Free We Were Here by Matt de la Pena Page B

working night shift. This mustache-faced fool had a big-ass beer belly, a tight Batman T-shirt with sweat stains under both arms and a damn feathered mullet. He didn’t take his eyes off the TV even once the whole time I was watching him. He was just giggling at some old episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos . Still, man, it wasn’t gonna be easy getting past the living room without him catching me in his peripheral.
    Another couple minutes went by before I decided I had to use my mind on him. I squinted my eyes up real tight and thought crazy hard and after only a minute or two something happened: the guy bent over choking on a chip. Coughing and pounding himself on the chest with the inside of his fist and sucking down coffee to try and wash it down.
    I snuck by easy, keyed open the office door with the long key and quietly pulled it shut behind me. Locked it. Pulled out the short one to open the drawer where Jaden keeps the petty cash. And there it was, man. Right inside the petty-cash tin. Didn’t have to go searching or nothin’. The fat leather envelope—full of cash for Alcatraz and that fancy restaurant Jaden told us about—was just sitting there on top, waiting for me. It had the name “Lighthouse” on the front and the house address and phone number. I unzipped the zipper and lookedinside. Flipped through the bills. Felt the weight. I counted it real quick: $750. I’d never held so much damn paper in my life.
    I zipped it back up, shoved the whole thing in my jeans pocket and stepped to the window. Pulled it open, unscrewed all the bolts on the bars and tossed everything into a flower bed outside. I was just about to climb out myself when I turned and peeped Jaden’s desk. I stared there for a few seconds and then looked over at the spot on the wall I always looked at whenever I sat in here, the cocoon or whatever. I thought about how I’d never see it again. It’s so weird how a little thought like that, about a cocoon shape on a wall, can make your entire body feel all like Jell-O.
    I told myself I should go on already, pull myself through the window and be out, but something inside my head was stuck.
    I hurried back over to the desk, pulled open a different drawer and riffled through all the resident files looking for mine. I found it, yanked it out and tucked it under my arm, closed the drawer. I stood there for a few seconds, thinking, and then I opened the drawer back up, riffled through the files again and pulled Mong’s and Rondell’s, too.
    Right then there were footsteps outside the office door and the sound of keys rattling.
    I slid closed the drawer quietly, tucked all our files in my bag and damn near dove headfirst through the window, into the flower bed. I got to my feet next to the window bars and ducked around the side of the house to meet Mong and Rondell.
    “Where were you?” Mong said when he saw me. “We almost just left!”
    I pulled the petty-cash envelope out of my pocket and held it up.
    He stared at it a sec and then a look of understanding came over his face and he nodded.
    “What’s that?” Rondell whispered.
    “The petty cash,” I whispered back, peeking around the corner for the night-watch guy. But he wasn’t there. The window was completely empty.
    “The what?” he said.
    “Money , Rondell! American currency!”
    “Oh, damn. Good thinkin’, Mexico.”
    “Hello?” the night-watch guy finally yelled from the window. He couldn’t see us, though, and ducked his head back in the house. The front-porch light came on, and more dogs started barking.
    “Let’s go!” Mong said, pulling his hood over his head.
    Me and Rondell pulled our hoods up too, and we all took off sprinting down the street.
    Before we rounded a corner I looked back over my shoulder and saw the night-watch guy bumbling into the road in front of the house. But he didn’t chase after us, he just stood there with his cell phone pinned against his ear, probably calling the cops.
    And the