The Last Chance Texaco

by Brent Hartinger

  I took it very, very slowly. I kept my feet planted firmly on the ground at all times, sliding them like a clumsy ice skater. Yeah, I caught my socks on splinters in the wooden floor. Yeah, I jostled into things. But no, I didn't knock anything over.

  When I reached the window, I unlocked it and pushed it open. It didn't set off the burglar alarm, just like I knew it wouldn't. I'd checked out all the windows of the house earlier in the day, and this was the only one that didn't have one of the sensor thingies on it. Burglar-alarm companies never put sensors on third-floor windows. Why would they? No burglar would be able to climb all the way up here. Like I said before, if you're already inside a house, it's usually pretty easy to find a way out again. I wouldn't have been surprised if there was another way out too--from some vent in the basement, maybe.

  But now that I had a way out, I had to make sure I had a way to get back inside again when the time came. In the movies, there are always amazingly strong drainpipes or ladderlike trellises running up the sides of houses. In real life, I'd never lived in a house with a drainpipe you could actually climb, or one with any kind of trellis at all, and Kindle Home was no exception. So I pulled out a rope from where I'd hidden it behind some boxes. Then I tied an end firmly around one of the attic center beams and lowered the other end out into the darkness outside the window. If anyone walked around the side of the house, they'd probably spot the rope, even in the dark. But I figured the only way anyone would be walking there at night was if they already had a pretty good idea I was gone.

  The only thing left to do now was to put on some heavier clothes and a pair of tennis shoes, which I'd also hidden in that attic earlier in the day. Then I grabbed hold of the rope, tested it, and climbed out of the window. From there, it was easy to lower myself carefully backward down the side of the house all the way to the ground. The wood on the side of the house squeaked too, which surprised me, but then I'd never walked down a house before.

  Finally, my feet touched dirt.

  I'd done it. I'd made it out of the house without being caught. But, of course, that was just the first little part of a much bigger plan.

  • • •

  I ran to where I'd arranged to meet Nate, in some bushes at the end of my block.

  "You there?" I whispered.

  "Yeah," he said, stepping out into view. "I was getting worried."

  "Sorry. I told you you might have a wait. They don't exactly do spot checks on a schedule."

  "It's okay." Then he kissed me, and it occurred to me that this was the first time we'd ever been alone together outside of detention. It was sort of like the first day out of prison.

  He held up something in his hand. "I got the camcorder."

  "Great," I said. "Now let's go catch us an arsonist."

  • • •

  But fifty minutes later, we'd hunted all over the neighborhood and we hadn't caught any arsonists. We hadn't even seen anyone, except lots and lots of police cars. But there was almost no chance of our getting spotted, since the police never got out of their cars and it's really easy to hide from someone who's in a car, even if they're looking for you. We made a point of staying crouched down, usually hiding in yards behind bushes and fences.

  "I should go back," I said.

  "Yeah?" Nate said.

  "Yeah. I have a feeling they're going to do more spot checks than usual tonight."

  Suddenly, a siren sounded in the darkness. It was far away, but not that far. A second later, it was joined by a second siren. They were pretty obviously fire trucks.

  We looked at each other, four white orbs floating in the moonlit night.

  As we stood there, the sirens got closer.

  "That's got to be another car fire!" I said. "But that means we missed whoever did it. Maybe we can head them off! They have to be hiding in the yards just like we are!"

  "No," Nate said.

  "What?"

  "You've got to get home. Fast, before anyone realizes you're missing."

  Nate had a point.

  "Thanks for meeting me," I said.

  "Go!" he said, and I turned and ran all the way home. There were still lots of police cars on the streets, but they were even easier to evade now than before. Now they were all heading for the fire, which was stupid, because the arsonist sure as hell wasn't anywhere near there anymore.

  By the time I reached Kindle Home, the sirens were louder. It sounded like they'd stopped about two blocks over. I was tempted to go see what had happened, but there were lights on upstairs in the house, and I knew that people were waking up, that everyone had heard the commotion. I couldn't risk being away any longer.

  I started for the side of the house.

  But suddenly, I caught the right taillight of a car pulling away from the curb just down the street. I wasn't sure why the car caught my attention--it wasn't like it was that unusual for one of the neighbors to be coming or going, even this late at night.

  It was a big car. And it had a broken left taillight.

  A broken left taillight? At first, I wasn't sure why this bothered me. But then I remembered that I'd recently seen a car with a broken left taillight. I just couldn't think where.

  Emil. The week before, I'd seen his SUV pulling away from the front of the house, and it had had a broken left taillight too.

  Was it possible? Could it be Emil, the Kindle Home therapist, who was setting the neighborhood cars on fire?

