A little warmer than usual, February became March. Telzey and Kayla managed to hang out together after school once or twice a week, but for the most part Telzey’s mind was far away – close to half a world away, in the Persian Gulf. She probably knew more than any eighth grader at Bradford Middle School about what was going on there, perhaps more than any other student in the school.

A few days after they had said goodbye in Charlotte, Telzey’s mother left for the Persian Gulf, following a final phone call. A couple days later, Telzey got another call from her mother, who was now in Qatar. She reported that she’d seen Telzey’s father, and had managed to spend a little time with him, but it turned out that they were going to be assigned to different detachments, so they might not see a lot of each other. Telzey’s mother said that she didn’t think she’d be in Qatar long, just a few days, and then she expected to get sent to the detachment in Kuwait, where things were building up and it looked very much like a war was brewing.

After that, Telzey got a phone call from either her mother or her father, and sometimes both, about once a week. They all had good computer access, and they exchanged e-mails fairly regularly, although sometimes there wasn’t much to say. A few lines served to remind both the parents and the child of each other, and that made the days go a little more quickly, even though the tension of the approaching war continued to build.

The number of communications going back and forth to the Persian Gulf among the Amberdons just about astounded Cal Griffin, who was a Vietnam veteran. “When I was in-country,” he groused to Telzey over the dinner table one day, “There was a grand total of one phone line in the whole country where we could place a call to the states, and that was at the Saigon USO on TuDo Street. I would never have dreamed of a day where a soldier could be deployed halfway around the world, and be able to pull his cell phone out of his pocket and call home.”

“I think I’ve heard this rant before,” Laurie snickered.

That made Telzey grin as her grandfather continued, “I’ll admit that the mail service to Vietnam was pretty good, and even that made my father jealous. He got shipped out to the Pacific before the Japs bombed Pearl Harbor and never made it home till 1946. He said he figured that about three quarters of the mail that was sent to him got lost along the way and never showed up at all.”

Though the communications were good, it turned out that there really wasn’t a lot of news on either side. There just wasn’t much to say – and parents and daughter were all well aware of what wasn’t being said – the nervousness about the war was getting to all of them.

While Kayla visited Telzey after school occasionally, most of Telzey’s free time was being spent watching TV – mostly CNN, which was full of news about the upcoming war, and the futile efforts to avoid it. The only thing that kept her interest in the war news from being a downright obsession was the fact that she also watched all the NASCAR she could find on the TV, which included the Busch and Craftsman Truck series, along with the Winston Cup races. That was a mixed blessing at least as far as her temper was concerned, because Jeff Gordon was having an absolutely lousy start to his season. With the exception of the Atlanta race, where he finished second, the 24 car finished back in the pack.

The Atlanta finish buoyed her spirits to quite a degree, even as the war clearly drew closer, but her mood was deflated badly the next weekend at the Darlington race, where Ricky Craven won. Ricky Craven? Who was he? Her favorite managed a disgusting finish in thirty-third place.

By now it was clear that the war wasn’t far off, barring a last minute miracle. Telzey knew that her mother was in Kuwait by now, but didn’t know if she would be moving on into Iraq when the war started, or how soon it might be. While Telzey was hardly a military expert, she watched enough commentary to know that the assault force was nothing like as strong as the force that had been assembled when her father had been in the Gulf a dozen years before, not long after she had been born. Even Telzey realized that she might be better off if she didn’t obsess about the war news as much as she was doing, and started spending more time away from the TV set.

Telzey went to school the day after the Darlington race in an absolutely foul mood, the result of the news being dumped on her from both NASCAR and the Persian Gulf. By now, she ate lunch with Kayla as often as not, and over chicken fingers, chocolate milk, corn, and Jello Telzey made it clear that she was pretty disgusted with the world at large.

It was clear to Kayla that her newfound friend needed something to get her mind off of her troubles. After giving the matter some thought, she decided that the best possible solution would involve her classmate, Will Austin. She’d never had much to do with Will, although she’d known him since kindergarten; he wasn’t much of an athlete so they didn’t have that in common. Though he had the build of being a potentially good school football player, he had virtually no interest in school sports. He was average height, with short-cropped hair and a solid build. He wasn’t the brightest kid in the eighth grade, but wasn’t dumb, either. He seemed to be the kind of person who was going to work with his hands, not his brain. But Will and his family had some things that Kayla thought would appeal to Telzey.

