The Evolution of Alice by David Alexander Robertson Read Free Book Online Page B

her to her home.”
    “Okay, okay,” Edward said as he shut his car off.
    “Ed!” Nicole said before Edward hung up. “Just take it easy with her, okay, because she might think
you’re
a monster, you know?”
    “I’ll talk to you later,” he said.
    He hung up the phone and then, deliberately, very un-monster-like, opened the driver-side door and stepped out of the car.
    “Hello,” he said, staying right where he was, the two of them standing on opposite sides of the road. “I’m Edward. Ed.”
    The girl shuffled her feet, looked right then left, and shyly put her right hand on her left forearm.
    “I’m Kathy,” she said.
    “How are you, Kathy?” Edward said, trying his best not to sound like The Fonz.
    “I’m okay I guess,” she said.
    “You know,” he said, “if you’re going to walk on one side of the road, it’s better to walk on the side where cars are driving
toward
you, so you can see them coming. It’s safer.”
    “How will I ever get a ride if the cars going my way are on the other side of the road?”
    “Good point,” he said, “but maybe getting rides with strangers isn’t the best idea to begin with.”
    “Nobody I
know
is going to drive me where I want to go,” she said.
    “Strangers might not drive you where you want to go either, Kathy,” he said.
    Kathy picked up her bag and started to walk away in a huff.
    “I have a long way to walk, then,” she said.
    Edward thought of letting the girl go but could imagine what Nicole would say when he talked to her next.
    “Wait,” he said.
    Kathy stopped. She turned around.
    “Where are you headed? The city?” he said.
    “Alaska,” she said.
    “Alaska? Where in Alaska are you headed?”
    Kathy put her bag back onto the gravel at the side of the highway.
    “I don’t really know for sure. It doesn’t matter, though. When I get there I’m going to go farther and farther.”
    Edward looked both ways, as though it were necessary.
    “Can I come across?” he said.
    Kathy nodded. Edward walked across the highway and soon was standing beside the girl. He looked carefully at the pillowcase at her feet and tried to guess what was in it, what a 10-year-old girl would pack. He’d seen fuller pillowcases on Halloween; there couldn’t have been much in it.
    “What’s in there?” he said, motioning to the bag.
    “Just stuff I’ll need. I got some extra clothes, a book, my toothbrush, and a couple of oatmeal bars.”
    “Did you bring toothpaste?”
    She thought about it for a moment, and, with a disappointed look, shook her head.
    “What about water? You’re going to need water if you’re going to be walking very far.”
    “Not really,” she said. “I mean, no.”
    “Ahhh, well, travelling 101 is, you bring water and toothpaste. What’s in Alaska?”
    “A cousin of mine.”
    “Okay. Here’s what I think you should do, and this is just a suggestion. Why don’t I bring you back home, you can get water and toothpaste, and
then
we can talk about going to Alaska, if you still want to. Have you gone very far from home?”
    “I don’t really know. I’ve been walking for a while.”
    “Isn’t anybody looking for you? Do your parents know you’re gone?”
    “My mom would hardly notice,” she said very quietly.
    “What about your dad?” he said.
    “If I would’ve seen my mom or my
uncle
coming I would’ve hid anyway. They would’ve just got all mad.”
    “If you were my daughter, or my niece, I might be mad if you were gone, too, you know,” he said.
    “I guess so,” she said.
    They stood there at the side of the highway in silence. Kathy looked to the right for a long time, down the highway, as though she could see all the way to Alaska. Then, she looked to the left, and Edward could see she was already homesick, despite how badly she wanted to get where she was going.
    “Do you know the way home?” he said.
    She nodded.
    “Can I drive you there? It won’t take very long in the car I bet.”
    Kathy didn’t