Brainboy and the Deathmaster (5 page)

“I’m afraid I can’t afford another mouth to feed, honey.”

“Ronnie Johnson’s got an aunt in Everett who takes in kids and gets money from the government. I’ll bet you could get some, too.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

“Ask Mr. Botts. I bet he knows.” Clara Botts, who worked with her at the library, had a lawyer husband.

“You only just met Darryl, sugar pie,” Mrs. Walker said, leading the way into the kitchen. “How about some chocolate milk?”

“You don’t need to know somebody for a long time to
know
them. You told me you knew you wanted to marry Dad after one date.”

“That’s a little different.”

“I just feel for the guy.”

Mrs. Walker took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

“T
ime to get up, Darryl, honey. It’s eight o’clock.” Swimming up out of a deep sleep, Darryl placed the voice as Mrs. Walker’s. Springs squeaked overhead: BJ rolling over in the bunk above. Once again he’d mysteriously ended up in the bottom bunk in the basement.

Darryl had zero desire to get up. It was so much nicer here, with BJ up above him, than in the third-floor room at the shelter, with the spider overhead. BJ made him feel safe. Maybe it was his voice, which was already deep and grown-up, or the way he’d disarmed that Boris guy so easily. Or his size. They were the same age, but BJ must have had three inches and a good twenty-five pounds on him.

“Up and at ‘em, honey,” Mrs. Walker called again.

He didn’t want to disobey her. She’d given him a new toothbrush and paid for his two slices of pepperoni pizza. He tossed back the blanket, swung his feet down to the cool basement floor, put on his shoes, brushed his teeth, and started up the stairs.

He paused halfway up. “See you soon?”

BJ let out an unintelligible groan.

“You slept in your clothes again, didn’t you?” Mrs. Walker said when Darryl walked into the kitchen. “Let me run an iron over that shirt. I’m not sending you back worse than I picked you up.”

“But I’m not worse,” he said, undoing his shirt buttons. “I left the toothbrush down there in case I come back. Is that okay?”

“Of course it is, honey. Now sit down and have a bowl of cereal.”

As he ate his raisin bran, one of the cats jumped up onto his lap and licked his bare stomach, just above his belly button, with his scratchy tongue.

“Morning, Galileo,” he said, stroking the cat’s fur with his free hand.

After eating, he set Galileo on the floor and rinsed the bowl and spoon and stuck them into the dishwasher. Soon Mrs. Walker came in from the back room with his shirt. It didn’t have a wrinkle and felt cozily warm.

“Well, look what the cats dragged in,” Mrs. Walker said as BJ shuffled into the kitchen. “Morning, sugar pie.”

“Morning,” BJ mumbled. His hair was mushed down on one side from his pillow.

“You should feel honored, Darryl. He never gets up this early in the summer.”

“Grimface here?” BJ asked, sitting down at the kitchen table.

“Maybe she forgot about me,” Darryl said hopefully.

But the words were barely out of his mouth when the doorbell rang. Neither of the boys moved, so Mrs. Walker went. Soon she ushered the guest into the kitchen.

“Well, Darryl, you’re looking better, I must say,” Ms. Grimsley said. “Mrs. Walker’s cooking must have agreed with you.”

“I like it here, Ms. Grimsley,” Darryl said.

“We want to keep him,” said BJ. “Don’t we, Ma?”

“Well, it’s a possibility,” Mrs. Walker said.

“Really?” Ms. Grimsley said, looking around her. “Would Mr. Walker agree with you?”

“The only Mr. Walker’s me,” said BJ.

“I see,” Ms. Grimsley said, not very optimistically.

“May I offer you a cup of coffee?” Ms. Walker said.

“Thank you, but I’m afraid Darryl and I have to be on our way.”

“He can come visit us, right?” BJ asked. “While we’re doing the application stuff?”

“The shelter’s not a jail.”

“And I can visit there?”

“Of course.”

The four of them walked out to the curb, where Ms. Grimsley had parked her little Toyota.

“We’ll come see you when I get off work, honey child,” Mrs. Walker said, giving Darryl a hug.

“Later, bro,” BJ said, clasping his hand.

Darryl climbed in the front seat. He kept his eyes on BJ and his mother out the window as the car slowly pulled away.

“Your house isn’t far from here,” Ms. Grimsley said after making a left. “Would you like to swing by?”

“No, thank you.”

“Mrs. Walker seems like a very nice woman,” Ms. Grimsley said, turning onto Madison.

