No Name Trilogy, Book I: No Name

Chapter 11 - San Judo

What had happened was this: about halfway into a night of driving, Henry had sensed something was off. He'd crawled along in the back of the pickup toward the little sliding window that opened into the cabin of the car. The driver had been on his phone, saying something about switching his route to go back the way he'd come. He'd said he was going to turn around but that he had to get some kids out of his car first (meaning me and Henry). Well, Henry didn't want that. He wanted to keep on to San Judo. So he'd climbed in through the window and pulled his Swiss army knife on the driver. He'd gotten him to pull over, and then he'd shoved the guy out onto the road and started driving the truck himself.

When Henry told me all of it, I was stunned. He'd been so hyper-concerned about being cautious—stealing a car would definitely bring out law enforcement.

"No," Henry told me. "That stuff in the back? It's all stolen car parts. That guy was into something illegal. If he put the police on our trail, he'd only hurt himself."

How he'd known that, I wasn't sure. But he said we'd ditch the car parts in the woods (which was why he'd been away from the truck when I'd woken up; he was looking for a place to dump the stuff) and drive until we got into the city. Then we'd get rid of the truck somewhere and figure out our next step.

"What about him?" I asked, pointing at Mac.

"Who?" asked Henry. I raised my eyebrows and he looked behind me. "Oh," he said, remembering the kid, who was just smiling away. Henry lowered his voice. "He says he's homeless, that he stowed away on the truck before it left yesterday. He can stay with us until we get to San Judo."

Mac was going to drive me crazy. I knew he would. Still, I knew we couldn't just leave him in the middle of nowhere. We were hitchhikers too, and he'd apparently found this truck before we had. "Can he sit in the back?"

"No. When we're closer to the city, it would be bad to have someone in back. It would just draw more attention to us."

Another question sprang to mind. "Do you know how to drive?"

Shrugging, he matter-of-factly replied, "I must, because I did fine last night." Then he narrowed his eyes. "You know, Nadia, I don't even know how old I am."

"Neither do I," I said.

"You don't know how old you are?" chirped Mac. He'd snuck up on us. "I know how old I am! I'm eight. You look like teenagers."

Henry sighed, then he started to lift some more junk from the back of the truck. "Let's just get this unloaded."

After about an hour, we were on our way. Henry was driving, I was in the passenger seat, and Mac was in between us. I was surprised at Henry's driving skills. He didn't have any problems at all operating the truck, so I tried to guess his age. Seventeen or eighteen sounded best to me, old enough to know how to drive. I didn't think he could be too much older than that. There wasn't any sign of facial hair; his chin was smooth, and though he certainly didn't look like a child, he had a kind of youthful shine. As for myself? I didn't think I could be older than Henry, but I might be younger, perhaps in the range of fifteen or sixteen. I wasn't sure whether I could drive and had no inclination to find out.

Mac talked just about the whole time, about foster homes and running away and his favorite fast food and what cars he wanted to drive and so many other things I just didn't care about. At first I struggled to maintain my patience, but then I noticed how different the background noise was from the mostly-silence that Henry and I had traveled in until that point. Even though I didn't really listen to anything Mac was saying, I wasn't so irritated after I got used to it, became immune and even, later on, appreciative of it. His chatter was like a cushion; it helped my mind stay unfocused, so I didn't have to think as much about the conflicting feelings I had toward Henry, whose apparent lack of conscience bothered me. Had I not felt drawn to him, I probably wouldn't have been so concerned, but I'd begun to recognize an uncomfortable desire to be nearer to Henry as well as a fear of what might happen if I were. I wanted to like him--I couldn't help but want to stay with him--but there was something in me that wondered whether I could actually trust him. He'd told me he wouldn't forget me; he'd promised he wouldn't leave me. But what did I know about him and his honesty? What did he even know about himself?