The Big Time

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE

TROY NEVER LOOKED BACK ; he bolted up the ladder, spun, and grabbed it. The shadowy man closed in. Full speed he ran. The man grunted something that sounded like "ate." The sound sent a shiver through Troy.

"Stop!" the man shouted in a deep, husky voice.

Troy heaved the ladder up and over the wall and sent it crashing down the other side. Tate already hung from the edge of the wall by her fingertips, and she dropped down beside the ladder. Troy crouched down, too, aware of the man closing in. He gripped the rim of the wall as Tate had, then dropped to the ground with a thud.

Together they looked up at the top of the wall, listening silently as the man on the other side grunted for them to come back and scraped at the concrete as he leaped over and over again for the top of the wall, straining for a grip on its peak so he could finish the chase.

"Let's go," Troy said, not giving one hoot about the ladder lying in the brush.

He took Tate's hand and led her down toward the tracks, up and over them, and straight through the pine needle path toward his house.

"How'd you even do it, Tate?" he asked. "How'd you follow me in the first place. Even that guy-who moved like a doggone ninja-couldn't get over that wall. How did you?"

"Simple," Tate said, dusting her hands with a clip clap. "I climbed a tree."

"A tree?"

"There's a pine tree right up close to the outside of the wall," she said. "I shinnied up and climbed far enough onto a branch for it to droop right down over the wall. I only had to jump about six feet. It was easy."

Troy wiped some sweat from his brow and said, "I said it before, Tate, you're like a monkey."

"In a good way, right?" she said.

"Monkeys are cool," Troy said. "You planted the quarter?"

"I gave you the thumbs-up," she said.

"So, how'd you do it?" Troy asked, the glow of his house appearing through the trees. "You just asked for the bathroom and they all looked away?"

"I just pretended like I was a ditz," she said. "I kept talking. I told them the story about my aunt Mary Ann getting arrested for throwing paint on women walking down Park Avenue."

"What?" Troy said.

"She's with PETA," Tate said. "She's kind of nutty, but I figured, you know, that with all those dead animal skins, at least they'd think I had a point. So I'm telling the story, and I kneel down on that bear rug to explain how my aunt says you can see the pain on the animal's face even after it's stuffed, and I slip that quarter right into his mouth. You think it worked?"

Troy shook his head. "You're crazy. Yeah, I'm sure it worked. But something must have gone wrong. Otherwise, who was that guy?"

"Well," Tate said, hanging her head. "I tried, Troy. I'm sorry if I blew it."

Troy put an arm around her shoulders and gave her a squeeze.

"It's okay, Tate," he said. "Don't worry. I think all this stuff is just going to turn out however it was meant to be. My mom says that all the time and it drives me crazy, but I'm starting to think it's really true. Some things are just meant to be."

"So, what do we do now?" Tate asked.

"My house," Troy said, and they followed the familiar path to his front door.

When Troy swung the door open, he could tell by the look on his mom's face that something had happened-and it wasn't something good.