Walk Me Home (retail)
About the Book
‘You shouldn’t trust anybody completely,’ Jen says.
‘Why not?’
‘They’re still just people. They can still let you down.’
Since their mother’s sudden death, Carly has been in charge of her little sister Jen. She is terrified that the two will be separated.
Carly wants them to find their way back to the last person she trusted – their stepfather. But Jen holds a secret about him which could put them both at even more risk.
And so begins a journey neither girl could have anticipated. It isn’t an easy one, and is often dangerous. But they are also confronted with the expected kindness of strangers. And some new relationships that hold the potential to change everything . . .
Contents
Cover
About the Book
Title Page
Part One: Right Now
New Mexico, 1 May
New Mexico, 9 May
Arizona, 10 May
Arizona, 12 May
Arizona, 13 May
Part Two: Seems So Long Ago
Tulare, 17 December
Tulare, 18 December
Cradle Lake, the High Sierras, 19 December
Cradle Lake, the High Sierras, 20 December
Tulare, 21 December
Part Three: Now Again
Wakapi Land, Friday 13 May
Wakapi Land, 14 May
Wakapi Land, 15 May
Wakapi Land, 16 May
Wakapi Land, 17 May
Part Four: Seems So Long Ago
New Mexico, Christmas Day
New Mexico, 28 February
New Mexico, 30 April
Part Five: Now Again
Arizona, 18 May
California, 19 May
California, 20 May
Trinidad, CA, 21 May
California, 22 May
Wakapi Land, 23 May
Wakapi Land, 25 May
Author’s Note
About the Author
Also by Catherine Ryan Hyde
Copyright
WALK ME HOME
Catherine Ryan Hyde
Part One
Right Now
New Mexico, 1 May
They creep along, walking their bikes past the big house in the pitch dark. There are no lights on inside. But Carly can’t help thinking there will be. Suddenly. If they’re not quiet enough.
Too much depends on this moment. Everything.
Carly hears the clicking of the spokes of Jen’s bicycle wheels. She reaches over and slaps her hand down on Jen’s handlebars to stop the bike – and her sister – in their tracks.
‘We have to carry the bikes till we get past the house,’ she hisses in Jen’s ear.
‘Easy for you to say. Yours is light.’
Carly sighs, and trades bikes with Jen. Jen’s bike is a heavy old beach cruiser. And it has no headlight. So Carly duct-taped a flashlight to the handlebars.
The driveway is uphill, and Carly struggles for breath as she trots for the freedom of the road. It’s a long driveway, and her chest is beginning to ache. She feels she can’t keep going. But she does anyway. Because she has to.
Any minute now, a light might come on in the house. And Wade’s brother might appear in the window. Then it will all be over.
But it doesn’t. No light comes on.
Suddenly they’re on the road, and free.
Carly trades bikes again with her sister.
As they straddle the bikes, prepared to launch down the hill into the night, Jen switches on the flashlight.
Carly reaches over and slaps her hand over the light.
‘Turn it off!’
‘But I thought—’
‘Not till we’re farther away. Not till we can’t be seen from the house.’
‘Carly …’
‘What?’
‘I have to tell you something.’
‘Oh, my God, Jen. Not now.’
‘Has to be now.’
‘Jen. Listen.’ Carly grabs Jen’s bike and shakes once, hard. To stop all foolishness once and for all. ‘Listen to me. We have to get out of here. Now. And you have to stop acting like we have all kinds of options. We have Teddy. He’s the only option we’ve got. Now I hate to pull rank, but I’m older. And I’m in charge of the family now. What’s left of it. And we’re going. Now come on.’
They’re making incredible time. And they don’t even have to pedal.
They coast down the mountain, a few scattered lights in the valley below. The thin beams of light reveal the road in front of their bike tires. Carly can faintly see the headlights of cars on a two-lane highway below. Headed west. Well, headed both ways. But she focuses on the traffic headed west. The direction of Teddy, and home.
