Outside Looking In

by James Lincoln Collier

The next thing was the money. J. P. always kept all our money in his wallet, and he carried his wallet in the hip pocket of his jeans. At night he laid his jeans on the floor by his bunk. He said he used to hang them over the steering wheel of the van at night, but a long time ago somebody reached into the window and stole his wallet, pants and all, so now he kept his pants close to him at night. It was going to be tricky getting hold of the wallet, but we’d need at least some money for food. I didn’t know how long it would take us to get to Cambridge: It was about fifteen hundred miles, and if we had luck and got long rides from truckers and such, we could make it in two or three days; if we didn’t have luck, it could take us a week. That would be a long time to go without food. I knew about stuff like that because J. P. was always telling us stories about when he used to hitch a lot before he went onto the old commune.

  I didn’t want to tell Ooma until the last minute that we were going to run away that night, for fear she’d say something; but then, as we were getting ready for bed, I took her aside and told her. She put her thumb in her mouth and got quiet, but she was willing. I felt a little bad about fooling her this way, but I told myself it was all for the good, and once she met our grandparents she’d like them better than she liked Mr. and Mrs. Clappers.

  We went to bed. The big problem was keeping myself awake. We all usually went to bed at the same time—you hardly could do anything else, living the way we did. J. P. turned off the lights, and I lay there staring out into the dark, trying not to fall asleep. First, I made myself name all the states. But every time I’d get thirty or so of them done, I’d forget which ones I’d named and would have to go back over them. Then all at once I jerked awake and realized I’d fallen asleep.

  I eased myself up onto my elbows and looked through the darkness at the digital clock built into the stove. It was only eleven-thirty. I lay back down and started going over the times tables. I’d learned the easy ones that time I’d gone to school. Later on, I’d figured out the rest of them by adding, made a chart of them, and learned them. But there were some I kept forgetting. I never could remember what seven times eight was—whether it was fifty-six or sixty-two. So I lay there in the dark saying the times tables to myself and figuring out the ones I couldn’t remember, and all at once I woke up again. It was half past four. We should already have been gone because it was going to start getting light soon.

  I sat up in bed and listened through the dark. I could hear J. P. snore a couple of times the way he did, and I could hear Ooma breathing because she was right next to me. I couldn’t hear Gussie. I just had to chance it that she was asleep.

  Moving as quiet as I could, I slid out of bed, dropped down onto my hands and knees, and began to crawl in the direction of J. P.’s bed. It was pitch dark down there on the floor. I kept waving my hand in front of my face so I wouldn’t bump into the table or knock down a chair. Finally, I could hear J. P. breathe and I knew I was right next to his bed. I felt along the floor with my hands. In a minute I found his blue jeans. I patted them here and there, until I touched a lump. I reached into the pocket and slid the wallet out. I put the wallet into my own hip pocket. It felt funny having it there, like a part of J. P. was on me.

  Then I turned around and crawled back along the floor in the other direction to where Ooma’s bunk was. J. P. gave another snore in the dark. I felt around in front of me and found Ooma’s bunk. I raised up on my knees, put my hand over Ooma’s mouth, and gave her a little shake.

  “Umm,” she said suddenly, through my hand.

  “Shush,” I whispered.

  She grabbed my hand. She was still only half-awake and didn’t know what was going on. “Lummm,” she said.

  “Shush.” She didn’t say anything. I took my hand off her mouth. “Let’s go,” I whispered.

  Then Gussie said in a low voice, “Is that you, Fergy?”

  I jumped. “I’m just going outside,” I whispered.

  She didn’t say anything. I figured she was only half-awake, too. I took Ooma’s hand and helped her slide out of bed. Then I put her in front of me, sort of carrying her so that Gussie wouldn’t see in the faint light that it was two of us. I tiptoed to the door, set Ooma down, eased the door open, and we slipped out into the night. I just wished that Gussie hadn’t woken up, because if she was awake after a while she would start wondering what was taking me so long.

