The House on the Gulf

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  I was so busy I didn’t have time to think about Bran acting weird or moving boxes, or Mr. Stuldy almost calling the police on him, or me having to sit alone in a strange house all summer long.

  But it all came back to me when I limped back to the Marquises’ house at five o’clock clutching a wad of dollar bills. I let myself in the front door and just stood there, leaning against the wall, inhaling the almost cool air. I tried to decide what I was going to tell Mom and Bran about my day. The money in my hand seemed to give me power. I decided I’d start with, “Let’s go to Burger King! My treat!”

  And maybe, sitting on plastic chairs in that brightly lit restaurant, eating burgers and fries that tasted the same in Florida as they did back in Pennsylvania, Bran would stop acting weird. Maybe he would explain why he’d lied about going to work last Saturday (if he had), why he’d been so fanatical about packing away the Marquises’ things, why he’d been so nervous around Mr. Marquis that first day. Probably he had a perfectly reasonable explanation for everything.

  I just couldn’t imagine what it would be.

  Nothing went as I’d planned that evening. First of all, I couldn’t treat us all to Burger King because Bran came home from the Shrimp Shack with three white foam boxes of seafood and pasta and salad and bread.

  “Lunch leftovers,” he explained. “They throw it out if none of the employees want it. So we’re going to be feasting all summer long!”

  I peeked into the top box in the refrigerator with mixed feelings. I couldn’t keep my mouth from watering at the sight of the shrimp and scallops and crabmeat swimming in Alfredo sauce—back in Pennsylvania seafood like that was such a luxury I’d only tasted it once or twice in my entire life. I’d take scallops over Burger King any day. But I felt outdone by Bran once again. I had blisters on my feet from walking back and forth between the drugstore and the grocery store and this neighborhood all afternoon, and all I had to show for it was thirteen dollars. (Mrs. Stuldy had told me to charge four dollars per errand, but then she gave a dollar tip.) Bran was getting paid for a whole day’s work, and he’d gotten us dinner just by saying, “No, don’t throw that in the trash. I’ll take it.” Not to mention he was providing us with a place to live, by house-sitting for the Marquises.

  Was I jealous? Was that all? And was I just imagining that Bran was acting weird because he was doing so much for our family and I was just me—Britt Lassiter, an okay kid, but nobody special?

  I shut the refrigerator a little too hard and it shook. I waited for Bran to yell at me for abusing the Marquises’ precious possessions. But he just glanced up from setting the table.

  “Hard day, Britt?” he said with real sympathy.

  It’s really hard to feel jealous of someone as nice as Bran. But I was still suspicious.

  Mom came in just then, saw the nearly set table and cried out, “Oh, you two are the greatest! I’m starved. I never knew thinking could make someone so hungry.”

  “How was school, Mom?” I asked, putting out paper napkins.

  “Oh, wonderful,” she said. “I know, I know, you guys go to school all the time, but you can’t imagine how great it feels to me to just focus on learning all day long. Did you know that everyone begins as something called a zygote? And that for the first eight weeks, a human embryo doesn’t look any different from a pig’s or a goat’s? Isn’t that interesting? It seemed like everything I heard today was like that—incredible and amazing and wonderful, and I’m so happy!” She twirled in the middle of the kitchen. “I’ve had brainless jobs for so long that it’s like my brain has just been starving for this. But I’ve got so much work to do now, I’m going to be up until midnight just reading the first assignments. . . . How’d you guys do today?”

  “All right,” Bran said. “The Shrimp Shack is Brainless Job Central. But it’s a nice break from school.” I could tell he hurried to add that so Mom wouldn’t feel guilty.

  “I had an interesting day,” I said.

  But we were all scrambling to get the food heated up and on the table, so I didn’t explain. I listened to Mom talk some more about embryology, and Bran told about a Shrimp Shack customer who ate eighty-four fried scallops and two servings of fries. I waited until we’d gobbled down all the pasta and seafood and sopped up all the Alfredo sauce with the bread.

