Twenty Minutes Late

by Caroline Crane

  “It’s not as if we’re doing anything bad. And I doubt that anybody owns this side of the wall. Does it bother you? I understand you’re very law-abiding.”

  “Aren’t you?”

  “Mostly. But I can’t see that we’re hurting anybody. Don’t you ever break the rules?”

  “Apparently I do, without knowing it.”

  “You mean Lakeside?” He didn’t know how much she knew, which was really nothing. “It can’t be that bad.”

  “Enough to get me suspended.”

  She had thought it was his idea to leave Lakeside. “Maybe you didn’t know.”

  “That’s the whole problem. I don’t know anything.” He threw away the grass. “Even with my mom being a psychologist, I’m always tripping over myself. I just don’t get it.”

  “Get what?”

  “The world. How it works. It’s as if I came from another planet. I don’t know the rules, or the customs, or anything.”

  “Can’t you sort of pick it up as you go along?’

  His look told her she didn’t understand. “I try. I know the basics, what people tell me, but none of it comes together. There’s no pattern. Every situation is different and it’s all foreign. Nobody says what they mean.”

  “That’s true. They’re all hypocrites.”

  Maybe not all. It was interesting to hear how he saw the world. Not only saw, but how he experienced it. According to Maddie, he couldn’t help it and that really bothered him.

  He seemed far away, gazing out at where the Vanorden Kill was, down below their line of vision.

  “People,” he said, “are always spouting off about their ideals but they don’t practice them.” He might have been talking to himself. “They all have their own agendas, and they clash because their agendas are different.”

  Well, duh, everybody knew that. She tried to think of some clever bit of wisdom to add.

  He went on, “I keep looking for that ideal world, the one people say they want. Where everybody gets along, where they try to be nice and help each other and don’t hold grudges.”

  He really was a dreamer. It was sad that he couldn’t have his ideal world. She said, “Do you think the human race is capable of that?”

  “Apparently not, and I don’t know why. Here we all are on this tiny planet, whirling through dark, endless space. You’d think we’d all support one another instead of being at each other’s throats.”

  “It’s that agenda thing.” She felt very intelligent. “You said it yourself.”

  “But why? Why can’t we all stick together and work for the common good?”

  “Because—we’re human?” Maybe he really did come from another planet.

  “I don’t get it,” he said. “People like to pretend they’re doing the right thing but then they go ahead with all the exceptions. They tell you it shouldn’t bother you that someone you see every day hates your guts, doesn’t want to talk to you, and thinks bad things about you that aren’t true.”

  She wondered if he had ever talked like this to Kelsey. How could she think bad things about him? He, who was such an idealist.

  “You don’t understand any of this,” he said, shocking her until she realized that “you” meant himself.

  “And nobody,” he went on, “can understand that you don’t understand. They’re all wrapped up in their own mindset. They don’t see the world as a whole system with a lot of parts that should be working together.”

  Kelsey might have been too stupid to make sense of his idealism. Maybe that was what she hated, having her stupidity shown up.

  He looked out at the trees, not at her. “They just don’t get it. They don’t understand that you’d want to say hello to someone who despises you, or say excuse me if you accidentally bump her. And because in their minds it’s unnatural, they think it’s got to be dangerous. If you’re dangerous, then you have to be weeded out.”

  If this was the real Ben, how could they treat him the way they did?

  “People should get a grip,” she said, “and not feel threatened just because somebody’s not like them. Maybe that person is better than they are. I’m glad you told me all this.”

  He gave her a quick look. He might have been sorry he told her anything.

  He pulled up another stalk of grass. There wasn’t much growing among the dead leaves on their side of the wall.

  He chewed for a moment, seeming to reflect on what he had said.

  “You know something else people don’t like about me? I can never look at them when I talk to them.”

  So he was aware of it. “You sort of do,” she said.

  “Not at their eyes. I can’t, without forcing myself. It’s their mouths I watch. I used to think it’s because the mouth is what’s moving, but when I try to look at their eyes, I just can’t do it.”

