Runner By Carl Deuker Sparknotes

In the book, Runner by Carl Deuker, Chance Taylor and his father live on a puny beat up boat named Tiny Dancer. Chance's father, who is an alcoholic, has trouble keeping up with the moorage fee. Not to mention, the cost of food, water, electricity, and other basic necessities. Chance has a job working at Ray's restaurant, but he works long hours for little pay. When Chance is offered a new job with short hours and gets paid $200 a week, it seems too good to be true. He is instructed run the normal route he does every day, but he has to wear a backpack, stop at the big maple, and feel around for a package, and bring it back to the utility room. He is not allowed to ask any questions and must be discrete about finding the packages. Although Chance knows that nothing about this job is good, Chance's father does not have a job and they are hurting for money. He accepts the offer, and soon finds out that he is illegally smuggling drugs and "other things." This job could get Chance in a lot of trouble, and Chance knows it. He runs into a few unexpected problems along the way that he did not exactly anticipate when he accepted the job.
Melissa becomes suspicious when Chance starts acting weird, and secretly investigates what he is up to. Melissa is very intelligent and discovers that Chance is part of a smuggling ring. Chance panics because he is supposed to be discrete so no one finds out what he is doing. The terrorist that Chance is smuggling for, find out that Melissa knows too much about the smuggling, and they threaten to hurt Melissa if Chance does not tell her to stay away. Melissa is bullheaded, so she agrees to stay away but she refuses to stop investigating. Chance never thought that his job would endanger anyone but