Free My Own Revolution by Carolyn Marsden

Karel are already pounding down the stairs. “Later,” I answer. “Later they’ll taste great.”
    Two men I’ve never seen are standing near the building. One is talking into a walkie-talkie.
    The bus is leaving the corner, so we run down the walkway and along the street. Emil knocks hard on the closed doors, and, with a sour expression, the driver opens up. We climb aboard and plunk a few coins into the slot. Then we stamp our way to the back seats, where the smokers hang out, where kids make out, and where the seats are higher.
    As the bus pulls forward, I look through the back window to see that the two men are both focusing on the bus. For a second, I lock eyes with one of them. He knows. Surely he knows about me.
    The bus rolls through town, picking up passengers, letting them off. I snap photos of people, pigeons, streetcars, hiding my face behind the bulky black camera.
    At the center of town, where the streets narrow, where the mushroom-colored buildings poke their red roofs into the sky, we get off. As the accordion doors open and I descend the metal steps, I look around. Who on this crowded street might be an enemy? But no one looks my way. I follow Emil and Karel passing a collective, where women hunch over sewing machines, and a state-run store selling radios and chocolates.
    A crowd has gathered. We move closer until Karel mutters, “Thunderbird.” Emil and Karel climb the base of a lamppost while I stay down, peeking through people at the ice-blue car with the tiny, round porthole. Low to the ground, sleek as a wet otter, it must go really fast. This is what people drive in America.
    “Come,” Karel calls to me. “The view is great.”
    I glance around again. No one’s paying attention to me. I climb up to stare down at the gleaming roof of the blue Thunderbird.
    Suddenly I see Bozek and Danika in the crowd below. Danika and Bozek. Weaving in and out, headed for the Thunderbird. They’re not just holding hands. They have each other by the waists.
    “Hell,” I mutter, knotting up my fists.
    “Let’s go this way,” Karel says. Pulling on my arm, he yanks me off my perch. He leads me toward a side street.
    “Don’t.” I free my arm. “I can take it.”
    “In here,” says Emil, pushing me into a doorway. It’s a tavern filled with the sounds of Beach Boys music — a song about girls in the faraway state of California. Soldiers in stiff brown uniforms are dancing with young women. A mirrored ball twirls on the ceiling, casting sparkly lights along the floor, the bar stools, the faces of the dancers.
    I want to get back out to the street, take another look, but my friends block the way. From here I can see the bartender polishing a glass with a white towel. It’s not his job to kick out thirteen-year-olds.
    “There’s lots of girls in here,” says Karel. “Take your pick. Forget Danika.”
    He’s right. There are a couple of pretty girls. One is even wearing a miniskirt.
    We move into the crowd. We stay far from the eyes of the bartender, who’s chatting up the woman in the miniskirt. Now the Beach Boys are singing about surfing. The floor vibrates with the beat. If I ever get to the U.S.A., I’ll surf in Scranton, Pennsylvania. I picture Danika dressed in a bikini. I picture us surfing together.
    Hell, hell, hell . . .
    Emil moves over to a girl with long carmel-colored hair and asks her something. She nods and they move onto the dance floor.
    “Your turn,” says Karel.
    I shake my head. No way.
    “Come on. You’re so tall. You look even older than we do.”
    The miniskirt girl has moved away from the bartender. She’s coming across the floor, her face not as pretty as her legs.
    Karel shoves me forward.
    When the girl gets close, I think of Danika with her arm around Bozek’s waist and utter just one word: “Dance?”
    She looks up into my face, her eyelashes laden with black makeup. Her lipstick shines pinky white. Then she says, her words a little slurred, “Sure, kid. Why