While waiting for classes to start that afternoon, she got Will off to the side and asked, “Hey, do you know that Telzey kid who moved in next door to you last month?”

“I’ve seen her on the bus,” Will admitted. “Said hi to her a couple times, but no I don’t really know her.”

“You ought to get to know her,” Kayla said. “She’s a NASCAR racing nut, a big Jeff Gordon fan. But she’s worried about her folks right now. They’re both in the Persian Gulf and she needs something to take her mind off everything. Maybe you could ask her if she’d like to go for a ride on your ATV, or something.”

“I could do that,” Will agreed. “I was kind of thinking about getting out on it today after school anyway. It’s not a bad day for it. How do I get her to go with me?”

“Just ask her,” Kayla smiled. “When you’re on the bus this afternoon, or walking home from the park, ask her if she’d like to go for a ride.”

*   *   *

Like a lot of boys his age, Will felt awkward around girls – as far as he was concerned they seemed like they were from a different planet. He knew that there were some girls he was attracted to, but had little idea of how to deal with them. Since he lacked the confidence in that area, the thought of asking a girl to do something with him scared him. He had noticed Telzey hanging around the bus stop while waiting for school, had even said a few words to her, nothing of importance. The idea of taking her for a ride on his ATV sounded like a good one, but he probably wouldn’t have had the gumption to actually ask her if it hadn’t been for the fact that Kayla had put him up to it. When you got right down to it, he was more scared of Kayla than he was of Telzey turning him down. It was clear that Kayla was going to be a serious athlete; Telzey, at least, was a virtual unknown.

As it turned out, he didn’t ride close to her on the bus that afternoon, but when they got off at the park he hurried to catch up with her. After thinking of and rejecting several different possible ways to get a conversation going, he asked as casually as he could, “So how’s school going, Telzey?”

“OK,” the girl responded. “It’s not the same as my last school. Kids here don’t know much about the military, while everybody I’ve been to school with until I came here was an Army brat like me.”

“That’s got to be hard,” Will nodded, wondering how he was going to get from there to asking Telzey about going for a ride. They walked along in silence for a moment, then he decided he might as well be up front about it: “It’s a nice afternoon for this time of year. I’m thinking I’ll get my QuadRunner out and go mess around out back with it. Would you like to go for a ride?”

He was more than a little surprised to see Telzey perk right up at the suggestion. “QuadRunner, that’s the ATV I’ve seen you out messing with? Sure, I’d love to do something besides go back to my grandparents and get depressed watching CNN.”

“Great,” he replied, wondering what to do next. He was used to girls doing their own thing and not being interested in the thing he liked, so he’d been prepared to have her turn him down. “It’s cool enough that you might want a little warmer jacket,” he suggested as some way of keeping the conversation going, then added, “I mean, Jeff Gordon is cool, but we might find some muddy spots and you might not want to get a jacket like that messed up.”

“Do you follow NASCAR?” she asked, a little surprised at the reference to her hero. NASCAR just wasn’t as big a deal in Bradford as it was in North Carolina.

“Oh, yeah,” he replied. “We’ve been going to Michigan International since I’ve been old enough to remember it. My granddad is a big Ford fan and he thinks that Kenseth is going to have a good year. Dad likes Tony Stewart; he’s met him several times. I think he’s OK, but I’m more of a Dodge fan. I was sure hoping Sterling Marlin could keep it together last fall.”

Now it was Telzey’s turn to be surprised. She hadn’t expected to find another NASCAR fan living next door. “Mom and Dad and I went to Rockingham last fall, just before Dad was deployed,” she told Will. “That was quite a race. We went to the Rock one other time, plus Charlotte and Martinsville once each.”

“It’d be neat to see the cup cars race somewhere besides Michigan,” he agreed, a little relieved that they’d found a subject of common interest. “I really want to go to Talladega someday. That’s sure a neat race to watch on TV, but I guess the drivers don’t like it that much.”

The two of them talked NASCAR all the way back to their homes, becoming more comfortable with each other along the way. “I’ll go change my jacket and leave a note for Grandma and Grandpa telling them I’m with you,” she said.

“It’s going to take me a few minutes to get ready,” he told her. “You don’t have to be in any big rush.”

