The Revenge of the Radioactive Lady - Elizabeth Stuckey-French [108]
“Hey,” Travis said, hanging the musket back up on the wall. “Would you like a tour of the mission? We close in forty-five minutes so they won’t care if I leave my post. I’m in training to give tours. What I want to do eventually is work on the archaeological dig. They’ve found some cool stuff—pottery, bowls, tools. I’m going to FSU next year and majoring in archaeology. I’m going to get my own apartment. Have you been watching the news about Hurricane Grayson? There’s a storm warning for the entire coastline of Florida. Atlantic and Gulf coasts. First time that’s ever happened.” He started walking out of the fort, and Ava had to catch up.
Okay, so he didn’t want to talk about the Buff thing, and Ava realized she was sick of hearing about it and talking about it and thinking about it, and glad not to have to tell Travis what she didn’t want to tell anyone.
He and Ava went into the friary and then into the gorgeous church with the high thatched roof, which let in tiny beams of light, wisps of straw floating down, and the dirt floors and glowing religious paintings, then they walked over to the Indian council house. She could see why Travis liked it here so much. Up on this hill there was a touch of a breeze every now and then. And the traffic on Pensacola Street was just a faint murmur.
As she was walking around with Travis, she had three realizations, none of them directly related to what she was looking at. The first realization was that looking at the pictures and the places and imagining what went on in Mission San Luis felt like a key into a new kingdom. Re-creations of the past. She wanted to re-create the past. She wanted to immerse herself in history. The history of something. She would major in history. History, she realized, was what she cared about most. She’d been skirting around this knowledge for some time. She’d been most interested in the story of Elvis, in his history, even more than his music. She’d loved reading books about how horse breeds came to be, about the origins of foxhunting and what sort of people had gone in for it. The subjects weren’t as important to her as the stories. What sort of history she might want to study, the time period, at what college, she didn’t know yet. But she knew. History! That’s where she wanted to be. She felt something in her settle and lift at the same time.
The second realization was that she really liked Travis. She felt happy around him. Relaxed. Even today, with all the stress at home. He was cute and smart and interesting, and she wanted to go out with him. Not out-out, like going steady, but she wanted to go on a date with him and see what happened. She hadn’t had any fun dates ever. But she felt ready to try again.
The third realization wasn’t so good. It struck her that she’d been remiss in keeping her secret from her family, especially now that Suzi was in such a bad way. It wasn’t Travis she needed to tell. She needed to tell her parents. Suzi, surprisingly, hadn’t ratted on her about the naked photos, but she needed to rat on herself.
If she told her parents about her experiences with Mr. Boy and Buff, her story would add more weight to Suzi’s case. It would also get Ava into trouble, but was that such a big deal now? No, Suzi was her little sister, and she needed her help. Ava rarely got to feel like the big sister with Super Suzi as a sibling, but this would give her the chance. It would upset her parents even more, though. She hated to be the cause of more pain and conflict,