“You two. Stay right here. Don’t move a iota, okay? I’m talking to you, especially, Howling. All right, bear?” said Mam.
Howling rolled his eyes. “Last time we didn’t move neither, and you still left us behind,” he said.
“I didn’t leave you behind. I got lost. Mams get lost, too. But I found you in the end because you stayed where you was, didn’t I? Now we just got to do that again. I’ll be right back.” She hurried off without waiting for Howling to answer, which was annoying because he’d been planning to say something extremely mean that would’ve hurt her feelings.
“Excuse me, miss, miss?” said Mam, running toward the station to leave Howling and Feral by their lonesome. That was the way Howling liked it anyway, like back in the woods, where every piece of its expanse was his domain. He only watched Mam now so when she turned back round to face him, she’d see his frown and know how upset he was at her general foolishness.
The person Mam had shouted at turned toward her. “I was wondering if you could give this to the man inside and tell him to put ten dollars’ worth of unleaded on number four,” said Mam. “I’d go in myself, but you see, the guy working, he’s friends with my husband, and I don’t particularly wish to be found by my husband right now.”
The person looked at Mam for several moments, then nodded, taking something folded, green, and cloth-like from Mam’s outstretched hand.
When the person entered the station, Vern dove into the open door of one of the metal beasts, coming out about a half minute later and running with a hobbled gait back to Howling and Feral.
“Two hundred dollars cash, crisp twenties, can you believe it!” she said, swooping the children in her arms and running faster than Howling had seen her run in a long time away from the station. She didn’t put them down until they’d turned several corners. Howling was just glad he’d been holding all his treasures when Mam had picked him up without asking. “Remember that, children. Gas stations are always a good target. People let their guard down. Run into the shop, leaving their purses or wallets inside open cars. And sometimes it takes some to get some. I sacrificed our last bit of money in the hopes we’d get more. She looked rich. Nobody wears a wool cream suit. I expected cash in her handbag but not that much, damn!”
Mam was always talking nonsense. She smiled wide and free, her whole face glinting with it. Whatever two hundred dollars was, it was important if it made Mam look like that. She didn’t look like that ever.
“What’s two hundred dollars, Mam?” Howling asked. He needed to know whether he was mad at her or not.
“It’s a number. Like two or twenty,” said Mam. “But it’s got one more zero at the end.” She’d drawn these figures for Howling and Feral in the mud before. Each symbol meant a different thing. See, if you had thirteen rocks, you wrote one and then a three. The one was on the left side. That was the tens place, so it equaled ten. The three was in the ones place, so it just equaled three. Ten and three was thirteen. “Remember how numbers go on forever? How you could always just go out and collect one more rock?” Mam asked.
“I remember.” Of course he remembered.
Mam smiled at him, still gleeful. “Well, two hundred rocks is a lot of rocks. It’ll help us get to Lucy.”
Mam dragged Feral and him onto a bus, where they sat near the back. Feral got Mam’s lap. Howling sat in the empty space beside, watching the world unfurl beside him like a flower from a bud. He watched till it went dark, till sleep claimed him. He dreamed of noise.
13
PAIN NUDGED Vern awake.
“Children?” she said, startled by the silence, the lack of breaths. She blinked her eyes several times. “Children?”
She couldn’t feel their heat, their weight. “Children!”
“Up here, Mam,” called Feral.
Vern walked on lead legs to the front of the bus using the seat backs as leverage. The children were sitting in the driver’s seat and playing with the steering wheel as well as the many levers and buttons. As she roused more and more, her awareness sharpening, she pieced the morning together. The bus had arrived some time ago, and the rest of the passengers had disembarked. She’d been deep enough asleep to miss the call, and huddled with her babes tightly enough that the bus driver hadn’t seen that they were still there.
Vern peered out the window to the dull conglomerate of concrete and cube buildings. Her eyes weren’t doing very well today. It felt like they’d been taken out, squeezed, and plopped back in place. Her back hurt, too. Vern wasn’t convinced she’d be able to walk unsupported.