The Graham Cracker Plot (12 page)

I yelled, “The Chemist, Ashley. Then we're done.”

“The Chemist.” She smiled. “The Beatles man.”

“Ashley, help us push!” Graham said.

“I don't want to get all muddy.”

“We're a team, Ashley,” I said. “We need you.”

The three of us stood side-by-side, hands on the trunk. We pushed and pushed and pushed, then stopped in panic at the same moment.

We all heard it. An approaching car. Tires crunching on the gravel road. I couldn't see anything through the hedges, but it sounded closer. And closer. And closer.
Please don't let it be a cop
, I thought,
And if it is a cop,
please make him fat and slow like Aaron the guard.

We froze. Fred growled. Honey scraped her hoof on the driveway.

A blue car emerged from the hedges and drove past the driveway. Tires crunched more gravel, and then it was quiet.

Our luck was changing.

“I'm glad it wasn't that boy,” Ashley said. “I don't think we would've had time to get back in the tub.”

Graham said, “Okay. False alarm, but the next one might be the cops.” He wiped his forehead sweat on his sleeve. “All we need is to move a couple inches. Just get the cord to the outlet. Then stop. If we go too far, we'll crunch the porch. Okay?” We put our hands on the trunk. Graham continued, “On the count of three, give it all you got. On the count of three, push as hard as you can and scream something you hate. Hands on the car. Just push and scream. Something you hate. One … two … three…”

“SCHOOL!”

“PRISON!”

“FAKES!”

Only I wasn't the one who said “prison.” That was Ashley.

Then the escape car moved, just a little at first before lurching ahead. Before I could smile, I heard the sound of plastic and metal crunching.

 

DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

It was the worst sound of my life, the sound of the escape car crushing the battery charger we'd left in the grass. You could call it another crossroads.

Graham's face turned red, and he kicked the crushed battery charger through the grass. A piece of the charger broke off and landed on the porch steps. All we'd managed to do is get closer to the porch, so close that if we pushed again, we'd probably put the nose of the car into the steps. I couldn't find anything to kick, or I would have kicked, too. Ashley flopped down on the porch and buried her face in her hands.

Then a bolt of energy hit me. “Graham! The Idea Coin! Get it out!”

He shook his head. “No, it's not the right time.”

“Are you out of your mind? Unless a helicopter drops from the clouds and flies us to Club Fed, this is the time.
This
is the time.” Then panic punched my insides. His face looked weird. “Did you lose it? Graham, I told—”

“I didn't lose it!” He put his hand in his pocket. “It's here. It's just that we've been sucking too much energy. We're going to need it when we get to Club Fed. We can't waste it now.”

“We won't get to Club Fed if we don't use it!” I yelled. “I swear to God I will punch your face!”

“Too bad we don't have truck keys.” Ashley sighed.

“And how would that help?” My voice was snappy. “We don't have a truck.”

She said, “The pickup truck right there. In the driveway.”

“I know there's a pickup truck in the driveway. But it's not ours and we don't have keys!”

She said, “Too bad none of those keys hanging in the kitchen work on this truck.”

Graham tilted his head. Of course. Between the door and where the refrigerator once stood were those church signs and a key rack. I shrieked, “Saints are sinners who keep on going. Thank you, church people!” I dashed into the kitchen and snagged all the keys off the board and met Graham and Ashley at the truck. Graham had both doors open and was already hauling our stash from the escape car to the back of the pickup. Fred jumped into the front seat. Honey just stared.

I put in key after key, trying to get the engine to purr. Fred breathed in my face. He smelled so bad I almost puked on the steering wheel. I shoved him away. Ashley hugged Fred and said, “You're mean, Daisy. And I don't know how to drive a truck.”

“Sure you do!” Graham dumped another bag into the back of the pickup. Cans of soup rolled everywhere. “It's exactly like driving a car.”

“But it's not a car. It's a truck.”

Vrooom
.

“I found the key!” I shrieked.

“Same thing!” Graham said. “Steering wheel. Gas pedal. Steer. Push. You won't get into trouble. I swear. I cross-my-heart swear.”

