I shook my head and repeated myself. “No. No thank you. I can’t.” Jake seemed to understand. He knew it was a long shot. I looked at Brit, she seemed to be contemplating Jake’s request.
Jake turned his head and looked at her. “Brit? You?” She was deep in thought. “You wanna stay? With me and my folks? You’re welcome to you know.”
I watched Brit’s small blue eyes go between me and Jake. Our feet at least. Finally she looked up at me. “No. As long as Bill is moving on I think I can get to my grandparent’s house okay. That’s what I really want.” Jake smiled a sort of sad smile. “But thanks anyways, Jake.” She nodded slightly at him.
He smiled again at the pair of us. “Well, this is where I take my leave then. I gotta get home. Lawn probably hasn’t been mowed in four weeks ya know.” His smile got more sincere as he spoke. He looked over at me. “If you keep on this road for another half mile or so, it bends to the left. Look for a green house. That’s Thomas’ place. They’ll have bikes. Probably won’t even charge you.” I shook Jake’s hand, and gave his shoulder a hardy pat with my free hand.
“So, what are you going to tell Dad about his car?” The one he abandoned down in Ankeny.
He laughed. “I’m going to hope like heck the power never comes back on. At least to the cars. I got no plans on going back down there to get that thing. I don’t ever want to see that crazy girl again.” I laughed. Just like a teenager.
Brit came over and gave Jake a nice hug. Nicer than I thought she might. “I’ll see you in a couple months, Jake. When I come to get my stuff. If my mom shows up that is. If you want to come visit me you can. You know where my mom’s parents live.” Jake grinned at the small teen.
Truth be told, we weren’t precisely sure of our exact destination. Not the address at least. All Jake and I could get from Brit was that the house was between Luck and Frederic about a mile or so off the main highway. To the left; at least that’s what Brit thought now. Earlier she was convinced she went right. But she figured she would know the proper direction when we got to the road. An unnamed road, one she would recognize when we got there. Said she wasn’t really good at directions. No kidding, Brit.
Brit, Buddy and I stood watching Jake start the last leg of his homeward journey. All in all he was a pretty darn nice kid. Someday, I thought, he’d grow to be a nice young man. Maybe a young man even Brit might be interested in if they weren’t third cousins ten times removed I suppose.
We started up the road north. We had only seen a few people after our initial adventure finding Brit. Most of what we saw were people out in the gardens, mowing lawns by hand, watering flowers from a creek and the occasional stranger walking by in the opposite direction. Some said hello, some nodded, and some completely ignored us. I was fine with people ignoring Brit and I from here on in. If we could just catch a break we’d be back on bikes within the hour. I was already sick of walking.
“Do you have any more water in your pack?” Brit looked up at me as we walked side-by-side, Buddy in front of us. I flipped the pack around to the front of my body and opened it. I knew there were two more bottles. I handed one to Brit and left the other in the pack for later.
“Take it easy on that. We’re down to two, and they have to last us until Grandpa’s house. You said they have a pump there, right?”
She took a tiny sip of water and replaced the cap. She handed the bottle back to me and finally nodded at my question. “Yep. And the water’s always cold in the summer. I remember that even as a little girl. Probably five or six.” From the little talking we’d done, Brit didn’t seem like some dense schoolgirl. She sounded rather intelligent. I decided to probe.
“Brit, what’s your last name? I don’t think I ever asked you that.”
She shook her head and frowned still looking ahead. “McMahon. Britney McMahon. And yes, I’m Irish. No comments please.”
She had to be kidding. I couldn’t resist. “You’re just a wee little Irish lass, Britney McMahon.” I smiled as I spoke in my best leprechaun voice.
Her head shook more. “You should have been a teacher. They’re corny like that.” Clever girl.
“So, you’ll be a sophomore next year?” She nodded. “That means you’ll be 15 sometime soon I imagine.”
She nodded. “September 29th. Again, not that it’s any of your business.”
I stopped, laughed and smiled broadly at Brit. “Really?” Her eyes showed me she wasn’t lying. “That’s my birthday too.” She smiled but nothing more. I knew she wasn’t crazy about walking, so I expected a little attitude. It was starting to show ever so slightly. “What else you do at school? Band? Cheerleading? FHA?”
It was her turn to stop. She stared at me almost miffed. “Really? You think I’m a nerd or a prissy or a housewife? Really?”
I held my hands up slightly. “Sorry. Just trying to make conversation. What do you do then for fun? Torture small animals?”
She rolled her eyes and looked at the tall corn in every direction. “I like to run.”
