They all looked. On the other side of the storage yard Bear was scratching the fence with both front feet. At the foot of the fence just below the plank that had once been the only entrance to the Land of Egypt. Everyone gasped and ran.
A moment later they were all clustered around the plank which, before the fence had been repaired, had been loose at the bottom so that it could be swung to one side. A board that once again seemed to be a little bit loose. Sure enough, when Ken gave it a good whack with his closed fist, it came loose with a rusty creak and swung back, leaving a very familiar narrow entryway.
“So that’s it,” Melanie whispered. “That’s how he got out. Maybe he was in here when Ken knocked, and he did say, ‘Who is it?’ and then he heard those detective guys talking and he just squeezed out through here.”
“Yeah,” Ken said. “You know what I bet? I bet he knocked this board loose again way ahead of time. Like yesterday or something. You know, got it ready, just in case. Just in case he ever needed an escape route. Tobe’s the kind of guy who would think of doing something like that. So then, when he heard those dudes talking to me, he grabbed his stuff and slipped out and ran.”
They all agreed that was probably it. “But where do you suppose he went?” April asked. Pushing the board aside, she slipped out into the empty, deserted alley. One at a time, the others followed her, sliding through easily except for Ken, who had always been a little too broad for such a narrow opening. While he was squeezing his way through, Bear tried to follow, but they shoved him back inside and put the plank back over the opening.
“He can’t have gotten very far,” Ken said. “We could search up and down the alley anyway.”
April didn’t agree. “Not very far?” she said. “Toby’s a fast runner. He could be, miles from here by now.”
Elizabeth nodded. “Anyway, I can’t help search right now. I have to get home right away. I promised my mom I’d come straight home. She’s been real nervous about kidnappers lately.”
“Me too,” Melanie said. “I have to get going. But maybe tomorrow after school we could come back and do a big search. I think my folks would let me come back to the Gypsy Camp tomorrow if we promise to all stay together.”
“Okay,” Ken said. “But I’m going to look around a little. Like, maybe he’s not far from here, hiding behind some garbage cans or something.”
So Ken went off down the alley, and the three girls ran toward the Casa Rosada while, behind the fence, Bear sat near the loose plank and whined softly to himself.
Seventeen
THAT AFTERNOON, at the very moment when Ken was arriving at the gate of the Gypsy Camp, Toby had been rearranging the stuff in his backpack, getting it ready in case he had to make a quick exit. Actually there wasn’t much to arrange. On New Year’s Eve, when he finally realized that the only thing he could do was run away, it was already so late that he barely had time to throw a comb, a few socks, an extra pair of jeans, and a flashlight into his pack. Not much to start your whole life over with. But there it was, all his worldly goods, taking up no more than a couple of inches at the bottom of the beat-up old backpack.
But now, of course, thanks to the rest of the Gypsies, there was also quite a bit of food. He peered into each of the bags, three paper ones and Ken’s king-sized plastic job. The egg rolls were all gone and the doughnuts, but there were still a few cookies, two apples, a good-sized piece of cheese, and a big chunk of French bread. It would all fit into one of the paper bags now, so he consolidated, tearing open the others to let Bear get at the crumbs. Then he finished the job by zipping up the pockets and adjusting the straps. Everything was ready if he had to make a fast getaway. And just barely in time.
He heard the bicycle first, a whir of gears and then the squeal of brakes and skid of tires on gravel. It definitely sounded like Ken, particularly the squeal and skid. Ken was that kind of a bike jockey. He’d just called, “Who is it?” and was on his way to the gate when suddenly the other noises began to kick in. The sound of a motor first, the crunch of wheels on gravel, the slamming of car doors, and then the voices. Strange men’s voices!
He waited long enough to be sure, until he heard one of them mention his name, actually say something about Tobias Alvillar, before he grabbed his backpack and ran for it. Ran right to the old entrance he’d had the good sense to put back into working order earlier that same day, just in case something like this should happen.
