Hold Fast (9780545510196)

by Balliett, Blue

  “Later,” Early said, jerking her chin upward in a crisp, got-lots-to-do gesture.

  Velma was seated at one of the long tables, sewing a button on the neck of her winter coat. After watching the kids, she nodded and smiled. “Told her,” she muttered to herself. “That kid’s going places, gonna help her mama,” she said. “Kids, they got less confuuu-sion in their brains.”

  A woman who was new to the shelter looked over. “Waddid you say? Hoozat?” she asked.

  Velma looked over at the woman, noticed she had nice sneakers and a fancy jacket on, and shrugged.

  Cover, from the Middle English coveren and Latin cooperire

  Verb: to hide, protect, or conceal; to place something

  over or around an object or living thing so as to shield

  from danger; to guard from attack.

  Noun: something that shelters or disguises; a situation

  providing protection from enemies; the front or back

  of the binding on a book.

  Cover

  After a week of sun and wispy clouds, the snow had started again: a wet, heavy white that covered cars, streetlights, hoods, and hats. It fell without wind to carry it, the flakes so dense that it was hard to see far.

  Early had a miserable time rousing Sum the next morning, but finally got the three of them dressed, fed, and onto the train to Harold Washington.

  “How many days you going to make us do this, Early Pearl?” Sum asked, her voice grumpy. “I love you doing research and I love all your plans, but this is a long trip for me and Jubie every day. I’m afraid I fell asleep in a corner of the Children’s Library yesterday when he was playing, and the librarian, that nice Mr. Tumble, woke me and asked if I was okay. I said, ‘No, would you be okay if you’d lost your partner, all your money, and your home?’ Guess I should’ve smiled and said yes, but I’m getting too worn out to do that these days.”

  Early looked at her mother’s face. She had pockets under her eyes, like the skin had gotten tired of holding on in the last few weeks. Like life was rushing her away from being young.

  “Sum.” Early patted her arm gently. “Mr. Waive and I are finding out good stuff. We’re getting someplace; we’re gonna find Dash! And Mr. John, the tutor in our shelter, really likes my ideas. He’s all excited about working on them. We got things happening, so we all need to hold fast. Just picture Dash telling you what to do, and you’ll feel stronger!”

  It didn’t work. Sum covered her eyes with one hand and sat still, but her mouth was crying. Early and Jubie both looked at her, and people on the train looked, too. Then Sum said softly, patting at her eyes with the end of her scarf, “I’m so sorry, I really am. I’m trying. I just feel lost. I need Dash so badly. Guess I never realized how empty life could get without him. But I’m trying.”

  Early didn’t say any more and squeezed her mother’s hand. Jubie leaned his head against her on the other side. “You got us, and we’ll be good,” he said. “I won’t whine no more.”

  Sum gave him a sad smile. “You mean anymore.”

  “Anymore,” chirped Jubie.

  I gotta be strong, Early thought to herself. Strong enough for three. Just like Dash was strong enough for four.

  She gazed out, not really paying attention to what she saw. A boy carried a puppy across the street; a school bus stopped to pick up kids waiting on a corner in front of another big shelter, which Sum had pointed out to Early the other day. And then Early saw a man in a big jacket, his shoulders hunched, walk from between two buildings. Limping, he moved slowly toward the line of kids.

  The side of his face … it looked just like Dash! Dash, Dash, Dash! This flash seen from a moving train, an impression lasting only a second, shot her bolt upright in her seat. She glanced at Sum, wondering if she should say something. Sum’s eyes were closed. Jubie was busy playing with his truck.

  “Rrrt, ka-ka-brt, brrt!” he muttered, driving it back and forth on his leg.

  No, Early thought. I’ve been thinking of Dash so much that now I’m seeing him. I’m just seeing what I want to see. Inventing things.

  Early squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, forcing herself to concentrate on the sound of the train grinding over the tracks, metal on metal.

  She opened her eyes to see a boarded-up building they’d noticed before, one with a red roof, fly by outside the train window. This morning the roof had a gentle mound of white on top of its chimney and looked promising beneath the snow.