I glanced at her sideways, skeptically. “Track or cross-country?” This would tell me if she was lying or not.
“Both. I do both. Cross-country in the fall, and track in the spring. 1600 and 3200 meters.” The girl knew her stuff. “And I’m pretty good actually. I took thirteenth at sectionals in cross-country as a freshman. I hope to go to state this year.” She frowned. “If we ever get back to school.” I tried to smile to give her hope, but I don’t think it was very convincing. We continued on.
I decided to lighten the mood with a little test. “Sweet corn or field corn?” She looked at me like I was an idiot. “Is that, …” I pointed to our right, “…field corn or sweet corn?”
She gazed at it ever so briefly. “My grandpa was a farmer. I’ve lived in the city all my life. I’m not a farmer, Bill.” Brit was getting sick of me. “But that’s field corn. The tassels are darker than sweet corn would be.” She was right. She was no dummy.
I tried another test – I had nothing but time on my hands. “Here’s one for you Brit.” She looked at me and sighed. But she didn’t say stop. “How many quarters, stacked end to end would it take to reach the top of a five-story building?”
Now she really stared at me. I was taken back by the harsh looks she could throw out. She looked left, then right. “Let’s get something clear. I don’t need you, Bill. I don’t need a chaperone. I am just fine on my own. So let’s not pretend to be all chummy. Let’s just walk and get there.” She turned and started down the road again.
I shrugged and walked ahead to catch her. This was one tough cookie. I would prefer to be a little more sociable, but if that’s the way she wanted to be, well then, okay. We could walk in silence.
The day was warm so the blacktop was already very hot. I moved to the shoulder to walk on the gravel. Brit noticed and followed suit. She fell in behind as I lead the way.
“Six hundred,” she called out from the rear position. I stopped and she almost ran into my back.
I turned and stared at her. “Six hundred what, Brit? The amount of souls you’ve extinguished with your lovely personality?” I met her stare with a smile.
She shook her head slightly. “Funny, real funny. Six hundred quarters.” She walked around me, brushing against me to clear her way and continued down the shoulder. “Five stories of ten feet each. Figure each quarter is an inch wide and each story is 120 inches tall. That’s ten feet you know.” I gave a sardonic smile she couldn’t see. “One hundred twenty quarters per story, five stories,” she shrugged stopped and stared one more time, “equals six hundred.” I laughed slightly.
“I believe you are correct. And that makes you the winner of today’s quiz, young Britney McMahon.” She flinched hearing me use her full name. “Brit,” I added.
She didn’t smile even though I made a point of making it sound like she’d just won a gold medal at the Olympics. “What’s my prize?”
I handed her the bottle of water. “You get the next drink an
d the last mini pack of M&M’s from the backpack.”
She laughed, and we kept moving forward. There was a lot more to this tiny teen than met the eye. She was intelligent, articulate and perhaps not too bad to hang out with. If we could just get rid of her bitterness.
Within what had to be less than an hour, we arrived at the corner Jake had told us about. Here we would find the Thomas’ and more importantly bikes. I was ready to get back to pedaling. Brit had mentioned it about 60 times in the past 15 minutes, so I knew she was ready as well. The problem was there wasn’t a house on this corner. Or anywhere near this corner.
“Road bends to the left and look for a green house.” I looked at Brit as I spoke. She nodded. “Where’s the house?”
Brit pointed further down the road. Maybe a half-mile or so. “There’s one.” I could see it too.
“But that’s a red house, not green. He said green, right?”
Brit nodded more and then screwed up her face a little. “Not sure?” I asked. She kept looking down the road and shook her head slowly.
“No. People coming. Looks like a large group. Maybe a dozen.”
I turned and looked. She was right. Dang it. Large group like that probably meant trouble. I looked for our escape. “Let’s hustle down this side road for a bit. There’s some woods off to the right down there that we can hide in. Um, take cover in.” That sounded better, braver. We started down the new road at a much quicker pace. We both sensed trouble.
We crept into the small brush lot and knelt. We could see where the roads met a couple hundred yards away. Hopefully the group would just walk past. Maybe they didn’t see us. Perhaps they thought we had retreated back down the main road. I didn’t really care as long as they left us alone. I stared at the junction cussing myself under my breath.
“You have that gun still, right?” Brit sounded a little nervous. I nodded. “Show it to me.” Okay, she was more than a little nervous. I pulled the gun from my pants pocket. She seemed happier. “Okay, just keep it out for a while, please.” I looked down. A shaky right hand came to her mouth as she stared intently at the same junction. This girl was scared.
Chapter 24