Banished

bloodstream, electrified by my heartbeat and changing me from the inside out. I wasn’t at all sure I liked the feeling. Being me wasn’t exactly paradise, but I wasn’t sure I was ready to change, either.

I thought of Gram and the brief time when she’d turned almost human, when we first got Chub. She had changed-or at least I thought she had. For a while she was almost like a real parent, asking me about my day, about what I learned at school. She wasn’t great at it-she didn’t listen to my answers and I still had to do most of the chores, but when I watched her working with Chub, there was a light in her eyes, and that was more than I’d seen in her before or since.

And now she was worse than ever. Was that what was in store for me? Would I end up like her, bitter and mean? I’d tried to help Milla-I hadn’t planned it, and I didn’t understand it, but I had tried. And now I wanted to make a connection with her. No: the connection was already there-I just wanted her to acknowledge it. And instead, she’d made it even clearer that she wanted nothing to do with me.

I was still lost in my thoughts when I walked to the drugstore after school, and I left without the one thing I really needed, Chub’s baby shampoo. I turned around after a couple of blocks and headed back.

When I had almost reached the store, I saw something that made my heart lurch: the car that had been parked outside our house that morning was pulling into a parking space. Two men got out of the car. They were medium height with short hair, wearing sunglasses and dark jackets. They moved fast and looked strong and muscular under their clothes, and they didn’t smile or talk.

They could be anybody, I told myself-it was probably just a coincidence that I’d seen them twice. They could have pulled over in front of our house to check a map or to pee behind a tree or something, and as for going into the drugstore, everyone in town shopped there.

On the other hand, I had never seen them before. I knew pretty much everyone in Gypsum by sight, and these guys definitely didn’t look local.

If they were cops, they weren’t from Gypsum.

But if someone had caught on that Gram was dealing drugs, maybe the local cops had called in some other agency. Like-I racked my brain, trying to remember what we’d learned in civics. There was the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives… but was dealing drugs a federal crime? And who would have turned Gram in? One of her customers? Maybe they’d given up information in exchange for a better deal, if they’d been arrested for possession or something. I knew the penalties for dealing were fierce, way more serious than just getting caught with stuff.

But if they already suspected Gram, why didn’t they just get a warrant and come to the house? Maybe that was what they were doing now-trying to get enough evidence to justify a warrant. Well, they wouldn’t get it from talking to Mr. Hsiao-all I’d bought today was a box of trash bags, eyedrops for Gram and a three-pack of soap.

I needed to find out more. I waited until the men entered the shop, then walked quickly to the car. Trying to look casual, I peered through the windshield: there was nothing inside but a Styrofoam coffee cup in the cup holder.

I went back into the shop, slipping into the aisle farthest from the cash register. I studied the shaving cream and razors and strained to hear what the two men were saying to Mr. Hsiao.

“… come in regularly?” A deep voice with a slightly flat accent.

“No, like I told you, she’s as like to come in one day as the next. These kids, they don’t stick to a schedule, you know? You mind telling me what this is about?”

“An incident at her school,” a new voice said smoothly. “Can’t give the details at this point. We appreciate your cooperation. And you keeping it… under wraps.”

“And you said you were from…” That’s right, Mr. Hsiao, find out who they are, I telegraphed silently.

“State services,” the first voice said. “Here, my identification…”

There was silence for a moment; then Mr. Hsiao spoke, his voice only a little less skeptical. “Well, I’ve told you what I can. You could probably catch up with the girl, talk to her yourself, if you like.”

A moment later they were striding back out of the store. I spotted the tops of their heads going by and ducked. I counted to two hundred before leaving the store, careful not to let Mr. Hsiao see me.

I wasn’t convinced the men were from any state agency. They were too… anonymous, for one thing. Plus, Mr. Hsiao didn’t sound like he thought much of whatever ID they showed him.

Could they be some sort of competition? Drug dealers from the next town over, maybe all the way from Kansas City? Or had Gram got into something even worse? Did she owe money, had she stolen something valuable, cheated someone important?

The car was gone, but for all I knew it was on its way to our house. I needed to get home, but there were stretches of the road with no houses along them, no one to notice if something happened to me. But I had no idea what these men would want with me.

I didn’t care much what happened to Gram, but I couldn’t let anything happen to Chub. As I hesitated, torn between running home and trying to keep the men from seeing me, Sawyer Wesson came around a corner, walking with Milla. Sawyer was a Morrie, but he wasn’t like the others. He was quiet and careful and kept himself clean. We’d never spoken, but I’d noticed him watching me a few times during lunch or in school assemblies.

Milla saw me first, and her mouth tightened into a hard line. She put a hand on Sawyer’s arm, but he was in the middle of saying something to her as he tossed his cigarette to the ground and stepped on it.

“Sawyer,” I called. Panic made me bold. “Sawyer, could you please walk me home?”

Only after the words were out did I realize how they sounded. I was frightened, that was all, and I just wanted some company in case anything bad happened. Sawyer was tall and broad-shouldered, with narrow eyes and black hair that reached almost to his shoulders. If you didn’t know him, it would be easy to be intimidated by him.

He stopped and regarded me. He looked surprised, then wary, his eyes clouding with doubt.

“I mean-I didn’t-” I started to explain, but what could I say? That I thought I was being pursued by government agents or members of the mob or, or, I had no idea who?

“That’d be okay,” Sawyer said, and then I saw something I’d never seen before: his smile. It was surprising how it changed his face, making him look almost sweet.

“You were comin’ to the Burger King with me, or did you forget that,” Milla spat. She refused to look at me.

“I never said-”

“Whyn’t you just go on with her, then. Seein’ as you’re so forgetful’n all, you prob’ly forgot who she is.” If it was a bluff, it wasn’t much of one, since Sawyer walked over to me without a backward glance. I had no idea what Milla meant by “who she is.” Was she referring to what had happened in gym? To the fact that I was an outcast? Whatever she meant, Sawyer either didn’t know or didn’t care, and I felt smug satisfaction as Milla stalked off the way they’d come, defeated.

We walked half a block before I managed to think of something to say, and then at the very same moment Sawyer started to talk too.

“So how are-”

“What do you-”

And then we were both laughing and saying you first, no you. Sawyer kicked at a stone and it went flying across the road, hitting a tree trunk dead-on, and I thought about how it was for me in gym class.

“Did you ever want to play sports?” I asked.

Sawyer didn’t answer for a moment. “Sometimes. I thought… I’m pretty good, you know, at throwing. I thought maybe baseball. But…”

He didn’t need to finish. I didn’t know what his home life was like, but it was safe to assume it had certain things in common with mine.

I changed the subject, and we talked about classes and teachers. I was surprised to learn that he was considering trying to get into AP American History. He’d be the first Morrie I’d ever heard of to get into an Advanced Placement class. He asked me what I liked to do after school, and I told him about Chub, and Sawyer listened and nodded and even laughed when I told him the way Chub followed Rascal around the yard, like he thought he was part dog.

“Hey,” he said when my house came into view. “I just want to say I’m really sorry about, you know, Milla and what she said. She don’t mean anything by it.”