by Susan Wiggs
His father scratched his head. “What do you need to graduate for? You’re already smart enough.”
Fletcher slammed the civics book shut. “Oh, I don’t know. Maybe so I have a shot at going to college? And yeah, I know the whole story of how you left home at sixteen and made a life for yourself without having to waste time in a classroom. But I’m not you, Dad.”
“Agreed. You’re ten times smarter than I’ll ever be. That’s why I need you, Fletch. Just help me get this thing off the ground, and you won’t have to worry about me.” He glowered at the two sets of coveralls hanging by the front door. They were from the express-oil-change place where they had both been working since the move to Dover, an outfit called Here We Go Lube-B-Lube. The place sucked ass, but it paid the rent—just barely. “That’s a dead end for sure,” his dad said, indicating the coveralls. “We’ll be in charge of the whole show at the garage in Vermont.”
Fletcher knew when an argument was lost. So with a dull sense of resignation, he simply shrugged his shoulders and said, “Cool.”
The next week, they packed all their belongings into a rented trailer, hitched it up behind the pickup truck, and drove from Delaware to Vermont.
Fletcher tried not to think about what he was leaving behind—a few friends he liked to go mountain biking or to the shore with, a girlfriend named Kayla who had cried in his arms when he said good-bye, and a steady job at the oil-change place. By now, he had stopped hoping life would settle into some normal pattern. He simply went along with whatever plan his dad dreamed up, expecting nothing. Except maybe a catch. There always seemed to be a catch, some reason the plan would go awry, and they’d find themselves broke and on the road again.
The town was called Switchback, which already sounded odd to Fletcher. In order to get there, they drove along icy, snowy roads over rolling hills and up into granite mountains, winding around hairpin curves that had probably given the town its name. The higher they climbed, the colder and snowier the landscape became. The sky was a flat gray—the color of cold. Fletcher had never experienced winter quite like this—rolling acres of snow, the roadside piled high with dirty plowed snowbanks, the sky a bleak, colorless expanse of nothingness.
Finally they passed a hand-carved wooden sign that read Switchback, Vermont. Elevation: 2207. Population: 7647. The next sign, from the Chamber of Commerce, proclaimed, Welcome to Switchback. Once You Switch, You’ll Never Go Back.
Har, har.
In the town center, the speed limit went down to twenty miles per hour. Fletcher had seen pictures of typical New England villages, and this place was even more . . . villagey. There was a white-steepled church and a village green with a railed gazebo, a pillared library called an atheneum, shops and small businesses that reeked of quaintness, and a grand, solid block of a high school with a notice on the marquee—Home of the Fighting Wildcats. The side streets were lined with slender trees and painted wooden houses, the picket-fenced yards nearly buried under thick blankets of snow.
The main feature of the town was the courthouse, a perfectly symmetrical New England classic with 1878 spelled out in the stonework in Roman numerals. The stately and majestic building sat at the entrance to a park. With the lights glowing in the windows and in the bell cupola atop the roof, the courthouse was beautiful and peaceful-looking. A handful of clerks and lawyers with briefcases were on their way home, descending the wide steps beneath the front columns.
Business looked slow at the local shops and cafés. Clearly, January was not the most popular month for tourist outings to Vermont.
Dad stopped at Sweet Maria’s Coffee Shop, which smelled like heaven—coffee and baked goods and onions on the grill. They had a bite to eat, and Dad asked a guy sitting at the counter for directions to the Rookery, where they were going to stay until Dad found a place to rent. They could hardly understand the guy’s speech. It sounded like a “shawt hop to Mahket Squay-ah.”
The Rookery turned out to be a bed-and-breakfast inn filled with fussy-looking antiques and doilies on every surface. When they dumped their shabby duffel bags in the foyer, the hostess—Mildred Deacon—did not visibly wrinkle her nose, although Fletcher suspected she was doing it in her mind.
The day he enrolled as a new student at Switchback High School, he had one goal. He intended to turn invisible. He wanted to keep a low profile and somehow get himself to the end of the year so he could move on with his life.
