Twenty
THE NIGHT AFTER Claire gave him the iPod he fell asleep listening to the Red Hot Chili Peppers, waking in the middle of the night with a headache, the buzzing in his chest so acute that he lifted his T-shirt to see what was going on. After that, he let it charge while he slept.
He wore the earbuds during the day when they couldn’t find enough for him to do or he got bored shooting baskets, and when he’d heard all the songs three times and they started cycling through again, he pushed the double dash to make it stop. On the evening of his fourteenth day in Laramie, he wrapped the earbud wires in a neat coil around the body of the iPod, laid it out in plain sight beside the computer, then waited.
Once everyone was in bed, he turned the computer on and printed out maps of Laramie, Cheyenne and the interstate to the north. There were windows on the maps, like the little clouds above a comic-book character with what they’re saying or thinking printed inside, except these had the addresses and telephone numbers of the bus stations in each town.
He’d checked it all out on the computer the week before, and he had to be at the bus station in Laramie by three-thirty in the morning to buy his ticket. He’d ride the bus to Denver and change to another to come back up through Wyoming to Gillette, where he had to change again, not getting to Sheridan until almost ten o’clock that night. Almost eighteen hours, and it had only taken Rodney six hours to drive from Ishawooa to Laramie, but there weren’t any alternatives he could think of. He guessed it was because most people had cars of their own, and only really, really poor people, or kids who wanted to get home, took the bus. He’d never been to Denver and was excited to see it, if a little afraid he’d mess up somehow, having no firsthand experience with public transportation. He wasn’t worried about the change in Gillette. He’d been there before and thought a monkey could change buses in Gillette. He thought he’d figure out how to get to the ranch after that.
He turned the computer off, dusting it and the printer and the tables and shelves with a sock. Then he stripped the bed and wadded the sheets on the floor by the door and folded the blanket into a perfect square, centering it at the foot of the mattress. He placed the pillow on top, then packed.
He cracked the door open, listening until his legs started to quiver, and when he was sure they were all asleep he crept downstairs with his backpack, the dirty sheets under his arm. He put them in the hamper and tiptoed into the kitchen, where he didn’t need to turn on a light with the yellow glow from the streetlamp pouring in through the window over the sink.
He made two sandwiches with the lunchmeat and cheese he found in the refrigerator, stuffing them both into a single Ziploc baggy and slipping that into an outside pocket of his backpack. He got an apple and put that in too. Then he found the pad and pen by the phone and sat at the kitchen table, thinking about what to write. He wanted them to know he appreciated everything they’d done for him. He thought writing it longhand in pen was better than printing it out on the computer—more personal, like they were friends.
Thank you, very much, he wrote. I had a wonderful time. It is a good thing to know I have a brother and sister, and a spare father and mother. Your house is nice and quiet even though you live in a city. I will have lots of stories to tell from this adventure, and good times to remember. Don’t worry because I know how to get home. I paid attention on the trip here. Good-bye, Kenneth.
He left the note on the kitchen table, where it would be the first thing they saw when they came down for breakfast. He checked the LCD display on the microwave and it was only just after midnight. He was too excited to know if he was sleepy.
He emptied his pockets and counted out the money on the counter by the sink. This was the third time, but he wanted to make sure he hadn’t made a mistake. McEban had given him two fifty-dollar bills, and he’d saved seventy-three dollars from his allowance, all in ones, a thick roll held tight with a rubber band. The computer had said the bus ticket would cost a hundred and four dollars, and he laid out the two fifties and four ones, stacking twenty singles for expenses beside it. He folded the last forty-nine dollars, doubling the rubber band around it, lifted up his pants leg and stuffed it down the top of his boot. He put the money for the ticket in his shirt pocket, the traveling money in his jeans.
He thought leaving cash for the food he was taking might be insulting, so he dug in the bottom of his backpack for the empty Copenhagen can McEban had let him have. He popped the lid off and pinched the top layer of Kleenex away and lifted the arrowhead out, a long, tapering point made of moss agate that he held up to the light over the sink. Then he set it on top of the note and added a postscript.
This is mine and I’d like you to have it. I found it when I was six and one half on top of the Bighorns, but I can’t tell you exactly where. It is a secret. I made two sandwiches. Kenneth again.
After taking a hard look at everything in the kitchen so he could recreate the room for McEban, he slipped out the door, and stood under a shade tree by the garage, watching the street. It was empty. He whispered the full content of the lies he thought he might have to use to get home, to reassure himself he had them firmly in his memory. His mother had told him once that it wasn’t lying if you told people what they wanted to hear, so he’d lain in bed at night thinking about every problem a ten-year-old boy might encounter on an eighteen-hour bus trip, all the questions he might be asked, making lists of the answers he thought people would want to hear. He didn’t kid himself about them not being lies.
Then he picked up his basketball from where he’d left it on the edge of the driveway.