The Secret of Rover (5 page)

But today was not better. Today was worse.

It started at breakfast. Trixie, again in camouflage, had fixed herself an enormous meal with eggs and bacon and some kind of mushy gunk they didn't recognize. After she ate she clomped in her booted feet to the family room where the children had retreated with their cereal. Standing in the doorway she ordered them to clean up the mess she had made.

“The kitchen? It's all icky? I want it clean?”

Then she disappeared once again into the offices.

Fearing to contradict her, Katie and David resentfully complied, tiptoeing about their task and murmuring their protests only to each other. Trixie had clogged the drain with whatever that weird stuff was, and it was revolting to put their hands through the stagnant water to clear it.

Katie fled upstairs as soon as they were finished, but David wandered to the living room to practice the piano. When their mom and dad were home, piano practice was something he generally tried to duck. But today—with them gone and Trixie around—he felt a surge of loyalty to the normal rules.

Besides, his father was right. Though David wouldn't admit it, some days he actually
did
enjoy the piano, and he could tell that today was going to be such a day. The instrument they'd bought for this new house had a velvety
sound and the keys were cool and responsive beneath his fingers.

It was good to think about something that wasn't Trixie. David moved into his first piece and the familiar sound and feel began to soothe him.

But then the door to the office burst open. Trixie appeared before him. Her boots were thumping and the eyebrows that too often crawled up her forehead as she asked one of her sugary questions were plunged, low and menacing, over her nose. “No noise!” she barked.

For a moment David was startled into silence. Was this Trixie? Then he found his voice. “But I'm supposed—”

“I'm on the
phone
. . .” Trixie exaggerated the word, as if she were talking to someone very stupid. “On the
phone
, see? And I. Can't. Hear.”

“But you can close the doo—”

“You can close your mouth.”

David's jaw dropped. Silence rang in the wake of Trixie's words. Katie, who had run to the banister at the first sound of commotion—clapped her hands over her ears.

“You can't—you shouldn't—” David had risen to his feet, but he found himself at a loss for words.

Now Trixie raised her hand and pointed one fat finger threateningly at David. She leaned in toward him and shook that finger right in his face.

“You need to go to your room,” she commanded. Her
brows drew down even lower than before and she hissed, “
Skedaddle
!”

Skedaddle?

But apparently that was that. Trixie turned on her heel and marched her short, squat self back toward the office. With her hand on the doorknob she delivered her parting shot.

“Later, when that pool opens?” she said, without even turning to look. “You're going. Till then, don't be in my face. I've got work.”

Work? Now David found his voice.

“What work?” he demanded.

Katie had found hers, too. She leaned far over the railing and her indignant words sailed down at them from above. “We'll go if we want to!” she cried. “And we're your work! You're supposed to take care of us!”

At this Trixie let go of the doorknob, put her hands on her hips, and pivoted to confront them. Her face was twisted in anger. She glared up at Katie, drew a deep breath, and opened her mouth. They braced themselves. Katie had surely pushed it too far.

But the shout they anticipated did not come. Instead, Trixie stopped. As if she had suddenly remembered something, she composed her angry features. While they watched, fascinated, the oily smile again stretched itself across her face.

“I am taking care of you?” she said. “You're just fine!”
She forced out her tinkling little laugh. “But we have a relationship? So you have to do your part.”

“What part?” demanded David. His breathing was barely under control.

“The part where you be really, really good,” said Trixie. And with that she was gone. She stepped inside the office and closed the door. In the silence that rang in the hallway, both kids heard the lock snap shut.

They retreated to David's room to confer.

The pool did not open until ten. They would be there when it did; they needed no further urging to swim today. In fact, they did not plan to return from the pool until the gates were shut for the night. But for now, they concentrated on what had just happened, struggling to figure it out.

Katie sat on the floor, leaning against the bed. In a way, she explained, this fight was an improvement. At least the truth was out there now. “If someone's going to hate my guts,” she said, “I'd rather just have them hate me, you know? I mean, it was bad when Trixie told us to shut up.”

“‘Close your mouth,'” David corrected. He was also on the floor, but with his back to the wall and Slank draped around his neck like a stole. With one hand he idly rubbed behind the cat's ears.

“Right; it was bad,” said Katie. “But that smirky stuff, and those questions that are all, like, sickly sweet?”

“That's worse. I know,” said David.

Katie shuddered, remembering. “But we're wasting time, David,” she said, moving to a new topic. “We're worrying about the wrong stuff.”

“What are you talking about? And as for time, by the way, we have plenty. We're grounded till ten, remember?”

“We should be worrying about this ‘work' thing, is what I mean,” continued Katie.

“What are you talking about?”

“Trixie's work. In the
offices
. In Dad and Mom's offices.” Really, David was sometimes slow to catch on. “What's she working
on
?” pursued Katie. “What's that about?”

“She's in charm school,” said David. “She's studying for a test. She's not ready for it either—it's the least of our problems, Kat.”

Reaching over, Katie lifted the limp cat from David's shoulders and settled him in her own lap. He began to purr.

“You're wrong,” she replied, stroking Slank's silky back. “It's a very big problem. What's she doing in there?”

“She's getting away from us, is all. She goes there 'cause it's private. She listens to her music and she doesn't have to look at us. She doesn't want to be with us any more than we want to be with her. We just have to keep our heads down for six more days. We can do this, Kat.”