He knew the drill. He had to submit his school records to the administration, meet with a counselor, and get a schedule of classes. He hoped he’d end up with enough credits to graduate.
The school counselor was a woman named Ms. Elkins, who sat on one of those big inflated fitness balls behind a cluttered desk as she went through his records. She had a gap between her two front teeth, streaks of purple in her hair, and horn-rimmed glasses with pointy corners.
“Five schools in four years,” she said. “And this is number six. Wow.”
Fletcher said nothing. She didn’t seem to expect a reply. Through the window of the counseling office, he could see students arriving for the day. They looked like kids anywhere, moving around in social clumps, talking loudly, and shoving back and forth as they made their way to lockers and homerooms. Most were bundled up against the cold, in puffy jackets, tall boots, hats with earflaps.
“Your grades are excellent.” Ms. Elkins said this with some surprise.
He nodded again, just wanting the meeting to be over.
“In order to satisfy the graduation requirements,” she continued, “you’re going to need to finish senior English, a science with a lab, a foreign language, and a PE credit.” She drummed a pencil on the desk, then turned to her computer, studying the screen with deep concentration. “I think we can make this work. So here’s the deal. I can get the schedule you need if you forfeit a study hall and take AP English. Does that sound doable?”
“Sure,” he said. Whatever.
“Your homeroom is the industrial arts shop with Mr. Dow.”
“Okay.”
“What about extracurriculars?” she asked. “Sports, clubs? Theater? Band?”
God, no. “Uh, no, ma’am.”
She filled out a form and hit print. “What brings you to Switchback?”
“My dad bought a garage and import business in town,” he said.
“Oh—Crestfield’s garage,” she said in a chirpy tone. “Of course. Everybody takes all their repair jobs there. Mr. Crestfield is retiring, I hear. So your dad’s a mechanic.”
“That’s right.” Despite his lack of business sense, Sanford Wyndham had a God-given gift. He could fix anything. Through the years, he had repaired car and boat engines, small motors, huge generators, golf carts, wind machines, bulldozers, tractors—if it had moving parts, he could fix it. He’d always wanted a garage of his own, but could never afford to set himself up in business until now. Apparently a repair garage in the middle of a frozen nowhere carried a low price tag.
“Do you work on cars, too?”
“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be working for my dad after school and on weekends.” Fletcher was good at fixing things, too. He didn’t really have a choice, since he and his dad rarely had the dough to pay someone else to do the work.
“And after graduation?” she asked. “What are your plans?”
“Um.” Get the hell out. Was that a plan? “I guess I’ll keep helping my dad. Maybe something else.”
“Have you applied to any colleges?”
Right, he thought. College. What’s that? “No, ma’am.”
“Well,” said Ms. Elkins. “We can talk about that more later. With your grades, you’re a good prospect for college. Don’t hesitate to come to me if you have any questions. Anything at all.”
“All right. Thanks.”
The schedule page whispered from the printer. She handed it to him. “It’s a challenge, being new,” she said. “I’m sure you’ll do all right here. This is a nice group of students, and the teachers are top-notch. You’ll fit
right in.”
“Sure, thanks,” he said. The minute he stepped outside the office, a bell rang. Some kid slammed into Fletcher’s shoulder.
“Hey,” said the kid. “Watch where you’re going.”
Nice.
The corridor was overheated and smelled like wet dog. There were flyers taped to the walls announcing a swim meet, a bake sale, a rainbow rally, a dance.
Fletcher took a deep breath and merged into the jostle and flow of students making their way to class. He found his assigned locker, then made his way to homeroom—the industrial arts shop. He stepped inside and surveyed the room. Kids were milling around, slinging backpacks and talking loudly about nothing and everything. It could have been any classroom in any high school. He found an empty spot at a table across from a girl with long yellow hair and awesome boobs. Trying to keep his eyes on her face, he gave her a nod of greeting. “I’m Fletcher,” he said. “It’s my first day.”
She gave him a slow once-over. “Lucky you,” she said. “I’m Celia. Celia Swank.” She had a nice smile. She had a nice . . . everything.
