Page 47 of Four Cards Exposed

A couple of older boys flew by on their skateboards.

“¡Ay, mamita!” One of them shouted at her as he passed. Susan tried not to laugh—the boy’s voice hadn’t even begun to change yet.

“Come on, let’s go. We need to keep a low profile in this neighborhood.”

Susan swallowed her irritation.

A loud rumbling noise caught her attention as a large garbage truck reversed into the cul-de-sac. Susan might not even have noticed it, except it was moving fast. As she watched, the group of young children scattered, running towards the fenced-off central island. All of them except one. The little boy remained, bent over the road, staring at something on the tarmac.

“Look out!” Susan shouted. James looked in the direction she was pointing at. His eyes widened as he caught sight of the child.

He’s going to be crushed.

Susan started running towards the boy, James hard on her heels. She didn’t have any breath to spare, but James waved his arms and shouted at the truck driver. The man didn’t even turn to look in their direction.

Susan pumped her legs to get more speed. With his longer legs, James overtook her easily, but by then the truck was almost on top of the boy.

We’re not going to make it.

Suddenly, Susan saw one of the teenagers who’d flown by on their skateboards. He’d plopped himself down on a bench and propped his skateboard upright beside him. Susan veered towards him, wasting a precious second, and took the board from him at a run, not even bothering to apologize. She held on to the board’s nose and leaned forward, letting it go at the last minute while she planted her forward foot on the board.

Susan leaned into the board to get even greater speed. She flew by James, her full attention was on the set of stairs ahead of her.

Is that five or six stairs?

It’d been years since Susan had ollied a set of stairs, and she sent a short prayer that her muscle memory held up. As she reached the edge of the first step, she popped the tail of the board and dragged her front foot out, ollying up into the air. As she did so, she watched the spot—so far ahead—where she wanted to land. The truck was almost on top of the boy. Susan couldn’t afford to fail.

She sailed over the steps, tucking her feet up to get more time in the air. As she felt herself start to come down, she aligned her feet over the trucks, bending her knees to absorb the shock. It still hurt like hell, but it was a good kind of pain, and the moment she felt it, she knew she’d landed it.

Susan rolled straight onto the road—so close to the truck that she could smell the garbage juice. She leaned down and grabbed the little boy, whose face was frozen in terror. Praying their momentum was enough to pull them through, Susan turned her shoulders so that the truck wouldn’t hit the boy first. There was nothing else she could do.

It was the wind on her back that told her the truck had passed them by.

Susan jumped off the board and kneeled down with the boy still held in her arms.

“Are you okay? Didn’t you hear the truck?” she asked, loosening her hold on the boy slightly.

The boy looked up at her—his dark eyes older than his small size implied—and started crying quietly, the silence broken only by an occasional sob or gasp.

“Hey,” Susan said, hugging him. “It’s okay, you’re going to be okay.”

“¡Mijo! ¡Mijo!” A woman with russet brown skin the same color as the boy’s rushed towards them. Susan quickly let the boy go and watched him clamber silently into his mother’s arms.

“Thank you,” the woman said in accented English. “You saved my boy.” She then turned to the boy and started signing something.

He can’t hear.

That’s why he didn’t hear the truck.

“I’m glad he’s okay. Me alegro.”

As she stood up, Susan heard a strangled noise. James had dragged the truck driver from his seat. He slammed the man against the side of the truck, hard enough that one of his earphones fell out.

“You could have fucking killed them,” James spat out, looking for all the world like he was getting ready to deck him.

“I didn’t see them,” the man sputtered, looking fearful. “They were in the middle of the road. Let me go, please—"

“Let him go, Jay,” Susan said, careful not to call him by his full name. “You’re creating a scene.”