Of course, Zachary’s legs were too short to stick out, so he quickly became completely invisible, but Hallie could see him very clearly in her mind’s eye, curled up in his father’s chair with his nose in one of the fat books. She could picture the chair too. A big, thick-armed leather chair like the one that had been her father’s.
She was still picturing the chair and how Zachary looked curled up in it when the door opened again and another person entered the room.
It was the same guy, all right. Hallie recognized the profile she’d seen in the gray car. The same long-legged man who usually sat in the hidden corner was walking across the room, carrying a newspaper in one hand and a glass in the other.
Immediately, before the man had reached the center of the room, Zachary was back in sight too, as if he’d jumped out of the chair and scurried away. It was almost as if… Hallie smiled, remembering how Zeus used to act when someone came in and found him sleeping on a chair he wasn’t supposed to get up on.
The man turned toward Zachary and began to talk. Hallie could see his lips moving. Then Zachary was saying something back and holding out his book. Maybe telling his father about what he’d been reading. Yeah, that was probably it, holding out the open book and telling his father about it. He was still talking, his lips moving rapidly, when the man turned his back and disappeared into the invisible corner.
Finally Zachary stopped talking. But he was still looking toward the hidden corner where his father was probably sitting in the chair, putting his drink on a side table and shaking out his newspaper. Sure enough, the legs came back in sight then, long legs and big feet in shiny black shoes. Zachary went on standing there, staring into the corner, for a long time before he slowly closed the book, turned around, and went out of the room.
After Zachary disappeared, Hallie went on watching for a while to see if something else was going to happen. But nothing did. Before long she got tired of looking around the bare-walled, boring room and watching the motionless black shoes, and she decided to leave.
She was on her way across the attic when she thought again about the way Zachary had jumped up, and how it had reminded her of Zeus. She started to smile again, remembering Zeus’s guilty-faced retreats, but the smile fizzled out suddenly when she decided it wasn’t really all that funny. It was funny when a dog got up and scurried away looking guilty, but a kid who did it when his father came into the room …
It wasn’t until she was going down the stairs that she started smiling again, this time remembering how, when she was a little kid, she used to fight with her dad over his big leather chair. She would try to beat him to the chair when he got home from work and when she won he would pretend to sit on her, and she would scream and kick and they would both yell and laugh. Usually the game ended with her sitting on his lap while they read a book or the comics or sometimes just discussed really important things. Things like having conversations with God, for instance.
Some people, even good friends like Marty, would kid her when she told them about the things she used to say to God, but Dad never did. Dad said everybody talked to God in one way or another, and he thought the kind of chatty, neighbor-to-neighbor way she did it was just fine.
But that brought back other memories, the ones about how many times she’d asked God why He had let Dad be a part of the accident on the foggy freeway. God hadn’t ever answered that question no matter how many times she’d asked it, and after a while she’d stopped asking Him anything at all. When she got back to the hot, stuffy apartment she was crying angry tears again, but this time they didn’t last very long.
By the time her mother got home, Hallie had stopped crying and had started thinking about how she could find out how often and on what days Zachary stopped at the library on his way home from school. When her mom asked how her day had been she said the usual “Oh, okay, I guess.” But then, for some reason, she had a sudden urge to talk to Mom about Zachary. Without spilling the beans about the attic and the spyhole, of course.
“Mom,” she started out, “something funny happened on the way home the other day. This little kid, who I’d kind of met at the library—he came along carrying a whole bunch of books and all of a sudden he fell down and the books went everywhere and …”
Mom winced. She’d always been that way about kids or animals getting hurt. “Oh dear,” she said. “I hope he wasn’t—”
“No. He wasn’t hurt. Not really. Just a skinned knee. But I started talking to him and we wound up sitting on the bus bench talking about a lot of stuff. And Mom, this little kid, he’s only eight years old, is really pretty weird. He reads all these big books about things like psychiatry and shamanism….”
“Shamanism?”
“Yeah, do you know about shamans?”
Mom nodded uncertainly. “Not a great deal. Only that they are something like wise men, or gurus.”
“Yeah, like that, sort of. I didn’t know either, so I looked it up. But this kid says that the reason he’s interested in being a shaman is that they cure mental cases who need to get their heads straightened out. Like being a psychiatrist, sort of. That’s the other thing he thinks he is—a psychiatrist. I think he wants to be a psychiatrist because they get to ask people a lot of personal questions. You know, like how they feel about things and why they feel that way.” She smiled, remembering. “Why seems to be his favorite word.”
Mom laughed and Hallie laughed too. “He sounds like quite a character,” Mom said. “Does he live near here? In the Towers, maybe?”
Hallie quickly looked up at her mother. Dad used to say that he was married to a mind reader, and sometimes Hallie thought he wasn’t just kidding. She tried to make her shrug say she didn’t know and didn’t really care where he lived. “Could be,” she said. “I guess an awful lot of people live there.”
Watch it, Hallie. Better change the subject. Better cool it about Zachary, and anything else that might bring up the spyhole.