“She is.”

“BJ seems like a nice boy, too.”

Darryl could tell Ms. Grimsley was trying to be kind, but the ripples of loneliness going through him put him back in his untalky mood, so they were soon driving along in silence. At the brow of the hill Ms. Grimsley pulled the driver’s side sun visor down. Darryl just shut his eyes against the morning sun and tried to time travel back an hour, to the bottom bunk in the basement. He kept his eyes shut tight when the car turned left, and when it turned right, and even when the tires crunched on the shelter’s gravel driveway.

“Now what’s that old wreck doing there?” Ms. Grimsley said, clucking her tongue.

As the car came to a stop, Darryl cracked his eyes. Parked up ahead on the gravel circle was a dented old VW van: ready for the junkyard, by the look of it.

W
hen the Nova pulled into the little driveway, BJ, who’d been waiting on the front step since getting home from the basketball courts at Garfield, strode over and opened the passenger-side door.

“Ready, Mom?”

“Can’t I change my clothes, sugar pie?” Mrs. Walker said.

“But you look great! And I was thinking, they probably eat early there. If we get there during dinner, they might not let us see Dare.”

Climbing in and out of the car wasn’t Mrs. Walker’s favorite pastime, so she told him to hop in.

“Bring home a video?” he asked, patting his mother’s bulging book bag.

“Just papers. I did a little research on adoption at work.”

“What did you find out?”

“Well, I found out it helps if you have assets.”

“Dare and I could get part-time jobs or something.”

She smiled. “I wouldn’t get my hopes up, sweetie—but if it does work out somehow, there’s something you should be prepared for.”

“People giving us weird looks because he’s white?”

“No. Not being the smartest kid on the block anymore.”

BJ laughed.

Soon they were crunching up the Masterly Children’s Shelter’s gravel drive, and before Mrs. Walker could set the emergency brake, BJ was out of the car and bounding onto the wide front porch. A redheaded girl was sitting in one of the wicker chairs, her nose in a comic book.

“When do you guys eat?” BJ asked.

“Six-thirty,” she said, barely looking up. “But you gotta be checked in.”

“I just want to see my friend. You know Darryl?”

“Darryl?” she said, looking up.

“Darryl Kirby”

“Skinny guy with messy blond hair?”

“Yeah.”

“Good luck.”

“Why?”

She just went back to the comic. The porch creaked as Mrs. Walker stepped up onto it. BJ held the door for his mother and followed her inside.

“That girl thinks we won’t get to see Darryl,” he murmured.

“Nonsense,” said Mrs. Walker.

She walked up to the office door and knocked.
Ms. Grimsley looked startled when she opened it.

“Didn’t you get my message, Mrs. Walker?”

“What message?”

“The one I left on your machine.”

“What did you say?”

“That Darryl’s been placed.”

“
Placed
? With foster parents?”

“Yes.”

“You can’t mean it!”

“It
was
rather quick. Um, please, won’t you come on in and sit down?”

Mrs. Walker stepped into the office and sat on the couch, but BJ remained in the doorway. “Where is he?” he asked accusingly.

“BJ, really,” said Mrs. Walker. “But where is Darryl, Ms. Grimsley?”

Ms. Grimsley sat down at her desk and, removing her glasses, pressed the bridge of her nose between two bony fingers. “I’m afraid that’s classified.”

A rare frown appeared on Mrs. Walker’s face. “What do you mean, ‘classified’?”

“It’s an unusual situation, Mrs. Walker. But trust me, Darryl’s in good hands.”

“We want to see him!” BJ cried.

“We were seriously thinking about filing for adoption,” said Mrs. Walker. “Where is he?”

“I really am afraid I can’t tell you,” Ms. Grimsley said. “But perhaps Darryl will get in touch with you.”

“Perhaps!” BJ cried. “What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”

Instead of scolding him for his abruptness, Mrs. Walker echoed his words: “What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”

The phone on Ms. Grimsley’s desk rang.

“Yes, hello? Ah, certainly—would you give me a moment, please?” She covered the receiver. “I’m sorry, do you think you could wait out in the hall?”

Mrs. Walker heaved herself up with a humph and closed the door behind her as she left. By that time BJ was already out the front door.

“Where’d Darryl go?” he asked the redhead.

“Search me.”

“When did he leave?”

“This morning.”

“Who with?”

