Blair’s Nightmare (9 page)

They were in the dining room, doing their homework. It happened to be one of the rare times when there was something Dad called “vaguely worth seeing” on television so he wasn't in his usual reading spot. David was halfway through his science report when all of a sudden he found himself telling Amanda all about what happened at Golanski's.

“Man!” she said when he had finished. “That was taking a chance. I'd hate for that old troll to catch me in his spring house.”

“Yeah, I know. But I guess I really thought that Janie had found something out—about the escapees, I mean.”

Amanda gave him a funny look. “Sure, but she could have gotten you both shot, the little maniac—just so she could play one of her idiotic games.”

He shrugged. “You think that's all it was then? Just a game?”

“Sure. If she'd really found something out, why wouldn't she tell? I mean if she'd seen a clue the thieves had left there, or something like that, why wouldn't she tell you about it?”

“I guess you're right,” David said. It made sense. It was just that, knowing Janie as well as he did, he was pretty familiar with all her acts, and he somehow felt she hadn't been pretending about being worried when they left the spring house. But when he tried to explain the feeling to Amanda, she said, “Sure she was worried. She'd just realized what you were going to do to her when you found out it was all just a dumb game.”

David nodded. “What do you think about the prisoners?” he asked. “Do you think they're still around?”

“Me?” She grinned at David. “Well—let me run upstairs and see if I can find my old crystal ball and I'll let you know all about it.” She laughed sarcastically and went back to her geometry. She usually laughed when anyone mentioned supernatural stuff, since she'd stopped being interested in it herself.

They both went on working for a few minutes, but then,
all of a sudden, Amanda looked up. “I wish they'd catch those guys,” she said in a very serious tone of voice. “I don't like to think about them being around here. I've been dreaming about it. About people staring in the windows at us at night when we're sitting around like this, or breaking into the house after we've all gone to bed.” She glanced toward the window and raised her shoulders in a kind of shudder. “It really scares me. You don't seem to be very scared, but it really scares me.”

“I'm scared sometimes,” David said, and as soon as he'd said it, he wished he hadn't, because he knew it would remind Amanda of how she'd had to rescue him from Garvey. Sure enough, she looked up and gave him the same strange smile—as if she were sorry for him. For just a moment they stared at each other, and then at the same instant they both looked away. They did the rest of their homework in a stiff embarrassed silence.

The next day Pete Garvey showed up at the house after school again. It was a nice warm day, and David was working on the tree house and all three of the little kids were helping him. He'd rigged up a rope and pulley, and when he needed another board or a special tool the kids would tie it to the rope and he'd wind it up. He was just trying to fit a board in beside one of the windows when he heard Garvey's voice saying, “Hey Davey, I got the spokes.”

David groaned inwardly. Then he said, “Hi,” and explained
that he wanted to finish the window first. He wasn't about to go into the garage alone with old Pete if he could help it. Three little kids weren't much protection, but at least they were witnesses, and that might discourage Garvey a little bit. He stood around at the foot of the tree watching for a few minutes, and then he climbed up and offered to help.

Fortunately there was only one hammer and David had it. Pete helped by holding boards in place while David nailed them, and whether it was the hammer, or the little kids, or what, he didn't actually do anything violent. He threatened to, however. Once when he was holding a board he said, “Watch it, Davey. You clobber my fingers with that hammer and I'll stuff you out the window.” But he didn't actually try to do it, and after a while David began to relax a little.

He was actually thinking that maybe Pete had given up on punching him out, but then Amanda came out of the house and right away he quit helping and got down out of the tree. So he probably was planning something and only gave up when David's stepsister/bodyguard appeared on the scene. Watching through the eight-sided window, David saw Pete kind of sidle up toward Amanda, moving easy-kneed as if he were getting ready to jump if she started anything. He couldn't hear what they were saying, but they talked for several minutes before Amanda went back in the house.

After she left, Garvey took his spokes and went into the garage, but he couldn't have gotten much done because just a few minutes later he came out and said he had to leave.

