All I want to do is find that missing sparkler box, but I can’t go now because the fire department will still be there. They’ll probably have the road blocked off, and my snooping around would be totally obvious. I have to be at Shop ’n Save in an hour anyway. I’m picking up someone else’s shift to do inventory because it pays double time, so I’ll be there from 10:00 until 2:00 a.m. I decide to sneak by Amanda’s on my way home. If it’s not already too late, it’s my best shot at saving my ass.
It’s frickin’ freezing at 2:00 a.m., especially when you’re riding a bike. Not to mention that it’s also dark as hell except for the occasional pools of light from the street lamps. I roll up in front of the Carlisle house, which still has police tape cordoning off the singed area of the lawn. Otherwise, it’s pretty quiet.
I lay my bike gently on the pavement and tiptoe toward the spot I used as my staging area. I turn on the flashlight app on my phone and cast it in a low-lying arc, but there’s no empty sparkler box. Which means I’m pretty much screwed because the police probably found it and took it for evidence. And if I’m incarcerated, I’m guessing there is no way in hell Amanda Carlisle will go with me to prom.
“Looking for something?”
I practically jump out of my skin. I straighten up and shine my phone into the eyes of a girl with the craziest hair I’ve ever seen, causing her to squint and angle away from me, holding her hand up as a shield.
“Can you quit that, please? What are you trying to do, blind me?”
“Sorry,” I say and click off the light.
She looks vaguely familiar, though I can’t put a finger on why. And despite the fact that it’s almost two thirty in the morning, she is not wearing pajamas. In fact, she has on a pair of jeans and an old Pink Floyd shirt that is about two sizes too big for her. In the moonlight I can make out the graffitied, white rubber tips of her Converse. Her long, curly brown hair sticks out at all sorts of defiant angles, and she peeks at me with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen from underneath her unruly bangs.
“You’re not going to find what you’re looking for,” she tells me.
“How do you know what I’m looking for?” I ask. “And why are you walking around the neighborhood at two thirty in the morning?”
“Hmmm, I could ask you the same questions,” she says and puts a finger thoughtfully to her chin.
“I lost something. I think I might’ve left it here.” I shoot another glance around, trying to play it cool.
“What’d you lose? Maybe I can help you.”
She takes a step toward me, and I reflexively step away from her. “Why are you here?” I ask again.
“I was heading out for a jog.”
I look her over suspiciously. “At this hour? You’re wearing jeans.”
“I didn’t know there was a dress code. Look, do you want my help or not?”
“Not. I’m good. Enjoy your run. Thanks though.” I give her a little wave, hoping she will take the hint and be on her way, but instead she crosses her arms and stares at me.
“You’re Hank Kirby, right?”
My back stiffens. “How do you know my name?”
“I know who you are. I’ve seen you around.” She smiles. “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”
This girl is starting to creep me the hell out.
“What do you mean ‘come back’?” I ask nervously. What if she’s a serial killer? What if she’s about to chop me into bits, divide me into a bunch of garbage bags, and toss me in the county dump alongside a bunch of rotting produce and stained, saggy mattresses? I can’t die a virgin.
She reaches behind her and I panic. This is it. She’s going for her knife. I start to back away, but she’s looking at me with this confused expression. When her hand comes around, she’s not holding a knife at all.
She’s holding a box of sparklers.
My box of sparklers.
She’s seen me. She must know what happened, that I’m responsible. I’m totally screwed. Oh God. Who has she told?
“Impressive,” she says as she places the box in my hand. I quickly shove it into my back pocket and pull my sweatshirt over it to make sure it’s completely hidden from view. “Too bad it didn’t burn the place down. That would have been beautiful. Lord knows I’ve thought about it a thousand times myself.”
Now I’m the one looking at her like she’s whack-a-doodle. “What are you talking about? I didn’t try to burn down her house. I was trying to ask her to prom. Jesus. You didn’t tell anyone that, did you? Does anybody know you found this?”
“Prom? That’s disappointing. And also slightly pathetic,” she says with a smirk and scoops that mane of hers up into a ponytail, twisting a hair band around so it looks as if a small poodle is hanging off the back of her head. “And no, I didn’t tell anyone. Your secret is safe with me.”
I don’t know who this chick is or what her deal is, but I do know that hanging around chitchatting in front of Amanda Carlisle’s house at 2:30 a.m. with an empty box of sparklers in my back pocket is probably not a stellar idea. I dart past her, pick up my bike, and swing my leg over it, angling myself in the direction of home. “Well, thanks. I better get going. See ya.”
She shakes her head and bites at her lip. “Don’t you even want to know my name?”
I shoot a glance down the road. A pair of headlights appears in the distance. Time to go. “Uh…sure.”
“It’s Peyton.”
“Yeah, well, I’ll see ya ’round, Peyton,” I say and push off. I don’t wait for her to say good-bye, and halfway home I start to feel like a jerk about that. I mean, the girl saved my ass. She could have handed that box over to the police, or even to Amanda Carlisle.
The more distance I put between us, the more questions I have. Who the hell is this girl and how does she know my name? Why did she save my box of sparklers? And how do I find her again? I have no idea what she wants from me.
It’s like my entire life flipped upside down when she gave me that box. Suddenly, my fate is in this chick’s hands. Why did she protect me like that? And what if she decides to stop?
For the third time in six hours, I flip my bike around and pedal furiously toward Amanda Carlisle’s house. If I don’t find Peyton, I’m gonna spend the foreseeable future worried that she might share what she knows.
Amanda’s street is empty, with no sign that we were ever here. I know I didn’t imagine Peyton because the corners of that box dig into my spine as I pedal, but there’s not as much as a light on in a neighboring house, not a single jogger in sight. I’m pretty certain her jogging story was a load of crap, but just to be safe I pedal up and down a few streets on the chance that I’ll see her.
Zip. Nada.
I better get my ass back before Dad wakes up for his shift and discovers I’m gone. I race home and stash the empty sparkler box with the others behind my bin of old comic books underneath my bed, then grab an Avengers T-shirt and faded pair of jeans that are lying on the floor. I sniff to see if they’re tolerable, since I haven’t done laundry in a while. Not too ripe.
I’m about to head downstairs when I realize that being up and ready might arouse suspicion, especially if I stumble in while Dad is nursing his morning coffee, adding the shot of whiskey that he thinks no one notices. Of course, if he’d seen me sneaking in, he probably would have assumed I was out somewhere getting laid. That would make him happy, no doubt. Then again, we’d lose half of our source of conversation: him asking me if I’m getting any, me telling him “not that I’m aware of,” him giving me the list of why I’m repellent to the opposite sex.
Better to crawl back under the covers and wait it out. I try to close my eyes, but my brain is racing, processing everything that’s happened since last night.
As soon as the clock turns to seven, I’m out of bed like a shot, flying down the stairs two at a time and out the door, letting the screen door slam with a fwap! behind me. I have to find Peyton. I pedal to school like my life depends on it, and for all I know, it does.