And for an entire week I’d regretted taunting him, because for seven painfully long days I’d had to come home from school and play all by myself. I’d lost my best friend because I’d made fun of the way he threw.
My dad, though, had saved that ball. He said it was one of his favorite mementos. I used to think he meant because it was from our first game—his as our coach and mine as a player. But now that I thought of it, I wonder if it was more than that. I wonder if it was because of the lesson I’d learned, about how to treat those I cared about.
My dad had always been big on the power of words and respect.
“The tongue pierces deeper than the spear,” he’d told me when I’d complained about Austin’s punishment. And even though I knew he was trying to teach me some sort of lesson, all I could remember thinking was that it was too bad it wasn’t true, because how cool would it be if our tongues really were spears? First graders thought of things like that, I guess.
“We better get moving,” I told Tyler, putting the ball back. He had his own collection of things, and I appraised his findings with a dubious eye. His nose had stopped bleeding, and his toilet paper compress was gone.
“What do you think?” he asked, holding up a fanny pack by its strap. “You think your dad would mind if I kept this?”
I made a face at him. How long had my dad been holding on to that relic? “Are you kidding? You’re not seriously planning to wear that thing, are you?”
“You never know when you’ll need both hands free.” He strapped it around his waist and started filling it with the things he’d gathered: some newspaper and magazine clippings, a USB thumb drive that had been lying beneath the papers on the floor, and a CD with a handwritten 2009–2014 scrawled across it.
“This isn’t a looting mission.”
He looked meaningfully at all the junk in my hands. “Are you sure about that? Here, I bet you can fit all your stuff in this thing.” He held the pouch open for me.
“I’m not letting my stuff touch that thing. My hands work just fine. You know your nerd status just shot up like a million points, don’t you?” I didn’t tell him the real reason I wasn’t sharing space in his fanny pack, that I wasn’t planning to go with him.
He shrugged like it was no big deal, but I loved that he didn’t care that he was making a fool of himself with that ridiculous pouch.
His eyes shot skyward as his body went entirely rigid. “Shh!” The crooked grin melted from his face. “Did you hear that?” His head cocked slightly, and he strained—we both strained—to find whatever it was he thought he’d heard.
“No,” I whispered, slightly thrown by the sudden shift in his demeanor. “I don’t . . .” But I’d spoken too soon. It was there, and now, just barely and so faraway, I could hear it too. My throat ached, and I nodded this time. “We’re too late.”
The whomp-whomp-whomp sound of the approaching helicopter pounded within my chest and beat through my veins. I felt more human in that instant than I had in my entire life. More mortal. More defenseless and exposed, even within the suddenly-too-cramped walls of my father’s trailer.
“I have to go,” I said. I bundled the missing-person flier and the map and the prints of the fireflies into a roll and stuffed them into my back pocket, right next to the envelope Simon had given me.
I made my way to the front of the trailer, where it was gloomier now that the sun had set. I didn’t turn on any lights along the way. Tyler was right on my heels, following me closely, and he’d noticed my slip. “You said ‘I.’ You said ‘I have to go,’ Kyra, and I don’t care what you think, but you’re not leaving me behind.”
Reaching the front door, I pulled back the musty-smelling curtain that drooped limply over the glass and realized how useless the curtains in my dad’s crappy trailer were. They were textured. The surface of the glass was bumpy, meant for privacy rather than for visibility. He might as well have covered the windows with newspaper or tinfoil. All I could make out was the darkness beyond.
“I don’t have time to argue,” I shot back. “But you can’t go with me. Stay here and tell them this was all some sort of mix-up. That you didn’t know anything about me and what I am.” I dropped the curtain, ignoring the dust that puffed up when I did.
Tyler grabbed my arm and forced me to face him. “Kyra, stop being so stubborn.” When I opened my mouth to argue, he cut me off. “No. I mean it. You’re being stupid again, and this time not the good kind. You’re out of your mind if you think I’m not going with you.”
Bright lights filtered in through the impractical privacy windows and filled the darkened trailer, casting blurred beams along the wood-paneled walls. Others came from above, accompanied by the louder, and much closer, whomp-whomp noises of the helicopter, which was right on top of us now. They came from the window over the sink and the opaque skylight that was obscured by layers of fir needles and caked-on dirt.
I reached for Tyler’s hand, deciding that now wasn’t the time to argue over whether I would let him stay with me or not, because I didn’t think either of us was getting out of this mess anyway.
Red and blue lights washed over Tyler’s skin as his lips tightened. “Come on.” He hauled me back toward my dad’s trashed office. He ripped the curtain rod off the wall, where it had hung above the window, and pressed his face to the rough-surfaced glass. “I don’t see any lights out there. If we hurry, we might be able to slip out back before they catch us.”