“It's so big,” she said.

I hugged Fred and told her, “He wants to go, too, Ashley. Fred's part of our family now. You, me, Graham, the Chemist, and Fred.”

Ashley smiled and blew me a kiss.

We had one final problem. Graham insisted we needed Honey, the whole it's-a-sign thing.

“What if it's a sign for something else? Like a sign to leave the horse here.”

Graham had never looked so serious. “It's fate. Put it together. Me needing a horse in Canada. Then we find a horse. Me talking about cinnamon bread with honey. Then what did I name the horse? HONEY.”

Graham had finished transferring everything from the escape car to the escape truck, and Ashley was behind the wheel, but Graham wouldn't let us leave. “Horses help in all the old escape movies. It's meant to be.”

“Graham! Think about it. How are we going to get Honey in the back of the truck? We can't lift her.”

“Why not? She's a mini. She can't weigh much.”

Honey stared at us and swished her tail.

I asked, “What if she bites?”

“What if she poops?” Ashley wondered.

“We don't have time, Graham. Please. Put Honey back in the barn. We're going to get caught, and it'll be all your fault.”

He sighed. “Fine.” He led Honey with a rope to the barn. I think Honey was relieved.

A minute later, Graham came back from the barn, straining to carry a long board while leading Honey with the rope.

“What are you doing?” I yelled. “Leave her in the barn!”

“Hold your horses! I got an idea.” He grinned at me. “Did you get it? Hold your horses?!”

Ashley laughed. I crossed my arms and shook my head.

I heard the pickup's hatch drop. He was using the board as a ramp. Like Honey was going to happily gallop into the back of the truck? Hah.

“Fine!” Graham shouted. “Don't help. Whatever. I can lift this board and handle a horse all by myself. It's not heavy at all. You just sit there and look pretty, Queens Ashley and Daisy.”

I put my hands over my eyes, because I didn't want to watch Graham's disaster when it happened. I heard the board thump somewhere on the pickup. Ashley started reporting to me.

“He's got the wood up like a ramp,” she said. “He's tugging on Honey. And Honey is walking up the ramp … We're ready to go!” She clapped.

“Done and
done
!” Graham called.

I looked out my window as he dragged the board back to the barn. Seriously, he could be so stupid. I yelled after him, “Hey, cowboy, I'm just sitting here looking pretty and all and I was wondering how you're gonna get that horse back on the ground without that board. But you've figured that out, right?”

He looked at me, all puzzled and confused. Finally I said, “Duh! Horse whisperer, bring the board.”

 

DEAR JUDGE HENRY,

Ashley braked at the end of the driveway, looking both ways for cars. Another pickup was heading down the gravel road. Ashley suddenly seemed to understand the situation—the oncoming pickup truck had a destination, and that destination could be
here
.

She looked at me with huge eyes. “What? What should we do?”

“Pull out naturally. Don't—”

The tires spun in the gravel, and our truck leaped out of the driveway and sped away from the farmhouse, away from the other pickup.

I'd planned to say “Don't spin the tires, don't leap into the road, and don't speed,” but it was done. Graham and I turned around and watched the pickup. It didn't turn into the farmhouse driveway. I let out a sigh.

“What if they follow us?” Graham whispered.

“Thanks,” I said with an eye-roll. “I actually had two seconds of not freaking out.”

“Well, what if they do?”

Just then, the pickup made a right turn and disappeared behind the trees.

We sighed at the exact same time. “Ashley,” Graham said. “I thought you were afraid of speeding. Slow down!”

“That was before we were being chased by a pickup.” Ashley stared straight ahead.

“Slow down,” Graham said again, calmly. “The gravel is going to toss us around and we could end up in the ditch.”

“Okay, okay.” Ashley breathed deeply. “Slowing down, slowing down.” She shook her hair, like it cleared her head. “But I have a question.”

“What?” Graham said.

“Where are we?”

Graham looked at me. I shrugged.

*   *   *

We followed the only plan we had. Ashley announced her new gift of listening to the universe. The universe apparently told her to drive randomly, turning here and there, and there and here.

