After dinner, they had said goodbyes which seemed to Carly to go on for hours. As she turned to go, he said, "Oh, by the way, did you hear about the radio station?"

She turned back. "What? What radio station?"

"The pirate station. Uncle Mike busted it."

She wanted to yell at him for taking so long to think of mentioning this, but all she said was, "Is Prentice–"

"In jail. They beat him up pretty bad, I hear. And smashed all his equipment. There's supposed to be a protest Friday, but I don't know how much good that's going to do. Is Uncle Mike going to care if a few people march around with signs for an hour or two?"

Carly was annoyed at this, but it was now apparent that she was prepared to be annoyed at anything Danny might choose to say, so she just shrugged and said, "Futile or not, I'll be there. Good night."

And then she had wandered around, she couldn't remember for how long. She was thinking, trying to come up with some sort of plan of where she was going to spend the night, as though if she thought about it hard enough she'd remember some friend or relative she had never considered before.

She walked quickly, her head down. Not that she had any idea where she was going to go, but you were much more likely to be stopped if you looked like you were loitering.

Uncle Mike didn't like loitering.

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