Runaways (6 page)

Megan Callaway had no idea what we were going to do, but we anticipated her going to Louise so we
hid the picture under a bulge in our wallpaper, confident that a thorough search of our room would reveal nothing. For whatever reason, Megan didn't tell Louise anything.

The next day I put our plan into action. When we entered the dining room, I slipped into a seat beside Megan.

“That wasn't funny last night,” she said.

“It wasn't meant to be,” I said and then I opened my hand and she saw the picture. She turned pale as a ghost before a wave of red swept through her face. “There isn't a boy in this place who won't get to see this and don't think you can tell Louise because she'll never find it on us,” I said.

She was near tears.

“You get up from here and go to Louise and tell her you planted the cigarettes to get back at Crystal or Butterfly. If you do, I'll give you the picture and no one will see it. If you don't . . .”

I looked toward Billy Edwards. Then I rose and deliberately headed in his direction. She watched in horror as I sat beside him and began a conversation, my eyes on her. I saw her take a long hard swallow and then stand up, her head down, as she made her way out of the dining room.

Quickly, to be sure she didn't turn me in with the picture, I gave it to Raven who left the dining room and hid it in the storage room. We were nearly finished with breakfast before Crystal and Butterfly appeared. Crystal wore a look that told us she and Butterfly had been excused from restrictions.

“What did you do?” she asked before sitting.

“Not much. Showed her the photo we had, told her we were going to make sure every single boy here saw it, and then promised to give it to her if she confessed.”

“She did,” Crystal said. “She's confined for the weekend.”

“Raven gets the credit. It was all her idea,” I said.

“I know how to deal with that sort of trash,” she bragged.

“I'm going to the library,” Crystal said. She stared at us a moment. “Thanks for helping us, but I wish . . .”

“It had never happened?” I suggested.

She nodded.

“I told you what I think we should do.”

“Let me think about it,” she said.

“About what?” Butterfly asked.

I looked at Crystal and she nodded.

“About running away,” I said.

“Running away!”

Raven practically leaped out of her seat to put her hand over Butterfly's mouth and told her to keep her voice down. Some of the others were looking our way and Gordon was talking to Grandma Kelly about a stove she said was malfunctioning.

“Run away?” Butterfly asked again in a lower voice when Raven took her hand from her mouth.

“Yes,” Raven said. “Why not? I'm tired of doing chores, working for Gordon and Louise and pretending we're growing character and earning our keep. They're exploiting us. Crystal found out about the food, didn't she?”

“But . . . no one will ever be able to adopt us again if we run away,” Butterfly moaned. “And even if they could, they wouldn't want to adopt runaways.”

“No one's going to be adopted from here, Butterfly, at least not one of us.”

“Why not? I was almost adopted this week, wasn't I? It could happen. You said it could. You said I should want it to happen. You . . .”

“Louise stopped it from happening,” I blurted. She stared at me with her big, beautiful sad eyes.

“What do you mean?” she asked, and I told her what I had heard and what had happened. Her face softened, her lips trembling. “They think I'm crazy?”

“No. They know you're not crazy,” Crystal said, “but they use whatever they can to keep us here for one reason or another, but especially for the money. It's all tax exempt, too. I'm afraid Brooke's right.”

“It's getting too late for us, Butterfly,” Raven said. “Teenagers are too much trouble. Parents want their children to be five forever.”

“Raven's right.” I said. “I even heard Gordon say it. Little children, little problems, big children, bigger problems. Anyway,” I said, sitting back, “I don't know if I even want to be adopted anymore. I've been on my own so long, it just feels right, like an old shoe or something.”

“Me too,” Raven said.

“Then we should do it,” I followed quickly, turning to Crystal. “We should finally take control of our lives.”

“Where will we go?” Butterfly asked.

“West,” I said, “to California.”

“That's across the whole country,” Butterfly said in a low whisper.

“We'll stop wherever we want and wherever we decide we're wanted,” I replied. “But my guess is we'll go all the way.”

