The Secret of Rover

by Rachel Wildavsky

  Katie and David dared not speak to each other, but separately they concentrated on these sounds and smells, searching with their ears and noses for information about where they might be. In the distant background they seemed to hear car doors slamming and occasionally the piercing voices of children. Beneath it all was the roar of a highway, very close by. From the sound of things, they were at some kind of roadside rest stop and had taken their place in a long row of trucks.

  Then—too abruptly—they heard their own driver’s voice once again, and very nearby. He had returned. They heard him fumble with the latch on the truck’s rear doors and slip the bolt loose.

  So this was it. Quickly David switched on his flashlight and shined it at his watch. It was 3:35 in the morning. They had been locked in this truck for more than four hours. Dark and smelly and uncomfortable though the truck was, it had become their refuge, and now they were about to leave it. The metal wall that had shielded them from wondering eyes and strangers’ hands was about to be thrown open.

  It was a moment of great, great danger.

  Click. The latch released and the doors at the rear of the truck swung open. Though it was still night, the rest stop was brightly lit and the great lamps instantly chased the sheltering darkness from the narrow rows of boxes where David and Katie were hiding.

  With a clatter, the ramp dropped from the truck to the pavement below. Heavy, booted feet climbed up and in. They heard the driver unstrap the dolly from the wall and lower it, rattling, to the floor. They heard the rustling of papers, as if he had paused to flip through a clipboard.

  The driver of their truck was getting ready to unload.

  David and Katie were tense with attention and thinking fast, and they both came rapidly to the same conclusions: The driver was in the truck, and that was bad. On the other hand, he appeared to be alone, and that was good. Only one man stood between them and safety. When they got past him, they would be in the clear.

  All they needed was about thirty seconds. That’s how long it would take for them to escape. But for those thirty seconds, they needed this man to go away.

  And to go away now, thought Katie, whose mind was turning like a motor. Because in about one more minute, she thought, he’ll figure out what he’s here to get. Any minute now he’ll start looking for the boxes he needs. With any luck, they won’t be in the back row, where we are. With any luck, he won’t find the mess we made with the crackers and the drinks. With any luck, he won’t notice it stinks in here—no way, she thought with despair, no way he won’t notice that.

  Hurry, thought David, whose mind was running through the same course as his sister’s. Let’s load up that dolly and roll it away. And dude, don’t breathe.

  Smack. The unseen man slapped his clipboard down on top of a box. “Hokay,” he muttered, and they heard him stretching. “Ho-kay.” Slowly, ponderously, he ambled down the center aisle toward the back of the truck.

  No. David and Katie tried to flatten themselves into their corner. There were long pauses between each of the man’s steps. Katie feared that her heart would pound its way out of her chest.

  “Whoa!” In the middle of the truck, the man abruptly stopped short. “What the—”

  He had found the broken box of snacks! Now he would certainly search the truck. David shot an agonized look at Katie.

  “What the heck is this?” They could hear the man stoop to examine the broken bits of box and the scattered crackers. “Somebody been in here?” Purposefully now, he strode toward the back of the truck, inspecting every aisle for additional damage. “Dang!” he cried, finding the broken carton of drinks.

  Closer the man came, and ever closer. Now he was only one aisle away from where David and Katie crouched tightly in the very back of the truck. Now they could hear the indignant huffing of his breath. They braced themselves for his face around the corner, his cry of astonishment.

  But it did not come.

  Instead—from the other side of the very last wall of boxes that separated him from them—they heard him snort in sudden disgust.

  “Whew!” exclaimed the man. “Stinks in here! Stinks like all heck!”

  Abruptly, he turned on his heel and strode back toward the open door of the truck. They heard him push past the dolly, stomp down the ramp, pivot, and head straight for his cab.

  Their ears told them what happened next, as clearly as if they had seen it with their eyes. They heard the door of the cab opening, the man hopping in, and the door slamming shut.

  They did not wait to hear his angry voice on the phone.

  In less time than it would have taken to say it, David and Katie leaped to their feet and streaked down the truck’s center aisle. They paused for a split second at the ramp and then, knowing it would rattle, jumped from the back to the ground. It was farther than they’d thought, and David tumbled when he landed, slightly twisting his ankle.

  But no twisted ankle on earth could have stopped him at that moment. David took a quick, wild look around him. The King Foods truck had parked in a row of big rigs that were lined up alongside one another like the keys on a piano, with narrow aisles between them. Now David headed down the nearest of these aisles, slipping between their own truck and the enormous vehicle next to it.

  “Not that way!” whispered Katie urgently, panicked that their driver would see them through his passenger-side window. Instead, she struck out across the backs of the trucks, moving tailpipe to tailpipe down the row.

  She heard David following. Good. Now, with every muscle in her body longing to run, Katie willed herself to walk. They had needed a miracle and, incredibly, they had gotten one. Their driver had left the truck. They had escaped unseen. Undoubtedly, the driver was calling the police at this very moment. Within minutes, a search would be on for the unknown stowaways who had trashed the King Foods truck.

  Running, they would stick out like sore thumbs. Walking would be torture under these conditions, but walking was their only hope.

