Hit the Road by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780375846571
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2008-01-08T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 8

Every girl's favorite summer vacation: wanted by the police.

She could not imagine being pulled over. Police—armed—slowly, threateningly walking up to her.

Her thoughts were racing faster than any car on the road.

First of all, she told herself, Aurelia is a grown-up. She does get to decide where she lives. She's decided not to live at Fox Hills. There's no crime in it, for her or for me. So big deal, we fibbed to a hospital aide about where we were having lunch.

What could Aston say to the cops if he called them? He certainly couldn't say “I'm afraid she'll change her will.”

He couldn't say “I forged her signature on a power of attorney and stole her money.”

But he could say “I'm worried because she doesn't have her medications.”

Would the police chase Aurelia down for that? Brit thought they would. She was not an anti-police kind of teenager. She didn't want them in her yard, examining her rosebushes, and she didn't want them in her life, examining her driver's license, but overall, she did want police.

The problem with police was, sometimes they wanted to be cowboys.

Her stomach quivered at the thought of being chased and hunted.

But I, she reminded herself, am not an old lady. And from now on, I refuse to drive like one either. I'll be the cowboy, thank you.

She clicked off cruise control and went as fast as everybody else. It was nice not to be passed by every vehicle in Massachusetts.

Okay. So. Aston—a guy busily selling antiques, dating doctors and spending a million six hundred thousand. Would he also drive all over Massachusetts on the off chance he might bump into his mother?

If for any reason the van got pulled over and Aston actually had reported that a girl in a GMC Safari . . .

Brit giggled. Perhaps Rose would tell him it was a Beemer.

Behind her, the girls had slid into stories about college and the Depression. They talked about malted milk shakes and Shirley Temple movies and the shocking moment when Rhett Butler said a swear word at the end of Gone With the Wind. Flo had the way back; Aurelia and Nannie were in the middle. Flo was leaning forward and Nannie was sitting sideways so they could both face Aurelia, who was not flexible. They were laughing and interrupting and holding hands.

The girls were almost having Reunion here in the car, but real Reunion had requirements. They had to check in at Buttermere Dormitory, get their class badges, be photographed on the steps, sing their alumnae song.

Brit could not treat the girls like children again. She had to tell them about Aston's threats. But even when there was a lull in the flow of memories, Brit couldn't launch the awful topic of Aston, so she said, “What does Buttermere look like? All I know are the front steps from that photograph.”

“It's been torn down,” said Flo.

“It couldn't be remodeled to meet building codes,” explained Nannie. “We outlived it.”

They've outlived everything, Brit thought. Parents, husbands, some of their children, their health, parts of their minds and even their buildings.

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