Free The Decoding of Lana Morris by Laura McNeal

open vent, both straightens himself and slides something behind him, but Lana has glimpsed the blue purse, she’s almost sure she’s glimpsed it.
    “Find the rat?” she says.
    Marv, at a loss, looks from Lana to Louise, who says, “We certainly did.”
    Lana knows what this means. It means the rat they’ve caught goes by the name of Lana, and she can tell by the brightness in Louise’s eyes that she’s excited by her catch and can’t wait to report the news to Veronica and her PTA friends and church friends and God knew who else.
    “Need any help?” Lana says as gamely as she can, and Louise in a cool voice says, “None whatsoever.”
    Lana glances at Silent Marv, whose eyes say,
Sorry
, and she realizes that he is a nice man, which would only mean something if he was in charge, which he unquestionably is not.

14.
    A n hour or so later, after pajamas, toothbrushing, and peeing, Tilly crawls into the bed beside Lana’s. “Love
VeggieTales
!” she says, and then she snugs her head into her Cinderella pillow, smiles, and falls asleep. This moment, repeated almost nightly, is the only moment of the day when Lana feels truly envious of Tilly.
    After the afternoon thunderstorm, the skies have cleared. There is a waxing moon, and it silhouettes the ash tree branches that reach past Lana and Tilly’s second-story window. The leaves move under a gentle breeze.
Doomed
, Lana thinks.
I am unquestionably doomed
. She’s had wild-eye thoughts about the foster father. She’s been accused of hiding pills in her own room. And now she’s been caught in her foster parents’ room. She knows that all these things are connected, that, starting with the wild-eye thoughts, one thing has led to another. That no matter how horrid Veronica the Ice Queen and her Jesus-freak friend Louise are, it is her own Lana self, or maybe her own Lana heart, that has put it all into motion.
    Lana’s thoughts float through the shadowy tree and off toward the moonlight and then return again.
    Doomed. Unquestionably doomed.
    Lana slides two fingers into the crease between her ear and skull, between the soft on one side and the hard on the other, where the last gift from her father had always rested, except now it lay in a dark drawer of an old cash register in a town so small no one had ever heard of it. She needs to go back there. She needs to get two dollars and go back there tomorrow. Maybe Chet could borrow a car and take her.
    Or, better yet, Whit.
    And just like that, there she is, thinking of riding down dirt country roads sitting on the smooth bench seat in the cab of Whit’s old Dodge truck, listening to Little Walter, just riding along with neither of them saying anything because, deep in their hearts and deep in their bones, they both already know everything they need to know.
    Lana gives her head a quick shake. This is just the kind of dreaming that will doom her and Whit, too. She looks down at Tilly, who, fast asleep, seems in the moonlight to be smiling.

15.
    F rom deepest sleep, Lana becomes aware of a ringing telephone. Finally it stops, and Whit’s voice, as if at a great distance, can be heard saying, “Hello?” and then, “What? What?”
    The Cinderella clock says 2:22. Tilly is gently snoring.
    Whit’s voice again comes muffled through the wall.
    Lana gets up, puts her ear to the wall, and hears Whit’s voice grow loud with alarm. “When? But how? Where? No, I can come. About ten minutes.”
    Whit stops talking, and there are the sounds of rapid movement within his room, then his door creaks open and Lana barely has time to get back into bed before he opens her door and pokes his head in. “Lana?”
    Lana sits up in bed.
    The moonlight still pours into her room, and she is wearing just a sleeveless white T-shirt. She pulls the sheet up around her.
    “Veronica’s been in some kind of accident,” he says. Something hangs from one of his hands. Veronica’s blue purse. Louise and her husband must’ve given it to him