The next day Hallie visited the library again, but not to get a book. At least, that wasn’t the main reason. The main reason was to see if she could get some information about Zachary’s library habits. She did check out three more books on the Middle East, but they were mostly for cover, and to get Mrs. Myers in a friendly state of mind. Which was something that probably needed doing, since Hallie had insisted on telling her how much better everything was at the Bloomfield library. But now, since she was definitely going to need Mrs. Myers’s help, she picked out some books figuring that librarians were probably friendly to people who checked out lots of research-type books.
Sure enough, the librarian in charge was Mrs. Myers again, but she didn’t seem to recognize Hallie when she handed over the three books. “Hello, Mrs. Myers,” Hallie said, flashing her best starch-removing smile. “I was wondering if a little boy named Zachary has been in the library today.” The librarian was shaking her head. “He has short brown hair and he’s about this high.” Hallie held out her hand to show Zachary’s height. “He comes in here a lot to read books about stuff like shamanism.”
The librarian had begun to nod. “Oh yes, that Zachary,” she said, smiling. She ran Hallie’s books across the scanner. “So you’re looking for Zachary Crestman.” She turned Hallie’s card over and glanced at her name. Then, looking puzzled, she asked, “You’re not his sister?”
“No.” Hallie discarded the smile as she said, “I’m not his sister.” She couldn’t hold back an impatient sigh as she added, “Does that matter?”
“Oh,” the librarian said, “I remember you now.” Her eyes narrowed. “The Sinai Peninsula, wasn’t it?” She glanced at Hallie’s card again. “Why do you want to—?”
“I just want to see him, okay?” Hallie was feeling frustrated. “I just wanted to …” She paused, trying frantically to think of a good reason why she should be given information about Zachary, but nothing came to mind. She briefly considered saying “His sister asked me to give him a message.” But then, what if the librarian wanted to know
his sister’s name? She was still hesitating when, just at that crucial moment, the phone rang. Making a “wait just a minute” gesture, the librarian turned her back and began to talk on the phone. Hallie picked up her books and walked away.
She was fuming as she ran down the front steps of the library. Angry at the nosy librarian, for one thing, but mostly at herself for blowing it. For not managing to find out anything except… except… what was it she’d called him? Zachary Crestman. So that was his last name. She had managed to discover something after all. By the time she got home, she had another plan in mind. A plan that involved the telephone.
There were, it turned out, three Crestmans in the Irvington phone book. One of the listings gave an address that wasn’t on Warwick Avenue, so that left just two. No one answered at the first number she dialed, and the answering machine message gave the names of the people who weren’t home right then. There was no Zachary, so that left just one possibility. Triumphantly, without stopping to figure out what she was going to say—impulsively, Ellen would say— Hallie punched in the number.
“Hello, who is it?” The voice sounded young and breathless. Was it Zachary? No, more like a girl’s voice. A teenager’s voice, maybe? Realizing that she was probably talking to the mysterious Rapunzel made it even harder to think clearly.
“Uhh …” Hallie hesitated, frantically trying to decide what to say.
“Hello,” the voice said again, and then even more softly, almost in a whisper, “Tony? Tony, is that you?” Before Hallie had time to say anything at all, there was a quick gasp, and the voice that was probably Rapunzel’s whispered, “Oh, I have to go. I have to hang up.” There was a click and then the dial tone.
So that was that. Another plan down the drain. For a moment Hallie felt mostly frustration, but only for a moment, until it began to change into a curious thrill. What was it Zachary had said when they were pretending to talk about the princess in the tower? That the witch, or her father maybe, wouldn’t let her see the prince because he was too old and had a ring in his nose. Hallie shivered. Maybe the prince’s name was Tony, and Rapunzel had thought the phone call was from him, her forbidden prince. But then she had to hang up quickly because she heard her father approaching. Hallie put down the phone feeling strangely excited. In a weird sort of way, it was as if she’d become a part of some crazy modern fairy tale.
Back in her room, Hallie got out an old writing tablet. She tore out the scribbled-on pages and started to make a list of what she had found out so far. The List of Facts wasn’t very long.
Family’s last name: Crestman.
Address: fourth floor of the Warwick
Towers—don’t know the number.
Boy: Zachary.
Age: eight years.
She thought a minute and then, grinning, she erased the last two words and wrote almost nine, in November. And then there was …
Girl: [blank space].
(Obviously, her name wasn’t really Rapunzel.)
Age: teenager, maybe about fifteen?
So that was about all she knew, except…
Girl’s boyfriend: Tony???
Nose ring.
Pretty old for a fifteen-year-old girl.
Anything else? No, that was all. Except that there was definitely something weirdly wrong with the Crestman family. Something that made three adults stand around yelling at each other with their hands clenched and anger screwing up their faces. Something that made an eight-year-old kid scurry around like a guilty dog, and made a girl hang up the phone without even finding out for sure who was calling.
Hallie stared at the list, thinking about all the other stuff she really needed to know. Then she jumped up, slid the tablet into her school binder, and ran to the kitchen. A moment later, with the key in her pocket, she was heading for the attic stairs.
Hallie wasn’t expecting much. There hadn’t been much going on lately in the spyhole apartment. Not during the hours when she could watch, anyway. But the urge to check it out, to be sure she wasn’t missing something important, was suddenly too strong to resist. If she didn’t visit the spyhole today, she might miss a clue that would let her know what was really happening to Zachary and his family.
