In the end, Faye’s reason for going after the girl was a simple one. She was curious. Curiosity had gotten her into trouble before, but it had also taken her on some adventures.
Being her own boss had its virtues. If she wanted to take a long lunch and spend a couple of unpaid hours slogging down this creek, nobody could stop her. Thus, her curiosity had brought her to this moment, standing in a murky creek and staring at the round dark opening of a culvert.
Crouched behind a stand of cattails, uncomfortable and wet, Faye wondered why she hadn’t just called out, “Hey! Little girl! Can I talk to you? Do you mind telling me where you’re going?”
Deep down, Faye knew that a direct question would have left her looking at the back of a child who was running away, fast. The child’s furtive glances and smooth, silent movements said that she was cautious and that she had good reason to be.
As Faye watched, her quarry walked with purpose toward the culvert, which protruded from its bed at an alarming cant. Stooping her head as she approached it, she didn’t slow down.
Dang. She was going in.
Faye watched her wade into deepening water that was opaque with the goop washed off the streets of a major city, not to mention the excess fertilizer applied to the green lawns of Memphis. The water lapped at scrawny brown thighs and faded red shorts as the child strode into the culvert and disappeared.
Cursing herself for her inability to leave a question unanswered, Faye stepped into the sunlight and waded toward the culvert. She could feel the current tugging at her calves, her knees, her thighs. She wished wholeheartedly that she hadn’t worn full-length pants with heavy cargo pockets that dragged her down even more than the sodden pants did, but she plunged on.
At five feet nothing, Faye rarely had reason to think, “I’m too tall,” but the culvert succeeded in planting that thought in her head. Bending her knees and leaning forward, she was able to enter standing up, though she had to work hard to keep her breasts and belly dry. With both hands holding her phone out of the water, she plunged ahead.
Putting her face so close to the scummy water forced her to acknowledge that it didn’t smell very good, but it was too late to turn back. She shuffled her feet through the silt on the concrete bottom of the pipe and made her way slowly, allowing plenty of time for the little girl to stay ahead of her.
The rough concrete undersurface of the culvert dragged against her back, but it kept her oriented in the dark. She knew she wouldn’t have to go far in this condition, hunched over and mostly blind, probably just the width of a two-lane road. Still, the light on the other side looked very far away. She headed for it, single-minded in her desire to forget about the smell and the unidentified squishy things under her feet. Soon enough, she stepped into the light…
…and fell into waist-deep water.
She twisted as she fell, because it was imperative that she land butt-first, keeping her phone overhead in both outstretched hands. She’d opted for the waterproof case, but still.
Had she tripped? No. Her foot and shin had definitely struck something solid, but then that something had moved, hooking itself around her leg and throwing her to the creek bottom. Faye shook the water out of her eyes and saw nothing but sunlight glinting off broken green glass.
“Why’re you following me?” said the small human wielding a broken bottle. Her voice sounded thick, rough, choked, with none of the fluty sweetness of childhood.
Faye’s foot hurt where the girl had used her own leg to sweep it out from under her. The water in her eyes burned but her phone was still overhead and dry. “I wanted to make sure you were okay.”
The girl snorted. “Stand up. But slow. James Roy Curtis tried to take my backpack one time.” She brandished the bottle and its fierce shards. “He still drools out the hole in his face.”
“Is that true? Did you really cut a little boy’s face open?”
Faye was still blinking hard to clear her eyes, so she didn’t move fast enough to suit this little person who had just thrown her off her feet.
“It’s true enough. Get up! And hold your hands out. Away from your sides.”
Faye rose until she was looking down at the white part running through the dark hair on top of her assailant’s small head. Dark eyes raked over her body, and a small dark hand reached out to smack the cargo pockets on either side of her pants legs. The girl’s wariness faded quickly when she saw that the wet clothes clinging to Faye’s slender form hid no weapons.
Faye studied the unsmiling face. Could she really be as young as she looked? Maybe she was under ten and maybe she wasn’t, but Faye would have bet money that she was at least a year shy of puberty. Faye had been warned that she’d be working in a dangerous part of a dangerous city, but being face-to-face with a small child who knew how to frisk her for weapons broke her heart.
“Lady, you should go back where you came from. Meth heads don’t sleep forever.”
The what-are-you-saying? look on Faye’s face must have been hilarious, because the child laughed out loud. Jerking her head toward the creekbanks behind Faye, she said, “They hide up there.
