Hideaway

by Nicole Lundrigan

  Gloria put the phone back real gentle. “He’s on his way,” she said. “He’s going to fix everything, Bids.”

  “That’s good,” I said. I didn’t know if that was true. I reached into my pocket. My little metal piece was still there.

  “Now why don’t you put that silly doll thing away and go brush the dog.”

  I put Jenny the Head by the toaster and took Chicken out to the front porch so I could watch for Telly. I combed out Chicken’s knots. He always had tons of them. The sun was shining and birds were singing. All the long grass outside was still wet. It was hanging over but soon it’d be dry and it’d stand up again. I looked everywhere, but no Rowan. He wasn’t lying down with his mouth and eyes full of rain.

  “Maisy-Bids? You listening with both ears?”

  Gloria had sneaked up behind me and my heart popped right up in my neck. I dropped Chicken’s brush.

  “We got to go over things. Talk about last night. You know, before Telly rolls in here and things get all turned around.”

  Air couldn’t get up my nose. But I smiled.

  “What show were you and Rowan watching before he ran off?”

  “Show?”

  She stuck her fingernails in Chicken’s fur. “On the television.”

  “No show, Gloria. I promise. I didn’t let him inside.”

  “It’s okay, darling.” A real darling this time. “Let him inside? What are you on about?”

  “But I didn’t.”

  “I don’t know what’s got into you. Rowan was never outside, Bids. Not in a storm like that. What a thought to have in your head!”

  My mouth went open. I scritched my head. Was I remembering wrong?

  “No mother would ever allow a child out when there’s lightning, Bids. You got a dreadful habit of lying.”

  “I don’t tell lies, Gloria. I don’t.”

  She touched my hair. “Well, not on purpose, sweetheart. But you do dream up crazy ideas. Get all confused.”

  Gloria was right. Sometimes things got mixed around in my head. And I was always forgetting. Losing my stuff. “Sorry, Gloria. I don’t—”

  “Good girl. And you don’t have to make things up for me. I’m not upset that you and Rowan had a show.”

  Little lights were zooming around inside my eyes.

  “Can you breathe, Bids?”

  I tried to breathe. Chicken stood up and shook himself.

  “Did Rowan even finish the root beer I gave him?”

  I loved root beer. We only had it twice, when Telly took us for burgers.

  A girl on roller skates clipped a tray onto the window. She gave us root beer in frozen mugs with huge handles. Last night Telly said he’d take me and Rowan out to eat. When Rowan got home, maybe we could have root beer again.

  “Are you listening to me? This is important. Real important.”

  Gloria put her hands on my shoulders. They were warm and heavy.

  “Before I went to take my bath. Think hard, Bids. I split the last bottle between you and Rowan. You know I’m generous like that, right?”

  I nodded. A lot of times.

  “Don’t you remember? A cold root beer, and you both snuck an extra show. Even though I said to go straight to bed right after. Don’t that sound about right?”

  I put my hand on my head. I didn’t know.

  “You got to get this straight. Don’t you want Rowan to come home? If you don’t tell this right, Telly’ll be thinking the wrong thing. Blaming me. And Rowan won’t come back if everyone’s angry.”

  “He might.”

  “No, he won’t.” She smiled but her eyes didn’t crinkle up the way they do sometimes. “Just think how special it was last night. I was so upset about that disagreement with Telly, I let you and Row have a treat. A show. Sipping away at your sodas.”

  My mouth watered. I could almost remember the root beer. It was probably real. And it was much nicer than Rowan outside in the rain. Gloria being friendly, not mad. Me and Rowan got squeezed into Telly’s soft brown television chair. I had my head on Rowan’s shoulder. It was a hard shoulder, but I didn’t mind. I remembered the root beer foam tickling my chin. I burped, and Rowan said, “You’re a turtle. Not a warthog.” We could hear Gloria singing in the bathtub. It was a song about someone being in the kitchen. Rowan whispered straight into my earhole, “Just one more show, Turtle. Come on. She won’t know. We’ll hear when she pulls the plug.”

  “Bids? Did you go to bed first?”

