Runaway
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Runaway
Copyright © 2008 by Dandi Daley Mackall. All rights reserved.
Cover photo of bottom horse copyright © by Cynthia Baldauf/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.
Cover photo of top horse copyright © by Eric Isselee/iStockphoto. All rights reserved.
Author photo copyright © 2006 by John Maurer of Maurer Photography Studio. All rights reserved.
Designed by Jacqueline L. Nuñez
Edited by Stephanie Voiland
Scripture quotations are taken from the
Holy Bible
, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2007 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of either the author or the publisher.
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ISBN 978-1-4143-1268-2
Contents
To Katy Mackall,
my first reader and first-rate animal caregiver
One
Wherever we’re going, I won’t be staying. That much I can promise. I’ve run away seven times—never once
to
anything, just
away from
. Maybe that’s why they call me a “runaway” and not a “run-to.”
The way I figure it, these “ideal placements” by Chicago’s social services never add up to much. And anyway, so far, my life has been subtraction. Two parents and a brother and me. Take away one brother, and that leaves two parents and me. Take away one parent, and that leaves one parent and me. Take away another parent, and that leaves me, Dakota Brown, age almost 16, trying not to wonder what it will be like when I’m the one taken away.
Bouncing in the backseat of the social worker’s car—the front seat has too many papers and folders
about
me to fit the real me in it—I decide it’s time for a list. I love lists. You can take a mess like Ms. Social Worker has going for her in the front seat and, in a few minutes, turn it into a list that fits on a single sheet of paper. Lists bring things under control.
My
control.
I take my list-book out of my backpack and turn to a clean page. Glancing in the rearview mirror, I catch the frown of concentration on the social worker’s face. She’s too busy trying to get us out of Chicago traffic to worry about what I’m doing in the backseat.
I know her name is Ms. Bean, but in my head I keep thinking of her as “the social worker” because things are easier that way. She’s not a bad person, and I’m not trying to get her into trouble or anything. But because I’m so good at what I do—running away—I’m bound to make her look pretty lousy at what she does. She thinks she’s driving me to my new foster family, where I’ll live happily ever after and forever be a pleasant anecdote for her to share with friends and family and future fosters everywhere.
Poor Ms. Social Worker. She is doomed to fail. The State of Illinois has not invented a foster family from which I, Dakota Brown, cannot escape.
In my list-book, I form an action plan.
The Plan:
A. Pay attention to the route leading to my new location. It is also my route out.
B. Control reaction to new setting. It’s important that the social worker believes I like my new digs.
C. Headache. This will be my medical weapon of choice, the only complaint I’ll voice, my one excuse to get out of whatever needs getting out of.
D. Observe. Knowledge is power.
E. Never cry. At least, never let them see you cry.
F. Never get angry. (Yeah, right.) Don’t let them see the anger.
G. Never “confide,” as the social worker likes to call it.
H. Be friendly, but do not make friends.
“Dakota, what are you writing?” Ms. Bean asks.
“Sorry.” I close my list-book and flash a smile to the rearview mirror.
“Don’t be sorry,” she says, smiling back at the mirror. This action makes her come up too fast on the little sports car in front of us.
“Ms. Bean!” I shout.
She slams on the brakes, forcing the car behind us to do the same. Horns honk. “I hate traffic,” she admits.
I wonder how she ended up in Chicago when she hates traffic so much. But I don’t ask. My mind reaffixes the
Ms. Social Worker
label, and I stare out the window.
Ms. Bean is not the clichéd social worker. She’s a stylish, 24-year-old college graduate with light red hair, funky earrings, and clothes I wouldn’t mind wearing myself. I know she’s engaged. But other than the fact that she’s a lousy driver, I don’t know much else about her. That’s the way I like it.
I lean back and close my eyes, hoping she’ll drop the subject of my writing notebook, her driving, and everything else. After a minute, I open my eyes and stare out the window again. Cars whiz by all around us. Every car window is closed. Heat rises from the pavement between the lanes. Even with the air-conditioning blasting, I can smell Chicago, a mixture of tar, exhaust fumes, and metal.
