The Home

NINE

Figured it wouldn't last.

Yard Time had been nice, and Freeman was able to score a good spot on the rocks, bathing in the sun with his eyes closed. He was surprised the kids were allowed near the lake since it might prove tempting to the potential suicide cases among them. Many of the kids had broken into groups near the main building. The shouts and rubbery thuds of a soccer match rose from the lawn.

Freeman opened one eye against the orange blaze of sundown. The mountains huddled like great beasts around the group home. Farms and pastures stretched beyond the fence to the base of the rocky slopes, giving Freeman a sense of unease, as if with two leaps the mountains would be on him, with no trees in the way to slow them down. He hoped he wasn't developing a case of agoraphobia to go along with his other problems.

Deke and his goon squad were hanging out in a worn spot amid the shrubbery, by the fence at the rear of the property. A gray thread of smoke spun from the shadows, either tobacco or marijuana. Deke probably had a steady supply of contraband, yet another way to maintain his throne and win tribute and loyalty from his dimwitted subjects.

"A penny for your thoughts," came a voice below him. A girl's.

Vicky.

Freeman's breath caught in his lungs, as if he had inhaled one of the high clouds. His pulse jumped in his wrists and his scar itched. He snapped his eye shut and wondered if he should pretend to be asleep.

"How about a dime?" she said.

Freeman blinked and sat up, feigning drowsiness. She'd claimed to have ESP, and unless she had learned to lie telepathically, he couldn't ignore her forever. And he wasn't sure he wanted to. "Hi."

"You're new."

Brilliant powers of observation.

But before he could twist his mouth into a frown, their eyes met and again Freeman felt his chest expand and his heart float. Or maybe his medicine was screwing with him. "Just got in today."

"First placement?"

"Nah. I'm chronic."

She rolled her spooky, dark eyes. "Nobody's born this way."

Oh hell. She's not trying to ask me about HIM, is she? Not Dad? Quick, change the subject, change the subject, change the subject.

He thought of some of the silly come-on lines he'd seen in those after-school specials that group homes loved to pipe in. What are you doing after the game? What's your cat's name? How was your summer vacation? None of them seemed to fit. Freeman had yet to see a heartwarming treat for the whole television viewing family that featured a bunch of caged mental fuck-ups.

"Maybe we get born with some of it," he finally said.

"Yeah. Believe it or not, I hear I was a chubby baby." She played with a dead leaf, running her finger over its veins, then over the veins on the back of her hand. Freeman had never so plainly seen the inner mechanics of a hand. Her knuckles were knots, her nails too large for the scant flesh of her fingertips.

Let's not talk about our problems. That's Rule Number One for faking sanity and normality. And the faster you can fool them into thinking you 're normal, the faster you can get the hell out of Dodge. Because there's got to be a place out there where people aren't trying to crack open your skull twenty-five hours a day and probe it with their microscopes and questions. Second chances, no matter what Mom used to say.

Mindless chatter was way easier than talking about the real stuff, so he tried the obvious. "How long you been at Wendover?"

"Six months. Or two hundred years, depending on whether you're talking the calendar or how long it really feels like."

"I've been to worse. Just came up from Durham Academy. Two weeks before my transfer, a seven year old got gutted with a plastic knife."

"Harsh. We don't have that kind of thing here. But we have other stuff to worry about."

Freeman wasn't sure what would play better, De Niro in The Last Tycoon or Eastwood in The Bridges of Madison County. And he still wasn't sure if he wanted to get to know her. He'd already sworn off being Defender of the Weak, and Vicky looked pretty damned weak. "There's always something to worry about, if you look hard enough."

"That's what Starlene says," Vicky said. "About worrying. Says God doesn't send you anything you can't handle. It's easy for her, though. She's on a Jesus kick that makes Franklin Graham look like a hopeless heathen by comparison. And she has way better hair."

Freeman rolled up on one elbow. Vicky sat cross-legged on one of the gray-blue boulders. She looked across the lake, her face blank, as if she'd already forgotten her last statement and could care less about his response.

"I like Starlene okay," Freeman said. "She doesn't seem as weird as the others."

"Oh, she's nice, I guess. I just don't like people trying to solve my problems for me."

"Me, either."

"You don't look like you have any problems. Despite your little act."

Freeman didn't know whether or not to take that as a compliment. "I'll tell you who creeps me out-Bondurant"

"Good old Bondo-brain."

"He looks like a lizard."

Vicky's eyebrows lifted and a smile played at the corners of her bloodless lips. "Definite reptile material."

Freeman flicked his tongue out, a cross between Bondurant's nervous mannerism and a frog going for a dragonfly. Vicky laughed, and the laughter was like music, a melody in counterpoint to the wind in the trees and the shouts from the games. Freeman felt something was wrong, that he was falling from a great height. Then he realized what it was: he'd come terribly, god-awfully close to being relaxed and carefree for a moment.

When you let down your guard, that's when they get you. Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon.

A voice came from beneath the boulder. "What's so funny, bookworm?"

It was Deke. While Freeman had been distracted, lost on floaty, happy crap, the goon squad had circled around the lake and gathered below him and Vicky. Deke gave a yellow grin, teeth stained by whatever he had been smoking.

Freeman looked back at the group of counselors. They were seated together at a picnic table beneath an oak, lost in their own concerns, salaries and off days and certification levels. Randy was making a swimming motion with his arms. Starlene slapped him gently on the shoulder. Allen nodded at the couple as if he understood.

No help there.

