Noah's Rainy Day

by Sandra Brannan

  “Are you going to leave me hanging on what’s so important to make you work over Christmas?” Staring at my damaged appearance in the mirror’s reflection seemed answer enough. I’d run scared too, if I were Jack.

  I sensed a bit of irritation in his voice when he said, “Liv? The mountain lion?”

  And I decided to finish my story.

  CHAPTER 7

  Noah

  I TENSED AND FELT a change deep inside my muscles, the type of tension that tends to launch my skinny body like a rocket into outer space, into the vast darkness of seizures. Inside, it feels like a giant’s rough fingertips strumming the taut strings of a pixie’s delicate harp. I focused on my limbs and willed myself away from the edge of a seizure. Oddly, thinking about Auntie Liv’s storytelling did the trick to relax me.

  As she told her story of the mountain lion, I realized that knowing even the worst news or the scariest stories was less stressful than not knowing or leaving it to my imagination. I drew in a breath and tilted my nose toward Beulah’s warm coat. She smelled clean and good, like a dog should. I was glad Beulah was here with me. She made me feel safe.

  Was it wrong of me to pray that someone buys Auntie Liv’s Fort Collins house she has for sale and that she never finds an apartment in Denver so that she can live with us forever?

  As Auntie Liv told whoever was on the phone about squatting down to grab her knife, I remembered hearing about how dangerous cats had become to people. I had heard on the local news that people should watch out for mountain lions because they had become fearless of humans. The news had said the mountain lions were sneaking into our neighborhoods, hunting the irrigation ditches for easy prey like yappy dogs or loose cats. Some people jogging in the woods had gotten attacked by the cougars. Cougar. I liked that word better than mountain lion or cat. Sounds scarier. I don’t know if I believe all the talk that there are more cougars attacking humans because we don’t carry and shoot guns like they used to in the West. I think the cats are just mad that a bunch of us people moved in closer to their home in the woods near Denver and they don’t like sharing their room. I don’t like sharing my room with Emma when my aunts and uncles come to visit. I don’t attack anyone, but I’ve been known to snarl at Emma a time or two.

  But I like sharing my room with Beulah.

  And I like watching out my window every morning and every evening, hoping to see a mountain lion. How exciting would that be? I know Mom would scold me for wishing something so dangerous and I wouldn’t dare share my secret with Emma or she’d never go in the backyard again, but I still hoped to see a mountain lion in our neighborhood someday.

  I couldn’t wait to tell Emma how Auntie Liv fought off a cougar. It’s such a crazy story that Emma’s going to call me a liar. Then she’ll tell me I should quit letting my imagination get in the way of reality. She is funny that way, using such big words she learned on Nickelodeon. She should be an actress.

  Auntie Liv’s tone changed. I felt Beulah shift beside me. She was getting to the good part where the cougar leapt from the tree and attacked her. I felt my own muscles bunch and I had to focus hard to tell them to relax. My arms started to relax and the dog settled back down as Auntie Liv grew quiet. She was listening to whatever her boyfriend was saying. I wanted to hear Auntie Liv tell more of her story.

  I quit pretending to be asleep, hoping she’d notice and come spend time with me. I shifted my weight and studied the door as if I needed to see for myself how Auntie Liv had made it out of her pickle unharmed. I hadn’t seen her when she came in, after all. And now my mind’s eye imagined she was missing an arm or had a gaping wound in her side or an eyeball dangling down her cheek like a zombie or something.

  I held my breath, wanting to see my aunt, wanting to know she was okay, head to toe. I was glad I had my bionic contact in today. I could see for miles and miles, but not through bathroom doors. It wasn’t that good of a contact lens. But wouldn’t that be cool if Santa brought a secret spy contact lens that could do that?

  “Auntie Liv!” Emma called from downstairs, her intrusion causing my body to jerk.

  I heard Auntie Liv open the door, tiptoe out the bedroom door and close it again, then call softly down, “I’ll be down in a minute, Em.”

  Before she retreated back into my bathroom to finish her call, I had the chance to see for myself she had no wounds, no missing limbs. Okey dokey. Auntie Liv was fine, despite her scary story, other than a bunch of scratches on her face and hands. And she was kind of walking funny. She must not have noticed I was wide awake or she would have ended her call immediately.

