eight
We ran from the cops. That’s what keeps going through my head as we drive on and on and on. Rachel keeps whining about the food until finally we pull off at a gas station and Mom gets out and goes into the convenience store. Just Mom. She comes back a few minutes later, her arms laden with chips and snack packs and Hostess products.
Mom has always made a big deal about us eating healthy. When Jeremy and I were little, she didn’t even let us have straight Juicy Juice. We had to mix it with water. We were only allowed to have dessert twice a week, and potato chips were reserved for cookouts. Even now, Mom never lets Rachel have more than one tiny package of fruit snacks in a day.
The fact that she’s feeding us a breakfast of chips and donuts is concerning.
Why didn’t we just go through the drive-thru of a different fast-food restaurant? I wonder. But I have a suspicion as to why. Probably some alert was put out about us, about the make and model of our car—maybe even the number on the fake license plates. Dad’s running from the McDonalds as soon as the cops started arriving was probably enough to convince the employees and patrons that I was indeed kidnapped.
I don’t even want to think about how this will impact our lives from now on. If Dad wasn’t a criminal before, he most certainly is considered one now. Will we be on the run forever?
We continue driving. I get the feeling we’re going in loops. Half the time we’re driving down such random back roads that I don’t even know if Dad knows where he’s going.
Several long, boring hours later, we pull into someone’s driveway.
“We’re stopping here for the night,” Dad tells us.
“Switching license plates and running from the cops wasn’t enough excitement for you?” Jeremy asks. “Now we have to break into someone’s house?”
Sometimes I really wish he would just shut up.
“We’re not breaking in,” Dad says tiredly. “I know the people who live here.”
What? So all this time, we were actually going somewhere? To a place where people who Dad knows live?
We all get out of the car. I study the house we’ve pulled up at. It’s small, with dark blue wooden siding and white shutters with the paint peeling off. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere—I can see the houses on either side of it, but they’re pretty far off—and it’s surrounded by woods.
“Is this where we were going?” I ask Dad. “The safe base?”
“It’s a safe base,” he explains. “Not the one I had in mind, but good enough to rest here at least overnight. Bill and I will discuss what to do in the morning.”
I want to ask who Bill is, but Dad has already started for the front door of the house. I glance over at Mom. “Do you know these people too?”
She shakes her head. “They're Dad's friends from before I met him.”
Dad’s friends from before he met Mom. So they could literally be anyone, any kind of people. I know nothing about my parents’ lives before they had us.
“Are there kids here?” Rachel asks in a whiny sort of voice. “Do they have toys? Are we going to eat dinner here? I’m hungry.”
“I don’t think there will be any kids or toys here,” I tell her apologetically. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, the door is opened by a girl who looks about my age.
Dad’s mouth forms an O of surprise. He stares at the girl for a couple seconds, then asks, “Is… Bill here?”
The girl stares back at him—studying him, really, is what it looks like she’s doing. Then she looks past him at the rest of us, and she seems to study each of us a little too before turning her head and yelling, “Dad!” into the house.
A man comes and stands behind her in the doorway. He’s shorter and paunchier than Dad, with short brown hair and a bushy mustache. “Derek Caplan,” he says, looking surprised.
I’m surprised too. I shoot a glance at Jeremy. Caplan? He said Caplan, didn’t he? Not Jackson. Definitely not Brown.
“Bill, this is my family. My wife, Emily, and our kids. Jeremy, Krystie, and Rachel.” Dad points at each of us in turn. “We’ve run into some… complications, and I was wondering if we could stay with you until things are sorted out.”
“Complications… you mean with—”
“Yes. They found me.”
Bill looks horrified. “How do you know they didn’t follow you here?”
“I was careful. I paid attention. And I got rid of anything that could be tracked or bugged beforehand. Had a bit of a run-in with the cops up near Shandon. Some genius thought it would be a great idea to put out an Amber Alert for my daughter in order to catch me. That’s why we need somewhere to lie low for a while.”
Bill rolls his eyes. “And this is what you get for raising your family in civilization.”
“Yeah,” says Dad impatiently. “Can we please come in?”
Bill’s eyes rove our surroundings. “Ditch the car,” he finally says. “And take the plates off. Bring them inside. I’ll give you replacements.”
“Get your stuff and go into the house,” Dad tells us.
The ‘get your stuff’ part almost seems like a joke. Dad’s acting like this is some normal family vacation and we’re going into some normal friend or relative’s house. But that’s not the case. We don’t have any stuff, other than the blankets he made us bring so we could cover ourselves before we changed our hairstyles. And we don’t even know this Bill person.
But as Jeremy and I head to the car to do what Dad asked, Jeremy whispers to me, “I wonder if she knows more about all this stuff than we do.”
“Who—his daughter?”
“Yeah. If you get the chance, try and talk to her alone. I get the feeling another kid will be more willing to tell us stuff than any of the adults will.”
He has a point. “Okay,” I whisper back.
We each grab our blanket from the car and head back to Bill’s house. Before letting us in, Bill looks us up and down. “Either of you have a cell phone on you?”
