Thump!

She screamed. Then she threw the car in reverse and killed the engine. Leaving the keys she uncinched her seatbelt and heaved open the door and rounded the front bumper and screamed again.

Plucky wasn't moving. Eyes closed. Trapped under the twisted aluminum frame of his yellow Schwinn dirtbike. Wheels still spinning, creaking. No blood—only a flittering confetti of sage green feathers.

Her eyes flicked back and forth, scanning the sidewalk and the gaping school windows and the near-empty parking lot for witnesses, already munching on her fingernails.

She couldn't see anybody.

She checked her watch. School'd been out for nearly three hours, and she'd been the last to vacate the locker room after cheerleading practice. Campus was all but dead now, being slopped and mopped over by the typical dreary custodians.

But she couldn't just leave him there.

Timidly, as if handling a snake, she eased the bike up by both handlebars and dragged it clinking off into the grass. Then she hauled Plucky to his feet, walked him gingerly around the car, buckled him into the passenger's seat and slammed the door. Clambering in behind the steering wheel she shifted gears and cranked up the air conditioning and tore off down the alleyway behind campus, hanging a wide left onto Friendship Avenue.

Her foot was heavy. The speedometer swung past forty, fifty, sixty. She cut across Main Street, ran a red light, kept straight until she saw Buster's parents' house streaking by on the right. A flash of concrete and brick.

Stomping on the brakepedal she slipped down the nearest sidestreet and turned the car around and parked crookedly along the curb in front of the house.

Again she switched off the engine, turning to examine her passenger. Plucky sat slumped with his cheek to the window, still out of it. She thought he looked alright, save for the yawning bone-deep scrape in his left knee.

Quitting the vehicle she shuffled up the walkway to Buster's front door and knocked five times. From somewhere inside the house she could hear the muffled snarl of electric bass, screamed vocals. She knocked again. When still no one would answer she snuck around back and peered in through the living room window.

There in a haze of blue smoke sat Buster and Shirley and Hamton, huddled together around a crumpled tinfoil napkin stuffed with tangled bunches of cheap marijuana. Chilling out, per usual.

She tapped urgently on the glass. Buster looked up from his joint, made a face, then scurried over to let her in through the porch. The door slid back with a roar.

'Care to join us, Babs?'

She shook her head. 'I need your help.'

'With what?'

'With everything.'

She dragged him out front, him shirtless and pale and reeking of smoke.

'What's this about?' he demanded, struggling to keep up.

Already she was unlocking the car, prying open the door. 'Give me a hand,' she said.

Buster craned his neck, stealing a peek over her shoulder. 'Whoa. What happened?'

'Give me a hand,' she said again.

They each took one of Plucky's arms and hauled him bodily up the walkway to the front door, the toes of his shoes skittering along the ground as they went. The door swung wide, then creaked and clapped shut behind them. Buster fumbled with the latch.

'Like—what's up with the duck?' Shirley hollered from the living room couch, feigning a look of concern.

Hamton sprang up to kill the music.

When all was quiet, Babs replied cautiously: 'His cholesterol?'

Shirley sank back into the couch, mystified.

Babs frowned inwardly. Then, with Plucky in tow, she and Buster raced upstairs to the bathroom, switched on the overhead light and sealed the door behind them.

'Well. This is something out there,' Buster panted, sitting Plucky down on the lid of the toilet. 'What the hell happened?'

Babs hipped her hands, trying to catch her breath. 'I hit him,' she blurted out. 'With my car. In the Acmeloo parking lot.'

Buster's shoulders bounced up to his ears. 'What'd you bring him here for?'

'I don't know,' she groaned. 'I panicked.'

'Just my luck,' Buster sighed, watching the blood bubble slowly from Plucky's exposed knee. 'Or do you drag unconscious ducks to all your ex-boyfriends' houses?'

She shoved him into the towelrack. 'It's fine. We'll call an ambulance.'

'No we won't,' he countered flatly, sliding in front of the door.

'Why not?'

'Babs, you kidnapped him.'

'I didn't kidnap him!'

'All I'm saying is: any ambulance you call's gonna be followed here by a police cruiser, and there's enough weed downstairs to get us all in a heap of trouble.'

'What if he has a concussion?'

'I'm sure he does.'

'What if his knee gets infected?'

'I'm sure it will.'

'Well,' she shrugged. 'We have to do something.'

Buster shook his head. 'You barely know the kid.' He had his hand on the doorknob.

'So what?'

'So what're you worried about?'

'He needs a doctor.'

'Take him.'

'You expect me to drive him to the hospital? By myself? I don't even know where it is!'

Buster yanked open the door. 'There's a computer in my room,' he offered, showing his palms. 'Mapquest it.'