“See you later, Davey,” he yelled.

Up in the tree, with a hammer in his fist, David suddenly saw the humor in the whole thing. “Not if I see you first, Petey,” he yelled back.

Garvey turned around and the chipped tooth shone in the middle of the famous Garvey smile—the smile that looked just the same when he was slapping you on the back or punching you in the mouth. Maybe he'd given up on doing a number on David Stanley and maybe he hadn't. David wasn't counting on it.

O
N
T
HURSDAY THE POLICE HELICOPTER
flew over the school during the lunch hour, and everybody started talking about the escaped prisoners again.

By now everybody knew their names and what they looked like and just how dangerous they were supposed to be. The one the police thought had masterminded the escape was a guy named Herbie “The Weasel” Boston who had been in prison for killing someone in a knife fight. He was the one who particularly interested everyone in Steven's Corners. In the mug shot that appeared in the
Valley Press,
he had a narrow, pinched-looking face with heavy, dark eyebrows and a thin, lipless mouth. The other guy, whose name was Steven Hutter, looked more ordinary, with a fattish face and a short, round nose.

It seemed that when Boston was a kid, he'd lived for a while in Lucasville, a little town just on the other side of the Fillmore Hills. One man who lived in Steven's Corners even remembered him as a kid. He'd told a lot of people about how mean and vicious The Weasel was, even way back then.

The story was that The Weasel had spent a lot of time exploring the countryside around Lucasville and undoubtedly knew all about the area. That was the reason, everybody said, that he'd managed to hide out for so long and keep ahead of the search parties.

At the middle school, people were calling each other Weasel and making up Weasel jokes. David had become a kind of minor celebrity because he lived way out in the country near the Fillmore Hills. It seemed as if everybody he talked to wanted to ask him if he had seen anything suspicious and to tell him how glad they were they didn't live on Westerly Road.

That evening at the Stanley dinner table the conversation turned out to be more of the same. First Amanda told the latest rumors that were going around at the high school, and then Janie took over with all the wild stories that the kids at the elementary school were coming up with. Just as you might expect, the little kids' stories showed the most originality. One little girl insisted that she'd seen The Weasel roller skating in the park, and somebody in Janie's class had started the rumor that
he was holed up in the principal's office and was holding the principal for ransom. Janie insisted that nobody knew who'd started the rumor, but David thought he could make a good guess.

Finally, when David got a chance to talk he started telling about all the attention he'd been getting because of where he lived. But at that point Molly suddenly said she was tired of the whole subject and she didn't want to hear any more about it.

The next morning, when Dad came down to the breakfast table, he said that he had an announcement to make.

“I was listening to the news while I was dressing,” he said, “and it seems we can all start thinking of other subjects for mealtime conversation. Apparently the authorities now believe that The Weasel and his buddy left this area several days ago.”

“How do they know?” David asked.

“It seems someone spotted them in Reno.”

“Phooey,” Janie said. “Now I can't solve the mystery.”

Everybody laughed. David felt relieved, mainly, but there was a part of him that felt a little bit like Janie did, but for another reason. He didn't have any silly ideas about solving the case, but he had been enjoying all the extra attention he'd been getting at school. “Did they catch them yet?” he asked Dad.

“No. Not yet, apparently. But they seem to feel it won't be long.”

Molly put a bowl of fortified oatmeal on the table and sat down with a big sigh. “Well,” she said, “I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm relieved. I didn't say much because I didn't want to frighten you kids, but I've been really nervous about having those thugs right out there practically in our backyard. I've wasted a lot of energy peeking out of windows and listening to strange noises lately, and I'm awfully glad it's all over.”

“I think we all are,” Dad said. “It's a big load off everyone's mind.” He looked at Molly and grinned. “Just in time for the president's reception, too. How about changing your mind about not going?”

