But instead I say, “Excuse me.” And y’know what? He steps aside. He steps aside, and I push and rush ahead, past some other folks in line and through the door into the station, where it may be cool and clean but there’s the same oily smell and my heart’s still flying.
“Paul,” I whisper, because I’ve given up on getting much attention from God right now. “Paul?” And I finally find him, on his way inside, with a terrible look on his face, and I know why. Because right in front of him, there in the doorway next to Staring Guy, is a police officer.
The next thing you know, I am looking up. Up at Paul and up at clumps of people and plastic chairs and bright lights. Up from the hard, cold floor and out the windows at the awning and the buses and the high metal fence.
“What . . .” I pull myself up to sitting, but then I promptly lurch to one side and throw up. Right there on the floor of the Houston Greyhound station.
Paul squats down and hands me a red bandana that he’s dipped in a water bottle. “Dang, Ivy,” he says. “Are you okay? I mean, duh, no, you’re not okay. Here, use this. Are you thirsty? Are you, um . . . I don’t know quite what to do here.”
“Oh . . . Oh, mercy . . .” I take the bandana and wipe my lips as my eyes dart around, looking for trouble. “What happened to the police officer?” I ask, because all I can think—never mind the hard, cold floor and the fainting and the throw-up and everything—is that we could be in some serious trouble here.
Paul doesn’t answer. He just hands me his water and then takes his own turn looking around.
I take tiny sips like I would if I were home sick, tucked into bed with my mama tending to me. Paul uses the bandana to wipe up most of the throw-up and tosses the whole thing in the big trash bin right behind him before helping me slowly, carefully stand up.
A few folks stare at us, and one woman in a blue dress and high heels even shakes her head, like I’ve done something I should be ashamed of, which I guess maybe I have.
“The police officer?” I ask again, once I’m solid on my feet.
“He was just a security guard,” says Paul. “He hustled those creepy guys along and he went with them. And then you fainted,” he says.
“I did. I really did faint clean away,” I say.
“Yeah. Wow,” says Paul, and we stop talking and look straight into each other’s eyes. I don’t know for certain what mine look like, but Paul’s look scared for the first time since we left Loomer this morning.
The plan is to do the same thing at the Houston ticket counter that we did in Loomer—buy our tickets separately, one-way, without a fuss. This time I’m going first. That’s the plan. So after I catch my breath, I walk through the waiting room and out to the main lobby, where they sell tickets. I have to pass another security guard to get there, but she doesn’t even look my way, and it feels pretty good being ignored. Everything would all be well and good, except that when I go for the front pocket on my pack, it’s already unzipped and my money’s gone. It was in there, in a little plastic pouch with a rainbow on it—a birthday gift from Kimmy. It was right there, but now it’s gone!
“Hang on a sec,” I say to the woman at the ticket counter. I turn around. Where is Paul? My thoughts speed up again and my hands shake. Where is Paul? Is he still back in the waiting room? How could my money be gone? Did it fall out when I fainted? Did I leave it on the bus? Did somebody take it? It’s a lot of money—more than two hundred dollars—and I need it—we need it, to get out of here!
I need to go back out to where we got off the bus but there’s a long line of people in the way now, waiting to go through security themselves.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” I say, running past them.
I hear someone mutter, “There’s a line, girl.” And then the security guard says, “You’re in a hurry. Ticket?” But I don’t have a ticket, obviously, because I don’t have any money! And she’s big and stern-looking and she wears a gun.
“I lost my money,” I say. “I need to get back through here and find my pouch. I . . . I . . .”
“How about your last ticket?” she asks.
“My last ticket?”
“Yeah. Your ticket. Your receipt. If you just got off a bus, you must have one. Otherwise, step aside.” For a second I think that maybe I could run past her, but there’s the big sternness and the gun, and everything in my body instantly stops and sticks, my insides and outsides, everything as heavy as rocks. My feet push off the floor in slow motion, and I step aside. The guard turns to the next person in line, a guy who’s shaking his head but not looking at me. Nobody’s looking.
