Page 46 of Run Away Home: Tempered

“I do.”

“Why do you look so clean, then? You have to get dirty. That’s how it works, don’t you know?”

I put my hands on my hips and look up at the sky.

“I’m trying my hardest, Adair. I really am—”

“Liar,” he says with a chuckle. “You just don’t like to do it because you’re a pretty boy. Ma says you’re pretty, and that’s why you’re bad at working!”

“Stop teasing me!” I pick him up and throw him over my shoulder. “See, I am stronger than you.”

“Let me go!”

“Aye, I will, but you best go get cleaned up before Ma sees you.”

“And you best go get dirty before she sees you!”

I roll my eyes and put him down. He’s quiet again, just watching me.

“What’s a passport?” he asks suddenly.

Huh?

“It’s a thing that you need so you can travel out of Scotland. Why?”

“I saw papers in your bedroom that said ‘passport’ on them. I asked the other boys, even the ones that speak good English, but they didn’t know either.”

How did he find that? I tucked it under my bed.

“Why are you snooping around in my bedroom?”

“You want to leave here? You run away enough. You going to run away out of Scotland now, hmm?”

“No! I’m staying! I’m staying right here on our island. I’m not leaving. Besides, I can’t get one, anyway.”

He looks down and plays with the dirt. He cups it, and watches it fall through the cracks of his fingers like sand through an hourglass.

“If you don’t want to leave, then why do you sneak around and lie all the time? You hate it here.”

“I don’t hate it here. I’m not leaving you.”

“But you want to.”

“Adair, I don’t want to.” I pick the hoe back up. “I’m staying. I was just curious, is all. It would be neat to visit New York City someday.”

“Would you take a plane to New York, or a boat to New York, or a train to New York, or a car to New York?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I can’t get a passport.”

“How would you even get money to take a plane, anyway? I heard they cost a million pounds.”

“No, they don’t cost a million pounds. I just told you I can’t get a passport, anyway. I don’t have a birth certificate.”

“When you go on a plane to New York, I want to go, so get me one too, okay?”

“Are you listening to me?”

He stops playing with the soil and looks up at me blankly. He never listens to a single word.

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