  The train screeched to a stop at Harold Washington. Stepping out onto the cold platform with her silent mother and brother, she felt painfully alone.

  Cover

  Mr. Waive wasn’t there this morning. Early peeked through the glass door of the Limited Access room, but was afraid to enter on her own.

  She knew it was no good trying to get information out of Mr. Pincer or the lady with the blue vein. But Mr. Alslip! Al. If she could spot him coming or going … she knew he had something to tell her. He’d had that eager look on his face and Mr. Pincer had stopped him.

  Pulling off her coat, she sat down at one of the tables for the general public and opened her notebook. She’d found a seat near the open stacks, one partly hidden by books but with a clear view of the front desk and Staff Only door. She pulled a few thick books out of a nearby shelf and made herself a little wall. She opened one of the books, as if reading, and slunk down in her chair.

  A man with a bow tie and crooked glasses went into the Limited Access room. Next, a woman with a fur collar on her coat. Now two students who looked about the same age as Mr. John. Then Mr. Pincer appeared from nowhere — oh, no!

  Early slid even lower. The supervisor was walking next to a man who resembled a large chimpanzee, all fuzziness and a big, heavy forehead; it was difficult to look away. Luckily, Mr. Pincer seemed just as fascinated by him. They disappeared through the Staff Only door.

  It was already after ten and Early was losing hope. She’d have to meet Sum and Jubie in time to get back to the shelter for lunch. And then whoosh! Mr. Alslip strode past, pushing a cart of books.

  “Psst! Mr. Alslip!” she whispered as he hurried by. He glanced in her direction, and his eyes flickered with recognition and something else — was it fear? He wriggled his shoulders as if they could hide him, and kept moving.

  Early thought he had jerked his head to the right. She followed, trotting after his cart as it zoomed down a long, straight corridor of books.

  People, she realized, had rhythms, too. Unique ways of behaving and talking. If she could read Mr. Alslip’s rhythms, what would they tell her?

  Cover

  “I can’t talk to you!” was the first thing he whispered. “This is dangerous stuff, very dangerous, and if I’m seen talking to you, I’ll be fired and — and maybe killed. We might both be,” he squeaked.

  “What?” Early whispered back. “Are you kidding? Killed?” The word had a dreadful, stony sound, and it felt wrong even to say it.

  Mr. Alslip was still moving quickly, looking on all sides, pausing, turning a corner, rolling his cart farther and farther from the offices at the center of the floor. Finally he stopped at a U-shaped study area with heavy chairs and a wraparound shelf for a table.

  “You wait here,” he ordered. “Duck under, pull a chair close, and we’ll park the cart in front. There. You’re gone.”

  What would Sum say? Early wondered, but she already knew: Are you crazy? Hiding in a faraway part of the sixth floor with a man you don’t know? The thing was, it was now or maybe never, and she needed to ask some questions. Early nodded.

  He scurried a few steps away, paused to listen, and hurried back, his shoes making a shree-shree sound on the bare floors.

  “We’ve got to whisper,” he began, dropping into a chair on the other side of the book cart. “Jeez, my heart is pounding.” He paused, one hand on his chest. “This whole thing is nuts. Sorry about frightening you, but it’s a dangerous time.” He took a deep breath and blew it out in puffs, as if making inv
isible smoke rings.

  “That’s okay. Thanks for talking to me,” Early whispered.

  Mr. Alslip dusted off his shoes, rubbing one foot at a time on the back of his pant legs, which seemed to calm him. “Actually, I was hoping you’d come back to the library. You’re a brave kid and there are things I want to tell you.

  “First, your dad didn’t do anything wrong. At least, I don’t think so. And if something happens to me and I disappear, too, at least you’ll know the truth. Or, more accurately, what I can tell you. Sometimes it’s hard to say what’s true and what’s not, especially when no one leaves prints. Hey — get it?” Mr. Alslip glanced at Early. “A foot and a book can both leave a print, though the number’s the thing … sorry, can’t help myself!”

  “Are you the guy my father called Al?” she asked. “The guy who liked playing games with him?”

  “That’s me,” he said.

