Free Girls Love Travis Walker by Anne Pfeffer Page A

dreams, Walker!” Garret said. With a big smile, he reached over and gave me just enough of a push to knock me off balance, making me take a step backward.
    “I’ll sign him up,” Perkins told Garret. He brought me into his small office and sat behind his desk. It had a blotter in the center, a stapler and letter opener lined up parallel with it, a cup for pens at forty-five degrees off the top right corner, and an in-box/out-box combo containing a small, tidy “in” pile and a large, tidy “out” pile.
    “I’ve got an application around here somewhere.” He pulled open a file drawer holding a wadded up rain slicker. He threw it on the floor, then unearthed a catcher’s mitt and baseball, which also hit the carpet, and finally a stack of messy folders, with corners of pages sticking out in all directions.
    I wondered which was the real Perkins, the perfect, orderly desk or the trashed drawer. Maybe they were both him.
    “I’m glad you’re joining up, Walker. You have a lot of promise. I think you’d make a great firefighter one day.”
    “Really? Thanks!” Me, a firefighter. It was an amazing thought. Because of the fire station, I’d had these special moments of pride and hope for two weeks in a row. One more week and I’d have a trend.
    This Discoverers program was awesome. I pictured Garret and Perkins going down the cliff together. Could I really do that? I was dying to try.
    I suddenly knew I wasn’t going to ask Perkins about washing trucks.
    “I want you to know we have an open door policy here at the station.” Perkins wove his fingers together, resting his hands on the desk. His mustache, which was the old-fashioned kind you saw in TV reruns, a big one that almost covered his whole mouth, moved up and down while he talked. His tan was even darker than the day I’d met him.
     “Especially for the kids in our Discovery program. We don’t want you out on the streets. You have some free time or need to talk to somebody, come by. If we’re not out on an alarm, we hang out and play cards a lot in the evenings.”
    “Thank you. That sounds great.” It did sound great, especially since I’d stopped barhopping after the Suki disaster.
    From one of the folders, Perkins gave me an application to fill out. Some of the sections brought me up short. Did they seriously want all this information?
    I did the best I could, trying to disguise the shameful parts of my background without actually lying. Under “Education,” all it asked for was “Name of High School” and “Expected Date of Graduation.”  That was good – they weren’t assuming I’d graduated. I wrote “Perdido High School” and left the date blank. That was true, right?  I had attended Perdido. I wasn’t making any claims about graduation. I hoped it would be good enough.
    Under parents’ occupations, I wrote “food service industry” for my mother and “construction” for my dad and left it at that. Fortunately, the application didn’t ask how many criminals you numbered among your close relatives.
    I wondered if the offspring of convicted felons were allowed to work in the fire service. Or were we excluded by our crappy genes and the piss-poor environments we undoubtedly grew up in?
    I handed the application back to Perkins. “Thank you, sir. I really appreciate this opportunity.” I kept thinking how amazing this was. I had a future before me. Or was I kidding myself?
    Perkins stood up. “So we’re set. All we’ll need from you, Travis, is confirmation of your enrollment over at Perdido High.”
    “Pardon?” I couldn’t be hearing him right.
    “Yeah. Other than age, it’s the only entrance requirement we have. You have to be enrolled in high school.”
     

 
     
     
    Pants on Fire
    It wasn’t like I lied to Perkins exactly. But it wasn’t like I went out of my way to tell him the truth either. I just didn’t mention that I’d dropped out of school.
    It sucked so bad they had only one stupid