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He looked up. ”It's…okay.”

My father pushed his plate away. ”That's right. Report cards.” He held his hand out, all business. ”Where is it?”

My mother leapt to her feet. ”Oh, you can see it after, Karl. Let's have dessert.”

She set out another one of my favorites, a coffee slice with caramel icing. My father bit into his low-fat cookie, resigned.

Daniel was glaring at me.

“You know, they're already selling tickets to your grad, to the ceremony,” my brother said. ”I heard Chris Butler had to buy six because his whole family is going. His grandma is going to fly in from Vancouver, it's such a big deal.”

Beside me, my father's breath ran out in a sigh, as if someone had thrust a knife into a tire.

I went to my room after dinner. My old room. I remembered how it had been when Daniel and I both slept there, the beds against connecting walls, ends almost touching. I remembered us sitting up on our elbows, whispering in the dark, in the days when I was the only one he would talk to. Even after he could
talk, he didn't much, except at night. Then his whole day seemed to pour out of him, like he was a full glass that finally overflowed.

My brother had never done really well in school. He was smart but he just wasn't interested; he daydreamed a lot. Because he was so quiet, the rumor persisted that he was at least partially deaf, and maybe half retarded. Sometimes kids called him things just to see if he'd react. But if I was there, they kept their mouths shut. I tried to be there.

Then, at the end of my grade nine year, I got into the second fight of my life, with Chris Butler. It wasn't about Daniel, but it changed everything. My brother moved into the basement with his guitars. Late at night he'd still be playing, his noise vibrating the floor under my feet. I'd yell down the heating vent at him, tell him to shut the hell up.

Now my room was exactly as I'd left it — school binders dumped on the desk, sports bag open against the wall, lacrosse stick leaning against the dresser that was piled with books. I pawed through the clutter as if I could find the money hidden somewhere.

If only we could sell the tapes. But how? Who would buy them? Busking didn't work. Fifteen tapes in three months, Kruse had said. But that was Daniel, not the Chocolate King.

I hesitated, my hands on a drawer, an idea flickering.

Dad's voice rumbled through the wall, the rising pitch of anger. Shit! Daniel must have told him. I pushed off the dresser and hurried to the kitchen.

My father's fading hair had tumbled over his forehead, shaken out by the force of his stride, up and down the room. He had papers in his hand. Oh, God – the contract. I froze in the doorway.

Daniel was slumped in a chair at the table, staring at his locked fingers. Mom was behind him, lips pursed as she tried to watch them both at the same time, a referee or guardian or both. But I knew she wouldn't interfere.

“Do you think I'm a fool, is that it? Do you think you can make a deal — a promise — and then ignore it? I'm such a fool I'm going to forget?”

Daniel shook his head, a bare quiver.

“Talk, dammit! I want you to talk to me.”

“No!” It took effort for him to get the word out.

“No, what?”

“No, I don't think you're a fool.”

“Then why would you do this? Let it go on and on and not even try?”

Daniel looked up for the first time, his eyes a dark blaze. ”I did try.”

“Bullshit. Trying is studying. Trying is getting help – asking for help. It's not sitting in the basement playing the goddamn guitar. Well, they're in lock-up now, mister…”

“You can't –”

“Not only that,” Dad continued, ”I am phoning this Kruse guy tomorrow and I'm telling him it's off. Whatever he's doing, he's going to stop right now…”

“Dad!” My voice rang across the room and all three turned to look at me. My father straightened, pulled up the waistband of his pants. He gestured at me.

“This is your doing,” he said.

The words were a blow.

“What? How?”

He thrust the sheets out at me. I strode over and caught them up. It wasn't the contract, it was Daniel's second term report card. Fragments of sentences leapt out at me: ”…assignments incomplete…does not attend regularly…” I read them in disbelief. He was failing.

“This is your example,” Dad said. ”He looks to you. When you gave up, he gave up.”

The heat was in my face, the fire I'd been avoiding — we'd both been avoiding – for seven months.

“I didn't give up. I withdrew.”