The only challenge of the downhill run is applying the brakes just right, and just frequently enough, to keep the bikes from speeding out of control.
No car has come down the road for ages. So they ride side by side in the traffic lane. The edge of the road is too scary. Just a drop-off. Not enough light to see where that would take you. But Carly can pretty much figure it wouldn’t take you anyplace good.
‘What’s that noise?’ Carly asks. ‘Is that your brakes?’
‘Yeah. I think the pads are low.’
‘Well, stay off them as much as you can.’
‘I’ll try.’
Jen begins to pick up speed. Carly eases off the brakes to catch up with her, but it scares her to go that fast. Too many curves. Too little shoulder. Not much margin for error.
‘Maybe you need to slow down,’ she calls to Jen.
Carly hears a ghastly metal-on-metal noise.
‘Oh, shit!’ Jen shouts as she flies over the handlebars and disappears into the darkness off the side of the road.
Carly steers her bike to the spot where Jen disappeared and jumps off, dropping the bike on the narrow shoulder.
‘Jen! You OK?’
‘I think so.’
‘Keep talking so I can find you.’
‘I’m right here,’ she says, tugging at Carly’s jeans. ‘Where’s my bike?’
‘We should be able see the light from the flashlight.’
‘It must’ve broken.’
‘I’ll get my bike and we’ll shine a light down there.’
Carly carefully walks her bike a few steps down the hill. In the thin beam of the headlight, they see Jen’s bike crashed up against the side of a squat, gnarled tree.
Jen scrambles down the hill to retrieve it.
‘Oh, this is messed up,’ she calls back up to Carly. ‘I think the frame is bent. Yeah. I can’t even roll it.’
‘Well … just leave it, then. Just sit on my handlebars and we’ll keep going. We can’t afford to slow down.’
Jen climbs back up to the road. ‘Hmm,’ she says, looking down the grade. ‘Can I sit on the seat instead? And you pedal standing up?’
‘Sure, whatever. Let’s just go.’
‘Before we go can we say a little prayer that your brakes don’t give out?’
‘I don’t pray,’ Carly says. ‘But you can if you want.’
They walk the bike through a small town shortly before sunrise. Carly doesn’t know what town it is.
‘We need an Internet café,’ Carly says. ‘Or a library.’
‘Library wouldn’t be open this early. Why do you need that?’
‘To get Teddy’s new address. He promised he’d email it to me.’
Jen never answers.
‘Never mind. We’ll just keep going. By the time we get to the next town, something will be open. The farther away we get, the better off we’ll be.’
She wants to think of this place they liv
ed with Wade and her mom as a horrible dream. But it still feels vividly real.
They mount the bike again and pedal along the main drag to the highway. And run smack into a highway sign that says: NO BICYCLES. NO MOTOR-DRIVEN CYCLES. NO PEDESTRIANS.
‘Now what?’ Jen asks.
‘Oh, shit, Jen. I have no idea. Let’s just stay here until we figure something out.’
Collapse seems appealing. It speaks to her, promising relief. Carly regrets having already ruled it out as an option.
They sit on the library steps. Waiting. Watching the town wake up. People bustle by in both directions. On foot, in cars. Pedaling in the bike lane.
Carly’s bike leans up against the brick of the building a few feet away. Unlocked. They didn’t bring a bike lock.
Jen has a little scrape on her cheek. And her eyes look far away. Like there’s no Jen at home inside. Like she’s locked up and left the premises of herself. Carly wonders if she looks the same way. Then she decides it doesn’t really matter.
A boy a little older than Jen rides by on an ancient and dilapidated old bicycle. On the sidewalk. Looking their way. A few minutes later he rides by again, going the other way. Still staring.
‘He keeps looking at my bike.’ Carly says.
‘You think he’s going to try to steal it?’
‘I wouldn’t care if he did. It’s no use to us now. I think we’re going to have to ditch it and hitchhike.’
On the boy’s third ride by, Carly calls out to him.
‘You like that bike?’
He skids to a stop, his unlaced sneakers braced on the pavement.
