by Sam Cameron
“So that’s her, huh?” Eric asked as they wound their way past buses and cars. “I hear she’s starting some new reality show on TV.”
Danny followed Eric’s gaze to where Mrs. Morris was pacing back and forth on the sidewalk, talking on a surprisingly large cell phone. Any time a student approached her, she turned and walked the other way in animated conversation.
“She’s certainly not the lunch lady,” Danny agreed.
A voice from nearby said, “Hey, better go get your girlfriend, Kelly, before she gets herself a new boy toy. Everyone knows about those teachers having sex with dweeby losers.”
Danny turned to Junior Conway and his knot of friends, who were lingering around Junior’s brand new yellow Porsche 911. Rachel was with him, text messaging on her phone. Junior was leering at Mrs. Morris.
Danny said, “As a matter of fact, we’re running off to Tahiti tomorrow. Leaving on a jet plane.”
“Too bad you can’t drive her to Tahiti.”
“Yeah, because cars do so well underwater,” Danny retorted.
Junior’s face turned red. “Because you don’t have a car, moron. Where’s your ride? Nowhere. And even if you had something to drive, it would be nothing compared to mine. Get it? Nowhere and nothing.”
Danny walked over to Junior’s Porsche. Everyone knew how Moon Conway Sr. had bought it for Junior’s birthday a week ago. It was shiny and bright and maybe good enough for most, but Danny gave it a dismissive glance.
“Anyone can get a Porsche,” he said. “If you knew anything about cars, you’d get yourself a Bugatti Veyron sixteen point four.”
Rachel ended her phone call and tossed her hair over her shoulder. “Ignore him, Junior. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”
Danny folded his arms. “The Bugatti goes from zero to sixty in two point six seconds. It tops out at two hundred fifty miles an hour. It’s got an eight liter, sixty-four valve, quad turbo engine, and carbon-ceramic brakes that can bring it from top speed to a dead stop in under ten seconds. How good’s a Porsche now?”
Junior glared at him. “You ain’t ever going to own a Bug-whatever.”
“I don’t want to own it,” Danny said. “But one day I’m going to drive it. Which is more than you’re ever going to do.”
He walked back toward Eric’s black Camaro coupe, which was certainly not a Porsche and nowhere near a Bugatti, but nonetheless, a reliable machine. Eric was leaning against the driver’s doorframe, his sunglasses halfway down his nose.
Eric asked, “You done poking at Junior?”
“Yeah,” Danny said. “Can I drive?”
“No. Get in the car, Mr. Bugatti.”
Danny yanked off the hated tie, pulled off his jacket, and tossed both in the back before sliding into the passenger seat. Making fun of Junior was a little risky, especially since Roger Rat was the vice president of Moon’s label, and his mom was now a publicist for the same company. But some days he just couldn’t stop himself.
“All right, where to, birthday boy?” Eric asked as he wedged himself behind the wheel. “My treat. Golf? Bowling? We’ve got all of this fine afternoon. And if you’re really feeling adventurous, the big Piedmont-Waltham football game is tonight. We can go mock big guys with tiny brains.”
“Drive out to Highway Twelve and let me race for a while.”
“I can’t.” Eric turned the ignition. “You know my mom’s got one of those GPS things in this car. She checks up on me all the time.”
Danny watched Mrs. Morris pace more with her cell phone. He wondered who she was talking to so passionately. She was making long sweeps of the sidewalk now, stalking back and forth in her high heels.
“If you’re not going to let me race, take me on home,” Danny said.
“Home!” Eric turned on the radio and blasted some good old-fashioned Aerosmith. “What are you, Mr. Dead Boring? Mr. Zero Adventure?”
“I’ve got music to write.” Danny turned the stereo down and pulled out the lyrics he’d been working on. “All right, how’s this: ‘Your lips so bright, your words so right, you are the apple of my eye.’”
Eric steered into the long line of cars waiting to pass by the football field. Piedmont had two fields, plus a new field house, and a gymnasium with large screen video monitors. “To what song?” he asked.
“It’s a new one.”
“You can’t start a new song until you finish the last song. Band rule.”
