Free Breakout by Kevin Emerson Page A

they walk away.
    “See you later,” I say.
    When I turn back around I am smiling. And a mess: I notice my sweaty palms and a light-headed feeling. Either this is one giant sugar rush or … I am pretty into Valerie. More than I’d even thought about.
    I mean, other than Skye, my only other girlfriend ever was Elana and that started at last year’s spring dance when we were dancing to “Torn Socket” by the Kneebacks, and it ended fifty-two minutes later when she sent Clara to break up with me while I was standing in the drink line. So, this is feeling like something.
    Definitely something.
    I would revel in this girl-success moment with Keenan a bit, except he is busy doing damage control with Skye, who is slouched and pouty about whatever she had on her mind to do tonight. She probably told him and he just spaced, and she should understand that he was just trying to help out his best friend, but knowing Skye, she’ll be mad for days.
    I look down at my notebook, at the lyrics, and consider that maybe a crappy week like this one is actually going to end in victory. Lyrics, Arts Night saved, and a date! With a killer drummer. For once, it feels like I have the timing right.
Blitzkrieg
    On the way home we agree to ask our parents about going down to Vera. Well, Keenan and I agree. Skye is silent. And poor Keenan has to talk to me in that low, I’m-in-the-doghouse way so he doesn’t make things worse. We plan to text about meeting there around seven. My parents never have a problem with me going to Vera, because it’s all-ages and a nonprofit and all that.
    I spend the rest of the walk to my house buzzing about tonight, about hanging out with Valerie, but I am also excited to get home and get in a couple hours working on Killer G and trying out the lyrics and melody that are suddenly real.
    I’m almost to my house before I remember the whole thingwith Ms. Rosaz. Did she send an email home, or was she too tired to bother? I bet she let it go. Friday, weekend, and what I did wasn’t even a big deal so whatever.
    Inside, Erica is watching some annoying movie about a girl who by day is a high school student but by night is some kind of space-traveling princess. She has a sidekick who’s something like a sardine crossed with a stalk of broccoli and wears sunglasses and it’s like … who even knows where all these show ideas come from? I’m glad I was little during the age of cartoons that were cool and actually made sense, like
SpongeBob
.
    Mom is in the dining room, which is also the office. I grab my waiting plate of stalag rations. Today we have nonfat cottage cheese and grapes and kiwi slices and nine almonds.
    I head straight for my room and just call out, “Hey, Mom, gonna practice and then I’m gonna go to Vera tonight for a show at seven. I don’t need a ride, I can take the bus, okay? Cool.” I’m starting up the stairs as I finish.
    There is no answer right away. All is quiet on the front.…
    But I am only a few steps up when Mom says, “Anthony!” and the tone of her voice is like the distant rumble of panzers in the peaceful valleys of the Ardennes. (That’s part of the movie intro to
LF
, where the Germans ran a blitzkrieg through exactly the one place the French thought they wouldn’t because it was this really forested area.)
    I stop. “Yeah?”
    “Come down here.”
    “What?” I huff and turn around and head into the dining room, trying to sound like I couldn’t possibly know what’s up.
    The farmer stands at the banks of the gently curving Meuse, herding his dairy cattle for a drink at the water’s edge. On the other side of the wide river, old trees stretch to steep mountains, the border of Belgium. Wind shakes them and for a second he wonders if he just heard the rumble of machinery
.
    Mom looks up at me with the blue glow of her laptop reflecting against her glasses and does she look mad? Or just tired? It’s still possible that we’ll be okay here.
    “That’s cool about