“The Lord is my light and my salvation,” I whisper, and I swing my backpack around—my heavy-as-rocks backpack—and reach into the front pocket again—the one where my pouch is supposed to be—and there’s the crumpled receipt for the ticket from Loomer to Houston, thank you God and all the angels.
“Here!” I say, a little too loudly. “Hey! Here—I found it!”
The guard nods and says, “Go on, then,” and I do. I rush past the guard and through the waiting room, looking for a flash of familiar color on the ground—my money, the rainbow pouch—but all I see are feet and bags and empty soda bottles. The door to the outside where the buses wait is open. People are coming both in and out, and I bump up against them till I make it through. But there is just a row of identical Greyhounds out here, and I can’t tell which one was ours. Maybe ours is gone. Maybe our driver, Magdalena, is gone. I look down. I look back and around and down again.
I back up into the wall of the building and slide down, hard, until I’m sitting on the dirt-black ground. I’m back to being heavy as rocks. And from this angle it’s easy to see my pouch, nearly pushed off the concrete platform. Right there, the shiny rainbow! I push up, first to my hands and knees and then to just barely standing, and I rush to the pouch, my pouch, from Kimmy. And it’s empty. The zipper is wide open and the pouch is completely 100 percent empty. The money—all the money—is really and truly gone.
My eyes sting and blur, but even still, when I look around, out past the buses and through the high metal fence, I see a street sign that reads MAIN STREET. I’m not even kidding. Main Street. Main Street is supposed to be quaint. And safe. And quiet. Main Street is in Loomer, Texas, which, let’s face it, is where I should be right now.
I sink back down right then and there in the middle of the pavement and drop my head into my hands. Was it those two creepy guys who took the money? The smell of buses seeps through my fingers no matter how deeply I press my face into my palms. It really doesn’t matter who took it. There is nothing, not a thing in the world, I can do about the smell or the heat or the money or my mama.
Pastor Lou’s voice booms through my head. “I will never leave or forsake you.” Ruth learned that from God, and Mama was supposed to learn it from Ruth. But she didn’t. She left, and I am forsaken. I am forsaken and scared and dirty and dead broke.
“Ivy?” Paul’s voice is a little too loud. It surprises me. “God, Ivy. I couldn’t find you. Anywhere. You kind of freaked me out. What are you doing out here?” Paul stands in front of me holding two sodas. “You want a root beer?” he asks when I don’t answer. “I was thinking it might make you feel a little better.” He holds one out to me.
“It’s so much worse than you know,” I say. “I didn’t just faint and throw up. My money’s gone, Paul. Somebody took it. All of it. I don’t have a dime, and we’re stuck in Houston, of all places, and I don’t know what on God’s green earth we’re gonna do.”
“Oh no. Oh, God. You’re kidding,” says Paul. “I mean, you’re not kidding, obviously. Oh, man, this sucks. What happened?” He’s standing above me still, but his shoulders slouch and his head hangs.
“I don’t know, really. I went to buy my ticket, but my money pouch was just plain gone. And here it is, cleaned all the way out.” I hold it up as proof. “I am so, so sorry,
Paul.”
“Oh, God. You’re sorry? I’m sorry. This whole crackpot scheme has gotten kind of out of hand. I mean, I thought it would be fun—saving your mom, seeing the space shuttle, the whole deal. I don’t think I took it seriously enough.” Paul drops his backpack on the concrete by my feet, cracks open his root beer, and slides down next to me.
“You thought it would be fun? You have a weird sense of adventure. Fun is hanging out at the city pool and not having homework. This wasn’t supposed to be fun! This ‘crackpot scheme,’ as you call it, happened because we were desperate, remember? Me worrying about my mama, who’s gone off missing? And you, too! You were desperate because all your dreams were being laid up in a museum. Or at least that’s what you acted like, all lost and heartbroken. But it turns out you were just looking for some fun? Lordamercy, Paul Dobbs.”
I gulp down my soda, icy cold and thick-sweet, not caring anymore if it hits my tummy like a brick. I deserve whatever happens from here on out. What a mighty mess.
