The Hole in the Wall

by Lisa Rowe Fraustino

  “Is this another one of your so-called jokes about my cooking?” Ma picked up a cookie and took a bite. “Ow!” She put her hand to her mouth and stared at the cookie forlornly. “But I timed them! They aren’t burned! What could have—oh!”

  She put her head in her hands. “Oh no . . .”

  “What’s the problem out there?” called Grum from the bathroom.

  “Those godforsaken eggs,” Ma said. “There’s something wrong with them after all. They calcified in the cookies. I sure hope Stan Odum hasn’t tried to eat any of them yet!”

  No wonder my guts felt like a bowling alley. I’d eaten two great big blobs of that cookie dough! I groaned at the thought of what I was in for. As Grum always says, “What goes in must come out.”

  “I’m going to have to give his money back and get those eggs off him,” Ma was saying. “How on earth am I going to explain?”

  If he ate the eggs, Boots Odum might wind up in the same predicament I was in. Ha! “Don’t bother,” I said. “It’s his own fault anyway. He asked for fresh eggs laid this morning, and that’s exactly what you gave him.”

  A killer point, I thought, but Grum called, “Remember the Golden Rule.” Then the toilet flushed. It made me laugh, but I guess nobody else got the humor. Ma and Barbie frowned at me.

  “What about the Dogstars?” Barbie said. “The eggs they traded yesterday came from the same batch you put in the cookies.”

  “Dear Lord, that’s right!” Ma was pacing now. “I can call Stan Odum and warn him, but the Dogstars don’t have a phone. I’ll have to tell them in person.” She looked out the window and ran a hand through her hair. “But it’s already getting dark, and I don’t even know the way to their house. Do you kids?”

  “We’ve never been invited,” said Barbie, shaking her head no. Um, well, me and Grum’s binoculars might have made the acquaintance. But that didn’t mean I’d know my way in the dark. I just shrugged.

  “Guess I’ll have to go first thing in the morning, then,” Ma said.

  “But what if they have eggs for breakfast before you get there?” Barbie wondered.

  That made me remember something. “Cluster wasn’t in school today. Maybe she already ate some of those petrified eggs and they made her sick!”

  Ma gasped and covered her mouth, making the worry in her eyes stand out. “We’d better go right now. You two come along and help me find the trail.”

  “Do I have to go?” said Barbie. “I want to finish my homework so I can enjoy the rest of my weekend.” Good thing I already had barf medicine in my system. Of course Ma said she could stay home.

  Ma grabbed a flashlight and we hopped in the SUV. She parked along the shoulder on the good side of Kettle Ridge, and we found our way to the trail Cluster emerged from every morning. Cluster called it the Trace. It had been made by animals in ancient times, she told us, and Native Americans used to follow it when they migrated. The Trace was well worn, but still not easy to follow on a dark and cloudy night this time of year. The ground all looked the same, covered by dead leaves and pine needles, with no summer growth around the trail yet. Plus it was slippery. Ma kept grabbing my arm and saying, “Watch your step, don’t fall.”

  I didn’t say so, but I was a little scared. The woods smelled wet and rotten, like something had died. All around us we could hear rustling and the noises of animals doing their night things. There were bears in these woods, wildcats, possibly rabid foxes, porcupines that could quill us, skunks that could spray us. Our own breathing sounded loud in the deep quiet. It had turned cold, and that made everything seem louder. An owl hooted right over us, making both of us scream and jump and then laugh at ourselves nervously.

  We walked about ten or fifteen minutes and then reached a steep hill. From there the woods opened into a valley meadow with a boxy shadow looming at the center, a building with soft lights barely glowing in a couple of the upstairs windows. A trickle of woodsmoke made gray curlicues in the black sky. They reminded me of the mildew stains in our house.

  “Welcome to Zensylvania,” I said.

  “Lovely,” Ma said. “Well, let’s hurry up and get this over with.” And she led the way downhill to the cabin. It had been handmade out of trees on the property. It made an awesome silhouette with logs jutting out at the corners.