  They reached the end of the row of trucks. At their left, a gigantic parking lot was lit as bright as day by great floodlights. Gazing across this open space, they could now take their first good look at the spot where their trip as stowaways had taken them.

  They had been right. It was an enormous all-purpose rest area near the junction of several massive highways. In the glare of the lights they could see that beyond the long row of trucks where they had disembarked was a huge gas station backed by a busy glass-fronted market. Past that was—unsurprisingly—a King Foods. And away across the sprawling parking lot was a visitors’ center, where scores of people streamed in and out.

  This visitors’ center would be their salvation. Right now, a crowd of people was a place to hide.

  “Hungry?” asked Katie. She did not whisper but spoke at a normal volume with pretended casualness. “C’mon, let’s meet Dad at the food court.” And just as if no one in the world were hunting for her, she sauntered across the wide-open space in the full view of anyone and everyone.

  David followed. And a few moments later, they melted into the crowd and flowed through the double glass doors into the visitors’ center.

  WELCOME TO YONKERS! read a sign above the front door. PLEASE HELP US KEEP OUR REST STATION CLEAN.

  They were in. The air-conditioning was as frosty as a tall cold drink and the shops and restaurants were normal. Never had normal looked so good.

  “Yes,” said David quietly, pumping his fist. But no one heard and no one cared. They were home free.

  Or so they thought.

  The visitors’ center housed a food court and various small shops. But with stiff legs Katie and David headed straight for the restrooms.

  Katie had never been so glad to see sinks and toilets and paper towels. She was very dirty, and it was surprisingly comforting to wash. Despite her desire not to call attention to herself, she spent an astonishingly long time simply staring at her face in the mirror. She met her own eyes as if they were those of a stranger and she felt
exceedingly weird.

  At long last she emerged and rejoined her brother. She found David with his face to the corner of a shop window.

  “I never thought I’d be so glad to see a toilet,” she said.

  But David did not reply. He was staring hard at a display of . . . earrings?

  “David!” she said. “What are you looking at?”

  “Shhh!” he hissed. Face to the ground, he headed rapidly for the exit.

  “And where are you going?” Katie hurried after him, scrambling to keep up. “David, I want to look around.” She felt relieved to be in a crowd of families and glad to be moving her legs. She didn’t want to get right back into another truck.

  He paused for only an instant to reply. “I’ve been seen,” he said quietly. “Let’s go.”

  Looking down, they melted into the crowd and streamed with it out of the building and into the parking lot. David was striding ahead of Katie toward the gas station, and she half trotted to keep up. Lining the wall of the station was a row of vending machines. Still saying nothing, David made a beeline for a soda machine and stopped in front of it. He stared as if contemplating what to buy.

  “Who? Who on earth saw you?”

  “The driver. Our driver. The King Foods guy. He was in the bathroom.”

  “But he doesn’t know you!”

  “He saw me, remember?”

  Dismay flooded over Katie. Of course. The driver had gotten a look at David at the gas station back in Washington, before they hopped a ride on his truck.

  “He was in the men’s room,” David continued, now pretending to push a couple of buttons. “I was washing up at the sink and he came in.”

  “Did he recognize you?”

  “Yes.”

  “David!”

  “But he couldn’t place me. He just stared for a minute looking confused, like he was trying to figure out where he knew me from. I acted like I didn’t notice—like nothing was wrong. I just dried my hands on my shirt and walked out.”

  “The minute he does place you, he’ll know there’s something wrong.” Katie was thinking fast. “No way it could be a coincidence, us being here.”

  “Totally no way.”

  Katie was still thinking. “If he figures it out—if he remembers where he saw you—he’s going to know it was you in his truck. He is so going to know.”

  “Correct.”

  “Then they’ll be combing this place, looking for us. We have to leave now!”

  “Right. But to leave we have to find a truck.”

  “Could we just—”

  “Shhh!”

  Katie followed the direction of David’s gaze as he shushed her. On their left, just beyond the vending machines, a man had planted himself against the wall. He fished a cell phone out of his pocket, thumbed in a number, and crammed the device up close to his face. His back was turned to David and Katie, but David was right—he was close enough to overhear them.

  “I don’t want a soda,” said Katie in a louder voice. “I’d rather get something to eat.” She put her hand in her bulging pocket, as if she were jiggling change instead of juice boxes and crackers.

  “Not me. I’m thirsty,” said David, copying her stagy voice.

  “Yo! It’s me.” The man to their left spoke into his phone. “Yonkers,” he added after a moment, apparently in reply to a question he’d just been asked.

  Staring at his back out of the side of her eyes, Katie noticed something that made her heart leap. She nudged David surreptitiously and when he met her eyes she mouthed, “His jacket.”

  David glanced with pretended indifference at the man’s jacket. It was styled like a truck driver’s. Then he glanced at the logo scrawled across the back. mega burger, it read.

  Mega Burger! This guy must drive a Mega Burger truck! David and Katie both loved Mega Burger. They would definitely need more food, and riding in a burger truck would be even better than riding in a grocery truck. Both children strained to overhear the man’s conversation. He’d said where he was; now perhaps he would say where he was going.