  “I knew it!” Early crowed, in a loud whisper. “Mr. Pincer told the police there’s no Al here and that Mr. Lyman Scrub doesn’t exist.”

  “Really?” Al asked, his whiskers twitching. “Lovely. Good to know he’s watching my back.”

  Early paused. “So you’re saying Mr. Pincer is a part of all this, too?”

  “No, well, maybe, but not as far as Dash knew, at least I think. Forget I said that! Okay, let’s stick to the skinny. Here’s how your father and I fell into all this: One day a man approached me in the stacks, where I was shelving books. He gave me his card, which said Lyman Scrub, Bookseller.”

  Early nodded. What was the skinny?

  “He explained that he needed two reliable pages who wanted to make a bit of money and were ‘coming up’ in the library world.”

  “Yes, I already know this. Dash told us,” Early interrupted, worried that he wouldn’t finish before someone found them.

  “How do you have any idea what I’m going to say?” Al snapped, his nose and chin now twitching independently, a rare feat on one face.

  “Sorry,” Early whispered. “Go on.”

  “This Scrub fellow explained that he worked with some people from the New York City area whose job was to store, pack, and then sell unwanted estate donations, some of them junk. You know, old books no one could want.”

  Early nodded, thinking that the way her father talked about out-of-print books made them glow, as if they were objects deserving respect. This man was no Dash.

  Al was now pulling busily on his mustache. “So, we did the job, each taking on separate parts of it. I’m living in my brother’s house right now and didn’t want to give the address, so your father got the cartons at his apartment and I picked them up, along with a list of what was inside. I delivered them to an address in Marquette Park, one I wasn’t supposed to tell your father.”

  Early nodded again. This was a beat, all right: She could feel what was coming. “It sounds like you thought there was something suspicious about the whole business from the start,” she said. “Too bad —”

  “I’m just a more cautious fellow than your father. More to hide. And don’t drop snippy hints with me, young lady. I don’t have to tell you a thing, you know.”

  “Sorry, please go on,” Early said. Could guilt and fear be parts of the same rhythm?

  “Mr. Scrub paid us generously, instructing me to give your father his share after each pickup. And then one evening when I came by, Dash told me that he had kept one of the books. For you kids. He said he’d paid more than enough for it, having checked on its value, and had put a star next to it on the list. I had the box in my arms.

  “Setting it down, I asked, ‘You think that’s a good idea?’

  “Your father shrugged off any worries, explaining to me that he was just making the process easier for Mr. Scrub. He gave me a small envelope with the money for the book, and asked me to give it to the people who received the box when I dropped it off.

  “Here’s the part I’m feeling like I want you to know: I didn’t give the money to the guys who took the delivery. They were big men, looked kinda rough, and I was afraid. I could picture one of them punching me in the nose before I’d even had a chance to explain, and seriously, all you have to do is come near my nose and it hurts. Old injury.

  “So I never told Dash that I’d taken the envelope home, although I meant to. Time went by, and … I stuffed it in a drawer. I convinced myself that Dash was right, no one would mind, and I’d explain I’d forgotten if anyone asked about the missing book.

  “A couple of weeks passed. Nothing. We processed more boxes of books. Then one of the guys from the warehouse called my cell phone early one morning and asked if I was the man who had gone through that box of books, the one with a star on the list. I said no, that it had been my colleague, Dashel Pearl. And something in his voice just got me scared. I didn’t say a word, either about the missing book or the money Dash had handed me to give them. I know, I know, I should have!

  “Later that day I saw Mr. Scrub talking in a low voice with Mr. Pincer in the stacks, although they didn’t see me. I didn’t tell Dash, maybe feeling guilty about how I’d handled the whole keeping-a-book thing, but I decided to give your father the address of the warehouse and then tell him what I’d done. Or hadn’t done. Maybe he could drop off the envelope and run. So, I dropped clues about the building number by pointing out time patterns that shared the information in code; he and I liked that kind of brain twister. I was planning to give him the street name the next day. But before I could tell him …”

  “My father disappeared!” Early blurted, unable to stay quiet for another second. Guilty, she thought. He said it himself.

