Dead Ends (16 page)

The woman peered at Billy for a moment, then she threw her head back and laughed in a deep, raspy roar.

“Oh, heavens, yes, I know her.” She weaved through the stands of carrots and blueberries toward Billy. For a second, I thought she was going to hug him, but she only gripped his shoulders in both of her hands. “Let me look at you. Part Molly May, part Paul Drum. You are a sight, for certain.”

Billy's eyes widened. “You know my dad, too?”

I shrank back into the tables piled high with food, so I could watch without staring. I would have been more subtle, but Billy's put-it-out-there approach was apparently getting results. I picked up a purple-and-yellow squash, pretending to study its freshness.

“'Course I know them,” the woman said, stepping back from Billy and leaning against a stack of heavy crates. “They worked right here in my store.”

I glanced around at the dirt floor and rickety wooden tables. The whole thing looked more like a tent than a store, but I kept my nose buried in the squash and said nothing.

“Name's June.” She stuck a hand out to Billy. “But you can call me June Bug. Everybody does.”

Billy took her hand, and she shook so hard, his arm looked like it would wobble right off his body. “I'm Billy D.”

The woman tossed her crazy head of hair. “Can't believe your momma and daddy would be back in town and not come in to say hello. Lost touch with 'em a few years back, but we did correspond for quite a long time. Doesn't seem right they don't come in.”

“We live in Columbia.” Billy finally found his voice. “Just me and Mom.”

June Bug's voice softened. “Ah. I see. That's too bad. Well, good to have her home. Big deal when Molly May and Paul Drum up and married and moved.”

Billy climbed onto a long, large pallet of wood and leaned his elbows on his knees, drinking in June Bug's words.

“Always thought your momma belonged in a small town,” June Bug said. She twisted her face as though deciding what to say next. It made her mouth look even more crooked. “But a tiny place like this just couldn't contain your daddy's big personality. Not the type to stay still anywhere, in fact. Not surprised he's up and run off on y'all. Sorry to hear it, but not surprised.”

Billy didn't bother to correct who ran off on whom. He was too lit up at the mention of his dad. He leaned so far forward, I
thought he might fall off the wood pallet, but he only teetered on the edge. “Do you know where he is?”

“Your daddy?” June Bug waved a hand. “Sorry, honey, but I sure don't. I was always a little bit closer to your momma, to tell you the truth. Your daddy could be charming sometimes with all that—what do you call it?—
charisma
. But other times he just got right down to brooding. Like your friend there.”

She whipped her head suddenly in my direction, and I flinched, surprised she remembered I was there. She flashed that one-sided smile at me, then turned back to Billy.

“I guess that's just teenagers for you. No offense meant.” She tossed the last comment back at me.

“None taken,” I said. Then I went back to inspecting my squash, hoping to disappear from the conversation again.

“So you don't know how to find him?” Billy pressed June Bug.

“Oh, honey. If you and your momma don't know, I surely don't. Your daddy always wanted to live in far-off places—places people had never even heard of. And he wanted to live in them
all
. He used to fret all the time about getting stuck in Missouri. He got real down about his prospects sometimes, but I always told him, ‘don't give up.' The surest way to get stuck is to give up. I told 'em both that, your momma and daddy. If you never give up, you never fail.”

I looked up from the squash I was sniffing. “What was that?”

She twisted her head to look at me and repeated, “Never give up. Never fail.”

“Neverfail,” Billy echoed. “That's the name of a town. My dad told me about it.”

I dropped the squash.

“Billy D.,” I said slowly, “it's the name of a
town
?”

“Yeah, it's in … I can't remember. It's on one of my maps.”

I moved to stand in front of Billy, to catch his eye, and stressed again, “It's a
town
… on your
map
.”

Billy tipped his head to one side. “You're being weird.”

“And you're being dense,” I said. “Neverfail is a town. And it's
what happens when you don't give up
.”

Finally, I saw understanding flood Billy's face. “We have to go,” he announced. He hopped off the pallet and waved at June Bug. “Thanks. Bye.”

