The Mandie Collection (27 page)

“I can't walk up in the air like that,” Mandie insisted, nervously holding on to Snowball.

“Mandie, the man is getting away. After all the time we've spent chasing him, let's not quit now or we'll never find him again,” Jonathan insisted. “Please!”

Mandie looked at Jonathan, took a deep breath, and said, “Only if you will hold my hand and catch me if I start to fall.”

Jonathan grinned at her and said, “I'll hold your hand anytime, Mandie Shaw, and I sure won't let you fall. Now come on.” He reached for her free hand.

Clinging to Jonathan on one side and squeezing her cat with her other arm, Mandie managed to climb the steps to the railroad tracks.

“You have to be careful to walk on the edge where the train doesn't run because the tracks actually have electricity to make the train move,” Jonathan explained as he led her down the narrow walkway.

Mandie stopped and said, “Electricity? Jonathan, we could be— what do you call it—electrocuted? This is dangerous!”

Jonathan grinned and said, “No danger of that if you just do what I tell you. And for goodness' sakes, Mandie, please don't let that cat get away from you.”

Mandie finally smiled at him and said, “Jonathan, you live a dangerous life, playing around with trains and electricity.”

“Come on,” Jonathan said, looking down the track. “We may have lost the man unless we can see him when we go around this curve.”

Mandie practically held her breath as she allowed Jonathan to lead her down the pathway next to the tracks. She was so nervous she had to watch her footsteps and left it to Jonathan to spot the man.

As they came around the curve in the tracks, Jonathan suddenly exclaimed, “There he goes! And I don't believe he knows we are behind him.” He quickened his footsteps, and Mandie took a deep breath and followed.

After what seemed like hours to Mandie, they finally came to a train stop where there was a waiting place for passengers. However, it was on the opposite side of the tracks from where they were walking.

“We have to cross the tracks now, Mandie,” Jonathan told her. “The man went over there and down to the street.”

Mandie looked down at the dangerous tracks, contemplating how she would be able to get to the other side. Suddenly there was a loud commotion and the tracks began to shake under her feet. Jonathan
quickly put his arm around her and screamed above the noise, “No problem. Just a train coming down the other side. Stand very still.”

Mandie's heart did flip-flops as the train came rumbling down the tracks and then stopped on the other side from where they were standing. She was shaking so hard she could hardly stand up, what with the train also shaking the very rails under her feet.

Then suddenly the train started to move on down the tracks, and the vibration finally stopped.

“Now,” Jonathan told her. “Here. I'll take Snowball to the other side.” He took the white cat in one arm and reached for Mandie's hand. “Hold on to me.”

Mandie looked down at her feet again and realized her long skirts were in the way. She lifted up the garments and held them tightly in her other hand as Jonathan guided her across the tracks.

“Whew!” Mandie exclaimed with a loud sigh, almost collapsing with relief after they managed to get back down to the street.

“Come on, Mandie,” Jonathan urged her. “That man went this way. Maybe we can get a glimpse of him somewhere. Help me watch for him.” He looked down at her and grinned. “Now you can go home and tell everybody you walked down the elevated railroad tracks in New York.”

“Never,” Mandie said. “My mother would have a heart attack.” She allowed Jonathan to lead her down the street as she took Snowball back into her arms. She rubbed his fur and talked to him, “Poor kitty, you were scared, too.”

“Do I hear Mandie Shaw admitting she was scared? Never have I heard that she was scared by anything,” Jonathan teased as they rushed down the street.

“You are not playing fair, Jonathan,” Mandie objected. “You are used to this crazy life in New York, and I've never been here before. And I've certainly never been on overhead railroad tracks before. Just you wait till you come to visit us in North Carolina. I'll get even with you on some things, too.”

Jonathan glanced at her, smiled, and then looked ahead. “There! That man is going into that tenement building over there. Hurry! We'll go inside and follow him.”

