Small as an Elephant - Jennifer Richard Jacobson [36]
It would serve Mom right, Jack thought, but immediately regretted it.
He reached for his still-unnamed elephant. His mom was spinning, and she couldn’t be held responsible for what she did during the spinning times. Maybe he could find a way to get to the Bahamas, too. Maybe they could live there, where people wouldn’t know anything about them and wouldn’t even consider taking him away from her. They could live in a hut on the beach. Catch fish. Maybe after thinking about what she had done, she’d stay on her medication forever. (She had promised that before. Still . . .)
He thought of getting back on the computer and blasting Nina but had heard that people could be traced by their computer activity. Now that he knew they were looking for him, he wouldn’t be signing on to his YouPage again.
He had to have more time to figure things out. How could he travel without being seen? Maybe in the dark. He could travel at night now and not during the day. But the thought of walking the dark roads at night, by himself, made him shiver.
If only there was a subway in Maine, or a bus system like the Island Explorer for the rest of the state. He didn’t have money, but he could have stowed away.
There had to be a faster way to travel.
Wait a minute . . . what about a bike? There were all those bikes in the front of the store. No one would expect a missing kid to be riding a bike somewhere. Especially if he was wearing a helmet! And his identity would be well hidden beneath a helmet. He wouldn’t have to travel at night after all.
He went back out front and inspected the bikes by flashlight. There were six bikes there — two about the right size for him — and none of them were locked. Boy, things sure were different in Maine.
Light suddenly flashed into the store.
Jack ducked behind the bikes and turned his flashlight off. A car had pulled into the parking lot, and its headlights had swung into the store.
His heart threatened to leap right out of his chest.
Had someone seen him? Seen his flashlight beam and called the police? Did they think he was robbing the store?
A man got out of the car and tried the door. The rattle echoed in the building. Was it a cop? The glaring headlights made it hard to tell.
Jack held his breath; still, the flashlight shook in his left hand. At any moment he expected a voice from a bullhorn to tell him to stay where he was.
The sound of a radio — a walkie-talkie radio — came from the car. It had to be the police, didn’t it? The officer went back to the car, slammed the car door behind him. Jack lifted up his head and watched the now-visible cruiser move on.
He let out a gust of air and sat there, his head resting on his knees, until he could no longer feel his blood banging against the walls of his veins.
A dog barked in the distance.
And I was worried about eating the gummy worms, he thought. If I get caught stealing a bike, I’m going to juvie.
Was it worth it? Was stealing a bike worth the risk?
One of the things his mom always said when teachers and guidance counselors started poking into their business was, “Can’t they see what a good kid you are? Can’t they see that I’m raising you right?”
Would stealing a bike mean that Jack had proved the opposite? Maybe he was turning out to be a bad kid after all.
But what were his choices? Without the bike, he would have to walk at night. Wouldn’t that be more dangerous? He could explain, he reasoned, that with the bike, he was being smart, playing it safe — doing what his mother had taught him.
He pulled himself up and went back to the computer to figure out logistics. He hadn’t biked in a long time — not since the time he and his mother rented bikes and rode around Jamaica Pond. And that was a really easy ride. He pulled up a map of the area. He could take the Maine Turnpike home, but he remembered seeing a sign: no bikes, horses, or