Blair’s Nightmare (18 page)

David supposed it could have been worse—but not much. Just as he'd feared, he'd tied up everytime he'd had to answer a question. The only good outcome, as far as he was concerned, was that there'd been no mention at all of a dog. He wondered about that—until later that day when two of the officers who'd been at Mr. Golanski's came to the house.

The sheriff's deputies had asked some questions the night before, but by Saturday afternoon they'd obviously thought of a lot more. This time most of their questions were about the gun,
which they said was definitely the one that had been taken from the guard on the night of the escape. They wanted to know why the gun had been in the cave, why the convicts had left their only weapon there, and how David and Blair had happened to find it.

“Maybe it wasn't any good,” David suggested. “Or maybe they were out of ammunition.”

“It was operational and fully loaded,” one of the policemen said.

“Oh,” David said, and then—risking it—he asked cautiously, “What did they say? Why did they say they left it in the cave?”

The policeman grinned. “At this point they aren't saying anything,” he said. “They're waiting to tell their lawyers.”

So that explained it. Steve and Herbie hadn't mentioned Nightmare because they weren't talking about anything—at least not yet. But that didn't mean they wouldn't eventually. It was one more thing to worry about. And where Nightmare was concerned, it was only one of many.

In fact, it was only because of Nightmare that David hadn't been even more nervous about the TV interview beforehand, as well as more worried about the outcome afterwards. The thing was, he had too much else on his mind. Too much dog on his mind, actually.

When Blair had come home with Nightmare the night
before, he'd done just as David told him and put Nightmare in the tool shed, where he'd stayed—for the time being. Later that night, when Amanda and Janie sneaked out to feed and water him, he was still there; but the next morning when David and Amanda had gone out very early, they'd found him wandering around the yard. He'd chewed the bandage off his foot, and the cut looked even more raw and puffy than it had the day before.

There had barely been time to get the foot cleaned and doctored and Nightmare coaxed back into the tool shed before Dad and Molly came down to breakfast. They'd had to leave him alone briefly during breakfast, but all the rest of the day, except at mealtimes and during the TV interview, they took turns keeping him company. On Saturday afternoon, Pete came over and helped out with the dog-sitting. But the whole situation was very nip and tuck, with several narrow escapes.

There were all kinds of dangerous possibilities. Neither Dad nor Molly had much interest in the tool shed, but there was always the chance they might decide to check it out, for some reason. Or Nightmare might wander out into the yard again during the day. Pete was repairing the door and the hole in the wall, but there was no telling whether Nightmare would scratch his way out again on Monday when they would have to shut him in while they were away at school. And then there
was his foot. If it didn't start healing pretty soon, he would definitely have to be taken to a vet, and then the cat would be out of the bag for sure.

Late in the afternoon on Saturday they had a conference about Nightmare's future. Dad and Molly had gone to a wine tasting party, and for the moment the coast was clear, so they brought Nightmare out of the tool shed. All six of them, including Pete, sat around on the lawn, with Nightmare sprawled happily in the center of the circle, and discussed his fate.

They all agreed that over the long run things didn't look good. In fact, at one point, Amanda even suggested giving up and telling Dad and Molly everything. David was amazed.

“We can't do that,” he said.

“Look,” she said, “don't you think that when they see him and hear about everything that's happened they'll weaken and let us keep him? I'll bet Mom will.”

“It's not that,” David said. “Dad probably would too. At least he might. But what he'd be sure to do is tell the authorities that we have him. He's got a real hang-up about notifying the proper authorities. And then they'll notify his ex-owner—who'll probably insist on having him shot.”

“I bet you're right,” Pete said to Amanda. “Davey's old man couldn't let them shoot the mutt, once he hears about how he helped catch the crooks and everything.”

Amanda stared at Pete coldly. “What do you know about Davey's old man,” she said. Pete didn't say anything more.