  It was chilly. There was no moon, but the sky was clear and there was a good deal of starlight. I took the wallet out of my pocket and felt around inside for the money. I put the money in my back pocket. Then I set the wallet down near the back steps, where they wouldn’t see it right away, but would find it when they started looking for it.

  “I’m cold,” Ooma said.

  “Shush,” I said. I took her hand, and we tiptoed up the dirt road to where I had left the stick marker.

  I went into the woods and got the extra shirts and the maps. Then we ran on up to the end of the dirt road.

  Up here was a blacktop road going east and west. East was where we wanted to go. We stopped for a minute to catch our breaths, and I stood there listening for sounds and looking back down the dirt road, kind of silver in the starlight. I didn’t hear or see anybody, so we began to jog along the blacktop road. We went on for half an hour, jogging a ways and then walking to catch our breaths, and then jogging again. We couldn’t run too fast, because Ooma wanted to hold my hand. A couple of times we saw headlights around a bend behind us, and we ducked off into the woods and lay in the dead leaves until the cars went by.

  Then it began to get light. I figured it must be after five. Gussie and J. P. usually got up between six and seven. They’d be up in an hour or so. Once they were up, they’d come after us right away. I hoped they wouldn’t think we were kidnapped. At least I hoped Gussie wouldn’t worry about us too much. I didn’t care what J. P. thought.

  The main thing was to get a ride before they came after us. But there wasn’t much traffic on that road. Once a truck came along. There was a load of pigs in the back and two people in the front. The woman in the passenger seat gave us a long look, putting her head out of the window and looking back at us after they passed. I hoped people weren’t going to think it was funny to see a couple of kids hitchhiking by themselves. Another car came along, but it just shot by. We walked and jogged, and time passed, and the sky got lighter and lighter. I wished we would come to a crossroads, so as to throw them off. They were bound to be after us soon. Now I was walking with my head turned backward practically the whole time. All they needed was a glimpse as they came around a corner and they’d know it was us.

  Then I began to see the sun coming up through the woods ahead of us, bits and pieces of it shining like red splashes through the trees. “Ooma, we better get into the woods and hide. They’re bound to come along soon.” We ducked off into the woods and lay there on the dead leaves among the trees, watching the road. Sure enough, in about ten minutes the motor home shot by, going fast. I got a look at Gussie’s face. She was staring straight ahead, mighty grim.

  “There they go,” Ooma said.

  “They’ll be coming back the other way pretty soon. They’ll go along five or ten miles and then, when they don’t see us, they’ll figure we must have gone in the other direction or be on some other road.”

  “Are you scared, Fergy?” she said.

  “No,” I said. I was, but I didn’t want her to know.

  “I’m scared,” she said. “I didn’t know running away would be so scary.”

  “You don’t need to be scared,” I said. “I’m right here.”

  “Still, I’m scared.”

  We sat there in the woods, waiting, and about twenty minutes later the motor home came back the other way. It was going slow this time, and J. P. had his head out the window and was looking out into the woods as he drove along. We ducked low, and the motor home went by.

  “Why were they going slow?” Ooma said.

  “I figure they must have gone off west first. They woul
d have driven for maybe ten miles and covered the crossroads, if there were any. Then they came back this way. They didn’t see us anywhere, and they figured we might be hiding in the woods.”

  “Will they come searching for us?”

  “I figure they’re going back to where we were camping to see if we’ve turned up—you know, just went for a walk or something. Then they won’t know what to do. They can’t go driving all over the place looking for us, because they’re going to get low on gas, and they don’t have any money. They can’t go too far away from where they’re camped, in case we come back. So if we can get a ride pretty soon, I think we’ll be safe.”

  “Do you think they’re sorry we ran away? Do you think they’re sad?”

  “Sure, they’re sorry,” I said. “I don’t care. They shouldn’t have stolen that motor home from Mr. and Mrs. Clappers.”

  “It wasn’t Gussie’s fault,” Ooma said.

  I didn’t understand that. “What do you mean?”

