Walk Me Home by Catherine Ryan Hyde Read Free Book Online Page A

there.
    “Maybe,” Carly says.
    Because it’s cold, but also because it’s more important than ever that they sleep somewhere. Because they haven’t eaten in over twenty-four hours. And Carly is running out of steam. The walking is hard with no road. And she’s upset all the way through her insides, and that’s sapped what little strength she had to begin with. But something bothers her about the school bus. It has towels or sheets or something over the back windows.
    “I think maybe somebody lives there.”
    “How could somebody live there?”
    “Same reason we’re willing to sleep there, I guess.”
    “Let’s at least go see.”
    “But if there’s somebody in there…”
    “Let’s just go a little closer.”
    Carly tries to angle around toward the front of the bus so they can look through the missing windshield. But it’s hard to see. Especially in the dusky light. They creep a little closer.
    “There’s a sheet across it on the inside, too. Somebody must be in there.”
    “I’m just going to ask.”
    “Don’t, Jen.”
    But Jen cups her hands around her mouth and calls out, “Anybody there?”
    A dog bursts out of nowhere and charges, teeth bared, barking and snarling at the same time. Filthy white with brown patches and a bib stained rusty red. Not huge but big enough. Carly can see his teeth flash in the fading light.
    She turns and tries to run but immediately catches her foot and falls flat, scraping her palms and face on the gravelly dirt. She covers her head with her arms and waits to be savaged, praying Jen got away. But though she can still hear the dog’s fury, it’s not getting any closer.
    In time she sits up and sees that Jen is standing her ground, holding one hand out in a stop sign for the dog. Talking to it.
    “I’m going,” she says. “You don’t move.” She takes a step backward, never breaking eye contact. The dog moves in a step, snarling and barking. “Ho!” Jen shouts and holds the hand out again. The dog stops moving but does not stop howling with rage and flashing its teeth.
    Go help her, Carly thinks, but she’s frozen. She just sits there in the dirt, watching Jen hold the dog at bay as she slowly backs away. To her humiliation, she thinks, Who’s the grown-up now?
    A big male voice breaks the dusk. “Chua! Shut up and get in here!”
    Silence.
    The dog shrinks, turns, slinks back toward the school bus.
    They run all the way back to the dirt road.
    By the time they manage to get there, it’s nearly full-on dark, and Carly can’t stop crying. Literally can’t stop.
    “It’s OK,” Jen says. “It’s fine. I’m OK. We’re both fine.”
    But these tears are coming out. There is no reasoning with these tears. There is no logic to which they’ll respond.
    Nearly an hour after sundown, picking their way along in the dark, they pass a property they can tell is deserted. Because it would be physically impossible to live there. The house is in pieces, its own roof having caved in on it and brought it down. In the overgrown yard is a turquoise Pontiac from the forties or fifties. A big old boat with flat tires and one cracked window.
    “We could sleep in there,” Jen says. “Carly, you can stop crying now. Are you ever going to stop crying?”
    “We could look.”
    But those are just words. She can’t bring herself to go any closer.
    Jen marches over and peers inside, then motions for Carly to come.
    “It’s perfect,” Jen says. “Great big bench seats front and back.”
    Jen opens the back door, and the metal of the body and door grind together, then snaps free with a report like a gunshot.
    Carly jumps the proverbial mile. But then she steadies herself and approaches the car.
    Jen is already bedded down on the backseat, the door wide open for Carly.
    She tries to open the front door, but it’s locked, or rusted shut, so she climbs over Jen into the front and curls in on herself, shivering and letting go. Crying as if the crying she’s been doing up