The Secret Room (2 page)

I couldn't mess this up. Otherwise the man and the woman would turn around and never come back.

“Wha-wo-would you also like to get to know Karl?” I said finally.

“Why not?” replied the woman with the red hair who smiled with all of her freckles. I could suddenly hear again, and slowly my knees stopped trembling.

“We could go get some ice cream,” said the man with the curls. “Or to the movies, or the park.”

So that's how I got to know Ines and Paul, or how they got to know me. They came every weekend, all through summer vacation, and Ines brought her freckles and Paul brought his solemn gray eyes. And I, I made sure that Karl was never left behind, standing sadly at the fence.

All four of us were there for all of our excursions. We learned to say “Ines” and “Paul” to Ines and Paul, which was hard for me. Almost as hard as learning to ride a bike. Karl was much better at it. He was also better at playing ball in the park and better at singing aloud in the car, but the tradeoff was that he would sometimes drop his ice cream cone, and at the movies he would get so excited that he would crush the popcorn bag and the popcorn together into a big clump.

Ines and Paul didn't seem to mind. I was never really sure what to make of them. Somehow they were a little crazy. When we played ball they sometimes fought like children, and other times they would fling chocolate sauce at one another—and I remember how Ines once wrestled Paul to the ground and sat on him, just because he claimed that she had bad aim.

The grown-ups at the school and at the orphanage were totally different.

Maybe grown-ups were like soda: there were all different kinds...

And then came the evening when Paul and Ines didn't get into their car right away. Karl had already rushed off to find out what was for dinner, and I just wanted to say goodbye so I could go after him—but then Paul gently took me by the arm.

“Achim,” he said.

I looked up at him. His gray eyes looked more solemn than usual, and he didn't look like he was going to be flinging chocolate sauce at anyone anytime soon. “Achim, we wanted to ask you something.”

“What is it?” I squirmed in his grasp. He wasn't holding me tightly—it was more that I was squirming on the inside. I was starting to get an idea of what he wanted to say.

It welled up like a bubble in some soda and waited to burst on the surface.

“We'll be back next Sunday,” said Ines. “And we wanted to know...”

She fell silent. Paul took a deep breath. “Would you like to come with us?” he asked finally. “Next Sunday? With us ... to our house?”

I swallowed.

“You know that we live sort of far away,” Ines added. “But we have a yard too, like the one here. With pears and cherries and blackberries.”

“And the ocean's really close by,” said Paul.

I swallowed again. “But I have to go to school again soon,” I said. “It would be impossible if I were so far away.”

“You can go to the school near us,” answered Ines.

I swallowed a third time.

“Does that mean that you want me to really ... I mean, you want me to live with you?”

They both nodded.

I looked back at the orphanage, where Karl and Maria were standing in the doorway. So everyone had known but me. Karl waved and nodded, his head bouncing up and down, and he gave me two thumbs up.

I turned my gaze from Karl's big, friendly figure in the doorway and said “okay” very quietly, because I knew that's what everyone expected me to say.

But I actually didn't want to leave Karl and Maria and the jungle gym and the apple trees in the yard.

On the weekends—sure. But not forever.

The next few days went by much too quickly.

Maria would tell me now and then that she was working on a lot of paperwork for me and that there were always new letters from Paul and Ines with documents and forms that they had filled out and checked and signed.

“It's all very complicated,” said Maria, “because first you have to determine whether you're really allowed to adopt a child.”

I didn't know that. Most of the kids in the orphanage still had parents somewhere. But someone had decided that they weren't good parents—maybe there was some kind of test that they hadn't passed?—and that's why their children were here.

I thought that in my case they could save themselves the trouble. My parents were just dead, plain and simple, and had been for an awfully long time.

But still, I was happy that there was paperwork. Because it meant that I got to stay a little longer with Karl and Maria and the yard with the apple trees.

Then it was Friday.

Karl and I were sitting in the doorway, looking out at the evening, and all of a sudden I let out a heavy sigh.

“Karl,” I said, “you know, you can have them instead of me, if you want. I don't want them at all. I mean, they're nice and everything, but I would rather stay here. They wouldn't want to keep me for very long anyway. When they find out that I have asthma and stuff, they'll definitely give me back... you go with them.”

Karl took my shoulders and shook me a little, and because he's so strong, it really knocked me around.

“You've gone totally bonkers,” he replied, smiling. “They want you, don't you get it? You're gonna have your own room and a bunch of stuff and—man! You should be happy about it!”

“I'm trying,” I said quietly. “It just hasn't been working too well.”

As I stood waiting in the parking lot with my suitcase on Saturday, it started to rain. That was okay with me, because I felt like rain.

The Ribbeks' red car was in the driveway, stopped in the middle of a puddle.

“Write to me,” said Karl.

Paul smiled and clapped Karl's shoulder as if he really were a sailor and stuffed my suitcase into the car. I think I said goodbye, somehow. And then I was looking out at the rain through the car window.

The car roared like a moose when it started up.

Behind the curtain of rain, Karl and Maria were standing and waving from under a large, ugly umbrella. Maria had her arm around Karl and had pulled him close. I thought,
They look so sad
.