“Uh, sorry—” I stammered. “He, um, just remembered he has to be somewhere.”

June Bug's eyes narrowed in a shrewd expression. “Uh-huh. Well, let me pack you boys a snack for the road. Billy D., what kind of fruit do you like?”

Billy was clearly anxious to get back on the hunt, but his stomach must have been growling, because he let June Bug show him around the stand. He pointed out his favorites, and she stuffed them all into a brown paper bag. She wrote her number on the bag, and Billy tore off a piece and put his own number down on the brown paper. In his hurry, his handwriting was messier than usual, and I doubted she'd be able to make out the numbers.

“Call me if you see my dad,” he said as he pressed the paper into her hand.

June Bug agreed with a sad smile, and she made Billy promise in turn to tell his mom she said hello—a promise I knew Billy couldn't keep if he wanted his search to stay secret. Then June Bug cupped her hands around Billy's face—around the wide cheeks, heavy eyelids, and protruding tongue that told the world Billy was different.

“It made my day, getting to meet you. You look just like your daddy.”

Billy opened his eyes wide. “Nobody ever told me that before.”

“Well,” June Bug said, standing up straight, “that's because nobody ever looks close enough at other people these days.”

• • • X • • •

Billy couldn't contain himself. The car doors weren't even closed when he blurted to Seely, “We figured out the clue.”

She looked up, surprised. “What is it?”

“Neverfail!” Billy said. “It's in—it's in …”

“Tennessee?” Seely offered.

“Yeah! That's it!”

I raised my eyebrows. “How'd you know?”

Seely held up the atlas, a guilty look on her face. “All the maps with clues lead to somewhere, and something leads to
them.
A puzzle and a solution on every page.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“New York and Tennessee are the only maps left that don't have solutions. But we already know New York leads to Arizona, so I figured the answer had to be in Tennessee. We've been
following the clues forward when we should have been working backward.” She dropped the atlas into my lap and put the car in gear. “Check it out.”

I flipped to Tennessee, and saw where Billy had already marked it.
Neverfail.

“See, Billy D.? You already had the answer. You just didn't know it.” Seely steered the car out of the gravel lot and onto the road.

Billy leaned forward to peer over my shoulder. He was quiet for a long while, staring at the bottom of the Tennessee map. “Where does that one go?” he asked.

Seely bit her lip. “Well …”

“If all the clues go to another map, where does that one go?” There was a tremble of excitement in Billy's voice.

“I don't know,” Seely admitted. “Maybe it points back to New York, to the beginning, like a loop—”

“It's the clue to the town.” Billy smiled. “The town where my dad is.”

“Well, we don't know—”

Billy snatched the atlas out of my lap and pulled it in close. It was a riddle we'd seen before—we'd seen them all a hundred times—but it wasn't one Billy had memorized, so his reading was slow.

“
In the place with no sh—with no sh
—” He let out a frustrated grumble and shoved the atlas back at me.

I read it out loud.

In the place with no shoes, it's neither city nor town. Your favorite and mine, plus what's paired with a frown.

“It has to be a town in New York,” Seely insisted. “That would make the clues a circle.”

“Or it's a dead end,” I said.

But Billy was staring at the heavy book in my hands, oblivious to us, and I could see it all over his face. To Billy, it wasn't a dead end at all. It was just the beginning.

“In the place with no shoes …”

“Socks?”

“You ever heard of a town called Socks?” I raised an eyebrow.

“Nah,” Billy admitted.

We were breaking down the final clue piece by piece on the way home from Seely's. We'd spent all of Saturday night and most of Sunday in her garage, tossing around ideas. Well, Seely and Billy tossed the ideas. I mostly soaked up the smells of gasoline and sawdust. The garage was fast becoming my favorite place—a place for a “guy's guy” with Seely as scenery.

“What kind of place has no shoes?” I kicked a beer can off the sidewalk into the street.

