"That's okay." He stuffed the newspaper into his backpack. "Mom, can I borrow your camera?"
"Well…"
"For a class," Roy added, wincing inwardly at the lie. "I'll be real careful, I promise."
"All right. I don't see why not."
Roy carefully packed the digital camera among his books, gave his mother a hug, waved to his father, and streaked out the door. He jogged past his regular bus stop and kept going, all the way to the one on West Oriole, Beatrice Leep's street. None of the other Trace Middle kids had arrived yet, so Roy ran to Beatrice's house and waited on the front sidewalk.
He tried to cook up a good excuse for being there, in case Lonna or Leon noticed him. It was Beatrice who finally came out the front door, and Roy ran up so fast that he nearly knocked her down.
"What happened to you yesterday? Where's your brother? Did you see the paper this morning? Did you-"
She slapped a hand over his mouth.
"Easy, cowgirl," she said. "Let's go wait for the bus. We'll talk on the way."
As Roy suspected, Beatrice had not broken a tooth falling down the steps. She'd broken it while biting a ring off one of her stepmother's toes.
The ring was made from a small topaz charm that Beatrice's mother had left behind when she moved away. Lonna had pilfered the stone from Leon Leep's sock drawer and had gotten it made into a snazzy toe ring for herself.
Beatrice had taken exception to the theft.
"If my old man wanted Lonna to have it, he woulda given it to her," she growled.
"So you gnawed it off her toe? How?" Roy was astounded.
"Wasn't easy."
Beatrice made a chimpanzee face and pointed at a sharp stump where one of her incisor teeth used to be. "Broke the tip off. They're gonna make me a fake one so it looks like brand-new," she explained. "Good thing my old man has dental insurance."
"She was awake when you did this?"
"Yeah," said Beatrice, "but she probably wishes she wasn't. Anyway, tell me what was in the paper this morning that got you all freaked out."
She groaned when Roy showed her the advertisement for the Mother Paula's groundbreaking extravaganza. "Just what the world needs-another pancake joint."
"Where's your brother?" Roy asked. "You think he's heard about this?"
Beatrice said she hadn't seen Mullet Fingers since Sunday. "That's when the you-know-what hit the fan. He was hiding in the garage, waitin' for me to get him some clean shirts, when my dad walked out for another case of Mountain Dew. The two of 'em were just standing around talkin', perfectly friendly, when Lonna shows up and pitches a major hissy."
"What happened then?" Roy said.
"He ran off like a scalded dog. Meantime, Lonna and my old man get into this humongous fight-"
"The one you told me about."
"Right," said Beatrice. "Dad wants my brother to come back and live with us again, but Lonna says no way, Jose, he's a bad seed. What the heck does that mean, Tex? 'Bad seed.' Anyway, they're still not speakin' to each other, Lonna and my dad. The whole house feels like it's about to explode."
To Roy, Beatrice's situation sounded like a living nightmare. "Need a place to hide out?" he asked.
"That's okay. Dad says he feels better when I'm around." Beatrice laughed. "Lonna told him I'm 'dangerous and crazy.' She might be half right."
When they got to the bus stop, Beatrice hooked up with one of her soccer teammates and they started talking about the previous night's game, which Beatrice had won with a penalty kick. Roy held back and didn't say much, though he felt the curious stares from other kids. He was, after all, the boy who had defied Dana Matherson and survived.
He was surprised when Beatrice Leep ditched her teammates and sat next to him on the bus.
"Lemme see that newspaper again," she whispered.
As she studied the Mother Paula's advertisement, she said, "We've got two choices, Tex. We either tell him, or we don't."
"I say we do more than just tell him."
"Join him, you mean. Like you said the other night."
"It's them against him. All alone, he doesn't have a chance," Roy said.
"For sure. But we could all three of us end up in juvie hall."
"Not if we're cool about it."
Beatrice eyed him curiously. "You got a plan, Eberhardt?"
Roy took his mother's camera out of the backpack and showed it to Beatrice. "I'm listening," she said. So Roy told her.
He missed homeroom because he was summoned to vice-principal's office.
The long, lonesome hair on Miss Hennepin's upper lip was even curlier and shinier than the last time Roy had seen her. Oddly, the hair was now golden blond in color, instead of jet-black as before. Was it possible that Miss Hennepin had dyed it? Roy wondered.
"We've been informed that a young man fled from the hospital emergency room Friday night," she was saying, "a young man who was registered falsely under your identity. What can you tell me about that, Mr. Eberhardt?"
"I don't even know his real name," Roy said flatly. Mullet Fingers had been wise not to reveal it; not knowing had saved Roy from telling another lie.
"You seriously expect me to believe that?"
"Honest, Miss Hennepin."
"Is he a student here at Trace Middle?"
"No, ma'am," said Roy.
The vice-principal was visibly disappointed. Obviously she'd hoped to claim jurisdiction over the missing runaway.
"Then where does your nameless friend attend school, Mr. Eberhardt?"
Here goes, Roy thought. "I think he travels a lot, Miss Hennepin."
"Then he's home-schooled?"
"You could say that."
Miss Hennepin peered narrowly at Roy. With a gaunt forefinger she stroked the lustrous strand above her mouth. Roy shivered in disgust.
"Mr. Eberhardt, it's illegal for a boy your age not to be in school. The offense is called truancy."
"Oh, I know."
"Then you might wish to inform your fleet-footed friend of that fact," the vice-principal said acidly. "Are you aware that the school district has special police who go out searching for truants? They're very good at their jobs, I assure you."
Roy didn't think the truancy police would have an easy time tracking Mullet Fingers through the woods and mangroves, but the possibility made him anxious, anyway. What if they had bloodhounds and helicopters?
Miss Hennepin edged closer, craning her stringy neck like a buzzard. "You let him use your name at the hospital, didn't you, Mr. Eberhardt? You allowed this delinquent to borrow your identity for his own shady purposes."
"He got bit by some bad dogs. He needed a doctor."
"And you expect me to believe that's all there is to the story? Seriously?"
Roy could only shrug in surrender. "Can I go now?"
"Until we speak again on this subject, you and I," Miss Hennepin said. "I know when I smell a rat."
Yeah, thought Roy, that's because you're growing one on your lip.
At lunchtime he borrowed Garrett's bicycle and set out for the junkyard. Nobody saw him go, which was fortunate; it was strictly against the rules for kids to leave the school grounds without a note.
Beatrice's stepbrother was napping when Roy burst into the Jo-Jo's ice-cream truck. Shirtless and mosquito-bitten, the boy wriggled out of the sleeping bag and took the newspaper from Roy's hands.
Roy had expected an emotional reaction to the news of the groundbreaking ceremony, but Mullet Fingers remained surprisingly calm, almost as if he'd been expecting it. He carefully tore out the Mother Paula's advertisement and examined it as if it were a treasure map.
"Noon, huh?" he murmured quietly.
"That's only twenty-four hours from now," Roy said. "What are we going to do?"
"We who?"
"You, me, and Beatrice."
"Forget about it, man. I'm not draggin' you two into the middle of this mess."