wanted.
CHAPTER SIX
Z ACHARY WAS USED TO STORIES WITHOUT HAPPY END ings. His dad called where they lived West of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, claiming it bordered Better off Forgotten, West Virginia, and Already Forgotten, Ohio. When Zach was little, those had seemed like magical place names, before he realized they were just sarcasm. Zach’s mother had gone to school to be an art therapist, but the only place she could get work was in a juvenile detention center. If she wanted the kids there to do art, she had to bring the supplies and collect them after each session because her supervisor was afraid of the kids jabbing each other’s eyes out with markers.
Zach’s mother’s parents, now living permanently in Florida, would tell stories about how things used to be. About how the big Victorian houses—the ones built by some famous architect, the ones that were in the center of town—used to be owned by single families and not divided into run-down apartments. His grandmother told stories about the people she’d known when she was a little girl, people who got out of town and made it elsewhere. The happiest the stories got were when his parents talked about how things were going to get better, although neither one of them really seemed to believe it, and Zach didn’t believe it anymore either.
When Zach’s dad left three years ago, he said he was going to run his own restaurant in Philadelphia and he was going to Italy to study how pasta was really made and he was getting a late-night spot on a local cable channel and would parlay that into a fortune. But two months later, he moved back and into one of the crappy apartments in the biggest and worst-kept Victorian and drifted in and out of Zach’s life, until he finally drifted back to their house. It was as if the town had some kind of gravitational influence on the people who lived there. But even as Zach thought that, he knew it was just another story. Dad was back because he hadn’t been able to hack it in the city. That was all.
He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.
The bus stop was cold enough that Zach’s breath clouded in the air. The wind had picked up. It washed over them as they huddled together against the brick exterior of the post office. In the flickering streetlight, Zach could see the girls better. Poppy had pulled back her coppery hair into a ponytail and was wearing a dark-green sweater with jeans and tall brown boots. Alice was in a big shapeless red coat. Both of them had backpacks slung over their shoulders.
He felt his gaze going to Poppy’s backpack, knowing the Queen was inside and knowing, without knowing how he knew, that her eyes were open. He felt the weight of her stare on his back when he turned away. The hairs on the back of his neck stuck up, tickling his skin and making him shiver.
The bus was already fifteen minutes late, and there was no sign of it—or any other vehicle—on the road. A while back they’d seen a police car from a way off and had pressed themselves against the wall of the building. As they hid, Poppy muttered the whole time about the vividness of Alice’s coat giving them away and Alice muttered back about how she’d just packed for a sleepover because she hadn’t thought they were taking off somewhere harebrained that very night . But the police car had turned onto Main Street and away from them. And the next car that passed was a truck. It didn’t even slow.
Alice yawned. “Maybe we should go back. It doesn’t look like the bus is coming.”
Zach, impelled by the impulse that makes yawns catch, yawned too.
“Stop,” Poppy said. “We just have to wait a little longer.”
“You can’t be mad at us for being tired,” Zach said.
Poppy was clearly still upset, but she didn’t argue with him. “We’ll sleep on the bus.”
Alice bit her lip and looked hopefully at the stretch of empty road. She looked happier the longer they waited. Zach was pretty
CHAPTER SIX
Z ACHARY WAS USED TO STORIES WITHOUT HAPPY END ings. His dad called where they lived West of Nowhere, Pennsylvania, claiming it bordered Better off Forgotten, West Virginia, and Already Forgotten, Ohio. When Zach was little, those had seemed like magical place names, before he realized they were just sarcasm. Zach’s mother had gone to school to be an art therapist, but the only place she could get work was in a juvenile detention center. If she wanted the kids there to do art, she had to bring the supplies and collect them after each session because her supervisor was afraid of the kids jabbing each other’s eyes out with markers.
Zach’s mother’s parents, now living permanently in Florida, would tell stories about how things used to be. About how the big Victorian houses—the ones built by some famous architect, the ones that were in the center of town—used to be owned by single families and not divided into run-down apartments. His grandmother told stories about the people she’d known when she was a little girl, people who got out of town and made it elsewhere. The happiest the stories got were when his parents talked about how things were going to get better, although neither one of them really seemed to believe it, and Zach didn’t believe it anymore either.
When Zach’s dad left three years ago, he said he was going to run his own restaurant in Philadelphia and he was going to Italy to study how pasta was really made and he was getting a late-night spot on a local cable channel and would parlay that into a fortune. But two months later, he moved back and into one of the crappy apartments in the biggest and worst-kept Victorian and drifted in and out of Zach’s life, until he finally drifted back to their house. It was as if the town had some kind of gravitational influence on the people who lived there. But even as Zach thought that, he knew it was just another story. Dad was back because he hadn’t been able to hack it in the city. That was all.
He wondered whether growing up was learning that most stories turned out to be lies.
The bus stop was cold enough that Zach’s breath clouded in the air. The wind had picked up. It washed over them as they huddled together against the brick exterior of the post office. In the flickering streetlight, Zach could see the girls better. Poppy had pulled back her coppery hair into a ponytail and was wearing a dark-green sweater with jeans and tall brown boots. Alice was in a big shapeless red coat. Both of them had backpacks slung over their shoulders.
He felt his gaze going to Poppy’s backpack, knowing the Queen was inside and knowing, without knowing how he knew, that her eyes were open. He felt the weight of her stare on his back when he turned away. The hairs on the back of his neck stuck up, tickling his skin and making him shiver.
The bus was already fifteen minutes late, and there was no sign of it—or any other vehicle—on the road. A while back they’d seen a police car from a way off and had pressed themselves against the wall of the building. As they hid, Poppy muttered the whole time about the vividness of Alice’s coat giving them away and Alice muttered back about how she’d just packed for a sleepover because she hadn’t thought they were taking off somewhere harebrained that very night . But the police car had turned onto Main Street and away from them. And the next car that passed was a truck. It didn’t even slow.
Alice yawned. “Maybe we should go back. It doesn’t look like the bus is coming.”
Zach, impelled by the impulse that makes yawns catch, yawned too.
“Stop,” Poppy said. “We just have to wait a little longer.”
“You can’t be mad at us for being tired,” Zach said.
Poppy was clearly still upset, but she didn’t argue with him. “We’ll sleep on the bus.”
Alice bit her lip and looked hopefully at the stretch of empty road. She looked happier the longer they waited. Zach was pretty
Similar Books
