Survival Strategies of the Almost Brave (11 page)

“Don't be silly. That's my job.” She plucked the oatmeal from my hands and gave me a cheery smile. “Now, where are you seated?”

I pointed to Billie. “Right there, with my little sister.”

Obediently, I followed Apron Lady.

She set our bowls on the table. “Why, hello there,” she said to Billie. “Are you enjoying your breakfast this morning?”

Billie nodded, her mouth overflowing with pastry.

“That's nice. We aim to please.” She smiled again, looking around the room for our parents, I imagined.

I smiled and waved at an older man who balanced three muffins on a plate, hoping she would think he was our dad. “Thanks so much,” I said to the lady.

Apron Lady glanced at the man and then at us; I could almost see her computing everything in her brain. Then, as if everything checked out okay, she smiled at me. “Well, let me know if I can get you anything else.”

“Okay,” I said, my eyes following her back to the buffet table as she arranged more muffins. Just being here around all these people made me nervous.

“So good,” said Billie between mouthfuls.

I pushed a bowl of oatmeal toward her. “Here, eat this, too. It's good for you.”

Billie stuffed another piece of banana into her mouth, so blissful in the land of Endless Breakfast that she barely noticed me. She was actually humming.

I reached down into our plastic bag, grabbed the coins floating around the bottom, and stuck them in my pocket.

“Billie,” I said. I shoved another spoonful of oatmeal into my mouth and swallowed. “Billie.”

“What?”

“I've got to go to the bathroom. I'll be right back.”

She nodded, not even questioning that we had just been in the bathroom. This was the perfect time for me to call Julie without Billie getting hyperdramatic. I grabbed my notebook from under the table. After last night's meltdown I had tried to memorize Julie's phone number, but I still needed it, just in case my brain wouldn't cooperate.

The phone was just around the corner, so while dialing I kept my ears pricked up for anything unusual going on in the breakfast room. Billie would surely make noise if anyone bothered her. I dialed Julie's cell phone number again and my stomach began to churn—the oatmeal I had just put inside threatened to come out.

Please be there.

It rang and then picked up, but the same thing happened as the night before. Julie's cheerful voice on the voice mail telling me to leave her a message and she'd call me back. For a second I wanted to cry, just like Billie, but then the phone beeped and I knew I had to do a better job of leaving her information than I had last night. I opened my notebook to where I had stuck a free map I picked up near the front desk. Sometimes the best strategy is to be prepared, so I told her exactly where we were, even the telephone number of the hotel, before the voice mail cut off.

Then I called her home phone and left another message. I had covered everything. There was no way she could miss my messages.

I hung the phone in the cradle. It was fine. Everything was fine. Julie always had her cell phone except when she was at work; she was probably working a night shift or something. I should feel satisfied now that someone knew we were here. Someone who would come and find us. I should feel so much better—so why didn't I? After two months in the desert with my dad, I was beginning to recognize that feeling of uneasiness, like someone had drawn a crooked line along my spine with a stretched, cold finger. Instinct was trying to tell me something.

I stared at the breakfast room door, worried that something had happened to Billie. I spun around and bumped straight into someone sitting behind me in a wheelchair. Someone I couldn't possibly forget. It was Orson, like a huge roasted marshmallow, wrinkled and brown; he sat just staring at me.

And right behind him was the Lavender Lady.

“Excuse me,” I stuttered, trying to get out of their way.

The Lavender Lady didn't even glance in my direction; she was too busy marching toward the front desk. But Orson's cloudy eyes locked onto mine, like an owl with night vision capability, but instead of seeing in the dark, he could see right into me. Like he knew everything—the hijacked car ride, the pee, the stolen money. Somehow he knew it all.

I took a step back, trying to camouflage myself with a potted plant.

The Lavender Lady pushed his wheelchair past me and parked it near the front desk, but Orson's head wrenched back, staring, not letting me free. Slowly, I inched toward the door.

The Lavender Lady slammed her hand on the front desk. “I demand to see the manager,” she declared to the teenager reading a book behind the counter.

