I was back in the bus station, on the phone, breathing in diesel again, trying to be invisible. Now that my bank card had been used in Toronto, I knew that if the police were looking for me, they would soon find me here. And the bus station was just the kind of place they’d look. A soupy male voice over the phone was saying “... press threee. For student fares, press fourrr ...” I pressed four.
“The one-way student fare from To-ront!-to to K-I-N-G-S-T-O-N is … sixty-six ninety—” I hung up on the recorded message. I felt sick. So far today, I’d had nothing to eat or even more than water to drink. I had to get out of Toronto, and fast. I didn’t dare run the risk of hitchhiking—I’d be sure to be picked up by a cop—now that they could be looking for me, and looking in the right place, too. I went out to where the buses were waiting for passengers and sat down. I pulled out my fairly dog-eared map and tried to think what to do. Could there be another city in the same direction, maybe one that was twenty-five dollars away? I could figure out how to get the forty-one dollars further when I got there. At least I’d be away from Toronto.
Under the map, there was a somewhat misshapen chocolate bar, one of the last three from the ones I’d bought from Paula. This Saturday was Paula’s party. I wondered if Brian would go. It all seemed so distant, like another world. I realized that I must have been missed from school by now—it was Tuesday. I wondered if Paula noticed. I was hardly ever away from school, since I’m practically never sick, so for me to be away for two days might make people wonder. Or maybe people knew I was gone. I still couldn’t decide for sure whether my father would have called the police, but now I thought he probably would have had to. Once he’d spoken to Brian’s father, Brian’s father would know I was gone, so he would have had to act normal, and normal was calling the police. Unless he’d noticed the picture was missing. Then he’d know. I felt sicker.
The chocolate bar wasn’t much of a breakfast, but I couldn’t afford to part with any of Pilot’s money until I knew what I was going to do. On the map, I saw that Belleville was the next closest big place to Kingston—it looked to be about forty or fifty miles from there. I went back inside and called the bus station from itself again. It seemed weird, but I didn’t want to draw attention to myself by going up to the counter over and over. At least Moth had so kindly left me the change in my pockets. I felt a flash of anger, and I wasn’t so sure I wasn’t madder at myself for being so stupid than at her.
Amazingly, the one-way student ticket to Belleville was only $27.50, which didn’t make any sense, since it was most of the way to Kingston, but I pressed the star key to hear the message again, and it seemed to be right. I dug through my pockets and pack, but only found sixty cents, so I still needed a dollar ninety and, even then, I wouldn’t get anything to eat. And I’d need to have some money for after Belleville, because I’d still be fifty miles away from my goal. And even when I got to Kingston, who knew what would happen next?
A trickle of nerves ran down my throat to my stomach. When I got to Kingston. Suddenly, I was facing what I had done, what I was doing, and I was scared. Who knew what would happen next?
I stepped out of the bus station, the opposite way to the way I had gone the first night. There seemed to be a busy street and a shopping mall that way, and I started in that direction. When I got to the major street, it was crazy busy. Not just cars and pedestrians and cyclists, but a ticket booth, a guy selling hot dogs, a guy on one of those old-folks scooters covered in signs, ringing a bell. There was a guitarist singing and playing for money (and he looked like he had a lot in his guitar case, too). A couple of kids that looked like they might know Moth and Pilot, huddled together as if they were cold, with dead-white skin, staring ahead with blank eyes. Two teenaged girls, giggling too loud, smoking cigarettes. Shouldn’t they be in school? Somebody walking by the guitar guy dropped a heavy-sounding coin in his case. Probably a dollar coin, the one they called a “loonie,” of all things. Two of those and I could buy my ticket. And that was when I got my idea.
I crossed the street to be away from the guitar player. I tore a poster off a lamppost it had been taped to and fished in my bag for Beatrice’s pen. I wrote BUS MONEY in big outline letters on the paper, and colored them in a little with diagonal lines so people could see them. With my Rangers cap on the sidewalk in front of me, the sign taped to it with a bit of the tape from the poster, I pulled out Claire’s harmonica.
