by Natalie Hyde
If I had a phone, I could just text Shard and tell her where to meet me, like normal people do. Except neither of us had one. Email was out too, because even if I did walk all the way to the library to use their computers to send one, her home computer was gummed up with Merle’s fruit juice. This called for doing it old school.
I grabbed a handful of little rocks that were on the edge of the paved parking lot and headed around the corner of the building to where Shard’s bedroom window was. I tossed the stones one by one so they made a tapping noise on the glass. All I could hope was that she was in her room and could hear it.
The face that popped up into the window wasn’t Shard’s; it was Reese’s. I hoped she would get her sister and not call the cops “just for fun.”
It was a relief to see Shard come to the window and for her to point toward the Dumpster. I ran back behind it and crouched down. This running from the law was exhausting. How do escapees do it? I think I’d turn myself in just to get some rest.
Shard came around the Dumpster. “Are you nuts?” She never did bother with small talk. She got right to the point. I think that was one of the things I liked best about her.
“No more than usual.”
“Family Services has been prowling around here already today. They’ve been to our place twice asking if we’ve seen you.”
I groaned. “Will Reese tell them she saw me?”
“I’ll bribe her with something. Ten Jolly Rancher candies and a viewing of one of my ‘kissing movies,’ as she calls them, should cover it.”
A “kissing movie” sounded like something I wanted to avoid, that’s for sure.
“I need you to do me a favour,” I said. Shard didn’t say anything, but just raised her eyebrows. “I need you to go down to the police station and talk to my dad. The minute I walk through those doors, I’m as good as in foster care.”
“So I go down there and say what to your dad?”
“Find out if he’s okay, and tell him I’m staying with Fiona and that I have a plan to get north.”
“A plan? Okay, let’s hear it.”
Now that I was going to have to say it out loud, I felt nervous again. In my head it sounded possible. Out loud it was going to sound dumb.
“I’m going to ask Fiona to take me.”
Shard snorted. “The Dragon Lady? Are you kidding? Why would she take you up north?”
“She buys that beer from the Yukon. Deadman’s Creek, it’s called. My dad loves the stuff …”
“Loves it a bit too much,” Shard said under her breath.
“… so she has to go up there from time to time, right? To buy it and stuff.”
“She doesn’t have to go all the way up there to buy it. All she has to do is pick up the phone or place an order online and they’ll ship it.”
“Oh.” My shoulders sagged with the realization that, as usual, I was wrong. Now what was I going to do? “Well, that’s that,” I said. “I guess I should just turn myself in to Family Services, right?”
I was angry. All I could see was that I was going to end up like my father — no home, no hope. Another loser Dearing.
“Not so fast, Mr. Pessimist. Fiona doesn’t need to go up there to buy beer, but she does go up there.”
“She does? Why?”
“She’s from up there, doofus. Didn’t you know that? Don’t you ever talk to people? Why do you think she even sells Yukon beer? Sheesh.” Shard shook her head at me.
Hope surged back. I just tried not to think about how I was going to convince Fiona to take a trip home right now. But I would think of something.
“Will you go tell my dad, then?”
“Tell him what? You don’t even know if Fiona will take you.”
“She will. Just tell him, okay?”
Shard sighed. “All right. I’ll do it. Meet me back here at one o’clock. But you owe me, big time.”
Shard waited while I made my escape back through the hole in the fence and down the alley, in case someone tried to follow me. They’d have to go through her, and I don’t recommend it. I mentioned her temper, right?
I headed back to the Bull and Brambles to talk to Fiona. This made my stomach churn more than meeting Mrs. Family Services. What if she wouldn’t go? How else could I get up there? I didn’t have enough money for the bus and there was no way I was going to try and hitchhike. Speaking of stomachs churning, mine felt like a pair of hands were grabbing it and twisting. I hadn’t eaten anything since the bar snacks last night. I detoured into a fast food place and got a breakfast sandwich with some of the tip money from last night. It was greasy and hot and, best of all, stopped the ache.
I wiped my hands on my pants and took the lane that went behind the bar. I had one shot at this and I had better make it good.
There was a truck in the alley and a guy unloading boxes into the backroom. I slipped inside and saw Fiona counting a tower of boxes and checking things off on her clipboard.
“I need to talk to you,” I said to her.
She stopped her scribbling and looked down at me. “Well sure. Just let me put all my work down. I’ll let this delivery guy steal from me by not counting the order, and let him leave some boxes in the doorway so someone trips over them and then sues me for breaking their ankle, and I’ll talk to you instead.”
Wow. Talk about heavy on the sarcasm.
“Or … I can wait until you’re done,” I said.
Fiona made a sound that was a cross between a snort and huff and went back to her clipboard. I thought the best thing to do was lend a hand. The sooner the deliveryman left, the sooner I could talk to Fiona.
I looked at one of the boxes I was moving: Old Dog Brewing Company. And below that, Deadman’s Creek. Was this a good sign or a bad omen?
When the delivery guy was gone, Fiona left to go out into the bar. I followed her. I was running out of time.
