Homecoming Read Free Page B

on a dark
     shirt and jeans, her face was tanned and her hair brown; she was confident nothing
     would give her away.
    He stopped by the front entrance shining his flashlight out over the parking lot,
     like one bright eye. Dicey watched him. He listened, but his chest was heaving so
     much that she was sure he couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in his ears.
     She smiled to herself.
    “You haven’t got a chance,” he called. “You better come out now, kid. You’re only
     making it worse.”
    Dicey covered her mouth with her hand.
    “I know you now. We’ll find you out,” he said. He turned quickly away from the parking
     lot and looked farther along the front of the mall. He hunched behind the flashlight.
     He used the beam like a giant eye, to peer into the shadows. “There you are! I can
     see you!” he cried.
    But he was looking the wrong way. Dicey giggled, and the sound escaped her even though
     she bit on her hand to stop it.
    He turned back to the parking lot, listening. Then he swore. His light swooped over
     the dark lot, trying to search out her hiding place. “Danny? I’m gonna find you.”
    Dicey moved softly away on soundless sneakers through the covering shadows. He continued
     to call: “I’ll remember your face, you hear? You hear me? Hear me?”
    From halfway across the parking lot, safe in her own speed and in shadows, Dicey stopped.
     Her heart swelled in victory. “I hear you,” she called softly back, as she ran toward
     the empty road and the patch of woods beyond.
    Much later, when she returned to the car, James awoke briefly. “Everything’s okay,”
     Dicey whispered, curling down onto the cold seat to sleep.

CHAPTER 2
    D icey awoke at the first light. A chilly dew beaded the windshield. James’s body leaning
     against her side was the only warmth in the car. He still slept, so she didn’t move,
     even though her stiff muscles ached to be stretched. She watched the sun rise into
     a cold gray sky that turned warmer and brighter as the first peach-colored beams of
     light grew golden, then yellow, then white. Surrounded by sleepers, Dicey sat content.
     The car was a cave within which they were safe. It held them together; and it protected
     them from outside forces, the cold, the damp, people.
    At last James stirred, and his eyes opened. All four of them had the same hazel eyes,
     although Dicey and James had their father’s dark hair, not the yellow hair their mother
     had passed on to Maybeth and Sammy.
    James’s hazel eyes looked at Dicey for a minute before he spoke. “It’s still true.”
     His voice was hollow and sad. Their momma was really gone.
    Dicey nodded. Sammy surged over from the backseat. “I gotta go to the bathroom. Bad.”
    Dicey turned her head and a muscle protested all the way down her back. “Maybeth?
     You awake?”
    Maybeth was awake.
    “Okay, then. Let’s take our clothes bags and change. And thefood bag too, if you’d like to eat breakfast outside.” Dicey took the map of Connecticut
     and jammed it into her clothes bag.
    It was Sunday and nothing moved in the parking lot, the same few cars stood empty.
     The air was clear, clean, lucid, lying lightly upon the world that morning. The children
     scrambled out of the car and Dicey led them across the highway to the woodsy patch
     where she had hidden the night before. She led them into the thickest clustering of
     trees, then they separated to go to the bathroom.
    They ate the last peanut butter sandwiches sitting on a low stone wall, listening
     to a few birds and watching the sunlight fall in bright, moving patterns onto the
     leafy floor of the woods. The air grew warmer.
    Dicey finished her sandwich and crumpled the wax paper up. She tossed it into the
     food bag. Then she stripped down to her underpants and put on a pair of cutoff jeans
     and a T-shirt. She also put on a pair of socks. The others changed too. Dicey insisted
     that they wear socks.
    “Why?” James asked.