Thursday afternoon brought the kind of heat that made the asphalt on Main Street soft enough to leave deep boot prints in. The air didn't move at all. It just hung over the valley, heavy and grey with dust from the gravel pits. Down at Miller’s Auto Body, the air under the metal roof was a thick, unbreathable soup of gas fumes, exhaust, and old tire rubber. The roof overhead popped and groaned as the sun baked it, acting like a giant magnifying glass over our heads. The metal was too hot to touch without thick leather gloves, and even then, the heat bit right through. I spent four straight hours flat on my back on a wooden mechanic's creeper. My elbows were dug into the oil-slick concrete as I fought a rusted bolt on an old county school bus. Every time I pulled on the wrench, a layer of red rust fell directly into my eyes, mixing with the sweat running down my face. My knuckles were bleeding where the wrench had slipped against the frame an hour ago, but I didn't stop. If I stopped, old man Miller would dock my pay, and the grocery jar under the trailer sink would stay empty. By noon, my hands were entirely black, and my temper wasn't much cleaner. The heavy, industrial wheels of the school bus loomed over my chest like a pair of mechanical jaws. I took a ragged breath, the smell of ancient floorboards and diesel grime filling my nose. I wiped my face with a greasy sleeve, but it just smeared the black oil across my cheeks. I thought about the trailer. I thought about the coffee can hidden under the floorboards, its eighty-four dollars sitting cold in the dark. It felt incredibly small compared to the size of this town. We were killing ourselves for pennies, running on broken parts, while the rest of Oakhaven lived behind neat white fences. "Hey, Caspian! Get out from under there!" Old Man Miller called from the back office. He didn't even look up from his record book. He was chewing on a cold toothpick, his white hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. His voice competed with the loud, steady rattle of the shop's air compressor. "Arthur Vance’s kid just pulled onto the lot. Go see what he wants before he tracks mud into my garage. And don't go wiping your greasy hands on his paint job either." I grunted, pushing myself out from under the heavy metal bumper. I kicked my legs out from under the car and rolled myself into the blistering sunlight. The glare was blinding. It hit the crushed stone lot like a physical wall, making my head swim for a second. I stood up, my knees cracking loudly, and squinted against the light. Sitting on the gravel lot was a brand-new, bright red pickup truck. It didn't have a single scratch on it. Its shiny wheels reflected the sun so hard it made my eyes water. It looked entirely ridiculous sitting next to the broken tractors and rusted fenders cluttering the edge of the property. Leaning against the driver's side door was Julian Vance. He was the land developer’s seventeen-year-old son, and he was wearing a clean school varsity jacket despite the sweltering humidity. He had his sunglasses hooked into the collar of his shirt, his blonde hair styled perfectly without a single strand out of place. He looked like he’d never spent a single minute of his life worrying about an electric bill or a leaking roof. He was looking at his fingernails, entirely ignoring the dirt and the noise of the shop. "Got a knock in the engine, grease dog,” Julian said. He didn't even look at me when I walked up. He just tossed a set of shiny silver keys onto the clean hood of his truck. He didn't use my name. To the rich kids from the North Side of town, we didn't have names. We were just the "siding rats" who lived in the rusted trailers out by the railroad tracks. "Make it quick. I’m supposed to meet some friends down at the diner in an hour, and I don't want to be riding around in a truck that sounds like a lawnmower." "Then you should've brought it in yesterday, Vance," I muttered. I reached out to grab a rag from my back pocket to wipe my forehead, but I only succeeded in smearing more black motor oil across my face. "Miller's backed up with three tractors and a state truck. You want it done in an hour, you can pay the emergency rate." Julian let out a short, arrogant laugh. He tapped his foot against the gravel, looking down at his clean white sneakers. "My dad owns the mortgage on this shop, Caspian. I don't pay emergency rates. Just look under the hood and fix the knock." I stood there for a second, the heat radiating off the red hood of his truck, baking the front of my shirt. I wanted to tell him to take his keys and shove them down the county drain. I wanted to see his face change if I refused the work. But old man Miller was watching through the dirt-streaked office window, his cold toothpick shifting from one side of his mouth to the other. If I walked away, I’d be fired by sunset.
