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Authors: Erin Jade Lange

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BOOK: Dead Ends
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She pulled a bag of stir-fry out of the freezer and tossed a skillet on the stove, deliberately ignoring my question.

“Mom?”

She kept her back to me, but I could hear guilt in her voice. “They canceled my Wednesday classes. Not enough people were showing up.”

Mom taught yoga and Pilates at a local gym and got paid by the class. No students meant no cash.

“Shit,” I said.

She lifted her shoulders like it was no big deal, but I could tell by the heavy way they fell back down that she was worried—worried about making rent this month, worried about feeding me, worried about putting gas in the car.
Her
car.

She fired up the stove and emptied the frozen bag into the skillet. “Anyway, what did you want to talk to me about?”

“Well, maybe it's not a good time, but …” I hesitated. “I wanted to ask you about getting a car.”

Her laugh revealed more irritation than humor. “You're right, Dane. It's not a good time.”

She flipped the stir-fry pan with more force than was necessary.

“I could get a job,” I said.

“You could get a better job if you went to college.” She turned to face me finally. “Which you won't be able to do without a full ride. Your grades are key to getting a scholarship. I promise you will regret it if you let a job interfere with your schoolwork.”

“My grades are awesome,” I said.

“And they're going to stay awesome, because you're not getting a job.”

“Or a car,” I grumbled.

“That's right,” she said, ripping dishes out of the cabinet and slamming them down on our tiny kitchen table. “Because I'm a terrible mother.”

“I didn't say that. And I didn't mean to piss you off. It's just that—”

“Just what?” She stopped setting the table and looked at me with one hand on her hip.

“It's just that when you were my age, you had a car.”

And then the conversation ended the way it always did.

“Dane, when I was your age, I had a
kid
.”

• • • X • • •

The bullshit of it was, she
could
afford to get me a car. The proof was staring me in the face as we ate dinner in silence. Across the kitchen table, on the wall above Mom's head, hung dozens of tiny little frames. And there wasn't a single picture in any of them. These frames were for tickets. Lottery tickets. Each one a winner.

Mom played the lottery whenever she could afford it, which wasn't that often compared with the other lotto junkies out there. But unlike those losers, Mom won—not just a lot, but
always
. She had an unnatural lucky streak when it came to those little scratch-off tickets. We probably would have been rich if she'd just take that luck to Vegas for a weekend. But Mom was convinced the luck would run out as soon as she tried to cash in on it, and she said she was saving up that luck for something big.

I glanced around at the linoleum floor peeling up at the corners and the mismatched kitchen chairs. So far, it looked like her lucky streak was confined to those tickets, sealed inside frames and hung up on the wall to torture me. Most of them weren't worth much—a dollar here, five bucks there—plus a couple hundred-dollar winners that it had hurt me to watch her lock away. If they had all been small like that, I wouldn't have minded so much.

But there was one ticket—right in the center with a slightly larger frame than the rest—that I had begged Mom to redeem. One shining ticket … worth five thousand dollars. I'd been sure that ticket would break her bizarre habit. Obviously, this was the stroke of luck she'd been saving up for.

I exploded when she told me it was going on the wall with the rest.

“Half a year's rent!” I screamed. “A car! College!”

I tried everything, but my protests were ignored. Mom said the big win was just proof her luck was building. That was when I realized her little game of karma was more than a quirky habit. It was a sickness.

Now that ticket had been hanging on the wall for three months, and according to the Missouri Lottery website, it was due to expire in another three. Every time I saw it, I felt more furious, more concerned about Mom's sanity. That single ticket stuck out, taunting me with its possibilities.

That one ticket made my palms itch.

I wrenched my gaze away from the frames. Pretending they weren't there was the only way to not go mad living so close to
something I couldn't have. I let my eyes fall on Mom instead. She looked so
normal
—and truth be told, she was pretty damn cool as far as moms go—but clearly she was completely bat-shit crazy.

Chapter 3

The walk to school was pretty straightforward—three turns and a cut across the baseball diamonds—so it wasn't hard to spot him tailing me. I had just veered off our street when he popped up on the opposite sidewalk, stomping along with that weird hunch and his face aimed down at the ground. He was so focused on where he was putting his own feet that I wouldn't have even guessed he was following me if I hadn't taken my shortcut through the gardens.

Sometimes, when I was running late in the mornings, I would cut through a cluster of houses that surrounded a grid of flower gardens. The houses all had back doors that opened up to a courtyard with brick walking paths, which zigzagged through square brick pens, each containing a different type of flower. The flowers didn't do much for me, but it was nice to
know the gardens were there—that something that pristine still existed in our neighborhood. It was the kind of place I might take a girl who deserved flowers. Too bad most of the girls I knew were the kind who had already been
de
flowered.

I took the path that angled to the right and spotted him out of the corner of my eye taking the one to the left. He still wasn't looking at me, but when I slowed down near a patch of yellow flowers, he slowed, too, over by some pink ones. And when I bent down and pretended to tie my shoe, he literally stopped to smell the roses.

I couldn't imagine what kind of trouble this kid was looking for, but I was going to find out. I stayed in a crouch and pushed one foot back into a runner's stance. Then I launched off the ground and sped out of the gardens as fast as my feet would go. The crooked paths slowed me down, so I hurtled into the air and cleared the last brick flower box with a single flying leap. I didn't look back to see if he could keep up; there was no way the little stomper was coordinated enough to catch me.

Certain I'd left him in the dust, I leaped behind the first house I saw as soon as I was clear of the gardens and waited, chest heaving, back pressed up against the siding. I heard his heavy shuffling footsteps coming through the grass a few seconds later and pounced.

I burst out from behind the wall. “Why are you following me?”

