Free Taking Off by Jenny Moss

it?”
    “I don’t know.” She stood in my doorway, her hand on the knob. “If I let you go, you have to promise me something.”
    I was really awake now. “What?”
    “That you’ll think about going to college.”
    I tried not to grin. “Okay. I’ll think about it.” That was easy. I might not talk to anyone about going to college, but I thought about it all the time.
    “And that you’ll take Don’s money for college, if you decide to go. And you’ll take his money for this trip. He’s got it. He wants to help.”
    “Did you call him and talk to him, Mom, about this?” I asked.
    “Annie. Those are the conditions.”
    She closed the door quietly. She couldn’t see it, but she was wrong about Donald’s money. I shouldn’t take it. But she’d see that eventually.
    I shot up on the bed, jumped up and down a couple of times, my heart pounding. I fell back down, lying like a log, my head against the pillow. I couldn’t believe it. She’d said yes. I’d asked, and she’d said yes.

CHAPTER 15

    I checked the mailbox again.
    Nothing.
    I wouldn’t lose hope. Reach for it, Christa had said. Reach as far as you can.

CHAPTER 16

    T he next day at school, all I could think about was the trip. I didn’t want to get ahead of myself, but I was almost positive Dad would take me. I was ready to have fun , as Lea would say, and get away from real life for a while. I started asking friends at school if they knew anyone who’d seen a shuttle launch.
    When I found someone that had, I waited for him after his art class.
    “What was it like?” I asked.
    “Cool. It was cool.”
    “But I mean, what did it look like?” I asked.
    “It blasted off. It was loud. It was cool.”
    “Uh, thanks.”
    Mark gave me a ride home after school. If Dad didn’t show, I was going to call him, but I wasn’t surprised when he walked in the door. I wanted for him to get settled before I asked, but I burst out with the question when he sat down.
    Dad looked startled. “Are you serious, Annie?”
    “Mom said we could go, if you can take me.”
    “Go with my daughter on a trip? You bet!” Dad laughed.
    I didn’t expect him to be so excited about it. I wanted to hug his neck.
    “We’ll make it a road trip,” Dad said, “sleeping in campsites on the way. Hey, man, I haven’t slept on a beach in years. We could stop in Pensacola. Beautiful place. And you sure your mom agreed?”
    “Yes,” I said, clapping my hands.
    “When is the launch?” asked Mark.
    “Just a few weeks,” I said, reaching over to squeeze his hand. I felt guilty that I hadn’t talked to him about it, but I was so excited and didn’t want him to be unhappy and ruin my good mood. He didn’t look pleased. “We’ll only be gone four days, maybe five.”
    He nodded.
    “We’ll take my gear and camp out on beaches along the way,” Dad said.
    “We won’t eat any more food on the road than we would here,” I said, “so that’s not any more money.”
    He nodded. “That’s right. All we need is money for food and gas and a KOA campground. It won’t be much.”
    “I’ve got some money,” I said.
    “It’d be fun to take the Beatmobile,” he said.
    “Dad.”
    “What?” he asked.
    “I’m not driving all the way to Florida in an art car.”
    “I thought you liked the Beatmobile.”
    Dad’s contradictions merged for his art car. His car was a “tribute to the Beat generation,” but he was equally proud of being a Texan. So he’d painted the car a deep black, and on the hood, he got a talented friend to do portraits of the writer Jack Kerouac and the poet Allen Ginsberg. He’d been collecting Beat paraphernalia—poems, buttons, T-shirts, book covers—and he made a collage of these things on the car doors. To top it off, on the roof of the car, he painted a red, white, and blue Texas flag. Patriotism, but with a rebellious, cool streak.
    “The Beatmobile is cool, Dad, but it’s not the most reliable car. Can we take your truck?”
    He