The social worker slams on her brakes again, but I can’t see any reason for it this time.
“Sorry about that,” she mutters. Maybe to me. Maybe to the guy behind her, who rolls down his window enough to scream at her.
“Don’t stop writing on my account, Dakota,” she says. “Unless it makes you carsick. It always makes me carsick.”
I’m thinking that if I get carsick, it will have more to do with her driving style than it does with my writing style. But Rule #11 on my “How to Handle Social Workers” list is “Don’t criticize. It puts them on the defensive.”
I say, “You’re right, Ms. Bean. I really shouldn’t write while I’m in the car.”
“My sister is a journalist,” Ms. Bean tells me.
It’s more information than I care to know. I don’t want to picture her as a person, with a newspaper-writing sister.
“Charlotte has a mini recorder she carries with her everywhere,” the social worker continues. “Instead of writing notes, she talks into that recorder, even when she’s driving. My dad keeps telling her not to record and drive, but she won’t listen.”
She hits her horn when someone changes lanes right in front of her without signaling.
“How far out of Chicago is this place?” I ask.
“Nice?”
I know this is the name of the town they’re dragging me to, but it takes a second to register. “Yeah. Nice,” I say. “Only are you sure they don’t pronounce it ‘Niece,’ like that city in France?” Both cities are spelled the same, but I’m guessing the similarities end there.
“That would make sense,” she admits. “But no. You’ll be living in Nice, Illinois.” She giggles. “And going to Nice High. And I’m sure you’ll be a nice resident of Nice.”
I manage to smile, although I can only imagine how old this play on names must get. I’m already feeling not so nice about it. “So, are we getting close?”
“It’s still a good ways,” Ms. Bean answers. “The board thought a rural home might be a nice change for you.” She smiles, then lets the “nice” thing fade without comment.
Neither of us says anything, so her last words bang around in my head. The board thought a rural home would be a nice change? The board doesn’t know me well enough to know how ridiculous it is to think a rural home would be just the ticket for Dakota Brown. The “ticket” for me is a one-way ticket out of there.
“Are you writing a book?” Ms. Bean asks.
“No,” I answer, hoping she’ll leave it alone.
“No? A letter, maybe?”
Those files scattered all over the front seat have enough information on me that she should know there’s nobody in the world I’d write a letter to. “It’s just lists,” I say to get her off my case.
“Like a shopping list?”
“Just a list,” I answer, trying not to let her see that this conversation is getting to me.
“Like what, for example?” Ms. Bean can turn into a little kid sometimes. She reminds me of this girl, Melody, who was in a foster home in Cicero with me for two months. Melody would grab on to a question and not let it go until she shook an answer out of you.
“Read me one, will you, Dakota?” she begs.
I’m pretty sure Ms. Bean will keep asking me about lists until I either read her one or get so angry I won’t be able to keep up my cheerful act. That, I don’t want.
I open my list-book and flip through dozens of lists until I come to a social worker–friendly list. “Okay . . . here’s a list of five cities I want to visit one day.” This is a real list I’ve made, but I have a hundred cities on it. Not five.
“That’s awesome!” she exclaims. “Which cities, Dakota?”
“Paris, Vienna, Rome, Moscow, and Fargo.” I stop and close the notebook before she can peek in the rearview mirror at the next list, because it looks like this:
Top 8 Cities I Never Want to See Again
1. Elgin, IL
2. Evanston, IL
3. Aurora, IL
4. Glen Ellyn, IL
5. Kankakee, IL
6. Cicero, IL
7. Chicago, IL
8.
Ms. Bean was my social worker in only the last two cities, but she’s got files on me from the other five. So she’d pick up on this list right away and make a big deal of it if she saw it.
I wait until she’s totally confused and trying to study her map while avoiding crashing into trucks. Then I open my list-book and fill in that blank by #8 of the cities I never want to see again.
When I’m sure she’s not looking, I write in big letters:
Nice, IL
Two
When the social worker first told me about their big plan to exile me to rural Illinois, I pictured a cross between Old MacDonald’s farm and
Little House on the Prairie
. It was all I could do not to bolt right then and there. The thought of sleeping in the same place as cows and chickens and whatever made me swear to myself that I wouldn’t spend a single night down on the farm.