  “Anyone feel like ice cream?” I asked when we were all leaning back contentedly in our chairs. “My treat.”

  Mom and Bran both turned to me with questioning looks on their faces, just as I expected.

  “I got a job,” I announced proudly, and waited for their congratulations.

  But they didn’t react right after that. First Mom said, “Oh, Brittany, I hope you don’t feel like you have to work because I’m not supporting us well enough. You’re only twelve. You should be thinking about fun, not money.”

  “But it was fun, and anyhow, there’s nothing else to do around here—” That didn’t sound right.

  Mom looked troubled, but asked, “What’s your job?”

  I explained. Then it was Bran who got all upset.

  “You talked to the neighbors?” he asked. “I mean, we don’t even know these people. You shouldn’t go into strangers’ houses.”

  “But it wasn’t dangerous,” I said. “And how did you get your mowing job and your house-sitting job and, and even your restaurant job—except from talking to strangers?”

  “That’s different,” Bran said.

  “He’s not a twelve-year-old girl,” Mom said.

  I couldn’t believe Bran and Mom weren’t as happy as I was about my new job. I thought they’d be proud of me.

  “But everybody was really nice,” I argued. “And anyhow, these people are old. They couldn’t hurt me if they wanted to. Mr. Harrison can’t even get out of his wheelchair.”

  “Still,” Bran said sternly. “Mom, tell her she has to stay away from the neighbors.” His voice was strange, almost panicky.

  Mom had her head tilted to the side, considering.

  “Mom!” I protested. I had wanted to wait to bring up everything Mrs. Stuldy’d told me. But I knew it was my best ammunition. “If I hadn’t met Mrs. Stuldy, she might have called the police on Bran, because she and her husband saw him moving boxes around, and they were suspicious. And the Marquises never told them that Bran was house-sitting, so the Stuldys would have been really suspicious when they saw us going in and out of the house. And, Bran, did you start moving the Marquises’ things around a whole week ago? The same day you showed me the house?”

  For a minute, Mom and Bran just stared at me.

  “The police?” Mom sounded stunned. “Oh, no. Bran, did the Marquises give you anything like a signed contract that you could show if anyone questioned our right to be here?”

  “I’ll talk to them about that,” Bran mumbled, looking down.

  “Well, even if the police came, everything would be straightened out as soon as they talked to the Marquises,” Mom said. “But it would be a big hassle, especially if they couldn’t reach the Marquises right away.”

  Bran was still looking down. He hadn’t answered my other questions.

  “Did you come back last Saturday and start packing up the Marquises’ stuff?” I demanded.

  “Uh, yeah, I did,” he admitted.

  “But you told Mom and me you went to work at the Shrimp Shack.”

  “I came here on my way to work,” Bran said quickly. “I wasn’t lying.”

  Well maybe not. But the Shrimp Shack was between the Marquises’ house and Sunset Terrace. He’d gone a long way out of his way to get here. And why? Why had he been so eager to move things right away?

  “What all did you put out in the storage shed, anyway?” I asked.

  “Just stuff,” Bran said. “What is this, the Inquisition?”

  “Mrs. Stuldy, she said you had to be careful, that since we haven’t lived here for very long, we don’t know what the heat and humidity can do. She said if you put any paper or fabric or pictures out there,
they’d be rotted clear through by the end of the summer.”

  “Oh, dear,” Mom said. She sounded almost as worried as she’d been about the police. “And you were trying to be so careful, Bran. Is there anything out there that might be damaged? If you want, you can move some of the boxes into my room. I have a lot more space than I need. And Brittany and I can help—”

  Bran was already shaking his head.

  “No!” he burst out. “I can take care of everything myself!”

  The old Bran, the one I’d known all my life, never would have interrupted Mom like that. He never would have used that nasty tone with her—or anyone.

  “I mean, I don’t want you to take any time away from studying, Mom,” Bran said, sounding a little calmer. “And Brittany, she might break something—”

  “I would not!” I said.

