Free My Chemical Mountain by Corina Vacco Page A

they’re all thinking:
Of course he ruined the party. A bad seed from a bad family; it’s to be expected
. But all these good people from good families,they turned their backs on Dad when he needed them most. They chose factory jobs over a dear friend. Charlie would never sell out like that.
    “Look at them,” he says. “The same people who are all mad right now are gonna be cheering for me when I’m playing linebacker this fall. That’s the thing with a mob mentality. These people get happy together, and they get mad together, and if you pull one person out of the crowd, that person won’t know what the hell is going on.”
    Gloria brings Peggy and Theresa a towel.
    It’s crazy how a small taste of revenge makes me feel so happy. It’s like the whole crying thing never happened. If I could just somehow punish Mareno Chem for what they did to us, I bet I’d never feel depressed ever again.
    When we leave the cookout, Val and Jill look crushed. I think they expected us to go over and talk to them, but we don’t have to do what they expect. Out of the corner of my eye I see Kevin watching me so close it’s like he’s peering through the scope of a sniper’s rifle, but I don’t even care. We stop at Cornpup’s house and throw loose pieces of asphalt at his window, and when he doesn’t look out at us from behind his plastic blinds, we just laugh and say he must still be pooping the bed. Then Goat drives by with Randy and two girls in his car. He flips us off, and Randy laughs.
    “What was that all about?” I say.
    “Who knows.”
    Before walking up his driveway, Charlie stops and does something I’ve never seen him do before. He picks litter up off the street. A crushed soda can, a Snickers wrapper, an empty pack of Camels. Without uttering a single word, he tosses it all into his garbage can and closes the lid.
    “I’m still hungry,” he says, pulling his garage door up just high enough to slip through. “I’m gonna go boil some hot dogs.” Hedisappears into the darkness, and I hear him kick something metal, an oil pan maybe.
    The whole walk back to my house, Val is on my mind. It’s like all of a sudden I can’t wait another second to read her note. At my front door, I realize I don’t have my key, so I have to climb through the basement window, which I’ve done a hundred times. From there, I race up the stairs and into my room, where the jeans I was wearing last night are balled up on a pile of dirty clothes and stuff.
    Val’s folded note smells like vanilla. I open it, and read.
    Hey! Let’s do something crazy and fun. I can sneak out if you can. Call me later. –Val
    She probably expected me to call her last night, probably thinks I blew her off, plus I never even talked to her today at the picnic. Now Kevin’s trying to move in on her, which sucks, but I can’t go back to the Kuperskis’ now or I’ll look stupid, or at least, that’s what Charlie would say. If he were here right now, he’d tell me to watch TV for a while, and eat a hot dog, and let Val come to me, so that’s what I do. I’m trying real hard not to think about Monday night. I’m trying real hard not to imagine myself alone inside Mareno Chem. But I’m scared.

CHAPTER 10
MONSTERS
    IT turns out that a sudden disappearance can make a girl want you more. Val calls me when she gets home from the picnic. I’m passed out on the couch, all tired from eating too much on a hot day, so I don’t even hear the phone ring. She leaves a message on our machine. I call her back much later, when it’s dark out.
    “Can you sneak out tonight?” I ask her, energized from my nap, and heart triple-beating at the sound of her voice.
    She laughs, probably because I don’t mess around with a lot of small talk. “Why? Where are we going?”
    “It’s a surprise. Just meet me by the old asphalt plant at midnight.”
    She says she’ll be there. She even says she’ll bring some food. I feel an adrenaline rush—not like what I feel