Harlan Coben: Shelter

She picked up her fork and started playing with her food. I noticed now that she had pierced eyebrows. Ouch. “My real first name is Emma. But everyone calls me Ema.”

“Why? I just want to know what to call you.”

Grudgingly, she said, “Ema.”

“Okay. Ema.”

She played with her food some more. “So what’s your deal? I mean, when you’re not rescuing the fat girl.”

“Your bitter act,” I said. “It’s a little over the top.”

“You think?”

“I would dial it back.”

She shrugged. “You might be right. So you’re a new kid, right?”

“I am.”

“Where you from?”

“We traveled around at lot,” I said. “How about you?”

She grimaced. “I’ve lived in this town my whole life.”

“Doesn’t seem to be too bad.”

“I don’t see you fitting in yet.”

“I don’t want to fit in.”

Ema liked that reply. I looked down at my tray. I picked up my spoon and thought of, well, Spoon. I shook my head and smiled.

“What?” Ema asked.

“Nothing.”

It was weird to think about this, but when my father was my age, he sat in this very cafeteria and ate his lunch. He was young and had his whole life ahead of him. I glanced around the room and wondered where he would have sat, who he would’ve talked to, if he laughed as easily back then as when I’d known him.

These thoughts became like a giant hand pushing down on my chest. I blinked and put down the spoon.

“Hey, you okay?” Ema asked.

“Fine.”

I thought about Bat Lady and what she had said to me. Crazy ol’ bat-hey, maybe that’s where she got the nickname. You don’t just get a rep like hers for nothing. You get it for doing crazy things. Like telling a boy who saw his father die in a car crash that the man he missed so much was still alive.

I flashed to the day just eight months ago when we landed in Los Angeles-my father, my mother, and me. My parents wanted to give me a place where I could go to high school and play for a real basketball team and maybe go to college.

Nice plans, right?

Now my dad was dead and my mother was shattered.

“Ema?” I said.

She looked at me warily.

“Do you know anything about the Bat Lady?”

Ema frowned. When she did, the mascara on her eyes folded up and then spread out like a fan. “Now I get it.”

“What?”

“Why you sat here,” Ema said. “You figured-what?-the crazy fat girl would know all about the crazy old Bat Lady.”

“What? No.”

Ema rose with her tray. “Just leave me alone, okay?”

“No, wait, you don’t understand-”

“I understand fine. You did your good deed.”

“Will you stop that? Ema?”

She hurried away. I took a step to follow her and stopped. Two big muscle-heads wearing varsity football jackets snickered. One came up on my right, the other on my left. The one on my right-the name stenciled in cursive on his chest was BUCK-slapped me too hard on the shoulder and said, “Looks like you struck out, huh?”

The other muscle-head-stenciled name: TROY-laughed at that. “Yeah,” Troy said. “Struck out. With the fat chick.”

Back to Buck: “Fat and ugly.”

Troy: “And you still struck out.”

“Dude.”

Buck and Troy high-fived each other. Then they turned and put their hands up for me to high-five. Buck said, “Up top, bro.”

I frowned. “Don’t you guys have a steroid needle that needs an ass cheek?”

Their mouths both formed surprise Os. I pushed past them. Buck called out, “We ain’t done with this, dead man.”

“Yeah,” Troy added, “dead man.”

“Totally dead.”

“Dead man.”

Man, I hoped that nickname didn’t stick.

As I chased after Ema, I saw Ms. Owens, who was working as cafeteria monitor, move quickly to cut me off. There was a gleam in her eyes. Ms. Owens hadn’t forgiven me for the team-building fiasco. Still with the painted smile, she got right up in my face and blew her whistle.

“We don’t run in the cafeteria,” she said, “or we get a week’s detention. Do I make myself clear?”

I looked around me. Buck made a gun with his finger and dropped the hammer. Ema dumped her tray and headed through the doors. Ms. Owens smiled and dared me to run after her. I didn’t.

Yep, I was making friends fast.

MY COMBINATION LOCK NEVER OPENSon the first try. I don’t know why.

I had just done the numbers: 14, back to 7, over to 28… Nope, it didn’t open. I was about to try again when I heard a now-familiar voice say, “I collect bobble-heads.”

I turned to see Spoon.

“Good to know,” I said.

Spoon gestured for me to move out of the way. He pulled out a huge key ring, found the one he was looking for, and stuck it in the back of my lock. The lock opened, presto.

“What’s your combination?” he asked me.

I said, “Umm, should I tell you?”

“Hello?” Spoon jangled his keys in my face. “You think I need your combination to break in?”

“Good point.” I told him the numbers. He fiddled with the lock and handed it back to me. “It should work with no problems now.”

He started to leave.

“Wait, Spoon?”

He turned toward me. “What did you call me?”

“Sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Spoon,” he said, looking up and smiling as though trying the word out for the first time. “I like it. Spoon. Yeah. Call me Spoon, okay?”

“Sure”-he looked at me so expectantly-“uh, Spoon.” He beamed. I wasn’t sure how to ask this, but I figured what the heck. “You have a lot of keys there.”

“Don’t call me Keys, okay? I prefer Spoon.”

“Yeah, of course. Spoon it is. You said before that your dad is the janitor here, right?”

“Right. By the way, the White Witch in the Narnia series? I think she’s sexy as all get out.”

“Yeah, me too,” I said, trying to get him back on track.

“Can your dad really get you into locked places in the school?”

Spoon smiled. “Sure, but I don’t really need to ask my dad. I got the keys here.” He dangled them in case I didn’t know what keys he meant. “But we can’t go in the girls’ locker room. I asked him about that-”

“Right, no, not the girls’ locker room. But you can get into other places?”

Spoon pushed the glasses back up his nose. “Why? What do you have in mind?”

“Well,” I said, “I was wondering if we could get into the main office and check a student’s file.”

“What student?” he asked.

“Her name is Ashley Kent.”

School ends at three P.M., but Spoon told me that the coast wouldn’t be clear until seven. That gave me four hours to kill. It was too early to visit Mom-I was only allowed night visits because Mom was supposedly working on her rehabilitation during the day-so I headed back to Bat Lady’s house.

As I walked out of the school, I noticed a voice mail. My guess was it was from an adult. Kids text. Adults leave voice mails, which are a pain because you have to call in and go through the prompts and then listen to the messages and then delete them.

Yep, I was right. The message was from my uncle Myron. “I booked our flight to Los Angeles for first thing Saturday morning,” he said in his most somber voice. “We’ll fly in, then back the next day.”

Los Angeles. We were flying out to see my father’s grave. Myron had never seen the final resting place of his brother. My grandparents, who would meet us out there, had never seen the resting place of their youngest son.

Uncle Myron went on: “I got a ticket for your mother, of course. She can’t be left on her own. I know you two want a private reunion tomorrow, but maybe I should be around, you know, just in case.”