“I imagine.”
“Totally wild.” Devon kicked off his shoes.
“Good for you.”
“So, how’d the show go?”
“Pretty good, I think,” Flinch said. He didn’t bother saying anything more. Devon had already fallen asleep. But he smiled. It really had gone well. He felt he’d been right where he belonged—up on stage. And side-by-side with his friends when they needed him. Life was good. Funny, but good. Picking up his notebook, Flinch wrote some ideas for new jokes.
My cousin Devon is so wild…
LUCKY COULDN’T WAIT for the nurse to show up in the morning with his medicine. There’d been some excitement when he’d walked back into the ward last night, but nobody wanted to admit that they’d released him to the wrong person, so they just took him back to his room and acted as if nothing had happened.
“I think I’d like to try going without it,” he said when she came in.
The nurse nodded and smiled. “Glad to hear it. The doctor has been hoping you’d feel that way eventually.”
Lucky was glad to hear it, too. And glad that this was all he heard. He reached in his pocket and felt the gift the guys had given him. Now, he knew he could face the world. Life was no longer an endless struggle against the voices.
MARTIN WALKED BACK inside his house without saying anything. His mom rushed over and hugged him. “Are you all right?”
He backed up, freeing himself from her grasp. “I’m fine.”
Across the room, his dad glanced over. “So, did running away solve all your problems?”
“Nope. It didn’t solve any of mine.” But it sure helped Trash and Lucky. He couldn’t keep himself from smiling. His grin grew larger as he thought about Livy and the fact that he had her phone number in his pocket.
“Is something funny?” his dad asked. He started to rise from his chair.
Martin shook his head and lost the smile. “Nope. Nothing is funny.” Actually, lots of things were funny—Flinch’s jokes, Torchie’s passion for the accordion, the downfall of corrupt people—but this was no time for an argument.
“Promise me you won’t run off again,” his mom said.
Martin thought about life on the street. Sleeping in an alley. Feeling so hungry he almost sifted through a trash can. He thought of a killer who had given him twenty dollars and, a couple days later, had ended up with his life drained out on a basement floor. No, life was hard enough without creating more problems. “I promise.”
His mom gave him another hug. He was angry that she hadn’t tried to come after him. But he understood that she couldn’t. And he understood how much she missed him. This time, when she held onto him, he didn’t step away.
“I REALLY MISSED you,” Torchie said when he got home from camp. The people there had helped him fix his accordion. He couldn’t wait to show his mom all the new things he’d learned. And he was even more excited about how good he was getting on the bagpipe.
“I missed you too,” his mom said. “But I have a surprise for you.” She pointed into the living room.
Torchie went in and looked. “Wow! A piano. Where’d that come from?”
“All the neighbors chipped in,” his mom said. “They were afraid you’d hurt yourself walking all around with that heavy accordion. Or get hit by lightning like Uncle Perry.”
“It looks expensive,” Torchie said.
“They felt it was worth it.”
“I’ve got the best neighbors in the whole world. This is great. And they don’t need to worry about the accordion. I’ve got something a lot lighter to carry around when I play music for them. They’re gonna love the bagpipe. So will you.”
But he couldn’t resist the lure of a new instrument. The bagpipe could wait. Torchie sat at the piano and started figuring out “Oh Susannah.” His mom went back to the kitchen, but he managed to play loudly enough for the song to reach her.
He was so happy, he sang along. Life was great. Strange, and puzzling at times, and filled with unexpected bursts of flame and puffs of smoke, but still pretty great.
CORBIN THALMAYER LOOKED across the dinner table at Eddie. Even a week after their reunion , he still couldn’t believe his dead son had miraculously been given back to him.
There were so many things he wanted to say. But unlike his wife, who was open about her joy, he’d never been good at outward displays of affection, and he knew that teenage boys were easily embarrassed. Though Eddie had borne the initial barrage of motherly hugs with good grace.
Instead of offering hugs, Corbin Thalmayer talked about a thousand unimportant things, just for the sake of hearing a response or two. Tonight, he’d been telling Eddie about a company he was thinking of buying. “The forest land they own through their subsidiary had been fully depreciated, so it doesn’t even affect the balance sheet. The current owners have no idea of the true worth of their company.”