Runner (8 page)

"What?"

"For the newspaper. You could write about stuff that goes on along Golden Gardens and on the beach. The rats, or something else if you want." She paused. "The newspaper staff still meets at the Blue Note Café at eight o'clock every other Friday. Our next meeting is this Friday. Why don't you come?"

I started to say no automatically, but then I stopped myself. For the first time in my life, I had money in my pocket. Not a lot, but enough so that I could buy a mocha and a piece of cake and not worry about it. I liked Melissa, and she liked me. She was just asking me to meet her at a café. How could going to the Blue Note hurt?

"OK," I said.

She smiled. "OK."

The first few years we lived on the boat, my dad would heat up some sort of turkey loaf and deli mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. Some years, he even bought a pumpkin pie. He was trying, but all he did was to make me feel mom's absence even more.

Now we basically treat Thanksgiving and Christmas and birthdays as if they are any other day of the week. Since there's no buildup, there's no letdown. Thanksgiving came and went.

The morning after Thanksgiving, my dad gave me a hundred and thirty dollars. "To help with the moorage fee," he said. "I've had a few jobs lately. Mainly helping guys get their boats ready for winter."

I was about to tell him I didn't need it, but I stopped myself in time. "Thanks," I said. "This will help a lot."

That evening, after he'd taken off for wherever it was he
was going, I grabbed a jacket and walked the length of the marina to the long stairway leading up to Thirty-second Avenue and the Blue Note Café. It's about one hundred steps, straight up, so I was breathing hard when I finally reached the top.

I caught my breath, then crossed the street and entered the café. Melissa, her brown, shoulder-length hair pulled into a short ponytail, was sitting at a table in the back. She waved and I walked back to meet her. "You know Thomas Dowell and Annie Comstock, don't you?"

"Sure," I said, though I hadn't spoken ten words to either of them the whole time I'd been at Lincoln. "Good to see you."

Thomas and Annie had already bought their food, so I was able to go to the front counter with Melissa. "A large mocha and a scone," she said to the girl taking orders.

"I'll have the same," I said.

We stood side by side as the girl put our order together. "I'm really glad you came," Melissa said. "I didn't think you would."

"I wasn't sure I would, either."

"I know most people think the newspaper is nerdy and all that, but it really isn't."

Before I had to answer, the order came up. "I'll pay," I said, taking out my wallet.

"You pay for yours and I'll pay for mine," Melissa said.

"No," I said. "You bought at Little Coney. I'm paying this time."

We carried our food back to the table. While we'd been gone, Natasha Martin had joined the others. "I can only stay
for a little while," she said. "My cousin from North Carolina is visiting. He got accepted into Harvard last week. Fifteen-fifty on the SAT. My parents want me to talk to him. As if talking about the SAT can help me score higher. I'll be lucky to get into Central Washington."

"You'll get into a good school," Melissa said. "You know you will."

For the next half hour, they talked about colleges. One place was great for pre-law while another had a fantastic biology program. Some other place had a sister school in Istanbul and another one had a junior-year program in Paris. Most of the schools they mentioned I'd never heard of. Occasionally Melissa would look over at me and smile.

I'd always thought that if I had a few bucks in my pocket, I'd be even with kids like Melissa and Thomas and Annie and Natasha. Now I had money, probably more money than anyone else at the table, but it didn't even things up at all. They were still them, and I was still me.

"Maybe we should talk about the newspaper," Melissa said at last. "That's why we're here, isn't it?"

Thomas groaned. "Couldn't we just skip it?"

Melissa shook her head. "Chance came because he's interested in joining the staff."

"That's OK," I muttered. "Talk about whatever you want to talk about."

Thomas smiled. "See, Melissa. He doesn't care."

"Well, I do," Melissa said. "And I'm the editor. So let's get to the meeting."

Melissa told them about the rats living in the rocks. She looked to Thomas. "Maybe you could take some pictures and Chance could write it up?"