  Chapter Twelve

  "Are you serious?" Nate said to me the next day after school. "You really think it's your house therapist who's been setting the fires?" It was raining that afternoon, and the two of us were waiting it out under the walkway between the art and music buildings.

  "I know it sounds crazy," I said. "But you don't know him. He's a total asshole. And he definitely wants Kindle Home shut down. He hates us." But even as I said this, I thought, Does he really hate us? Or just me?

  "Are you positive it was his car?" Nate asked.

  "No." I explained how I'd just spotted the burned-out taillight, but how I'd seen that Emil's car had a burned-out taillight the week before.

  "A lot of cars have burned-out taillights," Nate said.

  "It wasn't just any taillight. It was the left tail-light." This came out sounding more stubborn than I'd wanted, but I figured I had a point.

  "And even if it was his car," Nate said, "that doesn't mean he's the one setting the fires."

  "Why else would he be on our street after midnight? If he'd been at the house for a real reason, he would've parked in the driveway!"

  "So maybe he just stopped by to leave something in the mailbox."

  What Nate was saying could be true. And even if Emil was the one setting the fires, I still had no way of proving it.

  All of which meant that somehow I just had to get some proof.

  • • •

  When I kicked open the front door that afternoon, I saw every kid in the house standing on the stairs two thirds of the way to the landing. It almost looked like they'd been lined up that way for a picture. Except that no one was smiling, which made it look more like they'd been lined up in front of a firing squad. The staircase was so wide that everyone--Damon, Eddy, Joy, Juan, Melanie, and Yolanda-- could stand side by side on a single step.

  The Magic Step.

  They weren't lined up for a picture. They were lined up so they could listen to what was being said in the office down below.

  I knew right away that what they were hearing wasn't good, and not just because no one was smiling. The Magic Step was one of Damon's secrets, and the only way he'd share it with the other kids in the house was if he thought what was being said in the office was so important that everyone else just had to hear it. And that what was being said meant the secret of the Magic Step would no longer do him any good anyway.

  Wordlessly, I plodded up to take my place in that lineup on the steps. Damon sort of nodded at me, and Yolanda gave me a wide-eyed glance, but everyone else was too busy staring at the chand
elier, as if hoping for a glimpse of the future in its tiny crystal globes.

  I took my place at the end of the row and started gazing at that chandelier too.

  "Forty years!" Gina was saying. "How is it possible for anyone to be so petty for that long?"

  "I don't know," said Megan, the program supervisor. "But I'm so tired of fighting them."

  "So you're just giving up?" Ben said.

  "I don't think you understand," Megan said. "Kindle Home doesn't have a lot of allies right now. Margaret and Frank Kindle know that. They've picked the perfect time to try to contest the will one more time."

  Contest the will? I thought. And who the hell were Margaret and Frank Kindle? Then I remembered what Leon had said about Howard Kindle on my first day at the house--that his kids had never accepted the fact that their father had given Kindle Home away so it could become a group home. Just when the neighborhood was up in arms over the car fires, they must have decided to fight for ownership of the house all over again.

  "So--what?" Gina was saying to Megan. "You're just going to give them the house?"

  "Not give," Megan said. "Sell. If the Kindles want it back so badly, they can buy it from us. We could sure use the money."

  "Then it's over," Ben said. "You're closing us down."

  "I'm sorry, Ben," Megan said, and she almost sounded like she really was sorry. "At this point, my options are pretty limited."

  So Megan had already made her decision. Kindle Home was being closed. This is what Damon had wanted everyone to hear, just like I'd thought.

  Standing with the rest of us kids on the stairs, Joy laughed. It shattered the stillness of that foyer like a baseball through one of the leaded-glass windows.

  We all looked at her.

  "What?" she said with a sour grin. "This place is a dump. And they run it like a damn prison. I'm glad they're closing it down."

  Joy was happy Kindle Home was being closed? Had I been wrong before to think that she loved it here and couldn't possibly be setting the car fires? Maybe she liked the chaotic free-for-all of the other group homes because they made it easier for her to take control. Or maybe she was secretly just as sad as the rest of us and this was her blustery, never-let-them-see-you-cry way of showing it.

  Down below us in the office, Leon said softly, "What about the kids?"

  "We'll find beds for them somewhere," Megan said.

  "That's not what I meant," Leon said, and there was an edge to his voice. "I meant do you have any idea how many times some of these kids have been moved?"

  "I know what you meant," Megan said. "But that's not something I can do anything about." There wasn't much our program supervisor could do anything about. We kids called her God, but now I saw that this was really a pretty shitty nickname for her.

  "When?" Gina asked Megan.

  She sighed. "Maybe as early as next week."

  Gina laughed bitterly. "Tell me you're kidding! You're not actually going to lack these kids out of their home the week before Christmas!"