Everyone was quiet, pensive, full of imagination and dreams.

“You can become a dancer much easier out there, Butterfly,” I told her. “And you can become a doctor, Crystal. And you can become a singer or an actress, Raven. You can go to auditions all day, all week until you become a star.”

“What about you, Brooke?” Crystal asked.

I thought.

“I could be me,” I said.

Raven didn't want to do it, but I gave Megan the photograph as we had promised.

“A deal is a deal,” I explained.

“You don't make deals with people like that,” Raven said. “Believe me, Brooke. I know.”

There was a lot she did know about mean, manipulative people, but I didn't want to turn into someone I hated. I slipped the photograph under Megan's door and forgot about it.

All that following week, I devoted as much time to planning how we would run away and where we would go as I did to studying for my finals. I asked Crystal to go on the computer and see if she could find a travel route from New York to California.

“How would we travel?” she asked. “The four of us can't just hitchhike our way.”

“Leave that part to me. I'm working on it,” I said.

“Working on what? Trains, planes? I mean, how am I supposed to plan out a route if I don't know what you're thinking?” she asked.

I was afraid to say it, afraid that if she heard what I really had in mind, she would back out before we even began.

“For now, plan it by car,” I said.

“A car? And just where are you going to get a car? You don't have a license; you don't have
enough money for a car. Even if we pooled all our money, what sort of a car could we get? And then we would have no travel money. Really, Brooke, I . . .”

“Can't you just do that one thing for me? Please?” I asked, knowing she liked a challenge and loved to show off her ability on the computer.

“Fine. I'll just go to the Web and get into the Automobile Club. They provide routes and maps. Where are we going in California?” she asked, taking out her pen and notepad.

“Let's think about Los Angeles, first.”

“Okay.” She thought a moment. “It's almost summer. We can take a middle route or even a northern route. I'll get a few and we'll think about the pros and cons of each.”

“That's exactly what I'd like to do, think about the pros and cons,” I said. She gazed at me and smirked.

“I'm not going to do this if you make fun of me, Brooke.”

“I'm not,” I swore, but I couldn't help smiling at her. Finally, I just hugged her. “Do it. I'll take care of all the rest,” I said.

“This still sounds like a pipe dream, Brooke. I'm doing it more as an intellectual exercise than anything else. I don't see how it will be possible,” she said, as she gathered up her book bag and headed for the library.

I knew I still had a lot of convincing to do when it came to Crystal. She would have a hundred good and logical reasons why my plan was full of holes, but neither of us could know that just that very evening, Gordon would push her so far over the edge that I could have come up with a plan to ride a magic carpet, and she would have gone along.

Just before ten o'clock, Crystal went into the bathroom to take a bath and relax. Besides researching our travel route, she had been studying all day. Tomorrow was her last final and she was determined to get all A's.

About fifteen minutes after Crystal had gone to take her bath, Raven slammed her book closed, swearing never to look at another notebook or textbook again.

“I don't care if I fail everything,” she declared. Raven was a good student, but we'd all had our fill of studying by now.

I was about to agree when we heard Crystal's scream. It was so loud it came right through the closed bathroom door and our closed bedroom door as well. I charged out and saw Gordon lumbering away, a tool box in his hand. He gazed back guiltily and then headed down the stairs. Raven looked at me and then at the bathroom door, her eyes full of wonder and fear. Butterfly came to her doorway.

“What is going on?” she asked.

“I'm not sure,” I said, slowly approaching the bathroom. “Crystal?” I heard a sob and then we all entered the bathroom.

Crystal was sitting on the edge of the tub, a towel wrapped around her body, her arms around herself, shuddering. She was still soaked, the soap dripping from her hair.

“What happened?” I asked. Raven closed the door behind us.

“He . . . he . . . just came in here and . . .”

“Gordon? While you were bathing?” Raven asked quickly.

Crystal gazed up at us, her eyes filled with tears. She nodded.

“I didn't hear him open the door. I was practically asleep in the tub.”