  I-91, thought Katie. I-91 north, please.

  But the driver appeared to be stuck in a long talk about something quite irrelevant.

  “Na, I no hear not’ing,” he said in accented and very annoyed English. Another long silence followed and he hunched yet more tightly over his phone.

  “Can’t do dis now,” he protested, his voice rising slightly. “You want I lose dis job? Dis good for anyt’ing if I lose dis? I got a good route—it take me da right way. So first I make delivery. Den we see what we can do.”

  Like we care, thought David. But Katie felt very differently. A creeping unease was crawling up her spine.

  “Yeah, she here wit’ me,” he said after another long pause. “Nort’. We go nort’ up 91.”

  Down by his side, where the man couldn’t see, David made a quick thumbs-up and jabbed excitedly at Katie’s ribs.

  But Katie’s mind was shifting and turning. There was something about this that she did not like. What was it?

  “Dis mornin’. We dere dis mornin’, at dat old house.”

  That old house. Something was wrong. Really, really wrong. In a single explosive realization she put it together: The accent. Katkajan.

  Katie went rigid as a spasm of fear swept over her. And just as it did, the man’s voice rose in sudden anger.

  “Dey gone, dat’s what!” Then—remembering—he lowered his voice. “Dey get away ‘dose kids,” he whispered. “Bot’ of dem. T’rough a leetle hole. So we goin’ nort’ to da uncle, to look.” And with those words he shifted his body, throwing his profile into view. His nose canted slightly to the left.

  Horrified, Katie turned to David. One glance told her there was no need to say anything.

  Act normal; act normal. David turned his back to the man and—slowly—began strolling along the wall away from the vending machines. Katie followed, also willing herself to walk as if nothing were wrong. But while her body sauntered, her mind raced and swirled.

  Where on earth could they go? They had to leave this gas station, but for where? Back at the visitors’ center the King Foods man might be hunting for them, right this very moment. The King Foods store would certainly not do. It was as if a net were tightening around them.

  They reached the corner and David threw Katie a look over his shoulder. His face was tight with the strain of his casual smile and his eyes telegraphed his question: Which way from here?

  She widened her own eyes and tilted her head slightly to the left. They would head back to the trucks. They had no other choice. Wordlessly David veered in that direction, leading them across the brightly lit sea of gas pumps.

  She knew it was a bad choice, but she could see no alternative and she followed. Then she collided into David’s back with a bump. He had halted dead in his tracks.

  David pivoted and again their eyes met. His were two deep pools of blackest panic. She looked over his shoulder and saw why. Over by the trucks were the flashing blue lights of two police cruisers. The King Foods truck was open and from across the pavement excited voices could be heard within it.

  The net was closing.

  Katie turned on her heel and headed toward the glass front of the station’s convenience market. Again she knew it was a terrible choice—the lights, the people, the likelihood that the Katkajanian would go there next. Her blood drummed in her temples as she shouldered her way inside. The thrumming in her head was so loud that she could barely hear the hum of voices all around them. David was behind her, and instinctively both of them headed for the bathrooms. They would lock themselves in and wait until the coast was clear. They would wait until it was all over. They would wait until the police broke down the doors.

  But the doors of both bathrooms were already locked.

  Magazines. A rack of bright covers stood between the bathrooms and the rest of the store. Katie reached out blindly and lifted a heavy, glossy volume to her face. She would hide within it whil
e waiting for the bathroom door to open. Hunching, she buried her head in its pages. Beside her David was doing the same.

  And then the net fell.

  “Susad! Steved!” A heavy fist landed on Katie’s right shoulder and another landed on David’s left. No. Katie tried to sink still deeper into her magazine, hiding her eyes from the lank hair, the colorless face, that familiar voice.

  “Oh, darligs!” cried the woman in loud, artificial tones that clashed bizarrely with her flat, nasal twang. “I foud you! Sweetie!” she sang out. “They’re here!” As the woman’s nails dug into David’s shoulder, another hand—a man’s this time—grasped his upper arm. Fingers twined around David’s biceps like cords of iron.

  As the man with the crooked nose grabbed David, the lank-haired woman wrapped her fingers tightly around Katie’s hair, in the back where no one could see.

  “What a relief!” she cried. “We were worried sick! You mused ever rud away agaid!”

  These—these kidnappers were pretending to be their parents. So that was their story! With a grunt David attempted to wrench his arm free. The grip that held it tightened like a vise.

  “You no run away no more,” said the man in a stern, fatherly tone. “You no make you mother cry like that. We talk about this at home.” His crossed eyes wandered weirdly around the small store as he began pressing David toward the door.

  Katie looked at David and David looked at Katie. Each read the anguish in the other’s face. The net had closed. It had snapped shut, and they were in it.

  The two children were marched to the door with one fist wrapped around David’s arm, five fingers twisted tightly in Katie’s hair, and their captors grinning like doting parents behind them. But the commotion raised by the lank-haired woman and the crooked-nosed man had drawn notice. People were looking.

  Maybe this meant help. Desperate, Katie met the eyes of a curious woman. There she saw only sternness and rebuke. Of course. That woman would not help her. Katie was a runaway.