Chapter 7

Chapter 7

Friday

“How long have you guys been walking?” he asked us

“About 2 days sir. My legs are so sore I don’t think I could walk any more” Katie told him, she sounded as if she were a lost child.

“If I may ask, where are you headed?”

“Florida” Red told him

“Why?”

“My brothers and I were going to meet our grandfather and we lost our bus tickets and didn’t have enough to get there, so we decided to hitchhike”

“Why didn’t you call you’ parents?”

“They went on vacation the day before we left”

“Strange time to go visiting” he said, “you know…During the middle of school”

“Fall break” I told him

“I see” the man said to us, “By the way, my name’s Charlie”

            We didn’t say anything after that, Katie rested her head in Red’s lap and fell asleep after a few minutes Red fell asleep. I leaned against the cold glass window of the cherry red station wagon, thinking this was all too real. It didn’t take long to fall asleep, the constant lull of the motor and Katie’ quiet sighs had a calming effect that made me tired.

            When I woke up the car was parked in a gas station. I could see Charlie inside paying the gas attendant. I checked my watch, it was about 3 in the morning. Looking over at Red his head was tilted upward as he slept. Katie was still in his lap closer to his stomach for human warmth.

            I rested back down trying not to touch the cold glass window. Just seconds away from falling asleep I heard a car door slam. It woke me up as well as Katie. The car drove for a few minutes then it stopped in front of a “Thank you for coming, please stop by again!” sign.

“Red” I quietly said, he opened his eyes and looked around. Seeing the sign his shoulders slumped.

We got out of the then I closed the car door and we watched him turn around and drive back the way we had come.

“Where do you think the next bus station is?” I asked Red

“I don’t know, I can’t think too good when I’m tired”

“Let’s walk a little ways down the road, maybe we can find a rest stop or an abandoned barn we can sleep in” Katie told us.

“Yeah come on, I’m tired” I told them.

            We walked and walked down the long gravel road not needing any flash light, since the moon was full and bright. I don’t know when I had ever walked so long and far in my life. My legs were starting to go numb, either form the cold or the movement. And the sad thing is we hadn’t even walked more than 2 miles. It felt like it was going to take forever to find Scott.

 I didn’t like walking and not talking to Katie and Red, so I tried to start a conversation.

“You think the moon is really made of cheese?” I asked

Red looked up at the sky, “If it is, it would probably be stale by now”

“Come on you guys if it was, don’t you think Russia and America would try to bring it down to solve world hunger?” Katie told us

“If they did bring it down then the waves would stop. There’d be a lot of unhappy surfers” I said, reminded of a beach movie I had once seen.

“They probably have people working on something to take its place”

“This is just stupid” Katie mumbled, “Were talking about cheese being on the moon”

“You think it’s somewhere else?” Red asked

“I once herd of a guy who paid a whole hunk ‘a money for some cheese that was 200 years old” I added

“Must have been from the moon” Red kidded

            We heard a car behind us, it must have been full of kids because we heard laughing and yelling. Turning around I saw it was a truck, there were 4 teenagers in the front and 5 others in the back. We kept walking, they pulled over next to us and slowed down not coming to a stop.

“Hey, you guys need a ride?” one of them said from the front. He wore a brown leather jacket and his blonde hair was slicked back.

“Sure” I heard myself saying

“Hop in the back, the name’s Kenneth”

            The car stopped long enough for us to get into the back. Then it sped off again. The icy wind that was blowing in my face felt so cold it was hot. None of the other people talked for a while. Then one-a girl-spoke up.

“My name’s Christy”

“Brady” I said to her

“What’s a little squirt like you doing out here?” Christy asked me

“Were heading for Louisiana” Red told her

“Yeah? And who are you?” Christy asked. Her jean jacket collar flapped against her pale cheeks along with her light brown hair.

“Red”

She smiled softly, “You kids look no older than 16” she stopped, “What are you doing traveling to Louisiana?”

I looked at Katie, who shrugged as if she didn’t care what I told them, “Were on the run from someone”

“And were 17” I added. I hated looking younger than most boys do.

