The Dead Yard by Adrian McKinty Page B

outside.
    "Look at that place, it must be good," I said. "I’m hungry. You wanna pull in?"
    "Best fried clams in New England," she said.
    "Really?"
    "You ever have a fried clam?"
    "No."
    "Well, that’s the best. Huge lines all summer. Ted Williams goes there."
    "You want me to stop the car?" I asked, slowing down.
    Kit shook her head.
    "I should get home," she said.
    We drove on and as we got closer to Newburyport, farther from Boston, she regained more of her

composure and beamed at me.
    "Not good enough for me," she mused. "Who do you think you are, mister?"
    She seemed happier. I patted her knee and she didn’t seem to mind. I was impressed. I mean, I

don’t how I would have taken it if someone had tried to assassinate my da half an hour ago, but I

doubt I could have been as cool as this. Clearly, a tough wee soul lived under the late-teen

veneer.
    "Where you living in Salisbury?" she asked.
    "Not sure yet, everything’s a bit up in the air."
    "How old are you?" she asked.
    "I’m twenty-five, twenty-six in a month or so."
    "Twenty-six? You’re, like, seven years older than me."
    "So?"
    "You’re totally an old man," she mocked.
    It made me wince a little. No one wants to hear something like that from a pretty girl and

this girl was very pretty.
    "How old are you? Nineteen?"
    "Nearly twenty," she said.
    "You’re a mere child," I mocked back.
    She looked at me with fake annoyance.
    "What’s your name? I know you said it but I forgot."
    "Sean."
    "No, your second name, I remembered the Sean."
    "Sean McKenna. Oh my goodness, what’s yours? In all the excitement I forgot to ask."
    "Katherine, but everyone calls me Kitty, or Kit; I used to hate it, oh my God, I used to hate

it, but I kind of like it now. Kit, I mean."
    "I suppose it’s because of Kitty O’Shea," I said.
    "Who was that again? The name’s familiar," Kit asked.
    "You don’t know who Kitty O’Shea is?"
    "No."
    "That’s what I was about talking about when I said you were a mere child," I said.
    She wanted to ask but she was too pissed off and I enjoyed watching her fume. We came to a

road junction in the small town of Rowley. We could either go left or straight on.
    "Where to?" I asked.
    "Straight on, oh wait, I can hardly bring you home, Dad wouldn’t like that. What are we going

to do with you? Where are you staying, in Salisbury?"
    "Nah, for the moment I’m still back at the youth hostel in Boston."
    "I’m sorry, Dad wouldn’t like me to bring you home. Do you want to drop me and then you can

take the car back to the city?"
    "I don’t want to drive a stolen car, it’s freaking me out a bit, to be honest. I don’t want to

be deported after my first week in America."
    "Ok, then, we should go straight on, we’ll go to the bus station in Newburyport. I definitely

can’t leave this car at Dad’s house. Sonia can pick me up and you can get the bus back to Boston.

I can’t drive you, I’m pretty messed from when you fell on top of me," she said and winced at her

own lame excuse.
    "You don’t have to say thanks or anything," I said.
    She fought the urge to thank me, her punky little pride unable to accept the fact that she had

been in danger and I’d helped get her out of it. We drove in complete silence for the next couple

of minutes. Dark now, but I could tell that the landscape had become swampy. It smelled of marsh

gas and seawater.
    Mosquitoes and a million types of fly bouncing into the windshield and a sign that said

"Newburyport, Plum Island—5 Miles."
    "So who’s Ted Williams?" I asked, to resume the conversation.
    "Are you joking?"
    "No."
    "Only the greatest baseball player ever. The last man to hit over .400, war hero, batting

champion again and again."
    "I thought Babe Ruth was the greatest player," I said innocently.
    Kit looked at me as if she were having a fit. Her nose had wrinkled up and she was plucking at

the pointy strands of hair over her forehead.
    "Are you trying to rile me