Hunter Moran Hangs Out (6 page)

I shield my eyes against the cellar darkness. What do I see? Boxes. Shelves with books and papers piled high.

I lean in a little farther. I don't see the step in front of me until it's too late.
Oof!
I'm down on the cement floor, setting off a gong that's so loud my ears ring.

I sprawl there, frozen, trespassing. Next to me, Zack is frozen, too. The whole neighborhood probably heard that.

“A bell,” Zack whispers from the steps. “Just a bell. A huge bell. Nothing to be afraid of.”

I'm afraid. I'm definitely afraid.

We hear a creak upstairs, over our heads. And then there's another.

“Someone's up there,” Zack says. “Get up. We have to get out.”

I peer at the narrow stairs leading to the killer's lair. It's a repeat of
Nest of Aliens
, Wednesday afternoon, four o'clock.

The door opens and here comes the kidnapper.

I'm stuck. Why can't I move?

My T-shirt is caught in the door, my ankle in the bell rope. I kick my leg free and grab the edge of the shirt, pulling it almost free. A huge chunk of it is still imprisoned inside.

The kidnapper clumps down the stairs.

Poor Mom. Zack and I will be gone forever. And there're still Steadman and Linny to worry about.

Zack pulls me, yanks me by the hair, the neck, wherever he can reach.

I'm scrambling backward. I see the dangerous accomplice looking down.

He yells. I yell. And then I'm free. Zack and I race down the weedy driveway as I hold what's left of my T-shirt together. We don't stop until we've gone all the way to the end of the street.

We sink down in the alleyway between the library and Vinny's Vegetables and Much More. Next door, Yulefski is bent over backward, heading up the library steps. She's
holding a pile of books that go from under her chin to her knees. No wonder Sister Appolonia thinks she's a star.

“Wasn't there a book we read a long time ago?” I snap my fingers. “Maybe we could use that for a report. You know, it was about three animals who got lost. One was a dog, one was a tiger, maybe. Or was it an antelope? Something like that.”

“A cat,” Zack says. “And we saw it in a play. The whole school saw it. Sister Appolonia loved it.”

I raise my shoulders in the air. We'll really have to read.

“No more than seventy pages,” Zack says.

“Fifty,” I say, and we haul ourselves up the stone steps and into the library.

Mrs. Wu is at the desk, talking to someone about old cars. A huge someone with hair the color of Nana's pudding.

From the back, he looks familiar. He turns, but I don't have time for more than a quick look. Zack is dragging me away, down the aisle, around the corner, into the biography section.

He leans against the bookshelves. “Did you see?” He sounds as if he's strangling.

And then it comes to me. Talking to Mrs. Wu, standing right out in the open, is the kidnapper. I look around. No, the accomplice isn't there. He's still in the used-to-be-empty house guarding victims.

“Oh, the brazenness,” Zack says. That's Sister Appolonia's favorite word.

We hear those footsteps,
clunk, clunk
. He's in the next aisle.

Zack leans forward into the shelf. About twenty books crash through to the other side, probably landing on the kidnapper's foot.

It doesn't bother the kidnapper. He's talking to someone. “Are you here all by yourself?” he asks.

That's the most dangerous thing I can imagine a kidnapper asking.

I peer forward, but I can only see feet: the kidnapper's, probably size 100 workman type, and the other, a little kid's sneakers. They look familiar, almost like my old ones.

Zack is clutching me, but I'm trying to see. Yes, they're really my sneakers. I recognize the hole in the toe. They're the ones . . .

The ones . . .

“I'm looking for my brothers,” the little kid says. “We're on the trail of a kidnapper.”

Steadman! He's crossed Murdock Avenue by himself, the busiest street in town, and now he's having a conversation with the most dangerous man on the East Coast.

“My dog's outside,” Steadman goes on. “He's not allowed in the library.”

“What kind of a dog?” the man says.

“Pretty vicious. He gave my sister's friend, Becca, a bite she'll never forget. I'm the only one who knows how to handle him.”

Zack and I stare at each other, making motions. What to do?