Christy nodded, “This here is Marty” she looked to a teenager with black hair who was wearing a sweatshirt, “Tony, the one with the red sneakers” Tony sat in the corner by the window, “The red head there is Tiff, and Josh there next to Red” all the boy’s had the same long slicked back greasy hair, “The four in there are Kenneth, Julie, Scout, and Max”

“I’m Katie” Katie told her, since they had all introduced themselves

“So where are you going?” I asked her

Marty spoke for her, “Anywhere kid, we got nothing to do nowhere to go. We do anything we please, and nobody cares”

“How do you have enough money?” Katie asked

“My pop’s loaded, I’m the only child and no one else lives in my house. My dad doesn’t care what I do, just as long as I leave him alone. Half the time I can’t even tell if he knows I’m there” Tony told us

“Well still, if you’re gone for weeks at a time he would now that you’re gone” I said

            Tony just shrugged as if it wouldn’t matter in the first place.

“So what are you guys running from?” Josh asked

“An orphanage” Red told him

Tiff leaned forward, “You mean ‘Miss Jones home For the Children’?”

            My head darted towards her and I nodded,”How’d you know?”

“I got out of that joint a few years ago, I was sick of that old hag and got the heck out of there” she stopped and said, “That’s when this group found me and took me in”

“So where do you guys sleep?”

“We have a couple of sleeping bags we keep in the car, it may not sound so good to you, but to us it is part of our life” Christy said

“Don’t you want to do anything” Katie asked her,”Something you’ve always wanted to do?”

Christy was silent for a moment, the others in the group looked at her waiting for an answer, she nodded and said, “I sort of dig photography”

            I smiled, I was beginning to like this bunch. They seemed as if they were the outcasts and yet they didn’t care because they had each other. We went back and forth asking questions to each other questions about their lives ours, and other things.

            The car started to slow and then it turned down a long bumpy road that seemed to last for hours. When the truck stopped the others hopped out so we did the same. The truck had pulled up to a large barn. It looked as if it had been abandoned years ago. The windows were broken and the white paint was decaying. One of the doors to the old barn was missing, inside contained lots of scrap metal and old car parts, there was also a loft that had been emptied of hay and replaced by a couch that was torn apart by a raccoon or some other animal. We all went inside the dimly lit barn. Tony and Josh had pulled out flash lights and waved them around.

“What are you doing?” I asked

“Looking for stuff” Christy answered 

“Like what?”

“Old watches, deer antlers, stuff like that”

“Why do you want anything like that?”

“Look, even though Tony’s dad is loaded and all that, we still like to earn our own money. We find some things that can be worth a little money.” She paused, “It’s a lot of fun, want to help us?”

“Sure” Katie said

“Okay, you go check up there in the loft with Red, me and Brady will search outside”

Christy led me outside the barn where she got out a flashlight and pointed it towards the ground right next to the barn then a couple of feet away from it. She went back and forth all the way around the barn, occasionally bending down and brushing away moss. Not finding anything she stood and went on. Not accomplishing anything by doing this we went back inside. By now everyone was sitting down in a circle with the flashlights in the middle to light the barn. Christy tossed hers in and sat down and pulled me with her.

“What you guy’s find?” she asked

“I found a jar full of old coins, the kind that say ‘once cent’ on the back” Josh said, he held up the half-filled jar of coins and tossed it to Christy. She opened it up and took out a handful of the coins, all of them had ‘one cent’ on the back like Josh said.

“Nice” and Christy tossed them back to him

            I saw Katie, Red, and Kenneth looking at something in Katie’s hand. I’m pretty sure they were just old photos because Katie never mentioned them to me again.

“That it you guys?” Marty asked, everyone gave a nod or a ‘yeah’.

“Do you think it’s safe to bunk down here for the night and give the kids a ride Scout?” I heard Tiff ask.

“It looks okay, clear a spot, no one goes up into that loft, might be bed bugs up there” he said. Scout was tall and muscular. He had Black hair that was slicked back and could have been wavy. He wore a camping jacket that smelled of smoke, “you three sleep in the back of the truck, and someone should sleep in the front”

            By ‘you three’ he meant Katie, Red, and I. There was a distrust in his voice when he spoke to us, like he thought we would steal the car and leave them here.

“I’ll sleep in the front” Kenneth said. He stood, along with Katie and Red. When they walked past me I stood up too.

“Hey! Bring the sleeping bags in here!” Tony called to us

            We climbed into the truck and lay down in the corner by the small window.

“Here’s a blanket for ya’ll to share” Kenneth said, and he threw a blanket to me. I caught it and spread it over the three of us.

            We fell asleep just fine, even though we were laying on metal. There were no other noises that night, although I might have just been too tired to notice them.