Free Split Just Right by Adele Griffin Page B

turnout for Tom Sawyer auditions. I think the girls really see this as a chance for fun for a change. People can let theater get so pretentious and affected, such a draw for world-class jackasses like Lemmon. Now this show—oh my gosh, Danny, did you feel that?”
    “I didn’t feel any—”
    Old Yeller suddenly gives a shudder and a sad-sounding brrrummmph. I grip the sides of my seat as we reel forward.
    “This is the end!” Mom shouts with the kind of expression that would make Louis proud. With a final hacking cough and a violent tremble, Old Yeller’s tired old engine dies, right in the middle of Route 29.
    “Please don’t do this, you creep,” Mom whispers, and for a second I think she’s talking to me. She turns the key and presses her boot to the gas, then stomps on the gas, and the turning and stomping find a desperate rhythm. The angry bleat of car horns begins to sound all around us.
    “I’ll get out,” I offer, opening the car door, “and I’ll push.” I saw that once in the movies, only it was a big brawny guy who did the pushing. But Mom looks at me with eyes full of thanks and hope, and I relent slightly in my bad mood toward her.
    Being out in the middle of a highway on a rainy March night is something I’ve never experienced until tonight. Cars spin past me in a hiss of tires on water. Drizzly yellow highway lights send up oily reflections from the water-slicked road. I just hope the color of Old Canned Peas is bright enough to keep a car from hitting me.
    I crouch and shove my body against the back of Old Yeller, pushing with each muscle that lets itself be pushed. Mom signals for me to hold on and then she gets out, too. She pushes the car from the driver side, reaching one of her hands inside to turn the steering wheel left. Slowly, painstakingly, we roll Old Yeller onto the shoulder of the road, to safety.
    “We did it.” Mom huffs and smiles at me through the dark downpour.
    “Yeah, but now what?”
    “I need to find a pay phone.” Mom stands on tiptoe and peers ineffectively through the dark. “But it’s a hike to that Aamco station. Almost a mile.”
    The car seems to have cruised straight out of nowhere; all at once a rain-glittering white Saab has pulled up right at our side.
    “You need help?” A sheet of wet window glass rolls down and then I’m peering into the perfectly made-up face of Mrs. Finn. Mr. Finn is driving and, thankfully, there’s no one in the back.
    “Elizabeth, it’s good to see you. Our car broke down.” The words in Mom’s mouth shake out a little too brightly She sounds like she’s acting at being someone else. I shoot her a warning look; Masterpiece Theater isn’t the best idea right now.
    “Get in, both of you. Hurry.” There’s a cha-kunk sound of the automatic locks releasing and then Mom opens the passenger-side door. We slide inside the velvety leather of the Saab’s tan interior and roll away from Old Yeller’s broken body.
    “Lucky thing we came along,” Mrs. Finn says, waiting for us to thank her and agree.
    “Thank you so much; it sure is lucky,” Mom answers.
    “Yeah, this is great,” I add, although there are about a million names I would have put ahead of the Finns on my list of people I’d most like to be rescued by.
    “I’ll call the tow service.” Mr. Finn nods, more to his wife than Mom, although his eyes dart at us from the rearview mirror. He picks up the car phone from the twinkling lights of his high-tech dashboard and starts punching up numbers.
    “Now, where can we take you?” Mrs. Finn peers around at us from the front. Mom’s coronet is half sliding over her eye.
    “Oh, Bellmont People’s Theater,” Mom says happily “I can’t think what could have happened to that silly old car. I was planning to get it serviced last week, but one thing and another, you know how it goes!” She clasps her hands over her knees and laughs.
    Mrs. Finn laughs, too, but there’s a mean snicker wrapped inside it. Mom