“Hey, can you try this window?” I ask, pointing to a window about six feet off the ground.
“I can’t reach!” The Kid uses Bobo—who is looking in deep need of professional cleaning—to point up at it.
“Yeah, dude, I was gonna lift you.”
He raises his arms, letting me pick him up. First with my good arm only. I’m trying not to put too much weight onto my injured arm until I need to. He senses this and manages to climb onto my right shoulder, letting me hold his legs steady.
“Try and push it up if you can.” Ahead of us, Jamar is rounding the corner as Taylor hangs back and watches us with a smirk. I know the Kid’s not going to be able to open the window, but I just like giving him things to do sometimes. Makes him feel like he’s an integral part of the team.
But the window does open.
“Holy shit!” I say.
“Holy shit!” repeats the Kid, surprised himself.
“Don’t sayshit. Can you push it open any farther?”
He puts his little fingers in the opening and grunts. It moves about half an inch, then stops.
“Put your hand under the window and I’ll push you up, just keep your arms straight, okay?”
“Okay!”
He does as I say, and I push up on my tippy-toes, using my shoulder as leverage. The window slides up with a loud groan. It’s just big enough for him to slip through. But I pull him back down and put his feet firmly on the ground as Jamar comes back around the corner.
“Okay, I need a break,” I say. My left arm is starting to throb.
“Back door is locked, too,” Jamar says.
I point up at the window. “Kid opened the window for us.”
“Good job!” He puts out his hand and the Kid high-fives it.
I crouch down to him. “If I boost you up there, think you can go in and unlock the front door for us?”
He nods and puts his hands in the air again.
“I can do it,” Taylor says.
“The Kid’s got it.” I kinda want him to be able to celebrate the win here. She seems to get that—and that she can be the backup if he can’t figure out the door or there’s a bolt that’s out of his reach—so she shrugs and nods.
I lift him up using only my good arm and supporting his feet with my injured arm, and he climbs into the window. Rising to my tippy-toes, I hold on to his feet as he slips inside.
“You good if I let go?”
“Yeah!” the Kid calls back. I let go of one foot, then the other. There’s a loud bump that makes me worried that I just dropped him on his head—I have no clue how far the drop is on the other side. But then the Kid’s smiling face pops up in the window and he waves. Taylor laughs and tells him to go to the front door, and he disappears into the darkness.
We head back up to the porch, rounding the corner to the front of the restaurant—
And there’s a man there. He’s a stout white guy, a little older than me, with a brown-and-red beard. He wears a bright yellow beanie and a green puffer coat.
And he has a rifle pointed at us.
“Who are you?” he asks. “What are you doing here?”
My hands go up, not to the rifle on my shoulder. “Just looking for shelter. I used to live in a cabin around here, but we’re stopping for the night. We’re not here to hurt anyone.”
“What cabin? I know everyone in the area, and I never seen any of you before.”