“So, can we talk now?”
Fiona sighed. “I really don’t have time for this.”
“You don’t even know what I’m going to say!”
“So far, every time you’ve talked to me, you’ve needed something.”
Well, I couldn’t argue that. Truth was, this was an even bigger favour. I had to ease into this.
“I was wondering how your family was.”
Fiona stopped wiping down the bar and stared at me.
“My family?”
“Yeah. They live up north, right? You probably don’t get to see them much.”
Fiona stood absolutely still. “I see them as much as I ever want to.”
“Oh.” What do you say to that? Obviously not a close family. “I hear it’s beautiful up there. You must miss it.”
“It’s cold eight months of the year,” she said flatly.
Right. This wasn’t going well. And Fiona was getting suspicious — I could see it in the way her eyebrows were going higher and higher.
“Oh,” I said. Just get to the point, Shard would say right about now. “I was hoping you were planning on making a trip up north soon.”
That statement just hung in the air like a half-filled balloon.
“No. I wasn’t.” She began filling little wooden bowls with pretzels.
Wasn’t she even going to ask me why? Well, I would tell her anyway.
“I need to go to the Yukon.”
She didn’t answer. There was only the sound of glasses clinking as Fiona straightened them on the trays.
“It’s really important. Life or death,” I added. That should do it. The phrase “life or death” always gets results. She would have to say something now.
“Look, kid, I have a business to run right here and it’s not a travel agency. You need to get up north? Take a bus.” She went back to getting the bar ready for business later.
I was stumped. If “life or death” didn’t get a reaction from her, what would?
“I don’t have money for the bus.” Or the time, I wanted to say. I had been doing some calculations. I would probably nee
d nine or ten days to travel up there, find the claim, attach the tags and then race back to the office to register. From what I remembered looking at the map on the computer, the claim was a long way away from Dawson. I didn’t even know how I would get there — borrow a bike? An ATV? Taxi? Did they even have taxis in Dawson?
I wished I’d had time to do more research at the library, but one thing I knew already … I had no time to waste. The anniversary date of the claim was now only six days away. After that, the first person to stake the claim got it. Every minute after midnight of that day that I wasn’t up there was a chance to lose it.
“Not my problem,” Fiona said.
“But …”
“Look, I put you up for the night. That’s what you said, just one night. Now you need to get things figured out. I’ve got stuff to do.”
She turned and went back into the backroom. I was stunned. I couldn’t believe everything had fallen apart so quickly. What was I going to do now?
I sank down on one of the chairs and pulled out my granddad’s picture. I guess you were wrong, I said to the face staring back at me. This is a dead end. Another Dearing failure.
“Where did you get that?”
I jumped at the sound of Fiona’s voice. I hadn’t heard her come back into the bar.
“It’s mine.”
Fiona snatched it out of my hands. “What are you doing with Wally Dearing’s picture?”
This was bizarre. How did she know his name? Or what he looked like?
“He’s my granddad.”
Fiona slowly raised her gaze from the picture to me. “You’re a Dearing?”
“Yeah. My dad is Frank Dearing. He’s in here all the time.”
Fiona looked perturbed. “Yes, I know who your father is, but we’re not exactly friends. And all he ever said was, ‘call me Frank.’ He never said his last name.” She looked back down at the picture. “He’s Frank Dearing?” She shook her head. Then her eyes narrowed. “Does this have something to do with why you want to go up there?”
I nodded. “I’m going to get my granddad’s claim back.”
“Wally’s claim is back up for grabs?”
“You know about the claim?” I asked her.
“Everybody up there has heard about Wally’s gold.”
Why did the way she said that make my stomach lurch? I had a feeling that maybe I shouldn’t have said anything about it. The fewer people who knew about this, the better.
“So, there are lots of people mining up there, I guess.”
“Kid, everyone has a claim up there. Everyone’s looking for gold.”
“So, why’d you leave?”
Fiona took a deep breath and looked past me as if she were looking at something or someone else. “’Cause it’s a hard place to make a living and I needed to eat.”
Harder than here? I wondered. Because this wasn’t exactly the land of riches, either. At least not for my dad and me.
“Getting a claim doesn’t mean you’ll make any money, you know,” she said, looking at me again. “That’s if you manage to get the claim. Most people fail to even repay their loans let alone make any money at it. It’s a hard, cold, lonely life. There’s really nothing up there for you.”
“You’re wrong.”
Fiona and I were having a stare down. What did she know about whether there was something up there for me or not? My dad and I were sinking here, like we were caught in quicksand. The more we struggled, the deeper we went. Up there was a new beginning for us: Dad knew how to mine and would have ground to work. And I didn’t dare tell anyone this, not even Shard, but part of me thought that way out there in the bush, we’d be too far from a bar handy enough for our money to be poured down my dad’s throat. No one would know us. No one would whisper about my mother. No one would know my dad’s record. We could start over.
Nothing up there for me? She couldn’t be more wrong.
Fiona broke off staring first. She handed the picture back to me. I wrapped it up in a sweater and put it away.
