Is Anybody There? (8 page)

“So you could use the washer and dryer,” I said nastily. “That must have been before she gave you the key. My mom sure is nice to you.”

“Yes, she is. She’s very nice.”

“You scared the heck out of me,” I said. “What have you got behind your back?”

“Where?”

“Behind your back. Don’t tell me it’s your dirty laundry.” Big bear creature, standing there with his thick legs spread apart. With a
click the automatic light went off. Two minutes.

I began walking toward him. “Let me see.”

“Sorry, Marcus. I can’t do that.”

I stopped a few paces in front of him. “I’m going to tell Mom about you,” I said. The words were so whiny and babyish that I wished them back as soon as I’d spoken them.

“Look,” Nick said, “I’m sorry I scared you. I just didn’t think you’d hear. Man, you have some great ears on you!” He smiled but I didn’t smile back.

“I thought you didn’t come in here secretly,” I said.

“Let’s say this time’s an exception. And I don’t think it would be a good idea to tell your mother about it.”

“Oh, you don’t.” There was a thick, hard lump in my throat. “Well you just quit sneaking around our place. From now on, stay out of our garage. And out of our house.” I wanted to add, “And out of our lives,” but that sounded too nerdy.

I ran back up the steps, slammed off the light, and locked the kitchen door behind me.

It was a few minutes before I heard the faint
creak and swish as the big door closed. What had he been doing? I should have stayed instead of jamming out like that. Was he inside now or out?

Out.

From around the side of the living-room drapes I watched him lope up the steps to his apartment. Whatever he carried in front of him was hidden by the breadth of his back. He had taken something. He
was
the one. I could tell Mom now and she would believe me.

So why was I feeling so rotten?

When I woke up Christmas Eve morning I didn’t feel happy the way I do most Christmas Eves. It took a while to remember why: Nick, and last night.

Mom was in the kitchen eating a toasted muffin and jelly and drinking coffee.

“Want some?” she asked.

“No thanks.” I got out the fruit-and-bran cereal and a dish.

Mom watched me over the top of her coffee mug. “It’s such a pain having to work Christmas Eve,” she said. “But I’ll be home at five and then Christmas will really begin.”

“I know.” On the table there was a bowl of red roses that Miss Coriander had sent over. Mom loves roses and Miss Coriander is about the only one who has them this time of year.

“Nick won’t be home today,” she said.

“Too bad,” I muttered, pouring cereal into my dish.

“But if you feel the least bit …” She paused and then started over. “If you feel too much alone, go next door. Everything’s safe, of course, with the new locks. But Miss Sarah and Miss Coriander will be starting their cooking today. You might want to see what they’re doing.” Miss Sarah and Miss Coriander always bring a ton of food when they come for Christmas dinner, including creamed onions and spinach souffle and their special molded salads filled with nuts and cranberries. They won’t take the leftovers home, either, so Mom and I eat our way right into New Year’s.

“You could learn to make that spinach souffle,” she said. “Then we wouldn’t have to wait until Christmas every year to have it.”

“I thought maybe I’d ask Robbie to come over, if that’s OK.”

“Sure. Good idea. But you two monkeys stay away from under the tree. No untying the gifts and checking them out then tying them up again.”

“Mom! We were nine years old.”

“No switching labels!” she added.

“We were ten!”

“So now you’re thirteen. Stay away.”

“Party pooper,” I said.

A small pitcher of milk was on the table and I poured some on my cereal, careful not to look at her. “Mom? Last night Nick was in the garage.”

“Marcus! Are you going to start—”

“You said to tell you if something was bothering me. You said I had a responsibility.”

Her voice softened. “I know. You’re right.”

“I didn’t want to bring it up again. I didn’t mention it last night because I wanted to think it through. But … but … and now he has a key again.”

Mom stood up. She looked pale and she said something quietly that I couldn’t quite hear, something like “This isn’t going to work, Caroline.” To me she said: “I’ll ask him to give the key back, Marcus. See you tonight.”

   I took a quick look around the garage after she left. Nothing seemed to be missing. Then
Robbie came, and he and I shot baskets for a while. Afterward we lay on our backs on my bed, a package of Fig Newtons between us, a pitcher of lemonade on the floor.

“You’re sure he took something?” Robbie asked.

