“Nice view,” said a man’s voice. I assumed he was speaking to someone else. “I said, nice view.”
I poked my head out the door. Two guys stood near the van, staring at my mom. They were clean-cut, in jeans and windbreakers. One guy was as broad as he was tall.
Astrid gave him a steely look, then turned back to her packing.
“Looks like you live in this thing, huh,” said the muscular guy.
“Just a weekend away. Visiting friends up the hill,” Astrid replied.
“I’m Barry,” said the muscular guy. “And this is my buddy Silvio.” He extended his hand for Astrid to shake.
She didn’t take it.
Barry’s smile faded. I noticed that he never once looked in my direction. “If you want to party tonight—”
“Already have plans. With those friends up the hill. Now if you’ll excuse us.” Cold. No smile.
“Just trying to make conversation.” He and Silvio walked across the parking lot to a black Camaro and climbed in. Then Barry revved the engine in a ridiculous way. The Camaro roared out of the parking lot. Astrid looked at me and rolled her eyes.
We finished packing. Astrid had bought us a large pizza for dinner. It was barely warm anymore but it was still delicious. We put on coats and hats and sat with the side door open, watching as the last bit of color drained out of the sky. We identified various constellations when the stars came out.
“Big day for you tomorrow,” she said. “The start of a grand adventure.” She took my hand. “Whatever happens, I’m so proud of you.” She kissed the top of my head.
“Thanks.”
“And for the record, even if you won all the money in the world, it wouldn’t come close to the jackpot I won on the day you were born.”
I groaned. “Cheese alert.”
She put an arm around me and I leaned into her. “Massively cheesy. A great big wheel of Gouda,” she said. “But true, Böna. So true.”
* * *
—
By ten o’clock we were lying in our beds, but we were too excited to sleep. “This will be my first time ever staying in a hotel,” I said.
“Actually, your second. When you were really little, Mormor took us to Harrison Hot Springs for a weekend.”
“I don’t remember.”
“What are you looking forward to most?”
“Toilet. You?”
“Bubble bath,” she replied. “I’m going to take a bubble bath every day.”
“Hot water.”
“Minibar.”
“TV.”
“Hotel sheets.”
“Electrical outlets.”
In the distance, I heard a car engine. A loud one, like a sports car.
“Free Wi-Fi.”
“Heat.”
The car got closer. I waited for it to pass.
“The little soaps and shampoos and lotions; I’m going to tuck them into my bag every day so they keep giving us new ones.”
“Thick towels.”
The car pulled into the parking lot.
Right next to our van.
Astrid flipped off her headlamp. We both went dead quiet.
Car doors opened and closed. Footsteps.
“Hey. Hey in there.” A voice that sounded a lot like Barry’s. Except slurring.
We held our breath.
“Come on, sweetheart. We know you’re in there. We saw a light.”
I lay rigid in my bunk.
We were both absolutely quiet.
“I don’t think she’s here,” said the other voice. Presumably Silvio. Also slurring.
Then I hiccuped. “Hic!”
No! Not now!
“I heard something,” said Silvio.
“Come on, let us in. We just want to say hi.” We could hear them moving around the van. “I think I see someone,” Barry said. He was trying to peer through the windows.
Then he tried opening the doors.
They were locked, of course. He started pounding rhythmically on the side of the van.
I hiccuped again, but it didn’t matter, because Astrid had had enough. “Get away from here or I’m calling the cops!” she shouted.
The banging stopped.
I felt a rush of relief.
It didn’t last.
“I knew you were in there! We brought a bottle of bourbon. Let’s party!”
Below me I could hear Astrid rustling through her jacket pocket. “Stay calm, Felix. I’m going to start the van,” she said quietly. “And if I run one of those turd brains over, the world will be a better place.”
One of the men started to tap quietly on the window, which was almost creepier than the banging. “Open up.”
Astrid scrambled into the driver’s seat and I climbed down and got into the passenger seat. I was so scared, my whole body was shaking.
Astrid must have been scared, too, because she dropped the key.
“Hey, there you are! Hi, beautiful!” Barry pressed his face against the driver’s-side window, which made him look even scarier. He was stumbling drunk.
Astrid found the key. Her hands were shaking but she got it into the ignition. She turned it.
It wouldn’t start. “Förgrymmat också!”
The van started to rock. Barry and Silvio had taken positions on either side and were pushing it back and forth. Astrid tried to start the van again. Still nothing.
Suddenly Mel the tomte tipped forward from the dashboard, right into my hands. I held him tight.
Please, please, protect us right now, Mel! I thought. If you do nothing else for us, do this!
My phone landed in my lap.
Now, maybe it had just fallen from the bunk above due to the rocking.
But I prefer to believe it was Mel.
He looked at me with his beady eyes and I knew exactly what to do.
I called 911.
