March Madness!!!! Day 14 - prompt: fan Day 15 Prompt: turn signal

Sara Lacy, in her cop-porn-blue uniform, shook her head at me.
"Kristy. I know we don't really need to have this conversation again."
[photo: mine!]

---

"I've never been a fan of cops,"

Ty said on our way to the parking lot, "but Sergeant Lacy seems like a decent human being."

"Totally," I agreed. "I always knew I wanted to be cop when I grew up, but she sealed the deal."

Well, that silenced him, but then again, nothing seemed to inspire Ty Chrystie to wax conversational.

He stopped at an old black Honda four-door and unlocked it with a remote. "Your parents know you're riding home with me?" he said.

"I texted, but they're not responding."

"My grandpa didn't respond either. Mind if I drop by to make sure he's ok?"

"Please do."

Silence didn't seem to bother this guy. Most kids would go "Awkward!" at a lull in conversation, but not Ty. I have him directions to our house, and he just nodded. He pulled into a residential area two miles from school, one of those 1940s developments with plaster-walled houses and no attached garages.

A man with shiny dark brown skin and no hair had the front door open before we got out of the car. His smile was so wide and welcoming, you'd think we were here for a party. He shifted his cane to his left hand and held up a fist for Ty.

"Hey Gramps." Ty fist-bumped him. "I see you're alive and kicking."

"Did you bring me a girl?" he teased, winking at me.

"Ha ha. You didn't pick up, and I wanted to let you know I'll be home late. Kris missed the bus, so I'm giving her a ride home. Kris Bennett, my grandpa, Alan Chrystie."

"Kris." His bright eyes somehow got even brighter. "The face smasher."

"Yeah." I returned his fist-bump. "My reputation precedes me."

"Today she left-hooked one of the mean girls," Ty said. "Don't worry, I'm staying on her good side."

Mr. Christy shook a finger at me. "It's like I tell Ty. You don't run or fight when a cop holds a gun on you, and you best hold your hands behind your back when the miscreants run at the mouth. They ain't worth the trouble they'll get you into."

"She's gonna be a cop herself," Ty said. "Then look out trouble, here she comes!"

Who was this smiling, teasing guy? I'd never seen him at school. The mask was coming down.

"Come on in and stay awhile," Mr. Christy said, opening the door wider, motioning me inside.

"Thanks, I'd love to, but I've got chores at home."

Ty extricated me from his cute little grandpa and got us back on the road again.

"You got yourself in deep now," Ty said. "Now that Grandpa's met you, he'll stop at nothing to get you over to visit."

"I like him." The way he smiled, like he was so happy to see a kid come home from school, somehow put a lump in my throat. I couldn't even imagine my parents smiling at me like that.

"He's a stubborn old devil. Just ask Aunt Velma. She's been wanting us to live here ever since her husband died. She's scared to death Grandpa will drop while I'm at school and I'll come home, find him dead on the floor. Like she found Big Earl."

"So it's just you and your grandpa?"

He nodded, his eyes focused on the road. I wanted to ask about his parents but figured it wouldn't be cool.

"You weren't kidding, were you?" he said. "About blacking out everything Mr. Cook said after school."

"Weird, I know."

Ty shook his head. "Been there. You got a lot on your mind. Sounds like nobody is helping you find your sister."

Ethan tried.

The thought of him hanging those posters--before Lexi swooped in like a hawk and sank her talons into my one real friend--threatened to put another big lump in my throat. The whole day at school she'd circled, and he let her. He didn't just blow her off. He smiled at her and hung on every idiotic word she said.

Once we got out of town the four-lane blacktop narrowed to two lanes and the businesses thinned out. Then it was seven miles of nothing but empty fields, soybean stalks or corn stubble poking up through a light dusting of snow, and a gun-metal sky looking grumpy with fat gray clouds that threatened to drop more snow. An occasional house and barn with a few outbuildings indicated some sign of human habitat every half-mile or so, and sometimes cattle dotting the gradual slope of a wannabe hill. "After the creek, turn left," I said. The creek was a squiggle through a pasture and the shallow water floated under a bridge that was nothing but a railing on either side of the blacktop. Ty used his turn signal even though there was no other car on the road to notice, then turned onto another blacktop, as desolate as the last one. Nothing buy gray sky, dirty snow, and stubbly fields.