Then Tesser suggested that they should dye Nightmare black so his owner wouldn't recognize him—and Janie thought they all ought to run away and take him with them; but nobody came up with anything very practical. So they just went on as they had before—moment by moment—nip and tuck.

On Sunday, when the interview was to be shown on TV, Molly suggested going into town to some friends' house to watch. David declined with thanks. If they'd been able to get Channel 40 themselves—Westerly Road didn't have cable television—he might have watched it. But to sit around with some people he hardly knew and watch himself blowing it was not his idea of a good time.

Nobody understood it. Particularly Janie. Wild horses couldn't have kept Janie away from seeing herself on TV. They were all nagging at him all morning, and when Pete showed up and started nagging too, and promising to dog-sit while they were gone, David gave up and said he'd go. He really was curious to see just how bad it would be—and besides he had a plan.

When they were almost to town, he asked to be let off at the library instead. After another round of protests, Dad said for everyone to be still because David had the right to decide whether he wanted to see himself on TV or not.

When they pulled up in front of the library, David got out and waited until the station wagon had disappeared around the corner. Then he turned the other way and walked quickly down Main Street to the big Sears and Roebuck store. On the way to the second floor on the escalator, he put on his dark glasses and turned up his collar.

In the TV department a clerk was doing a hard-sell number for an overweight couple with two little overweight kids. David edged up to a TV set and turned it away from a 49er's football game—to something called
Local Color,
on Channel 40. But just as Ms. Bell came on, asking him the first question, the whole chubby family parked themselves between him and the screen. He moved to another set and got a glimpse of himself opening and shutting his mouth without saying anything, before another clerk came over and asked him if he needed any help. When he said no, the clerk switched the channel. By the time he finally found a set nobody else was interested in, Ms. Bell was interviewing Dad and Janie. Dad looked good, and Janie was obviously in her element. David went back to the library. It was probably just as well. He knew he wouldn't have liked it.

I
F
D
AVID THOUGHT AT ALL
about what was going to happen on Monday, it was only to hope that not very many people watched Channel 40 on a Sunday afternoon. Actually, he was fairly sure that nobody did, not in November anyway, when there was football on the major networks. But just in case someone had caught the “David Stanley Horror Show,” he decided that the best defense would be to beat them to the draw by laughing at himself. “Yeah,” he'd say, “I really got the collar on, didn't I? There goes my career as the next Dan Rather.” It was a pretty good line, but he never got to use it.

It started out as soon as he and Amanda got on the bus. Everyone asked him questions and made a big fuss. Even Mr. Hobbs, the bus driver, who never said anything except “sit down”
and “shut up,” did a big number about welcoming David on board and asking him if he'd been interviewed by
Time
magazine yet. Then all the kids on the bus—even Amanda's friend Tammy and her brother—got into a scramble to see who could sit close enough to talk to him.

Nobody kidded him about choking up during the interview, in spite of the fact that it seemed like nearly everybody had seen it. And those who hadn't seen the TV program had read the story that had appeared in the
Valley Press.
All the way to school nobody talked about anything except how David had captured the escaped convicts. In fact, nobody talked much at all except David himself, because every time he stopped talking somebody asked another question. And that was just the beginning.

School was more of the same—a lot more. The principal called him “Our Local Hero” and made him stand up and take a bow during assembly. All day long whole gangs of people followed him around as if he were some kind of rock musician or movie star. And then, to top it all off, while he was waiting at the bus stop in the afternoon, a bunch of little kids came up and asked for his autograph. David A. Stanley's autograph! It was really weird.

One of the weirdest things about it was the way everybody seemed to be listening to him, but after a while he began to get
the feeling that what he actually said didn't make any difference. What mattered wasn't what he'd done or hadn't done, but just the fact that he'd been in the papers and on TV. Right at first he kept saying that he hadn't really done anything, because the prisoners were so sick they were going to turn themselves in anyway. He said that in Mrs. Baldwin's class when she asked him to tell about his experience—and then she said that he was not only a hero but a modest hero, as well. So after a while he quit being modest, and everybody seemed to think that was all right, too.

