Full Ride

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  The receptionist—Tria?—is actually rushing toward me. It’s a race: Tria vs. the elevator.

  Tria wins. She’s right beside me now.

  And she’s holding out an envelope as though she expects me to take it.

  “It’s my first week on the job,” she says. “There’s so much I don’t know yet. This letter came yesterday for you and your mom, and I kept meaning to ask Mr. Trumbull what I was supposed to do with it. But I guess I can just give this to you, and then I won’t have to ask Mr. Trumbull another stupid question . . .”

  I’m thinking Mr. Trumbull would be a pretty intimidating boss. He probably treats Tria like she’s on the witness stand all the time.

  “Thanks,” I say, taking the envelope.

  The elevator arrives at that exact moment. I brush past Tria and hit the button for the first floor and then, quickly, the one to close the doors. But the doors are just starting to ease together when I turn around. Tria is still standing there, as if she’s doubting herself now. I can almost see her thinking, What if Mr. Trumbull wouldn’t have wanted me to give that letter to this girl? But it’s addressed to her—who else would it go to? Shouldn’t Mr. Trumbull be happy I’ve taken care of it without bugging him?

  The shiny silver doors close, blocking my last view of Tria. I sag against the wall.

  Awful, awful, awful, I think. Is there any way that could have gone worse?

  I bend forward, the closest I can come to curling into a fetal position while still standing. I can’t let myself go completely, not while I’m on the elevator and we could stop on any floor. It turns out, I still have some pride left. But bending forward means the iPhone in my pocket stabs into my stomach. I yank it out. It’s still faithfully recording the soft thrum of the elevator gliding down.

  At least I can stop that, I think, tapping the screen. That’s one thing I can accomplish.

  I will never again want to listen to what Mr. Trumbull said, or what I said back to him. I will never want to let anyone else hear it. I might as well erase it right now.

  But I’m still shaking. As I look down at the phone, ready to erase everything, I’m apparently incapable of holding on to anything else at the same time: I drop the letter Tria gave me to the floor of the elevator. I bend down to pick it back up, and the address is screaming up at me: “Susan and Becca Jones, c/o Burton Trumbull . . .”

  Just the sight of that address is enough to bring tears to my eyes, because it’s in my father’s scrawling handwriting. Every other letter we’ve gotten from him over the past three years has been typed.

  What changed? I wonder.

  But of course, maybe the letter inside is typed. Maybe it’s just the envelope that Daddy wrote by hand this time.

  Why? I wonder.

  My brain is donkey-stubborn. It won’t let me pick up the letter, cram it in my pocket, and turn my attention back to the iPhone. But I’m also somehow reluctant to actually open the letter and see my father’s routine comments about the prison food or his prison buddies who got there by doing who knows what themselves or, his usual question, “How are the two of you?”

  I drink in the sight of my father’s actual writing and mentally review the whole process. Sending our letters through Mr. Trumbull’s office has always been just one more way to protect us. It kept anyone in Deskins from finding out that we’re connected to Daddy, that we’re connected to a prisoner. Always before, every time a letter from Daddy arrived in Mr. Trumbull’s office, I guess the old receptionist would have put Daddy’s envelope in a second envelope, addressed that envelope to Mom and me from Mr. Trumbull, and then dropped that envelope in the outgoing mail.

  There wouldn’t be any reason anyone in Mr. Trumbull’s office would take Daddy’s letter out of the original handwritten envelope and then put it in two layers of typed envelopes instead, I think. Would there?

  A reason springs to mind immediately: That way Mr. Trumbull could hide that fact that he’s been reading our mail.

  I gasp a little and jerk my head back, as an even more puzzling reason presents itself to me: That way Mom and I would never see the actual return address on Daddy’s letters.

  I think this, because now I’m looking at the return address on this letter, written in Daddy’s own hand, and it doesn’t say what I expect. It doesn’t give his location as “Federal Correctional Institution, Herlong, California.”

