With all the sunshine and birds and flowers, it seemed like I’d just had a bad dream the night before. Everything always seems more innocent in daylight than in darkness. Maybe I’d imagined the panic in Bran’s voice when I found him in the shed, the way he seemed to want so desperately to keep me from seeing the boxes. Maybe it wasn’t so strange that he’d waited until twelve fifteen, when Mom and I were both supposed to be asleep, before he’d opened the shed.
I stumbled out of my room and down the hall to the kitchen. Bran was sitting at the table, eating a bowl of cereal and glancing through the mail. When he saw me coming, he ripped a page out of the Eckerd’s sale circular and tucked it in his pants pocket.
I hadn’t imagined anything the night before. He was still acting strange. He was acting . . . guilty.
“Is Eckerd’s having a big sale?” I asked. “You interested in buying two-for-one Fibercon?”
He looked over at me like he was trying to pretend that he hadn’t seen me come into the kitchen.
“Batteries,” he said, not very smoothly. “They have, uh, Energizer batteries really cheap, and I’m taking the page with me so I remember to pick some up.”
He was lying. It was so obvious I could hardly stand it.
“Let me see,” I said, holding out my hand.
“Brittany, I’m trying to eat,” he protested.
As if he couldn’t chew and reach into his pocket at the same time.
“Hey, I could get the batteries for you,” I said. “I’ll probably be running errands at Eckerd’s today anyway.”
“If all your customers check out,” Bran said, and he had the upper hand again.
I poured some Cheerios for myself.
“Did Mom leave already?” I asked.
“At the crack of dawn,” Bran said, in a way that made me feel guilty for sleeping late.
We ate the rest of our breakfast in silence.
After we’d both taken showers and gotten ready, we walked over to Mrs. Stuldy’s together. Bran wasn’t acting weird anymore, but I felt like I had my own personal storm cloud beside me.
It was one thing to try to catch him in a lie at breakfast, when it was just the two of us. It was another thing to show him off to our new neighbor and have him seem so gloomy.
“Come on, Bran,” I said. “I told her I had a nice family. She’s going to take one look at your face and think I was lying. You look as grumpy as Eeyore.”
Bran stopped frowning long enough to look puzzled.
“Eeyore?”
“You know, from Winnie the Pooh? The donkey that’s always totally miserable?” I made my voice as sad and mopey as Eeyore’s, and Bran rewarded me with a snort that could have turned into a laugh.
“Sorry,” he said, sounding more like his usual self. “I’m just worried. About you, I mean.”
And then he put his arm around my shoulder and gave me a little hug. My friend Wendy back in Pennsylvania used to go crazy when she saw Bran do something like that.
“You realize how incredible that is, don’t you?” she asked once. “Sixteen-year-old boys, as a rule, are not nice to their sisters. They don’t even want to be in the same room with them, let alone give them comforting hugs.”
Wendy’s mom was a psychology professor who specialized in adolescent behavior, so she should have known. But I only had experience with one brother, Bran, and he’d always been nice to me. That’s why his strange behavior now really bothered me.
Bran took his arm off my shoulder to ring Mrs. Stuldy’s doorbell.
“I think you could run your errands as long as you don’t actually go into the people’s houses,” Bran said. “And you shouldn’t talk to them any more than you have to. You’re running a business, right? You don’t have time for socializing.”
“Who’s there?” Mrs. Stuldy hollered from inside.
“It’s Britt from next door,” I yelled back. “And my brother’s with me.”
“Come in! It’s open!” Mrs. Stuldy yelled again. “I’m back in the kitchen!”
I looked at Bran and he looked at me. I could see he wasn’t happy, but we pushed our way in. Bran silently followed me through the maze of furniture in the living room.
The kitchen smelled like cinnamon and yeast, and I quickly saw the reason why. Mrs. Stuldy was sliding a freshly baked coffee cake onto the table.
“Oh, I thought you’d be back today,” she said, sounding pleased. “Sit down, sit down. You can join me for a piece of cake, can’t you? I remember from when my son was little—kids your age are always hungry.”
