“Yeah, in Mursey. But that’s a tristate news channel. There were more than enough people watching to catch us.”
The car bounces and jitters along the gravelly road. My teeth clack against each other. My mind is spinning. We gotta do something. More than just get out of Mursey—we gotta make sure we ain’t recognized.
“We gotta ditch the car.”
“What?” Agnes squeaks.
“They said the license plate number on the news,” I tell her. “We gotta ditch the car.”
“How will we get anywhere?”
“We’ll get a new car.”
“Where?” she asks. “How?”
I don’t answer. I ain’t sure yet.
Then I see a house up ahead. A little gray house with a metal fence and a yellow Lab in the yard. Out front, an old man is sitting on his porch, drinking something out of a mason jar. Tea, maybe. Or beer, even though it’s early. A clock never stopped none of my family from drinking.
But it’s the car in his driveway that catches my eye. An old piece of junk, really. It’s gray and boxy and the doors are dented all to hell.
I slow the Chevy down.
“What are you doing?” Agnes asks.
I roll down the window. “Excuse me, sir?”
The man don’t notice us at first. He just keeps drinking and tapping his foot on the concrete steps of his porch. Maybe he’s blind, like Agnes. Or deaf. Or maybe he’s just ignoring me.
I shove my palm into the steering wheel and the horn blares. Next to me, Agnes jumps and covers her ears with her hands.
The man looks up this time.
“Sir,” I holler out the window. “Sorry to bother you.”
Oh Lord, I hope he ain’t seen us on TV.
“Yes? Can I help you with something, darlin’?”
“You sure can.” I try to sound sweet, the way Agnes does, but it don’t taste right in my mouth. It sounds like I’m being sarcastic or mean or mocking.
The old man gets to his feet. He adjusts his ball cap before walking—real slow—down the steps and toward the road.
“Bo,” Agnes says in my ear. “What are you doing?”
“What is it you need, sweetheart?” The old man leans forward, resting his weight against the fence. Behind him, the yellow dog is running from one side of the yard to the other. Back and forth. Over and over.
I keep my sweet smile on and gesture toward the old piece of shit in his driveway.
“I’d like to buy that car from you,” I say. “Right now. If it runs.”
“Bo,” Agnes says through gritted teeth. “What the hell?”
I ignore her and keep my eyes on the old man. “What do you say? Let me take the piece of junk off your hands.”
“Sorry, sweetheart. That car ain’t for sale,” he says.
“Come on. I’d be doing you a favor.”
“That’s one of the first Plymouth Reliant Ks ever made. It’s an antique.”
“It’s a garbage can on wheels,” I argue.
“I told you. It ain’t for sale.”
“Not even for …” I do some quick math in my head. “Not even for eight hundred dollars?”
Next to me, Agnes gasps. I swallow hard, but I don’t look at her.
The old man changes his tune real quick. “Eight hundred?” he asks. He knows as well as I do the car ain’t worth half that. “Hmm. Well, I don’t know if I can part with it for less than—”
“I’m not gonna haggle with you, sir.” I ain’t even trying to be sweet no more. It wasn’t doing me no good anyhow. “Eight hundred and no questions. Take it or leave it.”
“All right. Sold.”
“Thought so.”
“Bo,” Agnes says again, this time louder. “What are you doing? What are you thinking?”
“I’m getting us a new car.”
“But—”
“Trust me.”
Lucky for me, she does.
Not that she should.
I park the Chevy in the old man’s driveway, next to the battered car. He tells us his name is Earl before heading inside to get the keys. Me and Agnes grab our stuff from the backseat while Utah and the yellow dog paw at each other through the fence.
“Are we just leaving my sister’s car here?” she asks.
“It won’t take them long to find it,” I say.
The front door opens, and Earl comes back out of his house, keys jangling at his side.
“Wait here,” I tell Agnes. She nods and leans against the shitty car, arms folded over her chest.
“Y’all must be in a hurry,” Earl says while I unzip my backpack and hunt for the cash I’ve hidden inside. “You gotta be teenagers. Why do you need another car so bad?”
“I said no questions.” I pull out the wad of cash I’d tucked into an inside pocket. Carefully, I count out eight hundred dollars. That’s most of it. Way more than I wanted to spend this early. “Here,” I say, shoving the money into Earl’s hands and taking the keys from him.
“Pleasure doing business,” he says, fingering the wrinkled bills.
“There’s another thing.”
Earl raises an eyebrow. “I ain’t got nothing else to sell you, girl.”