The instructor was a harried-looking guy named Mr. Dow. Fletcher went to introduce himself. He stood by the door to wait his turn. At the moment, he was facing off with a small, dark-haired girl who claimed to have an urgent need for a blowtorch.
“I can’t let you take that out of here, Annie,” he said. “What do you need it for, anyway?”
She indicated a tray of glass custard cups. “My maple crème brûlée,” she said. “I’m making it in the home ec kitchen. Please. I’ll bring it right back.”
He scowled at her, then glanced up at the clock. “Okay, fine. I want it returned the second you’re done.”
“Thanks, Mr. Dow,” she said brightly, putting the torch into an overstuffed bag. “I’ll save you a sample.”
“It’s a deal.”
The girl left with her bag and her tray, a sunshiny look on her face. Her gaze flicked to Fletcher and lingered a second. Big brown eyes, inquisitive but not hostile. He held the door for her.
“Oh, thanks!” she said, and headed out into the hallway.
Dizzy chick. She was cute, though. Maybe he could . . . no. He had no intention of making friends in the small mountain town. He didn’t even think that was possible. Enrolling midyear in school was pretty much a guarantee that no one would bother with him. Even so, he made a note of her name—Annie.
The morning unfolded slowly. He met his teachers, grabbed copies of course outlines, signed out textbooks, the routine familiar and slightly depressing.
Then the lunch bell rang and there was a surge toward the cafeteria. He had learned from experience that it was always possible in any high school to find a spot to sit in the lunchroom. You just had to look for a quiet, weird, disenfranchised kid no one else wanted to hang out with, and boom. He’d be glad to share his table with you, no problem.
You just couldn’t afford to be picky.
Fletcher made his way through the noisy cafeteria with his tray of oniony-smelling tacos and canned corn, and a dish of mud-colored pudding that made him yearn for that girl’s blowtorched crème brûlée. He spotted a kid at the end of a table by himself. He was overweight and slow-moving, with a mournful expression and pale hands. He might have faded into the background, except he seemed to favor clothes that were wack—a plaid Sherlock Holmes cap, a fake military jacket, pant cuffs tucked into combat boots. Wearing a getup like that probably made him a target, but it sure didn’t make him any friends. Maybe he liked the attention.
“Mind if I sit here?” asked Fletcher.
“Not at all.” The mournful expression disappeared, and Fletcher introduced himself.
“Gordy Jessop. Class of 2002.” Not surprisingly, there was more to discover about Gordy if you looked past the dorkiness. Over the next few days, Fletcher learned that he had three older sisters who called themselves “lumberjills,” the female version of lumberjacks. His mother was a poet who published her work in chapbooks and gave them out for free at the farmers’ market in the summer, and his father was a patent lawyer. Gordy spoke French, because his mom was from Quebec, and he liked to sprinkle his conversation with French phrases, another trait that didn’t exactly endear him to other kids. He didn’t seem to care about that, which Fletcher thought was kind of cool. Gordy also knew a freakish amount of Latin, which was hilarious, since it was a dead language, and he had a lint trap of random information in his brain.
“Did you know ‘dreamt’ is the only word in the English language that ends in the letters MT?” he asked one day at the end of Fletcher’s first week in Switchback.
“Not if you’re a bad speller,” said Fletcher.
“Okay, did you know there’s a basketball court on the top floor of the Supreme Court building?”
“Nobody knows that,” said Fletcher.
“I do. Highest court in the land.”
“Ha ha.”
“I kid you not. And here’s something—Montpelier is the only state capital in the U.S. without a McDonald’s.”
“That’s a relief. So, what goes on around here on the weekends?”
“Hockey and swim meets. You interested in either?”
Fletcher shrugged his shoulders. “I can swim. Never tried ice hockey before.”
“I mean as a spectator.”
“Swimming, then, so long as it’s girls swimming,” he said.
“I need to get a weekend job,” said Gordy. “Do you have a job?”
“Sort of, at my dad’s shop. He’s just getting the place up and running, so there’s not much to do yet.”
