Lone Star

3 There would be at least five hundred other applicants, who a. might have a story and b. were writers.

4 One of those applicants might be Hannah who most certainly had stories, a number of them.

5 A new truck was more than ten thousand dollars.

Chloe couldn’t help herself. She had to say something. If only she could learn to keep quiet, like Hannah, or Mason, things would be so much better in her life.

“Who are the junkyard boys?” she asked.

“We are. Blake. Mason. We’re ambling along, asking for no trouble, and suddenly—wham! Trouble comes.”

“Wham,” said Chloe.

“Blake’s right,” Mason said. “We’ve found some awful things.”

“Like what?”

“Dead rats.”

“Rats are good,” she said. “But then what? Someone not wanting dead rats in their house is hardly a story. It’s more like a truism.”

“We found some jewelry too once.”

“Jewelry is good. Then what?”

“Okay, maybe not jewelry, then. Something else.”

Chloe glanced at Hannah, walking on the side of the tracks, away from the three of them, barely listening. Blake jackhammered away at Chloe’s concrete skepticism. “They discover something awful. Something that changes everything. Mason, what can they find that is so monumental and terrible that it changes everything?”

“True love?” Chloe smiled.

“It’s not that kind of story, my dear Haiku,” Blake said with twinkling amusement. “This is a man’s story. No room in it for lurv, no matter how terrible and true. Right, cupcake?” Jumping off the rail, he jostled Hannah along the pebbles.

“Right,” she said.

Mason had new suggestions. “We found an old suitcase once. It was full of snakes. And once we found a live rabbit.”

“Yes,” Blake said. “He was delicious. But Chloe is right. We need a story, bro.” He smacked his forehead. “Got it. How about a human head in the trash?”

Chloe didn’t even blink this time. Almost as if she’d seen a human head in the trash before. “Nice,” she said. “And then?”

Blake shrugged. “Why do you care so much what happens next?” he asked.

She could tell he wasn’t taking it seriously. What the boys did for a living—that was work. Here, all they had to do was come up with a few words and place them in the sweet order that assured victory. Blake was convinced it was child’s play.

“You’re right, we’re all Philistines with our slavish devotion to plot,” Chloe said. “Be that as it may.”

“Yes. The writer drones on about what happens next and as soon as you the reader guess what’s coming, you either fall asleep or want to kill him.”

“So the trick is what? Never give the reader what she wants?”

Blake shook his head. “No. Give her what she didn’t even know she wanted.” He acted as if he knew what that was.

They turned for home. “They find a human head,” he went on, as he and Chloe ambled down the narrowing pine path leading home, Hannah and Mason behind them. A few hundred yards downhill, the dirt road tapered to one lane on which a truck or a car or people could pass—one at a time. “But not a skull.” Blake glanced back and widened his eyes at Hannah. “A head. That’s been recently separated from the body. It still has flesh on it. And they don’t know what to do. Do they investigate? Do they call the cops?”

“I think they should investigate,” Mason said, running up. “Investigations are fun.”

“There’s danger in it.”

“Danger is good,” Hannah said from behind. “Danger is story.”

No, Chloe wanted to correct her uncorrectable friend. Danger is danger. It’s not story.

Blake went on ruminating. “What if asking too many questions of the wrong people puts them in mortal danger?”

Chloe wondered if there was any other kind.

“Someone needs to shut them up. But who?”

“Obviously those who separated the head from the body.”

“But why would someone separate the head from the body?” Mason asked.

“I don’t know yet. But I really think we got us something here. Haiku, what do you think?”

“I say keep working on it.” Chloe used her most discouraging tone.

“Wait! I got it!” Blake exclaimed. “What if they find a suitcase? Yes, a mysterious suitcase! It’s blue. Oh my God, I got it. That’s my story.” Blake stopped and turned to the girls, beaming, his whole face flushed and thrilled. “The Blue Suitcase. What do you think?” He clapped. “It’s flipping awesome!”

Hannah smiled approvingly.

Chloe caught herself shrugging. “It’s a good title for a mystery,” she said. “But a title is not a story. What’s in the suitcase? Once you figure out that part, Blake, then you’ll have yourself a story.”

Blake laughed with characteristic lack of concern for details. He was a big picture guy. “James Bond always goes to a foreign country to solve mysteries and catch the bad guys,” he said. “Some fantastic exotic locale full of drink and women and danger.”

Chloe made a real effort not to rub her forehead. She had a lot of practice hiding exasperation from her mother, but this was on a different scale altogether. “James Bond is a government spy. He kills for money. He doesn’t rummage through the trash for severed heads.”

“Foreign country!” Mason exclaimed. “Blake, you’re a genius.”

Blake’s entire peacock tail opened up in kaleidoscope green.

“But wait,” Mason said. “You and I have never been to a foreign country.”

Blake blocked the girls’ way, smiling meaningfully at them. “Not yet,” he said.

The girls remained impassive. Only Chloe twitched slightly. Oh no! she thought. He doesn’t mean …

“We’ll go to Europe with you,” Blake said. “Mason’s right, I am a genius. The answer to our mysterious suitcase is in Europe. Oh man, this is going to be fantastic. And we’ve only been at it for five minutes. Imagine how good it’ll be when we spend a few days on it.” Blake thumped his flannel plaid chest. “We could win the book prize.”