Trust is a golden gift, and this time, I’m not wasting it.
I shift my focus to Davy. ?e counter is in front of him, and behind him is a rack with some short, squat bodyboards on it—a third the size of a surfboard, but “way lamer,” as Porter once joked.
I wait. Come on, Porter. Give me an opening.
As if he’s read my mind, he suddenly says, “Oh, lookie here. ?e computer is nally waking up, Davy.”
Davy’s head turns toward Porter.
I step back, slip around, and slide one of the bodyboards off the stand. As I do, it makes a sound. Crap! It’s also a lot lighter than I hoped. Oh, well. Too late now, because Davy’s turning around, cognizant that I’m closer than he expected. I don’t have a choice.
Right as his gaze connects with mine, I grip the board in both hands, rear back, and smack him in the side of the face.
He cries out as his head whips sideways. His step falters, and he stumbles.
?e shotgun swings around wildly and clips me in the shoulder. I grab it and try to wrestle it out of his hand. It suddenly breaks free, and I y backward with the gun—but that’s because Porter has hurdled over the counter.
Porter slams Davy to the oor as my back hits the rack of bodyboards, knocking them over. I scramble to stay on my feet and hold on to the shotgun, but fail.
I fall on my face.
“Porter!” I’m swimming in a sea of foam bodyboards. ?e boys are struggling on the oor, and all I can see is Porter’s arm pounding like a piston and Davy’s trench coat apping and tangling around his legs.
And then—
A loud whimper.
Heart knocking against my rib cage, I shove the bodyboards aside and jump to my feet.
Porter is lying on the oor.
Davy is below him, facedown. One cheek is turned against the wood. One eye blinking away tears.
“I’m sorry,” Davy says hoarsely.
“Me too,” Porter says, pinning Davy’s arms to the oor. “I tried, man. Someone else is going to have to save you now.”
Porter looks up at me and nods. I set the gun on the oor and kick it out of the way. ?en I dig my phone out of my pocket and dial 911.
“Uh, yeah,” I say into the phone, out of breath, swallowing hard. “I’m at Penny Boards Surf Shop on the boardwalk. ?ere’s been an attempted armed robbery. We’re okay. But you need to send someone to come arrest the guy. And you also need to call Sergeant Wanda Mendoza immediately and tell her to come to the scene right now.”
“I may go back to hating you. It was more fun.”
—Cary Grant, North by Northwest (1959)
27
Turns out, Davy’s shotgun was stolen. He also had a hella bunch of heroin and other narcotics in his coat. Wanda says since he’s a month from turning eighteen and he’s been arrested before, he might be tried as an adult and serve some time in prison. Right now, he’s being detoxed in a jail cell. Wanda says his attorney will try to persuade the judge to put him a state-run rehab facility for a couple of weeks while he awaits trial. No guarantee that will happen, though.
I get all this information the day after the events in the surf shop, so I relay it by text to Porter and let him know. We haven’t really had any time to talk, what with all the chaos. His family showed up a few minutes after the cops and were understandably freaked. Mr. Roth was so angry at Davy, he had to be restrained until Mrs. Roth could talk him down. Wanda called my dad, who immediately left work and rushed over to the surf shop to make sure I was okay. It was a whole asco.
By the time we’d given statements and everyone cleared out, Porter had to go to work at the Cave, so I followed my dad home. It wasn’t until he was ordering us lunch that I realized Porter had, at some point when I wasn’t paying attention, slipped the shark tooth back into my pocket. I got a text from him a few minutes later.
All it said was: We’re not done talking.
?e next day after dinner, out of the blue, my dad asks to see my old map of the boardwalk. I’d almost thrown it away in a t when Alex blew me off weeks ago. I have to dig it out from my desk drawer in my bedroom. Dad spreads it out on the patio table near our redwood tree and studies it, nodding slowly.
“What?” I say.
