Are You in the House Alone?

by Richard Peck

  “Do you two have appointments?”

  “Are you a doctor?” I asked. Alison moaned. I was getting a fresh mouth for the first time in my life.

  Miss Venable had very straight hair, 1960s-long. It tangled with her glasses frames where it was tucked behind her ears. She had the clinical, cosmetic-free face of a guidance counselor, but she looked very young. I wondered if that was good or bad. “I beg your pardon?” she said.

  “Do you have to have an appointment to see a counselor? I have a problem.”

  “Oh.” She moved a paperweight from one side of her blank blotter to another. “Getting a referral from a teacher is the standard procedure.”

  “This isn’t a standard problem.” Her gaze shifted back and forth between Alison and me. “It’s my problem. This is a friend of mine.”

  “Oh.” She inspected me then. I could hear her mind ticking over. Combed hair, clean, natural color. Fresh blouse. Small green heart on thin gold chain, nothing clanky. All-wool skirt, not cheap. “Sit down,” she said, revolving in her chair. “I’ll pull your file. Name?” There was only one chair, and I sat down in it. Alison seemed to hang suspended in the doorway of the cubicle, ready to bolt. If she goes, she goes, I thought.

  “Osburne, Gail. Eleventh grade.” Miss Venable leafed through my file twice, looking for a history of maladjustment. “Let’s see,” she said, tapping a pencil against her teeth. “You’ve had your Kuder Preference, of course, and your PSAT last year. Right up at the top in verbal and reading comprehension. Slightly better than so-so in math skills. You’ll be taking SAT’s this winter, but no problem there. You test well. Straight college prep program. Were you thinking about Boards or an early admissions program? Because if you are, there’s a college counselor for that and you ought to see—”

  “No, I wasn’t thinking about that.”

  “Well, then, what is it?” She pushed her chair back from her desk a few inches. Don’t you retreat from me too, I thought.

  “I’m being bothered by somebody.”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Notes, phone calls.”

  “I don’t know anything about any phone calls,” Alison said suddenly.

  “Phone calls,” I said. “He seems to know where I am all the time, especially when I’m by myself.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But you said he. Are you sure it’s a boy?”

  “No,” Alison said.

  “I’m pretty sure it’s a boy,” I said, looking up at Alison. She was fidgeting, shifting her books from arm to arm.

  “Well, you’re a very attractive girl—both of you are,” Miss Venable said. “You have to expect some . . . attention that isn’t always too welcome . . .”

  How would you know? I wondered. My hands were getting damp. “It’s more serious than that.”

  “We all fantasize a little. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. We all daydream, don’t we?”

  “I wouldn’t bring my daydreams to a counselor,” I said. “I’d be pretty careful to keep them to myself.”

  “Well, then, surely you have some idea who he might be. Do you have a boy friend?”

  “Yes,” I said, “but he’s not a sex maniac.” Alison moaned again.

  “There’s no need to go overboard,” Miss Venable said. I hadn’t meant to show that last note to anybody. But I was still carrying it around, shifting it from book bag to purse. At that point it was pressed in the pages of Fifty Great Scenes for Student Actors.

  “Maybe you better take a look at this evidence,” I said, handing the note to her. She took it out of my hand and unfolded it.

  Alison swooped down on me and began to whisper urgently into my ear, “Listen, Gail, I really, I mean really don’t want to be here. This is embarrassing. And I ought to get to study hall. I mean I don’t have any legitimate reason for cutting.”

  “Then go,” I said out loud, not looking at her. Miss Venable gave her a long look, watching as Alison fled. Why doesn’t she keep reading that note? I wondered.

  “Who was that girl?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said. “Somebody who doesn’t want to get involved. Did you read the note?”

  “I read enough.”

  “I don’t know what to do.” My voice cracked, but Miss Venable didn’t seem to notice. She had something else on her mind.

  “Is this some kind of a put-on?” She was trying to stare me down. “Tell me the truth. Did you and that other girl cook this up between you to spring on me—just because I’m new here?”