I panicked, but Thomas saved me. "I don't want to get into cutesy-bunny-and-kitten crap. That sort of stuff is for the Wednesday shopper." He looked at me. "No offense, Chance."

Melissa sighed. "All right. Anybody else have any ideas for Chance? Something to do with the waterfront?"

"How about if he writes about the seals in the harbor?" Annie said. "The ones that are eating all the salmon and ruining the salmon runs."

"That's old news," Melissa said. "The
Times
has had about fifty articles about that."

"He could write about the threat of terrorism," Natasha said.

"What threat of terrorism?" Melissa asked.

"My dad has a friend who works for the FBI. He says they're really worried about the ports. There are zillions of boats floating around on the Sound and nobody keeps track of them. Terrorists could sail in and blow up whatever they wanted."

Melissa looked at me. "Is that true?"

"I wouldn't say nobody keeps track," I said. "There's the Coast Guard and the port police, and there's customs and there's immigration. Homeland Security must be down there too, but I don't think I've ever seen them."

"But they don't check all the boats, do they?" Natasha insisted.

"No," I said. "How could they?"

Thomas snorted in disgust. "I can see the headline now:
Terrorists at Shilshole! A
Lincoln Light
Exclusive."

"What's so ridiculous about it?" Natasha snapped. "It's not impossible that terrorists could come through Shilshole."

"And if they do, reporters from the
Lincoln Light
will be there to catch them!" Thomas said. He turned to Melissa. "I bet Stanford will admit you if you win a Pulitzer."

"Very funny, Thomas," Melissa said, and then she turned to me. "It isn't a bad idea, Chance. It really isn't. You don't have to find real terrorists or anything like that. All you have to do is write about how easy it would be for terrorists to get into the marina. It's worth thinking about."

"OK, he can think about it," Thomas said, interrupting. "And while he's thinking about it, I'll write the end-of-season wrap-up for soccer, volleyball, and football. But you've got to get the newspaper out before Christmas break, Melissa, or it will all be dumb. You know that, don't you?"

"I know it," Melissa said. "And it will come out before Christmas. I guarantee it."

Natasha looked at her watch. "Oh my God," she said. "I was supposed to be home thirty minutes ago."

I saw my chance. "I've got to go, too."

"Get down there and check the docks, Chance," Thomas said. "Some terrorist might be sailing in tonight with a nuclear bomb. You wouldn't want to miss that."

"You're not funny, Thomas," Melissa said. She stood and turned to me. "I'll go out with you."

Outside, the night air was cold. She walked across the street with me to the top of the stairway. "Don't pay any
attention to Thomas," she said. "That's just how he is. You will write something, won't you?"

I shrugged. "About what?"

"You could write about the salmon runs. It is important, even if it's not new. I won't be able to get a newspaper out by Christmas if I don't get some stories soon."

It was too early to go to sleep, and I didn't feel like reading or watching television or listening to the radio. I ended up cleaning useless stuff out of my school backpack and from my storage nooks. That's how I came across the army brochure the recruiter had given me on Career Day.

I threw it right into the trash with a bunch of other papers, but then I reached in and pulled it back out. Melissa, Thomas, Annie, Natasha—all of them were moving on with their lives. They were heading to college; the world was getting larger for them. Where was I going? What was I going to do?

I flipped through the glossy pages. It was pure marketing. I knew from my dad that the army was nothing like the brochure pretended. Nothing like it at all. And I was no big patriot either. Still, it wasn't the
Tiny Dancer.
It wasn't smuggling and it wasn't Ray's restaurant and it wasn't a hundred other crummy jobs I could see myself doing. At the end,
there'd be money for college, though I didn't know what I'd study at college if I ever got there.

The next morning I went to the pay phone by the marina building and made the call. The man at the other end was businesslike. The first thing he did was ask my name.

"My name," I said, stumbling for words.

"Yes, your name."

"My name is Todd Jones."

"And how old are you, Todd?"

"I'll be eighteen in August," I said.

"Are you enrolled in high school?"

"This is my last year."

"Will you graduate?"

"I guess," I said. "I'm passing everything. I'm not any great student, though."