  “She told J. P. to give it back to Mr. and Mrs. Clappers. I heard her.”

  “When?” I said. “When did she say that?”

  “Before,” Ooma said.

  “Yesterday? A couple of days ago?”

  Before that,” she said. “Back when we were camped some other place, you were somewhere—I forget. She had a fight with J. P. about it. She said we shouldn’t have taken it, and we ought to give it back.”

  It seemed like Gussie was going against J. P. a lot these days. I wondered if she didn’t believe in him anymore, either. But I was still determined to run away. “Well, they shouldn’t have taken it, is all,” I said.

  “I hope she isn’t too sad that we ran away,” Ooma said.

  “Oh, when we get someplace we’ll write them a letter saying we’re all right.”

  That satisfied her. We stood up and came out of the woods and began walking again, and in about ten minutes we got a ride in a truck. There was a man and a couple of kids in the front, and some sacks of onions in the back. “Where y’all going?” the man asked.

  “Whitesville,” I said, naming a town farther along that I’d got from the map.

  “If you don’t mind riding with them onions, I’ll take you there.” We climbed into the back of the truck and sat there on the sacks of onions. The truck was beat-up and going slow, and it worried me that the motor home would suddenly come shooting up on us.

  It took us a half hour to get into Whitesville. It wasn’t much of a town. They parked in front of a market, and we got out of the truck, thanked them, and walked off like we knew where we were going. When we were out of sight, I looked at the map. I decided we ought to head for Memphis and pick up Highway 40 there. If we got onto a main highway, there was a chance of getting a ride with a long distance trucker.

  We walked through the town to be sure we didn’t run into the onion truck again, and in five minutes we got another ride. This time it was a new Buick four-door. We climbed into the back. The driver was getting bald and wearing a business suit. He turned around to look at us. “Where you heading for?”

  “Memphis,” I said.

  He turned back to the road and started up. “That’s a pretty fair trip for a couple of kids.”

  “I’m fourteen,” I said. “I hitchhike a lot. It’s normal for me.”

  “Oh?” he said. “You live in Memphis?”

  “Yes,” I said. “We were visiting my aunt back there in Whitesville. We were supposed to come home by bus, but I lost the tickets.”

  “Why didn’t your aunt drive you in?”

  I didn’t like the way this guy was asking so many questions. “Her car wouldn’t start.”

  “Wouldn’t your dad come to get you if you called up? I’ll bet he would. It’d be a lot safer than hitchhiking.”

  I was beginning to sweat a little. “I was scared to tell him I lost the bus tickets. He’d give me hell. He’s pretty tough, my old man.”

  “I see,” the guy said. He drove on for a while, fiddling with the radio, which was a relief, because it stopped him from asking questions. But after a half hour he got bored with the radio and turned it off. “Where’d you kids say you were going in Memphis?”

  I was in trouble again, because I didn’t know the name of a single street there. “¾m probably wouldn’t know of it,” I said. “It’s just a little street.”

  “Oh, I might know it,” he said. “I’ve lived in Memphis all my life.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  “If you tell me the name I’ll drop you off.”

  “That’s all right,” I said. “We can take a bus.” I figured a town that big had to have a bus.

  “No trouble. Where is it?”

  I was beginning to sweat all over again. “Well, see, the thing is, I don’t want my old man to see us drive up in a car, when we were supposed to take the bus. He’ll know something’s fishy.”

  “Oh, I get it,” the man said. “Well, I could drop you nearby. We wouldn’t have to go right to the house.”

  I felt hot and scratchy, and the sweat was really sliding down my face. I’d never done much lying and wasn’t used to it. Ooma was looking out the window, paying no attention to the trouble I was in. “Well, see, he might be out at the store or something and see us. He might be walking around. It would be better if you dropped us off in some main place and we took a bus home.”

  “Okay, fine,” he said.

  I took my handkerchief and wiped the sweat off my face. Ooma stopped looking out the window. “How long will it take to get there?” she said.

  I kicked her leg. “The same as always,” I said. I kicked her again.

