Empty
Authors: Suzanne Weyn
EMPTY
SCHOLASTIC PRESS
FOR DAVID M. YOUNG,
who first brought the issue of dwindling fossil fuels to my attention. Treasured friend, hilarious pal, and brilliant filmmakerâthanks for always being willing to bounce ideas with me.
Gwen Jones squeezed out of her bedroom window onto the sizzling roof below. Even through her flip-flops, she could feel the burn of the shingles. The feebly whirring minifan on her night table was no match against the full bake of this night. Whatever relief she could find out here was better than nothing.
Some cosmic cook had slowly started cranking the temperature a week earlier, and Sage Valley was now, at the end of August, blasting at full roar. Wiping sweat from her face, Gwen lifted her gaze to a sagging second level of roof above her, its chipped tiles sparkling under the reflection of the full moon. She guessed that she had more chance of catching a late-night summer draft the higher she went, so she boosted herself over the gutter and inched up, backward and sitting. Kicking off her sliding flip-flops, her bare feet scratched the raspy roof until she was nearly at the peak.
With her knees to her chest, she sat surveying the valley. The ring of dark mountains no longer twinkled with lights from distant houses and stores as they'd done when she was a kid. In the last six months, the price of electricity had gone so high that everyone was cutting back where they could. Most people in town blamed the electricity price hike
on the fact that the electric turbines in their area were all powered by oil, and the oil price would not stop rising.
Standing, Gwen peered down over the high hedges just behind her house, to a new housing development. The yard easiest for Gwen to see belonged to the family of a guy from last year's junior class at Sage Valley High, Tom Harris. She could hardly believe they'd both be seniors when school started.
Gwen's pulse quickened as Tom emerged from his house, letting the screen door slam behind him. His appearance always managed to charge Gwen with excitement.
The dark-haired boy threw himself down hard onto the wooden bench of the picnic table in the Harris's backyard, and buried his head in his hands. He sat that way for a long while before resting his head down completely on the table.
Gwen's skin prickled with worry. What had happened to him? Usually, when she saw him out here in the evenings, he was shooting basketball or talking on his cell phone, laughing.
Something was definitely wrong.
Tom and Gwen had been in several of the same classes, but they didn't really know each other. Stillâ¦she'd been coming up to this rooftop since she was eleven and she had been watching him and his family in their yard at night since they moved in over a year ago. It wasn't as though she was stalking or spying on them. She was up here, and they just happened to be down there. And when they were having one of their family barbecues, it was so nice to watch them. They seemed so normal and wholesome. Not a bit like her own home situation.
Sometimes she imagined herself going out with Tom. Of course she liked his looksâwho wouldn't? He could have been a model, with his
dark curls and broad shoulders. He played football, and he looked the type, tall and strongly built. But, really, what he looked like was only a small part of it. She liked imagining herself in that warm, cozy family setting, a welcome and natural part of it.
This longing confused her. It wasn't something she would ever admit to. She was more likely to mock it, even. But she had to admit, if only to herself, that part of her would have liked very much to be there.
Tonight, though, she was seeing a different picture. Tom was clearly upset. On an impulse, Gwen left the upper roof and slipped back into her flip-flops she'd left on the lower level. Climbing into her bedroom window, she hurried through the dark kitchen and let the screen door slam behind her.
Outside, Gwen crossed the small yard along the moonlit pathway into the hedges. Squeezing through, she ignored the scratches to her skin as she pushed her way to the chain-link fence separating Tom's perfect world from her very different one.
With her fingers curled into the metal web of the fence, she observed him. Tom's upper back rose and fell in a measured rhythm that looked like sleep. She'd come with the idea that they would talk like friends, but now she wondered why she thought she could help him. She could barely hang on herself.
She wanted to call to himâto ask what was wrongâbut then he'd know she'd been watching him. He might not like that she'd seen him so vulnerable. Guys could be that way. She knew it from watching her older brother, Luke, fly into a rage if she ever suggested he was anything but steely and unemotional.
Almost as though he sensed her presence, Tom lifted his head. His red-rimmed eyes were swollen.
Gwen backed away slowly, once again forcing the scratching hedges to part and let her through. There was nothing she could do.
