12
Sage
The coating of paint over the van window was thick. And it was hard to reach with my hands tied behind my back. But when I turned around backward, stood on my tippy toes, and pried at the paint with my thumb fingernail, it gave a little.
“ Sit down, stop doing that!”
I ignored Ms. Jessa and kept reaching and scratching, making the pinhole the size of a quarter—big enough that I could see out of it when I turned around to inspect my work.
“ Sage, ” Ms. Jessa hissed, when the light coming through the paint splashed onto me like a mini spotlight.
I ignored her, the same way I ignored the recess monitor when she told me I wasn ’ t allowed to sit on top of the monkey bars, even though there was no rule about it. Mom and Grandpa had been reading us Harriet the Spy at home, and sometimes I asked myself what Harriet would do in a particular situation.
Harriet would stay on the monkey bars. And she ’ d take the chance to look outside this van.
The paint didn ’ t come off in big chunks like I ’ d hoped, and my hands were so numb from the plastic ties that I couldn ’ t move my fingers very fast—but it was working. When I turned around again to peer out the hole I ’ d created, I could see outside the van just a little bit.
A few feet away from the window, there was a reddish-gray rock wall. It went up as far as I could see. Like we were at the bottom of a cliff, in a big pit.
To the left of the wall, toward the front of the van, was some kind of big pile. Chunks of concrete, dirt, broken bits of plastic and metal. It looked kind of like a dump, where we ’ d gone on a field trip to learn about why it was important to recycle.
I had no idea where we were. Nothing looked familiar. Were we actually at the dump? At the bottom of a cliff? How long were we in the van? It felt like hours, but that might ’ ve been because it was so awful in there. My breath came faster, and I accidentally kicked one of the other kids when I shifted my foot. Behind me, Bonnie started to cry again.
The van shook, and I froze. Up front, came the sound of a car door opening then closing.
I tensed, ready to sit back down. I didn ’ t hear a second door open or shut. That meant just one man was getting out of the van. I was pretty sure the other one had driven the white shuttle. Was he here now, too?
I pressed my eye closer to the tiny hole I ’ d scratched into the window. I could see him, but he didn ’ t look in my direction.
My stomach tensed, and my body felt shaky. I stayed where I was, though.
“ Sage! ” Ms. Jessa sounded like she was going to throw up now, too. She shifted a little, but there wasn ’ t much she could do to stop me with her hands and feet tied.
Footsteps thudded, and the man came into view. He was looking over at the junk pit.
I studied him like my eyes were lasers. He had long, puffy brown hair that was frizzy and greasy at the same time. He was a big guy, with sweat stains under the arms of his brown T-shirt and baggy cargo shorts.
“ He ’ s just standing there,” I whispered, my tongue thick in my mouth. I could taste the vomit in the boiling-hot air. “ He doesn ’ t have the pantyhose on his head anymore. He ’ s holding it in his hand.” I looked all around, trying to make sense of what I saw. “ I don ’ t know where we are.” My voice shook a little. “ There ’ s … a rock wall. A lot of dirt. A bunch of junk.”
The other kids stayed quiet.
Ms. Jessa didn ’ t tell me to sit down again. Instead, she made her voice low and sharp and said, “ Sage, the second he starts walking again, you sit down. And then all of you, do exactly what the men ask when they open up the van. No arguing.”
I nodded impatiently and kept looking.
He kicked at a rock on the ground and said something under his breath.
Then he turned around.
The first thought that popped into my head was that he looked like Jesus, but mean. And chubby. The sun was hitting his greasy, shoulder-length brown hair just right, so it glowed a little bit. He had a beard the same length as his hair. His lips were chapped, like he ’ d been licking them. There was a big, angry crease between his stringy eyebrows, and his eyes were all squinty since he was facing the sun.
I opened my mouth to tell Ms. Jessa and the other kids what he looked like. I wasn ’ t sure how it would help, but it was the only thing I could think to do. “ He has long, brown hair—”
“ Don ’ t tell us what he looks like,” she snapped back in a whisper. “ There’s a reason they don ’ t want us to see their faces.”
I swallowed but didn ’ t say anything else. Was she right about that? Or did she just want me to sit down and shut up?
Those questions made my stomach twist up tighter. It was the same feeling I got when Grandpa asked me a question again and again or called me “ Sheena” or asked what book we were reading at bedtime, even though it was the same one as the night before. Harriet the Spy. Like I needed to be careful with the grownup I was talking to. I didn ’ t know why Ms. Jessa was being so mean, but it made my eyes blur and my throat close up.
Thinking of Grandpa and reading at bedtime just made the feeling worse.
We weren ’ t going to be home for bedtime tonight. The sun was already most of the way down the sky.
Would we ever be home for bedtime?