  “I’ve heard of that.” She tried to think where she had heard it.

  “Last summer,” he said, “I read a book by some Navajo guy. Navajos think it’s rude to look straight into somebody’s eyes. It’s the way they’re brought up. It used to make their Anglo teachers crazy. They were always yelling, ‘Look at me when I talk to you.’”

  “How come those stupid teachers don’t know it’s a cultural thing?”

  “Maybe they do now. They didn’t when this guy was growing up. Maybe they have more Navajo teachers now. I got to thinking I should move to Navajo country. I’d fit right in.”

  “You’d leave Southbridge?”

  “I’ll be leaving Southbridge anyway when I go to college. If I get in.” He dropped his grass and turned to see over the wall.

  She heard it, too, the clop-clop of a horse’s hooves out on Fremont.

  Most of their view was blocked by trees. The sound came closer until it reached the opening where the driveway was.

  The horse went by in a flash but she saw enough. Even in a unisex outfit, its rider was clearly female, slim and straight. She wore a white sweater, tan riding pants, and boots.

  A black cap covered her hair. The little bit that showed was so blond it was almost white.

  Chapter Sixteen

  She knew it was Kelsey. Ben showed no reaction.

  As they made their way back to his truck, he looked carefully through the trees at the next house, which wasn’t far away. It was huge, white, and mock Victorian, with a turret at the front.

  She wondered how those people felt about having a shabby trailer next door. Some mobile homes were neat and attractive. That one wasn’t.

  Ben drove mostly in silence. Probably thinking of Kelsey, but saying nothing. Cree wasn’t supposed to know about Kelsey. She looked again at A. Santiago as they passed it. The car was gone.

  When they reached her house, a strange car was parked in front of it. “Oh, no,” she said.

  “Somebody you don’t like?” asked Ben.

  “Somebody I don’t even know. It must be a friend of my grandma’s. Who would want an orange car? It’s like tomato soup.”

  “Not quite. It’s metallic orange. You wouldn’t have flecks of metal in your soup.”

  He gave her bike a thorough inspection. The handlebars, the gears, the footbrake and handbrake. The wheels. Even the frame, to be sure it wasn’t cracked.

  “Seems okay,” he decided. “It’s you who got the worst of it.” He carried it up the steps and mumbled goodbye.

  Grandma was rattling pans in the kitchen. Cree started upstairs, hoping to avoid whoever owned that orange car.

  “That you, honey?”

  She didn’t see any sign of company, and went back down. “Is that car yours?”

  Grandma turned from the sink and shrieked. “What happened to you?”

  “Is it that bad?” And Ben had seen her all afternoon.

  She went to look at herself in the powder room, and cringed. It needed a lot more than water. “Is that your car out there?”

  “Yep, that’s mine. You like it?”

  “It’s awesome.” Except for the color. Cree knew there w
asn’t always much choice.

  Grandma was too excited about her new acquisition to ask a lot of questions. She doctored Cree’s injuries and then they went out to look at the car.

  “I bought it yesterday,” Grandma told her. “I didn’t say anything ’cause they had to do some paperwork and get it licensed. What do you think? It’s got a working air conditioner, a working tape and CD player. No GPS, but I can get that later.” Grandma had a terrible sense of direction.

  She stood by and watched as Cree worked the pedals, turned on the lights.

  “It’s really beautiful,” said Cree. In spite of the color. “Do you think maybe I could borrow it sometimes? Like for emergencies?”

  “What sort of emergencies are you expecting?”

  “People don’t expect emergencies. That’s why they’re emergencies. I’d be very careful.”

  “You better be. Anything happens, you owe me a replacement.”

  * * * *

  Maddie’s mouth still hurt. Only Ben was there to hear her complain. “That guy’s a sadist. I swear he shaved off some of my gums. What are you looking for?”