  My knees were wobbly when I stood up. It was like those dreams when you’re running and not getting anywhere and screaming but no one hears. “Give me the note,” I said. “I wanted help, not a lie-detector test. I’ve got enough troubles without you. It’s just like I always thought. You people know all about Kuder Preference Tests and the rest of that useless junk, but when it comes to a real problem you can’t handle it!”

  She must have seen something terrible in my face, looming over her desk. My hand was out for the note, but it was shaking, and I couldn’t control it. I seemed to be getting her attention, now that I was acting wild and maladjusted.

  “Wait. Sit down.” She pressed her fingertips against her forehead. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have accused you. It’s against all my training. It was just . . . that note, it’s . . . psychotic. It’s not just childish nastiness, it’s deeply disturbed. I realize it’s . . . authentic. And we’re going to . . . to do something. You wait here. I’ll be right back.” She was out of the room faster than Alison. I didn’t know where she was going.

  The clock kept jumping. The period was half over. I thought it’d probably be doing Venable a favor if I just went on to study hall. I’d have bet anything she’d never come near me again. I seemed to be learning a lot about human psychology all at once—abnormal and normal.

  It was pointless, as Alison had said. But I decided to wait Miss Venable out. Five minutes. Ten. Then a man stepped into the cubicle. It was Mr. Sampson. He was a counselor too, as well as Dean of Boys. People interested in school politics said he really ran the place on behalf of the invisible principal. And Mr. Sampson had been there since the dark ages, appointed like Madam Malevich by the long dead senior Mrs. Lawver.

  He looked enough like a principal to be one, tall and stoop-shouldered. He was the only male I hadn’t been worrying about lately, mainly because I hadn’t happened to run across him in the hall. He held the note in his hand.

  “You’re Gail Osburne? I hope you won’t mind if I . . . step in on Miss Venable’s behalf. This note you showed her . . . well, it’s pretty strong stuff. I’m afraid she thinks she bungled her attempt to help you. She’s new this year, you know.”

  There was a long pause then. What was I supposed to say? Was it my fault she couldn’t handle her job? “I can understand,” he finally went on, “that you would bring this situation to a woman. However, I hope you won’t mind if I offer to help. Since the note seems to come from a boy, and I’m Dean of Boys. You understand?”

  I nodded.

  “You know, boys at your age are mostly all talk.”

  “Even if they are, why should I have to listen?”

  “Well, now . . . Gail, that’s a good point. A very good point. And you shouldn’t have to. And I can see you’re not the kind of girl who . . . well, you’re just not that kind of girl. You know what I mean?”

  “No.”

  “Well, let’s skip that. Usually in a situation of this type, the girl knows the boy who’s . . . giving her trouble. I expect if you really give it some thought, you can come up with the name of a boy who’s perhaps . . . hanging around where you are, making remarks, that kind of thing.”

  “No, I can’t. Besides, if he was saying these things to my face, why would he need the notes and the phone calls?”

  Without answering that, Mr. Sampson said, “What are the phone calls like?”

  “Usually just silence. Onc
e a filthy word. And usually when I’m someplace alone.”

  “That doesn’t give us much to work on, does it?” The expression on his face brightened when the passing bell rang. “I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll have a word with two or three of our problem boys. They’re in and out of my office half the time as it is. And then maybe—”

  “Are these guys you’re talking about able to write—or even spell a note like that?” I asked him.

  He edged off Miss Venable’s desk and straightened his tie. “You better skip along to third period now. No sense making me write you out a late pass, is there?”

  I was way down the hall before I realized Mr. Sampson had kept the note.

  * * *

  How can I explain where my head was by Saturday night, and I was sitting at Mrs. Montgomery’s? It’s so easy now to look back and see that every step I took was wrong. Quicksand comes to mind.

  I blew an entire day marveling at Miss Venable. This practically adult woman, drawing a salary, who could jump up from her desk and go hide, probably in the faculty women’s lounge, while somebody else got rid of me.