  “Oh, my goodness! I can’t believe this.” Ma aimed the flashlight at a shiny white square on the door. A sign, it looked like. A very familiar sign. You couldn’t go a hundred feet around the edges of ORC without seeing one just like it:AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY

  TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED

  ARMED PATROL ON DUTY 24 HOURS

  VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IN PROGRESS

  ODUM RESEARCH CORPORATION

  “The Dogstars must have sold out,” Ma said in disbelief. “I thought they never would.”

  I had a sinking feeling about that. “Cluster said the goons came to test the Zenwater yesterday. I bet it flunked.” Had it turned all colorful and foamy like the spring at the Hole in the Wall? Suddenly I felt scared for my friend.

  “Whether it did or didn’t, I don’t see how they possibly could have moved out this quickly. And there are lights on upstairs. They must still be here.”

  Ma poised her hand to knock at the door.

  “Wait, Ma!” I shone the flashlight around searching for hidden cameras, but only saw animal eyes glowing from a tree. “Ma, you sure you want to knock? What if the people inside are Authorized Personnel Only?”

  “What if they’re the Dogstars? I have to warn them about the eggs. Let Stanley Odum try and prosecute me for doing the right thing.”

  At that, Ma swallowed hard and rapped loudly on the door.

  7

  We waited, listening for footsteps inside, and heard nothing but the wind in the trees and the roof settling. Bats swooped and rose in chaotic patterns. A puff of wood smoke wafted by, making me cough. Feeling the cold, I blew on my hands and jogged in place.

  Ma knocked again. Still nothing. She reached for the doorknob. My heart quickened as her hand twisted.

  The latch clicked. The door swung open with a long, spooky squeak. Ma shone her flashlight inside and screamed. My heart stopped. The Dogstars lay on the floor before us, moaning and frothing at the mouth, their skin splotched with colors like in the polluted spring at the Hole in the Wall.

  No, my brain made that up. Must be all those horror movies Pa watched on the TV. Ma didn’t scream. She still had her hand on the knob. It didn’t turn. The door was locked. My heart restarted.

  “Maybe they just left a candle burning when they left,” she said, turning to look at the pale ribbons of light the upper story windows cast on the yard.

  “And a log on the fire,” I added.

  “Well, nobody’s answering the door, so we might as well go,” Ma said.

  We hurried back along the trail, wondering out loud where our friends had gone so suddenly. “Surely tomorrow there’ll be word around town,” Ma said. I hoped so. I didn’t like not knowing what happened to Cluster.

  When we got home I stooped to retrieve my hidden souvenir pebble. It wasn’t hard to find—it winked at me when I poked my head under the steps. Nice pebble.

  It was past our bedtime, so Ma sent me straight upstairs. Barbie was already in bed reading. At first she didn’t sound concerned when I told her everyone at the commune had been abducted by aliens, or else maybe put into the witness protection program, or else maybe buried in a mass grave under a slag pile in the gore.

  Barbie just rolled her eyes at me. “Sebby, you’re outrageous. Did it occur to you that they just decided to go somewhere? Like, a concert? Or a long weekend vacation?”

  Then I remembered to tell her about the ORC sign on the lodge door, and reminded her about the water test, but she was still being stubborn. “Goofball, Boots Odum has been trying to buy Zensylvania out for years. Maybe he just made them an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

  Ma came upstairs and kissed us good night. “Lights out,
now. Time to stop talking and go to sleep.”

  “I second that,” Grum called from the bedroom formerly known as mine.

  Pa wasn’t home yet, so the house was perfectly quiet when the phone rang. Not even a whole ring. Just a chirp. A sound that always made me happy even if it stopped me from getting to sleep.

  “Jed!” I blurted.

  “Praise the Lord for good news,” said Grum.

  “Amen,” said Ma.

  Barbie sighed and jiggled happily in the bottom bunk.

