Blair’s Nightmare (15 page)

When Molly called them to come to breakfast, David took Blair into the bathroom and washed his face and told him he had to stop crying, and he did. But when they went downstairs his face was still pale and there were bright pink blotches around his eyes. David was afraid Molly would notice, and she did.

Molly was the only one in the kitchen when David and Blair came in; and as soon as she saw Blair, she took him by the shoulders and stared at his face. “Blair,” she said, “what's the matter?” Blair shook his head and went on shaking it. Finally she picked him up and sat him on the sinkboard and took his face between her hands. “Tell me, sweetie,” she said, and Blair burst out sobbing and said, “My dog. My dog is gone.”

“Oh Blair,” Molly said. “Oh honey.” And she picked him up off the sinkboard and carried him out of the room. The scrambled eggs were about to burn, so David went over and turned off the fire and scraped them out into a bowl. He felt strangely numb, or at least not any more worried than he had been before. He didn't think it mattered too much what Blair told Molly. She'd just suppose it was all his imagination; and besides, Nightmare was gone anyway. Dad couldn't very well send a missing dog to the pound.

When Molly and Blair came back, everyone was in the kitchen. Nobody said anything. It was another strange meal with lots of staring and not much conversation. David finished as quickly as he could and went upstairs to get his books. He was still in his room a few minutes later when Blair came in.

“I'm sorry,” he said.

“What for?” David asked.

“For talking about Nightmare. To Molly. I forgot. I'm sorry, David.”

“Look, Blair. Don't worry about it. It doesn't matter. She probably didn't believe you anyway. That Nightmare is a real dog, I mean.”

Blair nodded. “She didn't,” he said. “But she got mad. It made her very mad.”

“Mad? At you?”

“Nooo,” Blair said thoughtfully. “Not mad at me. But she's very mad at somebody.”

“Ye gods!” David said. Then he looked at his watch and said it again. “Ye gods. I'm going to miss the bus.”

He grabbed his books and ran. He was just turning the corner at the foot of the stairs when he heard voices coming from the direction of the living room.

He didn't hear much—there wasn't time to—but it was enough to give him a pretty good idea of what was going on and what the conversation was all about. If you could call it a conversation. Argument would be more like it—or quarrel—or even fight. At least that's what he would have called it, if it had been Janie and Esther yelling at each other like that—instead of Dad and Molly.

Amanda was already at the bus stop. She looked at David and looked away, and then looked back again.

“What's the matter?” she said.

David shrugged, staring at the ground.

“Tell me.”

He shook his head.

“You want to get slugged?”

David looked up, quickly. “What for?” he said.

“For not telling me.”

They stared at each other. Why not, he thought. Let her worry, too. “They're fighting again,” he said. “Dad and Molly.”

“Fighting?”

He nodded.

“What did they say?”

“Well, first—” he began, but just then the bus pulled to a stop. Amanda made him get on first, and when he started to sit down, she shoved him on down the aisle and kept shoving him until they got to the back of the bus. She let him sit down then and sat beside him.

“Go on,” she said.

David looked up the aisle to where Amanda's friend Tammy and two or three other people had turned around and were staring back at them.

“Okay, Rabbit Ears,” Amanda said. “This is a private argument, so butt out.”

Tammy tossed her head and turned around, and after a second the rest of them did too.

“Go on,” Amanda said again.

“Well, Molly was kind of yelling and crying at the same time. She said something like, ‘Can't you see what you're doing to him, Jeff. You and that Bowen woman. Making him kill his dreams. Trying to force him into some stupid pattern.' And Dad said something like, ‘Calm down, Molly. I haven't forced
him.' And she said, ‘Yes, you have. You told him to get rid of his dreams, and he's done it and it's breaking his heart.' And Dad said, ‘Oh Molly, stop being so dramatic.' And then she called him a computer-brained academic, and he called her a Celtic Niobe or something like that, and then I left.”

“So?” Amanda said.

“So?” David stared at her, but then he got the picture. She just didn't care. In fact she'd probably be delighted if Dad and Molly decided to get a divorce. It was probably what she'd been hoping for all along. “Yeah,” he said. “Well, I guess you'll be glad when they get a divorce.”

“What?” She stared at him, and then after a moment she began to grin. “Divorce? Mom and Jeff? They're crazy about each other. What makes you think they're going to get a divorce?”

“Well, they've been fighting a lot lately.”

“Fighting? You call that fighting? If you think that's fighting you should have seen her with my dad. That was fighting.”

“Yeah?” Maybe Amanda was right. Maybe it wasn't as serious as it had sounded. “I don't know. My mom never fought with him like that.”

Amanda shrugged. “So I've heard. But let me tell you—that wasn't normal. Most married people fight a lot, even the ones that are crazy about each other. Your mother must have been
some kind of saint, or something. My mom is Irish, and I'll bet even the saints fight in Ireland.”

David laughed.

“What are you laughing about?”

“I don't know. I just flashed on this bunch of saints bashing each other with their halos.”

They both laughed. When Amanda stopped laughing, she started frowning. “And what do you mean, I wouldn't care if they got a divorce?”

“Well, like, you told me lots of times how you felt about it—about getting a stepdad and a bunch of brothers and sisters.”

She frowned harder. “When did I tell you that?”

“Well, a couple of years ago, I guess.”

“Right.” Amanda nodded. “A couple of years ago. A long time ago.” She was frowning so hard that it was really making him feel antsy. He started to scoot away from her, but she grabbed his jacket and jerked him back. “What do you think I punched Garvey for?” she asked suddenly.

David's whole insides cringed. He looked up the aisle but no one was paying any attention. “Yeah,” he said. “Because you felt sorry for the poor little chicken.” He tried to say it coolly, but he could feel a very uncool rush in his face and neck.

