Almost Eden (20 page)

“We’ll ask Dad to get you a fan,” said Beth, returning with the flowers.

“What do you do all day in here?” Jillian asked, looking around the room and frowning.

Yikes, what a question! I winced inside. I’d never had the guts to ask that question and here it had just popped out of Jillian. But Mom laughed.

“Well,” she said. “I go to group, and to craft time.”

“You do crafts?” Sadie laughed.

“We sew leather wallets together,” Mom nodded. “It’s quite an artform.” Then she winked, grinning. “I hate it! Oh, how I hate it!”

“Why do it then?” I asked.

“Because,” she shrugged, “I keep thinking that if I play along like a good patient and pretend to enjoy it, then maybe they’ll let me go home sooner!”

We all laughed, and after that visiting was easy. I didn’t tell Mom anything about our plans, though. I couldn’t, not with Beth right there. Anyways, even if Beth hadn’t been with us, I didn’t have a clue what I would’ve said.

“Your mom doesn’t look sick,” Jillian whispered to me as we left. “Not, you know, like some of the other people in here.”

I hesitated, and then blurted, “Sometimes I think if she stays here too long, she’ll maybe turn into one of those robots.”

Jillian nodded. “Yeah. But don’t worry.” She grinned, throwing her arm around my shoulders. “Your mom’s too cool to let that happen.”

I was too surprised to say anything. My mom? Cool?

We were in the middle of eating supper when the police showed up at our door again. It was the same cop who’d
asked us all the questions before. At first I thought he had more questions for us, only he didn’t.

Instead he told us how another little girl from the next town had disappeared while she was riding her bike in the park. She’d gone missing that same morning.

Good thing we were all sitting down already. My chest got so tight when the cop told us that, I could hardly breathe. My friends and I sometimes rode our bikes to that town to play in that park. It had the best climbing tree in all of southern Manitoba.

Almost right after the girl was reported missing, he said, the police had stopped a truck like the one Lena and I had told them about. The truck’s license plate was
ADP
358.

“You were right about that license number,” he nodded at me.

And in the back of the truck, what do you think? The police found the girl. Her name was Melody. She was younger even than Lena. The man had Melody tied up so she couldn’t run away, and he’d taped her mouth, so she couldn’t yell for help or anything.

My insides felt like they’d melted and drained away, thinking about how scared Melody must have been. She was okay now though, the cop said. At least, she was back home with her family. They’d found her before anything even worse happened. And the man who took her was in jail. This time everything had turned out okay

“We had nothing else to go on,” the police officer told Dad. “If it wasn’t for your daughters’ description, we would never have been looking for that truck.”

I guess going to look for Tommy wasn’t all for
nusht
after all. Not for Melody, it wasn’t.

Something like that makes you think, that’s for sure.

F
riday morning right off the bat, Dad put the kibosh our plan.

“No sleepovers. No bloody way,” he said flatly. “Not after what’s happened. Not at Jillian’s or Sadie’s or anyone else’s house either.”

“But, the guy was caught, Dad!”

“I said no, Elsie. If you have to have a sleepover, you can have your friends over here.”

My jaw dropped. Never in my wildest dreams would I have ever imagined Dad letting me have friends over without Mom around. I don’t think he knew what he’d said even until after he’d said it.

I made an emergency phone call to Jillian. “Now what are we going to do?”

Jillian thought a minute. “Time to call in the troops,” she said. “Invite everyone for a pajama party, like your
Dad said. With so many of us, your Dad won’t notice you’re missing. And if he does, we’ll just say you’re in the bathroom or went to get something or whatever.”

A few days ago I would’ve gone along with it, no problem. But I wasn’t so crazy anymore about lying to my Dad. “I don’t want anyone to have to lie,” I said. “Eleanor and Joy couldn’t lie even if they tried, which they wouldn’t.”

“Okay. We won’t lie. Like I said, if we’re careful we probably won’t have to.”

