All Roads Lead Home (Bellingwood) (21 page)

Brian went next,
then
Polly followed
with the lantern. Aaron was right behind her. When they all got into the main
basement, he asked Brian to go up and grab a hammer and some nails. They closed
the basement off again from the strange little room.

Sylvie looked at the Sheriff. "You know, Aaron. I
hate to say something terrible about someone, but Doug Leon always had dirty or
ripped knees in his pants. We figured it was because he cleaned the floors or
something. Everyone talked about it. Neither of the other janitors' was that
bad. But, I suppose none of them worked here as long as he did either."

"I'll talk to him, Sylvie. If he can tell me what
this is all about, we'll figure the matter is settled. If
he can't, we'll keep looking."
Aaron ruffled Andrew's hair
as he walked toward the steps.
"You boys don't need to go looking for anything
else around here, but you did a good job today. That was a good find."

Brian followed him up the stairs and they walked
outside.

Polly said to Sylvie, "Oh, I'm getting the locks
on the front door changed. I wonder if the guy is here yet."

"Why are you doing that?"
Sylvie asked.

"I'm missing one of the keys in the newel post.
I'd left them there to hand out to some of the workmen and one is gone. I don't
know who would have taken it, but Aaron thinks it's better to be safe."

"He's right. Here, let Andrew go up and watch for
you. He'll come down and get you when the guy shows up."

Andrew and Jason both ran up the steps, then Andrew
came
running back down. "He's here, he's here!"

Polly said, "I'm sorry. This isn't getting much
done down here."

"Send the boys back down. We'll move things you
obviously aren't going to need for a while so you can get to the other stuff. That
will help when you return."

"Thank you, Sylvie,” and Polly went up the stairs
to find the boys waiting in the outside doorway.
"Andrew and Jason, thank you.
Would you mind
going back to help your mom?"

Both boys looked at her in shock. Jason said,
"But we want to watch!"

She laughed. "Of course you do.
Alright, no problem."
Then she called down the stairs. "The boys are going to stay and
watch. Come on up, you don't have to stay down there by yourself doing my work!"

"I'm fine,"
came
Sylvie's voice from the depths.

Polly laughed and turned around. A young man was
pulling things out of the back of his van as he spoke with Aaron. Then, he
turned to walk up to the door. Aaron and Brian got into the Wrangler and waved
as Aaron gunned it in the gravel, spinning his tires.

"Hi," the young man said. "I'm
Lance."

"Thanks, Lance, for coming out in such a
hurry." Polly said.

He laughed. "Are you kidding me? When Sheriff
Merritt calls, I don't mess around. I obey."

"Oh, I hop
e
we didn't interrupt anything,” she said.

"No, I was on call this weekend.
Just watching a little football.
Gotta
see if my Browns will ever win.
Since we're guaranteed there's no chance of that, it
makes it easy to leave the game. This will take a few minutes and then I'll cut
you some keys and everything will be back to normal."

He turned to the boys, "
You
can watch if
you like."

Jason said, "There was a door in the basement we
couldn't open. Mom says there’s only dirt on the other side of it, but she
doesn't know everything."

"If you'd like, I could take a look at it,"
Lance directed the question at Polly.

"No, that's alright." she said and sat down
on the step to wait.

"The sheriff locked up the room anyway, so we
can't get to it, but maybe he'll call you to look at it another time!"
Jason said excitedly.

"Maybe," Lance replied, and went back to his
work. After pulling the locks and changing the cores on both doors, he went
back to his van. "Boys, I'm going to cut some keys. Will you test them for
me?" They followed him and after some grinding and no small amount of
giggling, Andrew brought the first key up. "Can I try this, Miss Polly?"

"You sure can, Andrew. Thank you." She
watched as he tested the key first in one door, then in the next. When the
locks flipped closed,
then
open, he announced. "It's perfect! Do you need
to test another one?"

"Jason gets the next one. And yes, we should
check every key I cut,"
Lance
said, winking at Polly. "How many would you like
to have me cut today?"

She put her head down and flipped her fingers as she
thought
through her needs, then said
,
"
I think eight might be necessary."

"Alright," he said, "Eight it is. Are
you ready for this, boys?"

Once the boys had pronounced a key good, they dropped
it in Polly's outstretched hand. She'd never been around boys before and found
she loved their energy. These were good kids.

When the last key dropped into her hand, Lance
came over with his receipt book
. She jumped up, “I'll go inside to get my wallet."

"Oh, no need. I'll give you this and you can send
us payment later. I don't need to be running around with your money today."

He turned to leave. "Let me know if you need
anything else! I'll even come running if it's you on the other end of the phone
and not the Sheriff!" He smiled.

"Thanks so much," she said and walked back
inside with the boys. Putting the keys in her back pocket away from the others,
she
went
back down to the basement behind Andrew and Jason who bounced down to
tell their mom all about their adventure.