  Her hands got extra heavy on my shoulders. I closed my eyes and had to think hard. “I fell asleep,” I said. But not with Chicken. I was with Rowan. “In the chair.”

  “Without brushing your teeth, miss?” Her eyebrows were up, but she didn’t look angry.

  That was a mistake. I forgot to fit it into the story. I looked down at Gloria’s feet. Her toenails were painted purple.

  “That’s okay, darling. And—and when you woke up? Just tell me the truth, Bids.” She was talking fast, and when she took her hands away I could see they were all shaky.

  “And when I woke up.” I thought and thought of a good answer. One that wouldn’t make Gloria frown. “When I woke up, he was just gone.”

  She hugged me. Full and tight. “Oh, you are such a smart little girl. So very clever with details. And an excellent memory! Just like your mother.”

  It felt good being squeezed by Gloria, but I wanted to cry. Me and Rowan might’ve watched a show in Telly’s chair, but it didn’t matter. Rowan still went out the sliding door. I knew he went to find Carl, and I had to keep that secret because I told Rowan I would.

  “He’ll come back, Maisy. Any minute we’ll see him sauntering across that yard like he owns the place.”

  Then I saw Telly’s truck rushing down the middle of the circle. He roared into the yard and he drove right over the grass. His horn honked a bunch of times. Then his door flew open and he exploded into the yard.

  “What the hell is going on?” he yelled.

  Chicken went and stood behind Gloria, and I went and stood behind Chicken.

  “I don’t know, Telly. Like I told you on the phone, he just disappeared.” She was calm as could be.

  “Jesus. That was a rough storm last night. Why would a kid take off in that?”

  “Other than him being upset with you? I got no idea. He doesn’t have my temperament, that’s for sure. How about we go inside. Or do you want the world knowing our business?”

  “The world don’t care, Glow.”

  Then Gloria pointed up the driveway, and when I looked I saw Mrs. Spooner out on her front step. She waved. I was going to wave back, but Gloria grabbed my hand and pulled me into the house. Telly followed us as we went to the kitchen. “You think he went out this way?” He touched the sliding doors.

  “Certain of it. Had to mop up water this morning.”

  In spots the door screen was sewed up with black thread. Other spots were just holes. A breeze came in that smelled like clover and wet grass.

  He had his back to us. “Were you two at each other again?”

  “Theodore Janes. Don’t even try to turn this around on me. There wasn’t a cross word between us. Was there, Bids?”

  I shook my head.

  He looked at his watch and tapped it hard. “Which way’d he go?”

  “That’s the thing. We don’t know. Maisy was asleep, right? Tell your dad what happened. About the extra show in Telly’s chair?”

  When he turned and got close to me, I could see hairs under his nose. They stuck out through his skin. I didn’t like his mustache being gone.

  “What happened, Maisy?” He touched my shoulder like Gloria had done. But his hand was soft and cold.

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “You’re going to have to do better than that, miss.” Gloria pointed her finger at me. “We’re not joking around. This is serious. Your brother could be lost or hurt.”

  Telly said, “We’re not mad, Bids. We just want to find Row.”

 
I thought about seeing Rowan through the door. I thought about his wet shirt falling off his bones. I thought about the trees far away when the yellow lightning glowed. He ran so fast I don’t think he touched the ground. Then when the sky flashed again I saw the woods swallow him in one greedy gulp.

  I looked at Gloria. “Please, Bids,” she said. All the pictures of Rowan in my head started to go gray. Then the other truth, the nicer truth, was getting colors.

  “Gloria was in the bath and we had another show. Rowan said we could.”

  “Of course he would.” Gloria rolled her eyes up.

  “We like being in your chair, Telly. We did.”

  Telly’s face went sad. “You can use it anytime you like, Bids.”

  “And I fell asleep in the chair. Then he wasn’t there no more.”

  “What do you mean, wasn’t there no more?”

  “When—when I looked out again.”

  “Looked out?”

  I could hear Gloria breathing hard. “Woke up, I mean.”

  “I carried her up to bed, didn’t I, darling. I figured Rowan was already gone to his room. The door was shut. What else was I supposed to think?”

  Telly stood up straight. He closed his eyes. He pushed the top of a finger between his eyebrows and pressed hard. “This is unbelievable. Did you ask his friends?”