‘It’s a nice bike. Is it yours?’
‘Yeah. And it’s for sale.’
‘I couldn’t afford it.’
‘I’d let it go cheap.’
‘How much?’
‘How much’ve you got?’
He carefully empties his jeans pockets. Separates out a few non-cash items. Carly can’t quite see what they all are, but one looks like a red rock and another like a guitar pick. He counts a few bills, then digs back into his pocket for a handful of change. Adds it up, pointing to each coin, his lips moving.
‘I only have twelve dollars and thirty-five cents.’
‘Sold,’ Carly says.
Carly’s the first to sit down at one of two library computers. She pulls up her email on the web. She hasn’t checked it for ages. Eleven pieces of spam mail. One email from her friend Marissa in Tulare. It says, ‘Carly, why didn’t you tell me you were moving? Where did you go? Write back, OK?’
Nothing from Teddy at all.
They get their first ride with a sweet middle-aged woman. Plump, with thin, graying brown hair.
‘Where are you girls going?’ she asks when they pile into the back seat.
‘West,’ Carly says.
‘Well, I know that. But where?’
‘Um. Home.’
‘But where’s home? You girls seem awfully young to be out hitchhiking by yourselves. I usually never pick up hitchhikers, but I was worried about you. How far do you have to go?’
Carly kicks herself for not anticipating this problem in advance.
‘It’s just down this road about twenty miles,’ Carly says.
‘Does your mother know you’re out here alone?’
In her peripheral vision, Carly sees Jen begin to cry quietly.
You’re in charge now, Carly tells herself. There’s nobody else. If a problem comes up, there’s no one to run to. You have to solve it yourself. So, go ahead. Save the day.
She glances at the odometer. Memorizes the number plus twenty miles.
‘It’s like this,’ Carly says. ‘We went out last night with some friends. And they drove us way up into the mountains. We didn’t know we’d be going so far. And we didn’t want to go back with them, because they’d been drinking. Our mom would kill us if she knew. So we’re hitchhiking home – I know. I know it’s a bad idea. We’re never going to do it again. It’s scary. But if you’ll let us off twenty miles up …’
The woman sighs. ‘I’m just glad it was me who picked you up.’
‘Yeah. Me, too. Thanks. We appreciate it.’
Then the potential flaw in Carly’s plan sinks in. What if twenty miles goes by and they’re exactly in the middle of nowhere? No houses as far as the eye can see?
She sits on the edge of the back seat, peering through the windshield. Trying to be nervous without looking nervous. They pass intersection after intersection of long, paved roads crossing the highway. A scattering of ranch homes in each direction. If that changes, Carly will need to pretend she was wrong about the twenty miles.
Her luck holds.
When the odometer hits the magic number, Carly says, ‘Next intersection. If you’ll just let us off right up there …’
‘I can drive you all the way home.’
‘No. Please. That’ll just get us in trouble.’
Another big sigh from the front seat. The driver pulls over and lets them out.
‘You girls take care, now.’
‘We will. Thank you.’
They stand at the side of the little highway and watch her drive off.
Jen waves.
‘Shit,’ Carly says. ‘That was close.’
‘Close to what? She was nice.’
‘Too nice.’
‘How can you be too nice?’
‘She wanted to help us.’
‘We need help, Carly.’
‘You know what she would’ve done. Don’t you? If she’d known we don’t have anybody? She’d have called child protective services. I don’t want to get put in a foster home, Jen. We don’t even know if they’d keep us together.’
‘So what do we do, then? Do we still hitchhike?’
‘Yeah. I think so. I think we have to. But this time let’s have our story ready.’
The man who picks them up next doesn’t seem interested in their story. He doesn’t express any concern for their well-being. He’s maybe forty. Thin and pale, like his skin has never seen the sun. He wears heavy black-framed glasses. He won’t stop looking at them in the rearview mirror.
They drive for well over an hour without any questions. He doesn’t even ask where they’re going.