  I glared at him. He seemed to back down a little.

  “Well, anyhow, the boxes aren’t the problem,” Bran said. “It’s Brittany going around all over the neighborhood, talking to everyone—Britt, you can’t do that again. You’re lucky nothing happened today. Maybe none of these people look dangerous but you don’t know. . . . Mom, weren’t you going to sign her up for a day program at the Y or something? She needs to be around young people, kids. Not some old people we don’t even know.”

  I hated it when Bran talked to Mom as if I weren’t even there. And why was he more worried about old people we didn’t know than young people we didn’t know?

  “Mo-om,” I appealed. “I don’t want to go to the Y. I want to keep working. I like our neighbors. Isn’t it good to want to help them? Isn’t it good that Mrs. Stuldy won’t call the police on us because she knows me now?”

  I couldn’t help shooting a nasty look toward Bran. He looked pale. And I thought he’d gotten really tan at the beach the day before.

  Mom rubbed her temples as if she were thinking hard. Then she looked up and began speaking slowly. I could tell she was figuring things out as she went.

  “Maybe I overreacted a little, Brittany, because I feel guilty that I’m not working this summer. I don’t see anything wrong with you making a little extra money. I should be glad you want to work.” She glanced at Bran. “But Bran’s right to be cautious about strangers. Maybe I should go and meet all the people you’re going to run errands for, to make sure you’re safe.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” Bran said quickly. “Remember, you’ve got all that work to do for college.”

  Mom looked at him doubtfully for a minute, then shrugged.

  “Overprotective Bran strikes again,” she muttered. “Guess we’ll all have to work together to make sure I get this scholarship. All right, Bran, you are hereby deputized to check out Brittany’s customers. Now, is everybody happy?”

  Bran and I both nodded. But we didn’t go out for ice cream. I didn’t feel much like celebrating anymore, knowing Bran wanted to end my errand business after one day. And knowing that the news about my job had made him act weirder than ever. Why was Bran so paranoid about the neighbors? Why was he so defensive about those stupid boxes in the shed?

  Bran disappeared right after dinner. Mom settled in at the table doing homework, so I knew I couldn’t turn on the TV and bother her. I drifted through the house, then out to the backyard.

  The storage shed gleamed in the light from the setting sun. It was a small tan building, kind of a miniature barn. I knew the lawn mower was in there, because I hadn’t seen it anywhere else. Allowing for a few gardening tools and whatever else people usually kept in sheds, that left maybe five or six square feet for boxes. Or cubic feet, I guess—wasn’t that the right name for when you included height, too? How many boxes could fit in that space?

  I slipped across the yard. It wasn’t like I really meant to open the door and search the shed, but I was still disappointed when I reached out and touched the door latch. A big, fat padlock held it shut.

  Well, naturally. I knew Bran wouldn’t leave the Marquises’ precious possessions out in an unlocked shed, ready for anyone to take. But somehow I’d thought. . .

  I didn’t know what I’d thought. I felt kind of light-headed from the heat and my long day of walking and the argument with Bran.

  I pulled one of the Marquises’ chaise lounge lawn chairs out of the sunporch and sat down, facing the storage shed. I watched through the palm fronds as the sun set the rest of the way. And then I just sat and waited, like a guard dog. Except I didn’t know what I was waiting for.

  Or what I was guarding.

  The streetlights clicked on, sending a dim glow into the backyard. I lay back on the chaise lounge. It was finally a pleasant temperature outdoors—not too hot, not too cold, not too sticky. I closed my eyes, savoring the strange feeling of not having sweat running down my body. And then I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew, I was jolting awake.

  For a few minutes, I just lay still, trying to remember where I was and why I was there. And trying to figure out what time it was. I glanced behind me—all the windows in our house were pitch black. The windows of the Stuldys’ house were dark too. The moon was high in the sky—it had to be the middle of the night.

  Feeling totally disoriented, I sat up—and gasped. I suddenly knew what had awakened me.

  A shadowy figure had just finished unlocking the door of the shed and was stepping inside.