November 27, 4:00 a.m.
“You and your partner arrived five minutes later, Constable Lee. And instead of arresting the bad guys, you arrested us. And here we are.” I swept an arm around the police station.
Constable Lee took her feet off her desk and leaned toward me. Her eyes were watery, and my P.O.O. told me either I’d made her sad, or she suffered from allergies. “That was an incredible story, Felix. I’m really sorry for everything you and your mom have been going through.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
“I want you to know, we’re still looking for those creeps. And you and your mom are not under arrest. We brought you down here partly for your own protection.”
“And partly because the van was reported stolen five days ago.”
“Running license plates is a routine part of our job.”
“I wish Abelard had stayed in India forever.”
“From what you’ve told me about him? I wish he had, too.” She flashed a smile.
“He’s not to be trusted.”
“I promise I’ll keep that in mind. But in the meantime, we need to figure out what to do with you.”
Fear gripped my stomach and squeezed. I let out an SBD—a Silent But Deadly fart—and could do nothing but give Constable Lee an apologetic look when the room started to reek. “Please don’t call the MCFD.”
“They’ve already been notified.”
“What? No! Haven’t you heard a word I’ve said? They’ll send me to a foster home. I don’t want to go to a foster home.”
She rolled her chair closer to mine. “Felix. I know your mom has had her own experiences with the ministry. And it’s true that separating families was much more common when she was young. But nowadays the goal is to try to keep families together. And that’s what happens, even in far less ideal situations than yours.”
“So…you won’t sep
arate us?”
“It’s not my call to make. But I highly doubt it.” She clicked her pen a few times. “That said, you can’t go back to the van. Not if it doesn’t belong to you.”
I was about to say that Abelard was a liar, and that the van did belong to us.
But I stopped.
Because I wasn’t sure it was true.
In fact, if I really thought about it, Abelard, who’d always been a self-centered leech, was not the kind of guy to just give my mom his van.
“If we don’t go back there, where do we go?”
She didn’t answer. She was looking at something, or someone, behind her. I turned to follow her gaze. A guy with a bushy beard and a turban was walking toward us.
Constable Lee smiled. “Felix, this is the social worker from the MCFD.” Then she whispered to me, “Vijay’s my favorite. I think you’ll like him.”
* * *
—
Vijay and I spent almost an hour together in a small office off the main room. At first I didn’t want to talk to him at all. But when he told me he’d already spoken to my mom, I had to ask. “Is she mad at me?”
“Why would she be mad at you?”
“Because I called the police.”
“She’s not mad. You did the right thing.”
I wanted to believe that. “But I made bad things happen.”
“Like what?”
“Like losing the van, and getting people like you involved.”
“People like me?”
“Ministry people.”
He stroked his beard. “Your mom told me she had a bad experience with the ministry, growing up.”
I nodded. “She’s a good mom. Not perfect. But she tries really hard. And she loves me, and I love her.” A massive lump formed in my throat. I had to squeeze out the next words. “Please don’t take me away from her.” I willed myself not to cry, but a couple of stray tears leaked out anyway.
Vijay leaned forward. “Felix, I would consider removal only if I thought you were in harm’s way, and nothing I have seen indicates that. Okay?”
The floodgates opened. I bawled my eyes out.
* * *
—
The rest of my talk with Vijay went okay. He asked me a lot of questions, like “What school do you go to? Who are your teachers? What subjects do you like best? What are your biggest worries and concerns?”
I was honest with him. I told him I worried a lot about what would happen to us.
“What do you feel would be the best help for you and your mom right now?”
“That’s easy. A decent place to live.”
“Do you have any relatives?”
“Just Daniel, my dad.” I told him a little bit about Daniel: that he lived in Toronto, and that he was broke, too.
“Any friends who might take in you and your mom?”
I thought about that. Dylan’s parents would probably let me stay there for a while; but me and my mom? Winnie’s apartment barely held the three of them. “Not really.”
He jotted things down in a leather notebook.
“What’s going to happen to us?” I asked.
“For the immediate future, I will work with another agency to try to get you temporary accommodation somewhere, either in a family shelter or a hotel.”
“A nice hotel?”
“As I say, it would be temporary,” he said, not answering my question. Which was pretty much an answer in itself.
“How long would it take to find something more permanent?”
“Sometimes it only takes a few months. Sometimes it takes closer to a year.”
“So we could spend a year in a not-nice hotel.”
“I’m just telling it to you straight.”
My heart was pounding really fast. “Did my mom tell you we already have a nice hotel room for a week? Starting today?”
“She did.”
“Can we go?”
He smiled. “You don’t need to ask my permission, Felix. Of course you should go. It’s an amazing opportunity. Who, What, Where, When is one of my favorite shows.”
“Really?”
“Sure. I can’t believe you get to meet Horatio Blass in person.”
