“Does he hit you?” he asked.
“Of course not.”
“Does he hit your mom?”
“He better not.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
“She’s not sure she can like him,” Abbey answered.
Derek pulled a cigarette from his pack. “Why can’t you like him?” He held the pack up to me, but I shook it off. I figured Derek had given me enough for one day. “Is your mom forgetting about you now that he’s around?”
I snapped my gaze at him. “No. She’d never do that.”
He lit his cigarette and then raised his hands slightly in defense. “Okay. Okay. I was only asking because some mothers do that. They’re so desperate for a man in their life. They’re not even that picky about the man. Any man will do, and they give that man whatever he wants just to keep him happy so he won’t ever leave. Even if he’s an asshole, they’ll spend more time with him than their own children.”
Abbey and I stared at him as we both took in what he’d just said. It was horrible what he talked about, and I could tell from Abbey’s expression that she thought so, too.
“I don’t even think my mother would do that. What kind of a mother would do that?” Abbey asked.
“A no-good one.” Derek took a deep drag off his cigarette and then shot to his feet. He seemed agitated.
“What’s wrong?” I looked up at him, and from the side-angle he seemed thinner than he usually appeared to me. His tight-fitting jeans accentuated his skinny legs and hung a few inches below his lean waist. His thin arms were defined, but without any bulk. His body fit perfectly into his tight black Metallica T-shirt.
“Nothing’s wrong. It’s just time for me to go.” He knocked remnants of gravel off his jeans and then turned toward us.
His gaze lingered on Abbey and me, as if he wanted to say something else.
Abbey dragged the backpack next to her and picked through the magazines, oblivious of Derek’s momentarily strange behavior. Finally, he squeezed his hands into his front pockets. “You guys enjoy those magazines and be careful with that knife.”
“We will. See you later, Derek.” Abbey barely looked up as she pulled a magazine from the pack and immersed herself in the pages.
“Here,” he pulled a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket and tossed it to me, “for later.”
I caught the pack and lifted the top, almost a full pack. “What for?”
He raised his arms slightly and walked backward. “For you.”
Derek walked away. Every few steps he stopped and glanced back at us. I didn’t know what was luring his attention back to us, but he was definitely taking something in.
I watched him until he disappeared into the brush.
THE NEXT DAY we rode our bikes to our Hideout. Abbey had spent the night, and although we hadn’t stayed up all night reading the magazines like we planned, we did stay up pretty late. We woke up that morning on a blanket on my bedroom floor with magazines scattered all around us.
Dark clouds were forming above us as we rode our bikes to the Hideout.
“Damn it. Looks like it’s gonna rain soon,” I said.
“We should probably turn back. The sky didn’t look this bad earlier,” Abbey said, with a nervous tone in her voice.
“It probably won’t rain for a little while.”
“What’s so important we need to go so bad?” Abbey asked, annoyed.
“Because Derek might be there, and I want to give him something.”
“What do you want to give him?”
Last night, after Abbey had already fallen asleep, I stayed up thinking about everything Derek had given us. I didn’t know why he thought we deserved all that he gave, but it felt right to share something with him, too.
I pulled a small bag of smashed pennies from my pocket. Abbey quickened her pedaling to ride beside me. She strained her neck to see what I was holding.
“Your pennies? You’re giving him your pennies?”
“Not all of them, just some.”
“Why?”
“Because he deserves something, and I couldn’t think of anything else to give him.”
“But what’s he supposed to do with them?”
I knew Abbey wasn’t trying to demean my gift. She was genuinely stumped at what, if any, enjoyment Derek would find in receiving my unexpected present.
“Maybe having the pennies with him all the time will help him understand why I like smashing them so much.”
“Tell me again why you like smashing them so much.”
I let out a deep sigh and quickened my pace to get away from her, but she kept up with me.
“Stop trying to lose me,” she said. “Just tell me one more time, and I promise I won’t ask again.”
“Cuz I like the way the pennies change. In seconds, everything about a penny changes after a train runs over it. It doesn’t look like a penny anymore, but if I want it to be, it could still be a penny. Or, I could transform them into something completely different. I could take all my smashed pennies and glue them together into something spectacular. And no one would ever know my masterpiece of a creation was made with nothing but a bunch of pennies.”
“Wow. You think you could build something like that?”
“I can try. I’ll need a lot more pennies though.”
“Cool. I can help you. You should tell Derek that when you give him the pennies.”
We rode for a while, the pennies clinking against each other in the bag, not saying much until Abbey steered her bike closer to me. “Do you think people can start over like the pennies?”
I thought about the smashed pennies in my bag and the ones left in my room, but didn’t know how to compare them to a living person. “I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. “Why?”
“Because someday I’m gonna change so no one will recognize me anymore, and then I can start over and become something spectacular.”
In the distance, I heard sirens coming our way. I looked behind me and saw flashes of lights heading right toward us.
“Move to the side,” I yelled and swerved my bike into the grass, near the curb, knowing this was the reason my mother didn’t want me riding in the street.
