Wild Awake - By Hilary T. Smith Page 0,80

into the same side of the booth. Skunk’s body is damp and hot like a rain forest. He scans the diner.

“I think we’re okay here,” he says, but his eyes keep checking and checking.

The waitress comes and slaps menus down on our table. Skunk’s too distracted to order. I sit up and take charge.

“We need six grilled-cheese sandwiches and a gallon of coffee.”

She blinks.

“Coffee comes only in mugs this size. But you get a free refill.”

I flutter my hand. “Do what you can.”

When the waitress goes away, Skunk turns to me.

“Kiri.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Now that it’s safe to talk, you can tell me. Who was the man in the car?” His brown eyes are huge with concern. It occurs to me, suddenly, what a strange coincidence it is that Skunk was out for a bike ride at the same time I was swimming through the strange leather-and-glass aquarium of Motorcycle Man’s car. Our connection must run deeper than I ever imagined; Skunk must have sensed that something was afoot.

This being said, my memory of the preceding hours is becoming more and more slippery. I peer into Skunk’s eyes, which are glowing like little planets.

“I don’t remember.”

Skunk’s smoking hand keeps moving to his cigarette pocket and back to the table, as if it keeps sneaking away on him and he has to constantly herd it back. His eyes strain into mine, as if he thinks if he looks hard enough he’ll be able to see the memories I can’t piece together. “Try, Kiri. Try. What did he say to you? What did he want?”

Before I have the chance to answer, the waitress comes carrying six plates of grilled-cheese sandwiches and two cups of coffee, which she unloads onto the table. Each sandwich comes with a bright green pickle. I pick one up and eat it. Its firm, cool pickle bones snap in my mouth like a frog’s. My thoughts are woozy and colorful. It’s like being at a carnival. Each time Skunk asks a question, I cast my little plastic fishing rod and reel in a different prize. I sit up suddenly, remembering something.

“Four thirty-three,” I say to Skunk. “That’s the message he gave me.”

“Four thirty-three.”

Our eyes both snap to the greasy white clock on the diner wall. It’s 4:32. Just when the minute hand slides forward, we hear the scream of police sirens on the street outside the diner. We hold our breath as the sound crescendos to a brain-cracking whine that seems to hover outside the diner interminably before rushing away.

“Oh God.”

Skunk squashes his fist against his mouth, blinking rapidly. I pick up my grilled-cheese sandwich and dispatch it in six bites. It’s delicious. Golden brown on the outside and traffic-cone orange on the inside. The coffee is hot and watery in its white china cup and comes with a mean little spoon, which I hide in a crack in the booth’s leather lining. Beside me, Skunk is knitting and unknitting his fingers on the table and muttering worriedly to himself. I reach under the table and unbuckle my murder-shoes. They clatter onto the dirty diner floor. I pull my bare feet under me and sit cross-legged on the leather seat. Now that I have eaten my sandwich, the world is coming into sharper focus. When I look around the diner, I see people eating pancakes, not blurry rainbows like a moment ago.

“They’ve been following you,” says Skunk. “They used me to get to you.”

I pluck another sandwich off a plate and sink my teeth into it. Hungry. I’ve never been so hungry in my life.

“They tried to kill you once before, and tonight they tried again. Both times it was right after you played at the Train Room. It’s a pattern, Kiri.”

I slurp up my coffee, and the waitress swoops in to refill it. “No shoes, no service.”

“Oh, sorry.”

I slip my feet back into Sukey’s shoes without buckling them and take a sip of my coffee. The lights and color of the diner have started to quiet down, like someone in the kitchen has adjusted a knob.

Skunk is staring at the patterns in the tabletop as if they reveal a horrifying picture he’s never put together before. He looks at me. “Promise you won’t go back to the Train Room.”

I feel like I’m waking up after a long sleep in a strange bed. For the first time since he appeared on his bicycle, Skunk’s face comes into focus, and his words start to make sense. I put down my coffee cup.

“What