Dark Water - Laura McNeal [66]
Just then Greenie and Hickey found us. “Can you believe this?” she said. “How’re you getting home?”
“My mom can’t leave her school until all the little kids get picked up,” I said. “So we’re waiting for Robby’s dad.”
Hickey said, “Call him and tell him I’ll take you. I’ve got my car.”
Robby thought about it for a few seconds, and then he called his dad. He said the school parking lot was a mess so it’d be faster to go with Hickey.
“I’ll meet you at Greenie’s house, then,” I heard Hoyt shouting through Robby’s phone. “The line at the gas station is getting really—hey, it’s my turn, all right? I’ll see you there.”
Forty-three
The Coombs house was chaotic. They hadn’t received an evacuation order, but they were packing both cars, anyway. Boxes of baby pictures, file folders, suitcases, and a tub of dog food sat by the front door. Greenie’s brother was packing his Star Wars action figures and Mr. Coombs was calling hotels in Las Vegas.
“You’re going all the way to Las Vegas?” I said to Greenie. It was a four-hour drive.
Greenie said, “That’s weird,” and went upstairs to find her mother.
Robby, Hickey, and I sat uneasily on the couch. The huge TV was on, and we couldn’t help watching the news, which was mostly aerial pictures of burning hills, the strange empty lanes of the closed interstate, the slow thick lines of cars moving south where the freeway was open. Clouds of smoke the size of continents rose above them. Sometimes the camera zoomed in to show fire licking at bushes and roaring out of trees, but when the newscaster talked about where the fire was moving, he identified towns and neighborhoods far away from Fallbrook. There was more than one fire burning at the same time, and the one we were watching was near San Diego.
“I don’t get it,” Robby said. “Is that the reason we’re being evacuated? That fire’s like thirty miles away.”
We watched some more, and the screen went to a map that showed a series of red dots. Each dot had a name. Each dot was a different fire. The one by Fallbrook was called “Agua Prieta.”
“There’s our fire,” Hickey said.
Agua Prieta was the creek where I’d eaten loquats with Amiel, and if the fire was burning there, he was right in its path. “All of Fallbrook is under mandatory evacuation orders,” the newscaster said.
With a sick feeling I couldn’t tell Robby or Greenie about, I went to the backyard so I could look into the canyon. The sky was a dull peach color, not blue, and the air in front of me was flecked with bits of ash. The trees in the canyon looked dry in the haze, not green but khaki, and the wind made them lean and rattle. Would Amiel know if a fire was coming? He had no television and no phone. I’d never even seen a radio.
From where I stood, I heard Greenie’s voice. “If we’re going to Las Vegas,” she asked, “can Hickey come?”
“No,” her mother said. “No! Of course not. He should go home right now. Isn’t his family worried about him?”
“Of course they’re worried about him. But he was making sure I’m okay. He brought me home first, if you didn’t notice. And Robby and Pearl.”
“I appreciate that,” Greenie’s mother said. “But he should go now. You can bring Pearl with you to Las Vegas if you want. She’s welcome.”
Greenie didn’t answer, or if she did, she’d moved too far away from the window to be heard. I walked to the edge of the yard, where a dry lilac bush clung to a rocky slope. I snapped off a sprig and crushed it easily to dust. It would only take ten or fifteen minutes to hike down to Amiel’s house and see if he was okay. Then we could walk back out together.
I heard a chugging engine, and when I turned, my uncle was pulling to a stop by the mailbox and opening his door. He started to adjust the straps that held his dirt bike upright in the truck bed, and for some reason—fear, maybe, or an awareness of how quickly I would have to act in order to hide the details of my plan from everyone—I ran toward him.
“Hi, Pearly,” he said. “You okay?”
“Yeah, I’m fine. Just a little scared.” I was shaking all over, so he hugged me.
“Well, let’s go, all