Free Deadrock by Jill Sardegna

artists?"
    Max stared at the
rows of records and antiquated CDs, the crude predecessors of the liquid sound
tube. He tried to remember the name of that ancient band Grandma collected.
What was it…Red something? No, I got it! "Pink Lloyd!" he said.
    "Hmm,
yeah, Pink Floyd. We could put some classics in there. Maybe we'll just load up
a computer with a little of everything and include a loaded flashdrive. And classical, too? Who should we get? Beethoven, Mozart,
Bach…"
    "Elvis."
    "C'mon, I'm
serious!" she said.
    So was I. He's
practically a deity, after all, thought Max.   "Does it really matter what you put
in the capsule?"
    "Yes it
matters!" she said, fumbling with the returned credit card. "I think
of it as planting an archeological garden. Something to say here's what we
thought about, here's what we worried about, here's what we wanted to be-"
She broke it off and hurried from the store. Max ran after her.
    She was halfway
down the block when he caught up to her. But keeping up was another matter.
    "Nickie,
could you, do you think you could slow down a bit? I'm a
little dweeb , remember ? I've got short dweeb
legs!" he panted.
    "Oh, Max,
I'm sorry. Every time I think about my future I-" She stopped short in
front of Hicklebee's Children's Book Store.
    Books! They
still have paper books, thought Max.
    Nickie spied a
book in the window and without another word, pushed past Max and entered the
store. Inside, he found her perched on a pint-sized yellow wooden chair,
reading the book from the window, The
Runaway Bunny .
    "The
bunny baby runs away and hides but the mother bunny always finds her,"
said Nickie, showing him the first page. "I used to beg my mother to read
this to me every night. And she would. No matter how bored she must have gotten
with it," Nickie said softly. "I miss her so much."
    "Oh, don't
– don't cry, Nickie," said Max. Don't cry! I don't know what to do
if you cry. Should I hold her? No, wrong, wrong, wrong.
    Nickie put
down the book, and threw her arms around Max's neck, sobbing. Hold her. Right,
hold her.

 
    "Oh, man,
I feel so stupid," she said, wiping the last of her tears. Max sat on the
bus stop bench beside her and offered her his open arms. "You can cry some
more if you want, I don't mind," he teased.
    She gave him a
little shove. "The people in the bookstore must have thought I was crazy."
    "Probably
just thought it was a really sad book," said Max.
    "I don't
know what it is, but sometimes, just out of the blue I start crying over her. I
mean it's been a year and a half, you'd think I'd have better control,"
she said.
    "No, my
dad died over two years ago and I still feel sad sometimes."
    Nickie nodded.
The bus came and they got on, the bus trailing a plume of smelly exhaust.
    Max sat by the
window. "I used to get real mad at my dad for dying."
    "I'm not
mad at my mom. She didn't want to die. It was a car accident. They called me
into the principal's office. I knew it had to be something really bad because
we were right in the middle of a test. My dad was there. He just looked so, so
sad. Like he didn't want to have to tell me and make me sad, too."
    The bus
stopped, they got off, and waited at another bus stop. Max went to an ice cream
cart parked on the sidewalk and bought two fudgesicles. He handed one to Nickie
and they ate in silence while another bus came and went.
    "I wish I'd
known my mom," said Max, licking the last of the fudgesicle off the stick.
    "Did she
die when you were a baby?" asked Nickie.
    "No, she
was a Breeder," said Max.
    "A
breeder? You mean like a surrogate?"
    "A
surrogate? Yeah, that's it, a surrogate mother," said Max.
    Nickie's ice
cream dripped unnoticed into her lap. "You're kind of alone, aren't you,
Max? Except for Mr. Bird, that is."
    "Bird?
Oh, yeah. We're, uh, inseparable, you might say."
    Nickie sighed.
"Well, I'm glad I've still got my dad. He's kind of A.D.D. but he's there
for me when I really need him. And he needs me a lot, too."
    But Ted's going to