Chapter 12
When I got home the kitchen was full of people around the table. Mom was awake. Dad, Nate and Des all turned my way. A few scraps of lasagna were all that was left of their meal. My adrenaline surged. It couldn’t be time for dinner. By the clock I still had an hour.
Anticipation hung in the air like heavy garlic. Then I saw the suitcases.
Nate followed my gaze and said, “Don’t worry kiddo. They’re not throwing you out.”
Mom frowned at Nate. “Don’t be ridiculous.” She gave me that reassuring smile that meant something bad was coming. “Your Dad and I are going on a trip for a few days.”
Dad leaned forward and said, “Special assignment for my job.”
I stared. He was a custodian not a secret agent. “What kind of special assignment?” I managed to croak.
“Government regulations…” Dad began.
Nate interrupted. “Believe it or not, he has to be certified to be a custodian.”
“Maintenance Engineer,” Dad corrected. “The school received notice about the requirement. They were going to replace me, but we compromised. They are paying for the three days of classes. We’re taking care of the travel expenses.”
“But why is Mom going?”
“We’re staying with Mom’s sister, Judy. We decided to make it a mini vacation and stay the weekend. They can do the girl thing during the day and Judy will show us the sights in the evening and over the weekend.”
“Looks like it’s just you and me,” Nate said with a grin.
My backpack slipped through my fingers and landed with a soft slap on the floor.
“I’ll be around to help with meals,” Des said.
At least I wouldn’t starve. “When do you leave?”
“First thing tomorrow morning,” Mom said. “We’ll be gone before you get up for school.”
“Great,” I muttered.
Taking my feeble response as encouragement, Dad clasped his hands together. “Well, now that we have that settled, how about I share the next chapter in my book?”
“No way.” I turned my back to hide my frustration. Dad was living in fantasyland. He and Mom were deserting me. I would be stuck with Nate and have to survive on creepy vegetarian dishes.
A crazy blogger had the school buzzing with Bigfoot mania. All I needed now was for Bigfoot to move into the backyard and grant interviews to Gen.
I reached the door and stopped. The videos had been using information from Dad’s book. I had to hear the next chapter. I turned back and saw Dad's hopeful eyes.
“Okay.” My voice sounded too harsh. I forced a smile. “Read on.” I ate scraps of cold lasagna while Dad read.
With his new ID, Jacques made his way from city to city working for quick cash. He got pretty good at finding places like Joe's uniform service that didn't ask too many questions.
After a month he finally felt confident enough to take a steady job at the corner We Change Oil shop. With the first paycheck he paid for a rundown, cramped apartment and furnished it with pieces from yard sales.
Eight hours of grease and oil left him craving fresh air. He headed for the park. The blue reflective lens of his dollar store sunglasses gave him a feeling of anonymity.
He settled onto his customary bench. An old man and woman shuffled down the walk holding hands. Both faces were filled with wrinkles and framed with thin wispy hair.
“May I join you?”
Startled, Jacques snapped his focus away from the couple. A young woman stood before him. An uneasy feeling tugged at his subconscious.
“Do I know you?” His voice was cold and suspicious.
An amused smile, almost a smirk touched her lips. “I believe we have met.”
The voice and the eyes were tantalizingly familiar. His mind sifted through memories.
“Jacques,” she said accusingly, “it’s me.”
He took off the sunglasses. “Jillian?” She was so young.
She laughed at his confusion. “I was at the pool four days before you.” She sat down. “I too saw the wisdom of acquiring a new ID. Don’t you think we should join forces?”
Jacques stared in stunned silence. She had beat him to the pool and then tracked him down. With resignation he nodded.
To Jacques amazement she pulled a laptop out of her bag.
“Where did you get a computer?” he asked.
“The university gave them to us last year. Don’t you remember?” Then she sucked in her breath. Her voice was soft and concerned. “Did you lose your memory when you lost your old age?”
Jacques snorted. “I lost access to my house and office when I lost my old age. How did you get into your house?”
“Just used the key and walked in.”
“Weren’t they looking for you?”
She shook her head puzzled and then he saw understanding appear in her eyes. “Oh,” she said, “the hospital. Of course they would be looking for you.”
He gave her a brief run down on his survival ending with a wry description of his efficiency apartment. “Where are you living?”
Her face flushed. “Uh, Walmart.”
“Excuse me, did you say Walmart? What do you do, sleep in the furniture section?”
“No, the parking lot. In my brother’s pickup truck, complete with homemade camper on the back.”
“So what tipped you off that the university was looking for you too?”
“Peter. We’d been corresponding through email. When the news broke about the impostor at the hospital, he started asking about you.”
Jacques stomach tightened.
“Once he was convinced it was really you in the hospital, he guessed that we had found some kind of fountain of youth.”
“So that’s when you quit emailing?”
She blushed. “I wasn’t as careful as I should have been. I was outside a café using their WIFI when a sedan pulled up. Two men got out scanning the area. Fortunately the café was crowded. I jumped off the Internet and pulled up a spreadsheet. That was the end of email with Peter.”
“So do you have GPS coordinates for the pool?”
“Do you?”
For a long moment they stared at each other and the tension was tangible.
