As slow as Simon ran, he still took after the boy like a fox after a hare. The boy had a momentary head start from when Simon looked back at Charles in the car. Even as he started running, he heard the car’s engine rumble. Charles or Penelope would assist. He felt like he was in one of the police shows, where one officer took off on foot while the other headed back to the patrol car to pursue by car.

He knew from watching many of those shows that the officer in pursuit by foot usually got there first. He headed down the street where he had last seen the boy run, and turned abruptly at the wall. He saw a foot flash to the left and headed in that direction. He was breathing hard, but adrenaline was making the breathing not difficult. He was not sure why he was chasing the boy or what he would do when he caught him. How had the boy recognized him? He turned his thoughts away from where the boy had seen him and returned them to the pursuit.

Growing up, he had spent much of his time alone playing chase with his sisters. They were excellent runners and hiders, very skilled in the ways of the streets. While they had not lived in this neighborhood, no neighborhood was off limits for the case. Cars were careful in all parts of Fishs Eddy as the population of children back there had always been large. It was accepted that the children owned the streets, at least during the day. Even at night, the town had been especially tolerant of the college students who would replace the younger kids as the evening came about. It was another reason why the community college was so popular. All during high school and then college, the students would spend their evenings wandering the streets, going from diner to diner and saloon to bar to socialize and fraternize. Very little was frowned upon in the city. As long as the kids were safe, the parents and the city as a whole was happy. The police had a very good relationship with the children on the streets. At least that was as much as Simon remembered.

He turned down the block and ran through the clothing district. It was a five block by five block radius where clothing was imported from a variety of chain and boutique stores and resold through independent clothiers. Simon remembered the place from his childhood. At the time, he thought all the clothing had been made in town. It was not until his sister moved back to town that he realized that they did not make any of the clothes. She told him with much disappointment that they imported all of the clothing from other clothing stores around the country. They marked up the price after buying it at large warehouse stores and pawned it off as their own local product. They probably tricked tourists into believing that—at least the tourists who did not have enough patience to read the labels and realize they could buy the same clothing at the Gap for significantly less, with different, less homegrown labels.

There was much action and much chasing. The chase itself was not long. They do not show you this on television or in the movies, but once you start running, you get tired quickly. The adrenaline only lasts a few minutes, after which both Simon and the boy were huffing and puffing with each step. Simon slowly gained grown on the boy solely by the fact that he had longer legs, which covered more ground with each step. Simon heard the wheels of his car’s tires behind him, and saw Charles behind the wheel taking a sharp turn and turning a block ahead of him, well within range to cut off the boy, who had slowed with Simon and now ran with his head turned almost completely around to watch Simon in a feeble attempt to figure out how to get away from him. In a grid-like street, it was difficult to get away. There were no alleyways or sharp corners to lose him. All of businesses they passed were closed. Where ever the boy had come out from, there was no sign of the saloon or bar.

Simon slowed as the boy slowed, trying not to spook him. It was possible that the boy had been stalking the empty streets of downtown. Unlike bigger cities, nobody lived in the downtown of Fishs Eddy. It only housed businesses and parking lots. Large parking lots surrounded the downtown and also, much to the chagrin of the city planners who only realized this late in the game, capped the size of the city. No new businesses could grow outward. Instead, businesses began stacking on top of one another, until the downtown area looked like a stack of poorly crafted card houses. Signs hung from each of the three story buildings. Some of the floors grew on top of preexisting buildings giving them a precarious look as if they were preparing to fall at any moment.

Simon heard Penelope say something loudly. By the time Simon arrived, Penelope was standing outside the car with her finger pointed in the general direction of the boy, and Charles stood on the other side of the car. Simon had never looked at Charles in this way, but he realized he could appear very large when he wanted to. He loomed over the boy, who found his back to the car with Simon approaching from behind him.

“Why did you run?” Simon asked, speaking loudly in an attempt to intimidate the boy. The boy had not realized he had walked up behind him and jumped when he heard his voice.

“The real question,” the boy said, his voice taking on a strongly sarcastic and clearly teenage pitch. “Is why are you chasing me? I was just heading home when this freak show started running at me.”

