The Prophet of Yonwood (6 page)

Dear Rachel and Nickie,

All is fine here. Work is going well. Wish I could tell you where I am, but its strictly forbidden.

My love to you both, Dad

P.S. Three sparrows came to the bird feeder today!

Her mother was right. It didnt say much. Though it did tell her something new about her fathershe hadnt known he was interested in birds at all.

CHAPTER 7 ______________

The Short Way Home

Grover couldnt concentrate at school that day. The classrooms were alive with whispers about the terrorist in the woods, and the bloody letter, and what Brenda Beeson said it meant. Even his teacher seemed nervous, Grover thought. She kept glancing out the window, and twice she came up with the wrong answers to the problems she was explaining.

After school, still more kids surrounded Grover and asked him to describe what hed seen. He wished he could tell them that the Prophet herself had come to examine the bloody cloth. She was the one they were curious about. But no one had seen her since shed had her visionbesides the doctor, no one but Mrs. Beeson and her small, devoted group. Grover remembered seeing Althea Tower in the bookshop sometimes before her vision, but she hadnt been interesting thenjust a sort of fluffy-haired woman with rimless glasses and dust on her fingertips from handling used books. Shed always smiled at him when he went in there, but she never said much. She was pale, as he recalled, and wispy, and had a quiet voice.

But now hed like to get a glimpse of her, to see if her eyes looked scorched and her hair frizzled like electric wires, to see if her face looked blasted, or frozen into astonishment, or whatever look there might be on the face of a person who had been shown a vision by God. If it really was GodGrover didnt know, and mostly he didnt care, as long as the results didnt affect him.

He ended up spending so much time talking to the kids in the schoolyard that he was in danger of getting home late. He was supposed to be home by three-thirty to help his grandmother with the kids; if he got home after his mother did, shed tell his father, and his father was sure to yell at him. So he decided to do something he rarely did, because it was a bit of a risk: take the short way home.

The short way home was through Hoyt McCoys backyard. Actually,backyard was too small a word for it; Hoyt McCoys house lay within a large and brambly acreage. He had two or three times more land than most of his neighbors. At the rear part of it, a few slats of the fence had fallen sideways, making a hole big enough for a skinny boy to get through. Grover, holding his schoolbooks close to his chest, was just skinny enough.

Crossing Hoyts yard cut a good five minutes off the time it took to get home. Grover knew this because hed done it a few times before. The only risky part was at the back corner of the property, where the house stood. Here he would be within view of some windows, if anyone happened to be standing by them. But so much overgrown shrubbery grew up the back of the house, and the windows were so coated with dust and grime, that he didnt think the chance of being seen was very great.

This time, though, he was wrong. As he came up behind the house, staying as close to the fence as he could and trying not to crunch too much on the fallen leaves, an upstairs window flew open. The deep voice of Hoyt McCoy rang out.

Halt, trespasser! I have you in my sights! Vacate these premises instantly!

Grover stopped so fast that he dropped his books. He froze, hoping the bushes would hide him. He waited, watching the open window. Did Hoyt mean he had a rifle trained on him? Would he actually shoot it? Grover didnt know. So he stayed where he was until finally the window closed. Then he waited a little longer, and at last he bent to pick his books up and moved on, staying in the shadows, setting each foot down with great care, until he came to the gravel drive that led out to the street. Then he ran.

Hoyt McCoy was one of Yonwoods oddities. Hed moved there about ten years ago from a university town somewhere. For a year or so after hed bought the house, workers from out of town had come every day, and sounds of drilling and sawing and hammering had issued from inside. People thought maybe Hoyts family was coming to live with himbut no. Hoyt lived alone. Sometimes he went away for weeks at a time, leaving the gate across his driveway padlocked. When he was at home, he seemed almost never to have visitors, although a few times Grover had seen a dark green sedan turning in at his driveway, in which there were always two men in suits. They were probably tax collectors, Grover thought. It wasnt likely Hoyt McCoy would have friends. He was tall and gaunt, with caved-in cheeks and dark hollows around his eyes. He walked with his shoulders stooped and his head craned forward, as if he were looking for something to pounce onand in his way, he did pounce on things. Everything met with his disapproval. On days when Hoyt showed up at the market or the post office or the drugstore, Grover had seen him tut-tutting at loud children, shaking his fist at cars that came too close to him, and scolding clerks for being rude. He also scoffed at everything Mrs. Beeson said about the Prophets vision. Orders from heaven, he would say, pursing his lips. Nonsense.She doesnt know. Im the expert on heaven, not her. If you want to know about celestial matters, ask me. But no one ever did ask him, as far as Grover could see. Hardly anyone ever spoke to him at all, if they could help it.

