The Stranger Next Door (12 page)

“Why don’t I follow you,” Blake said, “and get the keys. That way you won’t have to come back here.”

“Good idea,” Mr. Woolsey said. “Yes, I won’t have to come back here. Let’s go, then.” He got in his car and, without waiting for Blake to follow, took off.

“It’s a good thing I know where his office is,” Blake said as Mr. Woolsey’s car sped away.

“Is it okay if I wait here?” Rocky asked. “It’s such a nice night; I’d rather walk around than go to Mr. Woolsey’s office.”

“Stay close by,” Blake said. “I’ll be back in ten minutes.” He got in his car and left.

Rocky walked to the corner, then turned left intending to walk to Elm Lane, the street where he had lived for six days. He was curious to see what the burned house looked like in the dark. Before he got to Elm, he heard a siren approaching.

Rocky listened as the sound came closer. He could tell when the vehicle turned off the main road and entered Valley View Estates.

Was it a police car? Rocky’s stomach twisted into a knot. Had last night’s fire been traced to the mob who smuggled drugs, the mob whose leader Rocky’s mom had testified against? Were the police chasing Mafia members, men who were after Blake and Rocky?

Don’t be paranoid, he told himself. But it was hard not to be when he knew his life was threatened.

A fire truck roared into view, then turned down Alder Court.

Not another fire! Rocky thought. Which house this time?

He ran after the truck and soon saw the leaping flames. It was like having a terrible nightmare repeat itself two nights in a row.

Rocky saw three firefighters jump from the truck, unroll their hoses, and attach them to a bright red fire hydrant that squatted at the end of the street. The hoses expanded like giant boa constrictors as the water coursed through them.

He saw Mr. and Mrs. Kendrill on the far side of the street, watching. Alder Court was just one block over from Elm Lane; they must have seen the fire from their backyard and called the fire department. He wondered where Alex and Benjie were.

Rocky saw that it wasn’t just one house on fire this time, it was two. The gray house was fully aflame, the tan house much less so. A third house, to the left of the gray one, seemed okay.

Mr. Kendrill ran toward one of the firefighters, shouting, “All three houses are vacant! It’s new construction that hasn’t sold yet.”

That firefighter quickly alerted the others that none of the property was occupied.

The firefighters split up, with two of them concentrating on the left side of the gray house, apparently to keep the flames from spreading to the third building. The other firefighter sprayed water on the front side of the tan house.

Rocky stayed in the trees on the uncleared land across the street from where the Kendrills stood. If they saw him, they would ask if his family had found a place to live, and then he’d have to tell them which house he was going to move into.

He planned to stay away from Alex and Benjie in the future. Eventually, Alex would find out where Rocky lived, but by then he would have caught on that Rocky did not intend to become friends.

As Rocky watched the great hoses spew water onto the flames, something bright red caught his eye. Squinting through the smoky haze, Rocky saw Benjie, wearing a red jacket, running toward the burning houses.

He heard a firefighter yell at Benjie to go back, but the little boy kept going. Rocky had talked to Benjie only twice; both times Benjie had told him a wild story about Martians and a yellow dragon that ate naughty children. Was Benjie acting out one of his imaginative stories? If so, he was playing with danger.

Rocky was closer to Benjie than any of the firefighters were. He took off toward the boy. As he got closer, he saw that Benjie was chasing Alex’s cat.

He couldn’t believe that the cat would go toward a burning building that way. Usually an animal’s natural fear of fire would send it streaking in the opposite direction. But the fool cat kept going closer, yowling like crazy, while Benjie tried to catch him.

“Get back, you kids!” the firefighter hollered. “Both of you!”

Rocky realized the man meant him as well as Benjie. He stopped. “Benjie!” he yelled. “Come this way! Come with me!”

“I can’t! I have to save Pete!”

“Pete can save himself,” Rocky shouted. “He’ll run to safety if you leave him alone.”

“Follow me,” Pete yelled as he turned the corner to the back side of the house. “Come this way!”

“Help!” Alex screamed. “I’m inside! Help!”

“Listen!” Pete screeched. “Don’t you hear him?”

His fur felt scorched, and every time he yowled, the
smoke burned his throat. What was wrong with the humans? Why didn’t they hear Alex?

Benjie lunged for Pete, tripped, and fell on his face. He lay, crying, on the ground, his breath coming in great gulps.