“I will punish you according to the fruit of your doings,” says the voice in my head, and I don’t rightly know if it’s coming from Pastor Lou, or Mama, or God himself. And it doesn’t really matter, because they’d probably all be saying the same thing right about now.
Paul has enough money for two tickets. But not a whole lot more on top of that. Once we get to Florida—if we get to Florida—we won’t make it long without some help from somebody, or a job at a burger joint.
“Should I just buy tickets back to Loomer and call it an aborted launch?” asks Paul. I guess he thinks he’s being kind of funny with the space reference and all. We’re back in the main lobby, looking over the schedule and trying to decide what to do—go ahead with our plans or turn right around and head back home.
“No,” I say. “No. If we go home now, the whole thing was a bust. You sold your planes, we lied to our parents, all my babysitting money is gone—and your money’s about to be gone too, once you spend it on me. And meanwhile we’ve got no mama, no space shuttle, no nothing to show for it all. We can’t just up and go home now, can we?”
Paul doesn’t answer, but by the time I look up from the schedule, he’s halfway to the ticket counter. The bus to Tallahassee leaves at one thirty, and the way things are going in Houston, that’s not nearly soon enough.
“Let’s start thinking about how to find The Great Good Bible Church,” I say to Paul. We’re sitting in the front row of waiting room seats, looking out at the buses as they arrive and leave. I’ve got my ticket, tight in my hand. I’m done with losing things, and I’m done fighting with Paul about whether this is fun or not. I just am.
“Okay. So since we’re gonna keep on going,” says Paul, “here’s what I think we need. A hypothesis. If your mom is really at a church in the Florida panhandle, then . . .” Paul lets his voice drag off.
“Yeah? Then, what?” I ask. But Paul doesn’t answer. “Then, what? You’re the scientist, Paul. You’re in the business of hypotheses. You tell me!” I was hopeful for a second that he actually had a hypothesis, but I guess he was just prompting me to come up with one.
I take a big bite of one of the granola bars from my backpack, along with a last drink of root beer. I still feel wobbly after my fainting episode.
“Ivy, I know you’re feeling kind of sore and mad at me,” Paul says, “but I’m trying here. And d’ya have another one of those granola bars?” Which makes me feel kind of bad, because I’ve had my manners in hand since the first grade, and here I am drinking the root beer Paul got for me, without even thinking he might be hungry too.
“Yes. Okay. I’m sorry. Here’s a bar.” Paul takes it and opens it, all in one quick move. “And we’re about to get back onto the bus and be squished in next to each other for about a zillion hours, right? So, truce? Truce all around?” Because now I really mean it. I’m done being mad.
“Truce,” says Paul. And he holds out his hand for a fist bump. “Y’know,” he says, “your Mama’s missing, Ivy, but my mom and dad are pretty vacant themselves. I mean, everything’s all ‘Jenny, Jenny, Jenny’ at my house, and I mean, I love my sister, but it sucks to be a misfit in your own family. I’m not comparing, Ivy, honest. I’m just saying. We’re on the same side.”
I nod and don’t say a thing, because what can you say to a thing like that?
“Okay. So back to our plan,” says Paul. Which is a relief. “If your mom is at a church in the Florida panhandle, then maybe one of the other churches in the Florida panhandle will have heard of it. Right? Let’s start calling the ones in Tallahassee, don’t you think, since that’s the main city?” Paul opens a map of Florida on his lap and shows me exactly where Tallahassee is. Which makes me think he is a pretty good guy to run away with after all.
And in what seems like just minutes, a crackly voice comes over the loudspeaker announcing that our bus is boarding. The man sitting across from us crushes a cigarette with the toe of his leather boot, right there on the floor of the bus station. It wasn’t lit—there are NO SMOKING signs everywhere—but he still stamps down on it like he’s making sure it’s good and out. And then he stands up and shakes out his skinny knees.
I wonder if he’s riding with us to Florida, and also if he’s overheard us, and also if he wants a granola bar. He looks like he could use one. I mean, if you look around, it seems like most folks here could use a snack. And something to drink. And a shower.