  Instead, it says, “United States Penitentiary, Atlanta, Georgia.”

  Now—

  Stunned

  Daddy’s here? I think. In Atlanta? Same as me? Where I could see him if I just took another short bus ride?

  I can’t take my eyes off those words: “Atlanta, Georgia.” It’s as if I think that looking away even for an instant will cause the letters to rearrange and change into “Herlong, California.”

  The elevator dings and I jump—I’m back on the ground floor. I stumble out of the elevator through a lobby full of adults in suits, where a teenage girl in jeans stands out and looks odd. I hadn’t thought about that going up to Mr. Trumbull’s office. If Excellerand has cameras trained on this lobby, they’d notice me right away. And if I stop to read a letter with a return address that even a fairly low-res camera could read as being from “Roger Jones” . . . what then?

  I press the letter from Daddy against my chest, the blank side of the envelope facing out. I put my head down and barrel toward the door.

  The sidewalks out front are empty, but that just makes me feel more exposed. I walk a block, then two. The envelope is practically burning against my hand, but it doesn’t seem safe to glance at it again in such an open space let alone actually read the letter.

  There, I think. There.

  Beside a low brick wall around a Starbucks patio, I see a cluster of bushes. I wait until I’m sure no one is looking, and then I slide down between the wall and the bushes. Branches snag my hair and the bricks scrape my arm, but I’m out of sight.

  I squat down in the mud, brace myself against the wall, and dare to look at the envelope again.

  It still says “Atlanta.”

  I flip the envelope over and slide a trembling finger under the flap. I pull out a thin sheet.

  It’s more of Daddy’s handwriting. Nothing in this letter is typed.

  I file that under “Interesting, but who knows what it means?” I blink a few times because my eyes seem determined to go blurry on me. And then I read:

  My dear, dear Susan and Becca,

  I know you probably get sick of hearing me say how much I miss you, but it’s still true. I know you are busy, and I know I deserve you still being mad at me, but your letters seem to come slower and slower. Becca, I enjoyed reading the two essays you sent from your schoolwork—the one about the girl who went to your school 15 years ago, and the one about Moby Dick—but what I really want to hear about is your life.

  What? I never sent Daddy any of my essays! Would Mom have actually . . .

  I remember Mom’s reaction when I told her about my Court scholarship application—she never read that essay. There’s no reason she would have snooped on my computer and sent my schoolwork to Daddy.

  Then who did? How could Daddy have seen those essays?

  I shiver but force myself to go back to reading Daddy’s letter. He talks about how I got a lot more out of Moby Dick than he ever did in high school, and about how the food at the penitentiary is getting monotonous after three years of the same thing week after week, the same scorched grits, the same overcooked okra . . .

  Wait a minute—three years of grits and okra? That means he’s been in Atlanta for three years, doesn’t it? Why would grits and okra be on the menu in California?

  I finish the letter and immediately start reading it again. But what I’m looking for isn’t there—there’s no paragraph I accidentally skipped over the first time explaining, “This is why I’m in Georgia when you thought I was in California” or “This is why I thought you’ve been sending me your school essays, when you really haven’t.�
�� I also don’t find the answers I want the most: “And this is how you can go to college without tipping off Excellerand—and without having to cut off and abandon all your Deskins friends. . . .”

  But if Daddy actually told me what to do, would I trust his advice? I wonder.

  I put my head back against the brick wall and ease Mrs. Collins’s phone out of my pocket. I dial the home number for Mom’s friend.

  It only rings once before Mom’s voice rushes at me: “Becca, I’m so glad you called! I was just telling Denise that it’s killing me, not knowing how you’re doing!”

  This is code. I know Mom is trying to tell me, Denise is sitting right here with me, so if you’re going to tell me something I need to hear privately, let me know so I can work it out.

  I don’t want Mom to hear about Daddy’s letter or my time with Mr. Trumbull while she’s sitting beside someone who can’t know the truth about us.