  “Oh,” she said.

  The driver chuckled, but he didn’t say anything. We drove on, and about a half hour later he stopped for gas. We got out and went to the bathrooms. I had a feeling that it would be a good idea to get away from this guy, but I didn’t know how to do it. I couldn’t just explain that we’d changed our minds about going to Memphis and that we were going to hang around the gas station for a while. I kind of hoped he was tired of us and would just drive away.

  But when we came back from the toilets, the Buick was standing by the pumps. The guy was inside the gas station making a phone call. He finished, hung up, and came out again. “You kids like a soda?” he said.

  “Sure,” Ooma said. There was something that worried me about that, but I couldn’t figure out what.

  “Say thank you, Ooma.”

  “That’s her name? Ooma?”

  “It means filled with sweetness and light,” Ooma said.

  “Oh,” the guy said. “What’s your name, son?”

  “Fergy. That’s short for Fergus.”

  “Does it mean something?” He certainly wasn’t in any hurry to get going again.

  “No,” I said. “It’s just a name.”

  “Oh. What kind of sodas do you kids like?”

  “Sprite,” Ooma said.

  “What about you, Fergus?”

  “I’ll take a Pepsi. Please. Say please, Ooma.”

  “Please.”

  The guy reached into his pocket for his change and strolled back into the gas station. I watched him through the big front window. First, he poked around in the change in his hand to see if he had enough for the machine. Then, he put the change back in his pocket, took out his wallet, and strolled into the back part of the garage where the guy who pumped the gas was looking inside the motor of a Dodge. He stood talking to the gas station man for a little while. Finally, the gas station guy picked up a rag off the fender of the car and began wiping his hands.

  Suddenly I got it. He’d called the cops on us and was stalling around until they came.

  TEN

  I GRABBED OOMA’S HAND. “Come on,” I said. “We got to get out of here.”

  “What?” she said. “He’s getting us sodas.”

  I yanked her arm. “Come on, he called the cops. Let’s go.” Ooma had always been pretty scared of cops. We started to run together. We took off
around the side of the gas station, headed out back. Just as we rounded the corner, I heard the guy from the Buick shout, “Hey. Hey, you kids.”

  We ran around back of the gas station. There was a big empty field behind it, a potato field or something. Beyond the field there was some kind of a woods. I let go of Ooma’s hand, and we started racing across the field toward the woods, Ooma trying to keep up with me and shouting, “Wait up, Fergy, wait up.”

  Behind us I heard another shout: “Hey, you kids. Come on back here.”

  I slowed down so Ooma could catch up and looked back. The guy from the Buick and the gas station guy were standing behind the gas station at the edge of the field looking at us. Just then, I heard a police siren whine a little, and a police car slid into the gas station. Ooma caught up and grabbed my shirt. “Are they going to catch us?”

  “Come on, let’s go.” We ran on. The woods were closer. I slowed down again to let Ooma catch up. Two cops were standing at the edge of the potato field with the guy from the Buick and the gas station guy. “Hey, you kids,” one of them shouted. Ooma caught up and we went on running. Then we dashed into the woods. We pushed on through the brush until we were a good ways inside. We stopped and stood there sweating and panting and trying to catch our breaths.

  “Maybe we shouldn’t have run away, Fergy,” Ooma said. “Maybe we should go back to J. P. and Gussie.”

  “We’ll be all right, Ooma,” I said. But I wasn’t sure we would be. I looked back through the trees and across the potato field to the gas station. The gas station guy was gone, but the two cops and the guy from the Buick were standing there. I looked around. If the woods were big enough, they would have a hard time finding us in them, and we could go through them and come out on some road a long ways from the gas station. But if they weren’t very big, the cops could drive around to the other side and wait for us to come out. They might even send hound dogs in after us. I’d seen that on TV, where they give the hound dogs something of yours to smell, and then they come after you, barking and howling and following your scent. I wondered if we’d dropped anything in the car. I wondered if they could pick up our scent from the car seat.