Heading back toward the old, wooden house with its warped structure and blistered paint, Gwen saw that the kitchen's too-bright overhead light had been turned on. Luke was there, pacing rapidly, talking on his cell phone. Gwen's shoulders tightened. Something in his movements told her he was in one of his states.
She paused several feet from the back door, and considered scrambling up to the low roof behind the house and getting into her bedroom that way, avoiding Luke altogether. When he was like this, he always picked a fight, and she was in no mood to fight with him.
On the other hand, why should she have to duck her own brother? She resented it.
I'm not hiding from him
, she decided defiantly.
Luke was turned toward the wall, talking. Maybe she could slip past him. But he clicked off his call and turned toward her the moment she stepped into the kitchen. “Where've
you
been?” he shouted, scrutinizing her with sharp, dark eyes.
Warily, Gwen assessed the situation. Luke wasn't slurring or weaving. That was a good sign. His eyes didn't seem bloodshot, eitherâalso a positive. Ever since Leila had skipped out on themâthey never referred to their mother as anything but Leilaâback in Gwen's freshman year of high school, she'd been dependent on Luke, who'd been a senior back then. He made the money, though what he did to earn it, she never really knew, and was glad not to know.
“I went to Paris, but I just now flew back on my jet,” Gwen snapped at Luke.
“That's hysterical,” he grunted sarcastically.
Due to the rising price of gasoline, a flight from New York to Paris
cost thousands of dollars. And right now, if things kept going the way they were going, they wouldn't be able to afford the amount of gas it took to get to school. For them, Paris was as far away as the moon.
“If you're going to go out,” Luke said, “turn off your fan. And your lights.”
Everything counted. That was what they were learning. No matter how small, everything counted.
“I'm sorry,” Gwen said. But really, the only thing she was sorry about was that she was alive in this place, at this time. And that even when she wanted to say something that might somehow make things better, she never knew how.
Two weeks later, Tom Harris stood in his driveway staring into the engine of his dad's Ford pickup and tried to remember the last time it had been turned on. He knew for certain that it hadn't been run all summer.
The hoses looked all right. Maybe he just needed to clean the jets and replace the filter. He hoped the problem wasn't the catalytic converter. He didn't know how to fix that himself and, if he had to bring it in, the repair would cost more money than he had.
Carlos Hernandez strolled over from across the street. “Hey, buddy. How you be?”
Tom shrugged. “This thing starts, but it conks out on me and I can't figure out why.”
Carlos let out a low whistle. “You don't want that happening while you're on the highway.” He leaned in and jiggled the battery cables. “Could you be shorting out here?”
“It's possible, I guess,” Tom allowed, bending forward for a closer look.
“I'm surprised it's running at all,” Carlos remarked, looking the brown truck up and down. “You don't see gas guzzlers like these anymore. Why not turn this in for a hybrid or an electric?”
“It was my dad's. Besides, we don't have money for a new car,” Tom replied. “I hear there's a guy downtown who will convert an old engine like this and make it more fuel efficient. I think his name is Artie. He does it in a garage behind Ghost Motorcycle, I think.”
“The place where all those bikers hang out?”
“Yep.”
“How much does
that
cost?” Carlos asked, his rolling eyes implying that it would be expensive.
Tom shrugged. “Who knows? But at twenty bucks a gallon, it might be worth it.”
“And the price is getting higher every day,” Carlos added. “It
might
be worth it to have the car refitted. No joke.”
“I never can understand why gas prices are so high. Didn't the oil companies get the go-ahead to start drilling in Alaska?”
“Yeah, and they convinced everybody that they had hit the mother lode. Alaska was going to be the new Saudi Arabia. But there wasn't as much oil there as they thought. It's almost run out. Somebody at the top made a bundle, I'm sure.”
It had happened quicker than anybody thought it couldâcountry by country, well by well, the oil had started to dry up. It was right in front of everybody's faces, but they pretended it wasn't happening. They still tried to drive everywhere. They still cranked up their heat in winter and air-conditioning in summer. Reserves were depleted. Alaska was drilled. The price went higher and higher. And while rich peopleâreally rich peopleâcould still afford to get places, the crunch got tighter and tighter on everyone else. Tom didn't like to think about itâbecause there wasn't all that much he could do about it. Except, he guessed, fixing up the truck.