Pete watched the firefighter who had yelled at Benjie run to the boy. Pete backed away from Benjie. It took all his willpower to stay quiet, but he wanted the fireman to hear Alex.

The fireman reached Benjie, bent down, and lifted the crying boy over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes.

“You could have been killed, running at a burning building that way,” the fireman said. He carried Benjie toward the street, where Mr. Kendrill met him. The fireman handed the boy to his father, then returned to his duties without saying a word.

Pete stared at the people. What could he do to make them come after him? They had to come this way, to the back side of the house, to hear Alex.

Pete’s eyes and nose filled with smoke. He coughed. When he inhaled, he felt the hot smoke fill his chest. Panic-stricken, he stood in the weeds, listening for Alex’s voice.

Above him, a piece of cedar siding ignited, broke free from the house, and dropped.

Pete did not see it coming. The burning wood landed with a sickening thud on the back of his head.

Pete crumpled. He lay motionless with the burning wood across his neck.

S
weat dripped from
Alex’s face. His voice grew hoarse from shouting, the inside of his nose hurt
from inhaling the smoke, and his eyeballs felt scorched.

Alex heard the voices of the firefighters outside, and once he thought he heard Benjie calling Pete, but nobody heard his rasping cries.

Pieces of flaming wallboard broke free and fell around him, hitting the ceramic bathtub. The light fixture, its wires melted, crashed into the sink. So far nothing had hit him, but Alex knew he couldn’t escape the falling pieces much longer.

He lay down in the bathtub, then rolled onto his stomach. If parts of the burning house dropped on him, and his clothes caught on fire, he planned to roll from his stomach to his back, and then to his stomach again. He would keep rolling, over and over, to put out the flames.

But what if his hair caught fire? What if so much
burning debris dropped into the tub that he had no place left to roll?

If they don’t rescue me soon, Alex thought, I’m a goner. “Help!” he cried, forcing his voice, even though his throat throbbed and his cries were more squeak than shout. “Somebody, please help me!”

A wooden towel bar caught fire, fell off the wall, and landed on Alex’s arms. He gasped as the flames singed his skin. His hands jerked upward, throwing the towel bar off his arms. He rolled over, sat up, and kicked the towel bar to the end of the tub, where it smoldered like a small log in a fireplace.

When Alex tried to yell again, he coughed instead. He was breathing too much smoke, but there wasn’t anything he could do about it.

He sat in the bathtub, coughing, choking on smoke. A wall of fire engulfed the bathroom door. The outside wall beside the tub burned high now, too. Even if his feet weren’t tied, even if he could run, there was no place to go except into the blaze.

*   *   *

Across the street, Mr. Kendrill scolded Benjie. “You scared the life out of us, running toward a fire that way. Where was your brain?”

“Pete’s over there,” Benjie sobbed. “Pete’s going to get burned up in the fire.”

“Pete will run away from the fire,” Mr. Kendrill said. “He’ll take care of himself.”

“Rocky’s over there, too. He yelled at me to go with him.”

“Rocky Morris?” Mr. Kendrill said.

“I’ll bet he set this fire, too,” Benjie said. “I told you he was bad.”

“I wonder if the Morrises have moved into one of the other vacant houses,” Mr. Kendrill said.

Mrs. Kendrill said, “It’s odd that Alex hasn’t returned. He wouldn’t go out of our neighborhood to look for Pete, and surely he heard the fire truck.”

“Maybe he came home but doesn’t know where we are. We’d better check.”

“Come on, Benjie,” Mrs. Kendrill said.

“I want to stay here and watch the fire,” Benjie said.

“You’re coming with us,” Mrs. Kendrill replied. “You can’t be trusted to stay put.”

Benjie followed his parents away from the excitement. He walked on the edge of the curb, pretending it was a tightrope stretched high in the air above a pool teeming with bright green sharks. Their gold teeth glittered as they snapped at his feet.

Something caught Benjie’s attention. Forgetting the sharks, he stepped into the street.

“Mom! Dad!” he called. “I found Alex’s watch.”

He ran to catch up with his parents, then held out the watch. “It was lying in the street.”

“If Alex isn’t in the house,” Mr. Kendrill said, “we’ll drive around the neighborhood.”

“If we don’t find him right away,” Mrs. Kendrill said, “I’m calling the police.”

