Period 8 - By Chris Crutcher Page 0,11

Mary Wells for someone as pretty as she is.”

“Have you seen her around?”

“She’s Running Start. I wouldn’t.”

“I know, but she’s been in Period 8 every day for nearly four years and suddenly she’s gone. Missing government, too. Last time I saw her she seemed distressed.”

“I hadn’t noticed,” Hannah says. “If someone told me Mary Wells seemed ‘distressed,’ I wouldn’t even know what that would look like. She’s, like, a smiley mannequin. I mean, get a personality, girl. Sic Mrs. Byers on her.”

Logs waves her away. “Nah. I’ll follow up tomorrow. You drive safe, okay?”

“Thanks, Mr. Logs.”

Hannah disappears into the dark of the driveway.

.4

Logs pops a beer and walks back into the living room, punching Power on the remote, watching the oversized flat screen go black. The porch light casts warm stripes through the half-closed venetian blinds and he sits, insulated from school and the world. Lessons are planned, most of the town sleeps, nothing or no one but his cat, Gehrig, to talk with until morning. This is it. He won’t let himself go fallow, will swim with Paulie, or by himself when Paulie leaves. He’ll travel; maybe write. There was a time back in his twenties when he thought he could be a writer, maybe even as a living. But story after story, great idea after great idea, died in mid-telling. He simply didn’t know how to end any of them. Maybe now, he thinks, when I’m closer to my own ending, when I understand endings better.

He feels the light, acrobatic pressure of cat feet in his lap, takes a long swig of his beer, and strokes the tiny cat’s head. Gehrig is fifteen, can’t weigh more than six pounds. Black with white bib and mittens, long and lean as a javelin, this cat has been hit by a car, lost a chunk of shoulder to some neighborhood marauding animal, spent several nights locked in a neighbor’s shed, and, like his namesake, never missed a day (except for those locked in the shed) as Logs’s companion. He calls Gehrig and Gehrig comes. Like a dog. He’s hunted birds of his equal weight and left their remains on the living room rug as presents with maddening regularity.

Now Gehrig lies stretched like a tiny afghan across Logs’s legs, purring like logging equipment. His entire head fits in the cup of Logs’s hand and he massages between the ears to increasing vibrating decibels. “We’ve had a good run, don’t you think, buddy?” Logs asks. “Fixed more than we broke, maybe? Lent a hand up?”

Gehrig’s answer is his steady purr.

Hannah drives the back road home, deliberately avoiding city streets and forcing herself to concentrate. She’s got at least another hour of homework and it’s closing in on midnight. She pulls to the side of the road and screams “FUUUUUUCK!” at the top of her lungs, pounding her fists against the steering wheel. Then she takes a deep breath and pulls back onto the blacktop.

It’s only a few more miles to her house on this winding two-lane, but it’s starting to feel like a hundred, her eyelids drooping under the weight of crushing fatigue. Not much chance with homework tonight; maybe she can get up early enough to catch up. Or maybe charm someone into letting her copy. She punches the power knob on her satellite radio, cranks up the volume, and hops from station to station looking for the old stuff. The really old stuff. Logs old. She regularly torments friends and enemies alike singing lyrics to songs written at the very birth of rock and roll. Now she wails along, loud to keep herself awake and off-key because that’s her only choice:

Where oh where could my baby be . . .

She reaches for the volume to crank it even louder, looks up barely in time to veer around a B-movie apparition, a girl with flowing dark hair in a long white coat.

“What the hell?” She checks her rearview mirror, sees nothing, speeds about a hundred feet to a wide spot and flips a U-turn.

The girl’s back comes into view, but she doesn’t turn, walks straight down the middle of the road. Hannah pulls up beside her, rolls down the side window. “Hey!”

The girl stops, peers into the car.

“Mary?” Hannah says.

Mary Wells sways, stares straight at her. “Hannah Murphy?”

“Yeah. Are you okay? What are you doing out here? It’s almost midnight.”

“I know, I’m just . . . I’m . . .”

“Where’s your car? You need a ride?”

“My car.” Mary glances around. “Yeah, I