"That's all right. We'd like you to graduate before you enlist, though it's not required. How about if we schedule an appointment? I can show you your various options, get a feel for the programs that might interest you."

My mouth went dry. "What I really want to know is how long would it take? I mean, from the time I signed the papers until I got in."

"Not long. Ten days if you're in a big hurry and you're not fussy about your program. Longer if there's a particular program you want or if you want to do a few things before you enlist."

"As fast as ten days?" I said.

"As fast as ten days." He paused. "It's a great opportunity. You'll get a chance to grow up, a chance to learn something
about yourself and the world. And when your enlistment is finished, you'll be eligible for up to fifty thousand dollars for your college education. But really, it would be better if you came in so that I could show you the various enlistment options and go over the benefits that come with each. Do you want to schedule an appointment?"

"Right now I'm just thinking things over," I said. "I'll call back another time."

"That's fine. But before you call, I want you to think about what it means to be a soldier. Defending your country will require courage. There is no place for a coward in the armed forces."

"I know that," I said. "And I'm not a coward. If I was a coward, I wouldn't even call."

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. So the next time you call, I'll be expecting you to use your real name."

The strange envelope showed up in early December. It was a standard size, probably nine by twelve, but the paper was darker and felt rougher to the fingers than any envelope I'd seen in stores in Seattle. In the upper right-hand corner was a long string of numbers. The 7 s had that little line in the middle of them that Europeans use, and the Is had loops in front of them that made them look like 7s.

I was fingering the envelope, wondering if I should even take it, when I heard a woman laugh. I looked up the beach and saw a whole group of women jogging toward me. I shoved the envelope into my backpack and started back for the marina. When I reached the utility room, I stuck the envelope into the locker the same way I did the regular packages.

Melissa had been on me about writing something for the newspaper. I didn't want to let her down, so that night I went
to the Ballard library and looked up salmon in an encyclopedia. I copied down stuff about how they spawn and how seals and dams and pollution are ruining everything. For about twenty minutes I wrote.

When I'd filled a couple of notebook pages, I stopped and read it over. Right away I knew it was all wrong. Melissa didn't want me to write a school report. She wanted something lively, something interesting. But what did I have to say about salmon or seals that would be lively or interesting? I ripped up the pages, tossed them into the trash, and started for home.

Outside in the night air, I found myself thinking about that envelope again. What could it have been? It was too light and too flat to contain drugs; I was sure of that. But if it was just some papers, why not stick them in the mail? Why go through all the trouble of hiding papers in rocks? It didn't make sense.

Instead of boarding the sailboat when I reached the marina, I returned to the utility room. I wanted to look at the envelope again. As I turned the key in the lock, I had a strange feeling I was being watched. I looked around quickly—no one. I pushed the utility room door open. As usual, the room was empty. I went to my locker, opened it, reached in for the envelope, but it was gone.

I closed the locker and headed back outside. As I stepped out onto the sidewalk, the bright lights of a car blinded me. I put my arm up to shield my eyes. The driver sped toward me, and then veered off hard to the right, tires squealing. As the car sped off, I got a good look at it. It was a newer-model black Mercedes, but the windows were so heavily tinted I couldn't tell how many people were inside.

My heart was racing, and so was my mind. Once I was back on the sailboat, with the security gate between me and the parking lot, I took a series of deep breaths to calm myself. It was dumb to be afraid. The driver of the Mercedes was probably some kid my age working as a valet at one of the fancy restaurants down the road, maybe even Ray's. It was just a coincidence that he sped up as I opened the door, nothing more. I was making a whole lot out of nothing.

That Friday night I trudged up the hill to meet Melissa and the others at the Blue Note Café. I was late, but when I stepped through the door into the warmth of the coffee shop, the only person I saw was Melissa. She was drinking a latte and picking at a biscotti. When she spotted me, her face broke into a smile.

I ordered a mocha and a croissant, paid, and then carried my tray to her table. "Where is everyone?" I asked as I sat down across from her.