We wrapped up a few minutes later. When Vijay opened the door, I heard raised voices. Familiar voices.
My mom. And Abelard.
* * *
—
Abelard’s cheek had two fresh red scratch marks. I was pretty sure I knew who’d made them. “You never had the right to take it in the first place!” he said.
“It’s the least you owed me after all your months of freeloading,” Astrid snarled. “God, why did you have to come back from India, you turd!”
“Cut it out, you two,” said Constable Lee. She was standing between them, and she looked exhausted.
Astrid caught sight of me. “Felix!”
I hurried over to her. She was in her version of pajamas: gray sweatpants and her old GIRLS JUST WANNA HAVE FUN…DAMENTAL RIGHTS T-shirt. She put a protective arm around my shoulder. Abelard glared at me, and I glared right back.
“Let’s go over what we agreed on,” said Constable Lee. “You, Abelard, are not going to press charges—”
“Not for stealing the van. But I might charge her with assault.” He touched his cheek.
“Just try it,” I said. “If you do, I’ll show the cops video evidence of you hitting her.”
That shut Abelard right up. It was true that he’d hit her a few times, but it was not true that I had video evidence. I confess I felt proud of myself; I’d just told a convincing lie, somewhere between a No One Gets Hurt and a Someone Might Lose an Eye.
“And you, Astrid,” Constable Lee continued, “have agreed to remove your belongings from the van immediately.”
“Fine. Yes.”
“Abelard, we’ll contact you when the van is ready for pickup.”
“I’ll wait,” he said.
“No,” said Constable Lee, pushing her face close to his. “You won’t.”
Abelard left. Astrid and I were escorted to the underground garage, where the van was parked. We spent the next hour packing up our stuff. Constable Lee helped. “You can store some of this at the station,” she said. “Until you know your next steps.”
“Thanks,” I said.
I poked Astrid, who echoed a half-hearted “Yeah, thanks.”
Constable Lee left us to finish up. Astrid and I kept packing in silence.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
“For what?”
“If I hadn’t called the police…”
She gripped my shoulders. “If you hadn’t called the police, who knows what those men would have done? To me…to you…” She tilted my chin up, but not very far; in the past four months I’d grown almost as tall as her. “You did the right thing.” Then she pulled me into a hug. She held me for so long, I started to squirm.
“Stand guard,” Astrid said when she finally let me go.
“Why?”
“Just do it. Please.”
She grabbed our tool kit and lifted the passenger seat, where the Westfalia’s battery is kept.
It took her two minutes to remove it. She smashed it on the ground a couple of times. Then she crossed the parking garage and dumped the battery into a big blue dumpster, wiping her hands on her sweatpants. “My parting gift, Abelard. Namaste.”
* * *
—
When we were done packing, we took one last look through the van to make sure we hadn’t left anything behind. I peered under the seats, and a flash of red caught my eye.
Mel. I pulled him out and brushed him off and put him in my hoodie pocket.
Astrid and I stood gazing at the Westfalia. “This van’s been good to us,” she said.
/>
“It has.”
“Been our home for four months.”
“Yup.”
I don’t know what was going through Astrid’s mind. But even though I had no idea what the future held, I know what was going through mine.
Good riddance.
Astrid and I had been awake for just over twenty-four hours. We had two hours before we were supposed to be picked up outside Mr. Poplowski’s law office on Broadway.
We used the police station washrooms to change out of our pajamas and freshen up as best we could. Constable Lee was going off shift, so she offered to drive us to the address on Broadway in her Kia. No questions asked.
After we climbed out, she handed Astrid her card through the window. “Call any time. And, Felix, I’m rooting for you. I’ll be sure to tune in tomorrow night.”
She drove away.
Astrid couldn’t help herself; she snorted like a pig.
“Seriously?” I said.
“Sorry. Old habit.”
We stood together in the doorway. “Felix,” she said. She looked at me, and I looked at her. And as crazy as it may sound, I swear that for the first time ever, we successfully thought-messaged each other. I have no idea what will happen next. And I’m sorry.
Let’s not think about that now, I thought-messaged back. Let’s just enjoy the week.
A black limousine pulled up to the curb. A driver in a blazer and cap stepped out. “Felix and Astrid Knutsson?”
We nodded. He took our bags and put them in the trunk, then opened the back door for us like we were somebodies. We looked at each other, wide-eyed. And I swear we thought-messaged each other again, this time with just one word: Cool.
* * *
—
There were snacks in the limo. And drinks. I hadn’t eaten since the Cheezies at the police station. We tore open bags of almonds, granola bars and chips. The windows were tinted, and we pretended we were movie stars, waving at our imaginary fans.
It took us less than ten minutes to get to the hotel. “Excuse me, sir?” Astrid said. “Do you have an extra few minutes?”