She had started up the cracked marble steps when she glanced up and something caught her eye. Something was moving in the second-floor tower window. Shading her eyes, she looked up and saw it again, a blurry movement behind the green and yellow glass. And then, way up in the clear glass above the decorative panels, a face appeared. It was Mrs. Tilson, looking down at Hallie and waving.
Hallie stared in surprise. To be looking out from way up there above the stained-glass panels, she must be standing on the window seat. Hallie hoped she didn’t lose her balance and fall off. She waved back and Mrs. Tilson waved again. Her lips were moving, saying something, but what? Was something wrong? Did the Tilsons need help? Hallie waved again and made her lips form the words “What is it? Is something wrong?” but the only answer was more waving.
Hallie ran then, up the stairs, through the double doors, and on up to the second-floor hallway. She knocked hard on the Tilsons’ front door, waited a moment, and knocked again. When the door finally opened she and Mrs. Tilson started talking at the same time, two people saying in breathless unison, “Is something wrong?”
It was Mrs. Tilson who answered first. “No, nothing’s wrong. Why did you …?”
Hallie relaxed. “I was just surprised to see you way up there.” She pointed toward the tower room window. “I thought maybe you needed to get someone’s attention because …”
Mrs. Tilson giggled and then shrugged. “No, no. Nothing’s wrong. I was just looking out at the avenue and then suddenly there you were.” She shrugged and giggled again. “You know, I told you that I like to—”
Hallie interrupted “—look out of windows,” she said. “Yes, I know. You said looking out windows was healthy, or something like that.”
“Did I say that?” Mrs. Tilson looked surprised. “Why, yes, I guess I did. I wonder…” She stopped and looked Hallie over. “Won’t you come on in? Come in and we’ll talk about it some more.”
“Well.” Hallie hesitated. “I’d better go up and put all this stuff away first. Oh, and leave a note for my mom. But maybe I could come back after I do that.”
“Oh yes, do,” Mrs. Tilson said. “Please do.”
Back in the cell block Hallie wrote a note and left it on the kitchen table before she went to her room. She threw her backpack on the bed and was squeezing around the bed to put the skates in the closet when she found herself face to face with the oval mirror. She stopped to stare at herself for a moment. At the dark, slanted eyebrows above the wide-set eyes and high cheekbones. And at the spot on her right cheek where she could make a dimple appear—when she felt like it. Most of the time lately she’d felt more like … Narrowing her eyes in a ferocious glare, she raised the left side of her upper lip the way Zeus used to do when he was mad at another dog. She stared at her snarling face for a few seconds before she sat down on the bed and began to think.
Could looking out a window really be good for you? In her own case, had the spyhole window been good for her? In one way, it had only given her a lot more stuff to worry about. But in another way—she didn’t like to admit it, probably wouldn’t admit it if anyone should ask, but things in her life had been getting better since she’d started looking out of that particular window.
No, maybe not. Not getting better so much as feeling better. Things were pretty much the same in her life. Maybe the change was in how she felt about it. Tipping over backward on the bed, Hallie frowned up at the cracked ceiling and imagined herself saying to Mrs. Tilson or to anyone else who might want to know, “But that doesn’t mean I’m back to okay. Not if okay means the way I was before. There’s no way looking out a window, even a thousand windows, could make things the way they were before.”
There was a humming noise first. A pulsing, humming sound that seemed to fill her whole head and make a throbbing beat in her ears. Her eyelids fluttered heavily. She rolled her head back and forth but her eyes refused to stay open and the humming sound didn’t go away. Instead it blurred and deepened and turned into words. It said her name first. “Hallie,” it said, and then, “Windows, Hallie. Look for the windows.”
The voice was so loud and real that suddenly she was wide awake and sitting bolt upright. “Wh-what…,” she stammered. “Who? Who said that?”
But the answer, if there was going to be one, was drowned out by the sharp click of a key turning in a lock, the thump of a door swinging open against the wall, and then a series of familiar footsteps going toward the kitchen. Mom was home. Still startled and confused, Hallie got up off the bed and followed her mother down the hall.
Mom was bending over the refrigerator’s vegetable bin when Hallie said hi, and she straightened up quickly with a bunch of carrots in her hand. “Oh, hello,” she gasped. “You startled me. I didn’t hear you come in.” But then her smile faded. “What is it, Hallie? Is something wrong?”
“No, not really. It’s just that…” Hallie paused, shaking her head. “I guess maybe I was dreaming but I just heard this voice talking to me. I was lying on my bed and then I heard someone talking to me, and it kind of scared me.”
Mom put down the carrots and led Hallie to a chair and sat down beside her. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me about it. What did the voice say?”
“It said my name and then it said something about windows.”
Mom looked puzzled. “Windows? I don’t see what…”
“Yeah.” Hallie grinned ruefully. “It doesn’t make much sense. But it’s kind of like something Mrs. Tilson says. About windows and mirrors.”
“Really? Mrs. Tilson? Windows and mirrors?”
Hallie nodded. “It’s something she likes to talk about. About how looking out windows is a lot better for a person than looking in mirrors. Or something like that.”
Mom shook her head. “I’m afraid I don’t understand,” she said.
“I know. I don’t either. Except…” Suddenly, without even figuring it out beforehand, Hallie began to explain. “Except that mirrors are just for looking at yourself and windows are for looking at other people.”
“Well, that’s true as far as—” Mom was starting to say when Hallie interrupted.
“Oh, I almost forgot. I have to go.” She pulled her scribbled note out from under one of the grocery bags and shoved it into Mom’s hand.
“‘At Tilsons’. Back soon. Hallie,’” Mom read out loud.
“Right,” Hallie said. “I saw Mrs. Tilson on my way up and she asked me to come down for a visit.”
“Oh, good.” Mom was fishing in one of the bags. “There’s something here you can take her.”
Hallie grinned. “Let me guess,” she said.
Mom nodded. “Right,” she said, holding out a carton of yogurt. “And while you’re there ask her to explain some more about the windows thing. Tell her I’m very interested.”
A minute later Hallie was on her way down the hall, carrying a quart of vanilla yogurt. As she passed her room she stepped inside for a second.
“Well, I understand,” she whispered. “I do understand about the windows thing, now. But what I don’t understand is why You bothered to mention it. I thought we still weren’t speaking.”
She went on then, out the door and down the hall, still thinking about windows. About the secret spyhole window, and all the other windows she might someday find ways to look through.
Published by
Dell Yearling
an imprint of
Random House Children’s Books
a division of Random House, Inc.
New York
Copyright © 2001 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
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eISBN: 978-0-307-55995-1
October 2002
v3.0
Spyhole Secrets Page 13