And with that he was gone, his footsteps retreating clunkingly down the narrow stairway. A few seconds later the music flared up again, even louder and more obnoxious than before.

Babs rubbed at her eyes before stooping to look Plucky over, as if that might somehow improve his condition.

It didn't.

In addition to the blood gurgling from his knee and now seeping down into his sock, a second thin red line had begun inching out from a small scratch on his forehead, bending along his right eyebrow and dripping silently onto the collar of his teeshirt. Little imperfect starbursts.

Babs fished her phone out of her jeanspocket and dialed three digits. Then she scooped a pink handtowel off the rack behind her and, pinching the phone between her ear and shoulder, fastened the towel around Plucky's knee and tightened it.

'Nine-one-one. State your emergency.'

She hesitated. She didn't know where to begin.

'Hello?'

'Yes,' she managed at last.

'Ma'am? Do you need assistance?'

The phone slipped and clattered loudly to the floor between Plucky's feet. Panicking, she snatched it up with both hands and frantically ended the call.

She took a moment to catch her breath, then hauled Plucky up by the waist, lugged him down the hall to Buster's room and deposited him with a loud squelch in the middle of the unmade waterbed, his arms and legs bobbing up and down on the resulting ripple.

As promised an ancient tower PC stood quiet atop Buster's cluttered desk. She booted it up and stood waiting for the startpage to appear. When it didn't she cursed wearily and slammed her fist down on the keyboard, eliciting a low beep from the hard drive. She threw an uneasy glance over at Plucky's still-bobbing form, hoping on her way out the door that she wouldn't later be accused of abandoning him.

'Buster!' she shouted over the music, pausing halfway down the stairs.

Looking up from a freshly-rolled joint, Buster slowly extricated himself from Shirley's arms and scooched over to the neighboring couch cushion. 'What now?'

'Your computer,' Babs mumbled.

'What?'

'Your computer! It won't start!'

'Take the floppy disk out!'

'Buster,' she repeated. 'Please don't make me face this by myself.'

'Huh?'

'Nothing.'

Her chin fell. She turned and trudged back up to Buster's bedroom by herself.

The floppy disk ejected with a loud pop. She thought she saw Plucky flinch, but wasn't confident enough to try waking him.

Without warning a tremendous banging issued from somewhere downstairs. Babs pricked up her ears. Someone was at the front door, demanding entrance. She hurried back to the top of the stairs and knelt to listen.

There were voices coming through the door, but she couldn't quite make out what they were saying. The music was still too loud. Eventually someone hopped up to turn it down. Seconds later Buster appeared at the window.

Another loud chorus of bangings. 'Police!' they were shouting.

Babs could see Buster turning, one hand slowly undoing the latch, the other gesturing toward Shirley and Hamton in a sort of shoveling motion.

He reached for the knob, but not fast enough. The door swung wide, crashing into him. His neck snapped back. He tumbled to the floor, clutching his nose.

Four black uniforms spilled into the entranceway, guns drawn. One of them immediately fell upon Buster, hurling him onto his stomach and choking his wrists together with a plastic ziptie. Two more raced into the living room yelling and pointing their guns. Shirley screamed. Something glass shattered.

Babs leapt to her feet and fled back into the bedroom, eyes cutting left and right. Already she could hear someone bounding up the stairs behind her. Without thinking she flipped Plucky onto the floor and stuffed him into the cramped space below Buster's bed before wriggling in after him.

Her legs disappeared below the mattress just seconds before the cop burst in. She buried her face in Plucky's shoulder and squeezed her eyes shut. In one ear she could hear the slow, easy thumping of his heart, in the other the cop's shuffling footsteps, the creak of the floorboards.

After a while the cop yelled out 'Clear!' and quickly vanished down the stairway to rejoin his team.

Babs didn't move, only tilting her neck slightly to peer out through the narrow rectangle of light between the floor and the bedframe. From where she lay she could see only part of the door, a leg of Buster's desk chair and one of his shoes, a few random schoolbooks and a wrinkled pair of jeans lying in a heap in front of the closet.

She pressed her ear to the floor, hoping to get a better idea of what was going on downstairs, but all she could hear were muffled voices, lots of scraping and stumbling around, the occasional squeal of a walkie-talkie. Then a door closed somewhere and everything fell silent.

Babs lay with her palms flat on the carpet, pulling deep breaths through her nose. She raked back her ears and maneuvered around to glance at Plucky.

His eyes were open, staring at her. Dried tributaries of blood stained the entire right side of his face, though he didn't appear to have noticed.

Babs smiled, and it was a broad smile full of relief and curiosity and a little bit of fear.

'Hey,' she whispered gently. 'You're awake.'

Plucky blinked his foggy black eyes. 'Do I know you?'