  The day after Jed ran off, Ma filed a missing persons report with the police, but they said there wasn’t much they could do since he’d turned eighteen. About a month later, he called for the first time. He didn’t stay on the phone long and wouldn’t answer any questions. He just told Ma how he’d be calling every so often and letting the phone ring once to let us know he was okay, because he didn’t want us to worry. Whatever number he called from, it never showed up on Caller ID. We had no clue where he’d gone or whether he’d taken Stupid with him, but we were glad to know he was okay. Well, maybe not all of us. Pa said Jed must have gotten himself into some kind of serious trouble with the law to be sneaking around like that, and we were better off not talking to him. But I believed in my brother.

  Jed was always thinking about other people. Like the time he rescued Grum’s prize cuckoo collection. Grump had given her most of the clocks when he was stationed in Germany after the war. Sentimental value didn’t mean much to Pa. When he was moving Grum in with us, he threw her clocks in the dump heap even though Grum begged him not to.

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mother,” Pa argued, in what was, for him, a tender voice. “You know there’s no room in the house for all your crap.”

  True, there wasn’t any room. Between the windows, doors, and cupboards, we hardly had enough space for a calendar downstairs. Upstairs the house had mostly roof for walls, no place for clocks with pendulums that need to hang flat. The bunk beds barely fit in the window dormer.

  “Where there’s a will, there’s a way, son,” Grum said, with her chin trembling stubbornly. “You just don’t want me to keep the clocks because you hate them.”

  Also true. We’d all heard Pa’s funny stories about the naughty things he’d done to silence the cuckoos when he was a kid. Like following Grum when she wound the clocks and unwinding them after her. Or jamming Popsicle sticks behind the birds when they popped out. Hanging the clocks upside down. No matter how many spankings he got from Grump, Pa kept trying to shut up the cuckoos.

  Pa always got everybody laughing silly when he told his childhood cuckoo stories. The way he told them, it was hard not to laugh. He’d act out the parts, mimicking his little boy self and Grum and Grump like a comedian on TV. But if you really thought about what was happening, it wasn’t that funny.

  We waited nervously to hear what Pa would say back to Grum. He sucked on his teeth for a while before answering. “Mother, do you really think that if there was a way to keep those clocks for you, I wouldn’t?”

  Jed had been pacing around with his hands in his pockets, kicking rocks and acting like he wasn’t paying attention, but he was really churning over every word. “Are you saying you would keep them, Pa, if we can find the space?”

  “What do you think I’m saying!” Pa returned.

  And that’s when Jed came up with the idea of moving himself and Grum’s cuckoos out to the castle. Pa benefited from the deal. He kept the couch.

  Thinking about Jed and Pa and their disagreements made me wonder again which one was right about Stanley Odum. Now that an ORC sign had showed up on the commune door, I was starting to lean toward Jed. How could a bunch of people disappearing overnight be good? What kind of an offer couldn’t they refuse from Boots Odum? What good could that guy be up to, mining mysterious rocks and keeping it all a big secret? On the other hand, Pa always said that there are some things we aren’t supposed to know. For our own good. So I still wasn’t sure who was right. But one way to find out was in my hand.

  As I waited to fall asleep, I held Odum’s blinky pebble next to my cheek. It felt warm and relaxing, like sucking my thumb used to feel before Pa trained me out of it. A memory popped into my head from when I was little, sitting on Pa’s shoulders. It was just me and him working on the castle on a Saturday because Ma had taken Barbie to Daisy Scouts, and Jed was in the gore raking leaves for Grum.

  “Whaddya say we put the finishing touches on this beauty and surprise the rest of the clan?” Pa had suggested, and now he was letting me place the last fieldstone in the vaulted ceiling. Best moment of my life so far.

  It made my heart ache along with my stomach and teeth and growing bones to think about how Pa had changed. How everything had changed. Suddenly it was the present that didn’t seem real . . . Grum tiptoeing around with her osteoporosis, Jed gone nobody knew where, Pa always blowing up, the house practically falling down around us, the gore nothing but churned dirt, to say nothing of eggs turning to stone and neighbors disappearing. And not a thing I could do to change any of it. So I didn’t let myself think about the present. I just went back to putting the last stone in the castle.

