“Coast, Mr. Murray,” Mr. Khouri said, as he put a hand under Nora’s elbow and helped her stand. They followed us out the corridor. “The coast is clear—an idiom that was used to describe a vessel that had safely cleared the coastline. . . .”

Pop chuckled as he limped after us. “I see you like to enlighten when you’re nervous,” he said to Mr. Khouri.

We went down another corridor and out the back doors to the teachers’ parking lot. The cleaners wouldn’t come for another half hour, which was when the building would be all locked up. The lot was clear except for Pop’s old pickup truck.

Mr. Khouri knelt down and made a little cradle with his hands for Nora to step up to the truck bed. Pop and I steadied her until she could crawl to the middle of the bed and lie down.

“You all set?” Pop asked, and she nodded—then he and Mr. Khouri pulled a black tarp over her.

“You two ready?” Pop asked, turning to Sam and me.

When we both nodded, Pop said, “We’ll see you at home then.”

We watched as he and Mr. Khouri climbed into the truck.

Then it was just me and Sam.

As soon as Pop’s truck pulled out of the parking lot, we ran around the side of the building and back to the bike shed. As we started riding toward Ocean Beach Road, the whole town was covered in this kind of pink-golden light, as the clouds came out to streak the sky goodbye.

We rode side by side and as fast as we could, just managing to keep Pop’s white truck in sight. We could see the faint glow of blue and red police lights atop the hill.

“It didn’t work,” Sam puffed, his legs still pumping.

“It’ll work. . . .” I said, even though I wasn’t sure.

But those lights kept flashing, and Pop’s truck was heading right for them.

“They didn’t believe them,” Sam said.

As soon as Sam said that, one of the police cruisers let out a whoop of their siren, and I swallowed down the dread that was rising up from my stomach as another whoop rang out, followed by another and another—whoop, whoop, whoop. . . .

And then the police cruisers started moving. Just as Pop’s truck sailed past them, they pulled out from their parking spots and went racing back down in the direction we had just come from, down Ocean Beach Road, away from us, and toward route 787.

“What if Luca says no?” Sam asked, the words coming out between huffs of breath as we came to the home stretch.

“He won’t,” I said.

“But how do you know?”

We turned onto our street and watched as Pop backed the truck into the driveway, so the nose was facing the street and we could sneak Nora in through the back door.