  She said goodbye in a syrupy girly voice. Yuck! I don’t know if I really wanted to meet this guy or not. Especially the way he changed my Auntie Liv from funny and tough to squishy.

  The bathroom door opened.

  “Hey, cowboy,” she said as she came closer to me. I was glad she noticed I was awake. “Nice view into your neighbor’s house. How much of my phone conversation did you hear?” I smiled. “Spying on me again?”

  She’s onto me. I heard her crouch beside me, moaning with pain as she did. She lay down beside me, sandwiching me between her and Beulah. I love being sandwiched.

  “I hurt my side today. That’s why I grunted just now.” She must have noticed my smile disappear and my frown when I heard her groan with pain. “And listen, about that phone call. The trick to being a good spy is not to share any of your secrets. So do you think you can keep all this between you and me?” I didn’t smile. “Oh, is that how it’s going to be?” I felt her fingers tickle my neck and sides. “Then I’ll force you to keep it a secret. Tickle torture!”

  I laughed, drawing my knees up to my stomach and curling into a protective ball. She only tickled me for a few seconds but it felt like hours. Torture.

  “So, truth or you get more of the tickle torture.” I let the laughter fade and my smile remain. Auntie Liv said, “Okay, so here’s the deal. I did land hard on the ground and bruised a rib or two. But I’m fine. And I don’t want your mom or Auntie Elizabeth to find out because they’ll worry. And if they find out about the mountain lion, they’ll flip out.”

  I started laughing again.

  “You know the drill. Pinky swear. You won’t tell anyone?”

  I felt her hook her pinky around mine and I refused to smile.

  “You’re telling Emma, aren’t you?” I smiled. “Compromise. Pinky swear you won’t tell anyone but Emma?” I smiled. “Deal. She won’t believe you anyway.”

  Auntie Liv always knew what to say. She never treated me like I was stupid, just because I was a kid. That’s what I loved most about her. And she paid attention. To all of us kids. She knew Emma as well as she knew me.

  “Okay, so the most important part of my morning was not that I saw a mountain lion and not that I fell down and hurt myself, but what I found while I was in the woods.”

  My excitement grew. I could feel my limbs growing stiff and I couldn’t relax. I’d been waiting for this ever since Auntie Liv got back today.

  “I found a kid’s backpack. Stuffed in a bush. It looks like some kid lost his schoolwork on a hike or something. Won’t that be a good Christmas gift for the kid it belongs to?” I smiled. “Want to help me figure out whose it might be?”

  I flashed a smile and raised my eyes.

  “I looked through the backpack and it looks like the books belong to Pennington Elementary School.” I sucked in a squeal. “You know that school? Is that where you go?” I smiled. “Great! This is going to be easier than I first thought. Have you heard of any kid losing a backpack?”

  I didn’t smile. I had heard of a girl losing her new coat on the playground and a little boy in first grade losing the remote-control tank he had brought for show-and-tell, but nothing about a backpack being lost.

  “Okay, if it helps, it looks like it belongs to a boy. I found Milky Way candy wrappers, bite-sized, and two Matchbox cars, one white with blue racing stripes and one midnight blue with orange racing stripe
s.”

  I grinned. Sounded like the kid was pretty cool to me. I’d like having those cars to play with.

  “The cars have been played with a lot. I can tell. Probably his favorites. How old would you guess him to be? Younger than you?”

  I didn’t think so and kept my face blank.

  “Your grade?” My smile was quick. “Maybe in a higher grade?” I grinned. “So around your age and maybe in fourth, fifth, or sixth grade?” I smiled and sucked in another squeal. “One book was Everyday Mathematics. Does that help?”

  We had Everyday Mathematics in almost every grade, so I didn’t smile.

  “There was a note about a December field trip pass to—” She stopped, noticing I’d smiled. “Does that help? Is there only one grade that takes a field trip in December?”

  Every grade took field trips, but only the fifth graders took one in December.