  “Shhhh!” Mr. Alslip hissed, leaning close. Early got a whiff of cheesy garlic.

  She made a face, no longer caring if that was rude, and hissed back, “So if you were afraid of these guys and Dash suddenly vanished after that weird accident, why didn’t you call the police?”

  Al shuddered. “I can’t say. Perhaps instinct. But I am sorry about your father….”

  “Instinct! To save yourself while an entire family is destroyed? Have you ever lost your father, your home, and — and — your whole world? Have you ever lived in a shelter? You aren’t sorry enough!” Early spat, itching to punch that twitchy nose herself.

  For the first time, Al looked truly upset.

  “So can you give me the address?” Early asked quickly.

  “Don’t dare,” he said. “But I did drive out there to the warehouse to look, a couple of days after your father vanished. Seemed to me like everyone had gone, no signs of life.”

  “So why can’t you share the address now?”

  “Can’t. Just can’t.”

  Early was dying to shout at him that he was a rat, jump out from behind the cart and run directly to the police, but forced herself to ask calmly, “So, Mr. Alslip, what do you think this whole book business was about? I mean, why the scary guys and everything?”

  Al was blinking his eyes rapidly, as if thinking something through. “Maybe the books were being used to hide something much more valuable,” he said.

  “Like how?” Early asked, blinking also.

  “I know, crazy idea,” Al said, with a split-second smile. His two front teeth were much bigger than the rest. “You can’t hide much in a carton of old books that some middleman looks through.” He shrugged. “Not exactly secure.”

  As Early wondered about the easy way he’d said “some middleman,” he asked, “Why did you mention rows of numbers the other day? When Mr. Pincer came into the room.”

  “Why not? Dash used to play around with ideas all the time. Especially, oh, the repeating numbers on the clock.”

  “Really,” Al said. “What a coincidence. And then there was the terrible raid at your place,” he said slowly. “Horrible. Everything, huh?”

  “Just about,” Early said.

  “Anything the thieves didn’t find?”

  What, was he reading her mind? Early looked away.

  “Well,” she said innocently,
“it was hard to see in the mess they left. They destroyed everything and we had to leave that night. I remember one guy had a strong accent that sounded just like Ms. Whissel’s.”

  “Hmm, really!” Mr. Alslip was pulling on his mustache again. “Mr. Pincer’s personal assistant, came a day or two after he did. Funny thing, coincidence —”

  Just then they heard heavy footsteps approaching, and Early pressed her forehead into her knees. Mr. Alslip jumped to his feet.

  “Alslip?” Mr. Pincer’s voice sounded angry. “What’re you doing back here?”

  “Sorting,” Mr. Alslip said, his voice sounding exhausted. “Straightening the mess, bunch of books pulled without rhyme or reason.”

  “Rhyme, I see, ra-hem!” Mr. Pincer cleared his throat. “I want you in my office. Now! We’ve got news.”

  Mr. Pincer stormed away. Early knew she didn’t have much time. She had to take the rhythms that fed Al’s panic — the guilt, the history with Dash, his habit of hiding — and make them the biggest rhythms he could hear.

  “You were his friend,” she said. “The guy my father called Al. I know you don’t want to get in any more trouble. But I know you don’t want to see our family hurt even more. You have to tell the police what you know.”

  “Then I’ll be the next to disappear!” Al said.

  Early thought about that.

  “Not if you find a way to tell them without really telling them,” she said. “Not if it looks to the bad guys like you’ve been caught.”

  Those were the last words Early got out before Mr. Pincer yelled again, and Mr. Alslip slipped away, moving with the speed of a small animal used to avoiding traps.

  Cover

  A blank Post-it note was stuck to the table where Early had left her notebook and winter coat. Both were gone. Across the top of the note, in black print, was: From the desk of Wade Pincer.

  Her heart sank. It was almost time to pick up Sum and Jubie from the Children’s Library, and she needed that jacket. Trying to remember exactly what she’d written in the notebook, she was glad that Mr. Waive had reminded her not to record anything secret. He was a smart man.