The Last Chance Texaco

by Brent Hartinger

  This was too much tension for group home kids to take. There would be a meltdown tonight, I thought to myself. The only question was, Which one of us was going to do the melting down?

  • • •

  That night, after dinner, I was alone in my room putting clean laundry into my dresser when someone knocked on my door.

  When I opened the door, I saw Leon tightly gripping the two sides of the doorframe.

  He said, "If Kindle Home closes, Emil's going to send you to Rabbit Island."

  "I know," I said.

  He stared at me for a second. "The step on the staircase?"

  I nodded.

  He smiled a little wistfully. "That still works?" I nodded again. "Anyway, I just thought you should know."

  "Thanks." I kept putting away my T-shirts. Then I said, "Why does he hate me so much?"

  "Emil? I wish I knew. But he hates us all. He hates every group home kid." I liked that Leon thought of himself as a group home kid. I thought of him that way too. But what he'd said about Emil--did Emil hate us enough to set a series of cars on fire? I thought so, but I wondered if Leon would.

  "I also wanted to say I'm sorry," he said.

  "For what?"

  He snatched his hands from the doorframe. He'd been holding it so tightly, I almost expected the house to fall down around him.

  "For Rabbit Island," he said. "It's not fair. It's really not fair."

  "It's not your fault." It wasn't. I'd heard how he'd fought for me.

  "Still. I made you a promise. You lived up to your half of it. But I didn't live up to mine." Now that Leon's hands were free, he didn't seem to have anything to do with them. So he stuffed them deep into his pockets.

  "It doesn't matter," I said. "I don't care if I get sent to Rabbit Island anymore." Suddenly, I remembered my first day at Kindle Home, and how I hadn't wanted to unpack my clothes in that dresser. I'd been certain I wouldn't be at Kindle Home long enough for it to be worth my while. But I wanted to put my things in the drawers now, even if they would stay there for only another week or so.

  "Lucy," Leon said. "I don't think you--"

  I turned to him, tightly clutching a pair of my socks. "Leon, I do understand. And it's not that I want to go to Rabbit Island. I know how much you hated it there. It just feels different now. More bearable. Now that I know there's someone who gives a damn about me." Two people, I thought--Leon and Nate.

  Leon stared at me. Finally, he shook his head and laughed. "Wait a minute. Remind me who's the counselor here, and who's the kid."

  "Does it matter?"

  "No," he said, and we stepped together for my second great hug of that day."

  • • •

  Just after midnight, Mrs. Morgan did the first of the night's spot checks. When she was gone, I made sure Yolanda was asleep, then slipped out of bed and started for the attic. It was the third night in a row that I'd snuck out after hours, but I wasn't even a little tired. I was too excited. I was going to catch myself an arsonist.

  I'd thought about the clues--the burned-out tail-light, the footprints in the mud, Alicia's smug expression--but I still had no idea who it was. Was it Alicia, still trying to destroy Nate and me both for daring to defy her, and determined to strike a blow for spoiled rich girls everywhere? Or was it Joy, convinced that she'd have an easier time being Queen Bee at some other hive, and maybe still trying to get back at me for standing up to her? Or was it Emil, blinded by his hatred of all things group home, and driven by some mysterious inner demon of his own?

  I didn't know who it was, but I knew they would strike again. Why was I so sure? Because the whole city now thought Nate Brandon was the one who had lit the fires. But if the point of the fires was to get Kindle Home shut down--and I was certain it was!--Nate Brandon was exactly the wrong person to be fingered for the crime. As long as everyone thought that Nate had set the fires, the pressure was off us Kindle Home kids. No, the arsonist needed to

  set another fire, soon, while Nate was still locked up in Ragman Hall, so the suspicion would be thrown back on us.

  I reached the door to the attic and quickly stepped inside, softly closing it behind me. Then I crept up the darkened steps, just like I d done twice before. I was tingling, I was so eager. I'd never felt so determined in my whole life. But catching the arsonist wasn't about not getting sent to Rabbit Island, or even about staying at Kindle Home. Those things didn't matter anymore. Neither did the Group Home Code. If it turned out to be Joy who was starting the fires, I'd happily turn her in, no matter what the consequences to me were. No, catching the arsonist now was all about Nate. He'd sacrificed everything for me by taking responsibility for a crime he hadn't committed. I needed to prove him innocent. And the only way I could do that was by using his camcorder to prove that someone else was setting those fires.

  At the top of the steps, I started down the narrow pathway across the darkened attic, to the window on the other side. I took it slowly, but now it was as if I had some kind of ESP and I knew where absolutely everything was. The floorboards didn't even creak under my feet.

  I reached the window and opened it. Then I turned to the place where I'd hidden the rope, camcorder, and change of clothes. I picked up the rope and began tying it firmly around one of the attic's center beams.

  Now the floorboards creaked.

  I froze. The sound hadn't come from near me, but from the other side of the attic, on the opposite side of the stairwell. Was it the house settling?

