Runaways (9 page)

“That's an exam. This is really doing it and without an instructor at your side all the time.”

“Stop worrying, worrywart,” I told Crystal. “Ready, girls?”

They all mumbled yes and I turned the key. The wagon started immediately with a rumble that shook the whole vehicle.

“The fuel tank's full,” I announced. “Good old Gordon,” I said, “keeps his vehicle tuned up and ready.” I gazed back at the large, dark house. “Thanks, Gordon.”

I put the car into drive and accelerated just a bit too fast. The tires spun some gravel, but I held the wheel firmly and drove down the long driveway to the street. I didn't want the others to know, but I was amazed at myself.

We continued down the highway, now spread
before us like the road to Oz, a streak of silver pointing to the unknown. Everyone was quiet. It was so late it felt like darkness had turned to stone.

“I wish I was there to see his face in the morning,” Raven said.

“Not me,” Crystal mumbled.

“He'll blame Louise,” I said. “He's always accusing her of being too soft with us.”

“I feel sorry for her,” Raven said. “I don't know why she ever married him.”

“She'll be wondering the same thing tomorrow morning,” I said. Suddenly, I broke into a loud laugh.

“What?” Raven said.

“I was just thinking about Megan. She'll give him the phony map in the morning so she can be his little hero and then he'll go off in the wrong direction.”

“So?” Raven said. “That's what you wanted to happen, right?”

I looked at Crystal and she smiled. She turned to Raven.

“He'll think she did it on purpose, that she was part of our plan.”

“Oh. Oh, that is funny. Maybe not,” she said after a moment. “He'll kill her.”

We were all silent again, contemplating Gordon's rage.

“Maybe we should go back,” Butterfly said a few minutes into the silence.

“Back? Back to what? There is no back. There is only forward,” I said. “Don't worry, Butterfly. We're all together, all with you.”

No one spoke. No one could disagree.

“We did it,” Crystal said, amazed. She kept her eyes forward on the road ahead. “We really did it.”

“I always knew we could,” I said. Above us, the sky blazed with stars.

“Turn on the radio,” Raven said.

I leaned over and did so. We found a rock station and Raven turned up the volume and began to sing along, filling the car with her melodious voice.

I grew more confident behind the wheel and accelerated.

Our journey had truly begun.

H
igh on excitement, none of us noticed how tired we really were. The tension was enough to exhaust any of us, and the late hour just made it more difficult to stay awake. Driving at this time of night had one big advantage: there wasn't much traffic. I knew the roads that would take us to the main highway, but after that I had to rely on Crystal and her maps. Once we were on the main highway and I saw a sign that read,
NEW YORK CITY
90
MILES,
my heart fluttered. The realization that we were actually doing this, that we were on the highway putting miles and miles between ourselves and the only lives we had known for years settled in and for a few moments made us all quiet, made us all look deeper into ourselves.

All our lives we had been watched over and protected either by adoptive parents for a while or by the system. It was always difficult to make
someone who had lived with their parents all their lives understand what it was like to be one of us. Without family, we felt without history, felt as if we had just been plopped down someplace and told to eat, sleep, play and grow like normal children. It was hard to live as a ward of some giant entity called The State. When we were afraid or lonely, when nightmares trickled into our dreams, when failures and disappointments rained down on our lives, we couldn't run home to Mommy or Daddy. We could talk it over with a counselor when our time came, of course. We could be analyzed and given some textbook prescriptions to cure our common sense of meaninglessness, but they hardly ever made us feel better about ourselves.

Once, when someone at school made me angry, I accused her of being spoiled and not knowing what it was like to live without a real family. She just smirked until I leaned into her, our faces only inches apart, and said, “Just imagine sitting in front of the television set every night and seeing these commercials about children with their parents going to Disneyland or sitting around a breakfast table. Just imagine looking at it and thinking as far as you were concerned, it was science fiction.”

Her smirk evaporated and everyone around us looked down, ashamed because they had been born luckier than me.

I never really felt like anybody special. Except for the time I spent with Pamela and Peter. But if being special meant I couldn't be me then I didn't want it. I'd rather be lonely old me than someone's special project, poked and prodded into the mold they'd made for me.

Now, driving this car, rushing with my best friends in all the world through the night, I felt a
sense of freedom. It was as if we had all thrown off the chains of who we were and what people tried to make us into and had finally become free. As recently as a few hours ago, we were better known by the numbers on our files. We were, as Crystal often said, “in the system,” labeled and described by some official, our little histories summarized in a few pages that included biological facts about our blood type, our eye color, our inoculations.

None of that mattered to us now. We were launched, sailing into space, searching for a new planet, a new place to call home. We would soon make our own histories, fill our own files. For the first time, I felt like I was in control of my destiny.

“Watch your speed,” Crystal said. “Even at this hour, there could be a radar trap, and we can't get pulled over, Brooke.”

“I know,” I said and glanced down at the speedometer. The truth was I hadn't been watching it. I had been daydreaming and I was going too fast. Good old Crystal, I thought, always thinking.

I glanced in the rearview mirror. Butterfly had slumped down in her seat, her head to one side, her eyes closed. She looked like a rag doll, so vulnerable, so dependent. I think all three of us saw something of ourselves in Butterfly and that was why we were so protective of her.