“Didn't you lock it?” Raven asked.

“Yes, of course. He must have unlocked it,” she said. “He didn't knock or anything. Next thing I knew, he was standing right here, looking down at me. I had my head back and my eyes closed. I was resting and suddenly, I felt his presence and looked up. His face . . . it was . . . so red and he had this mad grin. For a moment I couldn't speak.”

“What did he do?” I asked, my own breathing quickened.

“He started to touch me,” she said

“I knew it,” Raven muttered.

“He touched you?” I asked.

“He reached down and said . . .

“What?” Butterfly asked.

“‘Let's see how ripe those apples are.' That's when I screamed and he pulled his hand away. ‘I'm just here to fix a leak in the sink,' he claimed. ‘Don't get yourself in an uproar.' I screamed again and he turned and left.”

“Leak in the sink? No one said there's any leak in that sink,” I declared, inspecting the pipes quickly. “He didn't come in to fix any leak.”

“We should tell Louise,” Butterfly said.

“What good would that do? He'd claim Crystal left the door unlocked and how was he to know she was in the tub,” I said.

“Brooke's right.” Raven said.

“But what about the things he said to her. They were nasty things,” Butterfly declared. “He didn't really mean apples.”

“He'll deny saying it, Butterfly,” I said. “Please. Let me just think a minute.”

We all looked at Crystal again. She was still shaking. Raven went to the tub and sat beside her, putting her arm around her.

“Easy.”

“I was so . . . scared.”

“Let's join,” Butterfly said.

“Now?” I asked.

Raven nodded.

We moved closer to them and we all touched our heads.

“We're sisters. We're together. Nothing bad can happen to one of us as long as we're together,” we chanted, Crystal finally joining in. Color returned to her face.

“It was awful,” Crystal whimpered.

“I know how it can be,” Raven said. She looked from one of us to the other. “I've caught him looking in on me sometimes, too.”

“You never told me that,” I said.

She shrugged.

“He didn't ever touch you, did he?” I couldn't believe that Gordon was so evil.

“No. Never. I didn't tell anyone because I didn't want to get everyone any more scared of him,” she said. “But if he ever tried to touch my apples, I'd raise his voice a few octaves.”

“What does that mean?” Butterfly asked.

“Never mind,” I said. “Are you all right?” I asked Crystal.

“I'm fine now. I'll just dry myself off and go to bed. Thanks, everyone.”

“Let's all get to bed,” I decided. We started for the door.

“Brooke.”

I turned.

“What?”

“I want to hear your plan, every detail. After tomorrow's tests,” Crystal said.

I nodded, sad that this was the way Crystal had come to believe in me and my plans.

“You really have a plan, I hope,” she said, swallowing down her sobs.

“Oh yes,” I answered. “I have a good plan. Did you get the maps?”

She nodded.

“Tomorrow,” I said and gazed from Butterfly to Raven and then to Crystal. “Tomorrow we get together and put the finishing touches on it.”

I was so angry about what Gordon had done to Crystal and anxious about leaving at the same time that I couldn't get my mind to stop racing. I had to get some rest for my exams, but it was as if my mind had turned into a pinball machine with the idea of our escape bouncing from one exciting possibility to another, lighting up the darkness, ringing bells and rattling chimes.

Finally, I got up and went to the bathroom. When I returned, I paused because I saw a light sweep across the front of the Lakewood House. Raven was fast asleep and hadn't noticed anything. Curious, I went to the window and gazed down at two silhouetted figures walking toward the driveway. One was definitely Gordon. I couldn't mistake that hulking figure no matter how dark it was outside. The other man was considerably shorter. For a moment I thought they were arguing. Gordon raised his arms and then lowered them quickly to put one around the other man's shoulders. They disappeared around the corner and then reappeared near Gordon's station wagon. I knew a door was opened because it lit up inside the car, but no
one got in. Then the shorter man departed and Gordon closed the door, watched the other man as he walked away, got into his car and drove off.