Read Online How To Steal a Car by Pete Hautman - Free Book Online Page B

“Probation,” he said, and walked quickly across the food court to Wing’s Wild Wok.
    Two things I want to make clear. I did not have any sort of a thing for Deke Moffet. His first and last names alone were enough to rule that out.
    The other thing is that I was not seriously consideringtaking up car theft as a part-time job. The fact that I had—technically—stolen four cars recently was purely a matter of irresistible opportunity, dire necessity, or peer pressure. I mean, twice it hadn’t even been my idea. So the thought that I would perform grand theft auto for money was completely ridiculous.
    But I have to admit I was kind of flattered that he thought I could do it.
    As soon as I got outside the mall, Deke Moffet left my mind and was replaced by Jim Vail. I kept thinking how if my grandmother hadn’t died, I would have been the one up in Taylors Falls fighting off his drunken advances. Or maybe if it had been me, Jim wouldn’t have gotten so drunk. Or maybe I wouldn’t have fought him off. The point being that if it had been me instead of Jen, things would probably have gone differently. And if they hadn’t —if it had been me stuck in Taylors Falls in the middle of the night and I’d called Jen all teary and desperate—there’s no way she would have stolen a car to come get me. And now, since Jim had abandoned her in the wilderness, there was no way I, her best friend, could have anything to do with him, which made me kind of mad.
    As I waited for the bus to pick me up from the mall, I let my righteous anger build—not against Jim, but against Jen. I decided she was out to ruin my life, and I decided toconfront her. By the time the bus arrived, I had rehearsed several versions of a conversation that would cause Jen to sob hysterically and beg my forgiveness. I imagined going to her house and barging into her room and blasting her with accusations.
    Instead, I went over to Will’s.
    Will was the middle kid of five, with two older sisters and two younger brothers. His grandmother lived with them too, so there were like eight people in this little three-bedroom rambler. Will lived in the basement, but when I got there he was out in the backyard kicking a soccer ball with his brother Bobby.
    “Hey,” Will said when he saw me. He kicked the ball my way. I made a passable block and tried to kick it to Bobby, but I was off by about ten feet.
    “Sorry,” I called after him as he chased down the ball.
    “‘Sup?” Will asked.
    Bobby kicked the ball to Will, who grabbed it out of the air with his hands and held on to it. I could see the disappointment on Bobby’s face. My arrival had interrupted his quality time with big brother.
    “I talked to Deke,” I said.
    Will looked away. I wondered what it was like for a boy to get pantsed in public.
    I went on. “He was there at the Pit that night, smokingdope and watching us almost get drowned. That’s how he knew. But I don’t think he’s going to tell anybody. He doesn’t like Alton much either.”
    “He’s such a jerk,” Will said.
    I didn’t know if he was talking about Deke or Alton. Probably both. I wanted to tell Will about Deke getting caught stealing his fourteenth car and about him suggesting that I get into the auto theft business, but I didn’t because Deke and I had this unspoken agreement now. We were criminals together, and even though Will had been in on the Hummer thing, it just wasn’t the same.
    I said, “I’m mad at Jen.”
    That caught him by surprise. “Why?”
    I realized then that I couldn’t really talk about that either, because I couldn’t tell my sort-of boyfriend Will about Jim Vail, and I also couldn’t tell him about stealing the Hallsteds’ Cadillac, because that would lead right back to why Jen was stuck in Taylors Falls in the middle of the night. Besides, I did not want Will to think of me as a car thief any more than he already did.
    “It’s a girl thing,” I told him.
    “Jen’s nice,” Will