My first action plan didn’t look like the one I have now. Instead, I made a list of ways I could leave the farm the same day I arrived. I thought about breaking out into fits of sneezing the minute I set foot on the farm and not stopping until I was back in the city. I considered faking a horrible headache and making Ms. Bean call 911. I even thought about hiding in the trunk of her car.
Then I e-mailed Neil to see which plan I should go with. Neil Ramsey is this guy I’ve known for two years. We ended up at the same “home” when I was in between fosters. Neil hasn’t had a foster family since he was 11. So he’d been in the “holding tank home” longer than anybody. Basically, the home was an orphanage for the kids who fell through the foster care cracks. Neil ruled the place.
Right away, Neil showed me the ropes. I was only there a month, but we’ve kept in touch through e-mail. Ms. Bean and the social service people get all worked up about Neil being a bad influence. But he’s not. And we’re not, like, boyfriend and girlfriend or anything. He just knows the score, knows how to play the game. Neil says nobody in the whole world cares if people like us live or die, or what happens to us in between. So we’ve got to stick together.
Anyway, Neil shot down every getaway plan I came up with. My whole entire list. He said I had to use my head, and he was right. Which is why I came up with my new plan to make everybody think I’m the good little foster girl. Then, when they’re least expecting it, Neil’s going to help me bust out of there. For good this time.
“Dakota?” Ms. Bean glances at me in the rearview mirror. “You’re so quiet, honey. Are you worried?”
“Maybe a little,” I admit, only because it will get me what I want: more information. I’ve met the family a few times, of course, but mostly we talked about me. All I know about Mr. and Mrs. Coolidge is that they smile a lot and don’t look much like their son, Hank, who’s almost 16 but already a head taller than his dad.
“Could you tell me more about the Coolidges?” I ask. Knowledge is power. That’s what Neil says.
“Sure!” She changes lanes without signaling. “I’ll start with Dr. Coolidge. Ann.”
It’s still hard for me to believe Ann Coolidge is a real doctor. She’s short and shaped like a bowling pin. Plus, she’s as scattered as pick-up-sticks.
“Dr. Coolidge is chief oncologist in Nice Samaritan Hospital, so she has to drive in to work every day. But Mr. Coolidge is almost always at the farm.”
“The farm’s not in Nice?” I ask, trying to hide my panic. The farther from civilization, the more complicated it’s going to be to get out.
“I suppose it’s 20 minutes to town. No longer than a half hour on the school bus.”
I bite my tongue so I won’t scream, “School bus!” Instead, I take a deep breath and remind myself that I won’t be there when school starts.
Ms. Bean continues filling me in on life down on the farm. “Dr. Ann could work in any cancer unit in the United States, if she wanted to. You’ll just love Ann once you get to know her. She—” Ms. Bean stops, as if searching for the right words. “She’s one of a kind.”
That much I’d already gathered.
“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend more time with the family before moving in. Don’t you love Chester Coolidge, though?” Ms. Bean says.
I don’t answer. The guy’s totally friendly, but he makes me think of Popeye the Sailor Man—bald, big arms, stocky.
“Chester is a part-time fireman, but mostly he oversees the animals.” She shakes her head, like she’s an inch from laughing. I don’t ask. “Did I tell you the farm’s called Starlight Animal Rescue?”
“Yeah.”
“So sometimes there are a lot of animals to care for. And the kids, of course.”
“I thought they only had Hank.” And Hank is no “kid.” I pegged him for 18 when I first met him.
“I did tell you that you weren’t the only foster child,” Ms. Bean reminds me.
Fosters don’t count, although I know better than to share this thought with her.
“There’s Wes,” she continues. “He’s 14 and has had a rough time of it. And Katharine. She’s been with the Coolidges about two years, since she was nine. They’re in the process of adopting her.”
Nine. That’s how old I was when my dad died and I went to live with my first foster family. I can’t help wondering what this kid Katharine has that would make somebody want to adopt her. Nobody ever wanted to adopt me.
