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 newspaperâto 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 BoyâDillon or whatever his name wasâ 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 himâor maybe themâbehind 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.
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 brotherâ”
“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?
I sucked it up and did my best with the sympathy card. “I'm real sorry about last night, Mrs. Dewitt. Shan tried to call but couldn't get your number. You know I've been, uh, away a long time, and I didn't know anything about Ty.”
Then Gillian said I'd had an accident and asked her mom to drive us to the bike. I rode in the back with Buster. Gillian said he was a golden Lab. I understood now why the Jeep smelled like dog. It made me sneeze, which didn't make my shoulder feel any better.
I asked Mrs. Dewitt to let me out at the top of the dirt track. “It's kind of muddy down there. You don't want to get stuck.”
“I'll come with you.” Gillian got out too. I shook my head. She ignored me.
The bike was a couple hundred yards down the trail. You could smell wood smoke and weed in the breeze as we got closer. The bike was lying deep in the tall grass where I'd left it. I peeked over the bank. They were sitting in my spot, with a little fire going and a line of beer tins already on one of the logs, their voices mixing with the sound of the water. I wanted to roll a boulder onto them. But there weren't any boulders, and I had bigger problems. I got the bike and we started up the road.
When we were well away, I said, “I am sorry about last night. Danny has a weird family.”
“That's okay,” Gillian said. “So do I.”
We were on either side of the bike. She smiled. That made me feel good. She tucked her hair behind her ears. She looked, well, pretty. I wanted to say it, but it was hard. I could say a million nice things I didn't mean, but saying one I did was harder than catching Harley dealing off the bottom of the deck. I did it though. Gillian smiled and looked even prettier.
“Thank you.”
“Maybe we could go to another movie,” I said. “Just us.”
“Us?” she teased. “Does Danny want to go to another movie?”
“I don't know about Danny, but I do.”
“Me too.”
For a minute I forgot all about Griffin and Tyson. I even forgot to hurt. Gillian helped me put the bike in the back of the Jeep. She touched my hand, I think on purpose. I didn't mind at all.
For the next few days, though, I didn't think much about movies. It was a week straight from the Bad Time. Meg had found out about what happened with Ty and she was all over it, meeting with me, meeting with Carleen, knowing we all wanted to make it work. The weather was cooler now. She wore clingy sweaters. They weren't as nice as tops I could look down.
I could feel myself slipping back into my old Bad Time ways, too. I stopped talking. I looked away from everyone. I got stupid. One night after supper, Brooklynne kept pestering me to play with her doll stuff until I tipped the dollhouse over and said it was an accident. She started crying, of course, and everyone, especially Roy, was pissed off.
After that I took Matt's bike without asking and just rode. I ended up out at the beach again. I shouldn't have gone back; they'd wrecked it all, of course. It was windy and empty and the waves were pounding. Why I'd ever thought I could get across the lake I didn't know. I stood there and yelled into the wind, not even words, just noise, and it was as if I wasn't even yelling at all. I went back to the bike. It had a flat tire. By the time I walked back to town, it was after dinner. Shan was in tears, thinking I might have gone again. Matt was freaking about his bike being stolen. Brooklynne was running around yelling, and Roy was pissed all over again.
I lied about where I'd been. I lied about the bike. I said I'd found it down by the river where whoever stole it must have left it and I'd been lucky enough to recognize it. Meg got called all over again.
I know we all want this to work
. I'd tried not to stare at her chest.
Meanwhile, I hurt like the Bible thumpers had been beating on me, and Griffin hung over everything like a concrete nightmare. He had me second-guessing everything and everyone, including Shan. She'd say something like “You never used to like orange cheese” and instantly I'd be on guard. One time I said, “Well, sorry I can't be exactly the way you remember. Times change.” She looked hurt and I felt as if I'd blown it, and I didn't know how to make it better.
Griffin had dropped out of sight. That made it worse. That told me he knew what he was doing. You worry more when you're always looking over your shoulder. Harley used to do the same thing with scams. He'd set the bait and then pull back for a few days, playing hard to get. The marks would drown in their own greed. “It's not outta sight, outta mind,” he'd say. “It's outta sight,
in
the mind.” I was learning the hard way that he was right. Knowing Griffin's mind game didn't keep it from working.
He had me aching to run. I had to get ready. The only place I could think of to go to was Reno. When Darla and Harley split a couple years back, Darla headed there. She said she was tired of the road and had connections at a casino there. I thought if I could find her, maybe she could help me a little. Darla didn't owe me anything, but she'd been okay to me, and she knew I did good work. She was also pretty much the only other person I really knew.
To get to Reno, I'd have to get across the border and have money for food and bus fare plus a little padding. Toronto was a pretty big city not too far from Port Hope. I'd start by going there. On the map, it looked as if I could go from Toronto to Niagara Falls. I was sure I could cross the border there. I had a backpack, clothes, ID. I wondered if I could steal more ID from someone at Open Book. I also needed to work out the longest head start I could get and round up as much cash as I could.
First chance I got, I looked for Darla on Facebook on a library computer. She'd used a couple different last names. No luck. Then I checked Matt's and Shan's money stashes and got the next bad news: the money was gone. When I cornered him, Matt told me that Roy had opened a savings account for him. Then Shan came home from shopping with a bunch of new clothes, so I knew where hers had gone, and Roy hit me up for twenty-five dollars for my share of a birthday gift for her. I was down to forty dollars Canadian, all I had left from working with Dave the Garden Fairy. I wasn't going to get far with that.
I did the only thing I could think of. I'd remembered a kind of Hail Mary play Harley had told me how to run if you were going to take off instantly and needed cash, but you needed a bank card for it. I went to the bank and opened an account with twenty-five of the forty dollars. Getting my card would take a few days, they said. Till then, at least most of my cash was hidden away from tightwad RoyâI could see him going through
my
dresser drawer.
In the meantime, my only chance for a quick score looked to be a family party for Shan on the weekend. With any luck, Gram and Grampy might slip me a few bucks, or I could sneak a look through some purses. I asked if Gillian could come to the birthday party with me. I told myself it was good cover for Danny, and it was. With someone else there, it would be okay if I acted a little differently. But really, I just wanted her there. Luckily, she said yes.
Gillian helped me pick a birthday card for Shan. Roy had told me to get a card we could all give to her. When I used to have time to kill in malls while Harley was busy, I'd sometimes looked at birthday cards, deciding which ones I'd have liked to get. I'd never picked one for somebody else.
“How old is she going to be?” Gillian asked as we stood at the display.
I didn't have a clue. “Thirty-two,” I said.
“So it's not, like, a significant birthday.”
“I guess not.”
“How about that one?” It had a picture of a goldfish in sunglasses and some kind of lame joke about hoping the birthday “makes a splash.”
“Sure,” I said. “When's your birthday?”
“In February.” She passed me the card.
“Which one would you pick for yourself?”
She laughed. “I don't know. You can't do thatâ it wouldn't be a surprise.”
“It's just a game I play,” I said.
“Well, then, which one would you pick?” She'd turned it around on me.
“That one.” The card had a cartoon of four fat butts, jeans sagging off them. Inside it said,
The backside of Mount Rushmore. Have a monumental birthday,
and there was a cartoon of the four faces on the mountain.
“That's what I would have picked too.”
“Get out.” I laughed. “You would not.”
“Okay, that one.” It was a perky cartoon face exclaiming,
You're cheerful, kind, talented, funny, smart, generous, friendly, helpful, sympathetic, hardworking, passionate, creativeâ¦
Inside it finished withâ¦
and you'll believe anything. Believe this: Happy Birthday!
“When's
your
birthday?” she asked.