Free Deviant by Adrian McKinty Page A

hadn’t arrived yet, nor his Xbox. They didn’t even have TV.
    He checked the weather. A slab of gray cloud was covering the entire sky, the ceiling a few hundred feet above his head. It looked like it might snow, but it didn’t matter. He had to get out. He stripped off the awful uniform, pulled on his black jean shorts, his Raiders beanie, his red Converse high-tops, his brown hoodie. He looked at himself in the mirror on the back of the dresser. His bangs were almost covering his brown eyes. He wondered if he was good-looking. He was small and dark. Certainly not up there with the likes of Charlie, but definitely more handsome than that Tom dude.
    â€œJeff!” he called, but Jeffrey was sleeping.
    He went upstairs and got Sunflower.
    He took it outside and pulled the beanie low over his eyes.
    â€œTo hell with all of them,” he said, and pushed off.
    He skated downhill from Johnson Close to Manitou Road. His father’s work crew had moved on, so he didn’t have to deliberately ignore them. He flipped his iPod to a ’90s shuffle and heard songs he didn’t know by Pavement and They Might Be Giants.
    He skated a long time. From Manitou Road to Alameda and all the way out of town.
    He skated for miles.
    He skated until he forgot about being roughed up.
    Until he forgot about the chain gang.
    Until he forgot about the school.
    He skated east through Manitou Springs along West Colorado Avenue. He skated over the Monument ValleyFreeway and Fountain Creek. He skated deep into the Springs, all the way to the Greyhound terminal on South Weber Street.
    The sidewalks here were wide and they had Starbucks and diners and coffee shops and pubs, but he kept going east on Pikes Peak Avenue past a school for the blind and a big park that had a massive memorial to all the fallen firefighters of America. He kept going east past a couple of charter schools and then, because it was getting dark, he changed direction and went north and west, past the US Olympic Training Center and finally back downtown to the Greyhound bus depot.
    Light snow was falling now and a bus was idling in the parking lot with a sign above the driver’s seat that said LOS ANGELES .
    The driver himself was outside smoking with a couple of passengers, everyone coughing in the cold night air.
    How easy it would be to slip onboard.
    To take a seat at the back, to sit there with his beanie pulled down, pretending to sleep. In seven or eight hours they’d be in Nevada or Arizona. Either would be fine. And maybe he could make it undiscovered all the way to the terminal in downtown L.A.
    He thought about it for a moment. Aunt Ines would take him in. He’d talk to her in Spanish about the school, about the other kids, about the silence, the gloves. She’d be freaked. She’d look after him. She’d give him rice andbeans, and his cousins Marco and Lucien would show him the gang signs and teach him to read the graffiti.
    All he had to do was hop aboard.
    He walked to the steps. Looked inside the bus. A dozen empty seats. One right at the back.
    But after a full minute’s hesitation, he shook his head.
    No, it wouldn’t do.
    His mother would be scared out of her mind.
    Even Walt would be upset.
    And anyway, that’s what a coward did—quitting school after one day because a couple of punk kids were mean to him.
    The driver and the other passengers came back from their smoke break and got on board. The Greyhound’s door closed with a pneumatic hiss.
    Danny’s cell phone rang. He was surprised. He didn’t even know it worked in Colorado.
    â€œHello?”
    â€œWhere are you, Danny?” his mom asked, worried.
    â€œI skated to Colorado Springs.”
    â€œThat must be ten miles away! Danny, what were you thinking?”
    â€œIt’s downhill and I wanted to see it.”
    â€œHow will you get home? It’s pitch-black out.”
    â€œI’ll skate home, I’ll be