  Until I went flying.

  Seriously! All of a sudden it was like I was sucked off Pa’s shoulders and out into space. I couldn’t see a thing. I couldn’t hear, taste, smell—all I could do was feel myself flying in circles. First in one direction and then swinging the opposite way, like a figure eight. I couldn’t see the shape, only feel it, because I was on the inside looking out, not seeing myself. The swooping went on and on until my whole body began to vibrate.

  Finally, a familiar feeling. I knew exactly where I was. I was in bed, Ma shaking my shoulder in the gray light of a stormy morning.

  “Sebby, Sebastian Daniels. Up’n at ’em!”

  “Maaaaa-aaa! It’s Saturday!”

  “Chickens don’t know that. And don’t forget to close the doors.”

  Getting up was always a shock, but that day it was even worse, with the blankets pressing down on me, the light burning my eyes, the cigarette and mildew smells stinging my nose, and the cookie dough still bowling in my guts. For once I actually wanted to get up. Up and out of that suffocating house, away from Pa’s jackhammer snoring. And forget that crazy dream. Man, it felt so real.

  When I went downstairs, Ma was in her cloud of cigarette smoke, reading her Bible as usual early in the morning. But something was different. Her reading glasses. That was it. She didn’t have them on, but she was staring at the page anyway.

  I heard a little plop sound on the paper.

  “Ma?” I looked at her. She didn’t look at me. “Go do your chores, Seb.” Her words sounded pinched.

  “Ma, what happened?”

  She didn’t look up, didn’t speak. There came another little plop, and this time I saw the tear glisten before sinking into the page she was reading.

  Then I noticed something that made me feel like a big glass of ice water had been dumped over my head. The baggie with the egg in it sat next to Ma’s Bible. Pa hadn’t delivered it to the university after all.

  “Oh, Ma, don’t cry. It’ll be all right.” I didn’t know that it would, but at the moment it was my job to make her feel better, not the other way around.

  Pa had probably only made it as far as the Do-Drop-Inn last night. His truck had a hard time not turning in at the tavern. I knew, because I’d been with him more than once when an invisible power turned the steering wheel that way instead of toward the grocery store for milk. Ma must have been mad when he got home. They must have gotten into it. Maybe while I was stuck in that wild dream.

  As I walked slowly to the door, the cold-water feeling was heating up fast inside me, boiling into anger. I wanted to run upstairs and pound Pa’s face in while he slept. I wanted to grab a knife and stab him. I wanted him to hurt. No, I wanted him to never wake up. And then I wanted to puke because all those crappy feelings made me realize something.

  The way I felt right then was exactl
y the way Pa talked a lot of the time.

  I never get into fights with guys who pick on me at school, no matter how hard someone presses my buttons, because I’m afraid. Not afraid of getting hurt. Afraid of what I might do if I ever get started pounding on some bully. I get so mad, I might never stop. I just might pound and pound and pound until there’s nothing left.

  I could curl up and take a beating every day for the rest of my life, but that didn’t change what I was inside. Inside, I was just like Pa. With that thought churning in my stomach, I went out to see how many eggs I could kick around today.

  It was still raining hard, and I had to leap mud puddles on my way to the chicken coop. The water runoff had left mini canyons and craters all around the yard, so I had to watch where I landed.

  When I opened the door, Barney greeted me with the wimpiest little doodle-do I had ever heard, and no hens took to the air. No hens sat on their nests. No hens were anywhere in the coop, and no eggs, either. Had a fox gotten in? But how? I hadn’t left the outside door open yesterday. I hadn’t! It was shut tight when I came in. I didn’t see any signs of a predator. No clumps of feathers or trails of blood around, and we would have heard the commotion anyway. Once when a wild dog got a hen, Barney let the whole world know, and the hens joined in.