I wasn’t so sure as Jillian. It sounded to me like a lot of people would maybe have to bear false witness to make this plan work. If not actually lying, for sure we’d be pulling the wool over Dad’s eyes. Whether God was watching or not, I didn’t like it. Only I couldn’t think of a better idea.

There was still Lena to deal with yet. She wasn’t going to be so easy to get rid of.

“If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em,” said Jillian.

So we told Lena she could come to the party if she wanted. Her face lit up.

“On one condition,” I added. “You have to help us with a secret mission. Which means you can’t say a word to Beth or Dad about what we do at our party.”

“I won’t,” she promised. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Fuy.
It wasn’t enough that I was going down the road
to hell, now I was dragging my little sister with me, too. I could hardly believe how far and how fast I’d fallen. If there was a God, I was toast for sure.

All the way while I was riding to Eden that evening, and even while I was stashing my bike in the bushes, I was still wondering what kind of
mouse
I was stirring up for myself now. I was wishing I was back on my front porch camped out with all my friends. Only thing was, camping out with my friends wouldn’t do too much of anything for Mom. It helps nothing just to pucker the lips, I reminded myself.

Anyways, at least the police had caught that creep who liked to pick up little kids. Otherwise I might have been too chicken to do what I was doing.

I checked the watch I’d borrowed from Heather. We’d synchronized watches, Jillian and I, before I left. Visiting hours at Eden would last another hour yet. Plenty of time still. I strolled around the building and across the road to the service station, all the time trying to look cool, like I just wanted a soft drink and not like I was getting ready to kidnap my own mother.

Quite a few people were coming and going from Eden. I bought a Mountain Dew from the cooler and hung around, pretending I was checking out the candy bars. Sure enough, it didn’t take too long before three people
walked across the grounds to the service station. They came inside to buy smokes and pop. When they headed back, I followed them.

I followed them across the grounds, up the steps and right through the front door.

The nurse at the front desk was busy talking to someone. She nodded at us when we came in, but I don’t think she really noticed me that much because I made sure to keep the others between me and her. Not that it would have made a diff, if she did see me I mean. But I wanted to stay inconspicuous, just in case.

After that it was pretty easy. I ducked through the lounge and down the hall to Mom’s room like always. Outside her open door I stopped, going over in my head one more time what I was going to tell her.

Good thing I didn’t walk in right aways. I could hear someone in there, visiting with her. Not just someone. Dad. I couldn’t tell what they were saying because they were talking Plautdietsch. Now what was I going to do? The plan was for me to hide in Mom’s room. I never thought about what would happen if Mom had visitors, never mind Dad yet!

I checked the time again. Dad probably wouldn’t leave until visiting hours were over. The game would be over before it started if I was wandering the hallways when the nurses came around to check up on everyone.

A drop of sweat trickled down my face. Mom was right. It was crazy hot in here. I couldn’t think right, it was so
hot. I slipped away quietly, back to the lounge again. It was a little cooler in here at least.

What I needed was another place to hide. Think,
meyahl!
I wandered around, pretending I was waiting for someone. Funny thing was, no one paid me too much attention. It was almost like I wasn’t there. The patients watching TV had their backs to me. The other people in the room were mostly visiting with each other. The robot patients sitting here and there or shuffling around, they never even saw me.

I leaned against the upright piano in the corner, wondering if maybe I was invisible. So it goes. When you’re a kid, grown-ups look right past you. Which tonight, for once, was a good thing.

The intercom crackled and spit. “Visiting hours will be over in five minutes.”

For some reason, people look up always when there is an announcement over the intercom. I saw my chance and grabbed it. When everyone in the lounge looked over at the speaker on the wall, I slipped in behind the piano.

It was perfect. There was lots of room for a kid like me to hide, room enough to sit in the corner, even stretch my legs out if I wanted to. Now all I had to do was wait. I checked to see if my watch was working still. Three long hours of waiting to go. All the way till midnight.

From behind the piano I could hear people moving around, saying good-bye. Feet shuffled past. Then it got quiet for a long time. Just when I was thinking everyone
had left and I could maybe breathe a little easier, I heard one more set of footsteps cross the room. And then the lights went out.