It was by far the hardest riddle yet.

Billy lifted his shoulders. “Don't know.”

“It's neither city nor town,” I recited from memory. “That's pretty obvious. It's gotta be one of your invisible places not named on the map.”

Billy nodded in agreement.

“Your favorite and mine, plus what's paired with a frown.” I looked at Billy. “What favorites do you and your dad have in common?”

Billy ticked off items on his fingers. “Chocolate ice cream, cowboy movies—” His list cut off abruptly as something stopped him in his tracks—literally.

“What's up?” I asked.

Billy didn't answer, but he raised one shaky finger to point ahead of us and to the right, across the street. I followed the line and saw the bus we sometimes rode home. It was parked at our stop, a good block away.

“That's all right. We'll just walk,” I said.

Billy shook his head.

What was with the mute act?

Then I saw it, as the bus pulled away—what he was really pointing at.

A group of guys—three of them—moving toward the bus stop from the opposite direction. One of them hopped right in front of the bus, forcing the driver to slam on the brakes, then hopped back up onto the curb, laughing hysterically.

What a jackass.

“So?” I said, turning back to Billy.

But Billy was gone. I spun in a full circle. “Billy?”

“Shh.” The whisper came from the other side of a low stone wall on my left.

I peered over the top and saw him crouched on the ground, pressed tight against the wall.

“Dude, what the hell are you doing?”

“Shh!” Billy commanded again, more fiercely this time. He motioned for me to join him.

I felt stupid climbing over the wall, but not as stupid as I did standing on the sidewalk looking like I was talking to myself.

“Billy, what is this?” I asked once I was hunched down beside him.

He put one finger on his lips and pointed another over the wall, indicating the troop of guys down the street.

“Yeah, what about them?”

I recognized the guys—seniors, all of them, but not too tough. I'd seen them in detention a few times and behind the Dairy Queen smoking pot after school. I couldn't figure out why Billy seemed so scared of …

Oh.

“That's them, huh?” I whispered.

Billy nodded, his finger still glued to his lips.

I peeked over the wall and sized the guys up. They were bigger than Billy but not that rough. I doubted they'd ever been in a real fight. “Those potheads wouldn't hurt you,” I told Billy. “They're probably too high to even swing a good punch. I bet you could take 'em.”

Billy's eyes widened. He saw the idea coming before I said it out loud.

“Hey, Billy D.! This is it—it's like your final fight. In
Karate Kid,
there's always a big scene at the end when Daniel-san—that's what Mr. Miyagi calls him—has to fight the jerks who have been picking on him—”

“Shh!”

I lowered my voice. “Sorry. But seriously, what are you afraid of? I'll be with you—oh no, wait—even better. I'll stay down here and you—”

Billy's head shook violently from side to side.

“Come on, it'll be fine. All you have to do is take out one guy. Do your head-butt. Then I'll jump out and help take care of the rest, I swear. But they have to see you knock down at least one guy—just one, so they'll know you can do it. And I'll be right here like—like a secret weapon.”

Billy's head stopped shaking, and he lowered his silencing finger.

“A secret weapon?” he whispered, intrigued.

“Yeah, just like in the movies. You want to be one of the heroes, right?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, let's see it, Billy-san.”

Billy looked up tentatively and loosened his tight huddle. “You'll be right here?”

“Right here.”

He started to stand.

Just before his head cleared the wall, I grabbed his wrist. “Remember. Just one guy.”

Billy nodded and climbed over the wall.

I crept to the edge of the wall and into the next yard, where a thick bunch of thorny bushes kept me hidden but got me closer to the action. I watched the scene through a gap between shrubs.

Billy crossed the street with some confidence, but when he hit the sidewalk, he faltered. The guys had seen him. They stopped joking with one another and stood still on the sidewalk, watching Billy. When he was within earshot, the biggest of the three called out.

“What's up, Window Licker?”

Billy stumbled a step, and I winced from my hiding place, but I relaxed when he regained his footing and kept walking toward the boys.