what?” I yelled back, tasting a thin layer of dust on my lips.
He shook his head. “Stop thinking about it.” Peter and Martin were the only ones I’d told, but I was pretty sure everyone on the Rez knew. Even though the Gila River Indian Reservation stretched forever in just about every direction, it was microscopic, if you know what I mean. Sometimes the biggest places could be the tiniest.
I shrugged and looked away from Peter, preferring to stare across miles of brown desert and dried tumbleweeds as if it were the most exciting scenery in the whole world.
As usual, Martin continued to drive like a maniac. Frankly, I was surprised his old man’s truck could do more than thirty-five. If the truck were a hospital patient, someone would definitely be reading it its last rites.
I turned away from Peter and focused on the wake of dust that swirled like a minitornado behind us in the darkening sky. If Peter referred to That Which Shouldn’t Be Named one more time, I was seriously thinking about ripping off a truck panel. It was bad enough that Peter even thought it. But he surprised me.
“I can’t believe you’re gonna bail on us this weekend.”
I breathed easier and looked at him. “I know. Can’t help it. My mom wants me to go.” Total lie. My parents, my dad especially, had stopped being interested in what I did at school ever since I’d started going to Lone Butte High. Not sure why, exactly. But it was better for all of us when they stayed out of my business. Besides, they both worked all the time at the casino on the Rez and Mom was studying for her master’s degree whenever she wasn’t working, so it was probably easier that they didn’t have to worry about me. One less hassle.
“Why don’t you tell her that you don’t want to go? Martin, Vernon and me, we’re gonna drive down to Coolidge. Supposed to be a fair in town or something. Maybe even a rodeo.” His eyebrows wiggled. “Maybe even hot rodeo queens.”
“You wish,” I said.
“A dude can dream. What else I got?”
I laughed. But then I dragged my tongue across my lips, tasting more dust. “Too late for me, anyway,” I said. “Already paid for it.” Another lie.
“Seriously?”
“Seriously.” What I didn’t share was that Lone Butte High School had paid my registration fee to the Maricopa County High School Leadership Conference. They’d paid the fees for the two sophomores, two juniors and two seniors with the highest GPAs. I happened to be one of the two juniors. Sucks to be the other sixty students who were invited but had to pay out of their own pockets. Now all I had to do was show up to school tomorrow morning and board the bus. It would get me to Monday and put about 250 miles of desert between me and the Rez.
“What do you want with some leadership bullshit?” Peter said. “You need someone to tell you what you already know?”
I swallowed. The truth? I really didn’t know. My guidance counselor at school, Mr. Romero, had told me about it. He’d said things like conferences and awards looked good on college applications. He’d said I had to be more of a game player, especially since there was a good chance I was going to graduate early and colleges were already starting to inquire about me. Me. Sam Tracy, the smart kid from the Rez. Unfortunately I stunk at playing games. Just give me something in black-and-white, minus the sugarcoating. Minus the doublespeak.
A part of me knew I couldn’t stay in-state, and I think Mr. Romero would just about blow a gasket if I didn’t apply to college, not when my SATs were among the highest in Arizona. Too bad that looking good on paper was more important than simply being smart enough.
I closed my eyes and tried to ignore Peter, even as he teased me for the rest of the ride about being the biggest nerd on the Rez. It was probably true.
Peter was lucky he was one of my best friends. Otherwise I would have tossed him out of the truck, which was pretty easy to do when you were my size.
3
Riley
Mom dropped me off in the Lone Butte High School parking lot early Saturday morning with my overnight bag. The sun was still rising over the horizon, bright as an orange slice. Small bonus: Mom had just gotten off her hospital shift and her red-rimmed eyes were clouded with fatigue, one of the drawbacks to being a doctor, but a major advantage when you didn’t want her to notice stuff. It helped that we had to drive into the sun. That was probably why she hadn’t commented about my fave tie-dyed pink baseball cap being tugged superlow over my forehead. I had to hide the results of Doctor Drew’s secret BOTOX concoction handiwork. I was lucky it hadn’t turned into an infection or a rash or worse. It looked like a couple of ant bites, just as Drew had warned me. She’d conveniently forgotten to tell me, though, that my forehead would feel like plastic. Whenever I wrinkled my nose, my forehead stayed as frozen as stone. Most people wouldn’t notice, but most people weren’t my mom.
“When should I pick you up?” Mom yawned as I opened the passenger door of her Mercedes. Two yellow school buses waited next to the curb, their engines idling. Students had already begun to board. I recognized a few from Lone Butte, a couple sophomores and juniors, but nobody that I knew well. Most of the ones that I didn’t recognize were from other Phoenix schools. One guy was actually wearing a cowboy hat so I figured him for Queen Creek, way out in the boondocks where people still had ranches and dairy farms. Kind of lanky-cute in a Jake Gyllenhaal way.
“Tomorrow night,” I said. “We’re supposed to be back here by six.”
“What time did your brother get home last night?” she asked, her eyes narrowing with newfound sharpness.
I pulled the rim of my cap even lower. “Not late,” I lied. “Probably around ten.” Another lie. More like midnight.
Mom smiled, just like I’d known she would. “Good. Well, have a good time. Where are you going again?”
“Woods Canyon,” I said, but the door had already shut. I had left all the brochures and information about the leadership conference on the kitchen counter, perfectly stapled and organized with pink paperclips and Post-it notes, and, seriously? She’d signed my registration form two weeks ago, so it wasn’t like she didn’t already know. I didn’t want to have this conversation with people staring at us from the bus windows. That was kind of why I didn’t wave, either. I mean, it wasn’t like she was dropping me off for my first day of kindergarten or anything.
Life would be so much better when I got my own car.
Instead, I pulled out my cell phone from my pocket and fired off a text while I walked to the bus:
The conf is @ Woods Canyon. Info on the kitchen counter. Bye. Love u.
I hoped she got the message. Mom didn’t totally get texting and hated that she had to pull out her reading glasses to see the keys. But I wasn’t going to call her when I was within spitting distance from the bus. Even though the windows were tinted, I could see the outlines of faces staring down at me and I was a little distressed to see that almost every seat, at least on the parking lot side, was taken.
Two seconds later, Mom surprised me with a reply: Okay. Have a nice time. Love you back. Always. Mom
Mom always signed her texts Mom as if I didn’t know it was her.
I reached the front of the bus and drew back