Go inside a tenement building?
Mandie thought.
What's inside there?
New York was a strange place to her. She didn't mind chasing
strangers out in the open streets, but to enter a strange building! That could be dangerous.

Jonathan gave her hand a pull and said, “Come on, Mandie, we're wasting time. He'll get away again.”

“I'll sure be glad when we do catch up with him,” Mandie replied as she reluctantly followed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

A STRANGE NEIGHBORHOOD

Even with her cold, Mandie could smell the strong odor of garlic in food cooking somewhere in the tenement building as she and Jonathan stepped inside the front hallway. The front door had been closed but was unlocked. A draft in the hallway indicated something was open beyond as the wind practically whistled through. She shivered with cold and fright. Snowball meowed loudly in her arms.

Jonathan held her hand as they paused near the front door. Mandie stepped closer to him. She could hear loud voices intermingled with even louder quarreling and children yelling from somewhere inside the building.

“Now what?” she whispered.

“Let's look around,” Jonathan whispered back, holding her hand as they walked down the long hallway.

Several doors along the way stood half-open with different noises coming out from behind them. Some doors were closed. Mandie counted at least eight doors before they suddenly came to the back door. It stood wide open, hanging halfway off its hinges. The wind bellowed through it into the building.

Mandie shivered and held Snowball closer.
What a terrible place to live
, she thought.
What kind of people inhabit this rundown building?

“What a horrible place to live,” Jonathan echoed her thoughts in a low voice. “Let's go back to the front.”

Just as they came to the back side of the staircase, they both saw the strange man going up the steps. They quickly followed, but the man had a good start and disappeared before they could see where he went.

“Let's go up to the top and we can search our way down,” Jonathan suggested.

The old staircase creaked, and the loose spindles in the banister rattled under their combined weight and the strong draft of air from below. Mandie would not have been surprised if the whole thing had collapsed at any moment.

“Let's get off these steps,” she whispered to Jonathan when they finally reached the top floor.

Stepping into the hallway, Jonathan went toward a door straight ahead and said, “All right, but first let's look on the roof and see if he went there.”

Jonathan pushed the door open, revealing a short staircase that he quickly climbed. Mandie followed, but as she stepped through the doorway, Snowball suddenly managed to jump out of her arms. He ran back into the hallway. The door slammed shut with Mandie on one side and Snowball on the other. She frantically pulled on the door but couldn't get it to open.

“What are you doing?” Jonathan called down to her.

“The door shut and Snowball is in there. I can't get the door open!” she cried out in panic.

Jonathan rushed down and helped her pull on the door, but without any results.

“The door must have locked when it slammed shut,” Jonathan told her in dismay, looking helplessly about.

“What are we going to do, Jonathan?” Mandie exclaimed. “Snowball will run off and I'll never find him! Oh, Jonathan, we've got to do something.”

“We'll just have to wait until somebody comes up here,” he said. “I need to search the roof, Mandie, to see if the man is out there. Come on. Maybe someone will help us.”

Mandie followed Jonathan up the short staircase and realized they were completely outside the building. The door had closed off the
tenement house behind them, and now they were out on the open roof.

Jonathan reached for her hand and said, “Come on. Let's walk around the chimney so we can see what's up here.”

After they passed the chimney, Mandie could see there was nothing else on the roof, and when she looked over the edge she could see for blocks and blocks around. The sudden realization that they were on top of a building without any rails or protection around the outer edges made Mandie slightly dizzy. Her hold tightened on Jonathan's hand.

“What's wrong?” Jonathan asked, looking at her in concern.

“I—I—just never—have been this high up without something to keep me from falling over the edge,” Mandie managed to say in a squeaky voice.

“You have me,” Jonathan told her. “I won't let you fall over the edge. Besides, once you get used to being up here and looking down there on everything, you'll get over the fright.”

A gust of wind blew across the roof, and Mandie pulled her coat collar up, trying not to shiver. She glanced up at the cloudy sky and asked, “What will we do if it snows, Jonathan?”

