Growing up a Thief

Chapter 9: Getting There

        "James and Casey sitting in a tree, K.I.S..."

I punch Richie in his shoulder to shut him up. "Ow, that's not nice. It's not my fault you're in love with Casey."

     "Shut up man," I say, laughing it off. "She is something though, huh?" I say, staring off into the distance. My focus drifts away as I begin daydreaming and Richie hits me in the arm, pulling me back to reality. 

     "Gotcha back," Richie says as he takes off running, and I race after him seeing the library is only a few blocks away. I start to catch up to him and as luck would have it, the wind blows his hat off, allowing me to run right past him and win the race. "Not fair, the wind helped you." 

     "Don't be a sore loser," I say, holding the door open for him to walk through. We make our way to the front desk and I'm happy to see Mrs. Riddle. "Hey Mrs. Riddle, this is my buddy Richie. Do you have any maps with train routes on em'?"

     "Hi James, nice to meet you Richie. I believe I can help you out with that. What are they for?" she asks while flipping through what looks like the largest book I have ever seen.

    Richie tips his hat. "Nice to meet you too, ma'am. Just a little project we are working on in school." When the word 'school' comes out of his mouth, my heart sinks a little bit. She already knows that ever since my parents died I've stopped going to school.

     "Oh I see. School, huh?" she says with obvious skepticism. "All of our maps are down the back wall to your left, just bring whatever you want to check out up to the front when you're done fellas."

     "Thank you," I say, looking at the ground, I hate lying to her. To make things worse I know she knows I don't go to school, which is why she gives me all these books to read. When we walk over to the back wall I look back and notice she has a phone up to her ear. 

     After a few minutes of shuffling through the maps, I look back at Mrs. Riddle and she is still on the phone, and now she is covertly looking in our direction. Richie's voice pulls me away from this thought.

     "I think I found one!" he says, holding the rolled up map in his hand like a sword. "It's a full map of all U.S train routes." He unrolls the map along a nearby table and points to New York City, and then trails his finger all the way along a line going from New York to Washington, which according to the map's key is a train track. 

     "Perfect, let's get this back to Bobby's and we can start planning everything out," I say as I roll the map up and snap a rubber band around it. We take the map up to the front desk and hand it to Mrs. Riddle.

     "Found one!" Richie says with excitement.

     "I see. Well James, you know the drill. You've got it for a week," she says as she writes down the serial number on a small green card and puts it in a filing cabinet. "I'll see you in a week," she says while handing me the map. "And James, stay out of trouble, buddy." 

     I nod and say, "See you then." As we walk out of the library I begin to feel nervous. I'm not sure why. I mean, even though she knows Richie lied about the school thing, she wouldn't make a big deal out of it. But something about the way she was talking to me, seemed as if she was really worried about me.

**********

     When we get back to the diner, I see Bobby eating a big greasy burger through the window. We walk through the door, which triggers the bell above us to ring. "Back so soon?" he mumbles with his mouth full of food.

     "Yeah, we found a map of all the major train routes in the country, commercial and public," Richie says as he hops up on the counter next to where Bobby is eating and steals a fry off of his plate. 

     "Hey, hey those are mine kiddo. You want some I'll throw a bag of 'em in the frier for you," Bobby says, smacking Richie's hand away playfully.

     "No thanks, those eggs you made me earlier did the trick." Richie takes his hat off and puts it next to him on the counter, and combs his hand through his hair.

     I put the map out on the counter and roll it out in front of them, using the salt and pepper shakers to hold down the edges. "Ahh, there you go. That's exactly what I was talking about. Look here..." He points at where we are on the map. "Like I said, I can get you on a bus that will take you from here to Chicago, and from there you two are going to hop a train all the way to here..." He slides his finger across the map, just below the Canadian border.  "Everett, Washington. There's a system of fairies that take you all the way up the coast to Anchorage, that's your best bet to find a place to crash for a while. I know you guys are set on making your way up to Nome, but it's not that easy. From what I could find the only way into Nome is by plane, and given your situation I don't see how that's possible yet." 

     

     Although I am fairly disappointed, what he's saying makes sense. I'll get to Nome and I will find the place in my pictures, all in good time. But for now this seems like a good plan. "What's there in Anchorage?" I ask, pointing to the name on the map.

     "It's a pretty big city. Once you are there you should be able to find a place to crash and possibly some work under the table. A lot of people head up there when they are running from something, the people there know the drill." He goes over the plan for Richie and I a few more times as he finishes up his lunch. When we are satisfied that we know it front and back, Richie and I decide to go back to his place to make a list of stuff we are going to need for the trip. 

     We are walking back to his house, and all of a sudden I hear footsteps running behind us. Before I can turn around I am lifted up into the air and flipped upside down. "Hey, wait here, let him go..." Richie yells, handing a wallet he stole to the two men holding me upside down.

     "Haha, hey, James who's the Frank Sinatra wannabe?" A familiar voice calms me. 

     "Who you calling... wait, James, you know these goons?" Richie says, still ready to fight. Which actually made me feel good, he's willing to fight two grown men, now that's a friend.

     I pull my shirt up from dangling over my still upside down face. "Know is a strong word. Allow me to introduce Taylor and Pauly. Could you put me down now?"