Danny tapped his pencil against the car door. “My last song sucks.”
Eric said, “You liked it last week.”
“The goddess of inspiration is fickle.”
“I’m going to inspirationally kick your butt,” Eric grumbled, but he didn’t sound too upset about it. Until they got a new drummer, it was just the two of them in The Dirty Hands, and they could change the rules whenever they wanted. “How fickle is this—my mom’s going to take my keys away if I don’t lose ten pounds.”
Danny blinked at him, the lyrics momentarily forgotten. “That’s cruel.”
Eric patted his sizeable belly, which stretched the buttons of his button-down shirt. “Baby fat. But I’m no baby, she says. Talk about cruel, though. You’re the only kid at Piedmont who’s going to celebrate his sixteenth birthday without a brand-new driver’s license. People are going to talk.”
“So what.”
“And I’m the only one who knows the truth why.”
“I shouldn’t have told you.”
“But you did.” Eric gloated. “You and your criminal mastermind past.”
“Shut up,” Danny said.
Ten minutes later, Eric turned on to Danny’s street. Danny was back to work on the lyrics, trying to think up a rhyme for “hair,” when he heard Eric’s appreciative whistle.
“Maybe this is your lucky day after all,” Eric said.
Danny looked up. The Anderson household—Roger Rat’s house—was one of the largest on the block, an all-brick extravagance with high windows, creeping ivy, and a lawn big enough to hold a marching band. Parked in the circular driveway was a brand-new, all black Dakota Laramie truck with a crew cab and chrome moldings.
Tied across the gleaming black hood was a giant red gift ribbon.
Chapter Four
Kevin Clark thought that maybe, just maybe, someone had once loved the little Mazda Protégé he was currently driving—someone who might have moisturized the dry, cracked dashboard, or vacuumed the dirty mats, or waxed the now-faded blue exterior. Someone must have enjoyed it back when it smelled like new plastic and not like mold. But whoever that mythical owner had been, whoever might have once owned and cared for the car, that person was long gone. Instead, there was only Kevin to argue with the sticky gear stick and fight the steering wheel, which tended to pull to the left.
“Piece of crap car,” he said, and then regretted it. He patted the steering column. “Sorry. Not your fault, right?”
Steering the Mazda into the parking lot at Piedmont Prep made Kevin feel uncomfortable. All those nice cars, and all those rich kids, and here he was like some country bumpkin in the middle of the big city. Except suburban Nashville wasn’t quite the big city, and no student with half a brain could mistake Kevin’s leather coat and jeans for faded farmers’ coveralls.
Besides, who wanted to live these lives? Stuck in school all year long, planning ahead to safe, predictable careers, never seeing the America he knew or the evil that ran amuck in it. Never making a difference like Kevin and his father and everyone else who worked to eradicate the Ruins.
He backed the Mazda into a slot at the end of the lot and killed the engine. No need to waste gasoline and spew exhaust into the atmosphere. He pulled a small silver box out of the glove compartment and set it up on the dashboard. The exterior looked like a satellite radio receiver, but the inside was one of the most sophisticated pieces of surveillance equipment ever invented by the scientists at the Department of Transportation.
Zoron readings flashed by on the screen as stu
dents exited the parking lot: 22, 21, 18, 23. The one nice thing about the Mazda was that it was a flat, perfect 0. Kevin had fried it himself. No chance of a Ruin under this hood, thanks anyway. A Honda Civic passed with a nice low 12; the Chevy Blazer following it was a 25.
“I could get the same readings at the mall,” he told the Mazda. Not that he liked shopping. He wished he were on his motorcycle, zooming free across the desert.
Anywhere but a high school parking lot.
Then again, if that Ruin King from Dallas was here, he’d personally zap every car in town in order to kill it.
An hour’s worth of surveillance later, his butt was numb from the lopsided seat, and most of the lot was empty. Mrs. Morris, who’d been scanning with her FRED from the sidewalk, slid into the passenger seat.
“This was pretty worthless,” Kevin said.
