It was still dark as we drove off. The drive to Tucson was just a little over two hours, though I slept for most of it, waking just as we reached the city limits. I had fallen asleep in the backseat of the van, lying against Taylor. As I sat up, she combed my hair back from my face with her fingers. “Your hair is getting long.” “Not a lot of time for haircuts,” I said. “Too busy saving the world,” she said. I sighed. “Yeah.” We both looked out over the desert terrain and the approaching skyline. “That must be Tucson,” I said. “The Old Pueblo,” Ostin said. “The what?” McKenna asked sleepily. “Old Pueblo. That’s Tucson’s nickname.” “What’s a pueblo?” McKenna asked. “A Mexican city?” “No,” Ostin said. “It’s an American Indian settlement.” “It looks Mexican to me,” she said. “ ‘Old Pueblo’ is a lame nickname,” Nichelle said. “You think that’s bad,” Ostin said, “in the eighties the local newspaper ran a contest for a new nickname.