“You quit,” he seemed to spit out the words,
”when you could have done it, finished no problem, sailed through one last year. You're smart, Jens. You could have graduated and been something.”

“I am something!”

“And what is that? Someone with a shiny car? Possessions…aren't a life. Even thieves can have shiny new cars.”

“This isn't about me.” I was scrambling, trying to deflect those piercing eyes away from me. ”Daniel is responsible for his own life, his own grades.” I tossed the pages onto the table. ”This isn't my fault.”

My father seemed to sag, condense just a little more. ”No, it's mine. I couldn't stop you, and you won't stop him. But we had a bargain, and I keep my promises.”

He began to walk away.

“Karl…” Mom's voice was a shock in the room. It ignited me.

“Don't call Kruse,” I blurted.

Dad stopped but didn't turn around.

“Daniel can still improve,” I said. ”There's a semester left.”

“I am done talking to That One.”

“So let me talk to him! Give me a week. I've got a week. We'll…go camping.”

My brother tried to cut in — the guitar man hated camping, too — but I rolled right over him.

“Maybe you're right. Maybe it's my fault. So just let me try this,” I pleaded to my father's back. ”You don't have anything to lose. He's off school, anyway. Please, Dad.”

My father turned at last, weary but not beaten. I could see in his face that he thought the whole conversation was pointless.

“I think they should do it,” Mom said. ”Go and look after themselves for awhile. If you want them to learn responsibility, that's a good way.” Her quiet voice seemed to take over the kitchen. ”It couldn't hurt, Karl.”

Later, in my room, I rifled my drawers for extra clothes to take. Daniel was on my bed, leaning back on his elbows, knees up so I could hardly see him. I was telling him how it would work.

”We'll sleep in the tent — you know that two-man job we used to put up in the back yard? We'll go to campgrounds, or just wherever we can pull over and park. Rest stops. Then we'll drive into the little towns. I mean
little
— places where they're starved for entertainment. If they have a bar, or a restaurant, I'll get you in there. You'll work for nothing if you have to, but we'll sell those tapes.”

“So when are you going to fix me, Jens?” he said, his voice icy. “When are you going to make me better, make me smart?”

I slammed the drawer shut. ”You're going to fix yourself. You're going to get your act together and stop this crap.” I stood up and turned on him. ”You're not fooling anybody, Daniel. You're not dumb. I don't know how you could do this to him…”

He seemed to leap off the bed. ”Do what? What did I do to him?!”

“You lied. You said you'd pick up your grades so he'd sign the contract. You never intended to follow through.”

“That's not true!”

“It is! I know you. You don't care if you break his heart. Everything's for you.” My voice dropped. ”And on top of that, you go and bug the hell out of Kruse, the man who's doing you a favor, pester him to death because the only person who has a life is you.”

Daniel's hands were clenched. I could see the tendons standing out on his arms. ”Yeah, I wanted to know how things were going, what he was doing. Why not? The guy's going to make money off me.”

“Oh, right. And you were a real star in there today.”

”And what the hell were
you?”

A welt of heat was burning me. This close I realized he was taller than I remembered, even than he'd been at Christmas.

“Get some money from Mom,” I said finally. ”As much as she can spare. She'll give it to you — anything for her baby.”

He didn't slam the door, not quite.

I'd slept in that bed for most of my life and I loved it, but I woke up with a sick feeling. I'd forgotten something important. Daniel and I needed transportation, but the truck was supposed to go back Monday. I had to beg Sy for a few more days.

I had a quick shower and crept out of the house to the pay phone beside the Lucky Mart.

When Judi answered, I lowered my voice to disguise it and asked for Sy.

“I'm afraid he's no longer with us,” Judi said. “Can someone else help you?”

I was stunned. I'd only been gone one afternoon. Had Sy quit or been fired?

“What happened to Sy?” I said, forgetting myself.

There was a pause. “Who is this?” Judi demanded. “Do I know you?”

I panicked and hung up.

I stood in the chilly morning, my hand still on the phone, my breath puffs of vapor hanging in the air. Jack was on vacation and now Sy was gone, too. Did anyone know about me? I needed this truck.

