The Girl in Red

So she nodded at Sam and Riley and said, “I’m glad you’re coming with me.”

“It doesn’t mean we’re staying with you forever,” Sam said, her mouth set in a way that Mama would call “mulish” and Red recognized it because her own mouth made that shape on a regular basis.

“I understand,” Red said, and she did. Sam was reserving their right to take off in the middle of the night, or not continue north when Red wanted to continue north. She wanted to know that Red would respect their wishes and not order them around or try to force them to do anything they didn’t want to do.

“Okay,” Sam said.

They fell in beside her, Riley next to Red and Sam on the outside.

“I can’t wait to have spaghetti!” Riley said. “And that means we can have a fire, too, doesn’t it?”

“Dang skippy,” Red said. “Can’t boil the water without a fire.”

“And then we’ll be warm and we’ll have spaghetti. Do you know that our dad used to like to eat the dried spaghetti?” Riley said, his nose scrunched up.

“I don’t want to say your dad was weird,” Red said. “But that’s kind of weird.”

“I know,” Riley said. “It’s totally weird. My mom used to yell at him because he would come in the kitchen when she was cooking and pick at the dried spaghetti before she could put it all in the pot and every time she would say, ‘If you want to eat dried spaghetti then I won’t even bother cooking,’ and he would say, ‘But you don’t want your kids to starve, do you?’ and then she would smile and tell him to get out of the kitchen and he would steal some more dried spaghetti on the way.”

“She doesn’t want to know our whole life story, Riley,” Sam said. “You don’t have to tell her every single thing that comes into your head.”

Riley ignored this, as Riley seemed to do whenever Sam told him not to speak.

“How come you walk funny?” Riley asked. “Is your leg hurt?”

Red didn’t think her limp was that noticeable, but maybe it was if you were down close to her leg like Riley was. Or maybe she was just used to it after so many years and it was obvious to people who’d just met her.

“Ri-ley!” Sam said, and she sounded really annoyed this time. “That is just rude.”

Red waved her hand to show that it was all right. “It’s okay. I have a little bit of a limp because I have a prosthetic leg.”

“Prosthetic?” Riley asked.

Red stopped and pulled up her pant leg so Riley and Sam could see the metal tube at her ankle. Riley’s eyes lit up so bright that Red thought she saw stars in them.

“You’re a cyborg?” he asked.

Red laughed. “Nothing that cool, sorry. It just means that I have a fake leg to help me walk.”

“Oh,” Riley said, his face falling. “What happened to your real leg?”

“Some jerk hit me with a car and part of my leg got stuck under the tire,” Red said.

“For real?” Sam asked.

“Yes, for real,” Red said. “When I was eight years old.”

“Hey, I’m eight years old!” Riley said, then added, “I bet it hurt.”

“It hurt later,” Red said. “When the car actually hit me I got knocked out so I didn’t feel too much of anything.”

“Once I fell off the high monkey bars on the playground and my ankle got twisted up under me and it really hurt,” Riley said. “Like really bad. I bet it was worse than that.”

Red didn’t really remember the pain in her leg, because when she woke up her lower leg was gone. But she didn’t tell Riley that, who seemed eager to find a connection between them.

“It was worse than that,” Red said.

“Was it like, super gory? Like the skin and muscle and everything came off your leg and that’s why they had to give you a fake one?” Riley asked.

“Come on, Riley, that’s gross,” Sam said. “And she doesn’t want to talk about that.”

“I just wanted to know,” Riley said.

“You don’t need to know every single thing,” Sam said. “And you don’t need to tell every single thing either.”

“How far away is your grandma’s house?” Riley asked.

“Still a pretty long way,” Red said.

She definitely did not want to tell them numbers and miles because they might decide then and there to leave her. The thought of a hundred-plus-mile trek had been intimidating to the adults in Red’s family. It would sound like the other side of the universe to these kids, probably.

They walked on for a couple more hours, Riley chattering continuously about whatever came into his head and Sam occasionally interjecting to tell him to stop giving away so much information.

There was no particular point to this constant admonishment that Red could see, but Sam seemed to think it important to try. Red wondered if Riley’s friendliness had gotten them into trouble before. Then she decided that if it had, the trouble wouldn’t have been too serious, else not even the promise of spaghetti could have convinced Sam to leave their makeshift kingdom under the shrubbery and join Red.