“We should get jobs for the sugar season,” Gordy said.
Fletcher could always use more work. “What’s the sugar season?” he asked.
Gordy guffawed, his expression incredulous. “Dude. The sugar season is the raison d’être for this whole region.” He explained that as soon as the weather turned, the season would begin. Everyone with more than a few sugar maples in the yard tapped their trees and collected sap. The bigger commercial ops used a network of pipelines to collect the sap, and they either sold it or boiled it in big sugarhouses. All the local places needed temporary help tapping the trees, bringing the sap to the evaporators, manning the boilers, keeping the fires stoked, transporting barrels of syrup.
On Friday after school, they drove Gordy’s old Bronco up Rush Mountain. “This operation has been around the longest. I bet they need plenty of help here,” Gordy said, grinding the gears as he lurched up the winding road. He was a lousy driver. Apparently he knew this, because he glanced over at Fletcher with a sheepish expression. “I don’t do so hot with a stick shift.”
“Takes practice.” Fletcher tried not to hurl as the truck veered around a hairpin curve.
“Yeah. I’m better on the downhill.”
Great.
“Rush Mountain is thirty-seven hundred feet tall,” Gordy said, whipping out another random fact. “It was named for Elijah Rush, a famous abolitionist during the Civil War. Don’t ask me how I know that.”
“I won’t,” Fletcher muttered as he tried to calm his stomach.
“The Underground Railroad was a big deal in these parts. Being so close to Canada and all.”
“Good to know.”
They passed a rustic painted sign that read Welcome to the Rush Family Maple Farm. Home of Sugar Rush Small-Batch Maple Syrup.
In the distance was a big, old-fashioned farmhouse, painted white, with a railed front porch and a fence still half buried in the snow. Chimneys jutted up from each end of the house, both of them sending a twist of smoke into the sky. It was really pretty, the kind of house Fletcher used to picture when he was a little kid, living in some rented apartment and wondering what it was like to have a regular family.
The turnoff to the house had a small sign that read Private.
Gordy drove in the opposite direction to a small parking area paved in an unpleasant mixture of gravel, mud, and snow. A sign pointed to an old farm bu
ilding designated the office, and another to a rutted track that said To the Sugarhouse.
A shiny black pickup with dual exhaust pipes and a gun-club bumper sticker was parked near the office building.
“Great,” said Gordy, parking next to it. “That’s Degan Kerry’s truck.”
“Who’s Degan—”
Three guys came out of the office. Two of them wore high school letterman jackets. The other one had on an old Soviet army coat.
“I guess you haven’t had the pleasure,” said Gordy. “He’s the big guy with red hair in the middle. Equal parts hockey jock and douche bag.”
“Well, hello there, ladies,” the guy named Degan exclaimed with a wide, phony smile.
“Hey, Degan.” Gordy seemed to shrink a couple of inches. “This is Fletcher Wyndham. He’s new.” He introduced the other two—Carl and Ivan.
Fletcher offered a quick social nod. The other three shoved their hands in their pockets and sized him up with slow, head-to-toe glances. “Good to meet you,” Fletcher said in a neutral voice. He could already tell they were amateurs as far as tough guys went. He had survived four urban high schools prior to this, so he wasn’t worried about these three.
“You gonna be working the sugar season?” asked Degan.
“That’s the plan.” Gordy sidled toward the office. “See you around,” he said.
Fletcher offered another nod. Degan planted himself in the middle of the cleared path, shoving out his jaw in an obvious challenge. Fletcher refused to take the bait. “After you,” he offered, stepping aside and making a sweeping gesture with his arm.
Degan stared at him for one heartbeat too long. Studying the narrowed eyes, Fletcher could see that the kid was full of shit, because there was a faint flicker of doubt in those eyes. A garden-variety coward. Then Degan passed by, his shoulder brushing Fletcher’s with more force than was necessary.
Big deal. What a tool.
As they made their way to the office, Gordy sent Fletcher a worried look. “Hey, we can go down the hill to Peychaud’s if you want. I hear they’re hiring, too.”
“You said Kyle Rush paid the best.”