I had to get back to the apartment to meet Shard. And figure out a way to get to the Yukon with no money.
I started for the door.
“Why can’t someone else dump Uncle Joey in the river?” Fiona muttered to herself. “Like it’s that hard. You find a quiet spot, put them in the water, they float for a while and then the current takes them away.”
I froze. Did I just hear her plan someone’s murder? Was she really going to dump a body in the river? Maybe it was a good thing she wasn’t taking me north. Maybe I’d end up feeding the fishes too.
I put my hand on the knob and turned it quietly, hoping to make my escape.
“Wait a minute,” she said, pointing at me. “This is your lucky day, ’cause it so happens that I do have to go north. I’ve been putting this chore off for months and this is as good a time as any. At any rate, it’ll get my aunt Peggy off my back.”
I started babbling. “You know, maybe I can save enough for a bus ticket after all. I mean, I don’t want to put you out. It was too much to ask anyway.”
You know how sometimes when you’re trying really hard not to say something, and it’s the first thing that pops out of your mouth? Yeah, that.
“I’m sure Uncle Joey won’t mind if you waited.” I smiled a nervous smile, wanting to kick myself for mentioning him.
“I doubt Uncle Joey will mind, seeing as he’s dead. But I need to get this over with. It’s been preying on my mind.”
“He’s dead?” What kind of family was this?
“Yeah. And in his will, Uncle Joey asked that I spread his ashes in the Yukon River by our favourite fishing spot. Don’t ask me why Jackie or Aunt Peggy can’t do it.”
“Oh.” Relief washed over me. But you really can’t blame me for wondering. Fiona is strange.
“It’ll take me a couple of days to get things in order,” Fiona said.
“Sure. That’ll be okay.”
Actually, it made me nervous. Every day down here meant a tighter schedule up there, but this was no time to be picky. Thank you, Uncle Joey, I whispered to myself.
Fiona left me standing there and headed to the back again. I took a deep breath.
I was going to the Yukon.
CHAPTER 10
A HARD GOODBYE
“So, do you have superpowers or something?”
That was as close to a compliment as you get from Shard. She couldn’t believe Fiona had agreed to take me up north. We were crouched behind the Dumpster again. The aroma of rotting vegetables was starting to get stronger as the sun warmed up the huge metal bin. We were going to have to find a new meeting place soon, before I gagged.
“No. I just reasoned with her,” I said.
“Puh-leeze. Now tell me what really happened.”
I sighed. I hated when she was right. “She said no at first, but then changed her mind.”
“Why?”
“I dunno. She got real quiet when she saw my granddad’s picture. And then she remembered she had to dump Uncle Joey’s ashes in the river.”
“Wait. She saw a picture of your granddad? The one that hung on your wall? And she has to what?”
“I know it sounds crazy, but she got all weird when she saw it. Knew my granddad’s name, all about the claim, everything.”
“How did she see it?”
“I had it with me.”
Shard crossed her arms. “That’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard. Why would looking at a picture make her suddenly want to take a trip to dump someone’s ashes?” She gave me a funny look. “Are you sure that’s what happened?”
“I’m sure.” I didn’t blame her for questioning it. It didn’t really make sense to me, either. But whatever would get me up there, I’d take it.
“Doesn’t it worry you that so many people seem to know about this?”
“This what?”
“The claim. The gold. Seems to be on a lot of people’s minds.”
“A lot of people?”
> “Well, it sounds like everyone up there knows, and now you’ve told Fiona and there was that guy Randy who was sniffing around your place. Aren’t you worried there’s going to be a run on it?”
Was I worried? That’s all I could think of lately, which was another reason I wished Fiona didn’t need a couple of days to get ready to go. What if, when I got up there, someone else had staked the claim already? My stomach was starting to churn again.
“Nobody wants a claim with no gold on it,” I said, trying to convince myself as well as her.
“I thought you said your granddad found a pay streak?”
“That’s what he said. Nobody else found more than a few flakes.”
It was true. Why would there be a run on a claim where there was no proof gold was ever found? There wouldn’t be, right?
“So, how is my dad doing?”
“He wasn’t there.”
“What?!”
“They’ve moved him to County.”
This was not good news. This sounded like he was in even deeper trouble than I first thought.
“So he doesn’t know I’m at Fiona’s?”
“Sorry. I didn’t know what else to do, and besides, thanks a lot … they were grilling me pretty good about you.”
Just what I’d feared. They were hoping I’d come in to see my dad so they could grab me. “What did you say?”
“I said you weren’t back at your apartment, and what was I, your babysitter?”
“Do you think they bought it?”
“Probably not. Those guys are suspicious.”
We both went quiet and peeked out from opposite sides of the Dumpster, looking for cops.
“I don’t think we should meet here anymore,” she said.
I nodded but it was a strange feeling to know I couldn’t go back to our apartment. Ever, probably.
I needed to go. It was too dangerous to stay here. “So, thanks for trying,” I said.
“I didn’t say I didn’t learn anything,” Shard said.
“Well?” Really, sometimes Shard could drive me crazy.