“Thank you,” Bran said politely as she cut a piece for him. But I’d never heard him sound more miserable.
“Bran was worried,” I said. “He wants to meet all the people I’m going to be running errands for, just to make sure there’s no one, uh, dangerous.”
In Mrs. Stuldy’s sunny kitchen, the notion seemed crazier than ever. But Mrs. Stuldy didn’t take offense.
“Oh, it’s true, you can never be too careful,” she said sadly.
She started struggling to get up. Bran noticed and asked quickly, “Can I get something for you?”
“Why, yes,” she said. “I was just going to bring over the pot of tea—”
Bran rushed to get it from the counter, and poured tea for us all.
“Thank you,” she said. “What a nice young man.”
Bran looked down at his coffee cake, missing the bright smile Mrs. Stuldy directed his way. She was wearing a nicer dress than the day before—the flowers were smaller and more subtle, on a blue background, instead of gaudy orange. Her hair was neatly combed, and she’d put a wavering line of lipstick around her mouth. Had she gotten dressed up because of me? I’d never thought much about it before, but I wondered suddenly what it would be like to have someone like Mrs. Stuldy as my grandmother—someone who baked cookies and cakes and smiled admiringly at everything I said. I was sure Mrs. Stuldy had about a dozen grandkids and treated them all like kings and queens. It didn’t seem fair, suddenly, that my own grandmother was a thin, fussy woman who had snapped, “Don’t touch my dress with those dirty hands!” the only time I’d ever met her. That was when I was five. I guessed I had another grandmother too, but it was hard to count someone who didn’t even know I was alive.
I took a big sip of my tea and burned my tongue. Even Bran grimaced a little as he swallowed.
“I, uh, understand that the Marquises forgot to tell you they’d hired me to house-sit,” he said, putting down the cup. “I tried to call them last night, to find out if there was anyone else who might be surprised about us living there, but I couldn’t reach them. So do you know—?”
Bran let the question hang in the air. Mrs. Stuldy blinked a few times, like she wasn’t sure what he was asking. What if Bran thought she was dangerous because she got confused?
“He means he doesn’t want anyone thinking they should call the police on us,” I said, laughing a little to make it sound like a joke. “Are there any other neighbors who might see us at the house and think we’re thieves—when we’re actually the ones trying to protect the house from thieves?”
Mrs. Stuldy tilted her head to one side, considering.
“Why, I don’t think so,” she said. “The Marquises weren’t the types to be buddy-buddy with everyone. They kept to themselves, you know.”
“But the other neighbors—” Bran guided her back to his question.
“Well, now, let’s see, Mrs. Shoemaker, over on the other side of you, she’s blind, so she couldn’t hardly be watching the house, could she? And the Joynowitzes and the Pauleys and the Romans across the street, they all went back North themselves a month or so ago—” She seemed about to list everyone in the neighborhood, but then she stopped. “Oh, that reminds me. I thought of some more customers for you. I wrote down their names and numbers.”
She handed me a sheet of paper covered in shaky writing. I held it out so Bran could see.
Bran sighed and looked at his watch.
“Britt, don’t you think we should be going?” he asked.
I looked longingly at the coffee cake. I would have liked another piece. And Mrs. Stuldy looked so disappointed all of a sudden.
“I need to meet these other people before I go in to work,” Bran explained.
“I’ll come back later,” I promised Mrs. Stuldy.
Her face brightened, just as Bran began glowering again.
It took us a half an hour, flat, to go through the list of people I might be running errands for. For the first couple of people, the ones nearest Mrs. Stuldy’s house, Bran carefully explained about how he was house-sitting for the Marquises, and I was helping out. But once we got to the next street over, I noticed that Bran didn’t even bother giving his name. I thought it was funny—some of the people were so concerned about their own safety that they didn’t even unhook their chains to talk to us. Others could barely walk to the door. I wondered how they could possibly be any danger to me. At the end, I asked Bran, “So, are you convinced now?”