The girl jumped. “My manager's not in right now.” She closed the book, but held her place with her finger. “Is there anything I can help you with?”

“There most certainly is! I've been robbed. I'm certain it was one of your employees.”

The potted plant behind me tipped over. The Lavender Lady barely noticed. But Orson still stared.

The girl behind the counter dropped her book and glanced around in a panic. “Hold on a sec,” she said, before she disappeared behind the counter where the little door was. I set the pot upright, scooped up the dirt, and dumped it back in. All the while, my cheeks and face burned. How could I sit here and let her accuse someone else of stealing when I knew that most of her money, the part I hadn't spent yet, sat in a plastic bag underneath Billie's dirty feet?

“They're getting the manager,” the Lavender Lady said to Orson.

Orson turned to her and mumbled something.

“Manager,”
she said again.

Orson looked agitated. He stared at me, and his mouth formed words only he could understand.

The Lavender Lady's lips set into a grim line as she tucked her purse tightly beneath her arm. I felt sorry for the girl behind the counter, but there was no way I wanted the Lavender Lady's anger beam pointed at me.

Orson raised his arm in my direction, mumbling louder.

The Lavender Lady patted his shoulder. “I know this is upsetting, but we're just going to wait and get this whole thing sorted out.
Orson. Just wait.
”

 

Survival Strategy #24:

RUN

I ran into the breakfast room, almost knocking into two kids at the juice machine, and slid into my seat next to Billie. My heart thumped so violently that it felt like it might jump right out onto her almost empty plate. Billie glanced at me and then at her plate, disgusted, like its near emptiness was my fault.

“What took you so long?” she asked.

“Nothing.”

“Get me another blueberry muffin,” she said, like she was the queen of everything.

I stared at the door, waiting for the Lavender Lady to come charging through to shake me until I had returned every cent of her money.

“Another muffin,” demanded Billie.

I glanced at her. “You've had enough. No more muffins. Come on,” I said, pulling on her arm. “We've got to go.”

“What? Why? I'm not finished.”

“Yes you are. That's, like, your third plate. Hurry,” I hissed as I pulled her out of her seat.

“No!” said Billie. “I'm not ready yet. Who made you the boss?”

People were beginning to stare.

I sat back down. “Billie, stop it. You know why I'm in charge. I'm older.”

Billie played with a kiwi on her plate, her eyebrows pushed down low over her eyes. “It's not fair,” she said. “You're so bossy.”

I should have sat and listened. I should have been patient. I should have just let her have her way. But then a man walked up to our table. At first I didn't recognize him, but when I imagined him in a bathrobe with messed-up hair, then I knew exactly who he was: the guy we woke up last night in the hallway when Billie screamed like a howler monkey.

“Aren't you the girls I saw last night in the hallway?” he asked, squinting to get a better look at us.

I pretended he wasn't there.

Billie looked pale.

“Yes,” he said, as if he had made a decision. “It was you.” He looked around the breakfast room, his eyes narrowing. “I'd like to speak to your parents.”

I stared at the white carnation on the table, tucked between the salt and pepper, and willed him to disappear.

“Which ones are they?” he asked, scanning the room.

I jumped up. “You can't.”

“Oh, really?” His face twisted into an awkward smile, like his lips weren't used to being happy. “And why not?”

“Because they went to the bathroom,” I said, hoping I sounded believable.

He folded his arms across his chest. “Then I'll just wait.” He smirked and stood right in front of our table, so close I could smell the coffee and cigarettes on his breath.

Suddenly, Apron Lady was there, standing right next to the man with her arms folded over her large, aproned chest. “Can I help you?” she asked. She was as wide as he was tall, so she felt more intimidating.

“I don't think so,” he said, still trying to look friendly, but the way he grasped the spoon in his right hand wouldn't let me believe it.

“I'll be the judge of that. What are you doing with these girls?”

