The Remarkable Journey of Coyote Sunrise by Dan Gemeinhart

Author:Dan Gemeinhart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR)

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I’ll give it to Salvador: He was totally good about honoring requests from kinda friends. The drop went just like I’d asked. There was a phone call with his aunt to find out where she was and then Salvador and his mom bustled around, gathering up all their stuff. At one point Salvador came up to me with my copy of The One and Only Ivan and I said “Keep it,” but other than that I kept my eyes on the pages of the book I was reading. And then we were there.

We met his aunt at a restaurant next to the hotel she was staying in. We pulled into the parking lot and Salvador and his mom got all excited when they saw her, through the window, sitting in a booth. I kept reading, my hand scratching at Ivan’s furry back.

There were some goodbyes, but none for me. Rodeo and Lester wished them well and helped them unload their suitcases and stuff, and there were probably some hugs and whatnot, but I wasn’t really paying attention.

Rodeo and Lester climbed back aboard and the door shut, and I accidentally looked up a little and saw, through the restaurant windows, Salvador’s aunt jump up when he and Ms. Vega walked into the restaurant and there was some more hugging and what looked like a lot of excited talking.

Reuniting with family must be nice.

I put my nose back in my book.

Rodeo eased down into the driver’s seat and looked at me for a second before asking, “How you doing, sugarplum?” and I just said, “Get this pile of junk moving, old man” without even looking up from my book but out of the corner of my eye I saw him nod and then the engine fired up and we were off.

I did sneak one more peek, though. Just one quick glance out the window, since I had to clear my throat anyway.

Ms. Vega was talking with her sister; they were holding both of each other’s hands and looking right into each other’s eyes, talking close and nodding. The way sisters do.

Salvador was standing next to them. He was standing there in the restaurant holding that dirty old hubcap under one arm. He was looking at me, and his other arm was raised in a wave.

My book was way more interesting than saying goodbye to any dumb boy holding a stupid hubcap.

Come on, Coyote—it sucked. It really, really sucked. Not the book. The saying goodbye to the stupid boy. That sucked. I blinked and I flared my nostrils and I clenched my teeth and I reminded myself that it was all right, that I was all right, that everything was all right.

“Hey there, sweet daisy,” Rodeo called out as we rumbled back toward the street. “Give me a once-upon-a-time.”

I closed my book and took one big ol’ heart-cleaning, mind-clearing breath and threw something like a smile onto my face. That was the thing to do, I knew. That was how we rolled.

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