We hopped off our bikes and watched as two ambulances, a fire truck, and a couple police cars sped by. We stood in silence as the spectacle rushed past us.
“I wonder what happened,” Abbey said as my eyes followed their trail down the street. “Wonder where they’re going.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Probably some stupid kitchen fire.”
Mrs. Chappetta, the old hag next door, had once left a burner on her stove on and a towel caught fire. The fire had spread and burned a cabinet. A bunch of firemen came but it wasn’t anything serious. But, boy, did the noise get all the neighbors out into the streets, but most retreated back to their homes when they learned the commotion was over nothing but a small kitchen fire and a burnt cabinet.
The streets were clear and quiet again, and we got back onto our bikes and rode toward the Hideout. I glanced quickly to the now almost completely gray sky looking even more ominous than before. The idea of getting caught in a storm excited me.
I turned the corner first to where the entrance of our Hideout was, and I kicked my feet back against the pedal, coming to a stuttering stop.
Abbey almost fell onto the unpaved street to avoid riding into me.
“Why the heck did you stop like that?” she asked, but then I heard her take in a deep sudden breath and not utter another word.
I knew she was seeing what I was seeing.
The ambulances. The fire truck. The police cars. All there, sitting in front of the old decrepit Nabisco building Abbey and I rode past almost every day to get to our favorite spot.
Our Hideout wasn’t hiding anymore.
“What could have happened?” Abbey jumped off her bike. “Why are they all here?”
My first thought was that somehow the cops had found out kids were throwing r
ocks at the cars mounted on the trains, but that didn’t explain the reason for the ambulances and fire truck. We were about a block away, and if we were going to find anything out we needed to get closer.
Abbey followed me as we quietly ran toward the trucks.
“That’s enough. I don’t wanna get any closer,” Abbey whispered as we came upon the back of one of the ambulances.
“Then go across the street and wait for me.”
“Why? Where are you going?”
I peeked around the ambulance, past the abandoned building, as far back toward the Hideout as I could see from where I stood. I couldn’t see much. “I’m goin’ back there.”
“What? They’ll see you.”
“I’ll go the other way. Don’t you wanna know what happened? Why they’re here?”
She gulped. “I guess so.”
“Then let’s go.”
Abbey followed me, and for a second I swore I saw her reach out to take my hand, but then quickly pulled it back. I wouldn’t have been surprised if she had reached for me. She looked scared, and I wasn’t sure I would have had the heart to shake her off if she had. I ran slower across the gravel road than I normally would have so Abbey could stay as close to me as I knew she needed to be.
We made it to the other side without being seen, which was easy to do because whatever was happening near our Hideout apparently required the attention of everyone there, because no one that we could see was hanging around the trucks.
We stayed close to the side of the brick building as we crept in the direction of the fields. Off somewhere in the distance, I could hear the faint murmur of people talking and walking across the brush.
“What the heck could have happened?” Abbey asked, concern covering her face.
Seeing all the trucks in the front and knowing people were somewhere in our Hideout made our Hideout not feel so much like our Hideout anymore. And right then, I knew something bad had happened. The sound of the soft mumbled voices I heard reminded me of the few wakes I’d been to with my mom. There’s a specific way people talk when they’re among the dead—quietly, with deep, somber voices.
Abbey was standing so close behind me I felt her breath on the back of my neck.
“On the count of three,” I whispered. “Let’s make a run for the bushes right down there.” I pointed straight ahead of us, in the direction of the voices.
“One . . . two . . . thr . . .
“What are you kids doing back there!” a voice called out behind us. Abbey screamed first, and then I screamed at her scream. We both turned around. There was a man, about fifty years old, in a police uniform standing near the trucks.
“N . . . n . . . nothing,” Abbey stuttered.
“You two can’t be back there. Come on back and go on home,” he said.
We walked toward him. The officer searched our faces, most likely deciphering if he recognized us.
Despite being partial to causing some trouble, we never knew trouble with the law. I could tell he couldn’t place us.
“What were you two doing back there?” he asked.
“Just wanted to see,” I said.
The officer shook his head. “A couple curious kids.” His expression turned serious, solemn. “You don’t want to see what’s back there. It’s not for kids.”
Whatever it was didn’t seem to be for adults either.
He took a deep breath and rested his fingers around his thick belt. “Go on home.”
“Why are you guys here?” I asked, staring him straight in the face. “What happened?”
Over his shoulder, I saw a small crowd of people forming in the streets around the trucks, and now there were three or four officers instructing the crowd where to stand and which barriers not to cross.
I looked behind me, away from the officer, and held my eyes over the fields that for a long time I considered to be only mine, Abbey’s, and Derek’s. My gaze fell over the brush across the land to the woods far beyond it.
“I know that place,” I whispered.
“What’s that you say?” the officer asked.
“I know those trees over there. I know the rocks and the gravel that mixes with the dirt in the ground.” I paused. “I know those tracks, too.”