I began playing “Old MacDonald.” I was doing not too badly. Okay, actually, I was pretty bad, missed the timing a bit, but got most of the notes, except for the one where there would have been the word “duck” or something. It came out a bit quack-like. I pressed on. “With a—” and that’s when I became brilliant. I did the “quack” notes on the “quack-quack here” part. A lady walking by smiled and dropped a quarter into my hat. I nodded my thanks.
I played it again. This time, I tried to make a low “moo” sound in the proper places. I got fifty more cents. All right!
Round and round I played the same song, over and over, trying different funny sounds. I got better and better as I went, finding the notes, controlling my breathing. Nickels, quarters, a few pennies, one loonie. After almost an hour, I was pretty exhausted and I paused, glancing into my hat. There weren’t that many coins in the hat, but to me, it looked like pirate’s treasure. I counted it. Ten dollars and ninety-three cents. Enough for the bus ticket and—quick calculation with Beatrice’s pen—and nine dollars and three cents left over. So I could get to Belleville. And I could eat. Thank you, Claire.
The bus didn’t go until early afternoon, and I was so hungry I thought I’d puke if I didn’t eat, so I went into the shopping mall. There was bound to be a food court, and they usually had something cheap.
I ended up with a bagel and cream cheese and a glass of water—a real no-color lunch that cost me $1.80 ($7.23 left), though at least there was a piece of pickle with it. I wondered if it counted as something green, but I really didn’t care. I just wanted to get on that bus to Belleville and out of Toronto.
There were a lot of teenagers hanging around the food court and they were nothing like Moth and her friends, so I realized maybe Toronto wasn’t as weird as I had thought. These were regular kids, probably on lunch from some nearby high school, wearing team jackets and baseball hats, regular jeans and T-shirts. Anyone just looking at me wouldn’t even know I wasn’t just some ordinary local kid. Except that I looked at my watch every twenty-three seconds. Finally, it was time to get the bus.
I bought my own ticket this time, in spite of the chance of being recognized if they came looking for me. There was no way I was trusting my precious money out of my sight for a second.
I really hoped no one would sit beside me—I just couldn’t face making up some story for some new person, holding all the details in my head, and, for once, I got my wish. I smiled—sort of. Maybe Moth had granted my third wish after all.
The bus pulled out without me having been clapped in irons (who was I—Long John Silver?), and I finally relaxed a little. The little bit of a high I was on after earning my bus fare on my own had worn off as I realized I was still really in a jam. I thought about Moth. And Pilot. And the money. And everything that had happened. I felt so confused. Had Moth set out to rob me, right from the beginning? It seemed like it, if Pilot was telling the truth. And why wouldn’t Pilot tell the truth? So what was real and what was fake? Her cheering me on at the baseball game, the crying, the kiss, the welcome to live on the boat, buying the squeegee—which, I now realized, had to have been an act because she knew I didn’t have the money any more. And yet, Pilot said she liked me—so why would she do a thing like that to me? And what about Pilot? How much had he known all along? And how on earth could he have found $25 and not want me to know how if it wasn’t stolen? Maybe he sold something. Probably.
Oh, what was the use in going over this? Everything was a mess. I was practically out of money, with a ticket only partway to where I was going, no plan, the police almost certainly aware of where I was. If only there was some way I could find out what was going on at home, call Brian or something. But if the police were involved, they’d have the lines traced for sure. And how was I going to get from Belleville to Kingston?
It was exhausting, and I hadn’t slept much last night. As the city slipped away behind us, as I started to slide into sleep, I suddenly had the answer. I had slept through Indianapolis and I hadn’t got caught. I could just “sleep” through Belleville—Kingston was bound to be the next stop.
Yeah, yeah, I hadn’t forgotten. Every time I stole a ride, I lost my money. But this time, I wasn’t letting the money out of my sight. And, yes, I also knew it was wrong to steal. But I couldn’t help it. It wasn’t like Moth. Was it?
I turned my mind away from the thought and fell asleep.