CHAPTER TWO #2
“Because … the bus … is stupid,” I said hastily, already feeling my cheeks heating in the late September sun.
I didn't know if the bus was stupid. Maybe it was the greatest thing on the planet.
Jason narrowed his eyes and looked at me like I had just said something really dumb.
“Why?”
“Because …” I blinked rapidly and shook my head. “It just is. My mom says so.”
“That's weird.”
I thought he'd have another question to ask about the topic, but to my relief, he shrugged and said, “Well, whatever. How long do you have to wait?”
“I don't know,” I muttered, pinning my eyes to the entrance of the parking lot.
She was never this late. Never.
“Do you think she forgot about you?”
“No. I mean, I-I don't think so.”
But now, I wasn't so sure as I glanced at the row of school buses and watched as they began to, one by one, leave the curb.
I looked at Jason and asked a question of my own. “Why aren't you on the bus?”
He blew out a deep breath and said, “My mom's a substitute teacher.”
“Here?”
“Yep,” he replied, nodding with pride. “She was teaching first grade today, so I'm waiting for her to be ready to go.”
“She's driving you home?”
“Yep,” he said again.
I dropped my gaze to the sidewalk, studying my new sneakers. Mom only got me new shoes at the beginning of every school year, and this time, I had picked white ones.
“Are you sure?” Mom had asked, and I could tell she didn't want me to get them. “Those are gonna get dirty so fast, Noah.”
“No, they won't,” I had argued, and without any more disagreement, she’d bought them.
But now, I realized she'd been right. It had only been a couple of weeks, and they were already getting smudged with dirt. They already looked old, and compared to Jason's spotless, brand-new black Nikes, they looked bad.
Mom can't afford to get me different ones, I reminded myself. It doesn't matter anyway. They're just shoes.
I swung my attention back to the open gate to watch as the last of the buses left the parking lot.
Mom was still nowhere to be found.
“Jay-Jay, you ready?”
Another voice came from behind me, and with a glance over my shoulder, I saw a lady I had seen a few times over the last year since moving to River Canyon.
She was older than Mom, I thought, but not as old as Grandma.
There was silver in her dark hair and lines around her mouth, but she dressed young, like Mom.
She looked nice.
“Who's this?” she asked, approaching with a welcoming smile.
“Noah's in my class,” Jason replied.
She nodded. “Very nice,” she said, then asked, “Did you miss your bus, sweetheart?”
I shook my head as Jason answered for me, “His mom is picking him up.”
She made a little humming noise and looked up to sweep her eyes over the parking lot. “Do you know when she'll be here?”
Mom had told me to never talk to grown-ups I didn't know unless they were police officers, but Jason's mom was a teacher at my school, so I guessed it would be okay to talk to her too.
“She was supposed to be here already,” I admitted, shuffling my feet.
Suddenly, my eyes hurt, and my nose felt stuffy, like I might cry, and I really didn't want to cry in front of Jason.
“I see,” she said. “Do you know her phone number? Do you know where I could reach her?”
I nodded as I quickly took off my backpack and unzipped the front pocket, where I found the index card Mom had put in there with the phone numbers for the house, her job at the library, and Grandma and Grandpa's house.
I handed it to Jason's mom.
“All right, honey. Let's head back inside and give her a call, okay?”
I looked up at Jason’s mom warily, even though she smiled nicely.
Mom had said to stand right here until she came to get me.
That was the rule every single day, and if she got here and didn’t see me standing on the curb, she’d be worried.
Maybe she’d even be mad. But … she was late.
She was never late, and the more I thought about it, the more my tummy began to hurt.
Something felt wrong.
So, I nodded, and with my head hanging, I followed Jason and his mom back into the school lobby, where she asked the receptionist if she could use the phone in the office.
We were led into the empty vice principal's office, where Jason's mom instructed me to sit and make myself comfortable while she dialed the phone.
I took a seat at one of the two chairs in front of the desk.
Jason sat beside me, unzipped his backpack, and asked if I'd like some Doritos.
“Sure,” I muttered because even if I was a little worried, I never said no to Doritos.
“Hi! This is Mrs. Williams,” Jason's mom said cheerfully into the phone. I met her eye, and she smiled reassuringly, giving me a thumbs-up as she continued to say, “I'm a teacher at River Canyon Elementary School. Is—yes, I'm calling about Noah! Is this his … oh, great!”