But the really weirdest part was the way it made him feel. Right at first he'd been a little nervous—but not for long. Even before the morning was over, he quit worrying about what he was going to say because it was pretty obvious that whatever he said was going to be a big hit. By the end of the day, it was as if he were floating on a strange kind of high. He laughed and wised off and talked in a loud voice—and every once in a while he had a strange kind of disconnected feeling, as if he weren't really himself. As if the person who was doing all the talking and laughing had nothing to do with the real David Stanley. But it was still very exciting and a big kick. It was only later that a reaction set in.

When he first got home, Blair wanted him to go out and look at Nightmare's foot, and so he did. The swelling had gone
way down, and the color was much more normal. While he was inspecting the paw and helping Blair put a new bandage on it, he started talking a little bit about what had happened at school, but Blair was all excited about how much better Nightmare's foot was and the fact that he hadn't tried to break out of the tool shed while they were all away at school. After a while David went back in the house to have some milk and cookies and got into a conversation with Amanda.

Amanda had seen what happened at the bus stop, but she didn't know anything about the rest of the day. So he told her about the assembly, and she kidded him about his grammar school groupies and the autograph thing. But then she started talking about a new guy in the tenth grade who'd just made it to the top of her “ten most” list—and how she'd bumped into him in the hall, “accidentally on purpose”—and how they'd talked for five or ten minutes afterwards—and how Eloise almost died of jealousy.

After Amanda went out, he went on sitting there at the kitchen table and thinking. The only cookies that were left were burnt on the bottom and tasted awful, and he'd begun to feel very depressed. He didn't know why—and he didn't really want to think about it. He just sat there for a while, poking black cookie crumbs around on the table cloth, and then Molly came in and asked him to take out the garbage. For
some reason that was the last straw. He got up, grabbed the garbage and slammed out of the room. He could feel Molly's eyes staring after him in astonishment.

After he'd dumped the garbage, he climbed up into the tree house and just sat there feeling rotten. He didn't know why he'd had to take it out on Molly. In fact he didn't even know for sure what it was that was bugging him. Oh, he had a clue or two maybe, but he didn't feel like going into it. He was still sitting there in the tree house, with his chin on his knees, when he heard Pete clanking down the driveway on his antique bike.

“Ye gods,” he said. “Just what I need.”

But when Pete started yelling, “Dave. Hey, Davey,” he stuck his head out of the window and answered.

“Hey. Whatcha doing up here all by yourself?” Pete said as he crawled into the tree house.

“I don't know,” David said coldly. “What're you doing here?”

Pete's Expression-Number-Two: the Blank Stare, was blanker than usual. “I come up to see you.”

“Oh yeah?” David was too depressed to be careful, or to care what might happen if he weren't. “You still looking for a chance to punch me out?”

Pete went on staring. “Punch you out? I'm not looking to punch you out.”

David did a “big surprise” number. “You're not? Then what
have you been hanging around for all this time?” He stared at Pete with grim satisfaction, while one interior voice told him that he was really asking for it, and another one answered that he didn't care. Who cares? he thought grimly staring straight back at Garvey. The stares locked and went on and on. Blank stares at two paces, David thought and grinned, but Pete didn't grin back. Instead he dropped his eyes and started picking at a hole in the knee of his Levi's.

“Because of Amanda,” he said.

For a minute David couldn't imagine what he was talking about. “What about Amanda?” he asked.

This time David's big surprise number was for real. Pete's expression was very un-Pete-like. Obviously David had been wrong about him only having two expressions. He had at least three, and this one looked miserable. “I come to see Amanda,” he said. He went on poking at the hole in his knee. “She hates me, I guess. At least she acts like it. I dunno. You think she hates me, Davey?”