I hugged my knees closer.

You’d think three hours hiding behind a piano would give a person plenty of time to think, to sort out stuff in their head. Only I found out it didn’t work that way. Not if the whole time the person is too scared and too hot to think about anything except getting out of the place where they’re hiding.

Every time there was a noise, I jumped.

One time the bushes scratched against the window nearby. First thing I thought it was a wild animal trying to get in, but then I figured out it was probably just a breeze outside. One time I heard tiny paws skittering over the tile and wondered if the people who worked here knew they had mice. One time I heard this real soft
click, click, click
–so soft I had to hold my breath to make sure I’d heard it.
Click, click, click.
After a long time I figured out that I was hearing the sound the second hand made as it moved around the clock on the wall over my head.

I counted up to five hundred seconds and might have counted still more, only then someone came into the room. I held my breath, listening to the footsteps shuffle
around the room, wandering here and there. When I couldn’t hold my breath any longer, I cupped my hands over my mouth and breathed as quietly as I could. The footsteps shuffled closer and closer, till whoever was in the room was standing right beside the piano.

A terrible urge came over me to jump up and run to home base and shout “home free!”

“You shouldn’t be out of bed, Sally,” a voice said, firmly. Maybe even a little sharply.

I caught my breath. It was a woman’s voice; the night nurse. Almost I could hear her frowning. More footsteps marched across the room.

Sally. That was the girl we’d seen having the fit that day.

“I couldn’t sleep,” muttered Sally. “It’s too
schindashin bite.”

Atta girl
, I cheered silently.
You tell ’em, Sally.

“There’s no need for that kind of language.” The nurse’s voice was definitely sharp this time. “Come now. You have to stay in your room.”

The nurse waited for Sally to shuffle back down the hall. Then she left, too.

I took a huge breath, hugged my knees tight to my chest and waited for my heart to stop hammering. My hiding place got still stuffier every minute until I was smothering already. I couldn’t move, I couldn’t breathe, I couldn’t hardly think. Little beads of sweat collected on
my upper lip, and the back of my neck felt cold and clammy. That funny ringing in my ears was back again. Pretty soon I was going to pass out yet.

If I passed out now, probably a janitor would find me in the morning, dead. Only then I thought some more about how the janitor probably never cleaned behind here and no one would find me at all until days later when my body started to decay and stink up the room.

I checked. No dust bunnies. So they did clean. What was I thinking? Cleanliness is next to godliness, not? At least they’d find me right away then, if I did pass out.

Now I was starting to get delirious. Sweating and gasping, I groped my way out from behind the piano, never even checking to see if the coast was clear. Never in my life had I been so glad just to have space to breathe. After a bit I calmed down again, enough to get my bearings.

The lounge wasn’t too dark really, not like behind the piano. Light reached in the front windows from the parking lot and street. The exit signs glowed red on both sides of the room and the clock on the wall was lit up. Mostly though, light poured in from the front foyer. The doors on both sides of the lounge were wide open, just like during the day.

God must be with me. Or else it was just dumb luck or the heat that made them leave the lounge doors open for once. Now I knew what Mom meant when she said even a blind hen also finds a good kernel now and then. Maybe
if I found a few more good kernels this half-baked plan might work.

Next thing I walked around a bit, working out some of the kinks from being scrunched up behind the piano for so long. Only every step I took my runners squeaked on the floor. So I took them off and crept silently in my socks. I checked to see if it was time to put the plan into action. Eleven thirty, Heather’s watch said. A bit early still, but I didn’t know for sure how long it would take for me to wake up Mom and convince her to come with. I didn’t let myself think about what would happen if she said no.

I slid on my stocking feet, across the lounge and down the hall. Then I stopped again, because the first door I tried to pass was wide open. All along the hallway, most doors were open, because of how hot it was. What if someone was lying awake in one of those rooms and saw me go by?

For a long time I stood there, frozen to the wall, not hardly daring to breathe, trying to get up the guts to go by those open doors. Then I heard voices somewhere behind me, at the other end of the lounge. And then footsteps, coming my way.