It took him a few minutes to get his clothes changed, grab a sandwich, and call his mom to let her know what was up. He was just rolling the bright red ATV out of the garage when Telzey showed up from next door. “Still got a few things to do,” he told her. “I ran the gas pretty low the last time I was out, so I need to tank it up, check the oil, and things like that.”

Telzey looked on with interest as he did several things around the machine. “It must be way cool to have something like this to mess around with,” she said in admiration.

“It’s a lot of fun,” he admitted, “I really like to mess around with it. Dad thinks it makes good practice. Let’s go find you a helmet. Dad would kill me if I took anyone riding without one.” He led her into the garage, grabbed a helmet off a bench that had several sitting on it. “I think this one might fit you all right,” he said, handing her a white open-face one. “It’s a car helmet, not a motorcycle one, so it’ll be a little bit heavier, but a little bit safer, too.”

She pulled on the helmet, to find that it fit snugly but comfortably around her head. It was the first time that she’d had a helmet like that on, and it proved to not be as heavy as it looked. “Seems all right,” she said.

He hunted around in the pile on the bench, and came up with a small circular cloth thing that she couldn’t describe. “With a helmet that heavy you really need a neck ring to help support it,” he said, handing it to her. “It goes around your neck below the helmet. It just Velcros together.”

She frowned at the arrangement for a moment until she understood it, and threaded it tentatively around her neck. Will saw her fumbling with it, and helped her get it fitted and fastened, then fastened the chin strap on the helmet. “There you go,” he smiled, and grabbed another helmet and neck ring off the bench for himself. It only took him seconds to get it on; he’d obviously worn it many times before.

They went back outside to the waiting machine. “You ever driven one of these?” he asked.

“Never even ridden on one,” she admitted.

“I guess you better ride along behind me,” he said. “At least till you get used to it a little. Maybe later I can let you try to drive it a bit.”

“That’d be neat,” she smiled. “I’ve driven a go-kart a couple times at amusement parks, but they’re real slow and I’m not even sure that counts as driving.”

“We’ll take it easy to begin with,” he said, feeling much more confident with this girl than he had half an hour before. He got on the ATV and told her to get on behind him. He showed her where to put her feet and told her to hang on tight around his waist. The machine had an electric starter, and he had it purring in a moment. “You ready?” he yelled over the noise of the engine.

“Sure!” she replied in increasing excitement. “Let’s go!”

He took off slowly, swung the machine around so they could go between the garage and the house, and ran across the back yard. At the back of the yard there was an opening that seemed to be a trail, and he headed down it, speeding up a bit as he got out onto it. “I don’t know how muddy it might be out here,” he yelled over his shoulder. “But we might as well explore a little bit.”

In a few minutes she began to understand that there was a complicated network of trails in the partly overgrown field behind the houses. Will worked his way across them until they entered the woods on the far side of the field. There weren’t as many trails here, and they seemed a little wider. They could see quite a way through the woods – the trees were fairly tall, and there wasn’t even the barest hint of foliage on any of them. While it was a nice day it was still winter, after all. It was a couple months before they could expect the leaves to be coming out.

After a ways the woods thinned out, and there was a trail that wound its way up a small hill. At the top of the hill, he stopped the ATV and let it idle. Telzey looked around, and she could see that they could look down on a lot of the town. “It’s kinda neat up here,” she said.

“Yeah, it is,” he laughed. “If I tell you something, will you promise not to tell?”

“I guess,” she smiled and said over the noise of the engine.

“You know Kayla Holtz, right?” he asked.

“Yeah, she’s been over to hang out with me after school a couple times.”

“She’s a good kid,” he said, turning so she could see the grin on his face. “One time last summer, I was out screwing around out here. I wasn’t paying a lot of attention, and I managed to run out of gas. I was hiking up to the house for a gas can when I saw Kayla and her friend Rachel lying out here getting some sun.”

“So?” Telzey asked when he paused, then added, “I like to lie out in the sun and get a tan myself.”

“Do you do it without any clothes on at all?” he laughed.

“You don’t mean . . .”

“I sure do,” he laughed. “I hid back up in that patch of brush over there and watched them for a while, trying to keep them from seeing me. They were spread out on a big blanket, just lying there shooting the bull, not wearing anything but sunglasses.”