When Grover got home, only a little bit late, he found his grandmother in the living room in her usual spot, the armchair by the heater, with a baby on her lap. All around her, little kids of various ages crawled and toddled, babbled and cried and screeched. The TV was on. A newsman was saying that the president had set a deadline of one week, exactly seven days, for the Phalanx Nations to deactivate their missiles. Otherwise, the United States would have no choice but to

His grandmother aimed the remote and flicked off the TV. Heard theres more trouble in town, she said.

Grover dumped his books on a side table. I was the first one there, Granny Carrie, he said. I was the one who told Andy.

Good for you, said his grandmother. On top of things as usual.

One of Grovers little brothers whacked his sister with a stuffed animal. The little girl wailed. The baby on his grandmothers lap started to cry.

This was how it always was at Grovers house. He had six brothers and sisters, all younger, who created a constant uproar. His father worked as a handyman, and his mother worked at the dress shop, so his grandmother was the one who minded the children. Grover had to mind them, too, when he came home from school. All of this meant he was always short of timetime for homework, and time for other things that were more important to him than homework.

Look here, Grover, Granny Carrie said. I found some good ones for you. She leaned over and picked up a stack of magazines from the floor. Theres one that gets you ten thousand dollars. Another one gets you a car, but you could trade that for cash.

Great, said Grover. He took the top magazine and opened it to the page his grandmother had dog-eared. The Fabulous Dorfberry Sweepstakes! it said in big red letters. Hundreds of Prizes! Grand Prize $10,000! He read the fine print. All you had to do was collect five box tops from Dorfberrys Cornmeal Products and fill out an entry blank. Easy. His family ate a ton of corn muffins and cornbread. He could collect five box tops in less than a week.

For this one here, said Granny Carrie, opening another magazine, you have to write a paragraph. She showed it to him. Why buy Armstrong Pickles? said the ad. You tell us! One hundred words or less. The grand prize was five hundred dollars, which would be more than enough.

This is good, said Grover, moving the magazine away from the reaching fingers of his littlest brother. Thanks. Ill probably win a whole lot of these and have money left over. Ill buy you a Cadillac.

You better not, said Granny Carrie. You can buy me some new slippers. These ones are getting worn out. She stuck out her feet, on which she was wearing yellow slippers with duck heads on them. They were a little ragged around the edges.

Okay, said Grover. Hed be happy to buy his grandmother anything she wanted.

At five-thirty his mother came home, looking tired and carrying a bag of groceries. Somebodys lurking around in the woods, she said, setting the bag down and taking off her coat.

I know it, said Grover.

Dont you go up there, she said. You stay around here for a change. She started taking boxes and cans from the bag and putting them away.

A little later, Grovers father came home. He came in the back door, leaving his toolbox on the porch. Hear about the break-in? he said.

Yes, said everyone.

Gurney and his men ought to get up there in the woods and flush that guy out, said Grovers father. Take their rifles with them.

Dont talk about rifles, said Grovers mother. It scares me.

His father just shrugged. Serious times call for serious solutions, he said.

A shield of goodness is a better protection, his mother said.

Fine, said his father. You work on being good; Ill keep the gun loaded.

It could be just some poor wandering tramp up there, said his grandmother.

Trouble is, said his father, we dontknow. He could be a tramp; he could be a guy scoping out bomb sites. Do you want to take the risk?

Grover noticed a smear of grease on the side of his fathers neck. Probably hed been doing a plumbing job today. He could do just about anythingplumbing, carpentry, electrical work. He always had a lot of jobs, and he always came home tired and slightly grumpy in the evening.

