Runaway (7 page)

Cops:
Thanks. You've been a big help.

Day Manager:
You need to find her so we can get her back into foster care.

Cops:
Will do.

I should have left a week ago.

         

I can't believe it. I'm actually thinking about going back to the bridge. It seems like a lifetime ago that Frankie chased me off with a stick. And what's weird is, right now being back at the bridge seems safer than staying in the park.

I do not want to get picked up by cops.

I'd way rather defend myself against a man with a stick than a social worker with good intentions.

         

Sunday, June 27
^th

I'm still in the same town and you're going to laugh, because you know where I've been living since Wednesday night?

A school!

I was heading for the park when I saw this
SCHOOL
crossing sign and thought, Hey, maybe I'll sleep at the school. It's summertime, right? The place will be deserted.

It turned out to be a high school, and it's
big.
After walking around awhile, trying all the doors, I spotted an open window on the back side of the gym. It was way up high, but right underneath it was this big storage cage they'd built for trash cans and other junk that I guess they don't want people messing with. So I climbed the cage, pulled the window open as far as it would go, and squeezed through.

I wound up in the girls' locker room, and you know what? It's perfect! There are mats to sleep on, showers with hot water, toilets that flush, and the gym teachers' office is
loaded
with stuff. Books, a radio, a TV that plays movies (which there's a whole shelf of!), a microwave (and popcorn to go with it!), a refrigerator (with yogurts, burritos, fruit cups, Cokes…yum!).

I could live the rest of my life here.

         

Monday, June 28
^th

I came into the office this morning and tidied up because my garbage was spread everywhere. And while I was doing that, you know what I found?

A phone.

It's one of those big ones with two hold buttons and a bunch of different lines. I found it stashed in a desk drawer, of all places.

At first I thought it was just an old dead phone, but when I pulled it out, there were cables attached, and when I held up the receiver and pushed the
LINE
1
button, I got a dial tone.

So I've been sitting at this desk for the longest time, thinking. And it's really bummed me out, because of all the millions of people there are in this world, I have no one to call.

No one.

         

Still the 28
^th
, 2:30 p.m.

I hate cheerleaders. I bet you were a cheerleader, huh, Ms. Leone? Popular, friendly, pretty,
enthusiastic.

Yeah. You were a cheerleader.

Camille's going to be one, too. Like there's any doubt? I actually saw a Camille-of-the-Future today. Little pleated skirt, red and white pom-poms, blinding white shoes…but it was her voice that made think of Camille. She talked just like Camille.

How's that, you ask?

Well, check this out. This is what the rah-rah girls were saying (and don't tell me you can't tell which one's Camille-of-the-Future):

“Ms. Sanders says someone's been, like,
living
in here!”

“Seriously? Who?”

“Like, some homeless creep! She says he's been sleeping on the gymnastics mats!”

“Oh, gross!”

“He's, like, eaten all her food! And she thinks he might, like, still be in here!”

“Really?”

“Yes! She, like, heard something crash when she unlocked the door.”

“Maybe we should get out of here?”

“And leave her, like,
alone
with him? Besides, she's, like, already called the police. They'll be here any minute!”

         

See? You know which one's Camille, admit it. And I got this wonderful reminder of how much I missed my very best friend in the whole wide world, because the cheerleaders were having their little gossip session right by my hiding place.

The minute I'd heard people coming into the locker room, I'd cut and run, but I couldn't make it to the back door in time, and the only place I could find to hide and hold was a full-length locker.

There was barely enough room for me, let alone my backpack. I wish I'd used the backpack as a seat, but I didn't have time to think that through. I wound up folded at the knees and neck, hugging my backpack. By the time the police arrived, I'd gone from feeling like a sardine in a tin can to feeling like a pretzel of pain in a coffin.

The cops looked around awhile, then one of them started asking that Ms. Sanders lady questions.

Cop:
There's a back door, correct?

Ms. Sanders:
It's locked.

Cop:
And the door to the gym?

Ms. Sanders:
It was locked, too.

Cop:
But you can exit either way without a key?

Ms. Sanders:
Correct.

Cop:
Is there access from here to the boys' side?

Ms. Sanders:
No.

Cop:
You said the phone was used?

Ms. Sanders:
Yes, sir.

Cop:
That might get us somewhere. [Pause.] But no vandalism?

Ms. Sanders:
Not that I've seen.

And here's where Camille-of-the-Future came skidding up to them, squealing, “Look what I found, look what I found!”

And what do you suppose she'd found?

My backup undies.

Of course she held them out like they were putrid and revolting, but all they were was tattered and damp. I'd washed them and hung them to dry over a stall divider in the bathroom.

Through the vent, I could see the cop take them and inspect the size tag, and I thought, Oh, crud!

Damp meant they were recently washed.

The size meant he was dealing with a kid.

And the type meant the kid was a girl.

I was totally busted.

Sure enough, he sighed and said, “It looks like your visitor was a girl we've been trying to track.”

“A runaway?” Ms. Sanders asked him.

He nodded. “Her name's Holly. She ran away from foster care.”

“How old?” Ms. Sanders asked.

“Twelve.”

All the cheerleaders gasped. Then Camille-of-the-Future asked, “Is she, like, dangerous? Armed? Into drugs?”

The cop didn't answer her questions. Instead, he said, “If you see her around, just call us. Do not approach her or try to befriend her.”

“Because she's, like, dangerous, armed, and into drugs?”

Again, the cop didn't answer. He just said, “Because we don't know how she'll react. Just call us.”

The other cop had been combing the locker room, and one of the things he'd done was open and close a bunch of full-length lockers. But the locker room was
big,
so after a while he stopped.