“Did you get to talk to Hank much?” Ms. Bean asks, turning on the windshield wipers, although it’s still sunny.
“He asked if I liked horses.” Meeting foster families always feels like auditioning for a play. And the lines are lame.
“Hank is a wizard with horses,” she says. “No, not
wizard
. . .
whisperer
! He’s a horse whisperer, although he’ll deny it. But people bring abused horses to the farm, and Hank fixes them right up. The Coolidges are all about animals. Chester has a brother in Ashland, Ohio, and they call his son, Hank’s cousin, ‘Catman’ because he’s so good with cats. Catman and his friend Winnie operate a pet helpline. Hank e-mails Winnie for horse advice. He calls her ‘Winnie the Horse Gentler.’”
I’m trying to listen, but Ms. Bean’s turn signal has been on so long that it’s driving me crazy. I’m thinking about telling her to turn it off when she jerks the wheel to the right, crosses a lane of traffic, and takes an exit.
“Almost missed our exit,” she announces.
She stops the car at the top of the exit ramp and consults the map. “Never could read these things,” she mutters. After a minute, she tosses the map, shrugs, and turns left.
I’m thinking she made the wrong guess because we pass nothing but trees and fields for miles.
Then, as if we’ve been stranded in the desert and have finally stumbled onto civilization, Ms. Bean shouts, “Look! Nice!”
If this is civilization, then it got lost in a time machine. It’s like time warped somewhere between Chicago and here. We’ve zoomed back in time to 1950. All-American boys are riding bikes along Main Street. Plump, gray-haired ladies sit on front porches, surrounded by pink and red flowers. More flowers line cracked sidewalks and pool in circles around the trees.
We drive past a big sign that reads, “Welcome to Nice! Nice to have you!” The sign needs paint.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Ms. Bean exclaims. “Frank and I would love to live in a town like this after we’re married.”
“Uh-huh,” I say because I’m having trouble getting my breath.
“Look!” She points left, and the car moves with her, crossing the centerline. Nobody honks at her. “See that white stucco building? The Made-Rite has the best sandwiches in the state. Chester and Ann took me there the last time I came to Nice.”
She’s obviously waiting for me to say something. “Good sandwiches, huh?” I have no idea what a “made-rite” sandwich could be and even less of a desire to find out.
“Awesome! Chester said his parents used to take his brother and him to this very restaurant when they were kids, but only for special occasions. The Coolidges still celebrate birthdays at the Made-Rite.” She smiles into the rearview mirror. “When’s your birthday, Dakota? I know I have it here somewhere.” She starts to rummage through the folders scattered across the front seat. The car wanders into the wrong lane.
“July 4,” I say quickly, before she crashes into a mailbox.
“Well, of course. How could I forget? Less than two weeks away. I’ll bet you can celebrate at the Made-Rite and then watch Nice fireworks on your birthday.”
I think I’m going to be sick.
Neither of us talks as she tries to pass a truck on a barely two-lane blacktop road. As soon as she succeeds in passing, she slams on the brakes and turns onto a gravel road. White dust kicks up like dry fog. “Won’t be long now.”
I prepare myself. I’ve been through this enough times. Everyone is super sickly sweet on Drop-Off Day. I just want to get it over with.
We bounce off the gravel road and onto a dirt lane. It’s a long driveway, ending at a standard grayish farmhouse.
“We’re here!” Ms. Bean exclaims, as if I hadn’t guessed. Then she slams on her brakes.
In front of us, blocking the drive, is a scene I’d never have expected on Drop-Off Day, not even in inner-city Chicago. In front of us, Hank is screaming at a kid half his size. The kid is wired, yelling back and looking like he could take Hank with one hand tied behind his back. At their feet, a giant German shepherd is barking and lunging at the shorter kid, while a shriek fills the air, as if from an invisible girl gone stark-raving mad.
Every family I’ve lived with, even the good ones, bent over backwards to impress social workers. All of us kids had to be on our best behavior when the social worker showed up. So if this is the family’s best behavior, I am in serious trouble.