"Susan Palwick - Going After Bobo" - читать интересную книгу автора (Palwick Susan)

Schuster and Leon Flanking carried on in the background the way they always did.
"Hey, Mike! Hey, MichaelтАФyou know what we're doing after school today? We're
driving down to Carson, Mike. Yeah, we're going down to Carson City, and you
know what we're going to do down there?We're going toтАФ"

Usually I was pretty good at just ignoring them. I knew I couldn't let them get to me,
because that was what they wanted. They wanted me to fight them and get in trouble,
and I couldn't do that to Mom, not with so much trouble in the family already. I
didn't want her to know what Johnny and Leon were saying; I didn't want her to have
to think about Johnny and Leon at all, or why they were picking on me. Our families
used to be friends, but that was a long time ago, before my father died and theirs
went to jail. Johnny and Leon think it was all my father's fault, as if their own dads
couldn't have said no, even if my dad was the one who came up with the idea. So
they're mean to me, because my father isn't around any more for them to blame.

It was harder to ignore them the week the satellites were down. Mom's bosses were
checking up on her a lot more, because their handhelds weren't working either. We
got calls at home every night to make sure she was really there, and when she was at
work, somebody had to go with her if she even left the building. Just like the old
days, before the handhelds. And God only knew what David was up to. I guess he
was still going to his warehouse job, driving a forklift and moving boxes around,
because his boss would have called the probation office if he hadn't shown up. But
he wasn't coming home when he was supposed to, and every time he did come
home, he and Mom had screaming fights, even worse than usual.

So I had five days of not knowing where Bobo was, while Johnny and Leon baited
me at school and Mom and David yelled at each other at home. And then finally the
satellites came back online on Friday. The GPS people had been talking about how
they might have to knock the whole system out of orbit and put up another
oneтАФwhich would have been a messтАФbut finally some earthside keyboard jockey
managed to fix whatever the hackers had done.

Which was great, except that down here in Reno it had been snowing for hours, and
according to the GPS, I was going to have to climb 3,200 feet to reach Bobo. Mom
came in just as I was stuffing some extra energy bars in my pack. I knew she
wouldn't want me going out, and I wasn't up to fighting with her about it, so I'd been
hoping the snow would delay her for a few hours, maybe even keep her down in
Carson overnight. I should have known better. That's what Mom's new SUV was
for: getting home, even in shitty weather.
She looked tired. She always looks tired after a shift.

"What are you doing?" she said, and looked over my shoulder at the handheld
screen, and then at the topo map next to it. "Oh, Jesus, Mike. It's on top of
Peavine!"

I could smell her shampoo. She always smells like shampoo after a shift. I didn't
want to think about what she smells like before she showers to come home.

"He's on top of Peavine," I said. "Bobo's on top of Peavine."