Michael Grant - Monster

“You’re sure your folks won’t send cops to look for you?” Shade asked.

“I’m totally, absolutely hundred percent sure,” Cruz said grimly, then chided herself. No, no, don’t go to the bitter place, we’re having an adventure. We’re committing a federal crime.

Yay?

“You wouldn’t believe how little interest they have in where I am,” Cruz said, trying to inject some lightness into her tone. “And your dad?”

“I checked. He’s in Nebraska.”

Cool, calm, unruffled.

She must know this will put her father in a bad spot, Cruz thought. But she won’t stop.

Won’t? Or can’t? Obsession? And why am I going along? Am I really this desperate for a friend?

But of course Cruz knew the answer to that question. Yes, she was desperate for a friend. Yes, she enjoyed the odd status that came from being associated with Shade at school. But mostly, Cruz admitted, she herself had no goal, no plan, no clear idea of what she wanted to do. And Shade did.

I’m a puppy who hopes Shade will throw a stick I can fetch.

Traffic was awful as usual in Chicagoland, but in time they emerged from beneath low rain clouds to a sunnier suburbia west of the city and soon were moving along open interstate, penetrating the vast spaces of the American agricultural heartland.

It was autumn and the corn that extended for hundreds of miles around was being harvested. Giant, insect-like machines painted red or green powered slowly but relentlessly, stripping off the ears and leaving forlorn pale yellow stalks and mulch behind.

“How long is this drive to hell without apps?” Cruz asked.

“Four and a half hours. You know, Cruz, the human race survived for a million years before the first phone, let alone the first app.”

“Survived,” Cruz said, raising a finger. “Survived. But it wasn’t really living .”

“We have music.”

Cruz turned on the stereo and punched buttons until she came to the loaded files. She scrolled through Shade’s music, thinking it an opportunity to get some insight into her new friend’s soul. She found a number of things she didn’t recognize, experimental music, but also more familiar Reggae, Blues, Pop, Rock, Punk, even classical. If there was a coded message in Shade’s playlists the message was that she sampled widely and committed to no particular genre or artist. But there were a few things more accessible.

“Seriously?” Cruz asked. “Beyoncé? What else, Taylor Swift?”

“I suppose you’d like something more cutting edge?”

“Not really,” Cruz admitted. “Luis Malaga? Cantea?” Cruz peered at Shade, waiting for signs of recognition. “Nothing? OV7? Come on, Shade, they’ve been around forever.” She sighed. “What can I say, I move to the beat from south of the border.”

“Isn’t that all, like, accordions?”

“I am going to pretend you didn’t say that.”

“Mmmm. To cover the awkwardness you could put on some of my music,” Shade said, batting her eyelashes.

Cruz had found the right song, the one with the most plays. “Yes, yes, this is definitely Shade Darby,” Cruz said and hit play. The guitar was twangy, and the voice was thin but strong.

Cruz sang the refrain with a small adjustment.

“ Hey, baby, there ain’t no easy way out.

Hey, Shade, will stand her ground.

And she won’t back down. ”

It was the shark who cast her a chilly, sidelong glance. Shade had a great sense of humor about lots of things, but not as much about references to her . . . her interest . . . to use a kinder word than obsession.

They listened to music for a while until something ska came on, which they both liked, and Cruz began to dance in place.

“You’re bouncing the whole car,” Shade said, sounding like someone’s mother.

“I know. Help me!”

Soon the Subaru was bouncing happily as they both danced in place, arms flailing, heads bobbing, shoulders twisting, Shade inevitably more controlled, more contained, less committed to the music than Cruz. But after three hours of corn, corn, the occasional freeway off-ramp, and still more unstoppable corn, they were both sick of music, hungry and needing to pee fairly desperately. They pulled off into a Wendy’s.

They peed then ate: a salad and fries for Cruz who was toying with vegetarianism without quite committing, and a burger for Shade who had no reluctance to eat animal flesh.

“You know, you attack your food,” Cruz observed. “You cut it in half like you’re the perfect little miss, then you go all Hungry, Hungry Hippo on it.”

“Did you just call me a hippo?”

Bellies full, they set off again, racing now toward the setting sun.

“We’re getting close.” Cruz indicated the GPS with her chin.

“Mmmm. We’re there, basically.” Shade switched to her instructional voice. “A degree of latitude is about seventy miles, a minute is a little over a mile, and a second of latitude is, give or take, a hundred feet. It works a bit differently with longitude, but if the calculations are correct, we’re looking for a rectangle about a hundred feet by eighty feet.”

“Ladies and gentlemen: the human Wikipedia. WikiShade.”

Shade pulled over onto the shoulder of the road, corn to their right, a fallow field of rich black Iowa topsoil across the road to their left. Shade pulled a smaller, portable GPS unit from her bag. “This will get us down to the seconds.”

She booted up the device and while she waited for it she deleted their destination from the car’s GPS.

“You’re kind of getting into this whole spy, cloak-and-dagger stuff, aren’t you?” Cruz teased.

“I kind of am,” Shade admitted, allowing herself a rare grin at her own expense.

The handheld GPS booted up and after a moment’s peering and muttering Shade said, “Okay, we go down that dirt road, go a half mile, and it shouldn’t be far.”

The sun was setting as they parked beside a wooden gate wide enough to admit trucks and harvesting combines. In fact there was a green John Deere combine parked maybe two hundred yards away, looking like some fantastic alien monster turned in for the night.

“Lucky timing,” Shade said. “Late enough the farmers won’t be working out here, and just an hour and a half to go.”

“An hour and a half?” Cruz whined. “People could be talking about me online and I wouldn’t even know.”

“Mmmm. And somehow you actually think that’s a bad thing.”

As early autumn darkness fell, they sat staring at the impact site—what Shade hoped and Cruz feared was the impact site—just an abstract rectangle within the larger rectangle of the unharvested cornfield. Cruz still harbored the secret hope that this was a wild goose chase, that Shade had made an error and the rock was going to land safely in Nebraska. Or somewhere.

But at the same time, despite her greater caution, Cruz had a second level of thought that whispered, It would be interesting though, wouldn’t it?

As if sensing Cruz’s ambivalence, Shade reached across to squeeze Cruz’s hand, something she had never done before. It was a little awkward, and at first it seemed forced or calculated—and with Shade you could never be sure—but Cruz squeezed back and they held that pose for a minute.

We are about to commit a felony, Cruz reflected, and all I’m thinking about is how that gesture is a girl-girl thing. How needy am I?

They sat in companionable silence as the sun disappeared and navy blue darkness stole over the field. The windows were down, it was not quite warm, but not cold either, and they heard a whole world of insect life, buzzing, droning, rising and falling like a stadium full of bugs doing the wave. High above a jet drew a coral line across the sky, picking up the sun’s dying brilliance.