Excerpt: The Hot Mess of Childhood

Hitchhiking was about as forbidden as playing with knives or riding the neighbor kids mini-bikes. Bertrand's mother had drilled into his and Duke's head that it was certain death to ride in a stranger's car. And when he and his family had gone for long drives, he saw the occasional hiker by the side of the road. He felt so bad for them, knowing that they'd be dead soon enough. From the front seat, his mother would comment on how she thought each would meet his or her demise. Dismembered with a hatchet, burned to death, drowned. It was one of the things places in life where she enjoyed being creative. As Bertrand learned recently, though, his mother wasn't always right. And much of what she said was designed more to control her kids than to teach them the truth. Maybe it was true that all hitchhikers were killed, but he would have thought that sort of information would spread quickly and people would stop doing it. Since his alternative was to be caught and killed by Mr. Jeffries, Bertrand decided he would take the chance that he had at least a ten-percent chance of surviving hitchhiking.