by Lisa Howorth
Ivan said, “I think we need to take duct tape so we can cover the hole after we catch him, because we don’t want the pregnant one to get out and hurt somebody.”
“She’s going to die anyway,” said Max. “The paper said they die after they have their babies.”
“Yeah, but what if she gets out and has the babies and they all attack people at the museum?” Ivan reasoned.
“He’s right,” I said. “It might bite some little kids. That’s called ‘collatrial damage,’ and that would be bad.”
“I’ll go get some duct tape.” I knew exactly where it would be, from Brickie’s threat to tape my mouth on Bachelor Night.
Estelle was in our kitchen, finishing up dinner, which smelled delicious. “Hey, Little Mr. John,” she said. Estelle seemed to like cooking more than cleaning. Dimma was always happy to send her home with half of whatever she cooked for us. “What you up to?” she said pleasantly.
“Hi, Estelle.” I got the duct tape from the pantry drawer. “We’re fixing something.” I quickly added, “But we didn’t break anything, don’t worry. What are you making? It sure smells good.”
“Jus’ some pot roast, rolls, and things. Your granddaddy loves my pot roast.”
“I love it, too!” I said overenthusiastically. “We’re spending the night at Max’s house, but I’ll eat dinner here so I can have some.”
“That so?” Estelle said, rolling out some waxed paper to cover the yeast rolls rising on the counter. “Well, y’all have a good time.” She added nonchalantly, “And don’t be creepin’ ’round places y’all don’t belong.”
This worried me, and I hurried out of the kitchen. But realizing Estelle had done us a huge favor by not telling Dimma about the other night’s escapade, if she knew, I stuck my head around the corner and said sweetly, “I hope you’re coming to our Fiesta.”
She stopped what she was doing and turned to me, smiling. “Why, thank you, John. I ’preciate the invitation, but I need my day o’ rest. It’s a holiday, so I’m gone spend it with my own family.”
I knew she had a husband, William, who sometimes picked her up, and some older children, but I couldn’t have said how many children, or their names. This epiphany made me ashamed—why did I know so little about this woman who knew my family so intimately and did so much for us?
Estelle saw my embarrassment and said kindly, “I do plan on makin’ deviled eggs and cucumber sandwiches for your comp’ny to enjoy.”
“Oh, good! Thank you!” We smiled at each other, and I ran back to the boys with the silver tape.
* * *
—
Eleven o’clock was again the appointed hour.
By ten o’clock, all was quiet in Max’s house. We three boys were suited up in Max’s bedroom, nervously looking at comic books and listening to WDON on Max’s transistor. “The Battle of New Orleans” came on, which was pretty much the Shreve boys’ anthem. Ivan said, “I hate that song.” He hated it because Beau and D.L. loved to sing it, but also because the part about grabbing the alligator to use as a cannon—We filled his head with cannonballs and powdered his behind / And when we touched the powder off the gator lost his mind—was so cruel. There wasn’t much talk, except that Max said, “If we go to reform school, I hope I can have my transistor.”
At eleven—zero hour—I looked out the bathroom window and saw Beatriz waiting below with her bike. One by one, we climbed down the maple. Beatriz whispered, “We should go single file, and stay on the sidewalks as much as we can. It’s darker, and we’ll be hidden better than in the street. I’ll go first.” She had her braids tucked inside her ski cap and looked like a pretty boy.
Max whispered back nastily, “You should go last, Little Brown Dove.”
Beatrix stuck out her tongue at him, saying, “You don’t know the way.”
“Well, then, I’ll go second because I’m oldest, and I have the book bag.”
“You’re only two weeks older than I am, Max,” Beatriz said. I offered to go last, thinking last in line might be first to escape if something went wrong. Beatriz whispered a rapid prayer, “OmiJesuperdoa-nososnossospercadoenossalvedofogodoinferno,” kissed the tiny gold saint medal that hung around her neck, and crossed herself.
“Pfft! As if he’s going to help you when you’re breaking the Eighth Commandment,” Max said.
Ivan said, “I don’t think God really cares about kids anyway.” I was more worried about Brickie than hell, if we got caught. We’d never done anything remotely as foolhardy.
Max produced the hunk of charcoal and we passed it around, helping one another rub it on our faces and Beatriz’s skinny knees.
* * *
—
We started off hesitantly at first, taking our school route down Raymond, then turning left onto Connecticut and speeding up. We passed the Chevy Chase Club on the right, and then Lenox Street and Kirke Street, the fancier neighborhood, where Slutcheon and Gellert lived. We passed Blessed Sacrament at Chevy Chase Circle, where the splash of the fountain played forcefully; the splash of it was loud and clear in the almost-empty night. I remembered the time some hoods put detergent in the water and foam covered everything. The Avalon Theatre still had lights on, doing away with the shadows, but the people in the handful of cars that passed seemed not to notice us. Racing along, we passed large, older houses alternating with newer apartment buildings—Sulgrave Manor, a very modern building, then Clarence House, where Dr. Spire had his Chamber of Shots, then Connecticut Hot Shoppes. Then the Yenching Palace, with its cool diamond windows, where a waiter cleaning up waved at us, and the Uptown Theater, where I’d seen The Monolith Monsters with my dad.