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Polly thought
as she looked back at her bed. She was up and ready to go early, knowing
that no one could get into the school since she'd
changed the keys. She turned the locks on the front door and went in to the
kitchen to turn the coffee maker on
and
then
began rummaging in the refrigerator for something to
eat. Nothing appealed to her, so she opened the freezer and there, like a
little ball of sunshine was a fresh container of breakfast sandwiches, with
Andy's labeling talent all over them. She pulled the container out and selected
a sausage sandwich and stuck it in the microwave.

How had she ever thought she would be able to do all
of this on her own? In a few short weeks she had made a number of new friends,
met more people than she could possibly remember and when things got weird,
those new friends showed up to take care of her.

Polly thought back to the year her mother died. There
had been darkness and sadness after the
death
, but it
didn't
last long. Her friends and teachers, her parent's friends and
random people from town had all been there. As she
needed them less and less, they'd gone on with their lives, but it had seemed
seamless to a twelve year old girl. She'd never felt alone. Mary and Sylvester
were always there; she never had to eat breakfast by herself when her dad was
in the fields. Mary was there when she got home
in the afternoons and i
f she had
a problem or forgot something at school, which she often did, Mary took care of
it.

When she'd gone away to Boston for her first year of
college, Mary called every week and sent care packages. Polly's dad was always
involved, but she knew he was busy running the big farm and she was glad he'd
been around as much as he had. He never let her hang up the phone, or go to bed
or leave the house without telling her he loved her. She missed them all. Time
had done a number on her family and when she stopped to think about it, it
didn't seem fair that at the age of 32, she had no more family left. Her
parents hadn't lived to see her get married
or
do anything big with her life.

The microwave dinged and she drew a cup of coffee from
the pot. Sitting down at the table, with dawn breaking, she felt a tear escape.
Brushing it away, she said out loud, "Stop it. You're fine. You have
friends and people who care about you now. Just stop it."

She
chuckled
a little as
she remembered her father's trick to help her stop sadness from becoming
overwhelming. He knelt down in front of her, pulled her arms over her head and
said
,
"Who's the goose who’s loose?" Then, he'd tickle her sides and chase
her when she ran. A quick hug and a tap of his finger on her nose and the world
would seem to tilt back to normal. Even when she was older and feeling sad, all
it took from him was a quick, "Who's the goose ..." and the two of
them would laugh. Sometimes he'd stop in front of her and lift her arms over
her head, but then they'd laugh and hug and
her
world would seem normal again.
No one else had ever known that trick with her and she
missed him today.

Polly heard clattering from the front hallway and got
up to go look. Doug Randall and Billy
Endicott
were laughing as they picked up coils of
wire and bags of supplies dropped on the floor.

"What's up, guys?" she asked.

Doug blushed at seeing her. Billy said, "We
bet
each other we could get all the way in with this
stuff without dropping it. We made it this far." He gave his buddy a push
and Doug landed on his backside when his feet couldn't negotiate the mess of
things in front of him.

"Thanks a bunch, dude," he said and swept
Billy's feet out from under him. "There, serves you right."

"Are you two alright?" Polly asked.

"Oh, we're fine," Doug said. "I'm
sorry. It's his fault. Everything he does gets me in trouble."

He scrambled and began picking things up off the
floor. Billy looked a little chagrined and shrugged a quick apology to Polly. "Is
coffee ready? We're here because we're starting in the auditorium today. Jerry
said we had to get an early start."

"Yep," she laughed. "It's ready to go. Can
I carry anything?"

Both boys looked at her in shock. "No!" they
said, "We've got it." Doug scurried to drop his first load inside the
doors of the auditorium and dashed back out to pick up the rest of the
packages. Billy carried his armload of items in, set them down and came back
out, watching Doug gather things up. "I guess we needed three people, eh,
dude?" he said.

"Whatever, Billy,"
Doug replied. "We need to get this organized
before Jerry gets here or he'll have our head
s
. Go back out to the truck and
get those sawhorses."

Billy took off and Polly laughed. "What, you
didn't try to bring those in, too?"

Doug looked up, mischief on his face. "Oh, we
thought about it, but aside from putting them around our necks, it wasn't
happening." He went in the auditorium and came back out, heading down the
outside steps. Passing Billy, he reached his hand out and swatted his friend's
belly then went to the truck and hauled out a piece of plywood. Lifting it over
his back, he walked back in.

Billy had already spaced the sawhorses out and Doug
set the plywood across them. Then they began pulling their bags open and
dumping packages out, arranging and rearranging as they went.

"I'll be right back," Polly said. She went
into the kitchen and poured off two cups of coffee then carried them back to
the boys. "Here, it's the least I could do."

"Thank you, ma'am," said Billy, as he
accepted the cup.

Polly had been walking back toward the door when she
heard that and spun around on her feet.

"Billy?" She chided.