Part 2: Red Rover
Chapter 6

"So, what's the word, man?" Buzz asked in a stage whisper when they had reached Hallie's bedroom. "Like, where's the chitlins?"

Hallie blinked dewy lids at him. "The children?"

Buzz reared backwards and clapped his hands. "The grub, baby! Too crazy! Carolyn asleep? Where's her room again? Look, you seen my cycle outside anywheres?"

"Cycle," repeated Hallie, cluelessly. "Your—cycle."

"My wheels, infant. Motorcycle. I'm pretty sure I left it here. What the hell is it with this place, it sits on my head like twelve tons of Establishment." He turned and regarded the slim, straight blonde girl in her mint-green nightgown. "So, like, what did you bring me here for? Want to have a crazy time, or what? You might be a little young for me," Buzz judged grimly, hitching up his pants by his silver divot-studded belt, "but I can probably manage. So, why you want me to crash this scene, baby?"

"Crash –" Hallie whispered, then, realizing, straightened and frowned at Buzz Hackett. "Do you think I called for you to come here? I didn't! Nobody summoned you, are you crazy?" She strode forward, deeply distressed, her nightgown lashing at her calves. "Have you seen David Collins? Thirteen years old, brown eyes, light brown hair, a freckle beside his nose. I think he wore a green shirt with a dark-green sweater vest and blue slacks."

Buzz thrust himself backward from the hips and bayed at the ceiling. "Whoooooo!" he yelled. Hallie frantically waved her hands to shush him. "So, like she's looking for her little caveman, David Caveman Collins! Nooooo, I have not encountered his like."

He straightened and stood silent. Hallie trembled, unable to read the eyes behind the detestable dark glasses. She groped for some sort of meaning, some relation to this ugly apparition.

"You know C-Carolyn Stoddard," she fumbled, "are the two of you friends?"

"Hey, we mix it up all the time, like the monkey to the chimp, man," Buzz agreed. "You know it. Booze here, booze there, but mostly we ride. What time did you say it was? If it's like eight or nine in the morning, get her up and tell her daddy's here."

"I told you it's bedtime. And Carolyn's away with her boyfriend on vacation," Hallie told him crossly.

Buzz planted a booted foot on Hallie's bed and leaned his arms on his knee. "No fibs, doll," he warned her kindly. "Carolyn isn't dating nobody but the Buzz. We have a crazy time all over the joint, man. So, when did you show up? I just don't remember no little sister."

"I am not her little sister!" Hallie flared. "I'm no relation. I'm a—friend of the family. I came to live here after my parents died in 'sixty-nine."

"Huh," Buzz grunted. "Sixty-nine what? Sixty-nine minutes? Sixty-nine pieces?" He glanced carelessly about the bedroom. He was patting his pockets, and from his gestures, Hallie guessed he was looking for cigarettes. If anyone smelled cigarettes up here at this hour, they'd come looking! She began to perspire.

"In the year nineteen sixty-nine," answered Hallie unhappily. "September, nineteen sixty-nine."

Buzz stopped moving and regarded her. After a moment she realized that he was actually astonished.

"Nineteen sixty-nine?" he asked with an uneasy snort. "Right. It's 'sixty-seven, kid. You planning to kill your parents two years from now?"

"You're wrong," Hallie shot back. "This is June of nineteen seventy-one. Don't you know what year it is? My parents died twenty-one months ago."

"Okay," Buzz agreed, turning away and staring at her wall posters. "Whatever totes your goat, baby. But I am hungry and want some breakfast. Where do you keep the eats in this sewer? And I could use some hooch."

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