  Ben was sorting through the mail. He did it every day. The mail came about noon. What was doing since school let out?

  “Anyway—” She probed with her tongue, “they’re squeaky clean. Aren’t they dazzling?” She showed him with a wide grin.

  He started up the stairs.

  His first day at Southbridge. She’d actually forgotten. “How was school? Do you think you can stand it?”

  He glared at her over the railing.

  “Did they give you a lot of homework?” she asked. “My first day, I got hit with Macbeth. Five pages minimum. It’s due tomorrow and I didn’t start it yet.”

  She set to work immediately. She thought she could work through the evening, skipping dinner. Rhoda vetoed that.

  “I could have been doing this all afternoon,” Maddie told her.

  “You had the whole weekend,” said her mother.

  “I was busy.” With something far more important than Macbeth. Rhoda had no idea.

  And then there was Evan. By the time Maddie reached home after being chased all over town, she was too rattled to think straight. On top of that, she had to read Macbeth all through again, the whole five acts. She had done three of them on the train. It was late that night when she finished the paper and printed it.

  Bed at last. She turned out her light and snuggled in.

  A shower of something hit her window.

  She thought at first of rain. It sounded too sharp for that. And not sleet in October. She stared up at darkness, trying to puzzle it out, when it happened again. Then she knew.

  It was an old trick, tossing pebbles at a window. The next thing would be a rock. It would come right through onto her bed.

  She was not surprised that the police hadn’t frightened him off. Evan knew they hadn’t the manpower to put a round-the-clock on him, or provide her with a guard. She was on her own, with her family sound asleep.

  What was it with guys like that? Didn’t they have a life? Or any self-respect? Why couldn’t somebody do something? Like a shot, or a pill, or a patch.

  She sat up and peeked through the blind. Her room was dark but he would notice. He would be watching for her.

  The kitchen might give a better view. She took her phone, although there was one in the kitchen, and groped her way downstairs.

  The night was not completely black. It was more a dark gray, with that thing they called earthshine. It made the windows a lighter gray, even the diamond-shaped one in the front door, which was fake leaded glass. He couldn’t see through it if he tried.

  Listening carefully, she glided through the dining room into the kitchen. The only sound was a clicking of the dogs’ feet as they came to see what she was doing. If they had heard any disturbance, they would have barked. They even knew the sound of Evan’s car. He must have parked down the road and walked in, carrying his pebbles in a coffee can.

  The window above the sink was the only one that gave a view of his possible whereabouts. She couldn’t get right up to it but she could see most of the yard, all the way to the rhododendrons at the back.

  She watched for motion. Nothing moved. He would not be so stupid as to wear light colors. Psychopaths usually knew what they were doing even if they shouldn’t be doing it. She figured a black hoodie and probably a ski mask. He might be right out there and she couldn’t see him.

  One of the dogs gave a low growl.

  The back door burst open. A shadow rushed toward her.

  He grabbed both her arms. The dogs barked. Maddie screamed.

  He swarmed all over her, clamping her mouth. He dragged her toward the door.

  She fought back, kicking. Tried to pull away, but he was stronger. She bit the hand that covered her mouth. He slapped her, hard.

  The dogs attacked. They knocked him down and Maddie with him. She kicked again but met only air.

  Feet pounded on the stairs. Rhoda called, “Maddie? Maddie, is that you?”

  A light blazed. They were all there, her whole family in their nightclothes. The dogs snarled and tore at Evan, blocking his escape.

  Ben was the first to act. He pushed the dogs away and grabbed Evan by the jacket. It was black, a hoodie, but no ski mask.

  Ben pummeled his head and chest. Maddie felt her own face. He had punched her several times as they sprawled on the floor.

  Rhoda helped her up. “Maddie! Oh Maddie, what did he do to you?”

  “I told everybody. And nobody gave a damn.”

  Her dad held the phone to his ear. He took it to the dining room for more quiet.

  The dogs barked in fury. Evan tried to shield his face. “Get ’em off! Get ’em off!”

