by LR Wright
He bounded up to his room and flung open the door, bracing himself. But he smelled nothing. Nothing except maybe a dusty smell, a musty smell, because the room had been shut up for all those days. He got down on the floor and looked under the bed.
And it was gone. The shoe box with the bird in it was gone. Eliot hunkered back on his heels, thinking. This was weird. This was very weird. It was making the skin on the back of his neck shrivel up. He looked carefully around his room. There was his school stuff on the desk. His restaurant apron folded up on the chair. His rollerblades in the corner, and his guitar up on the chest of drawers where Rosie couldn’t get to it. Maybe he’d buried the bird and forgotten about it.
Alvin leaned into the room, hanging on to the edges of the doorway. “I’m gonna do some exploring around here. Okay?”
“Are you crazy?” Eliot got up and took a last look around his bedroom. “No, it’s not okay. What if somebody saw you?”
“I’m real good at sneakin’ around. But anyway, so what if they did?” said Alvin, following him back downstairs.
“This is a small town,” Eliot said. “Somebody would say, ‘Hey, who’s that kid, never seen that kid around here before.’ And they’d start poking around and pretty soon we’d look up and see somebody staring in the window at us.”
“I’m bored,” Alvin complained, throwing himself on the sofa.
“So watch TV,” said Eliot, and he picked up the watering can.
Alvin turned on the set and Eliot finished watering the plants. Then he threw out the dead ones, and the dead flowers, into a black plastic garbage bag.
“We’re going to leave here tomorrow,” he told Alvin, digging around in the closet, looking for his dad’s camera.
“And we’ll sell the stuff,” said Alvin, “and get that bus to wherever. Yea.”
Eliot turned to say something to him and saw that he was coloring, with Rosie’s crayons, in Rosie’s coloring book, his black hair flopped over his eyes while he concentrated. Eliot felt sick, as if he was going to throw up. He struggled to his feet and leaned against the wall. Oh God please God dear God please let her be alive please let my sister be alive… Eliot didn’t care if he never got to see Rosie again, ever in his entire life. Oh God please let her be alive just please let her be alive…
Eliot went into the kitchen, to the telephone that sat on the countertop, a plain black one, and in his mind he saw Rosie sitting cross-legged on the floor, talking on the phone to her friend Ginny, and for a minute he couldn’t do it, couldn’t pick up the receiver. And when he finally did, there was no dial tone.
“I can’t deal with this,” he said. He put the receiver down. “I gotta go out for a minute.” Alvin looked up quickly, his eyes big, those lines raking across his forehead. “You stay here,” said Eliot. “I’ll be right back.”
He hurried out of the house and across the back lawn and through the trees to the clearing, where he stood for several moments with his gaze fixed on the horizon. Finally he looked down at the beach. It was clean. He had known it would be clean. He blinked tears from his eyes. He’d make the call tomorrow. From a pay phone. On the way to the ferry. Or maybe he’d get Alvin to do it.
Eliot turned and walked back to the house. Halfway there he realized that it was raining again.
Alvin hadn’t budged. He was sitting in the easy chair with the TV tray in front of him, still holding the same orange crayon in his fist.
“You’ve gotta have a bath,” said Eliot.
“Now?” said Alvin, dismayed.
“Not now. Later. After we eat.” Eliot went over to the cupboards, to see what there was to eat…and from the kitchen window he saw a police car bouncing slowly along the track, splashing through the puddles. “Holy shit,” said Eliot.
He didn’t panic, though. The cops knew the house was empty, so they were keeping an eye on it, that made sense.
But he turned swiftly around, and told Alvin to hide. Eliot rushed into the living room and quickly turned off the TV and Alvin ran upstairs.
From his hiding place behind his dad’s big chair, Eliot heard the police car come to a stop in the turnaround. He heard the door open and shut. He heard somebody walking, slow, and figured after a minute that the guy must be walking clear around the house. This was good. He was right, then, Eliot told himself, they were checking the place out, probably did this on some kind of regular basis.