We have to be brave. We have to act fast. We take a deep breath; then we march around the side of the book stacks to confront the kidnapper and pull Steadman away before it's too late.

And that's almost what we do. We don't confront the kidnapper, we don't even look at him. We grab Steadman, pick up a couple of books that are lying on the floor, and head out.

“See you,” Steadman says to the kidnapper.

And then somehow I feel courage welling up in my chest. “I know what you're up to,” I call back over my shoulder. “But we're watching you.”

We don't wait to hear what the guy says. It's only two steps to the door.

But Mrs. Wu is tapping her fingers on her desk. “The books,” she says.

I look down at the pile in my arms. I don't even know what I'm doing with them.

Mrs. Wu is frowning. As Sister Appolonia would say, she's a no-nonsense person. She looks at us over her glasses. “You have to sign them out.”

Sheesh. As if we'd steal these babies. They weigh as much as I do.

I put the pile on her desk. I look over my shoulder to see if the kidnapper is coming, but he's nowhere in sight.

Mrs. Wu is nodding. “Excellent choices here.” She looks down at us over her glasses. “You also have six books out all summer. It's going to cost.”

“Tomorrow,” I say. “We're going to bring them right back.”

I don't stop to see what excellent choices we have. I take Steadman's hand, and the three of us are out the door.

In the backyard, Nana barbecues hamburgers, with a little help from Linny and Becca. Becca's going on about the new kid, Alex, who's building steps for their workout practice. “Olympics, here we come,” she says.

Linny's nodding. She looks a little rumpled from lying under her bed, but she's prepared. She's got Steadman's looks-like-real sword tucked under her jeans belt and William's baseball bat against the picnic table an inch away from her.

A worm is wandering around. One of ours? Sheesh, all that guy needs is a sunburn. I scoop him up, take a chunk of hamburger, and rush them both into the house.

I'm no sooner outside again than Linny begins. “I want some help after supper.” She stares at Zack and me. “We're going to string spoons and forks over the back steps. The front steps, too.”

Zack shakes his head at me. This whole kidnapper thing has sent her right over the edge.

“Maybe William can help,” I say.

“Yeah,” Zack adds. “He can paint the spoons and forks.”

William gives Zack a nasty kick. “I have better things to do,” he says.

And then a surprise. “I'll help,” Nana says, dishing out some of that brown pudding, which turns out to be butterscotch, the stick-to-the-roof-of-your-mouth kind. “But why, Linny?”

Linny takes a blob of pudding and swallows it down. “I hate to tell you this,” she says, “but there's a kidnapper in town looking for a victim. All the evidence points to me.”

Nana bites the side of her lip. I can't tell if she's trying not to laugh, or if she's worried. “We'd better get that silverware up, then.”

Linny nods. “If the kidnapper bangs into them, it will make enough noise to wake the neighborhood. I'll be ready to dial 911.”

“Don't worry, I'll help,” Steadman says.

Great. That will take care of him for an hour. We're free.

Linny starts to gather up spoons. It gives us a great opportunity to get out of there without finishing the pudding, and without having to hang silverware all over the property.

We slide out from the picnic table, and Mary waves bye-bye from her high chair. It's her best trick.

We stop in the kitchen to check on the worms. A couple are twirled around, heads or tails poked up out of the dirt. They look comfortable and happy. Good.

We head for the lookout tower. It's getting dark now, and the insects are going wild.

A couple of problems. Yulefski is there ahead of us. We can see her legs dangling from the platform. Bradley the Bully is sloshing around in the edge of the pond, fishing for something.

“What to do?” I whisper.

“Climb quietly, that's what,” Zack whispers back. “We have no choice. We'll have to watch the kidnapper's house. If he comes out, we'll follow.”

We take running jumps. Hand over hand we climb. We check to be sure Bradley hasn't seen us.

Yulefski looks up from her book. “Everything's quiet all over town,” she says.

A moment later, the door to the used-to-be-empty house flies open. The huge hulk of the kidnapper comes out and barrels up his driveway, his sneakers, elephant sized, pounding against the cement.

We don't stop for a breath. We dive down the tree, the branches swaying as if we're in a hurricane, and barrel after him.

