Free Freaks Like Us by Susan Vaught Page A

he’s gonna go off and smack me and for once I don’t care, for once I’ll smack him back because there’s no Sunshine to protect and no Sunshine to get upset and maybe Roland and his pretty-girl this and get-a-burger-with-me-pretty-girl that had something to do with it.
    “Did you hurt her?” I shake him and he sort of lets me but he’s prying my fingers off him and it throbs but I hold on anyway. “She didn’t want a hamburger. She didn’t want a hamburger with you!”
    “Dude.” Roland’s shoving at me harder, playing nice probably because of the woman yelling for help beside him but his eyes are furious. His eyes say I’m going to pay. And then his eyes melt and his face melts and I let him go, and Dad’s got me, and he’s hugging me from behind and he’s saying, “Breathe, Jason. Come on. Just breathe.”
    And from somewhere the colonel’s saying, “He’s upset, Mrs. Harks. I’m sorry.”
    And the lawyer’s telling Agent Mercer, “You stressed him on purpose. This is exactly what we were trying to avoid.”
    And I can’t see him but Agent Mercer’s looking at me because I can feel his melting eyes on the back of my melting neck and I can almost hear him asking aboutmy bad temper and asking if Sunshine made me mad and if I went after her like I just went after Roland and that woman’s holding on to Roland, looking relieved and he’s not paying me any attention even though I keep telling him, “She didn’t want a hamburger. She didn’t want a hamburger from you !”
    We’re moving, Dad and me, and he’s taking me away from the questioning room and Agent Mercer and the hallway and Roland and even the colonel and the lawyer.
    “I’m breathing,” I tell him when I finally stop yelling. “Sorry. I’m breathing.”
    Dad’s moving me forward, side by side, his arm around my shoulders, and Drip and his mom are standing way across the room by the front door. Drip’s fidgeting and hopping around. He’s moving back and forth. He’s hyper but… kind of not, too. Like he’s putting on a little.
    I slow. Then I stop walking and Dad lets me go.
    “That was a little tense back there,” Dad says, and I nod even though I’m only part hearing him because Drip’s staring at me now.
    He lifts his eyebrows like, What the heck?
    I lift mine.
    He shows me his right hand.
    He’s got a flashlight.

SEVEN HOURS
    For a few seconds, it seems like Drip and I are alone in the universe. The wide, clean hall of the VFW seems empty, and he’s looking at me, and I’m looking at him, and we both know we’re blowing out of here first chance we get.
    It’ll never work. Even you aren’t that stupid. Idiot. Fool on the hill. Fool on the hill. I don’t think idiot’s a nice word. Maybe it’s right, though?
    Six hours. Almost seven.
    Get it together, you freak.
    That was my voice, not the voices. Well, you know what I mean.
    Gradually the world starts to focus again and I see tables and computers and FBI agents and behind me I hear the colonel fussing with Dad and Dad dropping aDad-ism about stirring in muck making everything mucky and the lawyer arguing with Agent Mercer about questions and suspicions and for some reason hamburgers and from somewhere else, Roland’s whining to his mother about how crazy I am. Drip’s mom heads over to plow into some of them or maybe all of them because now’s not the time for fighting and Drip’s mom is big on only fighting at the right times.
    Drip bounces up to me, still faking hyper. When he’s close enough for only me to hear him, he says, “I took my medicine again. I’ll be good for a few hours.”
    “Yeah, and awake until tomorrow?”
    He shrugs. “That’s a good thing, right?”
    “I didn’t take mine.” I breathe like Dad wanted and wait for Drip’s response, but I don’t worry about him flipping out. Drip and Sunshine and me, we don’t flip out on each other, no matter what. It’s a rule.
    He gives me a half stink-eye, though. “You got a few