“Pretty sure.”

He sat up so suddenly, the bed bounced and my plastic glass of lemonade sloshed over my bare stomach between my T-shirt and jeans. “Not your mom’s bike?” he asked.

“No, goofball!” I grabbed a Kleenex to sop up the mess. “It couldn’t have been anything that big.”

Robbie plunked back down. “But what’s in the garage? I mean that anybody would want?”

“Tools. My spare bike parts. Boxes of stuff for the Goodwill. The ladder. The lawn mower.”

“Well, he sure didn’t hide those behind his back.” Robbie paused. “You think your mom’s going to marry him?”

“Sometimes you get the craziest ideas, Robbie.”

Robbie giggled. “If she did, your name
would be Marcus Milardovich. You’d sound like a Russian spy.”

“You think it sounds weirder than Robert Roberts?”

“
I
think it does.”

I gave him a look. “It’s not going to happen. Anyway, I’d
never
change my name.”

“OK, OK.” Robbie lifted one foot and flicked a piece of dirt from the sole of his Nikes. I picked the dirt crumbles from my bedcover and made a face.

“Did I tell you my cousin Jimmy plays on Nick’s team?” Robbie asked.

“About a hundred times you told me.”

“Did I tell you how they had this real mean assistant coach and he told the guys to crawl on their hands and knees after they lost a game and how Nick exploded and yelled—”

“And told the guys to get up, they weren’t animals, and then he fired the coach—”

“The assistant coach,” Robbie corrected. “His name was Mr. Clipper.”

“You’ve told me all that a hundred times, too,” I said.

“That was pretty nice of Nick, huh? Jimmy says all the guys like him a lot. Jimmy likes him.”

“Listen,” I said. “Nick’s probably different at work and at home. That doesn’t mean anything. Anyway, I happen to know he’s not going to be around today. Usually he leaves his door unlocked, so I might just go up there and see what I can find.” I made myself sound real casual. “Mostly I’m looking for a clock. Or whatever he took from our garage. Mostly I’m looking for proof.”

Robbie’s eyes sparkled. “Great idea, Marcus. A search-and-destroy mission.”

“I don’t know about the destroy. Wait a sec.” I went to the window to check and I saw that Nick’s car was still there. “I’ll have to wait,” I told Robbie, sliding down on the floor with my back against the bed. Robbie was chugging lemonade straight from the pitcher, with a sound like water flushing down a drain. He wiped his mouth on the end of my bedcover. “Guess who I saw this morning?”

“Don’t do that,” I said. “I have to sleep under that bedcover. Who did you see?”

“Anjelica Trotter.”

I kept a poker expression, although it was hard.

“She was riding her bike along your street.”

“Yeah?” I examined the wet patch on the bedcover.

“Where do you think she was going?” Robbie asked.

“I have no idea.” Even the top of my head was burning, but I managed to sound real cool. “How did she look?”

Robbie did a round curving thing with his hands on the front of his T-shirt. “Another two inches, I swear! Anjelica Trotter’s top is a total miracle.”

“Total,” I agreed. If only he knew!

“I bet she—” Robbie began.

Outside my window was the sound of Nick starting up his Dodge. “We’re in business, Robbie,” I interrupted happily. “Here’s where the action starts.”

But pretty soon I realized it wasn’t going to be easy to get up Nick’s stairs without Miss Sarah or Miss Coriander spotting me. I’d forgotten about them. There was no way to get the action started. Every time I’d wander out toward the back, there they’d be mixing things or peeling things at their counter by the window. They’d wave and I’d wave back and retreat.

“It’s like trying to get past a sentry box,” I told Robbie.

But after lunch Miss Sarah came out and opened the trunk of their Buick, and she and her sister began carrying out green branches and pots of poinsettias and chrysanthemums.

“The plants are for Christmas Eve midnight mass, Robbie,” I said. “They’ll be loading for a while. And then Miss Sarah will drive the stuff over and come back. I’ll go now, while they’re busy. Keep watch.”

“I’ll signal if I see Nick coming home,” Robbie said. “I’ll whistle.”

Of course I wouldn’t need a signal. The first thing we’d see would be Nick’s Dodge cruising up the driveway, and then it would be too late. “Just throw yourself in front of his car,” I said. “That’ll work better.”