  “Really? That’s what you got to say? He don’t got no friends, Telly. Other than that Darrell kid he’s clinging onto half the time. I mean what kind of seventeen-year-old wants someone Rowan’s age glued to him?”

  “No one else?”

  “Not a soul.”

  I found a loose thread on my T-shirt and I tugged on it until it snapped. I knew what Gloria said wasn’t true. He did have another friend. A friend who lived in the woods.

  Gloria shivered. She started to cry. “I’m sorry for acting so rotten, Telly. I’m just—I’m just not myself since you left. There’s so much to do all the time, and I can’t handle Rowan. He’s just out of control.”

  “Let’s not worry about that now, Glow. We just got to find him.” Telly hugged her and rubbed at her back. “I don’t know where to start. What do I do?”

  “Maybe the woods? All summer he’s been wandering around in there.”

  “No kid in their right mind’s going in the woods in the dark. Especially the way it was last night.”

  “That’s just it. He’s not in his right mind.” She started crying harder. She put her face in Telly’s chest. “He’s not. He misses you so bad.”

  “Okay, okay. It’s been hard, I know. Come on, now. Don’t be crying. I’m here, Glow. I’ll find him. You can count on Telly, right? I’ll find our boy.”

  Telly went down the hall and out through the front door. He started searching around and calling out. I went behind him to see what he was doing. He got down on his knees. He stuck a stick under the porch and banged it back and forth. Then he went to the side deck and yelled for Rowan. He shone a flashlight under there and shook his head. He went around to the other side and opened the shed like Gloria did. He moved some boxes. Next he went to the potato patch and he looked at the dirt. Nothing was growing so there was nowhere to hide. He walked back and forth over the grass real slow. And then he went into the woods. I couldn’t see him no more. Every few minutes I’d hear him hollering or branches breaking or rocks banging. Sometimes he sounded scared. Sometimes he sounded angry.

  “Please, Rowan!”

  “Goddammit, boy! Show yourself!”

  It was a long, long time before Telly came back. He looked like he rolled around in a buttered-up frying pan. His neck and arms were covered with scrapes, and there were lots of red spots from black fly bites. Some of them were scabs of blood.

  “Not a single sign,” he said. He took the cup towel and wiped his face. “If there was a trace, rain got it washed clear.”

  “Where’d you go?” Gloria asked.

  “All over. Far out as the farms. Behind the school. The playground.”

  I put my hand in my pocket and felt the piece of metal Carl gave me. The more I squeezed at it, the smaller and smaller it got. “Did you, um, go out to the bridge, Telly?”

  “The stone one? Where the old tracks cross over the creek?”

  I nodded. Gloria looked at me hard. “Rowan caught tadpoles there once. With Darrell.”

  “I didn’t go in that far.” Telly put his hand on top of my head. “Besides, he’s not a little boy, Bids. No thirteen-year-old is catching tadpoles.”

  “Oh,” I said.

  He went out of the kitchen and was going upstairs. “I’m taking a shower.”

  “Your soap’s still there, Telly.”

  When he came down again, he was even more red. He drank a big glass of water. We waited and waited. The clock on the wall kept ticking and Rowan still didn’t come home. Telly and Gloria walked in circles around the kitchen. Gloria cried more and Telly gave her another hug. He said, “It’s going to be okay, Glow. We’re in this together.” Then when the sky turned orange and crickets started chirping, he picked up the phone and he called the police.

  ROWAN

  I stretched and yawned. “Get up now,” Carl said again. “Before the sun gets too high.”

  He took my blanket and folded it. He placed it inside a cardboard box on the ground. Then he looped a rope through Girl’s collar, and tied it to the trunk of a tree. He gave her a quick scratch behind the ears, and started walking.

  “Where’re we going?”

  “Where’re we going?” he said back.

  I stayed behind him. We picked our way through shrubs and grass and climbed a steep hill up to the main road. We came out of the woods right behind a sign with swirly letters, Welcome to the Town of Little Sliding. The crushed stone poked my feet. They were still bare but at least my shirt was dry. I nudged my tooth with my tongue and it didn’t wiggle back and forth. It throbbed, but not as bad.