Jason handed me one snack-sized bag of chips, and I opened it gratefully. Hope lifted the weight that'd been sitting on my shoulders, and I scooted my butt to the edge of the seat as I chomped into a Cool Ranch Dorito.
“Yes, I have him here with me. He's been—no, of course! Things happen. It's all right. Oh, I don't mind waiting with him at all. No problem. See you in a few minutes. Bye.”
She hung up the phone, her smile only widening as she turned to me.
“Don't worry, sweetheart. Just a few more minutes, okay?”
I breathed a sigh of relief. Mom was coming. I was going home. I didn't know why she was so late, but it didn't matter. It was a mistake. I made mistakes all the time. Mom was allowed to make one every now and then, right? She was just a person too.
I finished my Doritos while I talked with Jason.
He seemed pretty cool after I got to know him a bit.
His dad was a cop, his mom was a tattoo artist when she wasn't teaching, and his brother was way older than him and in college.
He had four dogs, six cats, three parakeets, and a snake!
Plus, his mom was talking about getting a horse!
He had a whole room in his house just for him to play in with every video game console ever made, and he even had his own laptop to play World of Warcraft on with his dad and brother.
Jason was the coolest kid I had ever met.
When he asked what gaming systems I had, I could only shrug and say, “I … don't remember the names.”
But I didn't have any at all. Mom never had the money to buy me one, and Grandma and Grandpa didn't know anything about video games. To be honest, I didn't know much about them either, and suddenly, that made me feel really, really stupid.
“Noah!” the secretary called from the lobby.
I jumped up from the chair, looked out the big window beside the door, and my hands started to shake as my palms got all clammy and gross.
Dad was here in his stupid truck, and he was getting out and walking right toward me.
I hadn't seen him since we’d moved.
I had hoped we had run away. I had hoped we'd lost him. I had hoped he'd forgotten all about us.
But there he was, opening the door.
“Are you Noah's father?” Jason's mom asked, placing her hands on Jason's shoulders.
“Yep,” Dad said without looking at her. His eyes were only on me. “Let's go.”
My gaze went from his face to Jason's mom.
She seemed … scared maybe. I didn't think she meant to look that way.
I thought she felt like she looked brave and strong, but the way she held Jason's shoulders, the way she looked at me with big, open eyes …
she reminded me of Mom whenever Dad was around, and when Dad was around, Mom was always, always scared.
“I was under the impression Noah's mom would be picking him up,” Jason's mom said.
“She's busy,” Dad replied, laying a hand on my shoulder. “Get in the truck.”
I swallowed and blinked away the memory of that day.
Tommy's house.
Dad with his gun.
The boy, shaking in a corner.
“Are you okay, Noah?” Jason's mom asked.
I looked up at her again and forced myself to nod. “Yeah, I'm okay.”
“Are you sure?”
Dad sighed, and I wanted to yell at her.
I wanted to tell her not to make Dad mad.
I wanted to tell her how mean he was when he was mad.
I wanted to tell her all the terrible things he had done to Mom—the things I had seen and the things I hadn't—and that if she made him mad, he might do those things to her too.
But I didn't do any of that.
Instead, I smiled and nodded. “Yep.”
I looked at Jason and said, “Thanks for the Doritos. I'll see you tomorrow.”
“Yeah, see ya,” Jason replied, but he wasn't looking at me when he said it.
He was looking at Dad.
He was looking at him as if he'd never seen a big, mean man before in his life, and you know what? That was probably true.
Because some kids … kids like Jason …
They had been born lucky.
But Jason and I were different in so, so many ways, and that had all started when I was born to the bogeyman.
***
“Where's Mom?” I asked the moment we drove away from the school.
Dad said nothing as he drove his truck through the happy, sunshiny streets of River Canyon.
I loved this town. I loved the people here. They were friendly, and they remembered my name. They made Mom and me feel like we had a place here, like we'd always belonged. But now, I saw them on the sidewalks, glaring angrily at Dad's noisy truck.
He wasn't welcome, and he didn't fit.
We hadn’t run far enough.
Dad turned a corner onto the highway just on the outskirts of town, then made another right into the trailer park we lived in—or community, as the people in town called it. He sped through the narrow, winding rows of little houses, until he came to Daffodil Lane.
The truck lurched as he slammed on the brakes in front of 1109, the house Mom and I lived in.
He barely missed crashing into her car.
She's home.
My brow crumpled as I worried my bottom lip between my teeth.
She forgot about me?
Dad climbed out of the truck, rounded the hood, and threw my door open. “Out.”
“What did you do to Mom?”