  “Fourth?” No smile. Auntie Liv always forgets what grade I’m in. Emma and I are in fourth. I told her the kid was probably in a higher grade already. “Fifth? So the kid who lost this backpack is a fifth grader? Great! You’ve narrowed this down a lot. What else?”

  My eyes wandered and my smile disappeared. She started fiddling with her fingers and knuckles. I laughed.

  “First finger A through F?” I didn’t smile. “Damn, I wish I knew the five-finger method. You could probably tell me a lot more if I did. Do you want me to call Emma?”

  I would not smile. No way. This was our game. Mine and Auntie Liv’s. A secret. I was the spy, not Emma.

  “Okay. Just between us, then. So I’ll have to use yes and no questions only. You can help me figure this out. I won’t tell anyone else.” I smiled. “Besides, you’re great at this. Remember last year when we were at Gramma Bergen’s house? The beeping sound no one could figure out?” I did. I heard it. It was annoying. “It took us a while, but we figured it out. Remember? It was a dying battery in a smoke detector back in a closet in the basement, the sound muffled and faint coming through the insulated floor. You figured that out all because of your bionic ears. I always knew you’d make a good spy.”

  Thanks to Auntie Liv, I was getting better and better all the time. Especially when she gave me puzzles to figure out, like the lost backpack. It was fun to wonder whose it might be and I’d think hard about what I remembered before the holiday break and would listen closely to all the kids after.

  “So, I got you a Christmas present, but I can’t give it to you tomorrow morning or everyone will know your secret. That you’re a spy.”

  I saw her fish a small package from her pocket. In my excitement, I forgot all about the earlier signs that a seizure might be coming on. Now, I knew nothing—not even a grand mal—could take me away from this special moment.

  “At Quantico, I lived in the dormitory closest to the store. Did you know I ate for free the whole time I was there?”

  I smiled. I loved to eat. Auntie Liv did, too. Not only did we have our love of mysteries in common, we also shared our love of food. She’d take me to McDonald’s and buy me the Big Mac meal with a shake. I’d eat and eat and eat until I thought my stomach would burst like an overfilled balloon. Like I said, Auntie Liv never treated me like a little kid, buying me tiny Happy Meals just because I only weighed forty pounds. Instead, she treated me like I was twelve.

  “Anyway, I found this really cool pin,” she said, unwrapping the tiny gift for me. “I think you’ll like it, but I’m not sure. Maybe I’ve read all the signs wrong.” I stopped smiling, studying her face and the pin she pulled from the box with my bionic eye. “The signs that you’d make a great spy are that you’re smart, you pay attention, and you notice everything. And you’re great at pretending to be asleep.” I groaned. “I think you would make a great spy. Unless you’re afraid of danger, which I highly doubt.”

  I grinned, feeling happy that she understood and appreciated my talents and that we shared this secret of my life as a spy.

  “See this? It’s a goalpost with a football flying through it. Manly.” I laughed. She did, too. “The football is really an activation button. The tiny cameraman videotaping the field goal is really a microphone nested in the pin. Even though this pin is the size of a quarter, the memory card can hold up to two hours of audio. A spy needs equipment like this, don’t you think?”

  I sucked in a long breath, feeling more excited about this gift than the flashlight she’d given me last year. It was a luminescent flashlight that detected things like bloodstains. Cool! It had a purplish glow and a big switch the size of a salad plate. But Mom and Dad took that away after the neighbor complained about the light flashing on and off on nights I couldn’t sleep and was bored. I don’t know where they put it, but I’d bet it’s on the top shelf of my closet where Emma can’t reach.

  I wasn’t sure if I could activate the pin because the button was so tiny, but so what? How cool was this that I could spy for real? As she held the pin close to my good eye, I could see that the brown football, about the size of a dime, was the largest part of the pin. I hoped I could reach up with my arms and at least tap the button with my crooked fingers or wrist bone.

  “Now before I pin this on your shirt, you have to promise me you won’t use this to get your sister in trouble or to record your parents. If you do, we’ll both get in trouble. It’s just for secret missions. Like to find the owner of the lost backpack. The case of the mysterious backpack. Agreed?”

  I was so excited I couldn’t force my mouth’s wide opening to form a smile so I moved my eyes upward and kicked my legs.

