came into her room. Kira was staring miserably at a book of practice tests. Without a word he grabbed it and tore it in half along the spine, a long lovely rippp.
Dad! She was half-thrilled, half-offended. Half Bri and half Becks.
She’d seen her father’s impulsive streak before. If impulsive was the word. Most memorably August before tenth grade. A family trip west. Fly to Denver, drive to Las Vegas. But Rebecca only got to Salt Lake before she had to fly back to D.C. Some crisis in some investigation. There was always some crisis in some investigation. So, she wasn’t around for when they headed south from Salt Lake, the mountains to the left, the desert to the right.
They’d been on the interstate for an hour when Brian said, “This is boring, let’s check out the sand.”
They wound up on a two-lane road that knifed through the ugliest land Kira had ever seen. Scrubby bushes, brown sand, rocks that seemed to melt in the sun. Waves of superheated air shimmered off the asphalt. The emptiness made judging distance difficult. Not another car or truck in sight, much less a building.
NO SERVICES NEXT 70 MILES, white letters warned on a blue sign. CHECK FUEL.
“That was boring?” Tony said. “What’s this?”
“One hundred and eleven degrees,” Brian said. “A rattlesnake speedway in the Utah desert.”
He turned on the radio and it spun endlessly. “Searching for signs of terrestrial life.”
“Clever. Can we go back to the highway, Dad?” Tony was more like Becks, who would surely have considered this road a waste of time. All downside, no upside.
“Let’s see what this brand-spanking-new Hyundai Santa Fe can do. Two-point-four liters, yee-hah.” Staccato like he was talking to himself, not them.
He pulled the steering wheel left and put them in the center of the road so the double yellow line split the SUV in half.
“This can’t be a good idea,” Tony said.
“Once in a lifetime, here or the Autobahn.”
The engine roared, and they accelerated, eighty-five, ninety, ninety-five—
A warning chime rang—
One hundred. The Hyundai shook and Kira watched Brian tighten his grip on the wheel.
One hundred and four. Tony tapped her arm. “Say something. He listens to you.”
But no, she didn’t want to say anything. She remembered when she was five six seven, how her dad held her hands in his and whipped her around and Mom yelled but he just grinned and spun her faster—
One hundred and seven. The air howled hurricane-loud.
The Hyundai went over a bump in the road. On the landing they caught air and pushed right. If they had been in their lane they would have edged off the asphalt.
The jolt snapped Kira out of her reverie:
“Dad, please!”
Brian exhaled and the car slowed, one hundred, ninety-five, ninety, the shaking stopped.
He looked over his shoulder at them. “Got a little excited.”
His blue eyes scared Kira. Flat and empty as the flame from the Bunsen burners in chemistry class. Like the speed was all that counted.
Brian blinked and the look was gone.
Forty minutes later he pulled over at a convenience store, the first they’d seen since the interstate. “Sorry. Thought it would be fun. Anybody want anything?”
He left them in the car.
“That was weird,” Tony said.
Kira knew weird was standing in for a bunch of words they didn’t want to say. Crazy. Terrifying. Though she couldn’t help remembering how calm she had felt until the end. “I guess.”
“We should tell Mom.”
And yet Kira couldn’t. Even the idea seemed like a betrayal. “Yeah, no, I don’t think so. She’d freak. Anyway, what would we say? Dad drove really fast for like a minute and nothing happened?”
And without another word they agreed not to talk about it.
* * *
But yeah. Dad had a rough streak, even if he tucked it away most of the time.
And as Kira sat cross-legged on her bed that night and watched him tearing up the SAT prep guide, pulling out pages, ripping them lengthwise, she knew she was seeing it.
“NSA, the programs are incredibly complex. To handle them we simplify, go step-by-step. Each question on its own. Pare away the wrong answers. You’ll get there. It’s just words and graphs and drawings. You’re smart, you’ll be fine.”
The strange part, he was right. She stopped freaking out after he explained it that way. Not that she wasn’t still nervous, but her fear went to a manageable place.