Incommunicado by Randall Platt

Author:Randall Platt
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Sky Pony Press
Published: 2014-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 25

“Hey, Shorty,” Rex says, pulling on the light. “Where’s Mom?”

I’m all foggy. I love those few brief seconds when you wake and you can’t remember the trouble you’ve gotten yourself into. “Huh?”

“She’s not in her room. She go incommunicado again?”

“Uh, no. She said she was going to Edna’s and then spend the night if it got too late.”

“Well, it’s too late.”

“Where’ve you been?”

“Feed and Seed. Studying. It’s quiet there once I got it all cleaned up and the windows blacked out.”

“Only you would study on a Saturday night.”

“Got to ace my finals. If I do well on those, I can get out of this crappy town. Get anywhere but here.”

I sit up and look at him straight on, not sure if my ears are buzzing or if there’s a bit of wheeze in his voice. “What’s out there besides ‘anywhere but here’?”

“A life. College, maybe.”

He’s the only boy in town thinking college right now—this February after infamy. Most’re thinking about war and signing on the dotted line to go kill some enemies.

“College costs money,” I say. “You stand just as much a chance of going as traveling to the moon.”

“Mr. Kaye says if I can get a scholarship somewhere, he’d front the rest of the bill.”

Mr. Kaye. Zonked out in the basement of the church one block south of us. Agent Boothby trying to pick up his fake trail to Canada. Now it all comes back to me. And you know what? It’s another good reason why maybe my plan has to work. No Mr. Kaye, no college for Rex.

“Rex, I think there’s something I should tell you.”

My voice is quavering and he takes notice. “What?”

So I spill my guts, starting with the words and papers being tossed between Agent Boothby and Mr. Kaye, passing through Leavenworth then on over to Japan, and ending in the basement of St. Bart’s and my harebrained idea of sanctuary.

“Jewels! There’s no sanctuary anymore! If there was, every church in the world would be filled with thieves and murderers!”

“Well, I didn’t know that when I put him there!” I snap. “But I’ll be blasted if I’m going to stand by and watch that FBI man haul him off to prison! Or worse! They shoot spies, you know!”

I think for the first time ever, Rex is speechless. He looks at Hero snoozing on the floor, then back at me. Then he screeches out, “Are you out of your mind? You can’t . . . he can’t . . . Jewels! You can’t do this!”

“Well, I did! And as far as the FBI is concerned, Mr. Kaye has run off to Canada, so they don’t even have to bother looking here anymore.”

“What’s that about Canada?”

So I tell him that part of the story.

Rex sputters in and out of a cough, “Jewels, you have no idea what you’ve done. Leaving his apartment, leaving Sea Park, leaving Oregon is one thing. Leaving the country is another. And Canada! That’s where draft dodgers and conscientious objectors go!”

“But he hasn’t gone to Canada.

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