But then he heard the guy at the back door. He knocked a couple of times, and then tried the door—which of course wasn’t locked anymore—and opened it. Oh god oh Jesus, thought Eliot, crouched behind the chair, his eyes shut tight. He didn’t move. He heard the policeman come inside, into the kitchen.
“Eliot?”
Eliot’s heart lunged and stopped beating for a while, and he wasn’t doing any breathing either.
“Eliot Gardener.”
It was like the voice of doom, right there in his own living room. Eliot opened his eyes and looked at the back of the easy chair, which he saw was less worn and faded than the front. Then, slowly, he stood up.
Oh, Jesus, Jesus, thought Eliot, looking across the room at the policeman, who was huge, and very stern-looking. Oh, Jesus what now? The cop was wearing the hat and the uniform, and he had a radio and a pair of handcuffs and a gun and the whole nine yards.
The cop stood there for a minute and then he moved slowly into the living room and sat down on the sofa. Trying to be casual. “Hi,” he said. “Where’s your friend?”
Eliot couldn’t speak. He willed himself not to look behind the cop at Alvin, who was slipping out of the stairwell into the kitchen.
“You guys are in big trouble,” the policeman was saying. But to Eliot he sounded pleased with himself.
As Alvin advanced across the kitchen Eliot felt his eyes bugging out of their sockets. He was frozen. He could make no decision, could make no move, could only watch as Alvin raised Eliot’s guitar and brought it crashing down on the policeman’s skull.
Sid Sokolowski staggered to his feet, and one hand went protectively to his holstered weapon while the other went to his head. Then he reached out and grabbed his assailant by the front of his sweatshirt.
“Yes!” shouted Alvin. “Go!”
Sid looked quickly across the room. The front door stood open, and Eliot Gardener was gone.
In the school gymnasium, big black cut-outs of human figures doing exercises and throwing balls were stuck to the walls. The big room was filled with people. Betty heard shreds of their conversation, comments about her good coat and the blue woolen hat she wore, about her gloves and her handbag, and about her size. She began shaking her head gently from side to side, distorting the voices before they reached her ears.
A man appeared on the stage and said he was the principal. He introduced the teachers. From throughout the audience they popped to their feet and bobbed their heads and sat quickly back down again. Betty tried to get a good look at them, but couldn’t; they popped up and down too fast, like jackrabbits.
Finally the principal stopped talking, and the people got up and began moving toward the doors in a buzz of talking that became a roar, and again the undercurrent was there, the thorny undercurrent that spoke of Betty in rasping whispers. She moved, helpless, with the throng out into the hall. Sweat was pouring down her scalp, and she wished she could take off her coat, only the dress underneath it was dirty, somewhat dirty. Her feet hurt in her rubber boots, which were too small for her.
She found the classroom of Heather’s teacher. There were two people already waiting. Betty peered inside.
And instantly, with a tremendous shock, she knew that this was not a room in which Heather spent much time. If Heather had spent a lot of time there, Betty would have been able to smell her. And she couldn’t smell her.
The teacher was sitting at a long table, talking earnestly to a man and woman sitting opposite her. A sign on the table said MISS JORGENSON.
Why had she not called Betty to tell her that Heather was not c
oming to school? Probably she had craftily waited, not saying anything about Heather’s absences, until Betty showed up for this, the parent-teacher conference, so that she could confront her with it face-to-face.
Betty played with the clasp on her handbag. Could they blame her for it? For Heather not going to school? Could they?
Time sped past, then, as it sometimes did, so fast that Betty had to hang on to the edge of the doorway so as not to be swept away by it—and it was suddenly her turn.
“Hello,” smiled Miss Jorgenson.
“Hello!” said Betty jovially.
“I teach one of your children, do I?”
Betty laughed. “Heather! Her name is Heather.”
“Oh yes, Heather. She’s a lovely child, Mrs. Coutts.” The teacher shuffled through some papers on the table. “She is doing just fine. She’s a bright little girl, a hard worker. About the only comment I have to make other than that is that she’s very quiet.”
“That’s good!” Betty was enormously relieved. The teacher hadn’t even noticed that Heather wasn’t often here! Because she was so quiet!