Then, when he finally speaks, all he says is, ‘You’re making me feel awfully lonesome. Up here all by myself.’
Carly doesn’t answer. Neither does Jen. But Jen shoots Carly a look. A silent question. Are we in trouble? Carly doesn’t know. But it doesn’t feel good. There’s an ‘ick factor’ in the car. That was something Teddy used to say. This ick factor has hovered throughout the ride, Carly realizes. She just hadn’t looked it in the eye. Until the man spoke.
She reaches into her backpack and feels around for her hairbrush, a round brush with a narrow round metal handle. The handle has a plastic cap on the end, but Carly pries it off with her thumb.
They’re coming through a town. Thank God.
‘Let us off right up here,’ Carly says. ‘Please.’
She can see an intersection. And a stoplight. But the light turns green and the driver speeds through it.
Carly looks over at Jen, who’s gone stone-like again. Carly worries her sister’s bones might melt, the way they did last night. They can’t afford that kind of collapse now.
‘I’m sorry,’ he says. ‘I wanted to make that light.’
‘Well, you made it. So pull over. Please.’
‘Next light. You can walk back.’
Carly squeezes her eyes shut and prays for the next light to turn red. It does, and the driver has to stop. Only then does Carly remember how she told Jen she doesn’t pray.
Jen’s on the passenger’s side. The safe side to get out. She tries to open the back door. ‘It’s locked.’ She tries to pull up the lock button. It won’t pull.
Ick Man is watching in the rearview mirror. ‘The child-safety lock is on,’ he says.
‘Then take it off!’ Carly shouts. Just at the edge of panic. �
�And let us out!’
No answer. Nothing moves. Carly watches the blood drain out of Jen’s face, leaving her skin white like a porcelain doll.
‘Open this door or I’m getting the gun,’ Carly says.
The light turns green.
Carly pulls the hairbrush out of her pack, careful to keep it behind his head, where he can’t see it in the mirror. She presses the round metal of the end of the handle to the back of his head.
‘Do not step on the gas,’ she says.
The back-door locks clicks up. A beautiful sound. Jen swings the door wide and they bolt out of the car. The man drives away with his rear door still open.
‘Oh, my God,’ Jen says. ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, oh, my God.’
‘Relax, Jen. Calm down. We’re OK.’
‘I can’t do this, Carly. We can’t keep doing this.’
‘OK. We won’t, then. No more hitchhiking. I promise.’
‘So what are we going to do, then?’
‘We’ll walk.’
‘To California?’
‘Not to California. Of course not. Just from one phone booth to the next. And when Teddy picks up the phone, he’ll drive out and get us. Or he’ll wire us money for a bus ticket or something. But the more we walk, the closer we’ll be to home, and the faster he can get us there. And we won’t be in one place long enough for anybody to decide they want to help us by putting us in foster care. We’ll just walk along like we know exactly what we’re doing. And if anybody asks, we’ll just say we’re walking home. That’s true. Right?’
‘We’re walking home,’ Jen says. As if the story needs rehearsal.
‘Right. We’re walking home.’
They walk until dark. About ten hours.
Carly calls Teddy four times that first day. Teddy doesn’t pick up.
New Mexico, 9 May
Carly is keeping a close eye on Jen. Maybe even more so than usual. She’s watching Jen walk on the shoulder of this skinny, raggedy little blacktop road, kicking at the scrubby grass and gravel at the edge of their path.
For a time, Carly doesn’t know why she’s keeping such an eagle eye on Jen this morning. In most ways, it’s a morning like any of the last nine. It’s just their new normal.
She looks up ahead to see the black road dip down into a valley. And in this valley is … nothing. Just more scrubby weeds. A line of low mountains at its far end, mountains they will have to walk across in time. In the far distance, a few rock spires in different shapes and sizes, like the classic desert formations she’s seen in old cowboy films. And the clouds are edging the sky in great puffs, dense at the mountains, more sparse above their heads, white on top and copper at their bottoms, unable to crowd together and cover the steely blue sky.