Everybody’s legs were churning hard, and we flew along, our pedaling synchronized and our bodies hunched over our handlebars. The night air was cool and invigorating; I wasn’t even sweating. I’d still been a little sore from my drowning, but I felt invincible now. We whizzed past groups of row houses, the old Kennedy-Warren apartments, and then we passed the zoo and the Shoreham Hotel, high on the hill, the grounds brightly lit. Beatriz stuck her arm out, signaling left, and we moved to the other side of the street. Coming to the Taft Bridge, its fancy streetlights illuminated it like daytime. Too many cars were coming across. Beatriz signaled for us to stop. We pulled into the dark weeds and shrubs just before the bridge.
Beatriz said, “Let’s rest a second.”
“I knew she’d slow us down,” Max said, although he was breathing as hard as the rest of us.
Beatriz snapped back, “The bridge is too bright! We need to wait till these cars are gone.” Waiting, trying to catch our breath, we admired the eagles on the tops of the streetlights, and the giant lions guarding the bridge. I thought I could see the minaret of the mosque on Massachusetts Avenue in the distance, its crescent a little moon in the sky.
With a lull in the traffic, we shoved off again, going through Kalorama, with its swankier houses and apartments, and then passing S Street, where Holton-Arms was, and then the Golden Parrot, where Liz and I’d had dinner with my father and I’d acted like a brat because they didn’t serve hamburgers, and R Street, where Daddy used to live.
Suddenly, a taxi waiting in front of the restaurant pulled away from the sidewalk and began driving alongside us. A man with a grouchy face rolled down the driver’s window and yelled, “Hey, you kids! What’re you doing out here so late? Pull over!” Oh, no, I thought—we’re done for. Beatriz rose from her bike seat, standing on her pedals to speed away. We followed her lead, but the taxi driver cut in front of Beatriz, who stopped short with a scrunch of her tires, bumping into the side of the cab. We boys crashed into each other, one after the other, like dominoes. The taxi driver looked us up and down. “What are you boys up to? It can’t be anything good at this time of night.”
Beatriz coolly replied, “No, sir. We were in a school play tonight. These are
our costumes. We’re on our way home.”
“Oh, yeah? Where is home?”
“Right down there,” I piped up, pointing to the Circle. “We’re spending the night at my dad’s house.”
After a moment, the man said, oddly friendly now, “Do you want a ride? I can pile your bikes in the trunk.” He smiled, but it was not a good smile.
Max spoke up. “That’s okay. We’re almost there.”
“Well, get on down there before the cops pick you up.” He rolled up his window and pulled away. We watched to be sure he was gone.
“Whew,” I said. “That was close.”
“Yeah,” Max said grimly. “Too close. That guy was creepy.”
At DuPont Circle there was a lot of seedy nightlife—people hanging out, making deals, laughing and drinking. Nobody paid us any attention. We rounded the Circle, then passed the Tiny Jewel Box—a lovely old brick house with a dome, where Brickie often bought Dimma birthday or Christmas presents, and then the Mayflower Hotel. At L Street we went by Duke Zeibert’s, one of my dad’s hangouts, and then Farragut Square, where Connecticut curved into Seventeenth Street. Passing Admiral Farragut’s statue, Max stupidly hollered out, “Damn the torpedoes! Full speed ahead!” At this point I really hoped that Beatriz knew what she was doing, because I no longer did, and I knew Ivan and Max didn’t, either. Passing the Renwick Gallery, Beatriz gave a thumbs-up. I felt even better when we passed a massive fortress, pompously ornate with its columns: an obvious government building and a sign that we were getting close. We zipped by the Corcoran, and the O.A.S. building, where I remembered that Elena often went to parties. There, the Mall opened before us, the Washington Monument rising up, gleaming like a giant sword. Beatriz signaled a left turn, and we cruised down Constitution, past more offices, arriving at Tenth Street, where, on our right, the National Museum loomed over us.
We pulled off into some trees, grinning at one another, chests heaving. We were silent for a moment, catching our breath. The Mall was very eerie and deserted; I’d never seen it when it wasn’t bustling with sightseers.
“It’s too quiet,” I said, a little spooked. “There aren’t even any crickets. Or lightning bugs. And no webs.”
Max said, “They’re all dead! I bet they dropped some of that Smear 62 junk to get rid of the spiders and vinegaroons.”
“It’s good that it’s quiet,” said Beatriz. “That’s what we want!”
Ivan, a hand clutching his crotch, whispered urgently, “I’ve got to pee!” He laid down his bike and peed with his back to us. Zipping up, he said, “Now we look for a back door. Walk our bikes.”
I asked Ivan, “The Zoology Hall is on the right, isn’t it?”
“It was when we came to see the new elephant with Elena,” he said.
We started around the right side of the museum. “Looks like there’s a light on back there,” I said. “Is that good or bad?” At the corner of the building was a large boxwood, and under its cover we peeked around to see light pouring out from a door propped open with a big trash can. A dark-green Ford pickup truck with a government logo on its door and an old maroon Plymouth were parked in the service drive. More trash cans stood by the truck. Max said, “There must be people inside!”