  But by Friday afternoon I’d psyched myself into a totally unreal world. No phone calls all week. Both notes out of my hands. Alison had said it back at the beginning: it never happened. For about five minutes I thought about quitting the baby-sitting job for Mrs. Montgomery. No sense in tempting fate . . . or whoever it was. Except he didn’t exist any more. Besides, I should be earning more and spending less.

  Friday night Steve and I went out and did all the things he hates most, and I had a great time because there were people everywhere we went. Herds of them. Droves of them. We went to the football rally, and it poured rain so hard they couldn’t even get the bonfire lit.

  Still, the rah-rah girls got up on the wet stage and did their pompom numbers, and the football team did their thing, completely suited up and bursting through big hoops of soggy paper. “Do we let a little rain dampen our spirits?” “NO!” the crowd roared. “Does our team play their best in the mud?” “YES!” the crowd roared. I tried to shelter Steve with half my slicker, but he only stood there, looking red-nosed and rat-drowned.

  Then we went to Friendly’s, and everybody was there, smoking up a storm, building pyramids of soda spoons, leaving nickel tips in the bottoms of sundae glasses. The jukebox throbbed “Why Can’t We Be Friends?” by War.

  Alison and Phil were there, in a booth on the other side of the counter, and she and I sent our old upbeat signals back and forth through the smoke from a variety of weeds. I’d already decided not to hold it against her—that running off to leave me in Miss Venable’s incompetent hands. When you’ve got a problem your friends can’t face, you become a . . . leper. Maybe I’d only dragged Alison in because I was jealous of her too perfect life style. Subconscious motivation. Case closed.

  When we got home, Steve kissed me good night. A nice, chaste kiss, nearly missing my lips entirely. Or did I turn away at the last second? We seemed to be back at the beginning again, without the thrill of discovery. I hung my wet slicker on a hanger out in the hall where it would drip on the tiles. Then I walked serenely past the phone and up the stairs to bed.

  * * *

  But on Saturday night it all fell apart. Mrs. Montgomery and the coach hadn’t been gone fifteen minutes, and the world seemed to be tearing at the seams. The house creaked and moaned on a windless night. The mantel clock throbbed like “The Tell-Tale Heart.” Even the fireplace tools seemed to rattle in their brass stand. I stood in the archway looking out to the hall where I could see that yes, yes, yes, I’d put the chain on the door, and no, no, no, the phone wasn’t about to ring.

  I waited another hour with the two dreaming Montgomery kids fast asleep right above my head, in my care. But something was wrong with the mantel clock. It was ticking its heart out, and yet only ten minutes had passed. Not an hour. Ten minutes.

  I flew at the phone. Why hadn’t I thought of this before? If I kept talking on the phone, it couldn’t ring. You couldn’t just leave it off the hook, it squawked. I dialed Steve’s number, and Mrs. Pastorini answered. I stuttered, but she seemed willing to wait. Steve was out, gone all the way to Norwalk with his dad to take delivery on a shipment of pipe, probably wouldn’t be back before midnight. Did I want him to call me, even that late?

  No. Yes. “Yes, Mrs. Pastorini, as soon as he—no, would you ask him to come over to Mrs. Montgomery’s as soon as he gets home, no matter when?”

  That would have taken courage if I’d been thinking. Asking a boy’s mother to tell him to come to the house where you’re baby-sitting. But Mrs. Pastorini only said she’d give him the message. And as I hung up, she said, “Bye now, honey,” which is probably what she always said at the end of a phone call.

  I eased the receiver back on the cradle, and the minute—no, the second I took my hand away, the phone rang. It was almost supernatural. When the receiver was next to my ear again, it was still warm.

  And there at the other end was the most terrifying voice I’d ever heard. Sometimes I still hear it, just as I’m going to sleep or in a room that’s too quiet. It wasn’t quite human. Neither male nor female. A high, hollow voice, someone crying out the words from the inside of a bell. Disguised, falsetto, almost like a child shrieking. But more controlled than that because I understood every word.

  “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”

  There was a sobbing, whistling laugh. It was too terrible to be real. And too real to be a horror movie. If there’d been a hundred people in the house with me, all ready to defend the place, I’d still have been paralyzed.

