Time. Roger Reid

      “Nobody’s going to feed you to the alligators,” Mom said.

      “You’re mean,” said Phoebe. “No wonder you have to go hundreds of miles away to find friends.” And with that she spun around and disappeared down the hall.

      I turned back to my packing. I held up my pants to fold them so I could roll them up when my mom said, “You know, you’ve grown almost an inch this summer. Those pants might not fit you anymore.”

      I held the pants at my waist. They did seem a little shorter than they used to.

      “And they’ve got a hole in the knee,” said Mom. “Maybe we need to see about getting you another pair.”

      When she said that I had this weird feeling. I had been wearing these pants when I was shot at in the longleaf forest. I had been wearing them when I was shot at on Monte Sano Mountain. Both times I lived to tell about it. Maybe these were my lucky pants.

      “These will be okay,” I said. I rolled them up and put them in my duffel bag.

      “Rachel,” my dad spoke Mom’s name from down the hall. There was a serious, matter-of-fact tone to his voice when he said it.

      Mom turned as Dad walked past her into my room. He pushed my duffel bag to one side and sat on the bed. He looked me in the eye and then turned to my mother. His face had that matter-of-fact seriousness.

      He turned back to me and said, “I just got off the phone with Deputy Pickens.”

      Deputy Pickens was Leah’s father. He was going to be driving her to Birmingham, picking me up at the airport, and then taking us to stay with our hosts from the Alabama Paleontological Society. No big deal that he would be calling my dad—except for that tone in Dad’s voice and the look on his face.

      Dad took a deep breath and let it out as he said, “Carl Morris has escaped from prison.”

      Carl Morris has escaped from prison.

      The words hung in the air like the Sword of Damocles.

      According to the Greek legend, a man named Damocles wanted to know what it was like to be king, so the king prepared a big banquet for him. During the banquet, Damocles looked up to see a sword hanging over his head. The sword was held by a single horsehair. The king explained that this is what it’s like to have riches and power: it’s like having a sword hanging over your head. Damocles went running from the room.

      We studied the legend of the Sword of Damocles a couple of years ago when I was in the seventh grade. I never thought it would have any meaning for me until I heard the words Carl Morris has escaped from prison. Carl Morris did his best to hunt me down and kill me back in April. I felt pretty good about him being in jail. Now that he was loose . . . it was like a sword hanging over my head. Unlike Damocles, I could not run from the room.

      4

       Third Person

      No one said a word.

      Mom had been leaning against the door frame. She stood up straight and crossed her arms, standing in the doorway with a body language that said, You’re not leaving this room. Dad remained seated on the bed and staring straight at me. I had this urge to look up and see if there was a sword hanging over my head by a single horsehair. Instead, I rolled up my shirt and placed it in my duffel bag.

      “Does this mean Deputy Pickens will not be able to pick me up at the airport?” I said.

      Dad didn’t answer right away. He looked toward my mom. Out of the corner of my eye I could see her return his stare.

      “Carl Morris escaped? What about his brothers?” Mom said.

      “Just Carl,” said Dad. “The brothers are still in jail.”

      I folded my socks and placed them in the bag.

      “You still want to go?” asked my dad. It was not so much a question for me as it was for my mother. His eyes remained on her.

      Before Mom could answer for me, I said, “Yes, sir, I want to go.”

      I turned to my mom as she uncrossed her arms and placed her hands on her hips. “Jason,” she said, “I don’t know.”

      “As long as Deputy Pickens will meet me at the airport,” I said, “I would still like to go.”

      At that moment I felt a buzz in my pocket. It was my cell phone. Dad had bought me one after our trip to Huntsville back in June. I pulled the phone from my pocket, and there was a text from Leah.

      “U heard?” was all the text said.

      I slipped the phone back into my pocket.

      “The deputy said he would meet you in Birmingham if you still want to go,” said my dad.

      “Robert, I don’t know if that’s such a good idea,” said my mom.

      “Rachel,” said Dad, “if Carl Morris wanted to find Jason, he would have a lot better chance of finding him here at home than at some obscure fossil site in Alabama.”

      It was the wrong thing to say.

      “What do you mean, if Carl Morris wanted to find Jason?” Mom exclaimed. “Did he threaten him? Did he say something?”

      “No,” said Dad. “No. No one heard him threaten Jason or Leah or the deputy or anyone else. He just wanted us to know—Deputy Pickens just wanted us to know. Morris, if he’s smart, is long gone. He’s probably in Alaska by now.”

      “Smart?” said my mom. “The man’s an idiot. If he were smart, he wouldn’t have been in this mess in the first place.”

      I had to agree with my mom on that one. “Smart” is not an adjective you would use in connection with Carl Morris.

      The room fell silent again. Funny thing about a room of people not saying anything when every one of them wants to say something: it seems to make time slow down. Maybe my little bedroom was suspended in time. I wanted to take a peek at my watch to see if the second hand was moving. Checking the time, though, might be seen as an attempt to get my parents talking.

      My pocket buzzed again. In my nobody’s-saying-a-word room, we all heard it. Mom and Dad’s eyes turned to me. I shrugged my shoulders. The second hand must have begun to move again.

      “It’s probably Leah wanting to know if Jason’s making the trip,” said my mom.

      “What should he tell her?” asked my dad.

      Strange. I was standing right there, and they were talking about me in the third person—like I was in another room.

      “He’ll be safe?” Mom asked.

      Dad paused.

      I was about to think the clock might stop ticking again when he said, “He’ll be safe.”

      “Maybe I should talk with Deputy Pickens myself,” said Mom.

      “Maybe you should,” Dad agreed. “It would probably make you feel better.”

      “You still want to go?” Mom asked.

      It took a second or two for me to realize she was talking to me.

      “Yes, ma’am,” I replied.

      “You’re sure?” she said.

      “Yes, ma’am,” I said again.

      My pocket buzzed.

      “Tell her you’ll meet her in Birmingham,” said Mom. Then she walked over and gave me a hug. A long hug.

      Dad remained seated on my bed after Mom left the room.

      “There’s something else I discovered when I was talking