Three Little Words by Harvey Sarah N. Page B

him a sideways glance. “But we’ve got a long ride ahead of us—you might want to throw me a bone.”
    â€œHow would I do that?” Sid asks, genuinely curious.
    â€œTell me about growing up on the island, about your art, about your ambitions. Tell me what music you listen to, what books you love.”
    â€œWe could just listen to the music I like,” Sid says, gesturing at the audio system. “For a while anyway.”
    Phil considers this for a minute and then says, “Fine. Your music until we hit Nanaimo, mine between Nanaimo and Duncan and then conversation from Duncan to Victoria. That’ll give you a lot of time to think of things to talk about. Deal?”
    â€œDeal,” Sid says as he plugs in his iPod.
    â€œJingle Pot Road,” Phil says.
    Sid, who has been thinking about Chloe and wishing she had come to say goodbye, turns down the music. “What did you say?”
    â€œJingle Pot Road. We just passed it. We’re in Nanaimo, land of strip malls, abandoned coal mines and weird place names. Can you imagine living on Buttertubs Marsh or Dingle Bingle Hill? Makes you wonder what those coal miners were smoking.”
    Sid laughs. Phil is intense, but even Sid has to admit he’s a good travel companion. They had stopped at a wide beach near Parksville to eat the lunch Megan packed for them, sitting side by side on a log and watching whole families almost vanish on the shimmering tidal flats. Plastic shovels and tiny sneakers lay in the sand next to pails full of sand dollars. Sid worried that the sea would swallow them. He remembers losing his favorite sand toy—a yellow plastic bulldozer—on this beach. He and Megan and Caleb had walked what seemed to him miles and miles to the water’s edge. When they got back, the bulldozer was gone. He had been inconsolable, and even now he feels a twinge of the distress he felt at four. It was, he thinks, the first time he had lost something that really mattered to him. Unless he counts his mother, which he doesn’t.
    After they leave Nanaimo, Sid falls asleep to some peculiar, but oddly soothing, music that sounds vaguely Celtic, but also vaguely Asian. When he wakes up, the car is parked at a Dairy Queen in Duncan. Phil is nowhere to be seen.
    Sid orders a Blizzard with Reese’s Pieces and sits at a picnic table outside to eat it. Phil comes out of the bathroom, gets a hot fudge sundae and sits down across from Sid.
    â€œThere is a god,” Phil states, spooning up a mouthful of his sundae.
    â€œIf you say so,” Sid says, although he’s inclined, at this moment, to agree.
    â€œYou can start anytime,” Phil says.
    â€œStart what?”
    â€œThe Life and Times of Siddhartha Eikenboom. We’re in Duncan, in case you hadn’t noticed.”
    â€œI noticed.”
    â€œSo—we had a deal.”
    Sid scrapes the bottom of his Blizzard cup with the long red plastic spoon. He considers ordering another but knows it will make him sick.
    â€œCan I take a leak first?” he asks.
    Phil nods. “I’ll be waiting.”
    It’s surprisingly easy to talk to Phil. Even though he keeps his attention on the road, Sid knows he’s listening from the way he laughs or asks for clarification or says, “You’re kidding!” every now and again. Sid finds himself tempted to make stuff up, but Phil seems interested in the boring details of Sid’s life. It turns out they can both quote whole scenes from Back to the Future ; Phil almost drives off the road when Sid does his impersonation of Marty McFly: Time circuits on. Flux capacitor…fluxing. Engine running. All right .
    â€œYou got some talent, man,” Phil gasps.
    â€œThanks, dude,” Sid replies as the car straightens out. “But I don’t wanna die for it.”
    As they approach the outskirts of Victoria, Sid stops talking and Phil doesn’t push him to chat. When they finally turn