And so did I, on the inside.

Eventually the orphanage disappeared behind a curve and a little later we turned onto the highway.

We drove all day. I sat in the back seat and pressed my nose flat against the window and got sadder and sadder the farther the car took me from Karl and Maria and their old umbrella.

My small, green suitcase was in the back of the car, with my toothbrush and my old, tattered toy dog Lucas (who I was actually already too old for), and my blue-and-white striped pajamas.

They were the same pajamas that all the boys in the orphanage had.

My whole life I had wanted pajamas that were my very own, a pair of pajamas that no one else had. Now I took some comfort in the thought that later that night, Karl and I would both get into our beds wearing blue-and-white stripes.

It was raining so hard outside that the trees were bending over, like they wanted to take shelter under themselves.

The radio was playing sad songs in a language I didn't understand, so Paul turned it off and began to talk instead. He talked about his job as a teacher, a teacher for adults who couldn't speak English. And Ines talked about flowers and grasses and the shop where she sold them. Even though I knew all of that already. After that, they talked about their house and how nice it was, and then they talked about their town ...

At some point, after we had been on the dreary highway for a century, they suddenly both turned around and looked at me.

“But you're not saying anything,” said Ines.

“No,” I said.

Then Paul turned the radio on, and we listened to the sad songs in the language I didn't understand.

By the time we got to the Ribbeks' house, it was already dark.

It was a big house, a little bit outside of town, and in the distance there was a sound like a waterfall.

“That's the ocean,” said Paul.

“The ocean?” I asked.

He nodded and heaved my suitcase out of the car.

“Ines,” he said. “Can you believe it? Achim just brought a bunch of rocks with him. What's he going to wear?”

Ines shrugged her freckled shoulders. “Rocks,” she answered.

It was warm and bright inside. Ines made fried eggs, and Paul carried my small, green suitcase up a very narrow, steep wooden staircase.

Upstairs, he opened the door to a room with just one bed, even though it was big enough that at the orphanage four people would have slept in it.

“This is your room,” said Paul. He groaned and set the suitcase down, and as he did, his face looked so tortured that I couldn't help but smile a little.

Downstairs in the kitchen there was a big, old table full of termite holes. I sat down on a chair carefully.

“Why did you want a kid?” I asked.

Ines set three plates with eggs and bread on the table.

“You like fried eggs?” she asked. Apparently she hadn't heard my question.

“Fried eggs are my favorite,” I answered, to make her feel good. But during the meal I could scarcely keep my eyes open.

I yawned even though I knew that it wasn't polite. I felt embarrassed.

But then Ines yawned.

A moment later, Paul joined in.

And we all laughed.

Later, lying in bed in my striped pajamas, I remembered my question again. It was right when Paul came in to say goodnight—just the way Maria and the other women at the orphanage had done.

“Why did you want a kid?” I whispered as he leaned over my bed.

Paul sighed.

“You know,” he said finally, “we had one once. A little boy.”

“And?” I whispered in the darkness. “Where is he now?”

“When he was four, he walked out into the street at the wrong moment.” Now Paul was whispering too. His voice sounded a little hoarse.

“A truck hit him. He died immediately.”

I didn't know why, but I reached for Paul's hand. “How old would he have been now?” I asked.

“Eleven,” whispered Paul. “Just like you.”

That night, for the first time, I padded over the soft carpet down the hall, looking for the bathroom. I didn't want to turn any lights on since I didn't know where the right switches were. There was a little green lamp plugged into the wall. That would have to do.

It was so strange to use a toilet that didn't have five other kids waiting in their stalls next to it! On the way back to my room, I forgot the way.

The hall went around a corner. Somehow I found a door and stood in front of it for a while, listening to the sounds coming from inside. It had to be the Ribbeks' bedroom because I heard someone snoring softly and someone else breathing calmly.

Behind another door I found a broom and a bunch of junk. The next door had to be the one to my room. I really wanted to crawl back under the blankets and leave the darkness of the hallway behind me.

The door was right next to the little green lamp. You couldn't miss it.

I reached out for the handle—then I stopped in my tracks and hesitated for a moment. I was certain that I had left the door open behind me. Of course it was possible that a gust of air had made it swing shut, but there was something else that kept me from opening it: It was definitely not the right door. The one to my bedroom had a rectangular frame and a red plastic handle like all the other doors in the house. But the door in front of me was rounded at the top like the doors in palaces and castles. Instead of a plastic handle, it had a nicely curved, shiny silver handle with plant-like flourishes. And there was no keyhole.

I ran my hand over the wood—it was rough and cracked.

It simply couldn't be. I was absolutely certain: This door hadn't been there a few hours ago.

I pressed my ear against it and listened.

And then I heard the sobbing.

It swelled from time to time; sometimes I could barely hear it, and sometimes I thought that Paul and Ines had to be able to hear it in their room.

I wasn't the only one who was unhappy. Right here, behind this door, there was someone else who was also feeling that way.

But who could it be? I raced down the hall till I came to an open door—my door—and I leapt into bed, hid under the blanket, and pulled Lucas close.