She started to laugh. She couldn't help herself. Then Gran complained she wasn't taking things seriously enough. She only laughed harder.
Whenever the military engineers did finish a stretch, they waved the civilian car through. After about the third time it happened, Mr. Brooks said, "Maybe it's just as well you two came along after all."
"What do you mean?" Beckie asked.
"They see a car with a guy in it, they're going to wonder what he's doing here. They see a car with a guy and his 'mother'"—Mr. Brooks made a face—"and his 'daughter' in it, they don't worry so much. Probably doesn't hurt that his 'daughter' is a pretty girl, either."
Beckie didn't think she was anything special. But he didn't sound as if he were praising her just to butter her up. And she'd seen the way the soldiers looked at her. Of course, how fussy were soldiers likely to be?
"Did Justin come this way?" Beckie asked, not least so she wouldn't have to think about things like that. "If he did, was the road smashed up for him, too?"
Mr. Brooks only shrugged. "Maybe this happened after he went through. Or maybe the convoy he's with is five miles ahead of us, waiting for the military engineers to fix another hole in the highway. But if he went to Charleston, he either went this way or the other way we couldn't get through, because there aren't any more."
"Oh." Beckie thought about that, then nodded. "What if he didn't go to Charleston?"
"In that case, we're up the well-known creek without a paddle," Mr. Brooks answered. "And so is he."
"Which creek?" It wasn't well-known to Gran. "What are you talking about?"
"I'm just being metaphorical, Mrs. Bentley," Mr. Brooks said.
"Well, cut it out and talk so a person can understand you."
He sighed. "If all writers did that, chances are it would improve ninety percent of them. But it would ruin the rest—and those are the ones we need most."
Gran only sniffed. After a few seconds, Beckie said, "You say interesting things."
"Who, me?" Mr. Brooks shrugged. "The only thing I want to say is, 'And they all lived happily ever after.' But I don't know if I'll be able to manage that. Looks like the sun's about to go down, and we aren't there yet."
"Well? Turn on your lights and keep going," Gran said.
"I would do that, Mrs. Bentley, but I'm not sure it's a good idea," Mr. Brooks said. "Missiles may home on our lights. Or the Virginians may shoot us because they think we're trying to make missiles home on us. Which would you rather?"
"What? I don't want either one! Are you crazy?" Gran sounded sure he was.
"He's trying to tell you he doesn't want to keep driving after dark, Gran," Beckie said, working hard not to laugh.
"See? I told you he should just talk sense." Nothing got through to Gran, even the things that should have.
They stopped for the night in a town called Clendenin, which was even smaller than Elizabeth. Once upon a time, it had been an oil town. Now the derricks stood silent and rusting. The town did have a motel. It looked shabbier than the one in Elizabeth, and was full of soldiers. Clendenin also had a gas station. The travelers used the restrooms there. They also bought snacks—no diner there.
Then they went out and slept in the car, or tried to. Beckie couldn't remember a more uncomfortable night. Gran had the back seat to herself. She soon started snoring. Even with her front seat reclined, Beckie couldn't doze off. She usually slept on her stomach. She leaned back and did her best to keep quiet—Mr. Brooks was breathing deeply and steadily, too.
She tried counting sheep. She tried counting boulders— plenty of them all around the road they'd been traveling. She felt herself getting sleepy . . . till a mosquito started buzzing. She was so tired, she could hardly see straight. But her eyes wouldn't stay closed no matter what.
And then gray predawn light streamed through the windshield, and she had no idea how it had got there. She looked around in surprise. Mr. Brooks nodded to her. "Your grandmother is still out," he whispered.
She sure was. She was snoring louder than ever. "I guess I did sleep," Beckie said. "I didn't think I could."
"You get tired enough, you can do almost anything." Mr. Brooks sounded like a man who knew what he was talking about.
"How long have you been awake?" Beckie asked.
"A while now." He looked at what they'd bought the night before. "We've got some warm fizzes, and some chocolate Super-snax cakes, and some pork rinds. Sounds like a great breakfast, doesn't it?"
"Makes my mouth water," Beckie said solemnly. He laughed softly. She ate one of the cakes and drank a fizz. Then she hoped the fellow who ran the gas station would come back and open up, because she needed to make a pit stop.
He did, so she didn't have to go into the bushes behind the station. At least there were bushes to go back to. In Los Angeles, there wouldn't have been.
Gran crunched pork rinds as if she ate them for breakfast every morning. Beckie didn't want to think about what that meant. Had there been a time when Gran . . . ? Beckie shook her head. She didn't want to think about it.
She heard booms off in the distance. Before she came to Virginia, she would have thought they were thunder. Now she knew better—more knowledge she wished she didn't have. But she did, and so she said, "That's artillery."
"Sure is," Mr. Brooks agreed. "Sounds like it's coming from Charleston. They're blowing the place up to save it." That went right by Gran. The cynicism made Beckie wince.
"Will there be anywhere to stay?" Beckie asked.
"I expect there will," Mr. Brooks answered. "Charleston's a good-sized city. To wreck it all, you'd need a nuke or two great big armies fighting a no-holds-barred battle there—like, uh, Tsaritsyn in the War of the Three Emperors a hundred and fifty years ago. An uprising? An uprising's just a nuisance."
"Unless you get shot in it," Beckie said.
"There is that," he agreed. "You're just as dead if you get shot in an uprising as you are any other time. Shall we go find out how bad things are?" Neither Beckie nor Gran said no. He drove southwest toward Charleston.
He passed several military checkpoints coming into the city. Two things got him through: everybody in the car was white, and he had a genuine Virginia driver's license. Soldiers checked it with their laptops. It came up green every time.
"Oh, my," Beckie said when they got into Charleston.
"It wasn't like this when I left," Mr. Brooks said.
"I sure hope not," she told him.
"It's not this bad on the news," Gran said, looking around in disbelief. This was without a doubt a city that had been fought over, and fought over hard. Buildings were knocked flat. Bullet holes scarred wooden fences and walls. The stink of smoke filled the air and stung Beckie's eyes. Under it lay another, nastier stink: the stink of death.
"On the news, Gran, they don't want you to think it's bad," Beckie said, as gently as she could.
"But the news is supposed to show you what's what," Gran said.
Beckie wondered how Gran could have got to be an old lady while staying so innocent. Mr. Brooks said, "The news shows what the people in charge want you to think is what." No, he didn't come to town on a load of turnips.
He passed up a couple of motels and hotels that had taken battle damage, and a couple of more that hadn't. "What's wrong with this one?" Beckie asked when he drove past yet another.
"Didn't look good," he answered, and left it there. "Ah, here we go," he said a minute or so later, and pulled up at one across the street from a police station. "You ought to be safe here. I'll come back and check on you later today."
"Thank you very much," Beckie said.
"I want a room with a TV with better news," Gran said. When you got right down to it, that didn't sound like such a bad idea.