Rescue

even just for shopping.
    Getting out of my car, I said, “Do you have help on the way?“
    The girl watched me warily, crossing her arms as soon as I started talking. The boy kept his head toward the wheel as his eye strained to keep me in sight.
    I approached them. “Can I give you a hand?“
    The girl looked past me, back to the north. “We got a flat.“
    A neutral, lifeless voice. “I can see that. You have a spare?“
    She hesitated, but didn’t even look toward the trunk, much less go to open it. “Not sure.“
    Obviously, I was making them nervous. Squatting down, I compared the flat and the other rear tire. Both were worn through most of the tread, nearly down to the thread. “If you do have a spare, I hope it’s in better shape than the ones you’ve got on her now.“
    The boy suddenly said, “It’s not a her.“
    A rural New England accent, clipped on the syllables but not harshly, more like New Hampshire than Maine . He stepped back without looking, nudging into the girl, who’d been standing between me and the license plate. It was a New Hampshire registration all right, the motto LIVE FREE OR DIE in raised green letters against the cream background.
    He pointed toward the plate. “See, it’s our Batmobile.“
    The license number read BAT-611. “I see what you mean.“
    He said, “It’s taking Melinda and me away from—“
    “Eddie, hush!“
    A little hurt, the boy turned to her instinctively. When he did, I saw the reason he’d been keeping his left profile toward me. There was a birthmark, one of those reddish blotches like Gorbachev has by what used to be his hairline. Only Eddie’s covered most of his right forehead, crossing the eyebrow and continuing under the eye onto his right cheek, like an outline of the state of Texas . As soon as he noticed me noticing it, Eddie turned back toward the tire, showing only the left profile again, the eye still swiveling.
    The vague memory nagged at me some more. “Tell you what, Eddie. If you guys have a spare, will you help me put it on?“
    He started to turn toward me, then stopped. “Really?“
    “Really?“
    “You’ll really let me help you?“
    “Sure. We’ll just have to be careful, with the traffic and ail.“
    He turned all the way to me. “Okay.“
    I smiled at him. “Good. Now, let’s see what you’ve got by way of equipment.“
    Melinda fiddled with a ring on the middle finger of her left hand, a gilded, plastic thing that might have come in a box of Cracker Jacks. “We don’t have no money to pay you.“
    “I wasn’t expecting any.“
    “So long as you don’t expect nothing else.“
    There was some defiance in her words, like she’d had to say them before and they hadn’t worked. Eddie was looking up at her, biting his upper lip.
    I said, “Just hying to help.“
    Melinda glanced north again, then down at Eddie and the flat. “Yeah, okay. Thanks.“
    I extended my hand to her. “Probably be easier to shake now than later. John Cuddy.“
    She took my hand awkwardly, releasing it quickly. “Melinda. This is Eddie.“
    The boy said, “Eddie Straw.“
    She said, “Eddie,“ with a warning in it.
    I shook his hand. “Pleased to meet you, Eddie.“
    He held my hand longer, putting a lot of strength into the shake. “It’s short.“
    “Short?“
    “Yeah. Short for...“ Letting go of my hand, he ran the palm of his across the birthmark. “You know, ‘strawberry.’“
    I nodded. “What do you say we get on this tire?“
    Eddie nodded abruptly, maybe copying me. “I say we do.“
    I looked at Melinda. Going around to the passenger’s side door, she opened it and leaned across the seat to the ignition. Her hand came back out with a leather tab having just two keys on it. Even so, she tried the wrong one first in the trunk lock. The second caused the lid to spring, and I looked inside.
    There were some old newspapers and an ice scraper and a couple of quart cans, probably containing oil but hard to say because the labels had long ago rotted off them. A set of jumper cables was shy one of the alligator clips, and the whole interior had that musty smell of a boathouse nobody’s visited all winter.
    Wading through the newspapers, I came up with first the jack and then a lug wrench, a relief since my Prelude’s tools probably wouldn’t have fit too well. The spare was underneath everything, locked down with a couple of wing nuts and looking a little better, but not much better, than the rubber on the