by Steven Gould
It was my best distraction. When in doubt, always ask a math question or a question about Le Petit Prince. Either could occupy them for hours, avoiding whatever they’d been on about. The downside was, well, it could occupy them for hours.
“What do you mean?”
“Like ten divided by three. You know—the answer is three point three three three three three three three and so on. Forever, I guess. But does it go on forever? How do they know? Maybe after enough times it becomes two? Or four? They call it a rational number, but really—what’s rational about that?”
So Mum pulled down a pad of paper and Dad pulled out an old textbook and by the time I escaped to my room, an hour and a half later, they were showing each other that it was really a function of a base-ten numbering system. “Yeah, if you divide ten by three in base nine, you get three.”
I shut the door to my room and flopped facedown onto my bed. I should have told them. I wanted to tell them. But I didn’t want to move again.
I changed for bed early, and tried to lose myself in reading, in drawing, even math. Later I brushed my teeth without being asked, causing more comments from Mum. She came in and kissed me good night. Dad stood in the doorway, said, “Good dreams, Griff.”
Mum asked, “You want the door shut?”
“year.”
“Bonne nuit, mon cher.”
Normally I’m asleep in minutes but this time I couldn’t get it out of my head. I’d lied about it. I’d broken the rules.
So they’ll never know. Only Paully saw and who would believe him, even if he talked?
I buried my head under my pillow but it didn’t help. I’d know. Didn’t matter if Mum and Dad found out. I’d always know.
I got up. I could hear them—well, I could hear the TV. They always watched the late news together and drank a cup of herbal tea. It was part of their routine, their last thing before bedtime. Sometimes I’d sneak down the hall and watch from the corner. Half the time Mum would doze off during the sports and Dad would tease her about it.
I eased open my door. I had to tell them. Whatever happened, I had to tell them. I took a step out into the hall and the doorbell rang.
I felt a jolt in the stomach. Paully? His parents? Someone from the school?
Dad turned off the TV before he went to the door, followed by Mum, yawning. She hadn’t fallen asleep yet—the news was on the weather. She saw me in the doorway and blinked, started to frown.
I heard Dad open the door—it was around the corner past the kitchen so I couldn’t see it from the hall.
“Mr. O’Conner?” It was a woman’s voice. “I’m so sorry to drop by this late, but I’d like to talk to you about Griffin. I’m from the Homeschooling Administration Department at SDSD.”
Mum’s head snapped around. “No, you’re not.”
“Beg your pardon?” the woman’s voice said.
“You’re not. It’s not the SDSD. It’s the San Diego Unified School District or the San Diego City Schools. And there is no department for homeschooling. It’s done through the charter schools.”
“Tine. Have it your way,” said the woman. Her voice, previously warm and apologetic, went hard like granite.
Mum took a step away from the door and I saw her eyes get really big. Her hand down at her side jerked toward me and pointed back, a clear indication to go back into my room.
I took a step back but I left the door open so that I could still hear, but what I heard was Dad saying, “Put the knife down. We’re not armed. What do you want?”
There was a crash from my parents’ room, at the other end of the hall.
Back at the door a man’s voice, a Brit from Bristol by the accent, said, “Where’s your kiddle?”
Dad shouted, “Griff—” There was a thud and his voice cut off. Mum screamed and I jumped—
—into the living room, magazine pages flying through the air, books falling off the bookshelf.
Dad was on his knees, one hand to his head. There were two strange men and the woman in the living room and they all twisted as I appeared, much faster than Dad ever managed, odd-shaped guns coming to bear. I flinched away, into the kitchen, plates and cups shattering against the wall and sink, and heard the guns fire, muffled, not unlike the paint gun, but there was an odd whipping noise, and they were turning again, right to me by the refrigerator. Mum screamed “Go!” and shoved one of the men into the other but the woman still fired and it burned my neck and I was standing by the boulder, the moonlit, paint-splattered boulder two hundred miles away.
