Eleven (6 page)

On the way home, Mack had said, “Pine, softwood. Easy to cut into and ruin.” He'd put his hand on Sam's head.

“They left me,” Sam said.

Mack had hesitated. “It's terrible to be alone.”

“Something in my chest.”

“Yes, I know.”

He'd looked up at Mack. “Really?”

“The next time you're angry, wait until you get home. I'll show you how to get rid of that thing in your chest.” Again that hesitation. “It's what I always did.”

In the workroom, Mack had given him a block of wood with three large nails hammered a third of the way in. “Just hammer,” Mack had said. “Hammer hard.”

Sam had done it then, and dozens of times later. It always had something to do with not being able to read. He pounded in the nails until the block that was in his chest shrank away.

And the next day, Mrs. Waring had put her hand on his shoulder.
“We'll put a flowerpot over the
C.
And someday, we'll take the pot off and tell ourselves how hard this time was.”

Now he stared down at the booklet in front of him. Mack had said,
“It's terrible to be alone.”

Had Mack been alone too?

And
“It's what 1 always did.”

He'd never seen Mack angry. Never seen Mack pounding on a block of wood. But Mack had known how he felt.

“Let's go, guys,” Mrs. Waring said from the front.

The third sentence in the booklet was something to do with water.

He looked down at the schedule. Ferry. That was it.

Summer Ferry Hours.

A
boat schedule.

He wondered where the boat came from, and where it went.

From the corner of his eye, Sam saw movement in the door window. Caroline? Yes, there she was in the hall, her glasses sliding down her nose, one hand waving to get his attention.

Sam didn't look at Mrs. Waring. He went to the front of the room, picked up the pass, and was out of there. He went down the hall with Caroline, trying to think of a place to go.

They climbed to the third floor and stood at the top of the stairs. “One thing,” Caroline said. “We should have remembered to look at the newspaper clipping to see where the accident happened.”

“You're right,” he said slowly, shaking his head.

“Even the name of the paper might help, and the date.”

Sam blew air through his lips. The clipping was still in the attic. He'd have to go back again. But not on the ladder,
not on the pipe. He'd be crazy to do that. He'd have to wait until he could go through Mack's bedroom.

Caroline was tapping his arm. “If we knew where the paper was from, we could use the computer in the Media Center and find the paper from the next day, and the day after that.”

She leaned closer. “After all, we know you're alive.” She grinned. “Barely.”

He tried to grin back. “I have the other papers in my pocket. A ferry schedule. And one thing,” he said, using her words. “I did a little figuring. The ferries ran often, so wherever it was, I don't think it was a long trip.”

They sat on the top step, and he handed the rest of the papers to her.

“Here's a driver's license belonging to Mack,” Caroline said. “It's from Florida.” She pushed at her glasses, counting. “Eight years ago.”

“I was three.”

She looked up. “And here's something else.”

He leaned over to see the scrap of paper, water-stained the way the sails of the boat had been:
Children's Home, 11 th Street.

He closed his eyes.

“Sam?”

He didn't answer. What he'd remembered had been true. The white kitchen, the terrible woman, the boy with the flapping hands, even Night Cat, darting under the table, afraid too.

The tile wall next to him was cold; he was cold. This was even worse than seeing that clipping for the first time. Mack
couldn't be his grandfather, Lydia couldn't be his grandmother. And who knew who his parents were?

There was a clanking sound on the railing: Mr. Ramon banging his keys. He glared at them from the bottom of the stairs. “Again I find you where you shouldn't be.” He raised his eyebrows at Caroline. “Haven't you been here only a month or two?”

“I guess.”

“And already you've linked up with Sam MacKenzie.”

Bell.

Caroline's face was red as they took the stairs. They passed the assistant principal and scurried down the hall away from him.

Sam left her at the classroom door. “I'm sorry I got you in trouble,” he said.

“I don't care. I'll be out of here in a couple of weeks, a month at most.”

He went back to the Resource Room. Mrs. Waring glanced up at the wall clock when she saw him. “The time is up anyway.”

“Sorry,” he said again.

He couldn't stop thinking about it. Even when he got ready for bed, the words were in his head, in his throat:
Children's Home, 11th Street.

“I wish you could talk,” he told Night Cat. “And tell us where we've been.”

And Caroline. He couldn't imagine school without her anymore.

Middle Ages. Middle of the night. He'd been dreaming.

His eyes were closed, but he heard himself saying it aloud.

He sat up, and looked out the window. Yes, still dark, but he was wide awake. He swung his legs over the side of the bed, the floor cold underneath.

He fished around for his sneakers, his jeans, his warm sweatshirt, then went to the door with Night Cat behind him. He was losing the dream already. He stood there with his hand on the knob, willing himself to remember: a castle, but not like the pictures Mrs. Stanek had given him.

Downstairs, he stopped in the kitchen for a handful of Rice Krispies, then went to the workroom and flipped on the overhead light.

He looked at the picture he'd drawn for Caroline, and the castle they'd begun. They were wrong, something a little kid might draw. The castle would end up flat-sided, with only the turrets on top to give it any detail.

It wasn't like the dream castle at all. The dream castle didn't have turrets. It had towers, some rounded, some square, with roofs of tile, and the stone walls of the castle itself jutted out here and there—

Windows, too many to count.

High, so high above—

Above what?

That part of the dream was gone already. And even though he tried to bring it back, it was too late. People had been in the castle, people he knew, but they were gone too. Only the sound of loud feet, a kid's feet. His feet? Someone might have come after him, whispering, “Shhh.”

But it was the dream castle he wanted to work on. It was the castle he'd build.

