James paused under the streetlight on the corner and unfolded the note.
Moon Launch 17 Monday 5 am.
Corner River and Elm. √√ XOXO
James refolded the note and walked slowly home. He smiled at Anne’s code. Double check everything, she had said. This is a moon launch. Whatever we forget, we can’t go back for. So check and double check.
The town slept. James swiveled his head as he walked, alert and calm, listening to the crinkling silence. Sometimes he imagined he was the sentinel of Crane Ridge, patrolling the streets while the town snored and dreamed. He felt safe in the enveloping night, when the mask of toughness he wore was laid aside.
The moon rested on his shoulder, following close. It draped the full boughs of the trees that lined the street in warm gold plating. He ran his fingers along the picket fence rounding the familiar darkened corner on to Nash Street. In a few days, he would be a memory ghost, a cipher that the night recalled, more and more faintly, until some future dark gloom, when another angry, lonely boy stepped out and walked these streets, walked through his ghost, and scattered it.
14 / Charcoaled Grill
Dylan pushed open the screen. “Don’t forget this,” His father said, tossing Dylan his baseball glove. He slowly mounted the stairs to his room. It was true what he’d said about his brother. James was a good fighter, but did it help or hurt James to tell his dad that kind of stuff? Halfway up the stairs, he heard Nana’s voice, soft as she passed on her way to the front porch. “—butter and banana” was all he caught. He grinned and bounded up the last of the steps.
The fan in the window was silent and the heat in the top bedroom settled on him. James was in his customary spot by the window. Dylan wondered how much of the porch conversation James had heard. Dylan slipped his glove under the bed and sat down. “How come you’re not outside?”
“How’d the game go?” James responded. Dylan described the highlights, and they both laughed. It was the first time Dylan remembered his brother laughing in a long time.
“You’re not mad I racked up Stinger? Accidentally?” Dylan hastened to add.
“Stinger and I have common enemies. That sometimes makes us allies. It doesn’t make us friends. He’s a bully, and I wouldn’t turn my back on him. Facing him, he’s not so much. You watch, he’ll likely leave you alone. Unless he’s with his jerk friends.”
Dylan nodded, weighing his brother’s words.
“What is that smell?” James sniffed at the wafting oily odor.
“Nana said be prepared for peanut butter and banana sandwiches for supper again. Dad’s decided he wants to be the grill king of Nash Street.” Dylan grinned.
The first time Sam had used the grill he’d purchased at Wilson’s, he’d set it up on the cardboard box that the grill had come in. Just as Sam was adding cheese to the flaming black lumps on the grill the box below had burst into flames. In a second, the grill was enveloped in a pyre, sizzling for a moment, and then tottering over with a harsh clang as its platform disintegrated in fluffing black cardboard chunks.
Nana, Dylan, and James had looked on from the porch, working hard not to laugh. Helpfully, Nana had said, “I just bet that’s why they make those grills black in the first place. That sort of thing probably happens a lot.”
Sam had given his mother a look that was part amusement, part frustration. He had let the fire burn itself out on the driveway at the side of the house. Afterward, he’d wiped and cleaned the grill, and set it back up again. That night, they had dined on peanut butter and banana sandwiches, along with potato salad and corn Nana had already prepared.
“Dad and I are not going to be bosom friends,” James said, with a soft smile. “He thinks it might be better if I confine myself to the house until... I don’t know. Until hell freezes over, I guess. The real deal is he’d rather I was in jail. The last thing he wants is me around—the second to last thing,” James amended.
“He told you that?”
“Not so much as he told the Chief that when Munro released me. I expected him to rake me bad, but dad didn’t say much at all. I could tell he was pretty mad though.”
“Dad said you—” Dylan stopped at the look James shot him. “You didn’t break into Wilson’s, did you?” Dylan tried to hold his brother’s gaze, as if he already believed whatever James said. But he couldn’t quite do it.
“I was out in the middle of the night, and the hardware store gets broke into. Two plus two makes...” James tucked his knee under his chin and picked at the dust motes on the window screen. “And the only person who can say where I was wasn’t supposed to be out either. I’m supposed to rat her out to save my hide?”
Dylan sat without breathing. It was clear now. There had been talk of James and Anne all through the school year. Anne was, after all, the daughter of Mr. Sampson, the Geography teacher. Dylan sometimes wondered why he never saw his brother with Anne. Now he suspected he knew.
“Not a word of this to anybody. Me being in trouble is one thing. But she... just keep your mouth shut.” James stared hard at Dylan, and then softened. “Picking up that screwdriver from the sidewalk in front of the store turns out to be not one of my finest ideas. Who knew?”
“You found it?” Dylan blurted.
“It was just lying by the mailbox. They say it was the one that—” James turned back to Dylan. “But I guess you already heard that part.”
“Dad told me some. He didn’t say he didn’t believe you.”
“Well, there’s a heartwarming endorsement,” James said with a hollow chuckle.
“I think dad is...” Dylan searched for a word. “…trying.”
“Trying to what?” James snorted. “Leave it. I know what you’re saying. I think he doesn’t know what to do with me, and I think I have a way to solve his problem.”
Dylan lifted his eyes to his brother, searching James’s face for more. The memory of Mr. Thompson’s silent solution was still fresh. James noticed his younger brother’s look.
“I’m not going to do something stupid. I mean, I’m not going to hurt myself, or anybody else. I just think it might be best if I start fresh. You’re getting along okay with dad. That’s not in the cards for him and me. Maybe I remember more things than you do. I don’t know. But...” his voice trailed off.
15 / Pre-dawn Flight
James tiptoed into the rectory and silently lifted the key to Father Mullenix’s Plymouth. A few minutes later, in the utter stillness he turned the ignition, his eyes glued on the second floor of the house. He held his breath, waiting for the lights to blaze on, and all hell to break loose.
The car started up, and purred quiet. James creaked it in reverse down the sloping driveway. He knew the car ran a little rough, but at least the brakes didn’t squeal. The car sagged out onto the street and James eased the column gear into first, let the clutch out slow, and flipped on the headlight beams as he glanced back once more to the darkened, brooding rectory.
He glided down the street toward the rendezvous, every sense alive. Would Anne be waiting in the shadows at the corner? Would anyone be out at this deep hour to witness their flight? He pondered what he would say if he had to return the car in an hour, when the sun began to claw its way up from the near Atlantic. No plausible story came to mind. He tried to calculate the