  The floorboards creaked again.

  I wasn't alone. Someone was in that attic with me--I was sure of it!

  Suddenly, I was drowning in the darkness. I clutched the coil of rope like it was a lifeline, but it offered no comfort. Then I heard a metallic chink, like a chain being pulled, like the sound of a bare light bulb being turned on.

  Light flooded the attic. For a second, the flash blinded me. Then I blinked and finally saw the face of the person who had pulled the chain on the light bulb hanging from the ceiling.

  It was Mrs. Morgan, and I don't think I'd ever seen anyone frowning so deeply in my whole entire life.

  Chapter Fourteen

  "Lucy," Mrs. Morgan said, glaring at me in the attic, in the harsh light of that bare bulb. She only spoke that one word, but it contained a whole dictionary's worth of disappointment.

  "What are you--?" I had been starting to ask her what she had been doing there, in the dark, in the attic, in the middle of the night. But I knew. There was only one explanation. She had been waiting. She had probably planned to wait up here all night long, in between her spot checks. She had been trying to catch whoever was climbing out through the window in the middle of the night. It figured it was Mrs. Morgan, the strictest counselor in the house. Why couldn't it have been Leon?

  I thought about lying, about saying that I had come up to the attic because I couldn't sleep. Or that I thought I'd heard someone up here, and that I'd come up to check it out. But there was no chance that Mrs. Morgan would believe me. I was standing by an open window with a coil of rope in my hands. If I tried to lie now, I knew I'd just piss her off more.

  "How did you know?" I asked.

  She breathed a heavy sigh. "Lucy, I know this house like it's my own. When the attic door was left unlocked, I knew someone had been up here." She stared at me, then shook her head. "So you're the one who's been setting the fires."

  "No!" I spoke loudly, without remembering where I was. "No," I said, more quietly. "I was trying to catch the person setting the fires."

  "Oh, Lucy." When she spoke my name, her voice dropped like a rock. My words weren't pissing Mrs. Morgan off--they were just disappointing her more. I almost wished she would get angry, like she had the day she'd found those pills in my bedroom. Anger I could react against. Disappointment just made me feel shitty. The funny thing was, I was actually telling the truth.

  "Was that boy your boyfriend?" Mrs. Morgan asked.

  "No," I said, and I felt my eyes shift. "Well, yes, but it's not t
he way it sounds. He wasn't guilty either. We were both trying to catch the person setting the fires. I know I shouldn't have snuck out, but I was only trying to save Kindle Home. I figured if I could prove it wasn't someone from here, then they couldn't shut us down. And we did catch them--last night! We got the whole thing on Nate's camcorder. Only it was too dark to make out who it was. And then the car started burning, and we tried to put it out, and that's when the police caught us. Nate made me leave, and he took all the blame, which is why I was going out tonight--to prove that it wasn't Nate who had set the fires in the first place!"

  The words came gushing out of me like water from a fire hydrant, and it was still all the truth. But as I was speaking, Mrs. Morgan lifted her hands to her face, rubbing her eyes like she was starting to cry. I kept thinking she couldn't possibly look any more disappointed in me, but then she did.

  What was the point? I thought. There was no way she was going to believe me. It was too incredible. No adult would ever believe me. Probably not even Leon.

  "Forget it," I said. I turned to the window, then closed and locked it. "Let's just go. I won't try to sneak out again, but you can sit outside my door if you want. And tomorrow morning, you can send me wherever you want."

  Mrs. Morgan frowned at me some more as I untied the rope from the beam, then added it to the coil around my shoulder. Then I reached down to get the camcorder and my change of clothing.

  I stood up again. "I'm ready."

  Mrs. Morgan was still staring at me. But she didn't look disappointed anymore. Now she looked confused.

  "What?" I said. Then I realized she wasn't staring at me, but at the object in my hand. Nate's camcorder.

  "What is that?" she asked.

  "Huh? Oh. Forget it. You won't believe me anyway."

  "Lucy Pitt, what is that?"

  It was comforting to hear her call me by my full name. Wasn't that how parents talked to their kids when they were angry? "It's Nate's camcorder," I said.

  "Why do you have it?" Her eyes narrowed. "Did you steal it?"

  "No. No! I told you, it's Nate's. We were trying to catch the person setting the car fires."

  She kept staring at me. But the hesitation still hadn't left her eyes.

  "Take a look," I said. "I told you we got the person on video last night. It's just too dark. You can't tell who it is."

  I stepped over to her and showed her the tiny view screen. Then I played the file we'd made the night before. There was the darkened figure with the gas can, the quiet sound of the splashing. It even had the date and everything. After a second, you could also hear Nate's and my voices.

  "We need to get closer," said the recording of my voice, just as the shadowy figure on the view screen lit a match.

  From the little speaker on that camcorder, Nate and I both sucked in our breath.

  "No!" I shouted in the recording.

  On the view screen, the shadowy figure turned toward us. Then it whirled away. The screen was too small to see the flinging of the lit match, but I knew what would happen next.