  “You have to see the full day ahead,” Carl said. The buttons on his enormous coat were mismatched with the buttonholes, and it made his body appear lopsided. “You can’t twist it to serve your own purposes. You don’t have maternal rights.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Urh,” he mumbled.

  I could already tell it was going to be warm, and as we stood on the gravel shoulder, Carl was panting. A couple of times he hacked and spat. “Pardon me,” he said.

  A silver transport truck barreled past us. Carl waved an arm, but it didn’t slow. The horn blared, a long whine that trailed through the air. I felt the blast of wind push me back, then the sharp pull toward the giant wheels. Like suction. I stumbled, but Carl grabbed my arm, yanked me.

  “Stand back, Magic Boy. You get flattened and I’ll never hear the end of it.”

  “Yeah,” I said. My heart was beating. I could feel it in my face, and I reached up to touch my lip. It was still swollen, but it no longer felt as though it was about to burst.

  Another transport truck came around the bend. On its side was a gigantic image of sliced bread. Carl waved both arms this time. I held onto the sign’s wooden supports. The metal machine tore past, but then I saw brake lights flicker. It began to slow, hazard lights flashing. “Let’s go,” Carl said. I hesitated. Go where? Carl was already speeding toward it. Where was he going? How far away from home? Were we coming back?

  “Hurry up!” he yelled.

  I had to stick to my decision. It was time to forget about home. Forget about Gloria and Telly. And—and Maisy. I was with Carl now. We were doing something. Having an adventure. Exactly what sort of adventure I didn’t know, but most of me didn’t care. Then I realized all of me didn’t care. I started running. “Hey, wait up!” I called. “Don’t leave me behind!” Not too loud, as it still hurt when words vibrated my teeth.

  The door kicked open and Carl nudged me forward. I climbed three shallow steps, slid across the sticky gray seat. The driver had thin hair stuck to his forehead and sideburns on the side of his face. Sweat trickled down over h
is skin, soaked into the collar of a red-and-white checked shirt. He smelled strange, like wet newspapers, although I probably smelled strange too.

  When I straightened up in the seat I saw a bunch of photographs taped to the dashboard. Of a young woman. A whole lot of skin. I kept looking left or right, trying not to stare. Carl eased in next to me, and when I glanced up at him, I knew he’d seen the pictures too. He said slowly, “Lots of wholesome trees out my window, Magic Boy.” His arm pressed into my shoulder. I felt safe beside him. He was a huge person.

  “Howdy,” the man driving said as the truck grumbled and popped forward.

  “Hi,” I managed, but my heart was still beating hard and I twisted my torso away from him. I tried not to look at the photos, to focus on the forest blurring by, but my eyes wanted to wander, settle there. I stared at Carl’s pant legs. I didn’t understand how they could have a sharp crease. He had the nicest shoes I’d ever seen.

  “Where you friends headed?”

  “The Stop,” Carl said. “Just the, the, urh, The Stop.”

  “Gotcha.”

  The man kept taking one hand off the wheel. He stroked his giant silver belt buckle with his thumb. Then a sideways gaze. “Looking rough there, kid. About as worn as a cow’s tail in summer.”

  “I fell and hit a—”

  He banged the dashboard. “Is not my business. What youse do with your life. I won’t even ask you why you got no shoes on. You see?”

  “Urh,” Carl said. His guttural grunt sounded annoyed. “Magic Boy was made with no shoes.”

  “Ain’t we all?”

  I could hear Carl grumbling. Saying things I couldn’t understand. I looked down and sideways. I didn’t want to stare, but it was hard. The bottom of the truck driver’s blue jeans stopped way above his ankles. Near his knee a compartment had fallen open. Inside a glass bottle full of small white cubes lay on its side. No label. Pills, maybe. The man laughed, picked up the bottle and shook it. “Sleep is for the dead.”

  “Urh,” Carl said. His grunt was even sharper this time.

  Then the man banged his knuckle on the dashboard again, right above the photographs. I had to look then. “Got myself a little missy,” he said. “That’s her right there. Having our first young one, we are. Already put up a swing set in the backyard. Hammered right into the ground.”