Thirteenth Child (14 page)

“Going as fast as I can.” She braked slightly.

“Don’t slow down!”

“Have to. Curve’s coming up.” Angie’s voice was clipped, her mouth set.

The yellow warning sign with the curving black arrow that marked the beginning of the bend around the lake flashed past. At the same time a stroke of lightning lit up the road and the woods beside it as if a floodlight had been turned on. It lasted only an instant, but that instant was enough.

“Stop, Mom!” Kate screamed.

Angie braked again, too hard this time. The truck took a sickening lurch toward the shoulder of the road and the trees beyond. Angie fought it back under control and brought it to a stop in a slither of gravel.

“Kate! What—?”

Kate didn’t answer. She ripped her door open and almost fell out of it. Heedless of the rain, slipping on the muddy grass underfoot, she ran toward the trees. Shining in the reflected lights of the pickup, a mangled, twisted, red and black motorcycle lay on its side at the foot of a tall oak. Just beyond it, a dark form. Ominously still. Kate fell to her knees beside it.

“No. Oh, Barney…. No!”

He had been right. You could tell when somebody was dead. His head was twisted at an impossible angle, and his eyes were open and staring into the rain as if at something only he could see.

Kate sat at one of the tables in the snack bar, methodically shredding a paper napkin.

“I let him down. When he tried to tell me … when he needed help … I let him down. I called him dumb. I called him stupid.”

The storm had passed; early morning sunlight streamed through the windows, and the air was mercifully cool, with almost a touch of autumn about it. Mike, Stacy, and Angie sat with her. The police had come and gone. Mike had returned, cleared of all suspicion. None of them had slept.

“It’s not your fault, Kate. How could you possibly have known?” Angie gently took the remnants of the napkin out of Kate’s fingers.

“I never really paid any attention to him. He
was just … Barney. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself. I never thought about him at all.”

“You had a lot to feel sorry for yourself about,” Angie answered. “It’s been a pretty rotten summer.”

“Not as rotten as it was for Barney. I had no idea he felt like that. No idea his parents were that bad. But I should have known—after that day when his father got so mad at him for working here. His father was so unreasonable—almost crazy and he must have just about killed him over that motorcycle. I should have tried to help him. But I didn’t.” She looked out the window at the empty highway.

“Barney was right about one thing, though, Mom. He was right about Dad. In spite of … in spite of everything. He does love us. I know that. I really do. I remember…. Remember when he bought me my first bike? He spent a fortune on it, then even washed it and kept it clean for me. He really spoiled me. I know he loved me.”

“Still does, Kate,” Angie said softly. “He still does. And he’s trying so hard.”

“Mom?” Kate reached for another napkin, began shredding it. Angie went to take it away, then checked herself.

“When you go to visit him again,” Kate went on, “can I go with you?”

“You certainly can,” Angie said. She stood up, then reached down to smooth Kate’s hair. “He’ll be real glad to see you.” She straightened her
shoulders. “Meantime, I’d better get to work.”

Stacy leaped to her feet. “I’ll help you.”

“You sure you feel up to it?” Angie asked.

Stacy looked at Mike and beamed. “Sure do,” she answered. “Got Mike back—I can do anything!” Then she turned serious. “I’m really sorry, Mrs. Halston, for freaking out like that last night. I was just so scared.”

Angie smiled and patted her shoulder. “Of course you were. Who wouldn’t be? Everything’s all right now, though.”

“Yes. Thank god.” She hesitated for a moment, then turned to Kate. “Whatever I can do—you know? To help?”

“Thanks, Stacy,” Kate said. She looked from her over to Mike. The two of them. What a hopeless pair. The odds were so much against them.

But then, who knew? Maybe they’d be the ones to make it. She braced herself for the pain when she let her eyes linger on Mike. Oddly, it wasn’t there anymore. Not even when Stacy touched his hand in passing.

“The worms are the worst,” Kate called after her.

Stacy looked back and grimaced. “Yeah. I bet.” She followed Angie out.

Kate stood up and went over to the window. Mike followed her.

“Kate?”

“Yes?”

“About that knife?”

She stiffened. “Yes?”

“It was an old Swiss Army knife that was rusted shut. I hadn’t been able to open it in years. I don’t know why I even had it on me.”

“Oh, Mike!” The day suddenly seemed brighter. Some of the heavy weight lifted from her. “Why on earth didn’t you tell me that?”

He shrugged. “I just got mad. Mad that you didn’t trust me. God knows why you should have, but I guess I just got my feelings hurt. Wanted to worry you—hurt you back. Like I said—I’m a jerk.”

“You’re not a jerk. I should have known better.” She turned to look out at the highway again. “So many things I should have known, should have done….” A truck whooshed past, wheels noisy on the still-wet road, then it was empty again.

“Poor Barney,” Kate whispered. “Poor Melanie.”

Mike laid a hand on her shoulder. It felt comforting.

A few weeks later Kate sat on her stool, resting. It had been a more than usually busy Saturday, and she’d been to see her dad that afternoon. The first time she’d gone it had been awkward, neither one of them had known what to say, but gradually it had gotten better. Today Steve had been full of enthusiasm about the program he was on, full of plans for the future.

“I’m going to lick it this time,” he’d said. “I
know it, Kate.” His eyes had shone with a gleam she hadn’t seen in years. He’d lost weight; his face was no longer pouchy and swollen.

He had reached out, tentatively, to hug her. Instinctively, she had started to draw back, but then, as he clasped her to him, the old, comfortable feeling of safety in his arms—the remembered, beloved from childhood smell of him—suddenly overwhelmed her. She felt tears prick her eyes. She hugged him back. And, for the first time, she allowed herself to hope.

The snack bar was momentarily empty. Summer was over, she was back at school. Mike and Stacy had settled in and were working hard, and Angie—Kate smiled to herself as she thought of her mother. Who would have thought Angie would turn into such a
boss
of a person? She had them all organized and marching around like a well-trained army. The snack bar was positively
humming!

Kate rested her chin on her hands and stared, unseeing, at the fish tank. Then, almost unconsciously, she reached under the counter for her notebook. Toward the end, when things had gotten really bad, she hadn’t been able to write at all. She’d thought she might never write again. Now she picked up her pen.

It was to be a summer of despair, tragedy, and fear,
she wrote.
But finally, for some of us, of hope. I didn’t know any of this, however, on the morning the boy slammed in through the snack-bar door.

He looked tired. He looked sick. He was trying very hard to look tough.

The noise from outside didn’t bother her. It was the clamor of the old burned-out foundation being torn down, dug up. Mike and Stacy were going to plant apple trees.

“I’ve got a knife,” he said….

Karleen Bradford is the winner of the 1992 Canadian Library Association Young Adult Book Award for
There Will Be Wolves;
the 1990 Max and Greta Ebel Award for
Windward Island;
and the Commcept Award for Best Children’s Novel for
The Other Elizabeth.
Her many novels for young readers also include
The Nine Days Queen, The Haunting at Cliff House,
and I
Wish There Were Unicorns.
A Toronto native, she has lived in England, Germany, the Philippines, Colombia and Puerto Rico. She now lives in Ottawa.

Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

Windward Island
The Nine Days Queen
The Haunting at Cliff
House Write Now!
The Stone in the Meadow
I Wish There Were Unicorns
The Other Elizabeth
Wrong Again, Robbie
There Will Be Wolves

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