Vicky eased a little closer to Freeman as Deke climbed the boulder. "Getting you a little sugar, bookworm?" the fat boy said. "Smoochie smoochie with the Vomit Queen?"

Freeman saw two escape routes: dive into the lake, which was probably ice-cold even if he didn't break his neck trying the ten feet to the water, or roll off the back of the boulder and make a run for it. Even if he made it, what would happen to Vicky? His muscles tensed as he realized that once again he'd been drafted as a goddamned miserable Defender of the Weak.

Army Jacket and another of the goons were behind Freeman now. He'd hesitated too long. That meant he'd have to rely on his wits again. Outsmarting Deke, though it was hardly a challenge, was getting old pretty quickly.

"How did you like the book?" Freeman said. Vicky was practically touching him now.

Deke stood above the two of them, hands on his hips. "You didn't snag that from Bondo's office. You're a lying dork."

"You're entitled to your opinion, based on information and belief. And it's healthy for your self-image to freely express yourself."

"What the frig? Why are you talking like a counselor all of a sudden?"

"I want to help you, Reginald."

"My name's not Reginald."

Freeman rose to a kneeling position. He could feel Vicky's eyes on him. "And how long have you been experiencing this latent hostility?"

Deke nudged Freeman with his foot. "I ain't got no latent nothing."

"It's okay, Reginald. Own your feelings. Let it out."

Deke's cheeks turned pink. He clenched his fists, knowing his audience would expect a harsh response. "I'm going to pound you back to wherever you came from, dipshit."

Freeman talked fast, before the fist descended. "You wouldn't resort to violence in front of a lady, would you? What does that reveal about your upbringing? What would your mother say?"

"Keep that bitch out of this, or I'll-"

"Ah. So you're using Vicky as a surrogate for your mother, and you hope you can win her affection by proving your mettle in battle." A tendril of sweat snaked down Freeman's neck. He hoped none of the goons noticed. He kept his face as blank as he could, as blank as that weird janitor guy's. What would Clint do? When he didn't have a gun, that was?

"You think I care about this hunk of bones?" Deke unclenched one fist and waved the fingers at Vicky. "I don't like girls who puke after every meal."

"If a girl was with you, she'd need to puke anyway," Vicky said. Freeman risked taking his eyes off Deke for a second to glance at Vicky. Her eyes flashed anger. To Freeman, she said, "Thanks for dragging me into this, Steve."

"My name's not Steve," Freeman said.

"Hey, wait a second," Army Jacket said. "I thought his name was 'Theodore' or something faggy like that."

"Shut the hell up," Deke said. "Let me do the talking around here."

"That's right, Reginald," Freeman said. "Learn to open up. Your feelings matter. Share with us. Now gift us with that winning smile, and burn us with optimism's flames."

Deke looked uncertainly toward the counselors grouped far away at the picnic table. "They spoon-fed you a heap of this crap, ain't they?"

'Think positive."

"You're weird, man."

"I'm weird? You're standing on a rock surrounded by a half-dozen kids you need to impress, you're trying to intimidate a guy you've never met before today and a girl who's a third your weight, you're probably fifteen and still in a juvie placement at an age when most of your buddies on the outside are working toward hard time, you have serious control issues, and probably an Oedipus complex waiting in the wings. And you say I'm the weird one." Freeman let out a fake sigh of exasperation. "Reginald, old chap, I've got a lot of work to do on you."

"I'm not fucking Reginald. My name's Deke."

Freeman held up his palms in resignation, shrugging at the goons. "Let's take the road to healing one step at a time."

"The only stepping I'm going to do is all over your face."

"Sadistic tendencies," he said to Vicky, as if consulting her for a medical opinion.

"And I concur on the Oedipus complex," she said.

"Hey, if I wanted to eda… to eda… if I wanted to do it to you, barf-brains, I'd have you begging for it in no time," Deke said to her.

"Erectile dysfunction," she said. "Premature ejaculate. Incipient impotency."

Some of the goons were grinning now, scratching their baby stubble. Army Jacket said, "I think she's talking about your wing-wang."

"Most certainly," she said. "I'm sure it's a specimen to rival Michelangelo's David in sheer phallic volumi-nosity."

"Like you'd ever get to find out," Deke said. His face was redder now, the color of the sun on the lake. He was breathing hard.

"I'm curious," Vicky said.

Freeman wondered how far she was willing to go. It was one thing to run intellectual circles around Deke, but if you started hitting below the belt, he might turn dangerous.

"Show her, man," said Army Jacket.

"Unzip," said another of the goons. A couple of others took up the chant.

Deke looked over at the counselors again, this time in desperation. Suddenly the bell rang, and the shouts from the playground turned into disappointed groans and then silence.

Deke tugged at his waistband. "You got lucky, baby," he said to Vicky.

She rolled her eyes and said nothing.

"Let's get out of here before she pukes or something," Deke said. The goons followed their leader off the rocks and toward the main building. A couple of the goons glanced back at Vicky with looks of veiled appraisal.

"Well-played," Freeman said.

"You could have been more clever."

"I ran out of big words."

"Maybe I'll loan you a few, next time. My name's Vicky."

"I know. Did I mention I'm perceptive?"

"Perceptive enough to know how I figured out your name?"

"Let me guess. You read my mind."

Vicky stood and touched him on the forehead. "Nah. That's one place I don't think I want to go again."

She skipped down the slope of the boulder and headed across the grounds. Freeman was going to have to change his opinion of her: as slight and skinny as she was, she definitely wasn't one of the Weak.