Read Online Can't Get There from Here by Todd Strasser - Free Book Online

find a good home for it.”
    “Go away!” OG cuddled Pest more tightly.
    The woman made a face. “You’re all sick.”
    She stood there waiting for one of us to say something, but no one spoke. It was no use. People like her never listened. They made up their minds, told you what they thought, and that was the end of it. Finally she left. Pest yelped and struggled to get free, but OG held him close like he was afraid to let the little dog go until the woman was well out of sight.
    “How comes she cares so much about a dog?” Tears asked. “What about us?”
    “Nobody cares about us,” I said.

ELEVEN
    Rainbow was gone for days and I got worried. She didn’t usually disappear for that long. I waited until night and then went to look for her. The air was cold and damp, and my breath came out in big clouds of white. I headed for the streets near the Lincoln Tunnel where men in cars prowled for young girls and boys before they drove home to their families in the suburbs. I was walking down a dark sidewalk when a sleek silver car pulled alongside of me.
    The window on the passenger side went down. “Hey,” a man’s voice said. In the dark shadows of the car I could see that he was old. The lines around his mouth were deep and the hair on his head was so thin that unless you looked close you might think he was bald. He looked small for a grown-up. Not much bigger than me.
    “You look hungry,” he said. There was something mean about his smile. Like he knew he had what I needed and it was simply a matter of reeling me in. He was wearing a tan-colored jacket with a green corduroy collar. It looked warm. All I had on was a T-shirt and a thin sweatshirt. I left my jacket somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where.
    “Maybe.” I shivered, and my empty stomach churned like a washing machine with no clothes in it.
    “Looks like you could use a bath, too.”
    “Maybe.” It had been a week since me and Rainbow washed in the library bathroom, but I was already filthy again. My hands were almost black with dirt. My arms and face were streaked with it. I could taste it when I licked my lips. My hair was caked. When I scratched my head my scalp felt like it was full of sand.
    “Why don’t you come with me?” he offered. “I’ll give you something to eat. And a bath.”
    “What do you get in return?” I asked.
    He grinned in the darkness. “I guess we’ll have to see.”
    I heard a tap. Then another and another. A fat raindrop landed on my head. Another hit my ear. I felt a chill. The taps began to come faster as the big drops of rain pelted the sidewalk and me. I started to walk. The car moved along slowly.
    “You really want to stay out here in the rain tonight?” the man in the car asked. “You’ll probably catch pneumonia.”
    “Maybe.” I was already cold. Shivers ran up my back and arms, and I clenched my teeth so that he wouldn’t hear them chatter.
    “So you coming or not?”
    I didn’t answer.
    He frowned. The rain was starting to go into his car through the open window. “What are you waiting for?”he asked. “Money? Forget it. Fm not giving you any money. I’ll feed you and clean you up. But I know what you’ll do if I give you money. You’ll just spend it on drugs.”
    “Maybe.”
    He narrowed his eyes. “You’d rather stay out here and freeze and starve and be filthy? Fine. There are a dozen kids just like you on these streets. You don’t want to come with me, I’ll find another one. What’s the difference? You’re all the same, know that?”
    “Maybe.”
    “Maybe … Maybe …” he repeated. “Maybe you’ll starve or freeze to death out here tonight. Maybe in the morning they’ll find your body. Who’ll miss a homeless kid? You’re a waste. Not even a memory. Just someone who never was.”
    The car window went up. The windshield wipers began to swipe back and forth as the man drove away down the dark wet street. I stood in the rain, feeling the drops hit my head and