After the End

“And you know that because Crazy Frankie told you,” I state incredulously.

“I don’t think he’s actually crazy,” she says.

Oh my God, I’m driving a psychopath. “So if the wino told you to go southeast, why are we heading due east?”

“Because. As I said, we have to go to that mountain first,” she insists, nodding in the direction of Mount Rainier.

I just sit and stare at her for a minute until I remember how valuable this girl is to Dad and the fact that my name is, at this very moment, written in his bad books in bold capital letters. The last thing I want is for her to get out of my car and find someone else named Taxi or Greyhound Bus and ditch me.

“You are taking me,” she says, as if I have no choice in the matter. Man, does she have me pegged: I need her as much as she needs me.

“Seat belt,” I say. She looks confused. “If I’m taking you, you have to wear your seat belt.” Still no reaction. I yank on mine, demonstrating what a seat belt is, and she fiddles with hers until she finally gets it attached.

I mash my foot on the accelerator and go. We drive in silence for a few minutes, which is good, because I have to get my bearings. I search for road signs, finally see one for MOUNT RAINIER NATIONAL PARK, and follow it east out of town.

We drive over long bridges spa

“What?” I ask.

“What, what?” she responds.

“What are you doing? Why are you pushing on the dashboard like that?”

“You’re going kind of fast,” she says, in an accusatory voice.

“Fast? I’m only going fifty. That’s not even the speed limit!”

“It feels fast to me,” she mutters.

“Listen, if you’re going to criticize my driving,” I begin, and then I remember . . . I’m arguing with a crazy person. “Just stop doing that,” I say, glancing at her death grip on the glove compartment. “It’s making me nervous.”

She frowns and lets go, but moves her hands to the edges of the seat on either side of her legs and clutches tight. I decide to ignore her completely until I’m on the highway going out of town, at which point I speed up to sixty and relax. We pass a sign saying 54 MILES TO MOUNT RAINIER, and I see the girl’s eyes flick from the sign to the speedometer and back as she calculates how long it will take us to get there. She looks at the sun, or at least where the faint shape of the sun glows from underneath the rain clouds, and then at the dashboard clock, and finally lays her head back against the headrest and relaxes. And when I say relaxes, I only mean she doesn’t look like she’s going to explode or spontaneously leap out of the speeding car.

I wish she’d take off that contact lens. It freaks me out. One of the goth girls at school has scary yellow cat-eye lenses. Definitely not my scene—the artsy goth posers. And thinking of school reminds me that, however weird she is, Cat-eyes will be attending graduation next month, and I won’t. I step on the accelerator, and the engine roars as I take the car to ninety miles per hour. And when I see the girl’s fingers grip tightly around the edge of her seat, I smile.

We drive the next hour without speaking. As we approach the mountains, city-appropriate sedans are gradually replaced by massive pickup trucks and semis stacked with logs. One-story identical wooden houses are lined up side by side like a countrified version of Monopoly.

After a little while, I turn the radio on—my music is on my dead phone—and all I can find is country. I keep it on—it’s better than sitting in silence with the odd boy-girl.

I can’t help but glance at her every once in a while; she could be part Asian, with high cheekbones and thick black hair. Her clothes look straight from the men’s section of Old Navy. Her hairstyle is truly ugly: It looks like she got a bad crew cut, and now that it’s growing out, she’s spiking it to make herself look taller. Or fiercer.

She’s small. I’d say five-five was a pretty close estimate. When she’s quiet, she looks her size. But when she talks, she somehow gains a few inches . . . becomes bigger than herself. When she first got in the car, I thought, If she’s insane and freaks out in my car, I can take her, but now I’m not so sure. There’s this energy . . . and anger . . . jam-packed into every inch of her.

Dad said that calling her an industrial spy was “near enough to the truth.” When I first saw her, I couldn’t imagine her being involved in anything spy-related. But now she’s sitting inches away from me, I totally can. She seems dangerous.

As if reading my thoughts, she glances over at me, and when our eyes meet, she glowers. “Where are you from?” she asks.

I hesitate, and then decide it can’t hurt for her to know where I live. “L.A.,” I say.

She just stares at me. “Where is . . . Ellay?” she asks finally.

“Los Angeles. It’s in—” I say.

“Oh, yes. California,” she interrupts, and then to herself mumbles, “Most populous U.S. city after New York City; however, not the capital of California, which is”—she pauses and thinks a second—“Sacramento. Or at least, it was in 1983.”

Freak.

I turn off onto a two-lane road, and we pass a group of hunters dressed in brown camouflage, carrying guns. I hate guns. Dad tried to take me hunting once. I spent the whole time in the lodge playing video games, refusing to go out on the hunting range and embarrassing him in front of his friends.

“What is your whole name?” she asks, continuing her interrogation.

Uh-oh. Now we’re in tricky territory. Everyone’s heard of Blackwell Pharmaceutical. My last name is usually a status symbol, but right now it’s probably better not to flaunt it.

“Why would I tell you my last name when you haven’t even told me your first?” I lob back.

“My name is Juneau,” she says.

“Like the goddess . . . what, queen of Olympus?” I ask.

“No, like the capital of Alaska,” she responds.

Bingo! I think, remembering that Dad had mentioned that the girl was coming by boat from Anchorage.

Juneau points to a National Forest road map posted by the side of the road. “Stop here,” she says, and clicking off her seat belt, gets out of the car before I’ve come to a complete stop. She stumbles slightly as I slam on the brakes, and then, catching her balance, walks to the sign as normally as if she bails out of moving cars all the time.

The girl’s on drugs. That’s got to be it. Whatever secret drug Dad’s trying to get his hands on, she’s probably already taking it by the truckload. Unless it’s an antipsychotic pill, in which case she could use a few.

She studies the map for a few minutes, and then walks back to the car, gets in, and says, “Okay. Drive.” Like I’m her chauffeur or something.

“Would you mind telling me where we’re going?” I ask, masking my sarcasm to avoid another nasty scowl. The girl—Juneau—scares me, and it’s just not worth getting her riled up.

“Up there,” she says, pointing halfway up the mountainside.

I can’t help it. I begin speaking to her as if she were a toddler. Or deranged, which she is. “As you can see, it is now seven p.m.,” I say, gesturing to the dashboard clock as if I were a game show host and it was a brand-new car. “There are no restaurants anywhere nearby. And the sign for ‘accommodation’ was back a ways, pointing in another direction. So if we want to, say, eat di

“That way.” She points up the mountain.

I squeeze my hands into fists. But I think of the look on Dad’s face if I manage to get her back to L.A., and ask with clenched teeth, “Would you like to close the car door then so I can drive?”