I, Emma Freke by Elizabeth Atkinson Page A

were shovels and boards and wiring in the bed of the truck. And stacked between us on the front seat were a bunch of tattered magazines called
The Corn and Cob
.
    After Wanda shoved the gear stick into reverse, we didn’t say a word for at least an hour. For one thing, the truck engine was loud. And on top of that, the windows were open since it was such a hot day. Not to mention, Wanda had the radio tuned to some fiddling, square-dancing music, which made it kind of hard to talk at all or even think. I decided to gaze out the window and take in everything I could absorb. After all, it was my first true adventure . . . even if it seemed doomed from the start.
    The state of Wisconsin was wide open compared to the East Coast. I liked how everything seemed to be precisely built and organized from the neat rows of houses to the parking lots and malls. Even the trees seemed to be perfectly spaced. Back home nothing matched, and roads wound up and down and all over the place making them hard to follow.
    As the city highway faded away and the landscape changed to rolling hills, I realized I had not eaten anything all day other than stale bags of airplane granola. My stomach was growling, but you couldn’t hear it over all the truck noise. I reached down and opened my backpack just as Wanda swerved off the road.
    â€œGotta stop for diesel,” she said. “Wanna pop, kid?”
    â€œWanna what?”
    She pulled up to the fuel tanks under the dirty old sign that read, Gas ’n’ Gulp. When she turned off the truck, it seemed so silent.
    â€œA root beer or something?”
    I shrugged my shoulders and replied, “Not really, thank you,” which actually meant,
yes, but don’t worry about me
.
    Wanda climbed out and stretched her arms before picking up the nozzle on the gas tank. I slid out on my side and unwrapped a package of peanut butter crackers from my stash of emergency supplies. I took a bite and glanced around. Across the street was a green field with spotted cows. The sky was bright blue, and the sun was summertime hot, not a cloud around. That’s when I figured out what felt so different. The air was still. No wind. And it all smelled like warm, freshly cut grass instead of a damp, salty ocean breeze.
    Wanda squinted at me as I munched as quietly as I could. Then she leaned against the truck as she waited for it to fill up.
    â€œYou’re a real tall sapling,” she said. “Just like the rest of them.”
    That seemed like a strange comment coming from her. Didn’t Wanda notice that she was mega-vertical too? In fact, she kind of looked like she could be my grandmother which was weird to think about. I even detected some light red hair framing the edge of her forehead. I started to wonder if she was a real cousin. But if that was the case, then why wouldn’t she be related?
    â€œWould you like a cracker?” I asked her.
    â€œA cracker?” she grunted. “That’s not food.”
    The hose clicked off, and Wanda returned the nozzle to the tank. Then she disappeared inside the store to pay for the gas. A few minutes later, she exited holding a cardboard carton with two sodas, two fat sausages covered in melted cheese, and steaming hot curly fries. It all smelled delicious.
    With the truck running again and the radio blaring, I gazed back out the window and ate my lunch slowly, savoring every smoky bite. I guess I was hungrier than I thought. Outside the open, hilly landscape grew more wooded as the road changed from two lanes to one.
    Silently I played the alphabet game, which I used to do with Nonno when I was younger on the long car rides into Boston to see the Salvonis. The idea is to find something along the highway that starts with each letter of the alphabet. For example,
A
for “ambulance,”
B
for “building.” (Nonno usually got confused and either skipped randomly through the letters or slipped into Italian.)
    The game was much