They'd all heard about the reception. It was to be at the university and Dad was obliged to be there, but Molly hadn't been planning to go. What she'd been saying was that she just didn't feel in the mood for a big social bash, but when Dad asked her to change her mind she did—in a hurry. Obviously she'd really been worried about going away and leaving the kids alone at night. Actually that was pretty ridiculous. David and Amanda had been doing the babysitting for a long time, and it really didn't make much sense for Molly to stay home simply because of the escaped prisoners. If two armed men walked into the house, it wouldn't make a whole lot of difference whether little old Molly was there or not. But now, with
the prisoners out of the picture, it was obvious that Molly had really wanted to go to the reception all along.

At school that day there was still a lot of talk about the convicts. Most people said they were glad the men weren't around Steven's Corners anymore, but a few said they were sorry because they were going to miss all the excitement. It was true that Steven's Corners could use something to relieve the monotony, and for a while the convicts had certainly done it. David thought about the difference it had made, and he also wondered how the convicts had managed to get out of the woods and all the way to Reno without being seen. With everybody for miles around on the alert and watching for them, they must have been awfully lucky to have managed it.

When he got home from school, Molly was already getting dressed for the reception, and just before dinnertime she and Dad left. That was about five thirty, and it was only about half an hour later that the announcement came over the radio. David was in the kitchen helping to get dinner ready. Amanda had the radio tuned to a rock and roll station, when someone broke into the music to make a special announcement. The man who'd been identified in Reno as Weasel Boston had been caught and it wasn't The Weasel at all—just someone who looked like him. The authorities had now resumed the search in the Fillmore Hills area.

“Hey, did you hear that?” Janie said. “Goody, goody!”

Amanda looked at David and raised her eyebrows. “It's a good thing Molly didn't hear it.”

“Yeah. She'd never have gone tonight if she had.”

“I know,” Amanda said.

Janie jumped down off the stool where she'd been stirring the meat for tacos and dashed out of the room yelling, “Stir the meat, Tesser. I've got to get my escaped prisoner notes out of the wastepaper basket.”

“Well, I'm glad somebody's happy,” Amanda said. She didn't sound glad, however. David wasn't exactly pleased, himself. It was beginning to get dark outside, and Dad and Molly were not due home until midnight or later. When Janie came back with her notebook, David told her to put it away.

“We're not going to talk about the prisoners tonight,” he told her. “Nobody's going to even mention them. Okay?” He must have sounded like he meant it, because nobody did, at least not until Pete Garvey showed up.

They heard him long before he got to the house. The gurgly roar of the motor got louder and louder while he was still out on Westerly Road, and when he turned into the driveway, it completely drowned out the sound of the TV. The little kids jumped up and ran to the window.

“Hey,” Janie shouted, “it's Pete on a motorcycle.”

“Ye gods,” David said. “That's all we need.”

The little kids dashed for the back door, and David got up slowly and followed. Amanda followed David. When they got to the driveway, Pete was letting Janie try sitting in the seat.

“Where'd you get that thing?” Amanda asked.

“It's Ace's brother's,” Pete said. “I borrowed it. I had to bring over the new tubes.” He reached in the saddlebag and brought out two new bicycle tubes. “I was going to bring them over earlier, but my dad made me clean out the brooder and I didn't get done in time.”

“Don't you have to be sixteen and have a license to drive these things?” David asked.

“Naw. Not unless you ride them on roads.”

“You had to ride on roads to get over here, didn't you?”

“These little country roads don't matter,” Pete said. “Besides I figured all the cops were probably still home resting up.”

“Resting up?” Amanda said. She looked at David and then back at Pete. “Haven't you heard?”

He hadn't, and when Amanda told him, he didn't believe her. He parked the motorcycle and came into the house, still arguing that just a few hours ago he'd heard how they were just about to catch the two guys in Reno. And when he finally did believe her, after David and Janie and even Esther insisted that they'd heard the announcement, too, he didn't look too happy
about it. He didn't say so, but David wondered if he could be thinking about the long ride back down Westerly Road, alone and in the dark. David was glad he didn't have to do it.