He Started It

Grandpa banged his fist on the dash more than once. ‘Stop this right now!’

Nikki’s eyes lit up, like she had just found the last piece of a puzzle. ‘Holyyyy shit. You’re right.’

Eddie took off his headphones. ‘What’s happening?’

‘We’ve been abducted,’ Nikki said.

The car lurched to one side, taking all of us with it. Grandpa pulled off the road and he turned around in his seat. He had never been a good-looking man, or maybe he was when he was younger but not when I knew him. He had ruddy skin, a bulbous nose, short legs, and a long torso. ‘Nobody has abducted you.’

‘Then why do you hide your cell phone?’ I said.

‘Cell phone?’

The stunned look on his face convinced Nikki. She smiled as big as I’d ever seen. Even Portia stopped crying.

‘Oh my God,’ Nikki said. ‘This is awesome.’

‘Awesome?’ Eddie said. ‘What’s so awesome about it?’

Nikki didn’t answer. She just kept smiling.

What is your worst habit?

Obviously it’s that I’m too trusting. I trusted Grandpa when he said Mom and Dad wanted us to go on this trip, even if he was an asshole to Grandma. I trusted Beth would always tell me everything. I trusted that I hadn’t been abducted.

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Oh, and I trusted Grandpa was an okay man until Grandma told me he wasn’t. Not even close.

The only good thing here is that other people are trusting, too. No one has a clue what I’m planning right now. Even if they suspect I’m up to something, they probably think I’m just going to run. I’m not.

Also, if you asked my mom this question, she’d say my worst habit is causing so much trouble. Most of the time, I don’t even start it. I just get all the blame.

Oklahoma

State Motto: Hard work conquers all things

When I said Nikki was close to Grandma, it was an understatement. Nikki practically lived at their house the last couple of weeks, when we all knew Grandma was about to die. Her cancer was so bad that the doctors stopped treatment and sent her home.

I went over there too, just not as much. Grandma couldn’t get out of bed and was only awake for short periods of time. The bedroom already smelled of death.

No idea how I knew that at my age, but I did.

If Nikki noticed it, she didn’t say anything and never would have admitted if it bothered her.

Nikki and Grandma had one big thing in common: They were both the oldest child of four. That’s why she always gave Nikki better presents, more gift money, and bigger slices of pie at dessert. Grandma used to say the firstborn had it the worst, because parents had no idea what they were doing yet. They had to experiment.

‘I’m your guinea pig,’ Nikki used to say to our parents. ‘Firstborns are always the guinea pigs.’

Grandma told her that and no one could talk her out of it. Our parents also couldn’t stop her from skipping school to stay with Grandma during those last days.

What I didn’t know about, didn’t even think of, was the medication.

I didn’t realize Nikki was the one who kept it organized, who made sure our grandmother took the right pills at the right time, not just for the cancer, but for blood pressure, thyroid, cholesterol, and pain. She kept the bottles all lined up and color coded on the nightstand because she was afraid Grandpa would screw them up.

A few hours after Nikki learned we had been abducted, we were in another motel room, still blocked by Grandpa’s cot from leaving. And by his gun, because by then we all knew he had one. I never really believed Grandpa would shoot one of us, but a gun was so foreign to me that it was like a living thing. I was scared to get too close to it.

As I was about to fall asleep, I felt Nikki’s breath in my ear.

‘Follow me,’ she said.

I didn’t hesitate.

The only place to go was the bathroom, and that’s where she went. Once inside, she shut the door and turned on the light. Nikki had Grandpa’s toiletries bag in her hand.

‘I forgive you for not telling me earlier,’ she whispered.

‘Okay. Thanks.’ That wasn’t really what I wanted to say. I wanted to say I’d kept my mouth shut until I sure because I was afraid she would laugh at me for being wrong, but it didn’t seem like the time to say all that.

She sat on the floor cross-legged, wearing sweats and an old rainbow shirt she’d had forever. I always hoped to get it as a hand-me-down but she wouldn’t let it go. Not yet.

Sitting in that bathroom with her reminded me of when we were younger and used to play together. We’d sit on the floor of her room forever. That’s how it felt. We’d play with dolls or games or whatever we could find until Mom yelled at us to go to bed. Sometimes we didn’t. Nikki would turn on a flashlight and we’d stay up after everyone else went to sleep.

That all changed when Nikki decided she was too old to play with me anymore.

The road trip brought it all back, and it started that night. She shared a secret with me and she hadn’t done that in forever.

I watched as she took Grandpa’s medicine bottles out of his bag, reading each label before setting it down on the murky white tile. I wanted to ask what she was doing but figured I was supposed to know.

‘Okay,’ she said, her voice still a whisper. ‘Check this out.’

She opened the bottles and showed me a handful of pills. Three of them looked similar, the other two didn’t.

‘So?’ I said.

‘So look.’ She dumped a few of one kind out in her hand and put them in another bottle. You couldn’t tell which pill was which. Nikki did this again and again until they were all mixed up. ‘Now he’s going to take too much Vicodin.’

‘Okay.’

She looked up at me, her eyes shiny in the dark. ‘You know what that means?’

I shrugged.

She sighed.

‘It means we’re taking control of this road trip,’ she said. ‘And Grandpa won’t be able to stop us.’

I nodded, keeping my confusion to myself. What did she mean, take control? Were we going to call Mom and Dad and tell them to come get us? I hoped so, because who wanted to be abducted?

That isn’t what Nikki did, of course. Didn’t even consider it.

As I watched her switch all those pills around, I had no idea what she was really up to.

I think about this now, as Eddie drives us through the Oklahoma Panhandle. It’s thirty-four miles wide, and links routes from the Texas Panhandle to Colorado on the west, Kansas on the east. We’re heading west.

‘There it is,’ Portia says.

I look up, having no idea what she’s talking about. ‘The border?’

‘The pickup truck.’

Pretty sure all of our heads turn at once.

‘Are you shitting me?’ Eddie says.

Portia doesn’t answer. She’s leaning over the seat, staring out the back window. I climb over our seat to join her.

‘Where?’ I say.

She points. To our right, behind a silver SUV, is a black pickup. Huge, double cab, black-on-black wheels. No license plate in front, typical for the South.

‘Is it them?’ Krista says.

‘Could be,’ I say.