“But perhaps she’s too quiet,” said Miss Jorgenson seriously. “She doesn’t spend much time talking to the other children. She keeps to herself. Is she like that at home? Does she have many friends in the neighborhood?”
“Oh yes, yes, she has many friends, many.”
Betty was very tense. She hadn’t known what it would be like to meet a teacher. She didn’t like it, she decided.
“And why should it matter,” she said to the teacher, “if she’s quiet? There are a lot of quiet people in the world. They are quiet so that other people can be heard.”
She was sweating profusely. She could feel drops on her forehead and knew that in a minute they would begin to fall down the front of her head and be seen. There were murmurings in the line of waiting parents; she could feel their breath. She reached behind her and made swatting motions.
“I see,” said Miss Jorgenson, her smile gone. “Mrs. Coutts — ”
But Betty had gotten up from the chair. She pushed through the people who were waiting in the doorway, and in the hall she leaned against the wall and stood on one foot and then the other, easing the pain in one and then the other. Occasionally a parent or two parents together scuttled out of a classroom and headed for the front door of the school. As people came out of the classroom Betty had been in they looked at her strangely, and she knew they were talking about her. A man in a pair of overalls, carrying a big mop and a pail with a wringer thing on it, sauntered down the hall, whistling. He was short and bent over, and he had gray hair. He nodded to Betty as he passed, which startled her.
She decided to go home.
On the way, as she hurried along in her too-tight rubbers, huddled into her coat, clutching her handbag, she thought about that classroom, a room where Heather hardly ever went, and Betty wondered, urgently, What does she do, then, when she’s supposed to be going to school? Where does she go every morning, if not to school?
Chapter 23
“WHAT HAPPENED TO YOUR head?” said Alberg to Sokolowski, who was standing in his doorway.
“I got one of them.”
“One of what?”
“One of those damn kids. Out at the Gardener house. I told you he was gonna come home. Didn’t I tell you?”
“Which one did you get?” Alberg asked, taking off his reading glasses.
“The other one,” said the sergeant reluctantly. “Name of Alvin Hobbes.”
“And what about Eliot?”
Sokolowski’s expression grew sullen. “He got away. While I was grabbing hold of the other kid. By the time I got this one to the car, he was long gone.”
“Shit,” Alberg muttered. “Okay. Let’s move on. Get the word out to the ferries.”
“Yeah. Right away.”
“And what do we know about Alvin?”
“He’s ten. A chronic runaway.”
“Anything else?”
“Nah. All he does is run away from home. I’ve called Social Services. They’re sending someone over to take him back to the detention center.”
“What the hell is he doing in a detention center, anyway?” said Alberg irritably.
“Waiting to be assigned to a foster home, probably.”
Alberg studied the bandage that adorned the right side of Sokolowski’s head. “Now tell me what happened.”
The sergeant lifted his hand to touch it, delicately. “It’s nothing. A cut. Isabella put this on it. You want to talk to this little shit, while I do the ferries?”
When Alberg and Sokolowski got to the interview room, Constable Henry Loewen was standing by the door watching Alvin Hobbes and wearing an expression of intense interest. Alvin was sitting in a metal chair, and the loudest sound in the room was the sound of his breathing, harsh and rasping.
“You been running, Alvin?” said Alberg.
The kid didn’t reply, didn’t even look at him. He seemed unable to sit still. His feet were jiggling, or tapping, or kicking. His hands were in almost constant motion, too. He’d shake them, as if he’d just held them under a water tap. Or he’d squeeze them together. Or move the fingers around as if he were playing a piano. And his eyes traveled continuously around the room, yet with a gaze so blank and aimless that Alberg wondered if the kid’s vision was impaired.
“Hobbes,” said the sergeant, turning to leave. “I think that’s a Limey name,” he said disapprovingly, to no one in particular.
“Are you okay, Alvin?” said Alberg. “You’re having trouble breathing. You got a cold, maybe?”
“Ezma,” said Alvin promptly. “I got ezma.”
Alberg sat down opposite him, in another scuffed metal chair. “You’ve got what?”
