Campbell Wood (5 page)

He slipped out of bed.

No Kaymie.
For a long time he had dreamed of having his own room, and now that it had happened he didn't know if he liked it. The house had made such strange noises all night,
creakings
and cracks, different from the noises in the Bronx. Also, everything was so big here, and he didn't have any friends . . . Two days ago he had been excited to come here but now he didn't know if he liked it. The floor was cold, too.

He walked back to the bed and reached under the pillow
^,
pulling out a frayed green stuffed animal that looked as if it was supposed to be a frog or
maybe a toad. "
Augie
," he said to it, looking quickly at the door to make sure that Kaymie wasn't there to make fun of him. She said that eight was too old to carry around a stuffed animal. He had had to hide
Augie
all the time in the Bronx, and had even been afraid to take him out last night in case she came into the room by mistake. But she hadn't, and now that he had his own room for sure it looked as though he could do whatever he wanted. So
Augie
would stay. Well, maybe hidden under the covers.

Holding the frog by one short, tattered leg he walked to the window and looked out. It was just getting really light. Such a big house, so much lawn, enough to play
whiffle
ball or touch football on. His eyes wandered to the tree a little to the right of his window, where the kid had fallen from last night. He clutched
Augie
a little tighter, seeing how far down it was to the ground, and then his eyes wandered from the base of the tree on across the front lawn—

Was that someone standing on the sidewalk in front of the house? He bent closer to the
glass
.
Yes, someone was down there. It looked like a kid his own age. The boy was standing on the sidewalk, his hands in his jacket pockets, looking at the house. Just standing there. At first Seth thought that was strange, but then another thought entered his mind that obliterated everything else.
Maybe he's waiting for me.
Maybe the kid had seen him yes
terday and wanted to make friends with him. Maybe there were kids around here like Chuckie and Bill from the Bronx, and he'd be able to have new friends right away.

He knocked on the window, trying to get the boy's attention, but he just stood there staring at the house. Seth reached up to the window, trying to open it. It hesitated, stuck with the new coat of paint that had been put on before they moved in, then all at once it slid up.

Seth leaned out, seeing now that the kid had a light blue jacket on and black hair.

"Hey!" he shouted. The kid looked up. He made a move as if to lift one hand out of his jacket pocket, to wave, but then he just stood there staring up at Seth.

"I'll be right down!" Seth called. He shut the window and quickly dressed, pulling on a shirt and jeans and struggling with his sneakers.

As he ran into the kitchen he saw his father, fully dressed, moving around. "Hey, where you going?" he called as Seth tried to run by.

"Out," Seth said, "I want to meet the new kid." He tried to move past but his father put a hand on his arm.

"Hold it there, friend. What new kid? It's seven o'clock in the morning."

"He's waiting for me. I want to meet him before he goes away." He put a pleading look in his eyes. "Please?"

His father had turned back to the pots and pans, preoccupied. "Okay, but
don't
leave the front of the house." He turned his attention to Seth again. "I mean that. And come back in a half hour for breakfast."

When Seth opened the front door the kid was still there, in the same position, his hands in his pockets.

Seth approached and asked, "What's your name?"

The boy said nothing, his hands digging deeper into his jacket.

"You live around here?" Seth tried.

"Yes," the kid said in a low voice. He pulled a hand out and pointed down the street, to a large green house. "I'm Bobby," he said, his eyes on the ground.

"I'm Seth. What grade you in?"

"Fourth."

"I'll be in fourth next year," Seth said, taking the offensive. Since he was younger he had to let Bobby know he wasn't too young to play with.

"School any good here?"

Bobby shrugged, his face coming up and a quick smile crossing it and then leaving. "Okay, I guess."

"Do you have your own room?" Seth offered, trying another topic.

Bobby nodded. "My brother's is bigger." He looked past Seth, back at the house, and then up at the trees around it.

Seth's heart sank a little. It was obvious now that Bobby had not come just to meet him. He was more interested in the house, or something else.

"Hear about that kid that fell out of the tree last night?" Seth asked.

"Yeah," Bobby answered. He was silent again, his eyes tracking the trees around the house, and then the roof of the house.

Seth was getting annoyed.

"What are you looking for?" he asked.

Bobby seemed to want to ignore him for a moment, and then he shrugged.

"I heard my brother talking," he explained.

Seth just looked at him. If the kids in this town were like this he knew he wasn't going to like it here.

"Want to play?" Seth said.

Bobby stared at him.

"Not allowed," he answered, again looking past Seth. "They told us to stay away from you."

"Who?"

Bobby shrugged once more. "Everybody. My mom and dad. I heard my brother tell his friend Jim that that kid got killed last night because he came near here." He looked straight at Seth. 'They were daring each other to see what killed Billy
Naughton
. They were daring each other they could get near here without anybody finding out." Again that smile flickered across his face. "My brother, Jonathan, will let me into his club if I find out before he or his friends do."

Bobby stood silent again.

Seth didn't know what to do. Was the kid loony? Was everybody in Campbell Wood like this? Now he knew he wanted to go back to where they used to live. He had never seen anything like this before. Everyone had been told to stay away from them?

He was about to tell Bobby to go home, to turn away from him at least and leave him standing alone, when a shout came from down the street. Seth turned toward the large green house and saw another boy, older than the one before him, running toward them.

"Bobby!"
the boy shouted. He sounded desperate, almost hysterical.