A second fire truck roared up. The firefighters rushed toward the tan house.

*   *   *

Rocky continued to watch the fire, puzzling over the odd behavior of Alex’s cat. He walked along the edge of the trees until he could see the back side of the house, where Pete had gone. He got there just in time to see a flaming board fall from the house and land on top of Pete. The cat lay still.

Rocky rushed toward Pete, stripping off his shirt as he ran.

He smelled burned fur even before he reached the cat. Rocky kicked the blazing board off Pete, then dropped to his knees beside the motionless brown-and-white body. He threw his shirt over Pete, patted it to put out the flames, then tossed the shirt aside.

Looking closely, he saw that the cat’s collar was burned through, and his fur was scorched, but the skin did not appear badly burned.

Pete’s eyes remained closed, and Rocky could not tell
if the cat was still breathing. How do you feel a cat’s pulse? he wondered.

Rocky and Nathan had taken a first-aid and CPR class as part of a Boy Scout training session, back when Rocky was still Clifford, so he knew how to help a person who had stopped breathing, but he wasn’t sure how to help a cat.

I have to try, he thought. The memory of Alex stroking Pete’s fur while he said, “Pete is the best friend I have,” flashed into Rocky’s mind. Alex loves his cat as much as I loved my dog; I can’t let Pete die.

Maybe he could do artificial breathing on a cat, the same way it was done on a person.

Knowing he had nothing to lose, Rocky opened Pete’s mouth and made sure there wasn’t anything in it. He put his thumb and forefinger on the small pink tongue and pulled it forward so Pete wouldn’t choke on it. He closed Pete’s mouth.

Rocky took a deep breath, leaned his face close to Pete’s, and put his mouth over the cat’s nose. Gently he blew a puff of air into Pete’s nostrils. As he did, he placed his hands on Pete’s side; he felt the cat’s chest expand as the air entered his lungs. Rocky lifted his mouth, inhaled, then blew into Pete’s nose again.

Each time he blew, the cat’s chest rose, then fell back when Rocky removed his mouth. He waited four seconds
in between each puff. Inhale, blow. One-two-three-four. Inhale, blow. One-two-three-four.

After blowing seven times, he felt Pete’s side rise by itself before he blew the next puff of air. Rocky waited, keeping his hands on the cat’s side. “Yes,” he whispered. “Breathe by yourself.”

Up, down, up, down. Pete’s side rose and fell in a slow, steady rhythm.

“Yes!” Rocky said. Wait until I tell Nathan I used my Scout training on a cat, he thought—and immediately realized he could never tell Nathan.

Heat from the flames slapped at Rocky’s face. He had to move Pete away from the fire.

Carefully, Rocky slid both hands under the still body, lifted it gently, and cradled it against him.

“Hang on, Pete,” he whispered. “We’ll get you to a vet right away, and you’ll be home with Alex before you know it.”

Holding Pete against his bare chest, Rocky stood up. As he started away from the fire, he heard a faint voice.

“Help!”

Shock sent tingles across Rocky’s scalp and down his arms. That was Alex’s voice, and it came from inside the burning house.

“Alex!” he yelled. “Where are you?”

The voice sounded weak and scratchy, like a car radio
when reception was bad. “In here!” it said, then started coughing.

Clutching Pete, Rocky ran to the front of the house.

The closest firefighter shouted, “Get back! Stay away!”

“Alex is inside!” Rocky yelled. “My friend is trapped in the house. I heard him call for help.”

Three firefighters rushed to the back side of the house.

“Help!”

“That small window,” one of them said, pointing. “Probably a bathroom.”

“We’re going in,” another said into her radio. “There’s a child inside. Send an ambulance. Repeat: we’re going in.”

Rocky crossed the street. He knew he couldn’t help Alex now, and it was important to help Pete. He carried the inert cat past the grove of trees and into the Kendrills’ yard. Pete was breathing, but he still needed help. Fast.

Rocky pounded on the Kendrills’ back door. Nobody answered. They’re probably out looking for Alex, he thought.

He wasn’t sure if he should wait there for the Kendrills to return, or if he should carry Pete back to his own new house. Blake would be there by now; he would drive Pete to a veterinarian.

Rocky started toward his new house, but he had gone only half a block when Blake drove up. The Kendrills were right behind him.