Abbey, standing beside me, looked where I was looking. I didn’t know if we were feeling the same emotions, but there was something about life in that moment that we weren’t allowed into a place we knew so well, a place that used to be open to us whenever we wanted.
The world enclosed in the space of our Hideout had always seemed so small. But seeing it taken over by strangers, outsiders, the place was suddenly enormous, yet out of our reach even though we were looking right at it.
The officer directed us back to where the rest of the crowd stood.
As Abbey and I walked alongside the officer, it seemed every eye of every face gathered there was looking straight at us. I figured the people assumed, while watching the officer escort us away from a place blocked off to everyone else, that we were somehow involved in the spectacle that lined the street with emergency vehicles, attracting throngs of gawkers.
I looked into the sea of curious faces, knowing disappointment would take over the moment the masses figured out we weren’t part of the show, but merely a couple of kids caught in a place we weren’t supposed to be.
We got closer to the group of people, and while the officer reached to move one of the barricades for Abbey and me to pass, I looked again at the crowd hovering around, and one face caught my eye.
An overweight woman, wearing a bright green house dress, was staring wide-eyed toward something over my shoulder. Her eyes were bigger than I’d ever seen a person open their eyes. She didn’t blink. Not once. And then a hush fell over the crowd.
I saw, and felt, people stirring all around me.
And then someone screamed, and a woman yelled, “Oh my God! It’s a body!”
I turned around to finally see what everyone else was already looking at—paramedics pushing a stretcher carrying a body covered in a bloody, white sheet. The back doors of the ambulance we were standing next to opened, and I watched the paramedic inside make room for the stretcher.
“Back up, everyone.” One of the officers held up his arms to keep the persistent crowd back as the stretcher approached us.
I stared at the stained sheet, imagining the body that lay beneath it. I could see the outline of its head and shoulders against the thin layer of fabric. The figure reminded me of the time I cut holes in an old bed sheet, slipped it over me and jumped in front of Abbey while she watched TV. I’d never heard her scream so loud, and I never laughed so hard.
I didn’t know if Abbey was thinking of the same memory, but as the stretcher passed us, she grabbed my hand and held it tight.
“You don’t have to look,” I whispered.
“I can’t turn away,” she whispered back.
I knew what she meant. I couldn’t stop looking either, even though my body was trembling.
The paramedics lifted the stretcher into the ambulance. Thick black straps steadied the body as the stretcher was moved into its space in the truck. The intensity of the crowd behind me grew. The people around me drew closer, straining to catch one last glimpse of the covered body before the doors closed.
An elbow in my back nudged me forward. I lost my balance and stumbled to the ground. An officer helped me up and yelled for everyone to step back.
As I moved to stand, I took one last look at the body, and what I saw put me right back on my knees.
“Lyssa, you okay?” Abbey grabbed my shoulders and tried to lift me up, but I was too heavy for her. I had lost all strength in my arms and legs. I stood on my knees, feeling my body moving forward. I held out my hands to stop myself from falling, but my arms couldn’t hold me up. I fell straight to the ground. My face smashed against the pavement, but I didn’t feel any pain.
Abbey called my name, and the same officer, who had helped me before, struggled to pick me off
the ground this time. I was dead weight.
I lifted my head slightly, just in time to catch one last glimpse of Derek’s bloody shoes just before the ambulance doors closed.
Chapter Eleven
ABBEY AND I were sitting on our buckets in my garage. The radio sat only a couple feet away from us, but nothing inside me wanted to turn it on. I was sure Abbey felt the same.
“I heard my mom talking on the phone last night,” I said. “She thought I was sleeping, but I was listening. She saw Derek at the hospital. She said he killed himself. Jumped right in front of the train. Our train.”
Abbey started crying. “Why would he do that?”
For a second, I considered not telling her everything I knew, but decided against it. He was both our friend, and he died at our Hideout. We were in this together. “You know all those cuts and bruises on his face?”
Abbey nodded.
“It wasn’t from fights with other kids. His step-dad was beating him, and beating him good. Ever wonder why Derek always wore a jean jacket even when it was hot? It wasn’t to look cool like we thought. He was hiding scars.”
Abbey’s shoulder slumped lower and she brushed her hands over face. “He told me his step-dad drinks.” Her muffled words cut through her tears.
“When?”
“The day after my mom was really drunk and was asking all those embarrassing questions about Franklin. You were off walkin’ on the tracks, and Derek and I were alone. I must have looked sad cuz he asked me what was wrong. I told him about my mom. He said he understood. That’s when he told me his step-dad drinks, too. But I didn’t know about the beatings. I was too busy feeling sorry for myself to wonder if he had it worse than I did.”
I remembered that day. It was the day I saw Derek put his arm around Abbey. “I really believed he was getting into all those fights. I never doubted it. He . . .”
“Looked like someone who would get into a lot of fights,” Abbey finished.
I shrugged. “I guess so, but if we really stopped to think about it, we would’ve known something was off. Derek was too nice to us to think he could be so violent. Do you think Carson would ever have been as nice to us?”
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