Unhooking the Moon by Gregory Hughes Page A

to help.’
    The man’s face seemed to soften. ‘Yeah well I’m having a bad night! I’m out of gas and I have to get back to New York!’
    â€˜We passed a gas station two miles back,’ I told him.
    â€˜Two miles, you say?’
    â€˜If you’ve got a can we’ll go get it for you,’ said the Rat. ‘We’re pretty fast on our bikes.’
    â€˜That would really help me out! And I didn’t mean to snap,’ he said opening the trunk. ‘But you gave me quite a surprise.’
    But then he started swearing and banging things around because there was no can in the trunk.
    â€˜Do you believe that? The only time I run out of gas and I have no – ’
    The Rat drank the last of the Coke from the plasticcontainer and burping loudly she screwed on the cap.
    â€˜Boy, am I glad I ran into you. OK here’s five dollars. That should be enough.’
    â€˜We won’t be long,’ said the Rat taking the money.
    â€˜Hey, you kids ain’t gonna ride off with my five bucks, are you?’
    â€˜Sure,’ said the Rat. ‘That’s what we do. We wait in the middle of nowhere hoping that someone will break down. And when they do we ride off with their gas money.’
    The guy looked bewildered. ‘Everyone’s a wise guy tonight,’ he said in this winning New York accent. ‘I don’t know what it is.’
    We rode to the gas station where we got told by the attendant that we shouldn’t be out so late or filling bottles with gas from the pumps, but who still bid us a good evening and told us to come again. Then we rode back to the guy while eating the candy bars we had bought with his change.
    â€˜Why you said we’d go for gas for him I don’t know. I bet he wouldn’t do it for us.’
    â€˜We don’t use gas, Bob. Anyway he has a good spirit. And he’s going to New York!’
    â€˜He won’t give us a ride.’
    The Rat smiled confidently. ‘We’ll see.’
    When he saw us coming he looked plenty relieved.
    â€˜Oh, you kids are the best! Just let me fill her up and I’ll give you a nice tip.’
    I looked at him as he poured the gas in the car. He had slicked-back black hair that made him look tough and he was pretty mean to us at first. But now that he was happy, and my fear of him had gone, I could see he was only a young guy.
    Throwing the empty container in the trunk, he jumped in the driver’s seat and started the engine. ‘All right!’
    â€˜Quick give me all your change!’ said the Rat.
    I handed her what coins I had.
    â€˜Thanks, kids,’ he said getting out the car.
    The Rat added some notes and holding the money in both hands she offered it to him.
    â€˜What’s this?’
    â€˜This is all we’ve got,’ she said in a meek voice. ‘We really need to get to New York to find Uncle Jerome. If we don’t, they’ll put us in an orphanage!’
    Those drama classes were really starting to pay off!
    â€˜Ah look, kid. I’d like to help, but it’d look strange if I got caught at the border with two kids I’d only just met. I can’t do it. But I really appreciate your help, I really do.’
    â€˜It’s OK,’ said the Rat her meek voice getting meeker. ‘We’ll get there somehow.’
    Her sad look continued even when he gave her a twenty-dollar tip. And he looked more than a little guilty as he got in his car. ‘You kids look after yourselves.’ But he drove away all the same.
    â€˜That was a great performance,’ I said. ‘And cradling the money in your hands like that, that was a really nice touch.’
    But she mumbled miserably in French. She was such a bad loser, not gracious in defeat at all. But when the car stopped, the Rat’s head turned towards me. She looked at me with her smug face, which was the most annoying of her faces. Then, when it began to reverse, she