LATE ONE NIGHT AT JUPITER, I woke up with a jump. Maybe I heard a noise, I don’t know. When I looked over at Oggie’s bed, it was empty. I thought he might be in the bathroom, but the light wasn’t on in the hall. Everything was dark.
I lay still for a while listening, then I got up and went to look for him. He wasn’t anywhere upstairs. I went downstairs, but he wasn’t there, either. I began to get scared that maybe he’d run away. But where would he go? I opened the front door and took a look down the street.
The cold air hit me in the face. We’d just gone into November and temperatures had dropped into the thirties that week.
I stepped outside anyway. The street was dark. A lot of streetlights on Dyer Street are broken. The city never comes to fix them, even if you report it. Mom used to get upset when we first moved here, because back in Ansley Park there was no problem. You never even thought about streetlights. They just worked without anyone doing anything. In Ansley Park, a person could walk down the street at midnight without a worry in the world.
I breathed in little gasps of freezing air and looked up and down the street. I couldn’t see Oggie anywhere.
I went back inside and put on a coat and some shoes so I could walk around. When I came out again, I heard a motor running in the street. Nothing was out there, though, just a line of parked cars along the curb, including Mom’s heap.
The motor kept running. Every once in a while, it would rev up louder, as if someone was impatient to get moving, then it would go back to normal. I walked down the front steps and up to the chain fence. I still couldn’t see anything. All the cars were dark, no taillights, nothing.
The motor went on running and running, really close by. I couldn’t figure out where it was coming from. I began to feel spooked, as if maybe it was coming from the fifth dimension or some other weirdo, invisible place. I don’t believe in that stuff, though.
I went out through the chain fence. Now I was practically on top of the motor, but I STILL couldn’t see anything. For about a minute, I stood there, freaked. Then I saw something.
Somebody was in Mom’s car. He was sitting in the dark with the motor turned on. Only the shadowy top of his head showed. It was Oggie.
I dropped down fast and came up close to the window. He never saw me. He was sitting behind the wheel, his face a pale green in the dim dashboard lights.
He put on the left-turn blinker and turned the wheel left. He put on the right-turn blinker and turned right. He stretched his legs way down and stepped on the brake. The car kind of shuddered. He came back up then stretched down again and stepped on the accelerator, revving the motor as if he was really going somewhere.
In his mind, I could see he was. Oggie was pulling in and out of traffic, stopping at red lights, turning onto side streets. He was going up the ramp to the expressway, looking over his shoulder to see if traffic was coming. He was putting on the brakes for a slow car in front, then speeding out around it. He was going, going, out beyond the city, through the suburbs, into the country, far away from Jupiter. He was leaving us behind.
I knew I should stop him.
I should’ve opened the car door, made him turn off the motor, and ordered him inside.
Mom would’ve had a heart attack if she’d known he was out on that street by himself. Dad would’ve gone ballistic.
I didn’t do anything. I went back in the house and tiptoed upstairs to bed.
After a long while, Oggie came in and climbed in his bed. I still didn’t say anything. I pretended I was asleep. Pretty soon, he was quiet and started the slow breathing that means he’s conked out. I just lay there in the dark with my eyes wide open.
I was happy for Oggie, that’s why I didn’t stop him. From the way he was handling the car, I figured he’d been out there before, probably lots of times. It must’ve been what was making him so tired. Maybe he had dreams of leaving us all behind someday. You couldn’t blame him for that. Our family was such a mess. Or maybe he just liked being alone, in control for a change, behind the wheel of a car.
Whatever, I had to admire him. He wasn’t the kind of fighter Dad would have liked, but in his own way, he was fighting. He knew nobody was ever going to teach him to drive—to REALLY drive the way he wanted to. He knew he was too little. The only way he could learn was to get up enough steam to teach himself.
Thinking about that kind of ruined me for sleep. I got up and walked around the room a few times. I looked out the window at Dyer Street. I wished we didn’t live here. I wished we still lived in Ansley Park, where all the streetlights worked and I could go outside at night if I wanted. I felt mad and boxed in, as if I wasn’t even up to Oggie in figuring out how to fight back.
Suddenly, out of the blue—or maybe out of the brown—The Mysterious Mole People blasted into my mind. I remembered that I hadn’t written down the last part I’d told Oggie yet, the part about Amory meeting the girl investigator. That was an important turn of events. I didn’t know why yet, but I had an inkling it would lead to some hopeful developments down the line. The only way to find out what was to sit down and write. Right now! I couldn’t wait until the closet at Saturn.
I grabbed my spiral notebook and went in the bathroom.