100 Sideways Miles (30 page)

Unfortunately, the book was only about three feet tall, so the epileptic kid would have to curl up behind it to await his entrance cue. It made me feel like Laika inside her
Sputnik 2
.

We parked on the street beside the circular brick driveway in front of the Bishops' house, and Cade carried his puppet book up into the lawn where it would not be seen from the doorway.

“Now hide behind this and don't come out until I give you the signal,” Cade said.

“What's the signal?” I asked.

“I don't know, but you'll know it when I give it, so don't be a dumbass. I'm doing this for you and Julia. Which reminds me, maybe I should give you those condoms.”

“From your wallet? No, thanks.”

“You're stupid. Now be quiet and let me go to work.”

Cade Hernandez knocked on the front door. For good measure, he rang the doorbell, too. It was all very loud for a Sunday evening in a place like Lake Forest.

It was also probably not the best idea for Cade to simply
show up knocking at Julia's front door, because I could detect the suspicion in Mrs. Bishop's voice as soon as she saw him standing there. After all, neither one of us was dressed for an appearance in Lake Forest, after what we'd been through the day before and then spending the night inside Cade's sweatbox of a camper shell.

And hiding behind the facade of my father's book, this is what I heard:

CADE: Hi. I'm looking for Julia Bishop.

MRS. BISHOP: What do you want with Julia?

CADE: Are you Mrs. Bishop? Mrs. Bishop, my name is Cade Hernandez. Maybe Julia has told you about me?

MRS. BISHOP: Um, I don't think she has. What's this all about?

CADE: I'm a friend of hers. From California. Is she here?
(Sound of a door slamming shut)

“Idiot!” I said from inside the book. “She's probably going to call the cops.”

“Shut up!” Cade said, “That was
not
my signal.”

Then I heard something at the door, and Julia's voice filled with wonder and awe.

“What are you doing here?”

And Cade Hernandez, in perfect form, said this: “I was
driving by and needed to poo, so I was wondering if I could use your toilet.”

Julia laughed.

I assumed “needed to poo” was not Cade's signal.

“Actually, I brought something for you. A present. It's in your front yard.”

Obviously, Julia's mother was standing at the door as well, because Julia said, “It's okay, Mom. This is my friend Cade, from California.”

And Cade said, “Behold! It's the book!”

Julia said, “Oh.”

I didn't move.

Cade repeated himself. “Ahem! Behold! It's the book!”

So I pushed the cardboard flap forward and, right there on the green lawn of Julia Bishop's home in Lake Forest, Illinois, I stepped out of the book and into Julia's arms.

I am okay.

It is the fall of our senior year. The Leonid meteor shower is coming soon, as the knackery renders comet Tempel-Tuttle into something else, and something else again.

Atoms will be scattered, and the knackery never shuts down.

During the first week of school, our campus once again was decorated with California flags and banners welcoming Governor Altvatter.

“I could use some new underwear,” Cade said.

“Me too.”

At first we thought that perhaps the Burnt Mill Creek High School Pioneers had once again aced the BEST Test, but that was not the reason for the governor's visit.

In fact, our school did so poorly on the BEST Test that Mr. Baumgartner—our principal—nearly lost his job for making us so dumb. At least since the unfortunate death of Mr. Nossik the school had given up on the recurring quit missions. Cade
suggested they start a Quit Giving Our Teachers Aneurysms, Cade Hernandez, mission.

Like that was going to happen.

The actual reason for Governor Altvatter's visit to Burnt Mill Creek High School was to present Cade Hernandez and me with official commendations for being such heroes and saving two people's (and one dog's) lives in Oklahoma.

“You don't often find young people as brave as you two boys,” Governor Altvatter said once everyone quieted down after the German slap dancers ended their ridiculous performance.

Cade nodded, looked at his certificate suspiciously, and said, “Governor Altvatter, I wear size medium in underwear.”

In about thirty-six million-miles, three weeks after the Leonids, Julia Bishop is coming to visit for her Thanksgiving break from school. Since Cade Hernandez and I took our detour from Oklahoma and ended up in Julia's front yard, we have seen each other three more times.