  Auntie Liv said, “Okay, then pinky swear.”

  My kicking continued and Beulah squirmed beside me. I hadn’t heard Emma come into my room over my own laughing, but I heard Auntie Liv’s groan when my sister jumped on her back. “Ow.”

  “I’ve got her, Noah! Two against one.”

  I heard Auntie Liv grunt. “Oh no!”

  “Surrender. We have you surrounded.”

  I felt Beulah stir beside me. In all my excitement, I hadn’t noticed until now the fresh scabs on Auntie Liv’s hands. And Emma’s roughhousing had caused Auntie Liv to wince in pain. I could tell she was hurting.

  “Okay, I surrender. Stop, please,” Auntie Liv begged.

  Critical Mass. Stuff happens to Auntie Liv. My mom and Auntie Elizabeth were right. But now that I’m a spy, maybe cool stuff will start happening to me and they’ll start calling me CM Junior.

  CHAPTER 8

  “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, they lost him?”

  Denver Police Chief Tony Gates had found the quietest area he could, which was no small feat considering seven of his relatives and thirteen of his wife’s family members had joined his family of eight for a Christmas Eve feast. But he’d managed to steal himself away to the back porch where he could be alone. It was too cold outside to entice any of his six kids to play in the backyard with their cousins. Plus the sun was already setting behind the Rocky Mountains.

  After Gates had answered the phone, his best friend Streeter Pierce had followed him out on the porch, probably recognizing the expression on his face. The glare of the setting sun reflecting off the crusted snow was bright. Squinting didn’t seem to help lessen the blinding brilliance of ice crystals that wouldn’t last for long. So Gates turned his back to the yard and leaned against the wooden railing on the covered porch, staring into the window of his cheerful home. Streeter rested against the railing beside him. Their side-by-side reflections in the windowpane made him think of salt and pepper; Streeter’s hair was as white as cotton and his was black with silver streaks at the temples.

  He put the phone on speaker, now that the two of them were alone.

  The voice of the deputy on the other end of the call could be heard, “ … says the boy was put on a plane at LaGuardia by his father to be picked up at LAX by his mother, with one stop at Denver.”

  “How old a kid are we talking?” Gates asked, shifting his gaze toward his friend. At the word “kid,” he noticed the weariness around
Streeter’s eyes. That coupled with his colorless hair made him appear much older than his late thirties.

  “Five.”

  “Damn it, what the hell were they thinking? Didn’t anyone notice the kid didn’t make it on the Denver to LAX flight for God’s sake?” Gates asked, a dread draining what little energy he had mustered for the holiday festivities. He wasn’t much older than Streeter, but he felt like an old man himself after too many of these horrifying cases involving missing, exploited, or abused children.

  “They did. Apparently paged the kid’s name and the airline escort who was responsible for the unaccompanied minor. Airline rules.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. The boy was supposed to be in LA an hour and a half ago. His mother waited for a half hour after the Denver flight landed in LA before calling her ex in New York, which is when they figured out that the kid had disappeared somewhere between when he got off the plane at DIA and when he was supposed to arrive at LAX.”

  Gates exchanged a look with Streeter, both men shaking their heads.

  “What the hell? How does someone lose a kid? What’s wrong with these people?” Gates saw an always-prepared Streeter fish a pad of paper and pen from his pocket and gave him a nod of encouragement, asking, “Timeline?”

  “The father took the kid to the airport for a flight from LaGuardia to DIA that left at 10:20 a.m. EST and landed at 12:40 p.m. MST.”

  “Four hours and twenty minutes. And the airline confirmed the boy was on that flight?”

  “Yes. And that he arrived in Denver. Then the kid was supposed to get on flight 1212 to LAX, leaving Denver at 1:55 p.m. MST and arriving in LA at 3:20 p.m. PST. Like I said, the gate agent claims she noticed the kid and the escort never made it on the flight but assumed the kid got sick or something and the escort was attending to him. Figured they’d rebook after holding up the flight as long as they could. She said that happens all the time. The mother claims to have waited until a quarter to four her time before calling her ex. Then everything started rocking and rolling from there.”