Of course Bear tried to come with him, but he pushed him back and slid the plank into place. A split second later he was off around the corner and out into the main alley, running in a kind of terror-stricken panic like a poor hunted fox. But he hadn’t gone far before he spotted a kind of fox hole. Actually, a long section of cement drainage pipe lying along the edge of the alley waiting for the new sewer system to go in. After throwing his backpack as far back into the pipe as he could, he wiggled and squirmed his way in after it.
He stayed in the pipe for quite a long time. It was a fairly tight fit, big for a pipe, but not all that big. Which was a good thing actually, since it might not even be considered worth investigating as a possible hiding place. At least not by the guys whose voices he’d heard—big, deep voices that probably came from big, deep chests. Guys who might have forgotten how small a space a skinny kid could squeeze himself into if he was desperate enough. As a matter of fact the kind of space, it occurred to him a few minutes later, that even a skinny kid might have a little bit of trouble getting back out of.
He wondered about that for a while—the getting-out problem—before he got up his nerve to give it a try. But then, just as he started to claw and wiggle backward down the pipe, he began to hear footsteps. The footsteps went past him down the alley and then slowly came back, as if the person was looking for something. With fear suddenly tightening his throat, he frantically clawed and wiggled back the other way and then lay still, holding his breath and straining his ears. But after the footsteps faded away for the second time and didn’t come back, his panic slowly began to fade.
Some time later Toby began to feel hungry and made the discovery that unzipping a backpack and getting out a paper sack full of food while lying flat on your face was surprisingly difficult. And eating wasn’t all that easy either. But he went on eating, for lack of anything better to do, until it occurred to him that it might not be the best place in the world to put on a lot of weight. So he pushed what was left, actually nothing but a big chunk of French bread, back into the pack and went on lying there, waiting and listening and, after a long while, even getting a little sleepy. Not that he was going to go to sleep. No chance. Not a chance in the world that a poor fugitive trapped in a sewer pipe could actually fall asleep.…
Some time later he woke up feeling as though quite a bit of time had passed. Actually, it seemed like forever. He was cold and stiff and … And just beyond his feet there was this weird snuffling and clawing noise as if some kind of wild animal were trying to crawl into the pipe with him. He was desperately trying to pull his feet up out of reach when the whimpering started. It was a very familiar whimper.
“Bear, you klutz,” he whispered. “How’d you get out?” But actually he had a pretty good idea. Leaving in such a hurry, he probably hadn’t replaced the plank carefully enough, and the big mutt had pushed it open and escaped.
Just as he’d feared, wiggling his way backward out of the pipe wasn’t a piece of cake, particularly not with Bear bouncing around on the parts of him that were already out. But then a surprising thing happened. When Toby’s head finally emerged from the pipe, Bear only waited long enough to give him a big sloppy greeting all over both cheeks before he pulled away and started off up the alley at a steady trot.
“Come back here,” Toby called softly, but Bear didn’t come. He’d heard all right, that was for sure, because he stopped and looked back. But then he only whined coaxingly and set off again, moving away into the deepening shadows of evening. Toby hurriedly finished fishing his backpack out of the pipe, sh
rugged himself into it, and after glancing up and down the dimly lit, deserted alley, ran after the rapidly disappearing dog.
What happened in the next half hour was entirely Bear’s fault. Trotting along just a few yards ahead and coming partway back whenever he got too far away, Old Shaggy Butt kept just out of reach. At first Toby followed because Bear was basically Marshall’s dog, and he, Toby, didn’t want to be responsible for letting him run away. His plan, if he had any, was just to catch up with the mutt and take him back home, before he even started deciding where to go or what to do himself. Running along after the sneaky animal, who somehow managed to keep a few feet ahead, he went up the alley, crossed over a parking lot, and came out on Norwich Avenue.