He could do this, really do it. Never mind school. Never mind Mrs. Stanek. Never mind anyone but himself. And Caroline.
Don't forget Caroline.

He'd build this castle, finish it before she left, think about every detail.

He drew what he could remember on the back of his original drawing. Sketched it in, Mrs. Mallett, the art teacher, would have said. He didn't pay attention to scale, or to getting it exactly right. It was just so he'd remember before the dream lost itself entirely.

He thought of going back to bed, but he was wide awake. He reached for Anima's birthday book on the shelf over his table, paging through, searching, until he found a small cabinet with panels on the sides. He studied it; then in another few pages he found a drawing that showed a column. He saw how they were done; he could use both.

He took a second piece of paper and a ruler, counted, drew, erased, and started over, feeling the pull in his back from bending over for so long. But at last he had a drawing with scale to it.

He took wood from the bin and began to measure— to draw in lines— to cut the first piece— and the second.

He kept going. Five pieces each for the sides, and he talked it out as he worked. “Two the same size for the ends, three smaller to form a section that juts out.”

The front would need more, not only parts that jutted out into squares, but pieces to form columns.

It seemed like only minutes, but he realized it was much later when he looked up to see light coming in the window, the sky separating itself from the water. A pair of mourning doves cooed their song to each other, and a jay screeched from the top of a willow tree.

Sam worked on the wood until it was almost time for Mack to awaken; then he laid the pieces flat on his table.

Later he'd sand both sides of each one, even though only
one side would face out; the inside would be as smooth as the outside.

He covered all of it with a drop cloth. Mack knew that Sam and Caroline were working on a castle for school, but he'd never look at it until Sam asked him, invited him, to see it. Sam would show it only to Caroline until it was finished.

He went back upstairs and pulled off his sneakers, then opened the closet and took out the toy boat. He felt its smoothness, the curve of its body, and remembered sailing it, a vague picture of the green water, and wearing the sweater with a zipper.

He ran his hand over the two delicate masts with the almost invisible repair. This wasn't a boat someone had bought in a store. It was a boat that someone had made, taking pains with it, spending hours on it.

Mack.

It had to have been Mack.

Mack, who was afraid of water.

This was how Sam would build the castle, taking pains, spending hours. When he finished, it would last as long as this boat had. From Anima's book he'd learn how to cut the edges so they'd come together seamlessly. He'd learn how to cut glass. He'd learn everything he didn't know.

He couldn't wait to tell Caroline.

He slipped under the warm quilt, still holding the boat, and closed his eyes.

Late in the afternoon Mack was on his way to an auction, hoping to bring back a table to refinish. “It's a long ride and the weather is terrible,” he told Sam, looking up at the leaden sky. “Stay and eat dinner with Onji.”

Sam stood in the parking lot, shoulders hunched against the rain that had just begun, and watched him back the truck out. Mack would stop, lean out the window—

Yes. Halfway across the lot, Mack called back, “Be careful. Watch for customers until five. Lock—” He was gone, the tailpipe loud as he turned the corner and headed for the highway.

Sam stood there. Sometimes Mack was absentminded. He might be back looking for directions, his wallet, something. And suppose Mack found him upstairs on the way to
the attic? It wasn't that the attic was off-limits. But what could he say he was doing up there? How could he explain?

After a few minutes, he went inside, shaking the rain off the way Night Cat would. He glanced up at the clock over Mack's worktable. He'd give it five minutes.

He began to smooth the edges of the castle walls he'd cut. He ran his hands over the pieces without looking at them, letting his fingers tell him where more of the plane was needed, or just a swipe with the sandpaper.

Outside, the wind had picked up, and it was getting dark. The windows rattled slightly. Good, let the customers stay home.

He looked up at the clock again; it seemed as if the hands weren't moving. He stared at it. Eventually it clicked another minute. Only Onji's van and Anima's blue Toyota were in the parking lot.

Now.

He went upstairs to Mack's room and stared at the ar-moire in the corner. He'd helped Mack build it; he'd stained the inside himself. He knew the shelf where he'd begun with the brush, the top where the stain had dripped into a narrow line. It was one of the first things he and Mack had done together.

So why couldn't he just open the armoire doors?

It was as if Mack's face were in front of him. The thick hair, the lines on his forehead. Mack's hand on his shoulder when Sam had finished a shelf. “I
couldn't have done better.”

How could he open the armoire and go through Mack's things? Bad enough to be up in the attic.

Mack's eyes. Blue eyes. Clear eyes.

Honest eyes.

Sam shook his head, trying to make sense of it all. Had Mack been honest with him? There were so many things Mack hadn't told him. He really knew only three things: a name, Bell, a place, the Children's Home, and the boat accident. Where did Mack fit?

He ran his hand over the armoire but couldn't make himself open the door.

He stood up on Mack's bed to reach for the rope with the loop and pull open the overhead door. He looked down to see the muddy imprint of his shoe. He should have realized. But never mind that yet.

He climbed the stairs, and in an instant had the clipping in his hand. He didn't bother to look at it, just folded it into his pocket, hearing the bells jangle on the outside door, and then the bellow, “Sam!”

Onji.

He slid down the stairs, almost flying, and reached for the loop to close the door, but he'd never be able to do it quietly enough. It always closed with such a bang. And Onji heard everything. He'd have to let it go.

“Sam?”

“Coming.” He swept his hand over the muddy footprints on the bedcover, then went down the hall.

From the bottom of the stairs, Onji grinned at him. “What are you doing up there?”

“Nothing.” He tried to look as if he'd really been doing nothing.