"It couldn"t be. . . ."
"What is it?"
Connor can"t speak for a moment. He looks at the caption again. "His wife. Her name is Sonia!"
Lev doesn"t get it-and why should he? He was never in that first safe house with Connor and Risa. Sonia was the name of the old woman who ran it. Over the years she must have rescued hundreds, maybe thousands, of AWOL Unwinds. Connor enlarges the picture on the screen, and the more he looks at Mrs. Rheinschild, the more certain he is.
It"s the same Sonia!
What was it she said to him? We move in and out of darkness and light all of our lives. Right now, I"m pleased to be in the light. Connor had no idea the burden of darkness she must have been carrying all these years.
"I know that woman," he tells Lev. "And now I know where we have to go. We"re going back to Ohio."
Lev grows pale at the suggestion. "Ohio?" The thought of home brings a scorpion"s nest of emotions neither one of them are ready for, but Sonia"s antique shop is in Akron. If there"s more to this picture, she"s the only one who can give it to them.
Bells above the diner"s front door jingle, and a stone-faced deputy saunters in, his eyes immediately scanning the room. While Connor and Lev were absorbed by the news article, two patrol cars had pulled up out front, and officers are all over the stolen Honda.
"You look like a deer in headlights," Connor whispers to Lev. "Stop it."
"I can"t help it." Lev lowers his head so his hair hangs over his face, but that looks just as conspicuous as antelope eyes.
Sure enough, the deputy zeroes in on them and makes a beeline across the diner-but to Connor"s surprise, their waitress gets to the table first and says, "Tommy, you just about inhaled those burgers! You keep eating like that and you"ll burst out of your jeans."
Connor is a little slack-jawed as the deputy arrives, but Lev pulls out of road-kill mode and says, "Yeah, Tommy, you"re such a pig. You"ll get fat, just like your dad."
"It"s in the genes," says the waitress, not missing a beat. "Better be careful!"
The deputy turns to the waitress. "You know these boys, Karla?"
"Yeah, this is my nephew, Tommy, and his friend Evan."
"Ethan," says Lev. "You always get my name wrong."
"Well at least I knew it started with an E."
Connor nods politely to the deputy and looks at the waitress. "Your burgers are just too good, Aunt Karla. So if I get fat, it"s your fault."
Satisfied, the deputy turns to Karla, concluding that Connor and Lev are somebody else"s problem. "Know anything about that car out there?" he asks her.
Karla looks out the window and says, "A couple of kids pulled up, maybe an hour ago. Boy and a girl. I noticed them because they looked to be in a hurry."
"They come in?"
"No, they just ran off."
"I"m not surprised-the car was stolen down in Phoenix."
"Joyriders?"
"Maybe. Could be AWOLs. A bunch of them escaped from that old air force base in Tucson." He jots her statement down in his notepad. "You remember anything else, you be sure to let us know."
Once the deputy is gone, Karla winks at Connor and Lev.
"Well, Tommy and Ethan, your meal"s on the house today."
"Thank you," Connor says. "For everything."
She winks at him. "Least I can do for my favorite nephew." Then she reaches into her pocket and, to his amazement, puts a set of car keys in front of Connor, rabbit"s foot key chain and all. "Why don"t you do me a favor and drive my car "home" for me today. It"s out back."
Lev looks at Connor, astonished, which isn"t much different from his deer-in-headlights look. For a moment Connor thinks she might recognize who they are, but he realizes this is not about recognition. It"s about the random kindness of a stranger.
"I can"t take these keys," Connor whispers.
Karla lowers her voice to match his. "Yes, you can. And anyway, you"d be doing me a favor taking that clunker off my hands. Even better-why don"t you total it when you"re through? "Cause I could use the insurance money."
Connor takes the keys from the table. He doesn"t even know how to say thank you for something like this. It"s been a very long time since anyone has gone so far out of their way to help him.
"You need to know that not everyone"s your enemy," Karla says. "Things are changing out there. People are changing. It might not be all that obvious, but it"s there, and I see it every day. Why, just last week a trucker came in and was bragging all about how last year he picked up that Akron AWOL kid at a rest stop and gave him a ride. Poor guy got arrested for it too, but still he was bragging, because he knew it was the right thing to do."
Connor suppresses a smile. He knows the exact trucker she"s talking about. Josias Aldridge, with the grafted card-trick arm. Connor has to clench his jaw to keep himself from telling her all about it.
"There"s ordinary people out there doing extraordinary things." Then she winks at them again. "And now you"ve given me the chance to be one of those extraordinary/ordinary people, so I should be the one thanking you."
Connor rubs the rabbit"s foot between his fingers, hoping that his own luck has finally changed. "It"s too suspicious if you don"t report it as stolen."
"I will," Karla says. "Eventually." Then she stands up and starts stacking their empty plates. "I"m telling you, change is on the way," she says. "It"s like a plump old peach, ripe and ready to drop." Then she offers them both a warm smile before going back to waiting tables. "You take care now."
Connor and Lev take a few moments to collect their thoughts. Then they head out and around back to find a cla.s.sic red Charger with some fender damage. Not exactly a show car, but no clunker, either. They get in, Connor starts it, and it purrs like a waking lion. The car smells of rose air freshener, and there are middle-aged-woman accessories everywhere, but that"s okay. Connor doesn"t mind being reminded of ordinary/extraordinary Karla.
As they pull out onto the road, Lev looks over at Connor. "Ohio?" Lev says. "Does it really have to be Ohio?"
Connor grins at him. "Yes, it does. And when we get there, the first thing I"m gonna do is make you get a haircut."
Then they pull onto Route 66, heading east into a world that"s ripe for saving.
NEAL SHUSTERMAN.
is the author of many critically acclaimed novels for young adults, including the Skinjacker Trilogy, Unwind, and Downsiders. He also writes screenplays for motion pictures and television shows. The father of four children, Neal lives in southern California. Visit him at storyman.com.
Also by Neal Shusterman.
Antsy Does Time.
Bruiser.
The Dark Side of Nowhere.
Dissidents.
Downsiders.
The Eyes of Kid Midas.
Full Tilt The Schwa Was Here The Shadow Club.
The Shadow Club Rising Speeding Bullet Unwind UnStrung.
What Daddy Did THE SKINJACKER TRILOGY.
Everlost.
Everwild Everfound THE STAR SHARDS CHRONICLES.
Scorpion Shards Thief of Souls.
Shattered Sky THE DARK FUSION SERIES.
Dread Locks Red Rider"s Hood Duckling Ugly.
STORY COLLECTIONS.
Darkness Creeping.
MindQuakes.
MindStorms.
MindBenders.
end.