“I agree.” Mrs. Morris kicked off her high heels. “Like most Kings, it’s a smart one. Knows how to disguise itself when it’s not active. It could have passed right by either one of us and not registered more than a ten or twenty.”
“So what do we do now?”
“Let’s get some ice cream. I’m starving.”
Kevin turned the ignition. A terrible screech from under the hood announced the fan belt’s impending demise. “Did you have fun teaching all day?”
Mrs. Morris leaned her head back. “Just as much fun as teaching you, multiplied by a hundred.”
Though it was cool outside, autumn turning the trees red and gold, Kevin found an open ice cream shop and got them both chocolate cones. The guy at the counter was his own age, with spiky brown hair and a ring through his left eyebrow. Not quite Kevin’s type. If he had a type. If he had a love life. Moving around so much made relationships hard.
Not that he was brooding or anything.
“You could ask him to a movie,” Mrs. Morris said when they were outside.
“And then leave town tomorrow or the next day,” Kevin said. “Not very nice.”
“Believe it or not, he might not be looking to settle down at age seventeen,” she replied.
He shrugged. “Not worth the effort.”
She faced him and affectionately brushed his bangs out of his eyes.
“You are totally worth the effort,” she said.
They were still eating their ice cream when they reached Spike’s Junk and Auto Parts. The yard was an enormous sprawl of junked cars, discarded tires, and scrap metal. Richie Venezuela, the middle-aged owner, was sitting on the front steps of the office with an orange tabby cat rubbing at his foot.
“How’d she run?” Richie asked as Kevin tossed him the Mazda’s keys.
“Fan belt’s ripping apart,” he said. “Also needs new shocks, and that muffler’s going to fall off any minute.”
“You should buy her.” Richie hauled himself to his feet. “I’ll give you a good deal.”
Kevin had grown up around salesmen, mechanics, and entrepreneurs like Richie. The Society of Free Mechanics was an enormously useful volunteer organization, but you couldn’t trust half of them with your wallet or your pink slip.
“Mr. Venezuela,” he said, “you couldn’t pay me to give that car to my worst enemy.”
He spread his hands. “You break my heart, kid. Did you find that King?”
Mrs. Morris asked, “Are you sure what you saw?”
Richie sat down again. “I told you! I’m up there to tow some teacher last week, and the scanner hit ninety! It fit that signature profile from Dallas perfectly.”
Mrs. Morris gazed at him steadily from behind her sunglasses. Kevin bent to pet Spike, the orange cat the junkyard was named after. Spike rubbed up against his hand, sniffed for non-existent treats, and purred loudly.
“We didn’t find it,” Mrs. Morris said. “I was very disappointed.”
Mrs. Morris headed for the battered-looking RV parked behind the office. Kevin said, “It’s not good when she’s disappointed,” and followed his teammate to the Pit, their mobile headquarters.
On the outside, it looked like any twenty-eight foot long travel trailer that spent half the year in some driveway and the other half hauling Mom, Dad, and a handful of kids around the country to national parks. The seven-foot ceilings, high definition TV, and wooden ceiling fans inside weren’t especially unique. But one entire wall was covered with a cabinet holding high-tech computer consoles, radio equipment, and special sensors. Another cabinet contained their weapons and scanners. The bunkroom slept all four members of the team as well as their German shepherds, Apollo and Zeus. There were two bathrooms, a good thing when you were on the road for ten months a year.
The Pit was more than just an RV. It was Kevin’s home, and had been for as long as he could remember.
Mrs. Morris headed for the stove to make tea. Zeus and Apollo, roused from their naps, nuzzled Kevin’s hands for attention. Gear, who’d been up on the roof working on the satellite dish, poked his head down through the hatch.
“Find anything?” he asked.
“Utter waste of time,” Mrs. Morris said.
Gear dropped down to the carpet. He was the tallest man Kevin had ever known—tall, black, and muscled. He could do a hundred one-handed push-ups without breaking a sweat or taking off his small silver glasses. He was better with their equipment than anyone else, but after years of practice, Kevin was a close second.
“Where’s my dad?” Kevin asked, snagging an apple from a bowl.
“Went sniffing on his own,” Gear said.