Tom returned his attention to the engine.
“Do you really think you can get this thing to run?” Carlos asked.
“I have to. I'm going to need wheels if I ask out Niki Barton, which is my goal for this year.”
“Whoa! Aiming kinda high, aren't you?”
“You think she's out of my league?”
“Maybe.”
Tom shoved Carlos just hard enough to make him totter backward a few steps.
“Sorry, man, but she is,” Carlos insisted with a smile. “Totally out of your league.”
“
I'm
on the football team,” Tom defended himself.
“Yeah, but you're just now getting onto varsity. Her last boyfriend was already a varsity quarterback junior year. He's bound to be captain this year.”
“So? The guy can play football, big deal.”
“Very big,” Carlos agreed pointedly.
“Anyway, they broke up,” Tom said. “She doesn't see him anymore, so it doesn't matter.”
They turned to look at a girl with black, spiky hair slouching down the sidewalk with a tall, gangly boy. Both of them wore baggy khaki shorts. The girl's black T-shirt was ripped along the bottom hem. The boy's hair was shaven except for a strip of electric green down the middle.
“When did she dye her hair black?” Carlos asked in a low voice. “I don't remember it looking like that last year.”
Tom cast Carlos a puzzled look. “Do we know her?”
“That's Gwen Jones. She's been in your grade ever since you got here.”
Tom studied her as best he could from the corner of his eye. “Oh, yeah. I recognize her now. Did she change her hair or something?”
“I just told you she did!”
Gwen had reached the driveway and glanced up at them. “Hey,” Carlos said, acknowledging her with a nod.
“Hey,” she mumbled, then ducked her head down as though not wanting to be forced into further conversation.
“That girl is seriously spooky,” Carlos said once Gwen was out of earshot. “I heard a rumor that her mother ran off with some guy a few summers ago and left Gwen with her older brother. I also heard that her mother is a drug addict who never comes out of the house, and that's why nobody ever sees her. I don't know which story is actually true.”
“What about the father?”
“I don't think anybody ever knew
him
.”
“Who's the guy with her?”
“Hector something or other. He's homeschooled, I think.”
“Her boyfriend?”
“Yeah. I think so. I mean, they do look like a set, don't they?”
They both stared back into the engine another moment. “I'm going to get a new air filter and see if that helps,” Tom concluded.
“Want to go down to Lake Morrisey later? A bunch of us are going to swim. I still have room in my car.”
Tom considered it. Niki Barton had a house on the lake. If she was there, he might run into her. He'd get a sense if she might possibly agree to go out with him, before he actually asked her.
He pictured Niki: so slim, but with just the right amount of curves, her straight blond hair swinging around her gracefully athletic shoulders. But there was no guarantee she'd show up, and he didn't want to be around a lot of people right now.
“Naw, I don't think I'll come,” he told Carlos.
These days, just getting out of bed and maybe checking out the truck was as much as he could manage. His dad's death had hit him hard, even though he'd known for months that the cancer was winning. “Another time,” he added.
Carlos draped his arm across Tom's shoulders. “Okay. Glad to see you up and around again, anyway. You know how really sorry I am, right? Your dad was a great guy.”
“He was,” Tom agreed. “At least he's not in pain anymore. Thanks for coming to the funeral and all.”
“Yeah, of course.” Walking backward, Carlos headed toward his house. “I'll go get that air filter with you tomorrow, if you want. And you've got about twenty minutes to change your mind about the lake.”
“Okay.”
Tom stood a moment gazing absently at the truck's engine. The thing probably wasn't worth fixing. But his dad had said he wanted Tom to have it. The truck and the old sailboat he kept in the storage shed down at the lakeâthey were the two things that he specifically gave to Tom. The rest went to Tom's mother. It was only the two of them now.
Tom went back to his house through the side door. The TV was on in the family room off the kitchen, and he could see his mother on the couch watching it. Stepping into the room, he looked at the screen.
The president, Jeffrey Waters, was at a podium giving a speech. “What's going on?” Tom asked.
“We're at war, or about to be,” his mother replied.
“With who?”
“Venezuela.”
“Venezuela?”
“Yeah. Didn't you see the headlines?” Tom's mother said, pointing to the laptop on the coffee table. “Take a look.”