The radio droned on. Miles and miles of highway rolled out before us and then disappeared into the darkness behind us. Occasionally, another vehicle drew closer and then passed us. I held the wheel steady. We were making good time. I felt like the pilot of a space ship, launched and moving closer and closer toward that point when we would break out of the earth's gravity. Soon, the past's strong
grip on us would be broken and we wouldn't look back.

“Maybe we ought to check your map now, Crystal,” I suggested as we left more familiar places.

Crystal unfolded the map and found the switch for the light in the rear, but it didn't work. She leaned forward to catch some of the illumination from the front.

“We could either get onto the New York Thruway or take Route Six to the Palisades Parkway and find the exit for 1-95,” she explained.

“Which is better?” I asked.

“The fewer people who see us and can trace us, the better off we are,” she concluded. “Avoid toll booths. Take route six. The exit should be coming up shortly.”

We watched for it and when we saw the signs, I slowed down, made the turns and followed the highway.

“You're really doing very good,” Raven said, impressed. “I should have taken drivers' education, too.”

It would have been a great help to have another driver, I thought.

Crystal sat back and yawned.

“If Megan didn't wake anyone, they still don't know we're gone,” she said after a long moment.

I glanced at the clock on the dash. It was nearly three-thirty in the morning. Gordon, his brain soaked in whiskey, lay dumb in his bed. Everyone else slept quietly. In a few hours, they would all be surprised.

Raven rested her head against the window. The exhaustion we had staved off with our excitement was settling in our limbs, in our eyes.

“Are we going to drive all night?” Crystal asked me.

“It's probably a good idea to make as much distance as possible, don't you think?”

“Of course, but are you all right? You don't want to fall asleep at the wheel.”

“I'm fine,” I said even though my eyelids wanted to slide closed like elevator doors. I concentrated on keeping them wide open. The radio station had become all talk. “Find some music again, Raven,” I asked. “Something lively, okay?”

She turned the dial until she found some upbeat sounds and sat back again.

We drove on. I should have kept up the conversation. Butterfly was in a deep sleep by now and Crystal, despite her efforts, permitted her eyes to close one time too many and drifted off as well. Raven, emotionally and physically exhausted, stopped talking and let her head lay back. I suddenly realized I was the only one awake. I started to count, to sing to myself, to move with the music, anything to keep myself alert, but I went into a daydream at the wrong time and suddenly blinked and saw a sign that said:
GEORGE WASHINGTON BRIDGE.

“Crystal? Crystal!” I cried.

“What? Oh, I'm sorry. I must have fallen asleep. Where are we?”

“Are we supposed to go over the George Washington Bridge?” I asked. The toll booth was directly in front of me. There was no way to avoid it.

“No, No!”
she cried. “Oh Brooke, you missed the exit.”

“What should I do?” I asked in a panic.

“What's wrong?” Raven asked. Butterfly groaned and sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes.

“Just cross the bridge,” Crystal said quickly. “Don't act lost. Act natural. Act as if you've done this before. I'll figure something out afterward,” she said, unfolding her maps.

I slowed down, read the toll cost and reached into my pocket for the money. An African-American woman who looked like she was about forty took the bill and gave me change without even looking at me.

“She couldn't care less who we were. That has to be one boring job,” I muttered and then looked ahead at the George Washington Bridge all lit up. What a daunting sight, I thought as I started us across it, my heart thumping like a parade drum again. New York City came into view against the night sky.

“Look at that,” Raven said, her voice full of amazement. The three of them put their faces to the window and gaped at the Empire State Building and the Twin Towers, all the buildings twinkling. Commercial jet planes seemed close enough to crash into them. It was breathtaking.

“I bet Broadway is lit up like a carnival,” Crystal said excitedly.

“Broadway! Can we see Broadway?” Raven asked, jumping up and down in her seat.

“Yes, can we?” Butterfly chimed in.

“We've got to get back on track,” I said. I wasn't sure I'd be able to drive in the city traffic.

“Oh, please. Let's just see it. It can't be far, right, Crystal?” Raven pleaded. “We're already here. We might as well make the best of the mistake.”

“What do I do?” I asked as we approached the Manhattan side of the bridge.

“Stay on your right. We'll take the Henry Hudson Parkway and go downtown. Then, we'll let Raven and Butterfly see Broadway before we go through the tunnel and I get us back on the route. Stay alert now, everyone,” Crystal ordered.

This late at night, there thankfully were no traffic jams. Following Crystal's instructions, I got off at 42nd Street and drove very slowly through the city streets until we suddenly burst out on Times Square. The lights and the signs were so overwhelming, I had to pull over. All of us just gaped at the big screens, the number of people walking the streets despite the time, and the traffic.

“Everything's so gigantic,” Butterfly said, sticking her head out and looking straight up at a towering building. “It's beautiful,” she cried.

“Someday, Butterfly, your name's going to be up there in lights,” I said. “And Raven will sing on a stage here.”

“And what about you?” Crystal asked.

“I'll own one of the theaters,” I said. Everyone laughed, and then jumped when we heard a loud rap on the side of the station wagon.

A tall policeman stepped up to the car.

“And what do you think you're doing?” he asked. He leaned down, looked in at all of us and then stood up and squinted at me.

Oh no, I thought. If he asks for my license and registration, it's all over. All we would have accomplished was a ride to New York City.

“We just wanted to see the city at night, officer,” Crystal interjected. “We just came in to visit my aunt.”

“Well you can't park here. See? It says ‘No Parking or Standing.'” He pointed to the sign in front of the station wagon.