“No headaches?” Mrs. Morris asked, because everyone knew John Clark, code named Ford, was still recuperating from the Dallas incident.
“Not that he would admit to. He took the Harley.”
Ford had a 1986 black low rider that he treated like gold. Kevin owned his own blue Kawasaki Vulcan. Mrs. Morris kept a classic Mercedes-Benz in storage along with her other antique automobiles. Gear didn’t own any cars, but drove whatever loaners they got on a job, or rode a ten-speed bicycle just for fun.
Kevin didn’t want to think about his father out there somewhere, riding around when he should really be resting. “What now? If Mr. Venezuela really did see a car spike up at Piedmont Prep, we didn’t find it today.”
Mrs. Morris withdrew a tiny computer drive from her pocket. “Luckily, I was able to access the parking permit files from the school office. We’re going to comb through them, cross-referencing names and cars and the scans we took today. Maybe someone was absent.”
Research. Kevin was good at it, but didn’t have to like it. “That’s all?”
Gear said, “After we do that, you can get out your cheerleading pom-poms.”
Kevin replied, “Don’t even go there.”
“Big game tonight,” Gear said with a grin. “Piedmont Prep versus Waltham High. We’re going to inspect every car in that parking lot. If there’s a Ruin King hiding out in this town, we’re going to find it.”
Or die trying, Kevin almost added. Just like Dallas.
Chapter Five
“You better call me,” Eric said as Danny slammed the door. “Like, in ten minutes.”
“I’ll call,” Danny promised him.
Eric backed out of the driveway, blasted his horn a couple of times, and zoomed off. Danny gingerly approached the Dakota parked by the front door. The truck was so clean and gleaming it reflected the house, the trees, even the sky above. Through the driver’s window he could see leather-trimmed bucket seats and state-of-the-art stereo and navigation systems.
The keys were in the ignition.
Hoping against hope, he pushed the front door open.
He didn’t know how he should react to his mother’s unexpected generosity. Play it cool? Throw his arms around her and lift her off the ground? Nothing she’d ever done before had been so amazing. He could almost forgive her for all the rotten stuff with Roger and moving out here. No, forget almost. He would definitely forgive her. For every single thing and more.
He would maybe even forgive Roger. A litt
le bit.
“Mom?” he asked, trekking down the large hall. A box of Halloween decorations was sitting outside Roger’s office. Danny didn’t care much about Halloween anymore, though he liked getting candy. The walls above the box were decorated with framed photos of Roger with country-western stars—new celebrities like Moon Conway and older ones like Willie Nelson. “You home?”
“In here,” she called out from the kitchen.
The kitchen was Danny’s least favorite part of the house—too white, too large, and too cold. His mother was standing at the sink, straining macaroni through a colander. She was dressed for work in high-heeled cowboy boots and a crisp blue blouse. Her cell phone was cradled to her ear.
“Yes, we can do that interview on Sunday. But it’ll have to be on the bus as we’re heading down to the Opry. Moon’s schedule is very busy.”
Danny dropped his backpack on the floor just as Comet trotted out of the sunroom and around the kitchen island. He was an old terrier, his dark hair shot through with gray, and if he didn’t quite bounce up and down against Danny’s leg the way he used to, he wagged his tail and nuzzled Danny’s shoes.
“All right, call me back.” Mom hung up the phone and carried the colander to a large glass bowl. “Hi, honey. Did you see the truck?”
“Yeah.” He dumped his backpack on the floor, and opened his arms to give her a giant hug. “It’s amazing.”
“Roger’s boss even personalized the plates for him. MUZKBUX. Music bucks.” She dropped the now-empty colander in the sink and ran water through it. “The insurance won’t come through until tomorrow, though.”
Danny dropped his arms. “Roger’s boss bought him a truck?”
A timer went off on the stove. Mom slid past Danny to rescue a covered casserole from the oven.
“His bonus this year,” she said. “He told us, remember?”
Danny’s knees felt weak. He sat on the nearest stool. “No, he didn’t.”
“I’m sure he did.” Mom looked closely at him. “You didn’t think—”
“Sunday’s my birthday,” he said.