  "Oh, God, I can imagine how all of this must sound," Megan said. "First these kids lose their families. Then, just when they start to make a new home, we break them up again. It's just one loss after another, isn't it?"

  I heard a thump on the stairs above me and turned to see Yolanda bolting up the steps. I hadn't been watching her reaction to what was being said--I'd been staring at the chandelier along with everyone else--and I couldn't see her face now. But I knew what she must be feeling. She was reacting to being reminded yet again of her parents' deaths.

  "Yolanda!" I whispered, but she didn't stop.

  I wanted to follow her, to give her a chance to talk, and I even took a couple of steps after her. But I wanted to hear the rest of the conversation in the office even more. Yolanda could wait, but Megan and the counselors wouldn't.

  With heavy feet and a heavier heart, I returned to the Magic Step.

  "No!" Leon was saying. "That's not fair! He told her she could stay!"

  What was this? I thought. But whatever it was, I already knew it wasn't good. I held my breath.

  "Leon, my hands are tied here too," Megan said. "Emil was quite insistent. And given his recommendation, there's now a liability issue. And besides, the other group homes don't have the resources to handle a child like her. But it's only temporary. It's just until a bed opens up at Henry House on the other side of the state."

  "This is wrong," Leon said. "Megan, you've made wrong decisions before, but this is the most wrong ever!"

  "Leon, I don't blame you for being upset," Megan said. "We're all upset. I'm upset. But we have to think about what's in the Pitt girl's best interest."

  The Pitt girl, Megan had said. They were talking about me. When Kindle Home closed, Emil and Megan were sending me to Rabbit Island after all. Sure, Megan was telling Leon it was temporary, but that's what they always said when they sent a kid to Rabbit Island. Then no one ever saw the kid again. It seems that my last chance at the Last Chance Texaco had already come and gone.

  "I know what's in Lucy's interest," Leon said, "and this isn't it!" The way Leon said my name made me feel like no one had ever said my name before. In spite of everything, I couldn't help feeling a little proud.

  "What if the police catch the arsonist?" Ben said. "What if they can prove it wasn't one of our kids who set those fires?"

  "Well," Megan said, "I guess it never hurts to hope for a miracle."

  • • •

  That night, I snuck up to the attic again after lights-out, then climbed down my rope into the yard. Because of the rain that afternoon, I touched down into mud at the bottom of the rope. But I wasn't about to let a little mud stop me. Hiding in the bushes and shadows, I skulked my way down the street until I found Nate in the same place where we'd met before. I quickly told him what I'd heard that afternoon--that our program supervisor had decided to close Kindle Home down.

  "So now we've really, really got to get a recording of whoever's setting those fires," I said, taking the camcorder from his hands. "We've got to prove it wasn't someone from Kindle Home!"

  But forty minutes later, we hadn't proved anything, except that a lot of Kindle Home's neighbors had motion-activated yard lights. We'd wandered all over that neighborhood, running from bush to tree to bush, lurking in the shadows. But we hadn't seen any sign of anyone setting cars on fire.

  "What about you?" Nate whispered out of the blue.

  It had been so long since either of us had spoken that I jumped a little. But even though we hadn't been speaking, I had never forgotten he was there.

  "What about me?" I said.

  "If Kindle Home closes down. Where will you go?"

  I hadn't told Nate this part of what I'd learned that afternoon--that I was being sent to Rabbit Island. And on the slight chance that I didn't have to stay there, I'd then get sent all the way to Henry House.

  I didn't answer, just turned and scanned the row of cars parked alongside the nearest street.

  "Oh, God,'' he whispered. "Lucy, no! That's not fair!"

  I hadn't said a word, but somehow Nate had known. Is this what they meant when they said that people in love could know each other's thoughts? But even now, I couldn't look at him.

  "It won't be that bad," I said. "Besides, I'm used to it. Always moving on. I read somewhere that if a shark ever stops moving forward, it dies. Group home kids are like that too. We're like sharks." I was saying all this like I believed it, and Nate was listening like he believed it too, but it was a lie, all of it. My being like a shark, my not caring about moving on, might have been true a few months earlier, before I'd come to live at Kindle Home, before I'd met Nate. But for the first time since I could remember, I had stopped moving, and I hadn't died. On the contrary, I'd never felt so alive in my entire life. It would be moving forward now, so soon after finding a place where I wanted to stop, that would feel like dying.

  "Lucy," he said, taking me by the arms, turning me toward him. The scent of him was overpowering,
a heady musk, but I knew it wasn't his aftershave I was smelling now. It was him, the part of him that made him different from me--the part that excited me, the part that made him a guy.

  "What?" I whispered, still looking away.

  "I'll come with you!"