I jumped back, but not to the kitchen. I appeared in the dark garage below and scrambled up onto the workbench, to reach the shelf above, where Dad kept the paint gun. Steps pounded down the outside stairs and then someone kicked the door, to force it open, but there was a drop bar—it was that kind of neighborhood.
I put a CO2 cartridge in the gun. The top of the door splintered but held. I fumbled a tubular magazine of paintballs into the gun as a chunk of door fell into the room. The fat barrel of one of the weird guns appeared in the gap and I jumped, this time to my room.
Steps pounded down the hall and I jumped again, back to the living room. A man held a knife to Mum’s throat and Dad lay on the ground, still.
I shot the man in the eyes, point-blank.
He screamed and fell backward, clawing at his eyes. A gun went off and something tore at my hip and I jumped sideways again, shooting the man who was coming up the hallway in the forehead. One hand went to his face but he fired his weapon and multiple projectiles with wires between them tore through the air over my head. I jumped behind him and he whirled and I shot him in the bollocks, twice.
He doubled over and as he did, I saw Mum.
She was lying on the floor, slumped to one side, and the blood was everywhere.
Plaster exploded next to my head as a trio of projectiles thudded into the wall, wire trailing, lashing at the paint. I dropped to my knees, half flinching, half numb.
Dad’s puddle of blood was even bigger and there was a knife sticking out of his lower back.
The man I’d shot in the bollocks was twisting around, bringing his gun up. I shot him in the face again, hitting his cheekbone. He fired his gun but the cables flew down the hallway, over my head, tearing pictures off both walls. I hit him with the paintball gun barrel, hit him hard, and again, and again. He dropped his gun and his eyes rolled back.
I turned back to Mum and Dad and the door. I could hear footsteps on the stair. I lifted the paintball gun but there was a flash from the door and a projectile caught the gun, slammed it up into my forehead.
I fell back, my vision dimming, dropping into some dark and formless place, but instead of hitting the wall, I fell all the way back onto sand and gravel.
The Empty Quarter. Mum. Dad. Empty.
I tried to lift my head and the moon dimmed and blinked out.
Empty.
TWO
Lost (and Found)
Someone was trickling water into my mouth and, startled, I inhaled it. Wracking coughs produced a stabbing pain in my head and side, but I couldn’t stop. The sun was high and blinding. I squeezed my eyes shut, still coughing. There was something wrong with my forehead and the side of my neck and my right hip.
Hands lifted me, helping me to sit. I managed a wheezing breath without coughing and opened my eyes. Sand. Gravel.
The Empty Quarter. I touched my forehead—there was a ragged gash, crusted, above my right eyebrow. I dropped farther and felt the side of my neck. There was a scab, like a rug burn. It tugged when I turned my head to see who was helping me to sit up.
“¿Mas comodo?” a rough voice asked. White teeth flashed in a salt-and-pepper beard. I shifted back slightly. He wore a straw hat and a blinding white button-down shirt, worn khaki shorts. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored aviator shades. His skin was brown but he didn’t look Hispanic. Tanned.
“Excuse me?” I managed.
“Oh,” he said. “More water?” He offered me the pl
astic bottle.
I accepted it and sipped cautiously, trying not to breathe it again.
“What happened, kid?”
I blinked. What had happened? Something at home, the woman who said she was from the school district … ?
I think I screamed then. I know I jerked upright and surged to my feet and my vision dimmed.
Not sure how much time passed, but I was lying down again, on my back. Someone was holding something over me, which shaded my face from the sun. It was a black umbrella and I could see the sun shining through the black cloth and the spokes, spotted with rust. The hand holding it was thin and wrinkled. I followed the arm to a woman with jet black hair, wrinkled brown skin, and dark eyes like still pools of night.
She saw me watching her and said something in Spanish, to the side. I started to sit up again and a hand, not hers, pressed me back down.
“Let’s not and say we did.” It was the bearded man from before. “Unless you want to pass out again. There’s a nice puddle of dried blood here. Didn’t see it before—you were lying on it, but I’d say you’re better off lying down, okay?”
