Read Online As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Lynne Rae Perkins
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bunch of mix-ups.”
“Watch out for those damsels,” said Arvin. “If you see one, make sure Del is looking the other way.”
“What damsels?” asked Del.
“Just joking,” said Arvin. He winked at Ry.
“Well, I guess we better go then,” said Del.
And then they were going, backing out of the driveway, waving good-bye, rolling down the street. Houses, streets, minutes, and miles came and went, all ordinary enough. Ry could not identify the odd sensation he had as they rolled along. Maybe it was what a lobster feels when it finds itself in a pot of water that started out cold enough but seems to be starting to boil. Or what a snake feels as it warms on a rock, having shed the skin it has outgrown. Or maybe it was just the truck’s heater in the cool of the evening. But it seemed to signal the beginning of something, a change. A sea change. Or, in this landlocked place, a shifting of the ground beneath.
Lights were appearing: headlights, dashboard lights, lights in houses. It was the hour when lights start to matter. They were exiting New Pêche almost exactly twenty-four hours after Ry had entered it. One day.
Back out into the uninhabited veldt they went. From the inside of the Willys, though, with a half-eaten Skilletburger wrapped in paper in one hand and the other half working its charms within him, the friendly thrum of the engine, another human being nearby, even scratchy music fighting its way through the airwavesand out of the old radio, the darkling world outside them seemed large and lonely in a more homey, though still mysterious way. The oncoming night blurred and swallowed up most of the vastness, leaving Ry and Del a more manageable, headlight-sized portion to deal with. Two lit cones merging into one, gray road, white and yellow traces of paint, the shoulder of gravel, dirt, and weeds. Occasionally the headlights of an oncoming car or truck appeared in the distance, grew closer, then swept by with a Doppler-ating groan.
When the burger and the cola were long gone, the darkness around the headlights was all enveloping, and focusing on the lit patch of asphalt always moving under them was like watching a scene in a movie where nothing happens, where nothing ever will happen. As if the camera was left on accidentally, pointed at nothing, and you wait for the scene to change. It was then that a picture formed itself in Ry’s mind. The clutter on Del’s countertop. Including his phone, plugged into the kitchen wall. Four hours behind them. He reached into his pocket.
Crap.
Is it any different to have a phone when no one you call answers, than not to have a phone at all? It did seemdifferent. If you had the phone, there was the possibility that someone would answer, eventually. The night outside seemed blacker without it. Bleaker.
But at least they were on their way to his house.
The engine balked and stuttered, then stopped. They rolled for a short distance in silence before Del guided the truck off the road, where it came to a standstill, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.
“Damn,” he said.
But he sounded happy.
IN WHICH OUR HEROES WALK DOWN THE LONELY HIGHWAY, AT LEAST ONE OF THEM HOPING FOR A RIDE
R y opened his eyes. He pulled the warm cocoon of his sleeping bag up to his chin. The other sleeping bag was rolled up. A dream had evaporated, but not before leaving stray scraps of unease in odd places in his brain. His gaze fell, unseeing, on the faded red-and-blue flowery curtains ruched across the windows. Faint reddish light through the curtains illuminated his private capsule to the dimness of a cave or the inside of a tavern. Footfalls crunched purposefully outside, then a sound that must have been the hood of the truck being raised on unwilling hinges. Tinkering sounds—tapping, frictional, scraping, loosening, and tightening sounds.
Ry sat up, pushed open a crack between the two sides of the curtain, and peeked out. Maybe the morning light would reveal that
“Watch out for those damsels,” said Arvin. “If you see one, make sure Del is looking the other way.”
“What damsels?” asked Del.
“Just joking,” said Arvin. He winked at Ry.
“Well, I guess we better go then,” said Del.
And then they were going, backing out of the driveway, waving good-bye, rolling down the street. Houses, streets, minutes, and miles came and went, all ordinary enough. Ry could not identify the odd sensation he had as they rolled along. Maybe it was what a lobster feels when it finds itself in a pot of water that started out cold enough but seems to be starting to boil. Or what a snake feels as it warms on a rock, having shed the skin it has outgrown. Or maybe it was just the truck’s heater in the cool of the evening. But it seemed to signal the beginning of something, a change. A sea change. Or, in this landlocked place, a shifting of the ground beneath.
Lights were appearing: headlights, dashboard lights, lights in houses. It was the hour when lights start to matter. They were exiting New Pêche almost exactly twenty-four hours after Ry had entered it. One day.
Back out into the uninhabited veldt they went. From the inside of the Willys, though, with a half-eaten Skilletburger wrapped in paper in one hand and the other half working its charms within him, the friendly thrum of the engine, another human being nearby, even scratchy music fighting its way through the airwavesand out of the old radio, the darkling world outside them seemed large and lonely in a more homey, though still mysterious way. The oncoming night blurred and swallowed up most of the vastness, leaving Ry and Del a more manageable, headlight-sized portion to deal with. Two lit cones merging into one, gray road, white and yellow traces of paint, the shoulder of gravel, dirt, and weeds. Occasionally the headlights of an oncoming car or truck appeared in the distance, grew closer, then swept by with a Doppler-ating groan.
When the burger and the cola were long gone, the darkness around the headlights was all enveloping, and focusing on the lit patch of asphalt always moving under them was like watching a scene in a movie where nothing happens, where nothing ever will happen. As if the camera was left on accidentally, pointed at nothing, and you wait for the scene to change. It was then that a picture formed itself in Ry’s mind. The clutter on Del’s countertop. Including his phone, plugged into the kitchen wall. Four hours behind them. He reached into his pocket.
Crap.
Is it any different to have a phone when no one you call answers, than not to have a phone at all? It did seemdifferent. If you had the phone, there was the possibility that someone would answer, eventually. The night outside seemed blacker without it. Bleaker.
But at least they were on their way to his house.
The engine balked and stuttered, then stopped. They rolled for a short distance in silence before Del guided the truck off the road, where it came to a standstill, in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere.
“Damn,” he said.
But he sounded happy.
IN WHICH OUR HEROES WALK DOWN THE LONELY HIGHWAY, AT LEAST ONE OF THEM HOPING FOR A RIDE
R y opened his eyes. He pulled the warm cocoon of his sleeping bag up to his chin. The other sleeping bag was rolled up. A dream had evaporated, but not before leaving stray scraps of unease in odd places in his brain. His gaze fell, unseeing, on the faded red-and-blue flowery curtains ruched across the windows. Faint reddish light through the curtains illuminated his private capsule to the dimness of a cave or the inside of a tavern. Footfalls crunched purposefully outside, then a sound that must have been the hood of the truck being raised on unwilling hinges. Tinkering sounds—tapping, frictional, scraping, loosening, and tightening sounds.
Ry sat up, pushed open a crack between the two sides of the curtain, and peeked out. Maybe the morning light would reveal that
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