When they were done talking, Ms. Sanders walked the cops out, and the instant she was gone, the cheerleaders got all gaspy and gossipy about homeless people:

“I was walking by Macy's? And I, like, accidentally
touched
one! It was so, so gross!”

“My mom bought this homeless guy a sandwich once, and when she drove past him later, she saw him feeding it to his dog!”

“Last week there was one laying on the sidewalk right around the corner from where I get my nails done! I thought he was dead!”

“I saw one passed out at that bus stop by the mall? He was lying in a puddle of pee!”

“Ooh! Gross!”

When Ms. Sanders came back, she told the rah-rah girls to get into the gym. They scurried out, and suddenly it was very,
very
quiet.

I was dying to get out of that locker. I was pinched and aching and my feet were numb, but I told myself to hold. Give it another few minutes. Make sure everyone's really gone. Hold.

And then I heard Camille-of-the-Future's voice whispering, “Holly? You can come out…we won't hurt you….” She walked right past me. “Holly? You don't have to be afraid, we want to help you….”

That made me so mad. She got grossed out just brushing up against a homeless guy, and I was supposed to believe that she wanted to help me? What a phony!

Ms. Sanders came to my rescue, calling, “Liz! Out here now!”

After that it was quiet again. And when my body just couldn't hold anymore, I worked up the latch and eased out of the locker.

At first I could barely walk. But I hobbled into the bathroom and hid in a stall until blood had found its way back into all the pinched-off places. Then I let myself out the back door, climbed a fence, and beat it out of there, checking for cops the whole time.

And now I'm back at the Greyhound station, waiting for the 6:55 bus to take me west.

I
am
going to get on board this time.

I've got a plan.

Not a foolproof plan, but it's better than the last one.

What makes me nervous is, it involves fire.

         

Same day, 7:15 p.m.

I am so stoked! And I'm wasting battery power to tell you that I am on board the Greyhound bus, heading west!

Why are you wasting battery power, you ask? Don't Greyhound buses have reading lights for their passengers?

Why, yes, they do.
If
you happen to be riding above. But I'm not riding above. I'm in the luggage hold.

The Stowaway Gypsy strikes again!

Hey, it was no easy plan to pull off, Ms. Leone. You probably don't know anything about this because I'm sure you
fly
everywhere you go, but when a bus is loading, the driver stands at the foot of the steps, taking tickets and checking luggage. He does everything. And it's hard to sneak on board
or
into the luggage compartment because he can see both and he
watches
both. Every driver I've seen has had the eyes of a hawk.

So having learned this the hard way, I knew I needed a distraction. And I knew if the distraction worked, I shouldn't get greedy. I'd been tossed off the bus before when I thought I was safe, and I didn't want to go through that again.

So what was my distraction?

Well, there was this wire-mesh trash can outside that I made sure was full of crumpled newspapers, and when the bus was in the middle of boarding, I knelt beside it and used my lighter to set it on fire.

It took a little while for it to really get going, and no one noticed it until I told the last guy in line, “Hey, look at that fire.”

“Fire?” he asked, then saw it and shouted, “Fire!”

Once the commotion started and everyone was looking at the fire, I climbed into the luggage hold. It's huge in here! And since there were already lots of suitcases and boxes and stuff inside, it was easy for me to hide.

I resisted the temptation to watch them put out the fire. Hide and hold, I told myself, hide and hold. Then, after a while, more luggage came clonking in, the door clanked closed, and a few minutes later we were pulling out of the station.

We must be on the interstate now because we seem to be
flying
along. It's loud down here, but I've shoved a bunch of suitcases together and am using them as a mattress. It's actually pretty comfortable.

So that's it. In 26 hours I'll be in California.

Did you hear me?

California! Where there's sunshine and beaches and (I'm hoping) sea gypsies galore!

There are almost 20 stops between here and there, and a couple of one-hour layovers, but I picked a no-transfers route, so the same bus goes the whole way! All I have to do is stay hidden when they swap around luggage at the different stations. And since the schedule says the next stop's not for almost four hours, I'm going to nap while the napping's good.

Wish me sweet dreams, Ms. Leone!

         

Almost midnight

Man, I was zonked! I didn't even know the bus had come to a stop until light came flooding in when they opened the door. Lucky for me, they didn't pull out luggage right away or I'd have been busted.

Anyway, we're back on the road now and I'm wide awake, so I'm writing to tell you, Gee, thanks a lot! I ask for sweet dreams and what do I get?

A nightmare.

It went like this: I was running, running, running, through a park, through streets, over an endless bridge…. But halfway across the bridge the police finally nabbed me. They tossed me into a social worker's office, which at first was a normal office, but then the walls faded away, leaving jail cell bars. The social worker's desk was piled so high with papers that I couldn't see her face, but she was saying, “We're doing this because it's, like,
best
for you, Holly. You've got to learn to stop
stealing,
and, like,
lying,
and being, you know, such a social
disaster.
”

In my dream I jumped up and looked behind the mountain of papers. And no, it wasn't Camille-of-the-Future. It was the real-deal Camille!

She was wearing a blood-red suit, her hair was swirled into a bun, she had on bright red lipstick, and she was acting like she was
so
mature. And behind her, crammed between hundreds of books on a bookshelf, was a picture of you. But when I looked at the picture closer, I saw that it wasn't just a picture of you.

It was a picture of you…with your arm around
me.

         

Stupid dream.

         

Tuesday, the 29
^th

Good thing I've got a watch and a schedule, because I've lost track of the number of stops we've made. But according to my watch and this schedule, it's high noon and we're in Arizona. According to my bladder and the temperature inside this luggage compartment, I should get out and find a bathroom and some air-conditioning.