The wracking sobs came then. I remembered it all, every bit, flashing over and over, from Mum screaming “Go!” to the blood and the motionless eyes staring into nothing.
I think I passed out again.
The light was different—the sun had shifted halfway across the sky and the wind had picked up. Instead of an umbrella, a blue plastic tarp shaded my entire body, flapping gently in the slight breeze. A clear plastic bag half filled with fluid twisted and bounced with the movement of the tarp. A tube dropped from the bag and I watched it for several minutes before realizing it was running into my arm.
Crunching footsteps crossing the gravel came closer and then the light changed again as someone stuck his head into the shelter.
“¿Estas despierto?” It was the woman from before, the one with the umbrella. She watched my face for some sign of comprehension, then tried, “You okay?”
“Okay? Yes, uh, si.No hablo español.”
“Okay. Good. Okay.” She pointed to a plastic bottle lying beside me, mostly full of water. She mimed tilting a bottle up to her mouth. “Okay?”
“Right. Uh, okay.”
I tried to sit up but she shook her head. “No. Descanza. Estate quietecito.”
I dropped back. My head spun from the slight effort to sit up. I explored my side and found a mass of gauze and tape on my hip. I found a smaller bandage on my forehead, running up into my hair, the tape tugging painfully when I touched it. I wasn’t on the ground, I realized, but lying on a stretcher, one of those canvas things with two poles locked apart. Turning my head without lifting it, I realized we were no longer in my gully but on some raised hillside. I could see miles across desert, over gullies and low hills.
They’d moved me.
Driven me? Carried me?
I thought about the night before and it was as if I were stuck, frozen. My mind just stopped working. I didn’t pass out but I lay there staring at the ceiling trying to think but it was too much—my mind was just shying away from it. I knew it had happened. It was the gauze on my head. My brain was wrapped in gauze—white, fuzzy gauze—and it was hard to feel stuff through it.
I heard someone shout from far away, “Hey, Consuelo! ¡Un poco ayuda!” The woman sitting beside me patted me again on the shoulder and ducked out under the edge of the tarp.
As soon as she was standing upright I heard her footsteps go from a walk to a jogging run. After a minute footsteps returned, more than two, but there was a dragging sound, too, and then the bearded man and Consuelo were back, a man supported between them. His face was bloody and swollen and though his limbs twitched as if to help support him, he was helpless as a baby.
The bearded man glanced at me, watching, and said, “Hey, pardner, think you can get out of that stretcher? Got someone here who needs it worse.”
I blinked, then sat up carefully. The bandages at my hip tugged and my head swam just a bit but my vision didn’t dim like it had before. I edged off the stretcher away from the newcomer, then slid the stretcher toward them, holding it steady as they put the newcomer down.
There was a rapid exchange in Spanish of which the only word I understood was “banditos” and they were working as they talked. Consuelo was wiping blood off the man’s face as the bearded man hung another bag of liquid from the same line that supported mine. He cleaned a spot on the inside of the man’s elbow with a wipe from a tear-open packet and then slid a needle into the skin.
I winced and looked away. When I turned back, the needle was connected to the tube hanging down from the bag. The wind died for a moment, then shifted around, and I could smell him. He smelled awful, like one of the dirtier homeless guys around Balboa Park—rancid sweat and a whiff of urine.
“Uh, need a loo … bathroom.” My voice was a rasping croak but understandable.
The bearded guy was putting a foam collar around the neck of the man on the stretcher. He looked up at me. “Really? That’s a good sign.” He reached over and pinched the back of my hand.
I jerked it away. “Hey!”
He shook his head, chuckling. “Pinch the skin on the back of your hand and let go. Where I can see.”
“Why?”
“Dehydration. The longer the skin stays tented, the more dehydrated you are.”
“Oh.”I held my hand up, palm down, and did what he asked. The skin pulled back flat pretty much as soon as I let go.
