Read an Excerpt
Go!
The boy survived, as boys sometimes do. For years, on and off the streets. He did many things, saw many things, suffered many things. A few of them left scars, and a lot of them made for good stories, but we don’t have time for any of those right now.
Because right now it is later. Years. And the boy—twelve now, almost thirteen—squats, fingers gripping the crumbling concrete between his too-small shoes, on the low wall at the edge of a roof six stories up. He’s watching the cops scramble up the creaking fire escape and counting down the time until their arrival.
He says, “Ten seconds, Jules,” and flexes his toes inside his shoes, ready to run, to jump, to fly if he needs to.
Jules says, “I know.”
“And I’m being generous.”
“I know.”
Jules is big and strong and just a little bit older than the boy. They’ve found the door they need to go through. One they’d scouted the night before and the night before that. On those nights, there was no lock. Now there is. Because that’s just the way life works: things only go wrong when it really matters.
Mouse looks past Jules as he pulls at the lock and rams his shoulder into the door. She says the boy’s name, and he glances back at her and smiles quickly, as if to tell her not to worry. Not about any little thing ever. He pulls up the scarf he wears over his head, covers his mouth and nose, smothering that smile. But Mouse knows it’s still there.
The cops are upset. Yelling up the fire escape at the boy crouched there watching them. They’re angry at being made to run and climb and jump. If they make it to the roof, they won’t be wagging their fingers and scolding the boy and his friends. The police will break their bones with lead-weighted clubs and then throw their bodies off the roof to smash on the pavement below.
Slipped while fleeing. All three of them.
Tragic. Of course.
The boy is fine with this. He understands the rules and plays by them, too. He’d been up on the roof by himself before all this. Had brought his wrenches and loosened all the rusted bolts that secured the top of the fire escape to the roof. Two seconds of work and one good shove—that’s all it’ll take to send the whole thing crashing down. He has the wrench in his hand right now. Has already adjusted the bit so it will fit neatly over the heads of the two bolts.
“Five seconds.”
“I know,” says Jules. “Mouse, my tools.”
Mouse hands him a chunk of rock from the roof, a little stub of twisted rebar sticking out one side. Like a hammer.
Jules weighs it in his hand. He says, “Nice,” then lifts it, swings, hits the lock. Hits it again. And again. And on the fourth try it works, but he smashes his finger a little, tears off the nail. It hurts, and he drops the rock hammer and tears spring to his eyes and he wants to stick the finger in his mouth and suck on it, but he doesn’t. Because he would never.
The lock is broken. He hits the door with his shoulder and it scrapes open. He calls to the boy, voice sharp and loud with pain.
Mouse goes down the stairs first, leaping an entire flight, the ragged scrap of a shawl she wears billowing out behind her like stone-colored wings. She lands on one foot, one knee, one hand, looks back through dust and darkness.
Jules waits for the boy.
The boy walks.
The first policeman’s hand touches the lip of wall around the roof.
The boy asks, “You ready?”
“Course,” says Jules.
“Then what are we waiting for?”
“After you.”
“No, you first. I insist.”
Then they laugh. They both go through the door, push it closed. Jules pulls two wooden wedges out of a pocket and shoves them under the door. Chocks. He hammers them in with the palm of one hand, then kicks each one for good measure.
And then they run, all three of them—down a flight and another flight, feet going slapslapslapskidslap on the old steps, hands skimming the loose, rusted railings for balance. They’re careful not to trip over the garbage strewn in the stairwell, the mounds of rags and blankets that might be people sleeping.
The closed door and the chocks won’t hold the police. Not for very long. But that isn’t the point. It isn’t meant to stop them. The boy and his friends only need a few extra seconds.
Three floors down, they tumble. Laughing. Harder to stop than it is to keep running, and they end up in a pile.
The boy says, “Door,” and Jules bangs on it twice with his fist.
It opens a few inches.
Three floors up, someone kicks the other door that Jules had wedged closed . . .
“Wait,” says the boy.
. . . and kicks the door again—a huge, booming sound . . .
Jules says, “Gods, they’re so slow.”
“Grown-ups,” Mouse says, and shrugs.
