Angela Sloan by James Whorton

Author:James Whorton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Audio
Published: 2011-12-26T16:00:00+00:00

44

Later, when the house was quiet, I crept along the hall. I found Betty sitting cross-legged on a high, twin-sized antique bed, bathed and dressed in checked pajamas, combing her wet hair with her fingers in a claw shape.

“What are you say to that man about me?” Betty asked.

“Never mind that. You broke your word.”

“Huh?”

“The deal was that you’d say nothing about my father!”

“I have not made that deal.”

“In the future I’ll know not to trust you.”

She carried on with the finger-combing. “Why have you lie to him about your father?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“You tell him your father has gone away to be marry. I don’t think that is true.”

“Can everybody just leave my father out of it?”

“Because if that is true, you will also have tell me that same thing! We have been ride in Scamp all those hours, so long. Why not tell me if your father has gone away to be marry? It is not true.”

“I don’t like you,” I said.

“Mr. Howell can get me a passport?”

“He could help you, if you’d give him a reason.”

“Mm. People will usually want something back for help you.”

“That’s business.”

“Chinese think business is for capitalist making money.”

“Oh, please. Now I’m going to throw up.”

“I have not serve Chinese revolution very well, but I will never betray my people’s revolution.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Try to understand what I will say to you, girl. You want me to do something I will never, never do.”

I was surprised by a flutter of respect for that little brown space alien. I put it away. “You’re nuts,” I said.

She unfolded her legs and stepped out of the borrowed pajamas. My patchwork print dress went on over her head.

“What are you doing?” I said.

“Leaving.”

“No, we are staying tonight.”

“I am leaving tonight.”

“We’re in the middle of the woods,” I said.

“I can walk out of the woods,” Betty said. “Can walk one thousand mile.”

She knelt to buckle her cloth and rubber shoes.

“You’ve got no way to live,” I said.

“It is easy to live. Nobody starve in U.S.”

The hallway was dark except for a soft yellow line at the foot of the Gandys’ bedroom door. The Chinese moved quickly, as though she had planned her way. I touched something and it clattered against the floor. Estevan barked.

I ran after Betty. Lights came on behind us.

Outside, there was no moon. The air was wet and sharp. In the distance, a chorus of hepped-up voices answered Estevan’s barking. Coyotes.

I felt Betty’s hand on my arm. We ran over the soft, crunching gravel.

I had chased Betty to drag her back, and now I was getting into the Scamp with her. I don’t know why my mind changed. I stomped on the gas pedal. The porch light came on. The engine heaved but wouldn’t catch. Estevan lurched out the door, followed by Mrs. Gandy in a belted white caftan.

My throttle-stomping had flooded the carburetor. But the hour’s wait in front of Sears and Roebuck, which had seemed such an inconvenience at

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