“You don’t think anyone will come in here while you’re gone, do you?” Robbie asked, jerking his head this way and that, like a nervous chicken.

“No. I told you. All the locks were changed. If someone does,
then
you can whistle.”

I raced up Nick’s steps. What if this time he
had
locked the door? He should. But if he was
Mr. Fox in person, he’d know he didn’t have to.

The door was open. I slid inside and closed it behind me.

The apartment was flooded with sunlight.

I checked the stuff on the table beside the couch first. No clock. Well, would I expect him to have it where Mom or I might see it? I’d need to open drawers and closets to check properly, and that would be hard to do. I felt like a crumbum even thinking about it.

“But if he’s a thief …” I said out loud. “Besides, he said I should come up anytime.” Not to look through his private things, though. He hadn’t invited me to do that. So?

I opened the drawer on the bedside table and pawed through his stuff. I checked the closet. The top shelf was filled with packages, Christmas wrapped. Maybe he’d hidden something behind them.

I dragged over the wicker chair and lifted the packages out. There were tags on all of them and they were all for Blake, whoever that was. Most of the wrapping paper was faded and torn as though the packages had been around for a long time. There was a new one,
though, big and square, wrapped in green foil with a green ribbon. The white, stuck-on card said
To Blake
again. Weird! Then I found a small, square box in the same kind of green foil marked “To Caroline with love from Nick.” With love to my mother! I jammed it all the way back where there was nothing but dust. There hadn’t been anything in that pile for me. Well, Nick wasn’t on my Christmas list either.

The closet-sized bathroom smelled of Nick. The mat by the shower still had two great, damp bear prints on it. I almost hung up the towel he’d left in a wet heap on the floor, but I remembered in time not to move it. That would have been a mistake. Anyway, I wasn’t here to pick up after him.

Back to the living room. A wicker chest with a broken brass hasp on top was filled with records and books and photographs. Some of the pictures were framed. Most of them were of a kid with blond curly hair and big blue eyes. In one he was about two, in another one a bit older. I turned the picture over. Printed on the back were the words “Blake, age two years two months.” So that was the Blake on
all those old Christmas presents. But why were they still in Nick’s closet? I flipped over all the pictures. There was one at age five where he looked exactly like Nick. Poor kid, I thought. In a couple of them he was with a woman whose name on the back was Anne. Anne and Blake at age three. And then I found one with a trio: Nick, Anne, and Blake. Blake was six, according to the label on the back. The date placed it as being taken seven years ago. So Blake would be thirteen now, same as me.

Nick didn’t have his beard back then. He looked kind of young himself, and he was smiling down at Blake in such a soft, loving way it made my throat hurt. I remembered Dad looking at me like that. Some people say I’m lucky that I was eight when my dad died so I can remember him, but I’m not sure about that. If you didn’t remember, it wouldn’t hurt so much not to have him anymore. I stared at the picture for a long time before I put it away with the others, trying to remember what order they were in. I don’t think there was any order. Nothing else. No place left to look. I didn’t want to anyway.

When I opened Nick’s door a crack I could see Miss Coriander stooped over her kitchen counter. Oh no! She’s not quite the spotter that Miss Sarah is, but close. She’d see me for sure coming down the steps. And she’d want to know why, and she’d just mention it to Mom the way they’d mentioned once seeing me ride my bike through a red light. And Mom would say, “Are you spying on Nick? Is that what you’re doing?”

Robbie was leaning against the side of our house out of Miss Coriander’s range, waving his arms to get my attention. When I waved back he pointed warningly at her window, then at himself, then toward the front of the house, before he disappeared. I waited.

One of my shoelaces was untied and I tied it again. Miss Sarah used to tell me all the time to tie my laces. “You’ll trip and chip your front teeth, Marcus. Miss Coriander and I knew a boy. …” I might have to run and I didn’t want to trip.

In a few minutes I heard the Clarks’ front doorbell. It has a very loud ring so neither Miss Sarah nor Miss Coriander will miss it. That bell’s so loud even deaf old Patchin
across the street hears it, and it gets him very excited. Miss Sarah and Miss Coriander also have squawk boxes all over their house so they can ask who’s there, and the person who rings talks into a little round microphone thing and states his business.