Chapter Twelve
Our new bus driver is a man with an actual uniform, and he’s all kinds of proper compared to Magdalena, which makes me nervous, since we’re runaways and all. He collects and punches everyone’s tickets before we step up into the bus. Magdalena just had a box she held out as we passed the driver’s seat. I don’t think she ever even looked at the tickets. This new guy is different.
“Tallahassee?” he asks when I hand him mine. “Final destination?”
“I think so,” I say, and Paul kicks at my heel a little.
“I mean, for now,” I say, and Paul kicks again. I stand up taller in my shoes—I’m already tall for my age, thanks to Daddy, and I mean to look at least sixteen right this very minute.
“Yes, Tallahassee. Final destination,” I say, one foot on the step of the bus.
I move ahead, and Paul gives his ticket to the driver next.
“Y’all on your own?” asks the driver to our backs, just when I thought we were free. I stop. Paul bumps into me, and I don’t feel tall. I feel tiny. Neither of us says a word for what feels like five minutes.
And then, at the same second, we both say, “Yeah.”
“We’re visiting our uncle,” adds Paul, since I guess he figured “yeah” wasn’t quite enough of an answer.
“Long ride for a couple a kids on their own,” says the driver, and neither of us answers that. We move up into the bus. I’m praying we don’t get asked another thing and that he just flat-out forgets we’re even on the bus at all.
“Remember how we were gonna say we were visiting our grandma,” I whisper to Paul once we’re tucked way down in our seats, “because so many grandmas live in Florida?”
“Yep. I remember that now,” says Paul. His face looks as red and hot as mine feels. We both stay low and quiet as other folks take their turns getting on the bus. Our phone calls to all the churches in Florida can wait.
It’s not till the bus revs up to leave the station that I have the guts to look up and around. Sure enough, there’s Skinny Man, his cigarette pack showing through his shirt pocket, brown leather boots sticking out into the aisle, kitty-corner from us. I have Mama’s phone in my hand, but I’m not sure I want to make phone calls with him right there, listening.
“What if folks hear us?” I whisper to Paul, kind of nodding my head in Skinny Man’s direction. Paul turns to look and busts out laughing. And then I laugh too, because in that half second since I first looked around, Skinny Man has fallen so
und—and I mean sound—asleep. His mouth hangs open and his head is lopped sideways in a way that doesn’t look right.
“I don’t think we’ve got cause to worry, Ms. Green,” says Paul. He’s still laughing a little as he pulls a spiral notebook out of his pack and then kicks the rest of the bag underneath his seat. “Now let’s get going on the research portion of our adventure.”
And for a second at least, maybe even two, I think Paul is right—this is an adventure. And maybe there’s even a tiny tidge of fun to be had. That doesn’t mean we’re not desperate, right? Or that we’re not serious? It just means we’re making the best of a bad situation.
Here’s how the research portion of our adventure goes:
I open up Mama’s phone.
(Yes, her phone is the kind you have to open up. The kind with actual buttons instead of a touch screen. “Smart people shouldn’t need smartphones,” according to Mama.)
So I open up the phone and I dial 411, which is what smart people without smartphones do to find other people’s phone numbers.
After the computer determines that I want service in English instead of Spanish, an operator answers.
“What city and state, please?”
“Tallahassee, Florida,” I say.
“How can I help you?” she asks.
I pause a second and then give it a try. “Do you have the number for The Great Good Bible Church of Panhandle Florida?” I say.
“I do not,” she says, which is what I expected. But I couldn’t just not ask, could I? “Would you like another listing?” she asks, almost sounding sorry.
“Yes,” I say. “Yes. I guess I’m looking for a Baptist church.”
“I find a number of Baptist churches,” says the operator. And then she lists them. “Bradfordville First Baptist Church. Celebration Baptist Church. First Baptist Church. Highpoint Baptist Church. Immanuel Baptist Church . . .” She goes on and on, in alphabetical order. I scrawl them down in Paul’s spiral notebook as quick as I can. I mean, my handwriting’s barely legible even when I’m sitting at a school desk, and this bus is no help at all.
The Great Good Summer Page 7