“So what did you do? Tell your friends?”

“No way,” he snorted. “You’re the first person I’ve told. I mean, I figured if I said anything about it, then it would get around town and I wouldn’t get a chance again. After that I never rode this thing anywhere near here without walking up here first to check it out.”

“Did you catch them again?”

“No, but I kept my eyes open the rest of the summer,” he grinned. “You like riding this thing?”

“Oh yeah, it’s neat,” she replied, glad to be pulling away from the other subject. “You can go faster if you want.”

“I don’t mind going faster,” he told her. “In fact, it’s been hard to keep it slow. Hang on tight!”

The trip back through the woods went a lot faster – fast enough to be a little thrilling to Telzey, but not fast enough to be scary. Partway through the woods Will headed down a different trail than they’d taken earlier, but somehow they wound up in the same open field behind the houses, and Will headed off in a different direction across it. They went over a little hill, and came out into an open area. Telzey looked around, and realized that there was a small dirt oval track in the middle of it. “Is this what I think it is?” she asked as Will idled the ATV.

“If you think it’s a race track, then that’s what it is, sort of,” he explained. “It used to be just a one-lane oval, but last summer a couple buddies and I worked on it enough that we can pass on it now. We don’t really race on it but we do drive fast sometimes. I brought you over here since it’s a little more open and I thought you might like to try driving for a bit.”

“I sure would,” she replied enthusiastically. “I’ve been wondering what it would be like.”

“It’s actually pretty easy,” he said, shutting the machine off. “If you get off, I’ll put you in front and show you a little about it.”

In only a couple minutes Telzey was seated right behind the handlebars of the QuadRunner as Will explained the throttle and the brakes as well as the clutch and the gearshift. “Let’s just drive around slowly in low gear before you try shifting it,” he said, starting the machine and getting on it behind her. She felt his arms encircle her waist but barely noticed them under her excitement of actually being able to drive something real for the first time in her life.

Under his direction, she headed out onto the little oval, taking it slow for the first couple laps while she got the feel of driving. It was pretty easy, and soon she felt like she should be going faster. “Let me try changing gears,” she shouted back to him.

“Sure thing,” he replied.

She missed the shift the first time she tried it, but he coached her on it a bit. The next time she made it all right, and after it was completed they were going around the track more quickly. “You’re getting the hang of it,” he said after a while. “Go ahead and shift up again, you can go faster.”

This shift went a lot more smoothly, and as she revved the ATV the track seemed like it was coming at her a lot more quickly than it had in the lower gears – and it was. She was going fast enough now that she had to brake as she got into the corner, and then accelerate out of it, sometimes getting a little loose but feeling comfortable with it.

They kept it up. A couple of times they changed positions, so he could demonstrate how to make the ATV handle better in the corners, and then they changed back so she could practice it. Telzey had no idea how much time was passing, but it went by quickly, until she finally noticed that it was starting to get dark. “Wow, I didn’t realize it was getting this late,” she said after idling the machine at the end of a particularly satisfying lap around the little track.

“Time flies when you’re having fun,” Will grinned. “I guess we’d better be heading back before we miss supper. You want to drive?”

“Sure, love to,” she replied. “You’re going to have to tell me where to go.”

“Head back up that trail we came in on,” he replied. “Go left at the top of the hill and you should be able to figure it out from there. Take it easy, though, you don’t know the way yet.”

“I figured that,” she replied. “Hang on.”

It turned out to not be very far before they were back in his back yard. She drove the ATV up between the house and the garage and stopped it. “Will, that was a lot of fun,” she told him honestly. “Thank you for asking me. That’s the best time I’ve had since I’ve been in Bradford.”

“Well, there the two of you are,” she heard a man’s voice say. “I was beginning to think I’d have to come out and get you.”

“Oh, hi, Dad,” Will said. “Dad, you remember Telzey from next door, don’t you? I’ve been teaching her to drive the QuadRunner. She really has the touch, she’s just going to need practice.”

“That was really fun,” she admitted. “Will, can we do this again some time?”

“Maybe after school tomorrow, if the weather stays decent,” he told her.

“Thanks, I’d like that,” she grinned. “This beats the heck out of watching CNN and worrying about my mom and dad.”

“Good,” Mr. Austin smiled. “I guess that made it worth it.”