On Norwich, Toby’s tactics had to change a little. For one thing, there were other people to deal with here. Hurrying people for the most part, on their way home for dinner probably, and not particularly interested in a boy and a dog. Not unless the boy was making himself conspicuous by sneaking up every time the dog stopped at a tree or fire hydrant and pouncing triumphantly, only to be faked out at the last moment. After trying it once or twice, and noticing that other pedestrians were stopping to enjoy the show, he decided to cool it. Bear, the old four-legged showboat, seemed to be getting a kick out of all the snickers and giggles, and Toby had to admit that he probably would have too, under normal circumstances. But at the moment, what with being a fugitive and all, attracting a lot of extra attention didn’t seem like a totally great idea.
So then Toby just gave up trying to catch the dog. Slowing down to a nonchalant stroll, he tried to convince himself that if Bear ran off and left him, so much the better. He was tired of chasing the dumb flea trap. Let him run off and get lost, or get run over by a truck, or whatever. He, Toby Alvillar, couldn’t care less.
But then, as soon as Toby began to slow down, Bear did, too. Acting as though he’d forgotten that Toby was anywhere around, he strolled down the sidewalk stopping to sniff and piddle at every tree trunk and lamppost. But always just out of grabbing range. At about that point, just thinking about how world-class stubborn Bear was being, Toby began to get angry. The frustrating mutt went along with you just fine as long as you were doing what he wanted you to, but if you started trying to call the shots, that was it. Forget it! Finito! Too bad for you, pal.
Muttering under his breath, stuff like, “Wait till I get my hands on you, you stupid hairball,” Toby was still forcing himself to go on strolling when, about six blocks down Norwich, Bear suddenly crossed the avenue and turned up Arbor Street. Toby turned too, and it was right about then that he started to develop another reason to keep on following the stubborn dog. The thing was, stubborn or not, Bear did seem to know exactly where he was going. And under the circumstances, it was beginning to feel as if it was a good thing somebody did.
The first few blocks on Arbor went through a small business section, and because most of the shops had closed for the evening, there wasn’t much pedestrian traffic. But Bear kept right on going toward the east where Arbor ran into the old industrial area on the edge of town. An unfamiliar area of mostly vacant lots and boarded-up warehouses with here and there a scattering of abandoned houses and small, crummy-looking stores.
By that time it was getting late. A clock in a liquor store window said almost eight. Eight o’clock on a very dark night. A thick bank of tule fog was oozing down from the north, and on Arbor, where the streetlamps were farther apart, it was definitely spooky. But, in a way, the fog was a good thing. If Toby couldn’t see other people until he was practically on top of them, the good news was they couldn’t see him either. A good thing, in case they happened to be the police out looking for a missing kid, or maybe somebody even more dangerous.
He wasn’t exactly terrified the whole time, but now and then he wasn’t far from it. Like when a patrol car cruised by and he had to duck behind a big debris box. Or another time when he was passing a crummy-type bar called the After Hours Club and a bunch of tough-looking guys stopped talking and stared at him as he walked by.
He probably would have gone back long before, but he knew Bear wouldn’t come with him. Toby was just about to make up his mind to go back, even if he had to go alone, when Bear trotted eagerly off the sidewalk and onto a narrow path that led toward the rear of a small wooden building all by itself on an overgrown lot.
It wasn’t a large building, hardly bigger than an ordinary house in fact, but it seemed to have a kind of tower over the front doors, and the windows were pointed at the top like the windows of churches. And there was a sign, too. By the faint glow of a distant streetlamp it was just possible to make out some faded lettering: Arbor Street Baptist. So it was, or had been, a church, but it wasn’t likely that any services had been held there for a very long time. The paint was peeling from the walls, and heavy planks had been nailed across the doors and the bottom panes of the windows. Bear was closer now, only a few steps ahead, and recklessly Toby plunged after him. He almost had him once, but Bear pulled away and scooted on down the path that now was bordered by overgrown bushes, which shut out even the faint light of the distant streetlamps. A path that led into total darkness.