  Or maybe it was “Get him off.” Ben pinned Evan to the floor, arms twisted behind his back.

  “They’re on their way,” said Dad.

  Chapter Seventeen

  In the morning, Cree took extra care with her makeup. She really needed concealer but had to settle for pressed powder.

  When she reached her homeroom, Maddie was there. Cree rushed over to her. “My grandma got a car and I can use it sometimes!”

  She stopped and stared. Maddie’s bruise was back, and then some. “What happened?”

  “Evan,” Maddie said. “He broke in last night.”

  “Into your house? Don’t you lock it at night?”

  “I said he broke in. The police found a hole in the mudroom door, the kind burglars make with a glass cutter. Then they reach in and unlock the door. I shouldn’t have gone downstairs. It made him think I was interested.”

  “Are you okay?”

  Maddie seemed all right, except for the bruises. She had made it to school.

  “He must have forgotten about the dogs. Ben and the dogs held him down till the police got there.”

  “Did they arrest him, I hope?”

  “I don’t know if it was an actual arrest, but they took him away. I hope he gets a thousand years of hard labor. Then they took statements. Forever. If I fall asleep in class, wake me up.”

  Cree looked around for Stacie. She wasn’t there. “What’s going to happen?”

  “To Evan? Something had better happen. Daddy said he could be charged with assault, attempted kidnapping, breaking, and entering. He must have made that hole and gotten the door unlocked before he started throwing pebbles. Then he hid in the mudroom. If I hadn’t gone down, he’d have come up to find me.”

  As Mrs. Tarasco rapped for attention, Maddie whispered a last thought. “You know what’s going to happen? His parents will bail him out and he’ll come after me and kill me. He’s just the type to blame me for getting him in trouble.”

  And Ben was the one they punished for harassing a girl. What an insane world.

  By lunchtime, Maddie felt better. “Ben told me what happened yesterday. You could have been killed!”

  “But I wasn’t.” Cree bit into a cheese cracker and replayed her r
escue. “I might have been, if he hadn’t come along. I was right in the middle of the road. Did he tell you what happened after that?”

  He hadn’t. There wasn’t much to tell, except for the very end of it. Cree gave a brief rundown, not mentioning A. Santiago.

  “So anyway,” she concluded, “we saw somebody on a horse that I’m sure was Kelsey. With the hair. Did he say anything about that?”

  Maddie’s swollen eyes opened as wide as they could. “He wouldn’t. Not Ben. Did she see you?”

  “I don’t think so. She wasn’t looking and there were trees in the way, and we were mostly behind a stone wall.”

  “Cree, this is so exciting! You’ll have to show me the place.”

  Cree described the trailer, adding, “Just beyond it there’s this big white house. I couldn’t see it very well but that was the direction she came from.”

  “We’ve got to do something.” Maddie started on the second half of her cheese sandwich.

  “Like what? We already tried.”

  “We barely started. First, we’ll find out if it really is her house, then we’ll get inside and talk to her. You’ll have to do the talking. I’m not supposed to go near her.”

  This was for Ben, Cree told herself. What did stage fright matter when she could do something to help him? Maybe earn back her independence from his Chinese custom.

  Maddie reconsidered. “I might be able to go in with you if I disguise myself. But I can’t say anything. She’d recognize my voice.”

  Maddie spent the afternoon working on her plan. By the time they went out to the parking lot, she had made some revisions.

  “We should talk to Velda Sheehan first and get more information.”

  “She wasn’t going to tell us more,” Cree reminded her. “She said it wasn’t fair.”

  “I don’t see where Kelsey is being fair. Are you with me on this?”

  For Ben. But Cree had concerns of her own. “Do you mind if I check with Olive first? I’ve got to know my job situation.”

  She left her bike against the front steps. Grandma’s orange car was out and Grandma with it. Olive wasn’t home either, nor was Mr. Culpepper on his porch. The day was raw and cold and looked like rain.