Banished

“I have these…” She rooted around in the bag and came up with a pair of earrings that looked like pieces of bicycle chain. She also had a black leather cuff with snaps and rivets, and a silver ring with a skull on it. “If it’s any comfort, I picked this because I thought it was the opposite of your look. I mean, you’re so pretty, like your mom…”

Her voice faltered and I turned away, partly to let her have her privacy and partly because I was kind of shy about changing in front of her. I found underwear and socks in another bag and slipped them on, then pulled my jeans back on and put on the new top. It smelled like the Walmart, clean and chemical-y, and it was tight enough that I had to tug on the sleeves to get them to sit right on my arms. I yanked off the tags and dropped them in the wastebasket.

“Very nice,” Prairie said, with a smile that looked genuine.

“Hay-ee?” Chub, who had been tucking his giraffe into a pillowcase, seemed to have just noticed me. “Hair… What happen?”

I touched my newly short hair. “It’s all right, Chub, it’s just a different color. It’s nice.”

Chub liked his new clothes, the nubby sweatshirt and corduroy pants. As he went back to playing with his giraffe, Prairie got to work on me.

There was a lot of snipping, but it went fast, bits of hair flying to the floor as Prairie worked. Finally she stepped back and checked out the results. She snipped a little more and then got the motel hair dryer out of the bathroom.

“I wish I had a little product,” she said. She ran the dryer for a few minutes, pushing my hair this way and that.

“Oh…,” she said when she was done. “I really like it, Hailey-I think it suits you. I mean, you can always grow it back but, well, I hope you like it too.”

I went in the bathroom and stared in the mirror. Dry, my hair was a shiny platinum blond. It was cut so the front curved just a little past my chin, and then it got shorter in the back, with choppy layers I could feel with my fingers. A few chunky bangs were smoothed across my forehead.

It was amazing. It was better than anything you could get in Gypsum-I knew that instantly. For a second I wished I could go back to school just long enough for everyone to see. I looked like-I caught the thought and held it for a second-like someone in a band, like someone everyone else wanted to be.

“Happy with your new look?” Prairie asked, smiling, when I came out of the bathroom.

Before I could answer her, Chub jumped up from the floor where he’d been playing with his giraffe. “Bad mans,” he mumbled, and pointed at the door. Then he pressed his face into my jeans and hugged my legs hard.

Prairie crouched down next to him. “Where are the bad men, Chub?” she whispered. “Are they close by?”

Chub nodded, his lower lip stuck out in a pout. “Outside.”

She gave him a little hug and stood up, grabbing her purse off the bed and pulling out a little black canister.

“How, um, accurate is he?” she whispered. “With these predictions?”

“These what? I mean, he only just started talking. He never even went to the potty by himself until yesterday.”

If Prairie was surprised, she didn’t show it.

“Get that,” Prairie whispered, pointing at the last of her purchases, a pale pink backpack with the tags still attached. “Pack up.”

I jammed our things into it, our dirty clothes and the Walmart purchases. Prairie grabbed her plastic bags and stuffed them into her oversized purse.

“I’m really tired,” she said in a loud voice. “I think I might lie down for a bit. Hailey, could you get my purse? I left it in the bathroom.”

She was shaking her head as she talked, gesturing at the opposite side of the door. I grabbed Chub’s hand and pulled him with me. When Prairie crouched down across from me, I did the same. Prairie felt around frantically on the wall until her hand found the outlet, never taking her eyes off the door. She yanked out the electric cords, plunging the room into semidarkness, and then grabbed the table lamp, holding it by the narrow top of the base. She held a finger to her lips. I could feel my heart pounding under my new shirt.

CHAPTER 16

WHEN THE DOOR BURST open, I jumped. Splinters of wood flew toward me and Chub. There was a crash and a man lurched into the room, landing on the floor.

“Go!” Prairie screamed.

She gave the desk a shove and it slammed down on the man’s head. I didn’t wait to see if he was hurt. I picked up Chub and hurled myself out the door, Prairie right behind. A skunky smell followed us. I could feel my throat seizing and I started to cough. When we were outside, I sucked down fresh air. The sun was so bright I was blinded for a moment, but Prairie pushed me, hard, toward the car.

“Rascal!” I screamed. “Come here, boy!”

He trotted out of the room, looking unconcerned. Prairie had the keys in her hand, and the locks clicked open as I reached for the handle. I didn’t bother trying to get Chub settled, just pushed him and Rascal into the backseat and jumped in front as Prairie backed up.

The tires screeched as she twisted the wheel and aimed for the parking lot exit. A couple walking across the lot jumped out of the way, the man yelling and giving us the finger, but Prairie paid no attention. She pulled into traffic, wedging the Buick between a fast-moving compact car and a dawdling truck full of lawn mowers, and then shot across a couple of lanes, making a U-turn on a yellow light.

Then we were racing back toward the on-ramp and onto the highway.

I’d only inhaled a little of the pepper spray or whatever it was, and I managed to get my throat cleared and my breathing back to normal.

I leaned over the seat and helped Chub get buckled in.

“Car seat,” he said. On top of everything else, he was adding new words faster than I could keep track of.

“That’s right, this is your special seat,” I said. “You did good, Chub. Good boy.”

“They found us,” Prairie repeated. She switched lanes again, pulling to the right and cutting off a slow-moving sedan. She veered onto an exit that led to an oasis of fast-food restaurants and gas stations.

“What are you doing?” Keep moving!-I felt the urgency in my gut to put as much distance as possible between us and the guy in our motel room.

“Bryce’s men tracked us down,” Prairie said, “and it wasn’t the car. It couldn’t have been. Come on. Bring the backpack.”

She pulled in to the first restaurant, a Wendy’s, and parked crookedly in a spot near the entrance. I grabbed Chub and the pack, leaving Rascal in the car, and followed Prairie in. She went straight for the ladies’ room and tried the door.

“Good,” she said. “It’s a one-person. Come on in.”

I felt strange following her, and checked around, but no one was paying attention. There were a few customers in line, knots of two and three people at the tables, a hum of late-afternoon conversation.

Prairie locked the door behind us.

“My turn,” Prairie said, digging into her purse for a Walmart bag. She stripped off her top, pulled a sweater from the bag and put it on. It was an ugly thing, brown, with leaves and pumpkins embroidered on it. It was too big, and it disguised her slim body.

“Here,” she said, handing me a small plastic bag of jewelry and makeup. “Put this on, the earrings and all, and do your makeup. Lots of eyeliner, really thick.”

I did as she said, starting with concealing the purplish bruise on my cheek, watching her out of the corner of my eye as I worked. She took a wide headband out of the bag and slid it into her hair so that all the layers were pulled away from her face. Then she added lipstick, exaggerating her mouth’s natural shape.

I focused on my own makeup, doing my best to apply it the way I’d practiced a few times at home for fun. Purple eye shadow, dark liner, several coats of mascara-I stepped back and looked at myself in the mirror.