“Well, I'm not going to tell Mom and Dad or anything.”

“You got that right!”

“I
said
I'm not. But I'm telling you it's more than that. I'm just betting, that's all.”

And when they tiptoed past the office door half an hour later—with towels over their shoulders and backpacks loaded for the day—they did indeed hear sounds from within. They were faint, rapid, clicking sounds, barely audible beneath the drone of the music. They were the sounds of someone typing on their mother's computer.

That night Katie and David set their alarm clocks, and by six forty-five the next morning, they were in Katie's room awaiting their call from their parents. Neither of them wanted to miss a word. By now their parents would have Theo.

They were not disappointed. The phone rang just a few minutes before seven. Both children snatched at it and together they huddled over the receiver. On the other end of the line—on the other side of the world—was a voice they knew as well as their own: their mother's. And behind her elated hello—snuffling and murmuring and sounding very near—was a voice they had never heard before but loved right away. It was the voice of Theo.

“She's there! Mom, that's her—I can hear her!”

“Mom, put the phone closer!”

Mrs. Bowden laughed for pure joy. “More Theo! Just put on the baby! Never mind
me
.”

“Mom, is she cute?”

“Can't you hear?” their mother replied. “She's adorable! She's as cute as she sounds and more. It's all so worth it! This whole horrible trip and all the trouble—”

Mrs. Bowden broke off as, in the background, an unknown man with a foreign accent made an inquiry they could not hear.

“Not for another three days,” she said, her voice muffled, half away from the phone. “There's still paperwork. We'll be here till Saturday.” Another murmur came from the unknown man and there was rustling and shuffling as their mom moved off, handing the phone to their dad.

Katie looked at David. “That was short,” she said.

David shushed her. “Dad's coming on,” he said.

Mr. Bowden's voice sounded muffled too, as—like their mother—he was speaking to the polite voice in the background and not to them. “Right,” their father was saying. “Saturday.” Then much more brightly he added, “Oh thanks. Yes, thanks; she's beautiful.”

At last their father raised the phone to his face and spoke to them. “Hello? Hello, kids? You have a sister! She's a sweetheart!”

David leaned in. “Does she look like her picture?”

“Dad.” Katie clutched at the phone so tightly that her knuckles were white. “Did it go OK? Did you have any trouble?”

“No trouble is too great,” sang Mr. Bowden happily. “We would have fished her out of a volcano! We would have snatched her from a tiger's jaws! She's—”

But now a warble chirped across his words, briefly drowning them out.

“What?” said David. “We couldn't—” A second warble interrupted David.

“What's that sound?” asked Katie. “Is a phone ringing?”

“It sounds just like our cuckoo clock, from our kitchen,” said David, again over the chirping noise. “Do they have a clock like ours, Dad? At your hotel?”

“Clock? I don't know. Never mind; I can hear you. You won't believe this baby!” But though their father could hear, Katie and David missed much of the description that followed, thanks to the series of warbles that continued to interrupt them. Frustrated and perplexed, they gazed helplessly at each other as their father spoke.

“And the most adorable little sneeze!” he was saying. The chirping had stopped now; at last they could follow his words. “I think she must be allergic to my sweater—aren't you, honey?” Mr. Bowden asked in a voice that suddenly went itsy-bitsy.

David rolled his eyes.

Now their mother returned to the phone. “Are you two OK?” she asked anxiously. “How's everything going with Trixie?”

“Fine,” said Katie shortly, wanting to say more but seeing David's face.

“Oh, I'm glad!” their mother said through the static. “Well, I hope we won't be long. Theo is a love and they're very nice at this hotel—the whole staff's talking about the Bowden baby! They can't do enough to help us. But I must
say that outside our hotel it's awful here. There are men with guns everywhere and I don't like the looks of it.

“We'll tell you the whole story when we see you—it's just too hard on this lousy international line. We miss you so much. Daddy and I can't wait to get home.”

“Me too,” said Katie, her eyes filling.

“We'll call again tomorrow, but you know you can also call us,” her mother continued. “We'll hear our special song and we'll know it
is
our sunshine. We'll know it's you.”

Now Katie's eyes spilled over.

“We'll call you really soon, Mom,” she said.

“Bye,” said Mrs. Bowden softly, and with an even softer click, she was gone.

Katie sighed and reached over to hang up. But just as she did so, the receiver clicked again.

“Mom?” asked Katie, putting the instrument back to her ear. “Mom, are you still there?” But no one replied. Instead she now heard the flat tone that indicated the line was dead.

David was looking at her. “What?” he said.

“Somebody just hung up,” Katie replied sharply. “Somebody else hung up after Mom. Who was that, David? Who else was on the line?”

“Are you sure?”

“David, that was the most frustrating call! We barely heard a thing! And somebody else was listening! I heard them hang up!”

David had grown slightly pale. “It was her,” he said slowly. “It was Trixie. She must have been listening on the phone in the kitchen.”

“That explains the clock!” said Katie. “That wasn't a clock in Katkajan; it was
our
clock, striking seven.”

“And she's a nosy little snoop,” said David, heating up. He could feel his anger rising just thinking of that woman, eavesdropping on their call.

“David, you don't get it!” Katie was practically shouting. “Of course she's a snoop—the question is why?”

“She's a snoop because she's a creep,” said David. “Next?”

“What's the matter with you?” cried Katie. “She's
up
to something, David!”