But I might as well have shouted “
Boo!
” because I gave the kid such a scare he only stammered and started to wheeze. His bent posture went ramrod straight, and his hands balled into
fists near his face. I supposed this was the desired effect, but instead of feeling gratified, I was freaked out. The last thing I needed was to get blamed for some retard's hysterical fit.

“Hey,” I said, gripping his shoulder. “Relax.”

He obeyed, slowly unclenching his fists and controlling his breathing.

“Yeah, like that,” I said. I let go of his shoulder and crossed my arms. “Now, why are you following me?”

He gulped some air and said as quickly as he could, “Because of the guys who said they would get me and because you know the way to school and because of the boy you beat up—”

“Which boy?”

His eyes widened a little, and when he spoke, I heard awe. “You beat up a lot of boys?”

“Not your business.”

“The one in the car.”

“You know him?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No.”

“Then why do you care?”

“You ask a lot of questions,” he said.

“You better start answering them. I like being followed about as much as I like being stared at. Or having my clothes insulted.”

His eyes moved down my outfit, but if he found any fault, he was smart enough not to say so. Instead, he lifted his face back to mine. “I'm afraid of some boys at school. But they're afraid of you. If I walk to school with you, I don't feel scared.” He held up his hands in a “what are ya gonna do?” move, but his facial features never changed.

I wondered who those guys might be. I couldn't think of anyone at school worth being afraid of, but then again, I wasn't short like this kid. He was built like a little boulder, but if he had to reach up to fight back, he could be in trouble.

“You go to Twain?” I asked.

“Yeah.”

“Freshman?”

“Yeah.”

“Down syndrome?”


Obviously
,” he said, like he was talking to the dumbest person on earth. He rolled his eyes and shifted his backpack upward. I noticed his tongue poked out a tiny bit; it rested on his lower lip and pulled back only when he spoke.

“So you think following me around without my permission is going to
keep
you from getting your ass kicked?”

“Well, not now,” he said.

“Good.” I turned in the grass and moved toward the street.

“Now I'll tell them how you're scared of me.”

I tripped over my own feet trying to spin around and stumbled backward onto the sidewalk. “Excuse me?”

“You ran away from me.” He joined me on the concrete and stamped the dew out of his shoes.

“Dude, I didn't run away from you.”

“Uh, yes, you did. You went
over
the flowers and everything like this.” He flattened his hand and made a sailing motion with his arm. He swung it high, right in front of my face, and added a
shwooo
sound effect. I resisted the urge to push his arm away.

“I was running to get ahead of you,” I said. “So I could … so
you would …” Then I shut up. The running thing seemed pretty stupid now.

“So you could scare me,” he said.

“I guess.”

“That's why I followed you. Because you scare people.”

“Well, congratulations. You're scary, too. Following me is creepy.”

“It's only creepy if we don't walk
together
.”

I pressed my fingers to my temples. I did not have time to argue with someone who had an answer for everything. We were late to school as it was, and I couldn't afford another detention. So I did the only thing I could think of and started moving down the sidewalk. It was a moment before I realized he wasn't moving with me. I sighed, and without looking back, I flicked my wrist, motioning for him to join me.

“Walk,” I commanded.

He hurried up next to me. “Thanks, I—”

“No talking,” I interrupted, still staring straight ahead as we walked. “No crying, no staring, no comments on my clothes. But mostly no talking. And if we see anyone from school, you scram to the other side of the street.”

I glanced over to see if he was paying attention. He nodded eagerly.

“If you break any of these rules, you get knocked in the head, got it?”

“Got it,” he said, then immediately broke the rules by talking. “My name's Billy Drum. But everybody calls me Billy D.”

“Don't care.”

“Who are you?”

I smirked. “I'm your worst nightmare.”

“You're not my worst nightmare. My worst nightmare is about a snake and a—”

“I
don't care
.”

“My next-door neighbor Mark calls you ‘
that dick
,' but that's not your name. I know what a dick is, and it's not a name. In my life skills class, they call it a penis. But I know it's also called a dick, and it's definitely not a na—”


Dude!
I don't want to talk about dicks with you.”

“What do you want to talk about?”

“I want to—” I threw up my hands, then paced a few steps backward down the sidewalk and forward again. “I don't want to talk about anything! Go away!”

Billy was unfazed by my outburst. I picked up my pace, and he adjusted his stride to match mine. “Okay, but if you tell me your name, I'll tell Mark, and he won't call you
‘that dick'
anymore.”

“That little punk knows my name, and I'm gonna kick his ass later for calling me a dick.”

“Okay, then will you tell
me
your name so I don't call you a dick and get
my
ass kicked?”

I sighed and covered my face with my hands. “Dane, okay? My name is Dane Washington.”

“Washington like the president?”

“Yeah. Like the president.”

“That's awesome.”

“If you say so.”

His steps became lighter, almost a skip. “Now I'll call you Dane, and you won't kick my ass.”

“I might kick your ass anyway if you don't shut up.”

“You said you don't beat up retards.”

“You said you weren't a retard.”

“I'm not.”

“Okay, then.”

“Okay, then.”

He fell quiet for a few blissful seconds, then:

“Does that mean you can still kick my ass?”

I dropped my chin to my chest and closed my eyes. This was going to be the longest walk to school ever.

Chapter 4

The trek across the baseball diamonds was treacherous. I half sped, half slid across the damp grass, intent on getting to first period on time. Billy D. struggled to keep up, and the panting from exertion kept him quiet. I moved faster, but he managed to stay at my side. I was secretly impressed by his speed, given his short legs. I allowed myself a quick sideways glance to see how he was moving so quickly, and just as I looked, his whole body lurched forward, and I heard the squeak of his sneakers slipping on wet grass.

BOOK: Dead Ends
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