Лори Касс - Lending А Paw

The poor bookmobile didn’t like it. Thessie didn’t like it. The books didn’t like it. And Eddie really didn’t like it.

“Mrrrooowwww!” he’d yell, then give me a dirty look.

After dropping Thessie off, I taped the county map to the dashboard and looked at Eddie. “This isn’t about you, you know. You’re not supposed to be here in the first place. As far as this rerouting is concerned, you don’t exist. This is about the bookmobile and minimizing its maintenance.”

Eddie settled into the passenger seat and closed his eyes. He didn’t believe a word of it.

I patted his head and dropped the gearshift into drive.

• • •

The sunlight was starting to slant low when it happened. I’d wanted to find a new east–west bookmobile route in the middle part of the east side of the county and wasn’t completely happy with any of the three possibilities. I drove over each of the roads three or four times, trying to imagine their surfaces in ice-slick winter, eyeing the cracking asphalt, anticipating future potholes.

“Which do you like best, Eddie?”

Mr. Edward opened his eyes just wide enough for me to see the yellow in his irises, then went back to sleep.

In spite of his lack of interest, I continued to articulate my thoughts. “The county road is probably in the best shape, but that stretch near the potato farm is going to drift over like crazy in winter. If I take the most direct way, that hill—”

BAM!

The bookmobile gave a bucking lurch and started pulling hard to the right. “Hang on!” I yelled to Eddie. The steering wheel tried to spin itself out of my hands.

“MMrrrrrRRR!!!”

But I didn’t have time to calm Eddie—it was taking everything I had to calm the bookmobile. My foot was off the gas, I was pumping the brake lightly, staying out of a skid, I could do this, I could do this, I was doing this, I would—

BAM!

The bookmobile lurched again.

Eddie hissed and howled and spat. “MMrrrrrRRRRRR!!!”

The little control I had over the bookmobile vanished. My mouth tasted of metal as the adrenaline flowed through my body, into my heart, into my tingling skin.

To the right, the road’s shoulder dropped away fast into a hill that rolled down steep to a narrow creek. If I couldn’t keep out of that, if we pulled that way . . . into my head came an image of the bookmobile falling and rolling and tumbling, all the books, Eddie, and me, jumbling together in a broken heap.

“No!” I shouted, and gripped the steering wheel with all my strength and all my might. I kept on pumping the brakes. Was it doing anything? I didn’t know, but I had to think it was helping. I had to try.

My arms quivered with the strain of keeping the vehicle headed straight. We were slowing, but not fast enough, not nearly fast enough. My jaw muscles bunched. My lips went dry. “Steady, Eddie,” I whispered. “It’ll be okay.”

The steering wheel was doing nothing. I was doing nothing. My pumps on the brakes were doing nothing. There was nothing I could do except try to steer and try to brake and hope hope hope that something I was doing would do something.

It had to work.

We had to stop.

We had to.

Bare inches from a steep slope that would have carried us off without a second thought, the bookmobile came to a slow screeching stop.

We’d made it.

I sat there, panting, my hands still gripping the steering wheel.

“Mrr,” Eddie said.

I blew out a breath and reached out for a cat snuggle. “You and me both, pal, you and me both.” My laugh was a little too loud.

Then my brain started working again. “What on earth happened?” I asked Eddie.

He butted his head against my shoulder. Comforting, but not much of an answer.

“You stay here,” I said, putting him on the seat of my chair. “I’ll be right back.” I opened the rear door and jumped to the ground, stumbling a little at its steepness.

I looked at the back end of the bookmobile. The right rear tire was flat. I looked at the front end. “Oh, jeez . . .” The right front tire was flat, too. How on earth could both tires have gone flat at the same time?

A motor-ish sort of noise came from behind me and I saw the hunched figure of a guy on a four-wheeled ATV, a quad, roar across the road and up a narrow trail. The driver wore dark pants and a dark hooded sweatshirt. Sticking out behind the driver was a rifle strapped to the vehicle’s carrier rack.

A rifle.

I shrank back behind the bookmobile, but poked my head out to see the quad wind up the hill and disappear into a thick tree line. The engine’s roar faded to a dull buzz; then that, too, disappeared.

Chapter 16

I climbed back aboard the lamed bookmobile and pulled my cell phone from my backpack. I studied the screen, sighed, and put the useless thing away. There was a certain inevitability to the fact that there was no signal.

The last house we’d passed had been at least a mile back and it had had that abandoned look houses get when they’re unoccupied. I didn’t remember the road ahead well enough to know how close the nearest house might be, but there wasn’t one in sight.

In the cabinet behind me was the emergency road manual, but since I could recite the entire contents from memory, I knew without looking what it said about a situation like this. “Call for assistance.” So helpful. It also said, “Use your best judgment when dealing with emergency situations.”

Well, that would have to do.

I turned on the four-way flashers and kissed the top of Eddie’s head. “I’ll be outside, okay?” He started a light and steady purr. Which wasn’t truly helpful, but it did make me feel a little better.

I headed out and rummaged around for the battery-operated emergency lights I’d bought myself and stored in an outside compartment. Set one on its small tripod stand a little ways in front of the vehicle, set another one a little way behind.

Then I used my hand to brush dust off the front bumper. Sat down, crossed my legs at the ankles, and started waiting.

Waited some more.

Tried to enjoy the sounds of early evening.

Recrossed my legs and realized that summer evening sounds were really the sounds of bugs.

Waited. Thought about going inside and getting a book. Didn’t.

Waited.

At long last, I heard the hum of a vehicle.

I jumped to my feet and stood, a happy and expectant smile on my face, formulating the words of thanks with which I’d shower my rescuer.

The vehicle came closer, closer, and suddenly there it was, small and silver and moving fast. I waved my arms high in the air, flagging the car down, calling for help. The convertible zoomed past. BMW Z4, I was pretty sure, since I’d admired one in the marina’s parking lot all last summer.

I gave its taillights the meanest, nastiest glare I could glare. “Jerk!” I yelled to the driver. “You’re nothing but a big jerk!” The driver hadn’t even looked at me. He’d just ignored me and the poor bookmobile and zipped on his merry way.

People.

I plomped myself down on the bumper.

Waited.

Roughly a year and a half later, a rattletrap of an SUV appeared. I’d heard the sputtering muffler long before it came around the long curve, so I was already standing in the middle of the road, feet spread across the centerline, hands out in a Stop! gesture by the time it came into view.

This time, everything was different. The driver’s window rolled down and a blond head poked out. “Miss Minnie? What’s wrong with the bookmobile?”

I walked up to the ancient Jeep Cherokee. It was Surfette, the young woman who’d been on the bookmobile twice, hunting for a book she wouldn’t let us help her find. “Hi,” I said. “Two flat tires and I’m not getting any cell coverage.”