Salvation Read Online Free Page A

and Char’s mother must have come straight from work—Salva checked his watch—which meant they had been waiting together for half an hour.
    “I’m sorry.” He didn’t bother to point out that he hadn’t known they were coming or to explain that the reason he was late was because Coach Robson and Markham didn’t see eye to eye on when it was important for Salva to be at practice.
Papá
would have sided with the principal.
    Señor Resendez descended from the cab for his son to enter.
    Salva deposited his stuff in the pickup bed, careful to avoid the patches of grease, then climbed into the cab and greeted Señora Mendoza, whose response was terribly polite for a woman who had spent an extra thirty minutes in a pickup after a twelve-hour shift. She worked under his father, so her schedule was subject to his. And Señor Resendez, despite—or maybe because of—being manager, always accepted the longest hours.
    “¿Cómo fue tu primer día?”
Papá
asked about his son’s day.
    Salva shrugged. As first days went, it had pretty much sucked. No phys ed. AP English. Markham’s surprise meeting, for no reason.
    Salva’s father didn’t need to know any of this.
    “You have homework?” came the next question as Señor Resendez steered out of the parking lot.
    Twenty pages of
Paradise Lost
to read for the Mercenary, but
Papá
didn’t need to know that either. “It was only the first day,” Salva replied.
    He expected a complaint about how every school day should be used to the fullest, but the actual response was a surprise.
“Bueno.”
Señor Resendez grinned over his son’s head. “Señora Mendoza and I think you should teach Charla to drive.”
    ¿Qué?
    “You have time tonight. Is still light for more hours.”
    No, no, no, no, no.
His father knew Char didn’t have a license. She wasn’t legal, unlike her younger brother, and she couldn’t get a permit without documentation, so it hadn’t been safe for her to take driver’s ed.
Though, of course, that’s why she needs the lesson.
Salva needed a reason to refuse that his father might actually accept. “
Mira,
this pickup
es imposible.
” Salva pointed at the wires springing from the dead stereo and at the open glove-box door that refused to shut. “You can’t expect her to learn to drive in this…”
Hunk of junk.
    As if to prove the point, the vehicle chose that moment to stop in the middle of the road and jerk up and down before returning to forward motion. His father relaxed the gas pedal and crawled past cop corner at about fifteen miles per hour.
    “You see,
Papá
. It barely obeys you.”
    A decent argument. One that might have worked with someone else, but his father had an ulterior motive. “You are intelligent,
hijo.
You can help her.”
    Salva was not so sure. He hadn’t managed to help Char learn her multiplication tables or memorize the names of all the countries in Europe. And he certainly hadn’t been able to help her pass the state’s high-school standardized test.
    “But
Papá
”—this time the protest was weak—“where would we practice?”
    His father sobered. “Take to her to the Fentzsen place. Mr. Fentzsen no will mind.”
    Salva felt his chest go cold. He hadn’t been to the Fentzsen farm since
Mamá
’s death four years ago.
    The pickup shuddered to a halt outside the Mendoza home, and Salva and his father bailed from the vehicle so that Char’s mother could climb out. The door on the passenger side hadn’t worked for years. She exited, then hurried inside to suggest the idea of the driving lesson to her daughter.
    What were the chances Char would turn it down? Though she had never liked studying with Salva, even when they were dating. Maybe she wouldn’t care for this either.
    But the brief grasp at hope departed as Char emerged from the front door. Her hairstyle had changed since lunch, the ebony strands tied back instead of sculpted with spray, and she had exchanged her too-tight jeans for a pair of very