“I guess it’s okay,” Bran said with another sigh. “But don’t talk too much to these people. Don’t tell anyone else where you live, and—”
“Why not?” I asked. I suddenly had to take big steps on the cracked sidewalk to keep up with him.
“Think about it,” Bran said with a frown. “Remember? You’re going to be at home by yourself a lot of the time. You need to be safe.”
I frowned too, but didn’t argue.
“So don’t talk about Mom or me, or tell them where we are or when we’re away,” Bran continued. “And don’t go into anyone else’s house. I mean it.”
I wondered why Bran didn’t chain me to the Marquises’ house and be done with it.
“Not even Mrs. Stuldy’s?” I asked. “Come on—you don’t seriously think she could be dangerous. It would hurt her feelings if I didn’t visit some.”
Bran’s frown deepened, if that was possible.
“Okay, okay.” He gave in. “Just—be careful. Don’t talk too much. Don’t bother her.”
That hurt, and I didn’t understand. Why was talking a problem? Mrs. Stuldy acted like she was desperate for someone to talk with. Maybe Bran just meant I shouldn’t do all the talking; I should let her have a turn. What kind of an inconsiderate brat did he think I was?
We were back at the Marquises’ house—our house—now, and Bran rushed on inside without looking back to see if I followed. I sat down on the front porch—it was just a small concrete square, raised a foot off the ground. Some sort of lizard scuttled up the walk beside me, and I gasped. It was the kind of animal I was used to seeing in zoos, not on my front porch.
“Hey, Bran!” I yelled. “Come and look!”
Bran poked his head out the door.
“Uh-huh. Cool,” he said, without really looking at the lizard. He looked up and down the deserted street. “Now come on in. You shouldn’t be out on the front porch.”
I was too stunned to protest as he actually took my arm and pulled me inside.
I didn’t understand this, either.
“What’s wrong with sitting on the front porch?” I demanded when the door shut behind us.
Bran wouldn’t look at me.
“You know, it makes a place look trashy to have a lot of people out front. I’m supposed to be keeping this place looking nice. Just stay out of the front.”
Then he turned and headed for his bedroom.
I was left speechless. Since when was I “a lot of people”? And wouldn’t the Marquises want us to be out front, so people driving by could see that the house was occupied? But one look at the set of Bran’s shoulders as he walked away from me convinced me it wasn’t worth asking him anything.
Whatever was in the hidden boxes would have to be pretty impressive if they were going to answer all the questions swarming in my mind.
Bran left for work at one o’clock, right after lunch.
I waited long enough to watch him take off on his bike. And then, at precisely 1:01, 1 tiptoed down the hall to his room.
The door was shut but I pushed it open. If he came back now I could say, “Oh, Bran, hi. I was just checking to see if you had a . . .” I couldn’t think what I might be checking for, what I might legitimately be planning to borrow.
Bran didn’t come back. I stepped into his room.
Bran had made his bed, very neatly, and he’d stacked his books on the dresser with almost military precision. His room, like mine, appeared to have been a guestroom for the Marquises, and Bran seemed to be treating it like he was just a visitor—a very polite one. (I thought guiltily about the tangle of sheets I’d left strewn across my bed, the dirty clothes I’d left on my floor.) But I already knew Bran was much neater than I was. I was looking for boxes.
There weren’t any lying around on the floor or under the bed, so I made a beeline for the closet. I practically held my breath as I reached out for the doorknob.
It wouldn’t turn. It was locked.
I jerked my hand back as if the doorknob had burned me. Locked? How could that be?
I bent down and examined the doorknob carefully, as if it were a clue. I remembered all those TV police shows where the experts pick up a nearly microscopic scrap of paper with tweezers, and that solves the whole case for them. I wanted that kind of evidence. But this was just an ordinary doorknob, rounded and shiny. Almost too shiny . . .
I stepped away from the doorknob and went back to the main door of Bran’s room. I looked at it, felt its doorknob. Then I looked at the doorknobs to my room and Mom’s, and to all the other closets in the house. None of them were shiny. None of them had locks on them. Why would the Marquises have a door that locked on a guestroom closet but not anywhere else?
