Free Last Chance by Norah McClintock Page B

another room in the shelter complex where they talked about what they had learned and, according to Kathy, how the lessons applied to their own lives. I waited until I saw Nick,Antoine, and the rest of the group come out of the animal wing and claim the picnic table.
    By the time I approached them, the picnic table was littered with chip bags and candy wrappers. Three or four of the RAD guys were talking at the same time, each one shouting to be heard over the others. A couple of others were laughing. They reminded me of the gang of boys at my school who always held down the same table in the same corner of the cafeteria and always made more noise than everyone else combined. Guys who thought they were so cool. Guys who were overcompensating, according to Morgan.
    I hesitated.Then I told myself that I was not the least bit intimidated by these boys, even though that wasn’t, strictly speaking, true. I drew in a deep breath, just like I do when I have to get up in front of the whole class and do a presentation or—
shudder
—give a speech.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said.The words came out of my mouth at the exact moment that one of the guys said something uproariously funny—or so his buddies seemed to think. They all exploded in laughter. I waited until they settled down a little.
    â€œExcuse me,” I said again. This time I tapped Nick on the shoulder.
    Every guy at the table turned to look at me. Every guy except Nick.
    â€œHello?” I said, tapping him harder this time, feeling the bone of his shoulder.
    The guy sitting next to Nick nudged him and said something about me that made my cheeks turn red. He grinned up at me and then slowly licked his lips. I gave him the imperious,“just who do you think you are?” look that Morgan had perfected. Then I turned my attention to Nick.
    â€œCan I speak with you for a minute?” I said.
    He looked up at me.
    â€œGo for it,” he said.
    â€œAlone,” I said. “I’d like to talk to you alone.”
    This provoked a chorus from his friends:
“Oooooooh!”
They sounded like a bunch of kindergarten kids, but they leered at me like a pack of wolves. Dougie, who was sitting closest to Nick, slapped him on the back.
    â€œAll
right,
man,” he said.
    Nick didn’t move. He just sat there, maybe looking at the can of Coke in front him, maybe looking at the tabletop, maybe just looking at the insides of his eyelids. He sure didn’t look at me. I had a pretty good idea of how Morgan would have summed up the situation: classic passive-aggressive behavior. That’s how Morgan summed up a lot of situations.
    Finally, in one surprisingly graceful motion, Nick swung his legs over the bench of the picnic table, got up, and turned to face me. He stood so close that I had to tilt my head to meet his eyes. He’d done that to me once before. He was probably in the habit of doing it, to intimidate whomever he was talking to. This time I didn’t back up. He jerked his head to the left. I followed him away from the picnic table. When we were out of range of the others, he said, “What do you want?”
    When I had decided to talk to him, I’d struggled with what to say. What I’d settled on was: “If you give it back right now, I won’t say anything to Kathy.”
    The skin around his eyes tightened. “Give
what
back?”
    â€œI saw you in the office,” I said. Straight-and-narrow people, like my mother, would have called that a lie. More creative people, like my father, would have called it a bluff.
    â€œWhat office?” Nick said.
    He didn’t look or sound like he cared one way or the other about me or what I was saying. Maybe he was a better liar than I was. Or a better bluffer.
    â€œThe office where all the money is,” I said. “I know you took some. If you give it back right now, I won’t tell Kathy.”
    He reacted by not reacting—he just stood there. He