  But I’m also having trouble figuring out what I would feel safe telling Mom by phone, in any location, when even my school essays were sent places I never expected. Have hordes of spies been watching us all along? Could there be listening devices on the brick wall behind me? In the bushes around me? What’s really going on?

  “Um, I’m okay,” I say, even though it’s a lie. “I just met with the, um, college advisor. It didn’t go very well, but I’m looking into other possibilities. Don’t worry.”

  Mom is not stupid. She can probably tell from my trembling voice just how badly everything went with Mr. Trumbull, just how baffled and scared and helpless I feel.

  “Can I do anything to help?” she asks, and I can hear the strain in her voice—and the need to sound like a normal mom with normal worries for the sake of her friend beside her.

  I’m back in the South, and sometimes old habits come back in a familiar place.

  “Pray for me,” I tell Mom, without the slightest trace of irony. “I’ve got to go.”

  I hang up.

  The “I’ve got to go” was a lie, because I don’t actually know what to do next. Do I really think I’m protecting Mom by not telling her everything? Or am I just protecting myself from having to relive it all?

  A bus rattles past on the street outside my hiding place, and I think longingly of just going back to Emory and joining my Deskins friends for lunch and pretending that none of this ever happened. I think I could almost do it. I could go back to Deskins and live out my senior year and throw caution to the wind and apply for college in spite of the Excellerand threat. It almost seems inevitable that Excellerand is going to get Mom and me in the end—we might as well enjoy ourselves before that happens.

  Mom would never go along with that plan, I think.

  Or the two of us could go into hiding without Mr. Trumbull’s help. We’d be refugees on the lam, maybe living in abandoned houses, eating in soup kitchens, moving to the next place whenever we get the slightest hint of danger . . . We’d fall further and further out of the scope of normal life, further and further from any chance of finding out what’s really going on. . . .

  No, I think. No.

  It’s bad enough that I was so ignorant the past three years.

  I look down at the envelope from Daddy’s letter. I stare at the words “Atlanta, Georgia” like I’m going to develop x-ray vision and see straight through to what that actually means.

  What does anything about this messed-up day mean?

  Maybe I could study that in college, I think sarcastically. Not that I’m ever going to get to go to college now.

  Tears sting at my eyes over everything I’ll miss. Maybe I was listening to more of the presentations last night than I thought. I remember the Emory admissions people saying that college isn’t just about going to frat parties or getting to brag about what a great college you got into or getting a better job than you could have straight out of high school. What college is mostly for, they said, is seeking knowledge, and finding out things you’ve always wanted to know. Or things you never dreamed anyone could know.

  “There’s more than one way to get knowledge,” I mutter under my breath.

  I pull out Mrs. Collins’s iPhone. I type a few words into a search engine, click through screenfuls of information, and study the phone number I eventually find.

  Am I brave enough for this? I wonder. Is this really what I want?

  I am. It is.

  I tap the phone number and bring the iPhone to my ear. As soon as someone answers, I ask, “Can I visit one of your inmates today?”

  Now—

  logistics and hopes . . . and revelations

  “No,” the woman on the other end of the line says in a flat voice.

  She goes on talking, something about the appointment slots at the penitentiary already being full for today, something about having to sign up in advance and needing to be an approved visitor. But I barely hear her, because I’m plunged into despair. Of course this won’t work. Of course this is another door slammed in my face.

  “—tomorrow?” the woman says, and this word actually breaks through my fog.

  “E-excuse me?” I stammer.

  “I said, we do have openings tomorrow,” the woman says. “Saturday morning?”

  She’s speaking slowly now, enunciating each syllable as if she’s decided I’m a nearly brainless creature.

  And maybe I am, because it seems to take me forever to process this. Tomorrow? I’m supposed to tour Vanderbilt tomorrow. My friends believe that’s the whole reason I came on this trip. I’m not supposed to spend another night here in Atlanta, let alone another day. I’m supposed to be in Stuart’s car by three o’clock this afternoon, headed toward Nashville.

