Free Girl Unmoored by Jennifer Gooch Hummer Page B

there?”
    “I got a ride from my neighbor.” I sucked on my lip. It was getting bigger by the minute. “I’ll probably take the bus home.”
    Chad looked mad. “I knew Mike should have made you stay there and wait for the Reverend. I told him not to mess with dads and kids.”
    “I’m thirteen ,” I said, putting the ice on my lip and preparing for the burn.
    But before I felt anything, there was a shot!
    Chad grabbed my shoulder and pulled me down with him. “Get back!” he yelled to Toby, who reversed himself around the counter. Chad and I stayed pinned down with our hands covering our heads until nothing else happened and we heard car tires peeling out.
    Chad looked up. “Holy crap.” The window was shattered. Broken red glass covered the floor.
    “You two okay?” Toby asked, wheeling around the corner.
    Chad nodded. “Apron?”
    I nodded too. But my heart had been knocked out of its socket. I tried to take in a breath, but I couldn’t fit it in. Toby looked okay, but Chad’s eyes were darting around like a flashlight.
    “Was that a gun ?” I asked, getting to my knees.
    “A rock, looks like,” Toby answered, leaning over his tire to grab it. He held it up, a rock the size of his fist, with something written on it: Get out fags. Chad stood, but Toby ordered him to get down again. “There might be another one.”
    Chad ignored him though and walked to the door with glass crunching beneath his perfect white sneakers. Then he swung it open and yelled things I would be grounded for life for if I ever said.
    After a few more swears, he shut the door. “They’re gone. Those pieces of scum.”
    “I’ll call the cops,” Toby said, rolling over crunching glass and around the corner again. I stood, but blood was pounding so hard in my lip I could barely close my mouth. The ice was on the floor.
    Chad looked at me. “Man, I’m sorry about that, Apron. You sure you’re all right?”
    I nodded, even though my shaking had turned into shivering. I suddenly wished Johnny Berman were here.
    A door next to the couch opened to a set of stairs and Mike standing at the bottom of them. His wet hair was pulled back into a ponytail and he was wearing jeans and a blue jean button-down shirt, way more open at the top than my dad ever wore. “What just happened?” he asked, his eyes wide. “Is everyone okay?”
    Chad nodded. “Our fans came back.” His voice was shaking now too.
    Mike’s mouth tightened and his eyes landed on me. “Apron?”
    “Oh. And we found a little stray,” Chad said. The truth was, Chad wasn’t much bigger than me.
    Mike crunched toward me, crinkling his blueberry eyes into a worry. He smelled like an Ivory Soap commercial. “Did they get your lip?”
    I shook my head. “I tripped, outside. Before.”
    Mike looked confused but moved on to Chad. “Are you bleeding anywhere?”
    “Nothing,” Chad answered, holding up his hands to prove it.
    “Where’s Toby?”
    “Right here,” he said wheeling out from around the corner. “Cops are comin’.”
    Mike sighed. “What else can happen today?” None of us answered. But it was a good question.
    Chad leaned down to pick up a shard of glass.
    “What are you crazy ?” Mike yelled, slapping his arm fast enough for the glass to drop and shatter all over again. “You two get upstairs,” he snapped, pointing to us. “Toby and I will take care of it. Last thing we need is for either of you to start bleeding again.”
    A knock on the door startled us all. Through the windowpanes, two policemen were waiting. Chad started toward them, but Mike caught his elbow. “No.”
    “I was the one who saw it,” Chad pleaded.
    “Take Apron and go upstairs,” Mike ordered him. “Now.”
    Chad stepped back and sighed, letting Mike open the door. “We meet again, officers,” Mike said, trying to be funny but sounding sad instead.
    “Come on, Apron,” Chad said, and we started up the steep stairs. Toby must have wheeled over and shut the door