Lost Boy (9 page)

Ryder stared for a moment. “I just hand him the ball and say, ‘Mr. Trent, remember Auburn, New York? I'm your son. Ruby's my mom'?”

Mr. Starr blinked. “That's it. That'll get him and then you hand him the note I printed out last night. My email is on it and hopefully he'll reach out.”

Ryder patted his pants pocket. Mr. Starr had composed a note meant not to scare Thomas Trent off, but to draw him in.

“Do you think it'll work?” Ryder asked.

“We have to try. He's right here, for God's sake.” Mr. Starr pulled open a desk drawer and fished around awkwardly for a minute before producing a thin fold of money. “Use this for whatever you need.”

“I can't take your money. . . .”

Mr. Starr shook his head. “I don't need it.
You
might need it. What about the subway? So just take it.”

Ryder reached out and took the money. He put a hand on Mr. Starr's shoulder, trying not to recoil at the feel of his frozen frame beneath the white cotton dress shirt that was threadbare and stained around the wrists and collar.

“Oh, go already.” Mr. Starr sounded grumpy but his eyes weren't. “And don't forget the ball.”

“Thank you, Mr. Starr.” Ryder picked the ball up off the
couch and retreated as he struggled into his coat, then let himself out and jogged down the stairs. The morning sun hit him on the street, and even when he closed his eyes, he could feel its energy pushing through the red screen of his lids. The air was crisp and the noises of the city sang softly to him. His heart banged in his chest because he knew—without a doubt—that today would be a day he'd never forget.

When Ryder came up out of the subway, the wind hit him full force and pushed the tangy smell of the Harlem River up his nose. It was a smell he knew.

He'd been at Yankee Stadium before, having begged his mom every year since he was seven years old to take him to a game for his birthday. They'd arrive by subway and go right into the stadium, sitting in the upper deck along the outfield, the cheap seats. She'd always been a little stiff about it. He had assumed that was because she wasn't a huge baseball fan, but now wondered if it was painful for her because of the connection with his father. He supposed seeing the star players and knowing their salaries would be a tough reminder of just how much she struggled to make ends meet.

He asked an old guy on the sidewalk if he knew where the parking garage was, and the man directed him up the street next to the stadium.

“You gotta go across the street for the parking garage, though.” The skin under the old man's chin flapped when he spoke, and he acted like he was chewing on something bitter.

Ryder thanked the man, waited for the light, and crossed the street in a hurry. When he reached the parking garage, he didn't see a way for buses to get in and he didn't see anyone to ask about a loading dock. He hustled up a side street farther than he intended to, then scolded himself for being a chicken. The neighborhood was tougher than his own, and he was nervous. But it shouldn't matter. Wasn't his mom's life on the line? This was a quest,
his
quest. He was like those kids he read about in books about knights and dragons, the quiet kid who kept to himself, but when called upon could commit acts of amazing heroism.

He stood a little straighter, gritted his teeth, and pressed on up the street, hoping to see someone who could tell him if this was the right parking garage, and that's when he noticed two older kids coming directly toward him. One had orange hair cut so close he looked nearly bald and a pale freckled face, flat as a frying pan. The other was shorter and more muscular, with jet-black hair and the small squinty eyes of an attack dog. Ryder's stomach dropped. Something about these two boys was menacing. He looked around for a sign of anyone else—not even a cop, but just another adult.

The only people he saw were two more older kids coming up behind him, one short and fat, like a little Buddha statue, and the other with a nasty growth of fuzz on his face that looked more like mold than hair. Both wore hooded sweatshirts pulled up over their heads so part of each one's face was
hidden in shadows. Panic gripped Ryder's throat and his hair stood on end. He crossed the street, hopeful he was just being a scaredy-cat, but the older kids crossed too and he could see the spaces in their crooked, grinning teeth.

Ryder stopped and they did too, four of them now, surrounding him.

“Hey, kid. You ain't from around here.” Orange seemed to be their leader.

“No.” Ryder could barely speak, and still, a small light of hope shone in the corner of his mind. Maybe they were just teasing.

One of the boys behind him spoke in a slow, guttural voice. “What you got in your pockets? Money for popcorn and peanuts? Maybe a Yankees pennant?”

“Maybe he don't know he's on a toll road?” Orange cocked his head and looked at the attack dog, both of them smirking.

“Oh, yeah.” Attack Dog snapped his fingers. “But he won't try to get away with not paying the toll. He look like he a law-abiding citizen. That what you are, boy?”

“I'm just lost.” Ryder felt stupid and weak. “I'm looking for where the visiting team buses go.”

Orange laughed. “Lost boy.”

Ryder wanted desperately to share his secret with them because he felt that if he did, they would let him go, a lost boy looking for the father he never met? These boys looked like they could be missing a father or two among them.

Snick.

