panty and waggy and sweet. I tossed a stick for him some, I shared my food with him. (I gave him the stuff that was getting pretty borderline from baking in my backpack in the sun.) Then I gave him another drink from the fountain and got a drink myself, but when I turned back around, he was gone.

You probably already figured this out, but I was so busy following Knobs that I got totally lost. And when I started walking again, I
thought
I knew which way was west, but my west turned out to be north. And do you know where I am now?

Beverly Hills!

This area is like the
opposite
of where I've just come from, and something about that is so, so weird. How did it go from concrete, barbed-wire fences, graffiti walls, and scroungy, scraggly brown grass to
this
in just a few blocks? There are palm trees. Tall, graceful palm trees. Whole streets are lined with them. And you should see the lawns these people have! They're like lush oceans of grass. And the temperature is a good twenty degrees cooler here, too. I'm not exaggerating.

So, are these movie-star homes?

I have no idea.

But I can tell you this: There's one person who spent last night in Beverly Hills who is definitely not a movie star.

She's a sea gypsy!

Ha ha!

And you should see the stuff these people throw away. The food in their trash bins could feed an army! I had some kind of cheesy scones, a baked potato (with plenty of butter and sour cream still on it!), and the rind of a roast beef for dinner.

Yum!

Plus, I found a great hideaway behind some shrubs in an amazing backyard. You wouldn't believe this backyard. It has actual rolling hills for a lawn, plus a tennis court, a swimming pool, and the most beautiful purple-flowered trees I've ever seen.

It's nice here.

Real nice.

         

Same backyard, a couple days later

There's a girl who gets a tennis lesson every day at 10:00. I may not know her, but I still hate her.

Picture this: white tennis skirt and tank top, spotless shoes, a white sun visor, sweat bands around both wrists, and sleek hair pulled back into a perfect braid.

Oh, you're thinking, poor you. You're jealous.

Okay, I admit it. I am a little. But that's not why I hate her. I hate her because she's snotty and whiny. I hate her because she's got opportunity but no drive. That little diva doesn't even
try.
You should hear her talk back to the instructor: “You hit it too hard!” “I'm not doing backhand today!” “My ankle hurts!” “You
told
me to do it like that. Make up your mind!”