Greasy Hair moved a few more steps toward the back of the van, and I tensed, ready to sit my butt down and pretend I hadn ’ t just seen him.
Ms. Jessa heard the footsteps too and made a gasping noise. “ Soph, ” she hissed, then corrected herself. “ Sage, sit down.”
I bristled. And a line from Harriet the Spy popped into my mind. Keep your head when all about you are losing theirs and blaming it on you.
One of the other girls had started crying again.
“ What are they going to do with us?” came Ked ’ s solemn, scared voice.
“ Are we going to die?” a shrill voice, Rose’s maybe, asked loud enough that I jumped.
“ No,” Ms. Jessa said. “ If we just stay calm and don ’ t make them mad …”
Greasy Hair cut his eyes toward the van.
I jerked back from the peephole and tried to step toward where I ’ d been sitting before. Somebody had moved their leg, though, and I tripped.
I gasped and fell backward, landing hard on the metal floor—and somebody ’ s lap—with a thud.
Something slammed against the side of the van from the outside.
A few kids shrieked. One of them was Bonnie.
“ Quiet! I told you not to fucking move in there,” Greasy Hair barked.
I lay frozen where I was, heart pounding, even though my hip was hurting, pressed against something sharp on the van floor.
Terrified, I waited for Greasy Hair to yank open the van doors and pull me out. When he didn ’ t, I slowly wiggled away from the lap I ’ d fallen onto so I was sitting.
“ Sage? ” Bonnie whispered in a tiny voice through the silence. It set off another wave of whimpers through the van.
Inch by inch, I scooted my way back to her through sticky, sweaty bodies until we were side by side again. With the little hole of light coming into the van, I could just make out the expressions on the nearest kids’ faces.
Bonnie, like the other kids, had her eyes open wide and her mouth squeezed shut like she was afraid of what might burst out. Her bangs stuck to her forehead, sweaty and damp as if we ’ d just gotten out of the swimming pool at Bright Beginnings.
I turned my head to look at Ms. Jessa, in the back corner of the bus. She ’ d pulled her knees up to her chin and tucked her head so that her bright red hair covered her face.
The seconds dragged by.
Then the minutes. What was Greasy Hair doing out there?
More footsteps crunched on the gravel. Every time they moved away, I got scared that maybe he was just going to leave us cooking in here and never let us out. But when the sound moved toward us, I got scared he was going to open the doors and shoot somebody with that gun.
The other kids must ’ ve been thinking the same, because after a minute, everybody was breathing fast, like there wasn ’ t enough air for all of us.
Maybe there wasn ’ t.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to think. Keep your head.
I didn ’ t know what Greasy Hair was waiting for, but I knew that all these kids couldn ’ t keep it together much longer.
So I grabbed the first idea that hit my mind. “ Bonnie,” I whisper-blurted, “ I ’ m going on vacation and I ’ m bringing … a tomato. ”
The fast-breathing whimpers in the van got quieter.
Bonnie made a little sound that could ’ ve been a laugh or a cry. I held my breath. It was her favorite game. And Mom ’ s. The two of them always wanted to play it while we drove in the car. I was terrible at the game, so I usually looked out the window and rolled my eyes.
“ I ’ m going on vacation and I ’ m bringing a tomato and an apple,” Bonnie said finally, hesitantly.
“ Then you can come,” I told her.
Bonnie scoffed. “ That was too easy.”
“ Why can she go on vacation?” Ked asked.
“ They ’ re both red things,” Bonnie told him, sounding almost like her normal self. “ Tomato, and apple. You have to try to guess the pattern.”
Someone made an “ Ohh ” sound. Then Charlotte ’ s voice piped up. “ I ’ m going on vacation and I ’ m bringing a bike.”
“ Can I come if I bring a bike and a car?” Ben said.
“ Nope, ” Charlotte said proudly.
“ How about a bike and a bumblebee?” Ava asked, pronouncing it “ bubbobee ” like her nose was all stuffed up. It was the first time I ’ d heard her say anything at all.
“ You can come,” Charlotte replied excitedly.
In the back corner of the van, Ms. Jessa lifted up her head. I still couldn ’ t see her eyes, and she didn ’ t make a sound, but her shoulders were rocking up and down, so I was sure she was crying.
We kept playing the dumb game for maybe fifteen minutes until we heard the sound of tires in the distance, rolling through the dirt toward the van. Then the low hum of an engine.
I swallowed the sticky spit in my throat.
Greasy Hair took a few fast steps toward the sound.
The tires stopped rolling right behind us, and the engine hum died.
A door creaked open.
All of us went quiet enough to hear Greasy Hair say, “ Fucking finally. ”
I wanted so bad to stand up again and look through the hole in the window, but I already knew I couldn ’ t see outside the back of the van. And the shaky, scared feeling in my stomach warned me not to move a muscle.
Something was about to happen.