The boy’s pimply face was red and he was breathing very heavily. Simon found himself wheezing a bit and felt a strong urge to lean over to catch his breath. He resisted, though, with a quick look back at Penelope. She was not watching him, and Simon again felt the need to bend at the waist to find air. Penelope wagged her outstretched finger at the boy. She was not saying anything, but her lips were pursed, much like they are when the class she teaches begins turning in the wrong direction.

The boy looked up and saw Penelope standing there. He had not seen her during the run and chase. He was breathing heavily and leaned over, his hair flopped over the front of his face. He tried to straighten up and began choking as air refused to work its way through his esophagus.

“Well, why did you run?” Penelope asked Simon’s question again. “We needed help and you ran.”

“And then you chased me,” the boy said, this time quieter than before. He was staring at Penelope, keeping losing focus on the other two people. Charles continued to loom, but a small smile crossed his face. It was evident he was attempting to fight it. He was not winning that competition.

“Okay,” Charles said, his face now harboring a huge smile. “This is getting us nowhere. We keep repeating ourselves, and like all repetitions, this will end nowhere fast. Let us move beyond this part of the conversation and figure out where everyone stands. We need help finding his sister.” Charles pointed at Simon. “We found you, the only person in the streets of Fishs Eddy, and we chased you down. It was a fun chase, but it is getting late and I am sure you want to get home as fast as we want to get to his sister’s house. Now, I am not saying we have to be friends or write in each other’s yearbooks. What I am saying is that this has to end now.”

“I know where your sister is,” the boy said before Charles had finished. Charles’s finger was still raised into the air and he looked as if he was preparing to jump into another story, perhaps this time about how people need to get along, especially people who had just been on a half-hearted chase through the downtown area of Fishs Eddy.

”Where?” Simon asked. With all of the excitement of the chase, he had not thought of his family. His breath no longer burned. It did the opposite: it felt good, the way breathing deeply feels good after you have run a long way and recovered sufficiently to breathe normally. There’s a slight burning sensation in the lungs, but it is no longer painful. You breathe deeply just to feel that sensation again.

“You are her brother,” the boy said. His not answering Simon’s question was beginning to aggravate him. He had led him on this long and satisfying chase, and he felt it was time to get real answers.

“If you are her brother,” the boy said. “Then you are not one of them.” The words made Simon think the boy would be relieved, but he did not appear relieved.

“Who are they?” Charles asked, again interrupting the boy and stopping him from supplying the answers Simon really wanted.

“Let us not go into this again,” Simon interrupted. “We will give you a ride home, and you will tell us where my sister lives. You can tell us all about ‘they’ in the car. For now, get in the car and let us go. We have wasted enough time standing around here arguing.”

The boy looked first at Simon and then at Penelope. He smiled in Penelope’s direction and opened the passenger door for her to enter. When he opened his mouth to smile, Simon saw that his teeth were crooked and somewhat brown. He knew that besides having a clean if crowded downtown area, Fishs Eddy also had very healthy and wealthy people. He could not imagine that this boy lived here. He must be a vagrant or an outsider. This would explain what he was doing in the downtown area so late in the evening. It would also raise questions about whether he even knew who his sister was. Simon tried to recall if he brought up Darla or if the boy had. He needed to watch him carefully.

After Penelope entered the car, the boy slid in besides her. Charles did not join Simon in the front seat, but instead slid in to the window side of the back seat, effectively trapping the boy between himself and Penelope. Simon nodded in approval as Charles closed the door as he pulled his right leg into the car.

Simon walked around the car to the driver’s side door, and let himself in. He turned the car back on and began driving toward the edge of the town.

“Which way?” Simon asked the boy. He turned around and saw that the boy was in quiet conversation with Penelope. She was laughing at a joke he had just whispered in her direction. Charles was leaning over the boy to hear the conversation. A few seconds after Penelope started laughing, Charles erupted. Charles did not laugh often. He often chuckled or smiled when he heard a particular clever or insightful joke. But he did not laugh, even at his wittiest jokes. Simon wanted to know what the boy had said. He was about to ask but the boy interrupted him.

“Stay on Main street until you come to the fork,” the boy said with a sense of authority he had lacked while breathing heavily outside the car only moments before. “Once you hit the fork, you make a right. You are only about twenty minutes away from Darla’s house.”

“And where do you live?” Simon asked.

The boy laughed at his question. His face had a strange look on it as he realized that Simon was not joining in on his laughter. “You are joking,” the boy said. “Right?”

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