  Tiny flames leaped up in front of the car.

  "No," said the recording of my voice.

  "The gasoline!" Nate's voice said. "It must've dripped from the car!"

  "We have to put it out before the car catches!" my voice said, and that's when the screen went dead. That's when I'd taken my finger off the button on the camcorder and it had stopped recording.

  Mrs. Morgan didn't say a word.

  Suddenly, she needed to sit. She turned for the nearby rocking chair and lowered herself into the seat. For the first time since I'd met her, she seemed very old.

  "Why didn't you tell anyone this?" she said.

  "Huh?" The question made no sense. Who would I tell?

  "Lucy Pitt!"

  "Well, I guess I thought no one would believe me."

  Mrs. Morgan's eyes had lost all focus. "So it's true. You really were trying to catch the arsonist. You were trying to save Kindle Home."

  I wasn't sure if these were questions or not, but I nodded anyway.

  Her eyes latched on to me. "If I hadn't caught you here tonight, what would you have done?"

  I had to think about that. Not because I didn't know, but because I wasn't sure what I wanted to tell her. Finally, I decided to just tell the truth.

  "I would've gone out and tried to find the arsonist," I said. "If I had, I would've tried to get the whole thing on the camcorder."

  "But if you'd been caught, the police would have thought you were setting more fires. The consequences for you would have been horrible. And even if you hadn't been caught and you had recorded the arsonist, how would you have explained the tape? You would have had to admit you snuck out of the house at night. The consequences for that would have been almost as bad." Would have been bad? I thought to myself. Did that mean I might not get punished for trying to sneak out--or for admitting to sneaking out twice before?

  But all I could do was shrug. "I didn't care what happened to me," I said. "I had to help Nate."

  Mrs. Morgan began to rock ever so slightly. It looked like she was nodding, but it may have just been the rolling of the chair. Underneath that rocker, the floor squeaked again.

  "Do you know why I'm here?" she asked.

  "Well, you knew that someone had been coming up into the attic--"

  "No, not here in the attic. Here at Kindle Home."

  "Oh. No."

  "You children never wondered about my past? About where I came from?"

  I had to think again. Finally, I said, "No." I'd heard gossip about every other counselor at Kindle Home, just like I'd heard gossip about every counselor at every group home I'd ever lived in. But I didn't remember anyone ever saying anything about Mrs. Morgan, except that she'd lost her sense of smell. She was the kind of person who you thought would somehow know if you dared to gossip about her, the way dogs can sense fear.

  "I had a husband and two children," Mrs. Morgan said as her eyes lost their focus again. "Seventeen years ago, they were killed in an automobile accident. The sense of loss was indescribable. The only way I could cope was by moving away. Eventually, I found myself here, and I've been working here ever since."

  Why was she telling me such a personal story? Didn't she know I could use it against her? At the same time, I couldn't help but realize that Mrs. Morgan's story was a lot like mine. We'd both ended up at Kindle Home because our families had been killed in car crashes.

  "So much despair," she muttered. "It's a wonder it all fits inside one single house."

  I watched as Mrs. Morgan continued to rock slowly in her chair, nodding at me--or maybe not.

  Finally, she looked up at me again. To my surprise, she didn't look old anymore. Suddenly, her eyes had never seemed so sharp.

  "Go," she said.

  "What?" I said. "To bed, you mean?"

  She stood up and started for the stairs. "No, I mean out the window. I won't tell anyone I saw you here, and I won't report you missing from your bed. Stay out all night if you have to. Just go catch whoever is lighting those fires, and get it all on tape. If you do catch them, I'll go to the police with you, and I'll say we made the tapes together. That way, we can save your boyfriend and Kindle Home too."

  "But--"

  She reached the stairs and stopped. "Just don't get caught. Because if anyone catches you outside alone, you'll be sent to Rabbit Island, and I'll be fired." With that, she turned and started down.

  "Mrs. Morgan!"

  Just before her head disappeared into the darkness of the stairwell, she stopped and looked back at me.

  "Why?" I whispered.

  "Because I've already lost one family," she said. "I'm not about to lose one more

  • • •

  The moment my feet touched the ground, I heard a faint rustle from the front yard. Could it be? Had I stumbled upon the arsonist so soon? I couldn't imagine who else would be lurking around in the bushes this late at night.

  I crept closer. If it was the
arsonist, I couldn't let myself be seen. It didn't do me any good to just catch the person I was looking for. I needed to get them on the camcorder starting a car fire. That meant I might have to follow them for a while.

  At the corner of the house, I stopped and peered out into the front yard. It seemed even bigger than I remembered.

  The rustle had sounded like it was coming from somewhere inside the long hedge that separated Kindle Home from the yard next door. The hedge was neatly trimmed on the neighbor's side--they had a yard service that came every week, even this late in the fall. But on the Kindle Home side, it was wild and unruly. So unruly that I couldn't tell if there was someone hiding inside or not.