Upside Down

23

Faith Ann slowed her bike, looked around, and realized that she had no idea where she was, or how she'd gotten there. After the police came she'd fled, just rode away as fast as she could go, paying no attention to where she was going. It had stopped raining, and her leg muscles ached. She quit pedaling, rolled to a stop, put her foot on the curb to prop herself up, and looked around at the houses. She read the street signs at the intersection, but the names didn't mean anything to her.

It occurred to her that she was tired, thirsty, and hadn't eaten anything all day but a zoo hot dog. She got off her bike and walked it across the sidewalk into the closest yard. Next to the concrete steps, she located a faucet and a coiled garden hose connected to it. She turned the faucet on, found the end of the hose, and drank for a long time. Her mother had never allowed her to drink tap water, said it was bad enough having to bathe in stuff that chemical companies up the river infused with all manner of foul wastes. But the cool liquid quenched her thirst and, for the moment, her hunger.

She had never imagined the world without her mother in it. Her Aunt Millie and Uncle Hank were old people, and she had known they would die. Later on. Now, in less than fourteen hours, she was utterly alone, an orphan with no home to go to. The legal paper her mother had drawn up giving her to Millie and Hank in case she died was meaningless now. There were other distant relatives somewhere, but her mother had never talked about them, so best Faith Ann could tell, Kimberly hadn't thought much of any of them.

Faith Ann felt more tired than ever before, and, under the poncho, she was soaked through from sweating.

She laid down the bike so it was out of sight of the street. Kneeling between two rose bushes, she pulled off the poncho and shook the water from it. She slipped off her backpack to get out the poncho's pouch and discovered the bottles of water, the ham sandwich, and the chips that were supposed to have been her school lunch. She removed the sandwich and chips, each in separate baggies. She felt the Walkman and the card containing four batteries that she had bought at the Rite Aid so Hank could listen to the tape as soon as she gave it to him.

The envelope containing the negatives and photocopies was dry, but the tape was unprotected in the pack. She wanted to listen to the tape to make sure everything was there but knew she couldn't open the thick plastic packaging that the new Walkman was sealed up in without scissors or at least a knife. She didn't have scissors or a knife. She might need a knife in case…

She had to protect the tape. She opened the chips and ate them slowly, savoring the familiar, dry taste. After emptying the baggie, she dropped in the cassette tape and sealed it. Then, unable to resist her pleading stomach, she opened the other baggie and ate the sandwich.

Light washed over her. Startled, she looked up: someone had switched on the lights in the house next door. A man in his underwear sat down on a couch in his den, turned on his big television set, and started flipping through the channels. He hesitated on the news, and Faith Ann glimpsed a picture on the screen of her mother's building. Police cars were parked outside it. Then a man talked into a microphone and a picture of her mother came on the screen. Faith Ann had to put her hand up to her mouth to keep from crying out. Lastly, the television showed one of her own school pictures. That one stayed on for a long time, and she thought there was a phone number under it. When the story changed, Faith Ann sat back down and had to wipe the tears from her eyes so she could see.

Sitting in the bushes, she thought about what to do. She wondered if the police were gone from her home yet. She needed to get some dry clothes, rest some, if she could, and figure out what she was going to do next.

She had to find someone she could trust who would also know how to take the tape and the picture copies to the right person and free Horace Pond, and it had to be somebody the Spanish cop wouldn't just kill. She was sure that after she did that, God would make everything work out somehow. She looked at her watch. Twenty-four hours, she thought. I have to save Horace Pond. Help me, Mama.

Faith Ann got back on her bike.