“That car—the one we’re leaving—it’s stolen. If you wanna call the police and let them know it’s here, that’s fine. But, please, don’t tell them nothing about us.”
“Police? What are y’all getting me into?” Earl demands. “I ain’t gonna lie for two strange kids.”
“I’ll give you another fifty bucks.”
“Seventy-five.”
“Fine.”
“I never saw you. Far as I know, that car was just dropped off here when I woke up this morning.”
I hand him a few more bills, then tuck the rest of the cash back into the backpack.
“Y’all take care now,” Earl hollers as I walk back toward Agnes.
I unlock the Reliant K and load Utah into the back while Agnes climbs into the front seat.
“Just gotta do one more thing,” I tell Agnes. She shrugs.
I walk back to the Chevy and slide into the front seat. The keys are still in the ignition. I leave them there and, instead, pop open the console. There are a bunch of fast-food napkins inside, but I manage to find a red ink pen, too.
On a Wendy’s napkin, I scribble a note to Agnes’s parents. They’ll find it when they come get the car.
Mr. and Mrs. Atwood—I know you hate me, but I had to. I’m sorry. Bo
“Still feels strange not having Gracie at the table,” Mama said, scooping mashed potatoes onto my dinner plate. “I’m so used to cooking for four, we always have so many leftovers now.”
“Nothing to complain about,” Daddy said around a mouthful of pork chop.
Gracie had been gone for about two weeks, and the house did seem awful quiet lately. Mama called her every night and made her talk to Daddy and me, but Gracie always tried to rush off the phone pretty fast. She had to study or hang out with her new friends or go to cheerleading practice. She had a million things to do and a million places to go.
Me? I hadn’t left the house since the day I’d wandered around the woods, except to go to school. Christy was always busy with Andrew, and no one else ever invited me anywhere.
“How’s school going, Agnes?” Mama asked, finally sitting down next to Daddy.
I shrugged.
“Use your words,” Daddy teased.
“It’s fine. English is the only subject I’m any good at, and all we’ve been doing is reading poetry, which usually doesn’t make much sense to me. So that’s been hard.”
“What about math?”
“It’s geometry,” I said. “Blind girls and shapes? Not the best combination.”
It was meant as a joke, but my parents took it very seriously.
“Are your teachers making accommodations for you?” Daddy asked.
“Should we call the guidance counselor? Or the principal?” Mama asked. “If you need more help—”
“No, no. I’m okay,” I said. “I was mostly kidding. The shapes are hard, but my teacher’s great. I’ve gotten okay at doing proofs.”
“If you do have any issues, though, you’ll tell us,” Mama said. “We can always have them take another look at your IEP.”
An IEP was an individual education plan. My parents and teachers and members of the school board met every year to make adjustments to it. That’s where they figured out what equipment and accommodations I needed, and what the school could afford to get me.
“Can you pass the green beans?” I asked Daddy, hoping to get off the subject.
Whenever my school and accommodations came up, my parents usually got angry. They always insisted the school should do more for me. “If they can spend all that money on the football team, they can get you the materials you need,” Mama would say. Maybe she was right, but the truth was, I was doing fine with what I had. New tape recorders and giant glass magnifiers would just make me feel even more awkward at school.
Luckily, Daddy had other things to talk about. “My mother stopped by,” he told Mama. “She wanted me to remind you that you agreed to take her to her doctor’s appointment tomorrow afternoon.”
“Oh shoot,” she said. “I forgot. That means I won’t be able to pick up Agnes from school.”
“I can’t, either,” Daddy said. “Rodney’s got the day off, and I can’t leave the store.”
“What do we do?”
“I can take the bus,” I offered.
“Mmm … I don’t want you walking all that way,” Mama said.
“It’s not that far.” The school bus didn’t come down most of the side roads of Mursey. Instead, it dropped a bunch of kids off at the church, which was just around the block—or straight back through the woods, but I wasn’t trying that again. All right, so it was a big block and part of the way didn’t have any sidewalks, but it still wasn’t too bad. “We walk there every Sunday. I know the way.”
“I don’t know,” Mama said.
“Can’t Christy drive you?” Daddy asked. “She’s got a car now, right? I thought I saw her nearly run over Mr. Jordan in the gas station parking lot a few days ago.”
“She’s not that bad of a driver,” I said. And then, on second thought, added, “Well, she’s getting better.”
Daddy laughed.