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place, too.
If her suspicions were correct, this situation was even weirder than she had thought.
    â€œWhere do you live?” Allie asked him.
    â€œHere,” was all he said.
    â€œHow long have you been ‘here’?”
    The Freckle-boy’s ears went red. “I don’t remember.”
    By now Nick had come over, his frustration defused by what he was hearing.
    â€œAnd your name?” Allie asked.
    He couldn’t even look her in the eye. He looked down, shaking his head. “I haven’t needed one for a long time. So I lost it.”
    â€œWhoa …” said Nick.
    â€œYeah,” said Allie. “Major whoa.”
    â€œIt’s okay,” said the boy. “I got used to it. You will, too. You’ll see. It’s not so bad.”
    There were so many emotions for Allie to grapple with now—from fear to anger to misery—but for this boy, Allie could only feel pity. What must it have been like to be lost alone in the woods for years, afraid to leave?
    â€œDo you remember how old you were when you got here?” she asked.
    â€œEleven,” he told them.
    â€œHmm,” said Nick. “You still look eleven to me.”
    â€œI am,” said the boy.
    ***
    Allie decided to call him Lief, since they had found him in the forest, and he blushed at the name as if she had kissed him. Then Lief led them up the steep stone slope to the road, climbing with a recklessness that not even the most skilled rock climbers would dare show. Allie refused to admit how terrified she was by the climb, but Nick complained enough for both of them.
    â€œI can’t even climb a jungle gym without getting hurt!” he complained. “What’s the point of surviving an accident, if you’re going to fall off a mountain and die?”
    They reached the road, but found very little evidence of the accident. Just a few tiny bits of glass and metal. Was that a good sign or bad? Neither Allie nor Nick was sure.
    â€œThings are different up here,” Lief said. “Different from the forest, I mean. You better come back down with me.”
    Allie ignored him and stepped onto the shoulder of the road. It felt funny beneath her feet. Kind of soft and spongy. She had seen road signs before that said SOFT SHOULDER, so she figured that’s what it meant.
    â€œBetter not stand in one place too long,” Lief said. “Bad things happen when you do.”
    Cars and trucks flew by, one every five or six seconds. Nick was the first one to put up his hands and start waving to flag down help, and Allie joined him a second later.
    Not a single car stopped. They didn’t even slow down. A wake of wind followed each passing car. It tickled Allie’s skin, and her insides as well. Lief waited just by the edge of the cliff, pacing back and forth. “You’re not gonna like it up here! You’ll see!”
    They tried to get the attention of passing drivers, but nobody stopped for hitchhikers nowadays. Standing at the edge of the road simply wasn’t enough. When there was a lull in the traffic, Allie stepped over the line separating the shoulder from the road.
    â€œDon’t!” warned Nick.
    â€œI know what I’m doing.”
    Lief said nothing.
    Allie ventured out into the middle of the northbound lane. Anyone heading north would have to swerve around her. They couldn’t possibly miss seeing her now.
    Nick was looking more and more nervous. “Allie …”
    â€œDon’t worry. If they don’t stop, I’ll have plenty of time to jump out of the way.” After all, she was in gymnastics, and pretty good at it, too. Jumping was not a problem.
    A harmonica hum that could only be a bus engine began to grow louder, and in a few seconds a northbound Greyhound ripped around the bend. She tried to lock eyes with the driver, but he was looking straight ahead.
In a second he’ll see me,
she thought.
Just one second more.
But if he