But once again it turned out to be wasted effort. Nothing moved in the bleak, watery blue room. Entertaining herself by lifting and lowering her head to make the light swirl in blue waves, Hallie stuck it out until almost four-thirty before she gave up and headed back across the attic.
She had locked the door to the attic stairway behind her and was opening the door to her own apartment when a familiar voice called her name.
“Hallie, dear, how good to see you.”
Hallie whirled around to see a white-haired lady dressed in a baggy sweatsuit and a wraparound polka-dot apron making her way up the stairs from the second floor. It was Mrs. Tilson, of course.
Hallie flinched, her mind racing. If Mrs. Tilson had seen her coming out of the attic, she was really in trouble. She was, at least, if the old lady decided to tell on her, to blab to Mrs. Crowley or, almost as bad, to tell Hallie’s mother what she had seen. And why wouldn’t she want to tell? Why wouldn’t she want to get someone in trouble who had been so—whatever it was Hallie had been that day when she delivered the Tilsons’ yogurt, ate their cherry pie, and then blew up and stormed out. Wondering what the old lady could possibly be doing up on the third floor, Hallie shoved the attic key in her pants pocket and reluctantly turned back.
“Oh, hi,” she said. “I—I just got back from school.”
“Yes, yes. So I see, my dear,” Mrs. Tilson gasped. She was carrying a large cardboard box, and as she neared the top of the stairs she seemed to be badly out of breath. When she finally reached the third floor she took another deep breath and panted, “Oh my! Too many stairs.” She went on puffing for several seconds before she added, “But what a lovely coincidence. I called just a few minutes ago to ask if you could give me a hand, but there was no answer. And then here you are, as if by magic.”
“Give you a hand?”
“Yes. A helping hand to get this box up into the attic.” She held out the heavily taped box. “That last flight up into the attic is awfully steep.”
“Oh,” Hallie said. “Oh yeah. I can carry it up for you. I carried a lot of boxes up there for my mom when we first moved in.” As she took the box she grinned and said, “But I guess you know that, according to Mrs. Crowley, I’m not supposed to go up there by myself.” Remembering some of the comments the Tilsons had made about Mrs. Crowley, she thought she knew what the reaction would be, and she was right.
Mrs. Tilson shook her head, making indignant tsk-tsk noises. “That Crowley woman,” she said. “So many rules. Harold says …” She smiled, giggled almost. “Harold calls her Mrs. Moses, because every time she shows up we get ten more commandments.”
Still giggling, Mrs. Tilson unlocked the attic door and handed Hallie the box. “Just put it with the other cartons labeled Tilson. And then do come down for some cookies and lemonade.”
Up in the attic Hallie found the right stack of boxes and then headed back down the stairs, trying to think of a good reason why she couldn’t go on down to the Tilsons’ apartment. She didn’t want to go, but it wasn’t really because of what had happened the last time she was there. At least not entirely. It was more that she had other things on her mind, like the list she’d been working on.
“So.” Mrs. Tilson’s rabbity pink nose twitched daintily. “How about our little visit? Harold is volunteering at the museum this week and I’m so tired of being all by myself.”
“I don’t know,” Hallie said too quickly. “I’d like to, but my mom will be home real soon, and she’ll worry if I’m not here.”
“Well now, I think I might…” Mrs. Tilson was fishing around in her apron pocket. As she pulled out a pencil and a scrap of paper she went on, “I think I might have a solution to that problem right here.”
An embarrassingly obvious solution, and one that Halli
e should have thought of, of course. It was pretty much too late now to come up with a more reasonable cop-out, like too much homework, or an important phone call she was expecting. Giving up, Hallie scribbled a note for her mother, left it on the kitchen table, and went on down to the second floor.
Once they were inside the apartment, Mrs. Tilson insisted that Hallie make herself comfortable in the living room while she went into the kitchen to get their “little treat.”
It really was comfortable in the Tilsons’ apartment. A lot cooler than on the third floor, and an awful lot cooler than in the attic. Hallie had been in the Tilsons’ living room several times before, but never all by herself. Left alone, she wandered around the big, bright, high-ceilinged room, checking out the ornate molding around the fireplace, the neat antiques, and the fancy gold-framed paintings. And then there was the tower room.
While the tower rooms on the third floor and in the attic were nothing more than barren alcoves, this one was an important part of the Tilsons’ living room. The drapes on the curving windows were beautiful, heavy and shiny, and below them a circular window seat was built right into the tower wall. Above the window seat were wide panels of stained glass. Kicking off her shoes, Hallie knelt on the window seat and stared out through green glass leaves and yellow petals.
On her left a leaf-shaped pane looked across the air well directly into the Warwick Mall’s dress shop. Remembering the store from her visit to the mall, Hallie examined it again, noticing how much more interesting it was when everything and everybody, even the air itself, was tinted a deep jungle green. Seen through the green glass, the racks of scarves and dresses had a kind of rain forest feel, and if she squinted, it was easy to see the clerks and customers as rather well-dressed iguanas.
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