Im going down to the shed, said Grover. There was still at least half an hour before dinner, and he wanted to use it.

Now, listen here, said his father. You waste a lot of time fooling around in that shed. What about your homework? Dont tell me you dont have any.

I do, but I can do it later, Grover said.

What comes first, getting ready for your future or fiddling with your little hobbies? Grovers father put one foot up on a chair and untied his shoe. If youre going to do something useful with your life, youve got to get started.

Iam going to do something useful, Grover said.

Not the way youre going, youre not, said his father, untying the other shoe and letting it thump to the floor. He started in on the rant Grover had heard a thousand times. You have to thinkpractical. The world is headed for disaster; I think we can say that for sure. But afterward, assuming the human race survives, theres going to be a big need for builders, architects, engineers. Study a little harder, and you could be one of them.

But Grover had other ideas. He picked up his books and went back to his room. He flopped onto his bed. Instead of going down to the shed, hed put the finishing touches on his application tonight, the one that was going to change his life. It was in the slim blue notebook he carried with him everywhere.

But where was the notebook? He had his English book, his math book, his history bookbut not his blue notebook. Had he left it at school? He wouldnt have done that. Could he have? A terrible thought struck him.

His blue notebookhe suddenly knewwas lying in the weeds behind the horrible house of Hoyt McCoy.

CHAPTER 8 ______________

A Crack in the Sky

He was going to have to go tonight, while it was dark. Otherwise, Hoyt would see him and try to shoot him again. This gave Grover a queasy feeling in his stomach, which made it hard to eat his dinner. When dinner was over and the little kids were in bed, his parents settled on the couch and flicked on the TV. A government spokesman was talking about the deadline the president had set for the Phalanx Nations to agree to the United States demands, and that if the demands werent met, the consequences would be serious, but no one should be alarmed, because emergency measures were planned, and

Im going outside for a while, Grover said.

All right, his mother said without looking at him. Be back in by nine-thirty.

Grover went out the back door as if he were going across the yard to his shed, but instead he circled around the side of the house and headed down the street. Lucky it wasnt raining, he thought. Rain would turn his blue notebook into a soggy rag. And lucky the moon was just a sliver in the sky, shedding hardly any light. That would help him hide from Hoyts sharp eyes.

Grover hurried downhill. He wanted to get this over with. If he hadnt already filled in so much of the application form, he could just leave it there and send for another one. But hed put in hours trying to get it just right. And besides, the deadline was only a week away. He wouldnt have time to send for another one, get it done, and turn it in on time. He had to find the one hed lost.

He passed the last house on his street and turned left onto Raven Road. It was darker here, because there were fewer houses shining the light from their windows out into the night. In less than five minutes, he came to the drive that led back into Hoyts land and started walking up it. His shoes crunched on the gravel, a sound that seemed much too loud. He tried to walk on the edge of the drive, where the gravel merged into dirt, but his feet kept getting tangled in the brambles that grew there.

He crept along to the left, moving toward the back of the house, staying as close to the fence as he could. The house loomed tall and darkonly one window on the top story was lit. With thorns and stickers catching at his sleeves, Grover made his way through the thickets of brush to the place where, that afternoon, hed frozen at the sound of Hoyts voice. He was sure this was where hed dropped his books; his notebook should still be right there on the ground, as long as Hoyt hadnt found it and thrown it in the trash, or some animal hadnt taken it away to shred for its nest. There was a straight line of sight from here to the top window of the house, the one that now glowed yellow around the edges of the drawn shade.

He dropped to his knees. Where was the darned thing? The shadows of the trees and bushes were so thick here that he could hardly see at all. Hed have to find it by feel. He ran his hands over the ground. Pebbles, clumps of cold dirt, scratchy weeds, dry fallen leaves. But no notebook. He held back a groan of frustration. Hehad to find it, because if he didnt find it, he wouldnt be able to go, even if hedid get the money, and hehad to go, because his whole future depended on it, and he wasfurious with himself for dropping it, and