The white two-story, the red barn, the fences and pens, the goats and sheep, the north grove of oaks and junipers, and Ted the red heeler spelled welcome in ways my parents could not. That was just how they were raised. Jenny challenged everything and complained and asked why they weren't like other parents, which was about as logical as asking why Ty had freckles. Ted approached the car warily, barking his usual menacing dog-on-duty alarm, but his wagging tail gave him away. I got out, set my backpack on the ground, and stood firm with my legs apart. "Ted. Show off."

He ran circles around us, then aimed his head low and ran between my legs, in and out, right and left. That got Ty to drop the mask. He was shaking his head, smiling. I gave a whistle and a head tilt, and Ted dashed through Ty's legs next until I said "Halt," and Ted parked at my side, pressing his body tight against my leg. It was the best thing to come home to.

"Is that a dog or a rocket?" Ty said. His eyes were shining and dark, shifting, taking it all in. "Those snowy fields out there look like the moon. And whassup with this wind?"

The wind was always stronger out here without buildings to impede it. It whipped my hair and moaned through the trees, and I wondered if Jenny was dressed for the weather. The day after Thanksgiving was unseasonably warm, but December had come blustering into town and Jenny hadn't packed a thing to take wherever it was she had gone to.

Ted parked at the end of the driveway waiting for the bus to bring Mindy home.

"I've gotta start chores," I said. "You don't have to leave or anything, but I have to get to work."

"You don't mind my staying?" His eyes did that scanning thing again, like a sailor searching for land. "I mean, your parents won't freak out if they find me here?""

I forced my gaze away from his cheetah-freckles and focused on his eyes. "They're not racist or anything. Laziness and dishonesty, they have zero tolerance. Remember, this is me you're talking to. They'd worry about the guy way more than about me." Ty got a little wide-eyed at that, so I slugged him in the bicep to snap him out of it.

Dang. That guy wasn't big, but he was solid.

"So. First, I let out Ted's evil offspring. He can't be trusted to stay out of trouble, but Ted has proven himself worthy of patrolling the place without a leash or hog wire fence to contain him."

"Hog wire?"

"The narrow rectangle wire fencing, versus the 9-gauge hinged-joint cattle fencing up by the road," I said.

I whipped through the feeding and watering of the critters, didn't even try to work with the Ted Junior while a newcomer was here, and noticed Ted give up on waiting for the bus. Mindy wasn't on it, obviously. Where was she? With Mom and Dad? I pulled my phone out of my pocket and turned off the silencer. One message: Mindy had come home sick, and they were on errands to clear Jenny's stuff from the house sitting gig.

It felt like I'd been punched in the gut.

"You ok?"

Ty stood wide-legged in the wind, hands in his parka pockets, head lowered, like he had to brace himself againsts a gale force. I didn't have it in in me to tease him. I didn't have much of anything but a ball of anger churning in me.

"My little sister gets away with everything." The urge to punch her had never been stronger.

"They're in Iowa City," I said, "hauling home my sister's stuff. Without me."

The professor needed a new house sitter and Jenny's stuff had to go. Even if Jenny came home tonight, in time for her birthday, she wouldn't have that place to live anymore.

"I need to bake a cake," I said. "You can stay if you want."

"Only if you don't mind," Ty said. He stood there with those outrageous freckles, like cheetah spots, with snowflakes drifting down from that bloated gray sky, and the juniper trees behind him, the ground dusted like powedered sugar on Jenny's beloved pound cake.

Another dang lump in my throat. I swallowed, then just nodded, and opened the kitchen door.

source

Check Out The @FreeWriteHouse Prompt Of The Day By @MarianneWest

• Look For The 5-Min #FreeWrite Daily Prompt On @MarianneWest’s Blog