I went back into Bran’s room and looked at the closet door-knob again. Compared with the other doorknobs, this one looked different. It looked . . . newer. Maybe even brand-new.
I tried opening the doorknob once more, hopelessly. And then I just backed away and sat down on the bed.
I didn’t have any proof, but I was pretty sure that that door-knob hadn’t belonged to the Marquises. Bran had bought it, probably last night after dinner. And then he’d switched the doorknobs on the closet, moved the boxes into the closet, and locked the door.
This wasn’t a lock on a backyard shed, out in the open where thieves might prowl. This was a lock on a closet inside the house.
This lock was there to keep Mom and me out. Or maybe just me?
What was Bran so desperate to hide?
I went over to Mrs. Stuldys house and had another fat slice of her coffee cake. And then I ran errands for the people she’d recommended. It was the hottest part of day and I was crazy not to be holed up in air-conditioning. But I welcomed the sweat running down my face and streaming into my eyes. I welcomed the blisters forming on my heels, the sore muscles in my legs. It was like I thought the sweat could wash away all my confusing memories of Bran acting weird. It was like I thought my aches and pains could distract me from how I’d felt staring at that locked door.
But I couldn’t escape the mystery of Bran.
At Eckerd’s, where I stopped for Advil for Mrs. Mathers, they had a huge pile of sale circulars right by the front door. I picked one up and read it, cover to cover. And then I read it again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything.
They didn’t have Energizer batteries on sale. They didn’t have any batteries on sale.
“Is this the circular for this week?” I asked the girl behind the counter.
“Sure,” she said. “Why else would we have it there?”
I wanted to tell the girl, “If you see Bran come in—a tall sixteen-year-old with dark, kind of wavy hair—watch what he buys, okay? And then let me know. You can do that, can’t you?”
But the girl had already turned away from me to restock the chewing gum. And she was a stranger. Why would she help me? Why would I confide in her?
I wanted desperately to talk to someone. But the person
I always talked to when I had problems was Bran.
What about my friend Wendy back in Pennsylvania? She seemed too far away, suddenly, like she’d been part of a different life. And she’d only known the perfect Bran. She wouldn’t believe anything I told her.
Mrs. Stuldy? I’d only just met her, but she seemed the kind of person you could tell stuff to. Except I didn’t want her thinking Bran was weird or lying or in trouble. Or that there was something wrong with my family.
I bet her grandchildren were all little angels.
I decided I had to talk to Mom.
Maybe it seems strange that it took me so long to think of her. But for as long as I could remember, Bran had told me—trained me, really—to protect Mom from any problems. When we were little and still went to a baby-sitter, we had one for a while who used to slap our faces when she got mad.
“Don’t tell Mom,” Bran had whispered to me, day after day. “Mom can’t afford to send us to someone better than Mrs. Ellis. Just be really, really good.”
And that worked for Bran, because he could sit still when Mrs. Ellis wanted him to, and he always remembered to say please and thank you, and to not drop crumbs on her carpet. But I was always leaving sticky jelly-covered handprints on her wall. I forgot to pick up my toys. I spilled my glass of milk all over the kitchen floor. I got slapped a lot.
But neither of us ever told Mom about Mrs. Ellis, even after she moved away and we got a new baby-sitter.
Talking to Mom now would be like breaking all the rules of our family. But I knew I had to do it.
My plans were stymied right away. Mom stayed at the university until midnight the next few nights—I only spoke to her by phone when she called to say not to wait for her to eat dinner. I couldn’t exactly say, “Explain Bran to me,” over the phone, especially when I could hear people behind her calling out, “You done with that phone yet?” So I waited and kept watching Bran.
But he was away a lot too. The Shrimp Shack put him on double shifts for a while because they were short staffed. Some nights he barely beat Mom home. I was glad to have my errand route to distract me.
The House on the Gulf Page 6