He ran his hands through his hair, his smile now gone, replaced by a sneer. “I'm waiting to speak to these girls' parents. Last night they woke me up in the middle of the night screaming and carrying on in the hallway. I want to have a few words with the people who let their children run around like wild animals. In. The. Middle. Of. The. Night!” He jabbed the air with his spoon just for emphasis.

Apron Lady turned and bent low to face Billie and me. “Is this true?” she asked, like he had just accused us of landing a spaceship in the parking lot.

I shook my head.

Billie nodded.

I stood now, my legs jelly, and pointed at Billie. “We were…” My arm shook as I stretched it toward the man. “He was…”

Billie now stood right behind me, her face buried in my T-shirt.

Apron Lady looked at me with worry in her eyes, laced with a smidgen of curiosity. I should tell her what happened to Billie and me. About being left by Dad. About being all alone. Maybe I could.

“I…” I hesitated, my body vibrating with adrenaline.

“If you don't do something about this reckless behavior in your hotel, then I certainly will,” interrupted the man, grabbing hold of my arm. “I'm not leaving until I've talked to this girl's parents.”

And just in that moment, I made a choice, like many hunted animals do, acting out of pure instinct. First, I kicked the man in the knee as hard as I could. Second, I grabbed Billie by the hand.

“Oh, oh, oh!” he yelled as his knees buckled and he fell to the floor. And just for a split second, out of the corner of my eye, I saw pure shock on Apron Lady's face as we bolted out of the breakfast room and into the lobby where the Lavender Lady still sat complaining to a brand-new person holding an official-looking clipboard. Everyone turned and stared.

“Run!” I yelled to Billie over my shoulder.

She stumbled and tripped as I pulled her behind me, my grip like a boa constrictor's. We tumbled through the front door and ran for the road that welcomed us back with a sun-scorched hello. Our reply was the sound of Billie's one bare foot as it slapped the pavement.

 

Survival Strategy #25:

HIDE

“Stop,” said Billie after about five minutes of sprinting. She was panting so hard, I could barely understand her.
“Pleeease,”
she said, falling onto her knees, sucking in huge gulps of air.

I slowed down. There was no noise of anyone chasing after us—no yelling, or running, or pounding feet. So I stopped, too, throwing myself down next to her on the little patch of grass in front of a Texaco gas station.

Billie lay facedown in the grass, mumbling something.

“What?” I asked, crawling closer. Still worried there were people after us, I looked down the sidewalk in the direction of the hotel, but a large group of hedges made it impossible to see. But I couldn't hear anyone. And I couldn't get that man's creepy smile out of my mind. Why was he so determined to get us in trouble? The press of his fingers still haunted my arm.

Billie mumbled again.

“What?” I asked, pulling her over so I could hear.

She was as red as a Starburst. She pulled some grass out of her mouth. “When's Julie coming?”

She looked so pathetic, I couldn't possibly tell her I didn't know. “Soon.”

“When?” she asked.

“Pretty soon.”

Then I heard the clack of footsteps coming down the sidewalk from where we had been. “Come on,” I said, pulling Billie up.

“What?”

“Someone's coming.”

Now I could see legs and shoes. Tan pants and black shiny shoes. Was it that guy from the hotel? I couldn't remember what he was wearing—only the spoon he had held in his hand.

“Come on,” I whispered. Billie and I jogged toward the side of the gas station building and hid behind a parked car.

Billie's face was pinched, just like when the doctor had told us about Mom. I was so tired of that look on her face, I could hardly stand it.

“I'm sure it's just a random person,” I said, forcing a smile and trying to make my voice sound happy. “I'm just being safe, okay?”

Billie nodded, peering at the sidewalk from behind me.

Then he appeared. His hands were on his hips as he glared down the road, then at the sidewalk, and finally he scowled at the gas station. His eyes zeroed in on the car we hid behind. It was him. The crazy Spoon Guy from the hotel.

I pulled Billie back against the wall. “I can't believe it,” I said.

“Believe what?” asked Billie.

I guided her toward the back of the gas station. “It's that guy from the hotel.”