“I don't think it will snow. Besides, I don't expect to stay up here long. Someone must have seen us and will probably come to see what we're doing,” he said. “Not only that, your cat will be found by someone down there, and then they will surely come looking for you.”

“But, Jonathan, no one saw us come up here,” Mandie reminded him.

“That's what you think. The kind of people who live in a building like this know and see everything that goes on,” Jonathan said as they stood together in the middle of the roof.

“If we didn't see them, how could they see us?” Mandie asked. “I don't believe you, Jonathan Guyer. You're just trying to keep me from being worried.”

“Mandie, remember all those half-open doors? And all those noises in the house?” Jonathan replied. “Well, those people who were making those noises were also peeking through the cracks to see what we were doing. I felt it.”

“Then I wish they would hurry up and come to the roof,” Mandie said. “In fact, I think we should just go back down those steps and
beat and bang on that door and scream and holler until someone hears us.”

“Remember, this is New York, Mandie. That might work in other places, but no one in New York is curious about someone beating and banging and screaming and hollering,” Jonathan said. “Sooner or later someone will come up here.”

“Suppose that man we've been following comes up here. Won't you be afraid of him way up here on this roof by ourselves?” Mandie asked.

“No, because there are two of us and only one of him,” Jonathan replied with a big grin.

“But he must have friends, or even family, in this building because he did come in here while we watched him? He could bring the whole kit and caboodle right up here,” Mandie argued. She looked around the roof and added, “Oh, how did we ever do such a dumb thing, getting locked out on the roof of a ramshackle old building like this?”

“Because we were in such a hurry,” Jonathan replied. “We had to hurry or lose sight of the man. And I don't even know what he and the girl might have stolen from my father's house. It could have been something very valuable.”

“And you know that no one at your house even knows where we are,” Mandie reminded him. “If we don't get back there soon, Celia's mother will go absolutely wild when she finds we ran off and haven't returned.”

“I know. I've been thinking about that, but right now there is nothing we can do about it except just wait for someone to open that door,” Jonathan reminded her.

“Do you suppose we could attract someone's attention down on the street if we yelled and waved?” Mandie asked.

“We can try,” Jonathan replied. “Do you think you can walk to the edge of the roof without getting tipsy?” He grinned at her.

“Of course,” Mandie tried to answer in a firm voice, but secretly her head began to swim just thinking of looking over the edge of the roof.

“Come on, then,” Jonathan said, starting forward and holding her hand.

“Slowly, Jonathan, don't go too fast,” Mandie cautioned him and
then looked up with a big smile. “Or we might just not be able to stop and step right off into space.”

Suddenly she heard a noise coming from below the steps they had climbed to the roof, and before she could speak, Jonathan said, “I hear someone. Come on!”

The two rushed back down to the locked door, listened for the noise, and when they heard it again they began pounding on the door.

“Please open the door,” Jonathan called loudly between blows.

“We're locked out,” Mandie cried as loudly as her sore throat would allow.

When the two stopped to listen, everything was silent on the other side of the door. Then they began again, beating and kicking the door. They heard the noise on the other side again, but when they stopped making their noises, whatever was inside also stopped.

“They must hear us,” Mandie complained.

“It sounds like someone is in the hallway on the other side of this door,” Jonathan said. “So they must know we're out here and just don't want to let us back in.”

Mandie looked at him with worried eyes. “You mean that strange man may be leaving us out here to get rid of us because we followed him?” she asked.

“Could be,” Jonathan agreed.

After a while they no longer heard anything inside the house, and Jonathan said, “Let's try your suggestion. We'll go back up on the roof and see if someone down on the street will hear us.”

Mandie followed him up and out onto the roof. She held tightly to his hand as they slowly walked to the edge. Halfway across, she pulled him to a stop and said, “Jonathan, I think we ought to say our verse.”