Then together they shook their heads no.
“Then neither of us knows where the pool is.”
“But will our pursuers believe that?”
“Even if they do, they would want endless tissue samples to try to figure out how the water worked. We’d never be free of their tests.”
Just like Jacques I felt my stomach tighten. In the video George said Jack and Jill had disappeared and were on the run.
“That’s great, Dad.” My voice had a slight quaver. “When did you write that?”
“Last night. The creative juices were flowing so I burnt the proverbial midnight oil.”
Mom said, “Speaking of midnight oil, we need to get to bed early tonight. It’s going to be a long drive and a stressful day tomorrow.”
Nate grinned. “And you have school tomorrow, kiddo. So it’s homework and bed for you too.”
I grimaced but refused to give him the satisfaction of a response. The rest of the week was going to really drag.
I picked up my backpack. “Have a good trip,” I said.
I trudged up to my room and flopped on the bed. A faint hum of voices continued in the kitchen. Probably giving Nate last minute instructions. Not that it would do any good. He obviously had already settled in to his role as caretaker of the zoo. I needed fortification. No, I needed backup.
I grabbed my phone. We need a plan I typed.
Gen’s response was immediate. My back porch.
I padded down the stairs and listened. They were all still in the kitchen. No one noticed as I pulled my jacket from the hook and slipped past the doorway. The front door made a soft click as I pushed it shut behind me.
Cold air with a hint of frost hit my face. Leaves rustled as I ran acro
ss the grass and vaulted the fence. Darkness was already settling over Gen’s tree shaded yard.
A shadow separated from her back porch and waved. I dashed up the steps and dropped into a purple plastic chair. Gen pulled up another one. Like a choreographed skit, without a word we propped our feet on the railing and leaned back.
Gen scrolled through screens on her phone. The last George video played softly.
Life used to be simple. Now Bigfoot was running through our woods, my dad was turning into a permanent fixture at my school, and Nate was in charge of my life.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I never expected this. Life is so unfair.”
“How long do you think it will be?”
“Close to a week.” I closed my eyes with a groan as I thought about a week of Nate.
“That long?”
“That’s what Dad said.”
Gen thumped her chair down and looked at me. “Your dad? How did your dad get involved?”
“Government. New regulations.”
“They’re regulating Bigfoot?”
I opened my eyes. “Who said anything about Bigfoot?”
“You did.”
“I did not.”
“Cody Monroe, did you not send me a text saying we needed a plan?”
“Well, yes but…”
“A way to protect Bigfoot right? Who needs a plan more than Bigfoot?”
I stared at her and finally it got through the fog in my brain that I hadn’t told her. “I do,” I said. “My parents are going out of town for the rest of the week and leaving me with Nate.”
Her eyes got big and her hand flew over her mouth. “Oh,” she said softly.
It took me a while, but I finally managed to fill her in.
We sat in silence. A cricket chirped under the porch. Minutes passed. The lonely sound of the cricket's call morphed into the hum of Gen's phone.
I leaned over and looked at the screen. “What is that?”
“A new video,” she said.
“Start it over.”
Music played as a Google car drove onto the screen. The camera zoomed in on the driver. A man in sunglasses about Nate’s age was driving. He turned his head and George’s big grin was reflected in the blue lens.
“George Roge here. Tracking Tomorrow’s History Now. I'm traveling with the illusive Jack Fontaine. I found him driving the Google car down the back streets of small town America. Nice disguise, Jack.”
The young man smiled. “Hiding in plain sight. But by the time this hits the web, I will have moved on.”
“But this is a nice little town to drive through right now,” George said. The camera swung to the street as George began a narrative of the sights. “We're passing the We Change Oil shop, Joe’s Laundromat, University Hospital, and…wait. Wait. What is that?”
The camera zoomed in on a gorilla dancing outside a store. It howled when it saw the car, and ran inside.
“Stop the car! It's Bigfoot!” George said.
“Not necessary,” Jack said. “Read the marquee over the door.”
“Howling Good Costumes,” George read. “And that, friends, is why we need an expert with us.”
The camera swung back to Jack who gave him an indulgent smile. As the light faded, the figure of the gorilla standing in the doorway was reflected in his glasses.
The cricket chirped under the porch and I shivered.
“That’s Main Street,” Gen said softly. “That’s our town.”
“It just doesn’t make sense,” I said.
She shrugged. “Why not? A Google Car could easily come through here.”
“Of course it could. But those are all places Dad used in his book.”
“Okay, so your dad used landmarks from Main Street. So?”
“Don’t you get it? Jack – Jacques.”
She looked puzzled.
“The guy driving the car. He’s just a fictional character in Dad’s book. He can’t drive through town.”
“Your dad must have based the character on Jack. Let’s check Google Earth.”
She started scanning her phone. I was stunned. Not only did she believe Bigfoot was real. She believed Jacques was a real person.
“Look,” she said. “Here’s the costume shop on Main Street. And there he is.”
“Jack?”
“No, silly. The gorilla.” She held out her phone and zoomed in on the Howling Good Costumes shop. The person in the gorilla costume was halfway through the door looking over its shoulder at the camera for all the world to see.