A Thousand Never Evers by Shana Burg Page A

shut, I see sunlight. Glittery bits. Yellow and orange. Everything round me sparkles.
    “You here?” I whisper.
    My brother tells me he is.

CHAPTER 8

    July 12, 1963, Night
     
    It’s the middle of the night when someone rushes through the side door into the kitchen. I bolt awake in bed. I hear a tapping sound. Through the sheet, I hear Mama say, “Rub it on the bottom of your sneakers!” and Uncle Bump say, “Take this!” Then the side door bangs shut and there’s a splash.
    I jump out of bed and fly into the kitchen. My eyes sting. Real bad. And there’s Mama cutting an onion, sobbing too. Why Mama’s chopping vegetables at a time like this, I’m fresh out of ideas.
    “Get in your room!” she shrieks.
    Uncle Bump stands by the side door, his hand on the knob. He doesn’t say a word till Mama heaves out another sob. Then he tells me, “Do as she says.”
    I’ve got no choice. I run back to my room and flop down on my brother’s bed. In the moonlight, I see the map on the wall. I imagine Elias outsmarting the sheriff and all his deputies. I’m lost in this vision till it lures me to sleep in a better world, a dream world, where my brother darts down hidden paths and dashes across farms and little-known brooks.
    That’s where I stay till a bark from a dog tears through me.
    My heart, it freezes like the icebox.
    I run to the front door. Uncle Bump’s already there. A minute passes. Then a hound dog leads the sheriff up our front steps.
    “Step aside,” the sheriff tells us.
    “He ain’t here,” Uncle Bump says.
    “Oh, he’s here all right,” the sheriff says. “This hound don’t lie.” The sheriff pets the dog’s head.
    Then I see Buck Fowler creep up the steps behind the sheriff. Buck’s drenched. His teeth chatter.
    I run to my room, collapse on my bed, bury my face in my pillow. Seconds later, the hound’s leash clangs against my bedroom floor. I look up. There’s Buck Fowler standing in my room, pulling the sheet across my doorway, so I can’t see Mama and Uncle Bump anymore. He’s hiding something behind his back.
    “This your brother’s bed?” the sheriff asks.
    I don’t answer. I glance across the room. The sheriff pushes Elias’s bedsheet against the dog’s snout while Buck stands behind him, holding up a flashlight. And I wonder, who made Buck the sheriff’s special helper?
    Through the sheet that hangs across the door frame, I hear Uncle Bump and Mama whispering real frantic.
    Now the sheriff bends down on the floorboards to search under both beds. Then he stands up and shrugs. And I reckon he doesn’t see anything worth seeing in my room except my unplugged television set in the corner. He saunters over to it.
    I know what’s about to happen, so I cross my arms over my stomach, as if I can soften the blow.
    The sheriff kicks my television. Hard. The glass screen shatters to bits, and the sheriff and Buck bust their sides laughing.
    “You all right?” Mama calls. Her voice cracks.
    I want to tell Mama I’m okay, but looking at my set, I can’t.
    “Hush up!” the sheriff snaps.
    I swallow.
    Then the sheriff turns to Buck and says, “I’ll check out the rest of this dump. Why don’t you show this colored girl what you’ve got?”
    The sheriff yanks his hound back to the living room, pulling the sheet on the door frame closed behind him.
    Buck stays here in the bedroom with me. With one hand, he holds the flashlight under his chin. His face lights up like a ghost’s. Then he pulls his other hand out from behind his back.
    I hear myself scream.
    He’s got my brother’s sneaker! If he’s got the sneaker, he could have Elias too! I want to strangle Buck Fowler with my bare hands, but he stomps out my room before I get the chance.
    Mama and Uncle Bump come racing in.
    Uncle Bump touches my hair. Mama sits down next to me on the bed and hugs me tight. We all shiver with fear while the sheriff and Buck rummage through the rest of the house.
    Then the front door bangs