  I blinked. The figure was out of my sight now. Had I imagined the whole thing?

  No, the door was definitely open. It creaked a little, swinging in the breeze. Why was the shed door open in the middle of the night?

  I slid off the chair and tiptoed over to the shed. Mom and Bran would be so proud of me if I stopped a thief.

  Or would they be furious with me for not running inside and calling 911 right away?

  I kept moving toward the shed. I’d feel like a fool calling the police or waking Mom and Bran if the whole thing was just a figment of my imagination. Or if there was some perfectly reasonable explanation for the shed being open—even though I couldn’t think of one. I pressed my back against the wall of the shed and peeked into the open doorway. It was hard to see in such dim light, but the figure was bent down over a box, using a small flashlight to peer inside. Some of the flashlight’s glow reflected back on his face.

  It wasn’t a thief. It was my brother.

  “Bran! What are you doing?” I shrieked.

  He dropped the flashlight and it rolled toward me. I picked it up.

  “Jeez, Britt, you scared me to death,” Bran said, jerking the flashlight out of my hand. He shone it right into my face, like I was a suspect caught in a crime. “What are you doing out here?”

  “I—,” I started.

  “Ssh! You’re going to wake up the whole neighborhood,” Bran said crossly. “Why aren’t you in bed?”

  “I fell asleep in the lawn chair,” I said, keeping my voice low. “I woke up when you opened the shed.”

  “The lawn chair? Outside? Why?” Bran asked.

  “I didn’t mean to,” I said. “I was just tired.”

  “Mom and I thought you’d gone to bed early,” Bran said. He still sounded cross. “Your door was shut.”

  Didn’t Mom think I would have said good night to her? I wondered. Or had she been too busy studying to notice?

  “Anyhow, you should be in bed now,” Bran said sternly. “Go on.”

  I didn’t go.

  “Why aren’t you in bed?” I asked. “It’s got to be the middle of the night. What are you doing?”

  “I’m checking to make sure there’s nothing out here that could rot.” Bran said. “Remember? You were so worried?”

  His voice wasn’t just cross or stern now—it was mean. He was mad at me, and I didn’t know why. And because he was shining the flashlight at me, I couldn’t see his face to try to gauge what he was really thinking.

  “But—why are you doing that now?” I asked. “Why didn’t you do it right after dinner?”

  “I had other things I had t
o do then,” Bran said. “All right?”

  I tried to look past Bran, past the flashlight, to see the mysterious boxes. But they were just shadowy shapes in the dark of the shed.

  “I could help you,” I said. “I wouldn’t break anything. I promise.”

  “No, you need your sleep,” Bran said. “Come on. I’ll take you inside.”

  And then he took my arm and actually escorted me across the yard and into the house. The digital clock on the VCR glowed red numbers at us: one, two, one, five. It was twelve fifteen, just after midnight. (And why hadn’t Bran hidden the VCR away too, if he was scared of things being broken?)

  “You’ll be okay now,” Bran said, as if I’d been in some great danger out in the backyard. “Just go back to sleep.”

  I went into my room and lay down on my bed, but I wasn’t sleepy anymore. I felt too strange. I got up again and pressed my ear against the door. Every ten minutes or so, I could hear Bran’s footsteps out in the hall, tiptoeing to and from his room.

  He’s moving boxes again, I thought. He’s moving them into his room.

  And that made me happy. Not for any good reason—not because I was relieved that the Marquises’ possessions would be protected from mold and rot. No, I was happy because Bran’s room didn’t have a lock on the door.

  I could look in the boxes if they were in Bran’s room.

  When I woke up the next morning I was still slumped against the door. I’d spent part of the night on a lawn chair and the rest sleeping on the floor—no wonder I felt so groggy.

  The sunshine was bright outside my window, and some sort of birds were singing in the palm trees. My window looked out on a huge bush of a kind of exotic flower I’d never seen back in Pennsylvania. It had an exotic name, too—bird of paradise, I think.