I reached down to grab his keys off the hood. But as I bent over, a folded piece of thick paper slid out of the back pocket of my jeans. It fluttered onto the gravel, landing right between us. Julian’s eyes tracked it instantly. Before I could snatch it up, he hooked the toe of his clean sneaker under the paper. He flipped it over to look at it. It was a charcoal sketch Rune had drawn a few days ago. It was a beautiful, detailed drawing of an old steam train cutting through the tall Illinois corn under a crescent moon. Rune had spent three nights on it, sitting by the window in the dark, capturing the exact shape of the smoke rising into the stars. Rune had this way of looking at our broken, dying town and finding something holy in the rust. He used the blackest charcoal to make the shadows look real, making the iron look heavy and solid against the sky. "What's this garbage?" Julian sneered. He didn't just look at it. He intentionally kicked the paper right into a puddle of dark oil near the wash bay. The grease soaked into the heavy paper instantly, turning the white page a dull, messy brown. It bled across the drawing, dissolving the clean lines of the train tracks and turning Rune's beautiful moon into a dark, ugly smear. "Looks like that little brother of Calder’s has been wasting more paper. My dad says the town ought to just tear that whole illegal trailer lot down anyway. Send those freak kids packing to a state home where they belong." A hot, dangerous spark flared up deep in my chest. I felt the blood rush to my ears, hot and loud, drowning out the sound of the shop's noisy air compressor. My fingers tightened around the heavy iron wrench in my hand until my knuckles turned white and the metal bit into my palm. It was one thing for the town to look down on Valen and me for working the dirt jobs. We could take it. We were older, and we had thick skin. But nobody talked about Rune that way. Rune was fourteen, gentle as a summer breeze, and entirely too clean for a place as miserable as Oakhaven. He belonged to the stars, not the mud Julian was kicking him into. "Pick it up," I said. My voice dropped into a low, steady register. It was the same tone Valen used right before a fight broke out at the train tracks. Julian blinked. His smooth, smug smile faltered just a fraction. He looked at the size of the iron wrench in my hand, and then he looked at the raw muscle in my shoulders. He was used to kids bowing down to his dad's name, but out here in the heat, his dad's name didn't weigh much against twelve inches of solid steel. The silence between us grew heavy, stretching out over the gravel until the noise of the main street seemed to vanish completely. "I said pick the paper up, Julian," I whispered. I took a step closer, crowding his space until the heavy smell of grease and sweat on my clothes pushed out his expensive cologne. "Before I find out if your truck's engine knocks louder than your teeth." Julian stared at me for a long, tense second. His face turned an angry, blotchy red under his sunburn. He knew his dad owned the banks and the local sheriff. He knew he could have me fired by tomorrow morning. But he also knew that right now, on the hot gravel lot, he was completely alone with a kid who had nothing left to lose. He slowly reached down and snatched the wet, ruined sketch out of the mud. He shoved it hard against my chest, turned on his heel, and walked off toward Main Street without saying another word. I watched him go until he disappeared behind the brick corner of the pharmacy. My heart was hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs, the adrenaline making my hands shake. I carefully smoothed out the wet, stained paper against my thigh. My chest ached as I saw the dark grease smudge covering Rune's beautiful moon. The drawing was ruined. The black outlines of the stalks he had drawn were lost under the heavy oil. I walked back inside the dim garage bay and tucked Runes drawing safely into the bottom drawer of my metal toolbox, hiding it under a stack of old gaskets. I knew I’d have to keep it a secret from Valen tonight. Valen was already terrified of the North Side townspeople. He was terrified that if we caused even a single ripple, the town would look at our broken home and take Rune away for good. First: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1381119738 Previous: https://scratch.mit.edu/projects/1383347034 Next: Next Week On Monday