I suppose that makes things fairly serious, although I still see myself as being too young and stupid to have sex with anyone.

Cade Hernandez agrees with the stupid part.

Laika has not reformed from the corpse-addicted dog she has always been.

And my father is writing another book.

• • •

Julia's parents overcame their uneasiness with the two sloppy-looking kids from California. They invited Cade and me in to have supper and spend the night in one of their guest rooms. Fortunately, the room had two beds, so there was no need to
build the Berlin Wall again. At first, Cade Hernandez tried to goad me into sneaking out and finding Julia's bedroom, but I was so tired, I only had to listen to his words of encouragement about three times before I evaporated into sleep.

And before I did, I said, “It's been a good trip. Thank you for bringing me here, Cade.”

That night, I dreamed of falling horses and bullfights and floods and a girl whose atoms must have been issued from the same calamities as mine, who appeared out of nowhere one sweltering morning and arrived in front of me at Burnt Mill Creek.

We left the following day, after breakfast. The good-bye I said to Julia was not nearly as devastating as the first time I'd said it, because I knew the miles between us had been rendered inconsequential. And I promised her that if she ever needed her boyfriend from California to come to Chicago and kick someone's ass, I could be there faster than the earth moved.

And Cade said that I was so romantic, it gave him a boner.

• • •

I fell asleep as Cade drove through Missouri.

As long as he had enough chewing tobacco, Cade Hernandez was tireless behind the wheel.

I don't know how long I slept, but I startled awake in the darkness when Cade slammed on his brakes and said, “Look at that fucking thing!”

Because this is what we saw: In the dark, walking along the gravel shoulder of a highway somewhere outside a place called Rolla, Missouri, was a man wearing a robe that glinted and shimmered in all the reflected light cast down onto the road bed by stars and moon, the knackery of the universe.

A set of enormous silvery wings arched up from his shoulders.

He carried a sign:

I AM THE VOICE OF GOD.

The thing turned and looked directly at us as we sat inside Cade Hernandez's truck.

Cade said, “Uh.”

“You don't by any chance hear anything? You know? In here?” I said. I drew a little circle in the air around the side of my head.

Cade Hernandez shook his head. “I don't think we should offer him a ride.”

“Probably not a good idea,” I agreed.

He gunned the engine, and we sped past the thing into the night.

I dedicated this book to my mother and father, whose disapproval of my teenage announcement that I wanted to become a writer motivated me—a true teenager, after all—to do exactly that.

Sometimes I stare out across the sky at night and, like a lot of people, I wonder where we really are and what else is out there, and especially about how fast we are going. I think I caught that wonder from my teachers—the special ones—all the way through the miles and miles between kindergarten and graduate school.

I also had much inspiration from Bowie, my daughter's heterochromatic dog, whom I would never send into space.

Also, this book would never have been written if it weren't for the following: Sleeplessness, Self-Doubt, Depression, and Anxiety. So, thank you, demons. You guys are the greatest! I don't know what I would do without you!

And finally, again, to the beehive that is Simon & Schuster: Thank you to David Gale, my editor; Justin Chanda, my publisher and a man with remarkable taste in music; Navah Wolfe, associate editor; Paul Crichton and Siena Koncsol in publicity; all the wonderful education and library people; copyeditor Lara Stelmaszyk; and Lucy Ruth Cummins, who makes books look so beautiful.

There are only a few things in this book that are actually true. Most of the places are contrivances of fiction. The most notable exception is San Francisquito Canyon, which is located in northern Los Angeles County. The canyon is very much as described in this book, and the ruins of William Mulholland's great failure still lie scattered in the creekbed at the bottom. There is no museum on the site, however, but there probably should be. As for the other places: Burnt Mill Creek and Aberdeen Lake do not exist anywhere outside the pages of this story.

Also by Andrew Smith

Winger

An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing Division

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, New York 10020

www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author's imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.