  And then that voice again.

  “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”

  I remember walking up the stairs next, like an old woman, one step at a time, resting on the landing, bending because my stomach felt cramped. My one thought was to check on the kids, make sure they were all right. They were both asleep. I sat down on the junior bed of the older one and looked down at her. She was sleeping furiously, with her thumb held lightly in her mouth by the edges of her teeth. I concentrated on her name. I hardly knew them. They were always asleep. This was Angie. The little one in the bed with the sides was Melissa—Missy.

  “Don’t you worry, Angie. I’m here to protect you. You too, Missy.” I whispered to keep from waking them. I don’t know how long I sat on Angie’s bed, looking back and forth from her to Missy. And then I knew I wasn’t going to make it through the evening.

  I ran out of the room, down the stairs, and began rummaging in the drawer of the telephone table. The scrap of paper with the Previously Marrieds Club number was at the bottom. I lifted the receiver, and tried to dial, hoping I could page Mrs. Montgomery. My finger skipped out of the dial, and I started over. The chimes on the front door rang then. I heard a scuffling sound outside, someone wiping his feet on the welcome mat.

  “Steve!” I dropped the phone and ran across to the front door. The chain lock jammed, then loosened, then jammed again. Then it fell free, and I threw the door open.

  But it wasn’t Steve. No, the time was all wrong. It couldn’t have been Steve.

  CHAPTER

  Nine

  I know now how stupid it was to throw that door open. But it already seemed to be past midnight. Steve might have come back from Norwalk. When I saw Phil Lawver instead, I was only a little surprised.

  He was standing under the light with the collar of his suede jacket turned up all around. “Oh hi, Gail,” he said in his usual drawl. “Listen, is Alison here?”

  “No, is she supposed to be?”

  “Well, that’s just it,” he said. “I don’t know. I can’t figure out where she is, and I don’t like her roaming around after dark. Anything could happen. Can I use your phone to call and see if she’s home?”

  I pointed out the phone to him and walked into the living room, thinking that at least the phone couldn’t ring for the next minute or so. I was standing on the hearth rug, checking the time on the mantel clock—it
was nearly midnight—when I heard the voice again.

  The same shrill sexless voice, ringing like a bell. But it was there in the room with me.

  “ARE YOU IN THE HOUSE ALONE?”

  It ended in a kind of giggle.

  I whirled around, and Phil was standing in the archway. His hands were stuck in the back pockets of his cords, and he’d dropped his jacket on the floor. He was the picture of coolness, and grinning, which was a rare thing for him.

  “Had you fooled, didn’t I, Gail? The sound was probably even weirder over the phone. Wasn’t it weirder?”

  “Oh, no, Phil. Has it been you, all along? That’s . . . cra—”

  “I’ve been keeping tabs on you. Checking you out pretty close. The phone calls just to keep in touch. And the notes. It was a lot of trouble, actually, for a cheap little—but then I guess you know what I think about you. And the hanky-panky out at the lake with Steve. That was fairly disgusting too. You’ve taken up a lot of my time, more than you’re worth, actually. Something ought to be done about girls like you, Gail. As my mother would say, you tend to lower the tone.”

  “Phil, look, I think you’ve got a problem, and—”

  “Don’t use the psychological approach with me, Gail. You’re more the physical type anyway, aren’t you?”

  Phil Lawver was moving toward me, edging across the room as he talked, gliding around the coffee table. And there wasn’t any place for me to go, if I could have moved. I still couldn’t quite absorb it. He looked so much the way he always looked. The face crisply chiseled, the panther grace of his movements. I don’t think we’d ever really had anything to say to each other, never been in the same room alone. Till now. And he was getting closer. And it didn’t matter that I knew who he was.

  “Do you?”

  “What—what did you say?”

  “You’re not paying attention, Gail. I said, you don’t save it all for Pastorini, do you? Be a shame if you did. He’s not worth it. He’s nothing. He doesn’t exist.”

  “Phil, listen. Tell me one thing. Have you been drinking?”