Jeremy snorts bitterly. “No. Dad chucked mine out the window.”
“Good,” says Bill. “And you?” I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, as if he’s trying to see right through me.
I shake my head. “I left my phone at home.”
“Good,” Bill says again. He lets us through the doorway.
The kitchen is small, just enough room for a fridge, oven, sink, and a little bit of counter space. There’s a small two-person table by the window. Leading off the kitchen is a small living room with a single two-person couch. Bill’s daughter is sitting on the couch, her eyes flicking from one to another of us in turn.
“That’s Pam,” says Bill, gesturing his head in her direction.
“Pamela,” the girl corrects. “I mean, I go by Pam, but my real name is Pamela—how do you do?” She stands up and sticks her hand out to us, looking nervous.
It’s kind of weird to greet someone my own age with a handshake, but I shake her hand anyway, and Jeremy does too. She sits back down on the couch. “Please,” she says. “Uh—sit down too.” She scoots over and presses herself up against one arm of the couch, leaving barely enough room for Jeremy and me to squeeze in next to her.
I glance at Jeremy. He’s making no move to sit down, so I remain standing as well. It’s unnerving the way Pam’s still staring at us as if we’re aliens or something.
But this is our chance to get answers. “How do our dads know each other?” I ask.
“Um, well, I’d assume your dad was one of my dad’s colleagues back in the day. I don’t know for sure. I can’t say we were expecting you guys to show up.”
“Colleagues?” Jeremy asks. “Colleagues in what?”
Pam looks at him suspiciously. “You know where.”
Jeremy looks as befuddled as I feel. “No, I don’t know where.”
Pam huffs and turns her gaze to me. “You know, I’ve read books that say boys are dumb, but I didn’t expect them to be this dumb.”
“Hey!” Jeremy protests.
I stand up for my brother. “Jeremy’s not dumb,” I tell Pam. “We just literally have no idea where our dad used to work, or how he knows your dad, or any of that stuff.”
Pam stared at me. Then she clamped her mouth shut and sat back on the couch, arms folded across her chest.
“So, our dads were colleagues?” Jeremy prompts.
“I’m not telling you a thing. You guys are spies.”
“Spies? No! Why would we be spies?”
“Dermott has eyes everywhere.” Pam claps her hand right back over her mouth. “And I should not have said that. I’m so bad at talking to people. I need to stop talking to you guys now. Good bye.” She gets up from the couch, walks a few steps, and opens a door that I can see leads into a small bedroom. She steps into the room and slams the door behind her.
“Well,” says Jeremy. “Okay then.”
“We did learn one thing,” I point out. “Dermott.”
“But who is Dermott?”
I don’t have the answer.
Mom has always made a big deal about us eating healthy. When Jeremy and I were little, she didn’t even let us have straight Juicy Juice. We had to mix it with water. We were only allowed to have dessert twice a week, and potato chips were reserved for cookouts. Even now, Mom never lets Rachel have more than one tiny package of fruit snacks in a day.
The fact that she’s feeding us a breakfast of chips and donuts is concerning.
Why didn’t we just go through the drive-thru of a different fast-food restaurant? I wonder. But I have a suspicion as to why. Probably some alert was put out about us, about the make and model of our car—maybe even the number on the fake license plates. Dad’s running from the McDonalds as soon as the cops started arriving was probably enough to convince the employees and patrons that I was indeed kidnapped.
I don’t even want to think about how this will impact our lives from now on. If Dad wasn’t a criminal before, he most certainly is considered one now. Will we be on the run forever?
We continue driving. I get the feeling we’re going in loops. Half the time we’re driving down such random back roads that I don’t even know if Dad knows where he’s going.
Several long, boring hours later, we pull into someone’s driveway.
“We’re stopping here for the night,” Dad tells us.
“Switching license plates and running from the cops wasn’t enough excitement for you?” Jeremy asks. “Now we have to break into someone’s house?”
Sometimes I really wish he would just shut up.
“We’re not breaking in,” Dad says tiredly. “I know the people who live here.”
What? So all this time, we were actually going somewhere? To a place where people who Dad knows live?
We all get out of the car. I study the house we’ve pulled up at. It’s small, with dark blue wooden siding and white shutters with the paint peeling off. It’s kind of in the middle of nowhere—I can see the houses on either side of it, but they’re pretty far off—and it’s surrounded by woods.
“Is this where we were going?” I ask Dad. “The safe base?”
“It’s a safe base,” he explains. “Not the one I had in mind, but good enough to rest here at least overnight. Bill and I will discuss what to do in the morning.”
I want to ask who Bill is, but Dad has already started for the front door of the house. I glance over at Mom. “Do you know these people too?”
She shakes her head. “They're Dad's friends from before I met him.”
Dad’s friends from before he met Mom. So they could literally be anyone, any kind of people. I know nothing about my parents’ lives before they had us.
“Are there kids here?” Rachel asks in a whiny sort of voice. “Do they have toys? Are we going to eat dinner here? I’m hungry.”
“I don’t think there will be any kids or toys here,” I tell her apologetically. But as soon as the words are out of my mouth, the door is opened by a girl who looks about my age.