Even thieves can have shiny new cars.

But I wasn't stealing, I was just borrowing. I only needed it for a few days – a week, tops. Whatever had happened to Sy, the dealership would be in some chaos. Maybe no one would notice me missing right away. I could always call in Monday and talk to the accountant, Henry. If he asked, I'd tell him Sy told me to keep it a week.

And that was lying.

But not today. I hadn't done it yet, didn't know that I would. Right now I needed the truck and I had it. I was still okay.

I went into the store, to the bank machine at the back, and withdrew the last fifty dollars out of my account. Then I walked home softly, as if the ground was eggshells.

I went downstairs to the basement that had become Daniel's room. It was still the laundry room, but he'd piled plastic soft-drink crates in a wall that sectioned his bed off in one corner.
His life was scattered everywhere – stacks of CDs, a large amp and a smaller one, magazines, song sheets and his guitars: the acoustic, the Mann electric, the Fender Stratocaster and a mandolin-shaped thing I didn't know the name of.

Taped to the cement wall by his bed was a big, brilliant poster of Colin James. Technically James isn't a bluesman — he's a blistering rock 'n' roll guitarist. But he came from small-town Saskatchewan and he started playing in blues clubs when he was thirteen.

I don't know much about music but I know there are a lot of old blues masters: brothers Stevie Ray and Jimmie Vaughn, B.B. King — hell, even Hendrix and Clapton. I don't know why my brother chose the hero he did.

Daniel had just woken up. He was sitting on the edge of his bed in his underwear and a T-shirt, his long legs bare. I could see his shoulder blades, sharp angles poking up through the fabric, and I felt a pang. God, he was thin.

I dropped to one knee on the carpet beside his bed, like a coach in the huddle.

“Okay,” I said quietly, “get dressed and pack – warm things and then something to perform in, not your usual grubby stuff. I'll get the sleeping bags and everything else. I'll leave the truck open and I want you to sneak some guitars in.”

I glanced at their black cases against the wall. “Take the acoustic and both electrics.” I wanted a back-up in case something broke. “And an amp, and cords, and whatever else you need. Don't let Mom and Dad see you do it. Did you get some money?”

“Not…yet.”

I felt an impatient pulse. This was critical. “Well, do it.” I started toward the stairs. “Now hurry up. We'll have a big breakfast before we go.”

“I'm not hungry,” he muttered behind me.

I whirled around. “Yes, you are!”

He stared at me from under the dark, messy tumble of his hair, surprised.

“You've got to eat, Daniel,” I said, shrugging. “Build yourself up.”

I jogged up the stairs into the smell of frying bacon. Mom was at the counter, cracking eggs into a blue bowl she'd always used to mix pancakes. Her dark shoulder-length hair was pulled back in a ponytail. It amazed me, sometimes, that I could look down on the top of her head, that women in general are so little. From behind you'd think she was a Rosetown girl.

I was suddenly next to her, looking for something to steal – bacon or a piece of toast. She elbowed me away.

“Sit down. I want to serve it all at once,” she
said, but smiling. “I aired out the sleeping bags last night.” She grated fresh cinnamon into the batter. “They're on the line outside.”

“Thanks.”

“The tent and the propane hotplate – I think they're both in the shed. Don't forget toilet paper, and soap and shampoo.” She glanced over her shoulder at me. “Where are you going to wash?”

I didn't answer because I hadn't even thought of it. But she knew that.

“Some of the campgrounds have showers, but most of them have sinks, anyway. The ones that are open. You can always stop at gas stations. Where are you going to go?”

“I don't know. Just around. Hey, it's an adventure,” I said lightly.

She turned, grinning at me. “If you forget the toilet paper,
then
it's an adventure.” Her smile tightened. “I'm going to worry. I'm telling you that now. I want you to phone every day.”

Yet she had agreed with my plan, argued for it last night. She was on my side and I didn't know why.

She turned back to the griddle, lifting the edges of the pancakes to check underneath, although it was too soon.