I whispered, “Duh!”
“But maybe they’re leaving,” Ivan said. Ivan and Max waited, then craned their necks around the corner to look again. Nobody.
“It’s gotta be the Hampton guy!” said Beatriz.
“Maybe,” Ivan said. “But there must be somebody else, too.”
“Should we wait and see, or try to go in now?” I whispered.
“Let’s wait a few minutes,” Ivan said.
“I say we try to get in now,” Max said. “Then we won’t have to try to pick the lock.”
“Max, if we go in now, we might run right into whoever’s in there. Let’s just see what’s happening,” Ivan responded.
Beatriz said, “I’m with Ivan—just wait a minute.”
Ivan directed us, “Leave our bikes here, behind the bush. Don’t use the kickstands, just turn them around and lean them against the wall so we can hop on fast when we go.” We did this as quietly as we could. We waited.
Nothing happened, and then nothing happened some more. All of a sudden there were crashing and scraping noises from the open door. My heart banged in my chest. Beatriz clutched my arm. A man in a suit came out, followed by a tall, dark-skinned man in a uniform dragging two trash cans. “Good night, Hampton,” the suit man said. “Hope you find some things you can use.” Setting the trash cans by the others, the uniformed man said, “ ’Night, Dr. Smith. I’m ’bout to finish up. See you tomorrow.”
“That’s him! That’s Hampton!” Beatriz squeezed my arm hard.
The suit guy got in his Plymouth, cranked it, and turned on the headlights.
“Get down!” Ivan hissed. We hit the pavement, hoping that the boxwood hid us. The car turned around in the service drive, its headlights swooping across the boxwood, and drove off.
Hampton reached into the open window of his truck and switched on the radio. Gospel music played loudly—a woman singing throatily about being on her way. “He’s gonna leave soon! Get ready!” Ivan whispered. We stood back up. But Hampton went back inside and after a few minutes returned with two more trash cans. He stopped and reached into his truck again, bringing out a paper sack and a pack of cigarettes. He lit one, sucked on it, and opened the bed of his truck. Then Hampton began sorting through the trash, bringing up glinting pieces of aluminum foil—sandwich wrappers, insides of cigarette packs, Wrigley’s gum papers—and sticking them in his sack. He stopped to draw on his smoke a couple more times, then tossed it. He began singing along to the song. Picking up one of the big cans, he shoved it in the truck bed, then leapt up after it, taking time to carefully situate it. Then he jumped down and picked up another can and did the same. There were several more trash cans.
Ivan whispered fiercely, “When he jumps up in the truck the next time, we go!” Hampton toted another can, and when he clambered up into the truck bed again, still singing along loudly to the radio, Ivan said, “Now!”
On tiptoes, we ran around the corner as fast and quietly as we could and were inside the open door in a split second. Another full can sat inside, and Ivan, leading, almost ran into it. We kept going: down a hall past an open cleaning closet, past a lot of other doors, and a bathroom, coming to a flight of stairs. “We must be in the basement—go up!” Ivan said. We scrambled up, ending up in the dark of the main rotunda, where arcades branched off, interspersed with swirly marble columns. There stood the wondrous new African elephant Elena had taken us to see. It was scary to us now, in the dark. Ivan pointed into the closest arcade and we skittered in and stopped, pressing our backs to the wall. I could hear our labored breathing. We waited silently, still able to hear the radio playing outside. Ivan said, “Keep still!” After a few minutes, we heard the loud slam of a door, and the radio stopped.
Max whispered, “You think he’s leaving?” Nobody answered him, and we stood there a few more minutes.
“Wait till we hear his truck crank up,” I said.
We waited. There were no sounds at all. Finally, we heard the engine start.
“I think he’s gone,” Ivan said. He turned to Max and Beatriz. “You two wait here and keep watch. If you hear someone coming, give a little whistle, and everybody hide.” This was a good idea; Max was too much of a loose cannon, and Beatriz could be trusted to keep him in line, and nobody needed to be alone.
“Hey!” Max protested. “I’ve got the bag!”
“We’ll signal you when we find it,” Commander Ivan said. He yanked me back into the rotunda with him. “Get out your light.”
I pulled out my little penlight and clicked it on as we began creeping around. We were pretty sure the insect exhibits were on the right, in a room
off the rotunda, but we couldn’t recall which one. I flashed my penlight across the tops of the arches, looking for a sign, but the light wasn’t strong enough for us to read them. We moved closer, FOSSILS, ANTHROPOLOGY. Then ZOOLOGY.
“Yay!” I said.
Ivan and I entered the room. Then, from back where we’d left Beatriz and Max, a door slammed, followed by a short, low-pitched whistle. Ivan and I panicked and scuttled to the wall just inside the room, pressing back against it. I turned off my light, my heart galloping crazily. After nothing happened, Ivan hesitantly looked out toward where we’d left Max and Beatriz. His loud whisper expanded around the rotunda, “Max, what’s wrong?”
“Beatriz had to go to the bathroom back there, and she let the door slam! I thought it was someone coming in!”