Toby was turning to go back, to get back to the light and away from the threatening, enclosing underbrush, when suddenly something warm and furry pressed against his leg. Bear! He’d caught him at last. Grabbing the dog’s collar with both hands, he was whispering, “Come on, Bear. Let’s get out of here,” when the big mutt lunged ahead so suddenly that Toby was pulled off-balance. He stumbled forward and found himself plunging down a short flight of stairs. Stumbling, lurching, and skidding, he lost his hold on Bear and crashed to a stop against a wall. And then, as he struggled to regain his balance, the wall turned out be a rough wooden door that jiggled and creaked and swung open onto black nothingness. Nothing except blinding darkness, a sense of deep, echoing space, and the smell of stale, damp air. He was backing away, feeling desperately for the first stair, when from somewhere in the dark, musty distance there came the sound of a match being struck, and then a strange, grating voice.
“Bruno,” the voice creaked, “is that you? Where have you been, you ugly monster?”
Eighteen
IT WAS QUITE late that same night, at about the time that Toby was following Bear along Arbor Street, when the phone began ringing in the Halls’ apartment on the third floor of the Casa Rosada apartment house. April’s grandmother answered the ring and a moment later called, “April. Where are you? It’s for you.”
April had been out on the balcony at the time looking down on the shadow-haunted alley and thinking about Toby’s being out there somewhere all alone in the dark, foggy night. Wondering where he was and if he was cold and lonely—and maybe even terribly frightened. She didn’t like to think about people being terribly frightened. Particularly not since last November when she’d found out what it was like. She was shivering when she came in, and not just with the cold. As she picked up the phone, Caroline smiled and said, “The usual,” which of course meant that it was Melanie.
“April? Hi.” Melanie’s voice was excited. “I found out.”
“Found out? How? When?”
“Just now. In the dictionary. You know. About ‘ethical dilemmas.’ ”
For a moment April couldn’t imagine what she was talking about, but then she remembered. “Oh. I thought you meant”—she glanced toward her grandmother, who was reading the paper only a few feet away—“something else.”
Melanie understood. “Oh, like where Toby is? No, ’fraid not. Wish I had.” She sighed. “But I did find out what his father meant when he said he didn’t want to cause an ‘ethical dilemma.’ I looked it up. ‘Ethical’ means it has to do with what’s right and what’s wrong, and a ‘dilemma’ is—”
April thought she knew. “A mess,” she interrupted. “Doesn’t it mean some kind of big messy problem?”
“Right. A big messy problem that there’s no good way out of. So an ‘ethical dilemma’ is the ki
nd of problem that whatever answer you choose, it’s not a good choice. Like when you have to choose”—Melanie lowered her voice—“between lying or breaking a promise. Get it?”
“Yeah, I get it.” April didn’t dare discuss it under the circumstances, but she knew exactly what Melanie was referring to at that particular moment. Like when Toby’s dad asked you if you’d seen Toby since he’d left home.
“Well, I guess you can’t talk much at the moment?” Melanie, as usual, guessed correctly.
“Right. That’s right. I can’t.”
“Okay. Guess it will wait till—” Melanie was beginning to say when April interrupted.
“No. No it won’t,” she said. She couldn’t explain. Not with Caroline sitting right there in the room. She couldn’t say that she absolutely had to talk to someone about the things she’d been thinking out there on the balcony or else she’d have nightmares again for sure. Talking to Caroline had helped a lot lately with the dark-alley nightmares, but right now talking to any adult about Toby was impossible. So the only other possibility was to talk to Melanie.
“Uh, look,” April went on, “do you still have …” She thought quickly. “Do you still have that book?”
“Which book?”
“The one about Gypsies. You know. The long one Mrs. George found for us.”
“Yeah,” Melanie said. “It’s still here. Why?”
“Why do you think, silly? I want to read it. Could I come down and get it?”
“Right now? It’s pretty late.”
“I know. I won’t stay very long. I just want to get the book.”
Melanie said she thought that would be okay and so did Caroline, as long as April didn’t stay more than five minutes. April started down to the second floor, thinking about what she wanted to say to Melanie and the kinds of helpful ideas she hoped Melanie would have.
The Gypsy Game Page 10