Dad’s mouth forms an O of surprise. He stares at the girl for a couple seconds, then asks, “Is… Bill here?”
The girl stares back at him—studying him, really, is what it looks like she’s doing. Then she looks past him at the rest of us, and she seems to study each of us a little too before turning her head and yelling, “Dad!” into the house.
A man comes and stands behind her in the doorway. He’s shorter and paunchier than Dad, with short brown hair and a bushy mustache. “Derek Caplan,” he says, looking surprised.
I’m surprised too. I shoot a glance at Jeremy. Caplan? He said Caplan, didn’t he? Not Jackson. Definitely not Brown.
“Bill, this is my family. My wife, Emily, and our kids. Jeremy, Krystie, and Rachel.” Dad points at each of us in turn. “We’ve run into some… complications, and I was wondering if we could stay with you until things are sorted out.”
“Complications… you mean with—”
“Yes. They found me.”
Bill looks horrified. “How do you know they didn’t follow you here?”
“I was careful. I paid attention. And I got rid of anything that could be tracked or bugged beforehand. Had a bit of a run-in with the cops up near Shandon. Some genius thought it would be a great idea to put out an Amber Alert for my daughter in order to catch me. That’s why we need somewhere to lie low for a while.”
Bill rolls his eyes. “And this is what you get for raising your family in civilization.”
“Yeah,” says Dad impatiently. “Can we please come in?”
Bill’s eyes rove our surroundings. “Ditch the car,” he finally says. “And take the plates off. Bring them inside. I’ll give you replacements.”
“Get your stuff and go into the house,” Dad tells us.
The ‘get your stuff’ part almost seems like a joke. Dad’s acting like this is some normal family vacation and we’re going into some normal friend or relative’s house. But that’s not the case. We don’t have any stuff, other than the blankets he made us bring so we could cover ourselves before we changed our hairstyles. And we don’t even know this Bill person.
But as Jeremy and I head to the car to do what Dad asked, Jeremy whispers to me, “I wonder if she knows more about all this stuff than we do.”
“Who—his daughter?”
“Yeah. If you get the chance, try and talk to her alone. I get the feeling another kid will be more willing to tell us stuff than any of the adults will.”
He has a point. “Okay,” I whisper back.
We each grab our blanket from the car and head back to Bill’s house. Before letting us in, Bill looks us up and down. “Either of you have a cell phone on you?”
Jeremy snorts bitterly. “No. Dad chucked mine out the window.”
“Good,” says Bill. “And you?” I don’t like the way he’s looking at me, as if he’s trying to see right through me.
I shake my head. “I left my phone at home.”
“Good,” Bill says again. He lets us through the doorway.
The kitchen is small, just enough room for a fridge, oven, sink, and a little bit of counter space. There’s a small two-person table by the window. Leading off the kitchen is a small living room with a single two-person couch. Bill’s daughter is sitting on the couch, her eyes flicking from one to another of us in turn.
“That’s Pam,” says Bill, gesturing his head in her direction.
“Pamela,” the girl corrects. “I mean, I go by Pam, but my real name is Pamela—how do you do?” She stands up and sticks her hand out to us, looking nervous.
It’s kind of weird to greet someone my own age with a handshake, but I shake her hand anyway, and Jeremy does too. She sits back down on the couch. “Please,” she says. “Uh—sit down too.” She scoots over and presses herself up against one arm of the couch, leaving barely enough room for Jeremy and me to squeeze in next to her.
I glance at Jeremy. He’s making no move to sit down, so I remain standing as well. It’s unnerving the way Pam’s still staring at us as if we’re aliens or something.
But this is our chance to get answers. “How do our dads know each other?” I ask.
“Um, well, I’d assume your dad was one of my dad’s colleagues back in the day. I don’t know for sure. I can’t say we were expecting you guys to show up.”
“Colleagues?” Jeremy asks. “Colleagues in what?”
Pam looks at him suspiciously. “You know where.”
Jeremy looks as befuddled as I feel. “No, I don’t know where.”
Pam huffs and turns her gaze to me. “You know, I’ve read books that say boys are dumb, but I didn’t expect them to be this dumb.”
“Hey!” Jeremy protests.
I stand up for my brother. “Jeremy’s not dumb,” I tell Pam. “We just literally have no idea where our dad used to work, or how he knows your dad, or any of that stuff.”
Pam stared at me. Then she clamped her mouth shut and sat back on the couch, arms folded across her chest.
“So, our dads were colleagues?” Jeremy prompts.
“I’m not telling you a thing. You guys are spies.”
“Spies? No! Why would we be spies?”
“Dermott has eyes everywhere.” Pam claps her hand right back over her mouth. “And I should not have said that. I’m so bad at talking to people. I need to stop talking to you guys now. Good bye.” She gets up from the couch, walks a few steps, and opens a door that I can see leads into a small bedroom. She steps into the room and slams the door behind her.
“Well,” says Jeremy. “Okay then.”
“We did learn one thing,” I point out. “Dermott.”
“But who is Dermott?”
I don’t have the answer.