“Some foster parents, probably. That’s what they do here, you know—pawn you off on foster parents.” She smirked complacently. “Unless nobody wants you.”

“You didn’t see them?”

“The foster parents? Uh-uh. Or only from my window. It was early—I just got up.”

“What’d they look like?”

“Who knows? They had on hats.”

“What kind of car’d they have?”

“One of those old hippie cars.”

“What do you mean?”

“One of those vans from like a million years ago, the seventies or something.”

A bell rang.

“Grub,” the girl said, popping up.

BJ followed her back inside and reported his findings to his mother. As a motley assortment of kids migrated through the front hall bound for the dining room, BJ interrogated each one about Darryl’s departure. But only a couple had even laid eyes on Darryl—he hadn’t eaten a single meal in the dining room—and no one added anything to the porch girl’s information.

“Sorry about that, Mrs. Walker,” Ms. Grimsley said, emerging from her office. “Now, is there anything else I can do for you?”

“Anything else! But you haven’t done anything! We have no idea where Darryl is.”

“I wish I could help you.”

“Then why don’t you?”

“I’m sorry. I’m afraid we’re having our dinner.”

“Let’s go, Ma,” BJ said angrily. “I’ll bet there’s a message from him on the machine.”

But when they got home, the only message was from Ms. Grimsley, left hours ago, advising them cheerfully that Darryl had been placed with a lovely foster family.

M
s. Grimsley hadn’t been so cheerful when she’d pulled up behind the battered van that morning.

“I can’t imagine what they’re delivering,” she said crossly, “but they should have gone around back. That thing looks as if it’s about to fall to pieces.”

Darryl followed her past the broken-down van and up the porch steps into the shelter. None of the children were down yet, but the woman in yellow was setting the dining-room table for breakfast.

“Who’s that parked out front?” Ms. Grimsley asked.

“They’re in your office, ma’am.”

“You have your old room to yourself now, Darryl. I’ll be ringing the breakfast bell shortly.”

As Ms. Grimsley marched into her office, Darryl started up the front stairs. But after a few steps he heard an oddly familiar voice and stopped.

“You must be Ms. Grimsley.”

“I am. May I ask if that’s your van parked out front?”

“Mm. We were hoping you could help us. We’re looking to adopt, you see. This is my wife, Angie.”

“I’m sorry to disappoint you, but you can’t just pick
up a child like a hamburger at a fast-food joint. We have procedures here at Masterly. Yes, Darryl?”

Darryl had crept back down and was standing in the office doorway. But he wasn’t looking at Ms. Grimsley. He was gaping at a man in a fedora hat sitting on the couch beside a beautiful woman in a similar hat. Though shadowed by his hat’s brim, the man’s eyes gave off a mesmerizing glitter.

“How are you, young man?” he said.

Darryl couldn’t find his tongue.

“Go on upstairs, Darryl,” Ms. Grimsley said. “Breakfast’ll be in a few minutes.”

“Is Darryl one of your guests?” the man asked.

“You could say that.”

The man stood up and strode toward the door. He wasn’t that tall or powerfully built, and he was casually dressed in jeans and running shoes and a lightweight sports jacket, but he radiated such self-assurance that he seemed to fill the room with his presence. “It’s a pleasure to meet you,” he said, giving Darryl’s hand a firm shake. “My name’s … but you know that, don’t you?”

Darryl nodded once more.

“You know this man?” said Ms. Grimsley. “Is he related to you, Darryl?”

Darryl shook his head.

“I think I’d like to be,” the man said, laying a hand on Darryl’s shoulder.

“I’m sorry, but that’s not the way we operate, Mr. …”

“But Ms. Grimsley,” Darryl said, finally finding his voice. “He’s Keith Masterly.”

The man removed his hat. “A very perspicacious young man you have here, Ms. Grimsley.”

Ms. Grimsley was pale by nature, but now what little blood she had in her face drained out of it. She removed her glasses, blinked at the man, put her glasses back on.

“Mr. Masterly!” she gasped.

“And, as I said, my wife, Angie.”

The beautiful woman rose from the couch and removed her hat, releasing a cascade of golden hair. Mr. Masterly looked remarkably young for forty-six—that, Darryl knew, was his current age—but his wife, his second, could have been his daughter. As Darryl knew from newspaper reports, she was only twenty-two.

“Nice meeting you,” Mrs. Masterly purred.

“Mr. Masterly!” Ms. Grimsley said, repeating herself. “But … but what … what are you … ?”