“Hold still,” he said. I froze and he peeled back the strip of tape securing my drip needle, then pulled it out, one quick, smooth movement. I felt a tug and then there was a red dot welling up. He handed me an antiseptic wipe. “Put pressure on it with that—hold it high. While you’re peeing you can close your elbow over it.” He put his own finger over the inside of his elbow and pinned it by folding his arm up.
“Where’s the loo—uh, toilet?”
He laughed. “Pick a rock.”
I ducked gingerly out from under the tarp. My head spun and I bent over for a moment, bracing my hands on my thighs. After another moment things settled and I straightened carefully.
There was a battered four-wheel-drive pickup parked between two boulders, so dusty I couldn’t tell what color the paint job was. A large pair of binoculars and a battered orange-and-white ice chest sat on the tailgate. Two camp chairs sat in the partial shade of a mesquite bush.
The pressure in my bladder reminded me why I was standing. I took limping steps in the direction of the largest rock down the hill and peed behind it.
It took me longer to walk up the hill than down. It wasn’t just gravity. Without the full bladder I didn’t have the motivation, the need, and the gravel hurt my bare feet. It was hard not to just lie down on the ground right where I was and curl up in a ball.
The bearded man ducked out of the tarp and glanced at me. “You okay?”
No! I thought, but I nodded and resumed my painful limp up the hill.
He motioned toward the camp chair. “I’m Sam,” he said. “You got a name?”
“Grif—” I stopped myself. Then continued. “John Grifford. They call me Griff.” The woman claiming to be from the school district had asked for me, for Griffin O’Conner. “What happened to him?” I gestured at the blue tarp.
“Bandits. He’s a Mexican making the crossing to find work. Pretty poor but with a little money, usually everything his extended family can scratch together in U.S. dollars so he can travel to a city with jobs once he’s across. There’s them on both sides of the border that prey on ’em. And after it happens, they don’t think they can complain to the police on this side, and on the other side, half the time it is the police.” Sam paused as I painfully lowered myself into the chair. “Now, once I heard you talk, I knew you weren’t Mexican, but his story could be yours—who attacked you?”
I looked away and put my hand to my mouth. The cotton gauze threatened to shred.
He added the unbearabl
e bit: “Where are your parents?”
I nearly jumped. It was like a blow. I knew I wasn’t in danger but I still wanted to flinch away. I wanted to flee, to run, but I knew that no matter how far I went it wouldn’t change the facts.
“They’re d … d … DEAD!” There. I’d said it. Said something I couldn’t even think.
“Where?” Sam’s eyes widened a bit and his eyes twitched sideways. “When?”
He thinks it happened where they found me, that the people who attacked me could still be around. “San Diego—last night.”
Oh, bugger. What was the point of giving him a false name? Now he’d be able to read the newspapers and figure out who I really was.
Something my dad used to say went through my head: Better to keep your mouth shut and be thought an idiot than to speak and confirm it.
Sam dropped his shoulders back down. “How’d you get all the way out here? Did they dump you? Could they still be around?”
I shook my head. “I got away—I came here because it was … safe.” I looked at the blue tarp. “Well, I thought it was safe.”
“How?”
I shook my head. “Can’t tell you. But honest, those that kill—” I bit down on my lip and squeezed my eyes shut for a second. “The last I saw of them was in San Diego. Not here.”
He stared at me for a moment. “Well, Pablo, in there, needs some pretty urgent medical attention. We’ll be putting him in the truck and then I’ll radio the county EMS, meet them out at the highway. The police and the border patrol will get involved pretty quick, so I just have one question. Should we be mentioning you? I mean, you didn’t go to the police in San Diego, did you?”
I stared at him. “What kind of adult are you? Of course you’re going to tell the police, no matter what I say. I’m just a kid. Doesn’t matter what I want. I’m a minor.”
He blinked, then laughed without making any noise, like I’d said something funny.
“So why are you even asking?” Too strident. I clamped my mouth shut, determined not to say anything else.