My heart sank. “Crap. That’s right.”
“You could quit.”
“I can’t just quit. I’m saving up for a car—the ’69 Mustang.”
“Then you’re just going to have to decide what’s more important. You can’t really keep working there and expect to do much for the paper anyway. If you want to be the guy who does more than get a piddling article about flu season or something in every third issue, then you’re going to have to put in time after school. It’s up to you. You can work on the all-time best story that’s ever been in the paper, or you can sack groceries.”
“And don’t forget I’m also going to find this missing girl.”
“Whatever. The real thing—the important thing—is working on this story.”
I looked back at the Number 11. It was definitely on the side of finding Ashton Browning. “Okay,” I said. “I’m out of the grocery business and on to being a full-time investigative reporter. With emphasis on investigative.”
Audrey wiped her mouth with her paper napkin. “I’m so proud of my boy. He’s getting all grown up.”
After we finished eating, I stopped out front to give Rockin’ Rhonda the change I got from paying for my meal.
“Thank you,” she said, Elvis-like. “Thank you very much.”
“Rhonda,” I said, “you’ve heard of mojo, right?”
With what you might call the classic faraway look in her eyes, she’s like, “Mojo? Sure. ‘Mojo Hand,’ by Lightnin’ Hopkins. ‘Got My Mojo Workin’,’ by Muddy Waters, ‘Mr. Mojo Risin’ ’—Jim Morrison and the Doors. Oh yeah, man. Mojo.”
“So what does it mean? It’s like power, right?”
“Oh yeah, it’s the special power. It’s the magic power.”
I looked at Audrey. “See, I told you.”
She gave me the whatever eyebrow shrug.
“You want to see my mojo?” Rhonda asked.
I’m like, “Uh. Okay?”
I admit I was a little afraid of what she was going to show us, but she just held up her stringless guitar and goes, “This is it, man. This is my mojo.” And then she made a big windmill pantomime strum and launched into song: “Mr. Mojo risin’, Mr. Mojo risin’, gotta keep on risin’—”
CHAPTER 8
Saturday morning I woke up feeling guilty about quitting my job. Don, my boss, wasn’t happy about it, considering I gave less than a day’s notice. I explained that I had to do it for my future as an investigative journalist, but that didn’t help much. He seemed to think doing anything outside the grocery business was stupid. So I told him my parents and my journalism teacher were making me do it, which wasn’t exactly true. I still hadn’t told my parents about quitting, and Ms. Jansen never did act like I had much potential. She always said my stuff was too informal, which was a load of crap as far as I was concerned.
Anyway, I started to think I’d made a mistake, so I turned over in bed to consider the prospect a little more and ended up drifting back to sleep instead. I woke up again later with Audrey yanking on my covers, going, “I should’ve known you wouldn’t be ready. Come on, let’s go.”
“I have to take a shower.”
“We don’t have time for that. The search party starts at ten o’clock.”
“Well, I at least have to eat breakfast.”
“We’ll get it on the way. I’m going out to the kitchen and talk to your parents. You’d better be ready to go in five minutes.”
“I don’t know if I want to do it anymore.”
“Oh, you’re doing it all right.” She popped me on top of the head with the flat of her hand. “I’m not letting you back out now.”
When she left the room, I dragged myself out of bed and pulled on my favorite jeans and sneakers and my Chuck Norris T-shirt. Here, let me point out that I am a huge fan of Chuck Norris and his show Walker, Texas Ranger. I watch the reruns religiously. I mean, nobody can kick someone in the neck like Walker—bikers, drug dealers, crooked corporate tycoons, you name it. Walker is the man. I know about ten people I wouldn’t mind kicking in the neck like that.
Anyway, after I got dressed, there was nothing to be done with my hair, so I shoved my black porkpie hat down over it. Not that I’m big into hats like Audrey, but six months ago I had a weak moment and thought it’d be cool to go with the porkpie. Now it was the only hat I owned.
About fifteen minutes later we were on the road, and Audrey’s like, “So I had this idea about what happens to Harry Potter in ten years. He dies and comes back as Edward from Twilight, but the catch is Hermione has also died and come back as this moody chick who is actually a lesbian now and is in love with Sookie from True Blood.”
And I go, “Yeah, but then it turns out that in the meantime, Sookie died and has come back as Jacob the werewolf.”
“So that would mean that Jacob is actually now an awesome she-wolf.”
Usually, we could have gone on like this for twenty minutes, but I was still feeling the guilt over the job situation and switched the topic over to how everyone at work probably hated me now.
“Quit worrying what other people think of you so much,” Audrey said. “You’re starting a new phase in life. You never know what might happen if you apply yourself.”
“You sound like my parents.”
“Well, you should listen to them.”
We stopped for breakfast burritos, which I am also something of an expert on, but I won’t go into that right now. With Audrey speeding pretty much the whole way, it still took us almost forty minutes to get to the nature park. We weren’t late, but a ton of cars were already parked in the lot and overflowing down the shoulders of the road.