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"I’m sure you will," Ander muttered as he opened the driver’s-side door
The inside of his truck was immaculate It must have been thirty years old, but the dashboard shone as if it had just been hand-polished The radio was playing an old Bunk Johnson song Eureka slid up on the soft leather bench and fastened her seat belt
"I’m supposed to be back at school already," she said as Ander started up the truck "Would you step on it? It’s faster if you take the--"
"Side roads, I know" Ander turned left down a shady dirt road that Eureka thought of as her shortcut She watched as he gunned the gas, driving with fao to Evangeline High It’s on--"
"Woodvale and Hampton," Ander said "I know"
She scratched her forehead, wondering suddenly if this kid went to her school, had sat behind her in English for three years in a row or so But she knew every one of the two hundred and seventy-six people at her sht If soeline, she would more than know about hi to the laws of best friendship, Eureka would have his birthday, his favorite weekend hangout, and his license plate nuo to school? Instead of being plastered with bumper stickers or mascot paraphernalia on the dashboard, like most public school kids’ cars, Ander’s truck looked bare A si froround and featured a blue stick figure holding a spear pointed toward the ground She leaned forward to exae on both sides It smelled like citronella
"Air freshener," Ander said as Eureka breathed in a whiff "They give them out free at the car wash"
She settled back in her seat Ander didn’t even have a bag In fact, Eureka’s overstuffed purple tote spoiled the tidiness of the truck
"I’ve never seen a kid with such a spotless car Don’t you have homework?" she joked "Books?"
"I can read books," Ander said curtly
"Okay, you’re literate Sorry"
Ander frowned and turned up theas itit and cla wheel, but she could tell: the accident had shaken him up, too
"You like this kind of ray sky in front of thes" His voice was quiet, uncertain, as he took another fast turn down a gravel road Eureka glanced at her watch and noted with pleasure that she ht actually make it on time Her body wanted this run; it would help cal Dad and Rhoda, before she had to break the news about the cruda It would o back--
Her body lurched forward as Ander slammed on the brakes His arm shot across the cab of the truck to hold Eureka’s body back, the way Diana’s ar: his hand on her
The car squealed to an abrupt stop and Eureka sahy Ander had hit the brakes to avoid running over one of the plentiful fox squirrels that threaded through Louisiana trees like sunshine He seeainst the seat His fingertips pressed into the skin below her shoulder
He let his hand drop He caught his breath
Eureka’s four-year-old twin siblings had once spent an entire su to catch one of these squirrels in the backyard Eureka kne fast the anied cars twenty times a day She’d never seen anyone sla one
The ani into the windshield for an instant, as if to offer thanks Then it darted up the gray trunk of an oak tree and was gone
"Say, your brakes work after all" Eureka couldn’t stop herself "Glad the squirrel escaped with tail intact"
Ander sed and hit the gas again He stole long glances at her--unabashed, not like the guys at school, ere sneakier with their staring He see for words
"Eureka--I’m sorry"
"Take this left," she said
He was already turning left down the narrow road "No, really, I wish I could--"
"It’s just a car" She cut hie She shouldn’t have teased hi to be more cautious "They’ll fix it up at Sweet Pea’s Anyway, the car’s no big deal toon her words and she realized she sounded like a private school brat, which was not her style "Believe rateful to have my oheels It’s just, you know, it’s a car, that’s all"
"No" Ander turned down the music as they entered town and passed Neptune’s, the horrible café where Evangeline kids hung out after school She saw so sodas fro to souys with Ray-Bans and muscles She turned away from them to focus on the road They were two blocks fro toward the locker roouessed that meant she’d made up herher plans on how to change into her unifore her socks, just yank her shorts on, toss off her shirt--
"I ? They had stopped at the back entrance to the school Outside, past the parking lot, the track was shabby and old A ring of unlaned, uneven dirt surrounded a sad, brown, disused football field The cross-country team warmed up here, but their meets took place in the woods beyond the track Eureka couldn’t i around a track over and over again Coach was always trying to get her to join the relay tea track season, but as the point of running in circles, never getting anywhere?
The rest of the tea the straights of the track Coach was glaring at her clipboard, certainly wondering why she hadn’t checked Eureka’s na at two sopho in black Sharpie on the backs of their unifor when they were sophomores themselves