He stopped about twenty feet from them. When Seth lined up where he was standing he saw that this other kid was standing just outside their property.

Bobby smiled, turning to his brother.

"Will you let me in the club?" he said.

"We'll let you in the club," Jonathan said. "What's the matter with you, you crazy? Didn't Mom tell you to stay away from here?"

Seth felt as if he weren't even here, the way they were talking to each other.

Bobby smiled and pointed at the house.

"If I stay here I'll be able to see what happened to Billy
Naughton
."

Jonathan suddenly made a decision and marched over to Bobby, beginning to drag him off. Bobby resisted, thinking that it was a game for a moment, and then fighting back for real. "Let me see!" he shouted. His brother pinned his arms behind him, pulling him away. There was a flushed, rabbit-in-a-headlight look in his eyes and he kept looking at the Campbell house in quick glances.

Seth took a step toward the struggling pair. Jonathan shouted, "No!"

Seth stopped.

"It's your family that's doing this," Jonathan said, pulling Bobby over that invisible line and now letting him half go, holding him tightly by one arm. "Your sister."

He turned, his fast walk doubling into a trot, his little brother held tightly.

Seth watched them go, standing in the middle of the sidewalk. What did they mean, it was Kaymie? What did that mean? They were weird, he decided. It didn't mean anything. They were all weird around here.

He suddenly felt very alone. He wanted to be back in the Bronx, in his old room, warm under the covers, hiding
Augie
so Kaymie wouldn't
see
him.

He looked down the street, where the green house looked gaunt and silent now.

He didn't like this place.

F
or Ellen, the morning rose bright and cold. This would be one of those two or three days that come to autumn every year, when each gold or red leaf is sharply outlined against the ground, each partially denuded tree etched against the deepest of blue skies. The air was snapping and clean; you could see farther than on other days. This kind of day gave warning of coming winter, but gracefully neglected to predict all the dull gray wetness the real winter would bring.

She was roused by the smell of bacon curling up to the top-floor bedroom. She descended the stairs, her nightgown clutched tightly around her against the chill, her eyes still drowsy with sleep, and was startled to find breakfast for all of them neatly laid out and Mark, dressed in corduroys and flannel shirt, moving around the kitchen like a whisk broom.

"I don't believe any of this," she said, stifling a yawn.

"What's the big surprise? New house, new ways."

"Don't give me that. You're the laziest son of a bitch I know."

Mark shrugged and turned back to the French toast. "Kaymie coming down?"

"I think so." This time she couldn't stifle the yawn. She pulled out a kitchen chair with a scrape and slouched down into it. "I hope you don't stay like this," she said as he bustled around her. "I don't think I could stand it."

"I have a lot of energy today. I want to drive out to the university library and see how good it is. And I should finish those two articles by the end of the week anyway."

Seth abruptly flew through the back door, banging the screen behind him. He sat down at the table, breathless. "That kid was weird," he announced.

"What kid?" said Ellen, lifting her head.

Mark said, "Some guy Seth's age showed up about an hour ago. He was standing on the front lawn, staring at the place." He turned to Seth. "Did he want to play?"

Seth shook his head. "His brother came and dragged him away." He hesitated for a moment, and then went on. "He said there was something weird about this place. He said there was something strange about Kaymie."

Ellen and Mark looked at each other. "About Kaymie?" Mark asked. "What do you mean?"

"I don't know," Seth said. They were weird."

Kaymie came down the stairs and sat quietly at the table.

"Look," Ellen said. "Daddy's made breakfast today."

"Uh oh," said Seth, covering
his
mouth.

Mark noticed that Kaymie had a funny look on her face. "Are you okay?" he asked.

She hesitated before answering. "I'm okay." "You sure? You worried about starting school next week?"

Kaymie thought of saying something about the noises in the closet, and her dream, but decided against it. "I'm all right, Dad."

"Well," Mark said, wiping his mouth with a napkin and getting up. "I hate to eat and run but I've got things to do. You guys get to clean up the mess. I'll try to get home early so we can get a bunch of the junk stored away and set up the rooms better. But don't hesitate to start without me."

"Phooey," said Seth, ducking under the table out of reach.

Campbell Wood was a typical Hudson River community, and in a lot of ways was just like a turn-of-the-century postcard. There was a bit of timelessness here, with modern trappings. Route 22, which ran through the town, was flanked by two rows of single- and double-story shops—the kind of mom-and-pop establishments that had been all but wiped out by the suburban malls.

Mark cruised slowly past a pharmacy, a small movie theater with a cheap double bill, a jeweler's with a white-haired old man sitting on a stool in the window, squinting over a watch with a magnifier screwed into his eye, an ice-cream parlor, a dry-goods store, a small grocer's, a Woolworth's. There was, of course, the inevitable McDonald's, but even that was tastefully decorated and fitted into the generally oak-trimmed decor of the street. Mark remembered vaguely his father taking him into that Woolworth's when he was three or four and buying him a set of jacks.
I'll have to take Seth in there and see if the same magic works on him,
he thought. He passed a few trees at the curb with bright green litter cans beneath them; he went through a single traffic light and by another small cluster of stores; then suddenly there were trees all around and the town was behind him. He climbed a small rise and there was the school where Kaymie would start today—a sprawling affair built in the days when school budgets had still been fat and when everyone had lots of kids.