Squeak
an excerpt

As the Johnson’s drove through New Bartley, New Jersey, the fleeting thought had run through Mrs. Johnson’s head and slipped through her mouth as she glanced out the window. As the two children goggled at a cow from the backseat, she had muttered, “What was wrong with Bartley that they needed a new one?” Mr. Johnson chuckled and replied, “There’s nothing new about it.”
This was the Johnson’s only passage through New Bartley, for as they returned home from their destination, they chose an alternate route. But this was not their only encounter with New Bartley, for the week before, as the Johnson’s had taken their children to see the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia, little Bobby Johnson had gotten lost in a crowd of New Bartley children from Mrs. Gingham’s second grade class on the annual Liberty Bell trip.
Nicky Skippoletti had once been one of those little second graders eight and a half years ago, running around like wild around the bell. He had reached out to feel the crack, but Mrs. Gingham had smacked his extended arm and he had received a warning glare from the security guard.
Nicky Skippoletti’s younger brother, also named Bobby, was the reason little Bobby Johnson had gotten lost, for as Mrs. Gingham shouted his name, the confused Johnson boy had left his parents’ eyes to find the woman calling his name. When both Bobby Johnson and Bobby Skippoletti had appeared before Mrs. Gingham’s eyes, she had pressed her coral lips together and placed her hand on Bobby Johnson’s head and said, “Now, who are you?”
Bobby Johnson had his face glued to the window, with wide blue eyes staring at the farm landscapes, and had stared directly at Nicky Skippoletti as he pedaled with his squeaky bike up the hill that the car climbed with ease. For a full second the probing eyes of Bobby Johnson and the concentrated stare of Nicky Skippoletti had met. But the car was much faster than the bike, so it sped off into the distance as Nicky pedaled fiercely up the hill.
This brief encounter was the last that Bobby Johnson would see of Nicky Skippoletti.