The Rules for Disappearing Read Online Free PDF

some
    —N
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    sightseeing this afternoon. Get our bearings around town.”
    This is code for: Mom’s hammered and Dad’s giving her time to
    pass out before we get home.
    I go along with it because it won’t hurt to see what this town has to offer. Plus, I’m in no rush to have a drunken conversation with my mother.
    Those never end well.
    The streets near the river are narrow and very crowded. We
    end up driving in circles since most streets are one way until we manage to get away from the historic district. The farther we get, the more it changes. Quaint mom-and-pop shops are replaced with Taco Bells and Olive Gardens.
    I watch Dad as he drives. He’s staring more at the rearview
    mirror than through the windshield. I glance behind us a few times but don’t see anything that looks weird. After several quick turns without putting on the blinker first, I ask, “What are you looking for?”
    “What?” He taps the brake and we lunge forward. “What are
    you talking about?”
    “You keep looking in the rearview mirror. Like a lot. Is some-
    body back there?” I glance behind us again, but still see nothing odd.
    Dad shakes his head and mumbles under his breath. He’s gotten
    really good at the mumbling.
    After about thirty minutes, Dad pulls up in the parking lot in front of an ice cream shop next to an Old Navy.
    S—
    “How about we stop in here?” Dad throws the wagon in park.
    N—
    I hop out of the car, go-bag clutched to my chest, and nearly
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    bump into a girl I recognize from school. It’s actually a group of girls piling out of an SUV and most of them were in several of my classes.
    As I scoot past them to the sidewalk, they giggle and whisper
    to each other, and once I catch my reflection in the plate glass window, I know why they’re laughing. The cute towel-dried style this morning didn’t last. My hair is glued to my head and has no shape or body at all. In the plain jeans and gray hoodie, I could pass for a boy. And not a very cute one.
    Dad and Teeny follow me inside the ice cream store and we pick a booth in the back.
    Dad ambles off to the counter to order for us.
    Teeny gives me a small smile. “Do those girls go to your
    school?”
    “Yeah. They’re in some of my classes,” I say, my voice too high and my enthusiasm forced.
    “Are they mean to you?” I don’t give Teeny nearly enough
    credit—she picks up on everything.
    “It’s just the first day. I don’t even know them, really.” I fidget with the napkin dispenser and ask, “Were the kids in your class nice to you today?”
    Teeny leans back against the booth and focuses on the ceiling
    without answering me.
    Dad, balancing three ice cream cones, slides in next to Teeny a few minutes later. She’s more interested in peeling the paper off the cone than licking the ice cream. Dad uses a spoon even though his is in a cone, too. What a nerd.
    —S
    I take long, slow licks and try to think about what to say to Dad.
    —N
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    Number four on my list is to figure out what he did to get us into Witness Protection, and I won’t get a better opportunity than this.
    “Dad, what are we waiting for?”
    Dad peeks over his shoulder and examines the room. “What do
    you mean?”
    I lean in close. “Are we waiting for trial or something? Why are we here?”
    He presses his lips together and they turn white. He whispers,
    “This is not the place to discuss this.”
    Before The Plan, I would have backed off, but not now. “There’s never a good time. Every time I bring this up you blow me off. Just tell me. The suits won’t move us around forever, will they?”
    Dad digs in his cone, his head shaking. “There may be a trial at some point,” he answers through clenched