  “Want to sign up for a visit tomorrow?” the woman asks.

  Impossible, I think.

  “Yes,” I say.

  The woman begins telling me I need to bring two forms of ID and, yes, a driver’s license and school ID will work fine.

  I have my school ID because I thought I might need to show it at Emory, and of course I needed the license to drive. But suddenly it hits me that I’ve been reckless carrying either of them with me in Atlanta.

  And now I’m going to march up to Daddy’s prison and show both IDs right at the gate? I agonize. With my name and “Deskins, Ohio” right on both cards?

  My brain tells me to hang up right now—to give up completely—but I don’t. I let the woman keep talking, warning me that I will be turned away if I wear anything too “provocative,” and . . .

  And what am I going to tell my friends? I wonder. What lie can I make up to explain wanting to stay in Atlanta an extra day—when everybody knows I’m more interested in Vanderbilt than Emory? And how am I going to get back to Ohio if I stay here when everybody else goes on to Nashville?

  The woman asks for my name and the name of the inmate I want to visit, and I’m so rattled that I just give both, straight out. She doesn’t react, but maybe there’s some special training that prison workers go through, so they don’t make a big deal about inmates’ crimes, no matter how infamous they are.

  As soon as I hang up, I remember that I was scared a moment ago about listening devices on the wall behind me or in the bushes around me. That’s silly, but cell-phone transmissions can be intercepted. I don’t know all the technology Excellerand has at its disposal.

  I scramble out of my bushes and scurry down the block, because if Excellerand was listening in, maybe they could pinpoint the exact spot where I spoke my name and my father’s name. I don’t want them to catch me until after I’ve visited Daddy.

  I really don’t want them to catch me at all, but that’s another issue.

  I smooth down my hair and force myself to slow my stride to a normal pace, not a desperate dash. I can’t stand out. But of course I do. Kids my age aren’t supposed to be out wandering the streets of Atlanta this time of day.

  So, back to Emory’s campus, where I blend in?

  This thought comes as a relief. I glance at the time on the iPhone’s screen—i
t’s only 10:35. It feels like I’ve lived a lifetime since I got on the bus back at Emory, but it’s only been a few hours. I’ve got enough time that, if the bus and metro schedules work in my favor, I can meet my friends back at the Emory dining hall at noon, right on schedule.

  And then could I just “accidentally” get separated from them and not make it back to Stuart’s SUV when it’s time to drive to Nashville? Would they leave without me?

  No, not even Stuart would be that heartless. And the others wouldn’t let him—Rosa and Oscar and Jala would put out an all-points bulletin; they’d alert the national media; they’d tell anyone who would listen that someone as responsible as me wouldn’t just disappear.

  Even after this miserable morning I feel a burst of joy, because I have friends who would be that loyal. Who would do everything they could to take care of me if they thought I was in danger.

  So I have to come up with a bulletproof lie, so they don’t know I really am in danger.

  One thing at a time, I tell myself.

  I find my way back to the metro stop, buy my ticket, plan my route. I’ll get back to Emory by 11:49. Perfect. On the bus I check the price of a plane ticket tomorrow from Atlanta to Columbus, Ohio: hundreds of dollars. Ouch. Going by Greyhound bus would be less than half that, but it’s still about what I would make in two shifts at Riggoli’s.

  This is worth it, I tell myself.

  The phone gives the little ping that means I have a text. I look, thinking it’s something for Mrs. Collins that I should forward. But there are actually four messages waiting that I must have missed before, and they’re all for me.

  From Jala: Is this crazy? Emory seems too small after OSU. Keep wanting to ask: Where’s the rest of campus? Where’s the rest of students?

  From Stuart: U right. Emory can’t be Harvard of South. People too friendly. I hate that.