The Tilting House (17 page)

Sometimes Grandpa hobbles over and sits next to Karl to smoke his pipe. He says that every so often Karl will pause to take a breath and look over at him and smile. Grandpa figures that means he likes the company.

Soon after all the commotion, Aaron, Lola, and I went to visit Mr. Daga to tell him what had happened.

“You mean that old headless statue was worth money? You humans think the strangest things are valuable.”

“You knew it was there?”

“Of course, I did, young Peshik. I know everything there is to know about that old house of yours. Haven’t I told you that?”

“Everything?” I asked.

“Well, almost everything.” That was all he would say.

The Purple Door Man still yelled at us, but at least he stopped stealing our bikes. One day Lola accidentally left her bike in front of our house all through dinner, and when she went outside, it was still there.

Even with Dinky around, Mrs. Natalie seemed lonely. Once she mentioned hearing strange sounds in her kitchen during the night. “I wonder if Mr. Natalie’s ghost is fixing himself a sandwich,” she said to Dad. It was probably only Mr. Daga or one of his children raiding her garbage.

Sometimes when Aaron and I work in her garden, Mrs. Natalie talks about how alone she is now that Mr. Natalie is gone, but she seems to accept this with one of those grim smiles that belong only to old people. She does have one thing to cheer her up—she and Grandpa started going out for dinner once a week a few months ago. Now it’s up to twice a week. He drives, because his new Cadillac is an automatic and works fine with his wooden leg.

All the writing on the wall? I’m dedicated to figuring it out. I’ve compiled a stack of notebooks, broken down by subject. So far, I haven’t made sense out of anything, but I’m sure a breakthrough is not far off. And so far, Dad’s still managed to avoid painting over any of it. He still hasn’t photographed it yet, either, but he says it’s on his to-do list.

One last thing: We still have that sign next to the front door that says
TILTON HOUSE
. After he sold the statue and paid off our home loan, Dad added a little brass plaque right below it.

The plaque says
HOME OF THE PESHIK FAMILY
.

T
HANKS TO MY
brilliant and patient editor, Abigail Samoun, for turning my pages of squishiness into a tight story. Abi, I only have one request: Could you be right a little less often? Thanks to my high school English teacher from a million years ago, Glenna Frederick, for making me love writing, even if she did force me to listen to Simon and Garfunkel records. Thanks to the teachers and students at Washington-Hoyt Elementary School for reading my manuscript and saying nice things. Go Cougars! And a special thanks to my kids—Ben, Abel, Bizayehu, and Genet—for asking me to tell them stories and then actually listening.