He crosses the street.

It's our house he's after.

But no, he doesn't even give it a glance.

We see him passing the streetlight. A moment later, he crosses Murdock Avenue and goes in through the gates of the town round.

Mom would be there, walking with Pop, if the baby, K.G., weren't on his way.

The napper's heading around the round now, just like a regular jogger, but he doesn't fool us. He turns, and we dive into a bush. Has he seen us? It's entirely possible.

Footsteps come up behind us now. The accomplice? I swing around, ready to defend myself, who knows how?

“It's Yulefski following us,” I say.

“Hunter,” she says, hands on her hips, elbows like coat hangers. “Have you gone crazy? What are you two doing in the bushes?”

Zack gives her a
zip the lip
, and I pull her into the bushes, whispering furiously, pointing to the kidnapper, who's coming around our side of the round. “Do you want the kidnapper to hear? He's already sent us a ransom note. He really means business.”

She frowns. “The only way to see the kidnapper is from the lookout tower.” Then she stops, mouth open. She points at the kidnapper.

She bends over, hands on her knees, laughing through those disgusting braces of hers. “You think he—” She breaks off, trying to catch her breath. “That he . . .”

“Spit it out,” Zack says.

She shakes her head. She can't talk. And here comes the kidnapper.

I try to cover her mouth, a little too hard, I guess.

She yells,
“Ouch!”
The kidnapper hesitates, then keeps going.

“You think . . . ,” she begins again, and shakes her head. “What a pair of idiots. While the kidnapper is roaming free in town, you are chasing the new principal of St. Ursula's School.”

How can I sleep? We've yelled at the new principal, we still haven't tackled the summer reading, and worst of all, we're being menaced by a kidnapper we still haven't found.

Weighty, very weighty.

But I have to sleep. It's the only way out.

And so the room is pitch-black and the pillow is jammed over my head when I hear Linny screaming down the hall.

Fred is barking, growling, howling.

In one motion, I'm out of bed. I grab one of the library books; it's the heaviest thing in the room. Zack's out of bed, too. He's holding the lamp over his head, the wire trailing.

Zack's eyes are like pizzas in the darkness. “We can do this. We have to save our sister.”

What is it she's shouting?

We tiptoe to the bedroom door and ease it open. We have to surprise the kidnapper. It's our only hope.

“Peaches!” she shouts above Fred's horrendous noise.

Peaches?

Fred grabs the lamp cord and shakes it so hard that Zack drops the lamp on my foot. The lamp is in a thousand pieces; I'm lucky my toes are still attached.

Now I hear Nana. Is she yelling, too?

William's door bursts open.

Steadman is standing against the wall, thumb in his mouth, shaking his head. “A girl,” he says. Then he's really awake.
“Yabaloo!”
he shouts.

Fred snaps his jaw shut.

“Yes!” Linny stops in her tracks, dancing around, arms out, hitting the wall. “It's Peaches.”

“Maizie,” Nana breathes, her hair twisted up in rollers, her face full of whitish cream. She smiles at us. “Your father just called with the news.”

A girl.

This is the latest in a string of disappointments. And poor Mary, asleep in her crib, doesn't even know she's not the baby anymore.

Still . . .

Zack and I grin at each other. We've had an alternate name plan just in case this happened.

We all troop downstairs to the kitchen. Nana pulls out a container of milk and a box of saltine crackers. She puts an open jar of peanut butter in the middle of the table. A knife sticks out of the top. William's work. He never puts anything in the dishwasher.

I sit and chew; lights are blazing in the used-to-be-empty house. We've probably awakened the whole neighborhood. Worse, we may have awakened the kidnapper, wherever he is.

After we finish off the crackers and milk, everyone goes back to bed. Everyone except Zack and me.

Upstairs in our bedroom, we look through the pile of books. Not one under a hundred pages; the letters are so small I'll be wearing an eye patch by the time I've finished the first chapter.

“What we could do—” Zack holds up his hand so I don't interrupt. He picks up the skinniest book. “One hundred two pages.” He snaps his fingers. “What's half of that?”