“Ezma.” Alvin’s gaze rested on Alberg’s face for an instant, then scurried away.
“Ah,” said Alberg, nodding. “Asthma.”
“Yeah.” He was kicking the leg of the table now.
“I’m Staff Sergeant Alberg.” He held out his hand to Alvin, who looked at it incredulously and then slowly stuck out his own, which was completely enveloped in Alberg’s grasp for about a second, until he pulled it away.
The sun was going to shine on Madeline Jaworski’s funeral, Enid observed, looking out from her bedroom window as she readied herself for the event. She dressed with care, as always, in a navy suit, a pale pink blouse, a navy hat with a cluster of tiny pink roses at the front, and navy pantyhose and pumps. She had made her selections automatically, however, almost absently, her mind not on the task at hand.
Madeline Jaworski had once been on a bowling team with Bernie, so Enid knew that Bernie would be attending the funeral, too.
It was a cold day, though sunny, and Enid decided as she pulled on a pair of navy kid gloves that she would take her car.
Bernie was there ahead of her, talking to a group of people Enid didn’t recognize. Enid joined another group, and looked discreetly among them, fantasizing about a new romance… then realized that this, too, she was doing absently, because it was what she always did, not because it was at this moment something she felt like doing.
People had begun to fill up the chapel, and Bernie was trying to catch her eye. Enid pretended not to have seen her: today she preferred to sit alone. But when she slipped into a pew, Bernie caught up to her and slid in beside her, occupying the aisle seat.
“Now this is what I call a good turnout,” said Bernie, scanning the assemblage with satisfaction. “The whole bowling league’s here. Not to mention the church crowd. Madeline was busy as a bee with her church work. Plus those Eastern Star types.” Bernie dusted her hands and gave a little shudder. “Can’t stand those Eastern Star types.”
“Madeline was one of them,” Enid pointed out.
“Yeah.” Bernie sighed. “There’s just no accounting for some things.” She was wearing the same outfit she’d had on at the Gardeners’ funerals, Enid noticed, and experienced a familiar pang of guilt because she ha
d more material wealth than Bernie.
The organ music swelled to a climax and came to a stop, and the minister began talking. At least he had actually known Madeline, Enid thought. Everybody here had known her. Had memories of her, and a certain amount of affection for her. Well, most people, anyway. Some had no doubt come for the free food.
Enid leaned close to Bernie and whispered in her ear. “Yesterday I found a gun.”
Bernie jerked away from her, stared at her in amazement. “What?”
“Shhhh.” Enid gazed attentively at the minister, her gloved hands folded in her lap, on top of her small flat navy handbag.
“What?” said Bernie again, in a whisper, this time.
“A gun,” said Enid, barely mouthing it.
A ripple of appreciative laughter spread through the pews: the minister had related a story about an embarrassing moment Madeline had once created for him.
“What kind of a—what kind of a one?” Bernie hissed. She was perched tensely on the edge of the pew, clutching her black plastic purse close to her.
“Medium-sized,” whispered Enid. She lifted her index fingers and from her lap, measured the air.
Bernie looked at Enid’s handbag, and then, in horror, at Enid’s face. “Is it—?” she said, pointing at the handbag.
Enid shook her head, frowning. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Then she almost giggled at the thought of it, of herself so primly properly dressed in navy and pale pink standing, suddenly, opening her bag, saying to the people whose heads would have turned to stare at her, “Excuse me,” taking out the gun and shooting it. She glanced up at the hideous light fixtures that adorned the ceiling. Not a bad idea, she thought.
“Where?” said Bernie.
“I put it back exactly where I found it,” said Enid.
“No, I mean, where was it, when you found it?”
The woman directly in front of Bernie tilted her head toward them and made a sound of irritation.
“Shhh,” said Enid to Bernie.
They faced front. Enid put on an earnest expression, meant to signify a warm personal interest in the minister’s discourse. She glanced at Bernie, whose face seemed more corrugated with wrinkles than ever, and who was chewing industriously on the inside of her mouth, a habit she’d been trying for months— maybe years—to break.