And it actually worked. I spotted the county road with the two silos and the pine trees. Grandma and I passed those silos on our trips. I knew where we were, and I guided us to the Club Fed neighborhood while Ashley smiled and chatted about the universe.

We parked two blocks from Club Fed on a street with big shade trees. It was turning into a nice spring day—warm and sunny with the smell of new flowers. My heart felt bigger than the sky. Today, the Chemist would be free.

Thanks to the morning's human alarm, aka the teenage boy, we were early. We could break out the Chemist after lunch. But I wasn't sure if we were ready. Every few minutes, I could feel my back and neck tighten. The worries were not just in my brain, they were in my body.

I got the red
Graham Cracker Plot
notebook with the map of the prison and showed it to Ashley. She had studied it the day before, but she didn't remember things like a normal person.

“I'm starving,” Graham said. We were packed in the cab: Ashley, Fred, me, Graham. “We could eat right here. There's lots of pretzels in the back.” Graham and Fred got out to stretch and dig up some food from the back of the truck. The church people's truck looked even bigger now that we were in town. A farm pickup, big enough to haul big farm stuff. Grandma always complained about the slow farm pickups during our trips. She'd speed past them in her tiny car.

I told Ashley, “Graham and I better change into our clothes first. You got them, right? From the clothes dryer?”

“Nope. I forgot.” Ashley delivered this news without regret or shame, or even the common sense of an
oops
. I did not want to scream at that woman, because she was going to be my stepmom, so I stuffed my anger deep in my chest.

“Whatever. I've got this awesome pink granny nightgown. Who needs jeans?”

Ashley said, “I rock this goth look, don't I? The boots make me look all thin and tall. The black jeans, the black tank. My awesome black hair. It's my escape wardrobe.” Ashley took a tube of lipstick from her purse and spread it across her lips. The lipstick was dark, almost purple.

“Ashley, you look amazing. You really do. But you don't exactly blend in. I like your chain belt and all, but it's the middle of a sunny day.”

“Am I supposed to wear
yellow
? Would that say, ‘Hey, boys, check me out. I'm here to save you,'” she said. “That's just stupid.”

“We're here to save one guy. The Chemist. Don't talk to anybody else. Don't look at anybody else.”

Ashley looked away from me, at the houses on the other side of the street. “Why don't we just go to Canada now? We've already escaped. I don't want to screw up and end up back in my crappy apartment and crappy part-time job. We're already free, my lovely flower girl.”

“We're free when the Chemist is free. Don't screw up,” I said.

The tone in my voice made her stop talking.

*   *   *

We'd parked in front of a pretty blue house with white shutters. It was two blocks from a
prison
and still nicer than any trailer at River Estates. Grandma said the people in this town didn't fuss much about the prison. When the college closed, the jobs were gone. This town is small and the only jobs left were like waitressing and fixing tractors. A low-security federal prison had paychecks. But those local job-hunters don't know what I know. Low security doesn't protect the people inside. Why don't you tell people that, Judge Henry? Is it because nobody cares about the people inside? I care. Grandma cares. Everyone in that visiting center cares.

If I ran the world, that college campus would've become a water park.

Ashley poked me and pointed. An old man was in the yard, picking a few weeds and admiring his tulips. He looked toward the truck, and his mouth dropped open. There was Fred, hunched up, taking a huge dump on his lawn.

I rolled down the window. “No! Fred! Bad dog!”

Fred looked at the sky and kept on dumping. The man stormed toward us. “Get that mutt out of my yard!”

“I'm sorry!” I yelled. “Fred, stop!”

He looked like he was going to kick Fred, but Fred growled and showed his teeth. The man stopped walking, but not talking.

“Don't you know it's illegal to have a dog wandering around town without a leash?”

I got the leash and a Beefy Bit from the glove compartment. “We have a leash!” I waved it out the window. Graham took the leash and Beefy Bit from me.

“I'm sorry, sir.” I've never heard Graham use the word
sir
. He whistled. “Fred! Come here right now!”