The gleam of a switchblade startled him. Ryder's knees started to tremble. “What do you want?”

“What you got?” Orange asked.

Attack Dog leered at him and parted open his coat with one hand. Jammed into the waist of his jeans was the handle of his own knife.

Ryder felt tears start to stream down his cheeks as he dug into his pockets and turned them all inside out. The baseball plunked to the sidewalk, then the money and the note Mr. Starr had given him fluttered to the ground.

“Aww, don't you go cryin'. What are you, a baby?” Orange looked truly disgusted as he snatched up the money, the baseball, and the note. “It's just a toll. Your mommy's gonna get you a pennant anyway. I see it every time.”

“My mom is in the hospital.” Ryder sniffed. Shame and terror burned his face.

“Your dad, then.” Attack Dog let his coat fall back into place and he poked Ryder in the shoulder. “How old you?”

“Twelve. I have no dad.”

“Who you with, boy?” asked one of the kids behind him. It was Buddha.

Ryder shrugged. “I'm not. I took the subway. I'm trying to get an autograph from some of the Braves.”

“The
Braves.
” Behind him, Buddha snorted. “No wonder you're lost. This is New York, boy. What do you want a Braves autograph for?”

“I'm related to one of them.” Ryder spoke softly and decided not to say Thomas Trent was his dad. “He's a relief pitcher.”

“Sure. Like a cousin?” Attack Dog brightened and put a thumb in his own chest. “My cousin is Rihanna.”

“Your cousin's not Rihanna, dip head.” Orange glared.

“And his cousin isn't a Brave, that's what I'm sayin'.” Attack Dog scowled at Ryder. “Who told you that?”

“A friend . . . of my family.”

“What's this?” Orange held up the note Mr. Starr had written and unfolded it.

Ryder couldn't speak. The note would tell these boys everything, and the shame made him sick to his stomach.

“What's this?” Orange growled at Ryder now.

“It's a note to my cousin inviting him to stop by if he wants.”

“What, you think you live someplace fancy? Please, boy, you're just like us.” Orange threw the note at Ryder and pointed at his shoes. “Look at those kicks you got.”

Ryder looked down at faded gray Starters.

Attack Dog laughed. “What'd they cost? Five bucks at the Sav-Mart? You live in some hole an' you're inviting a major league player to your place? That's crazy.”

“Look at this ball.” Buddha tossed it up and snatched it in the air. “Thing is yellow as snot. Here. We don't need this.”

Ryder took the ball and jammed it back into his coat pocket. “Can you guys just let me go?”

Orange shrugged. “We never stopped you in the first place.”

The two who had been behind him parted now and stood on either side of him. Ryder picked up the note, turned slowly, and began to walk away. When he looked back he saw them staring, and he took off at a full sprint, running hard, away
from the cackle of laughter until he reached River Avenue and bumped square into a cop.

“Whoa. Where you going?” The cop scowled at him harder than the thieves.

“Just . . .” Ryder did a quick calculation, knowing that if he told the cop about the boys it might entangle him like a web he couldn't get out of anytime soon. “I'm trying to get some autographs.”

“Ditched school? Got here early, huh?” The cop dusted his jacket.

Ryder nodded. “Someone said the buses come near the parking garage. I'm looking for a Braves player.”

“Braves?” The cop screwed up his thick red face. “This isn't the right garage. You gotta head down toward the end of the stadium and they come in off of 164th Street, but I don't know if you'll get any autographs. You can't get that close. There's gates.”

“Do they ever come over to the gates?”

The cop scratched up under his cap. “Maybe, but the best place is inside. You want to get in there early and hang out just over their dugout. Sometimes they sign.”

Ryder thought of his empty pockets and the stolen money. “I'll just try here. Thanks.”

The cop looked up the street and squinted his eyes, pointing. “I think that's probably them right there. Better hurry.”

Ryder turned and saw a big luxury bus rumble around the corner and pull into some gates at the back of the stadium.

Ryder took off without a word, running faster than he ever knew he could.

Sections of thick metal fencing stood linked together, blocking the way into the loading dock area. Two security guards in yellow jackets swung the gates closed. The bus had already come to rest just outside the stadium's back entrance. Players in leather jackets wearing headphones stepped down off the bus and made a beeline for the dark opening that would lead them to their lockers. Ryder was more than a hundred feet away. He looked around, panicked, for a way to get closer. He had an urge to throw himself over the fence—it was only about three and a half feet high—but his mother's training to always obey the rules just wouldn't let him.

He could yell, though, and that's what he did.

“Thomas Trent!” Ryder jumped up and down with the note in one hand and the baseball in the other, aware that a cluster of other autograph hounds had also been drawn toward the
fence by the sight of the Atlanta Braves players.

“Trent!” Ryder howled, but either none of the players could hear because of their headphones, or they ignored what to them was just some crazy kid.