Amanda glared at him. “You idiot. I didn't feel sorry for you. What I felt—all of a sudden—was ‘You can't treat my brother
that way.' ” She looked away then, and when she looked back she was smiling the way she did when she was making fun of somebody, only this time it seemed to be herself. “Can you believe it? My brother! It really jolted me. You know what I mean?”

David nodded slowly. “Yeah,” he said. It jolted him, too.

“D
AVID THE
D
AYDREAMER,”
M
RS.
B
ALDWIN CALLED
him that morning after the second time he goofed up when she asked him a question. And a couple of guys on his team called him much worse things during P.E. He couldn't help it. He really tried to keep his mind on what he was supposed to be doing, but it wasn't easy. Questions kept popping up and refusing to go away. Questions about Nightmare and Blair—and Amanda, too. It wasn't until school was over that he was free to relax and deal with the questions—and their possible answers.

The bus was late that afternoon, and it was very quiet at the bus stop. Pete had stayed after school for football practice, and Amanda had gone home with Eloise. So David finally had time to think about Nightmare—and poor old Blair—and
what Amanda had said that morning—and about what was going to happen next. He had a very strong premonition that it was going to be something out of the ordinary. Even more out of the ordinary, that is, than what had been happening.

Later, on the bus, and particularly after it turned onto Westerly Road, the premonition became stronger, and sure enough, he'd just started down the driveway when Esther came running to meet him. “David,” she said and started to cry.

“What's the matter?” he asked, but she only pointed toward the backyard and sobbed. A weird sort of chill that started somewhere in his throat began to crawl up David's neck and across his scalp. He took Esther by the shoulders and shook her hard. “Stop it,” he said. “Stop it, Tesser. What is it?”

Esther choked, hiccupped, caught her breath, and started to talk. “Blair. It's Blair. He went to look for Nightmare—all by himself. I told him not to. I told him those bad guys would get him. But he went anyway.”

“Ye gods,” David said. He started to run toward the creek and the hills beyond, but after two or three steps he turned around and ran back.

“Where's Dad?” he asked Tesser.

“He's not home yet. And Molly went to get Janie at the dentist. She said you'd be home in a minute, but you weren't. And Blair wouldn't stay in the house like she told us.”

“Okay,” David said. “I'm going after him. He can't have gone very far. But if Molly gets back before we do, just tell her—just tell her you don't know where we are. I'll think up something when we get back. And stop crying. I'll find Blair. I promise.”

“You promise?” Esther stopped crying. She smiled at David with big fat tears still running down her cheeks. “Okay. Okay. What am I supposed to tell Molly?”

“That you don't know where we are. Now go in the house and stay there until somebody gets home. Okay?”

“Okay,” Esther said.

For the first five or ten minutes he ran hard. Somewhere along the way he noticed something thumping on his back and realized he was still wearing his backpack. As he ran he wondered how much of a head start Blair had. He hadn't thought to ask Esther, not that it would have made any difference. Time didn't mean anything to six-year-olds. But it couldn't have been very long. Molly wouldn't have gone off and left the twins alone unless it had been very close to the time for David to get home. He'd probably have made it in time to stop Blair if the bus hadn't been late.

He'd hoped to catch up with Blair before he got to the trees, but there was no sign of him on the long grassy slope that led up to the woods. David ran fast, without stopping at all
on the open hillside, and only slowed a little when he got to the rougher ground of the creek bed. As he entered the woods, he began to call. Near heavy overhanging branches and heavy clumps of underbrush, where Blair—or anybody—might be standing unnoticed only a few feet away, he stopped, caught his breath and shouted. “Blair! Blair! Answer me. It's David.” He listened for several seconds and then ran on. A few minutes later he stopped to call again.

By the time he'd crossed the small plateau between the two crests and then scrambled to the top of the higher second range, his legs were cramping and his lungs were aching so much he could barely call. He stopped for a moment at the top of the path that led down to the big valley and tried to catch his breath. His face burned and his throat ached and deeper down his whole insides were churning with fear for Blair—and with anger at him, too, for running off and causing so much trouble.

It didn't seem possible that Blair could have come so far. David wondered if he'd somehow passed him farther back—if there was any point in keeping on. He wondered if—and then he heard Blair calling. From somewhere down below on the heavily wooded slope a faint high-pitched voice called and stopped and called again. David plunged forward, running and sliding down the steep slope.

The calling went on, and in a few minutes David could
make out the words. “Here, Nightmare,” Blair was calling. “Here, Nightmare. Come. Come.”

He caught up with Blair in a small clearing halfway down the hill. He was walking quickly toward the other side, but when he heard David coming he stopped and whirled around.

“David.” Blair ran back toward him, looking happy and excited. David waited. It was so good to see him that he almost forgot how mad he'd been only a few moments before. “David. I heard him. He barked. Listen.”

He turned around and, cupping his hands around his mouth, he called, “Nightmare,” and a moment later David heard it too, distant but clear—a gruff deep-throated bark.

“Come on,” Blair said and began to run. Forgetting all about the bawling out he was going to give Blair, David ran, too.

The clearing ended in a ravine with high, steep walls. David slid down to the bottom and then caught Blair as he half-jumped, half-fell down from the ledge above. Crossing the dry stream bed, David was looking for a way up the other side when Nightmare barked again. “That way,” Blair said, pointing up the deep cleft in the hillside. “Up there.”

The barking became steadily louder as they scrambled up the ravine, around boulders and over the trunks of fallen trees. They answered back, shouting, “Here we are, Nightmare. We're coming.” At last the barking seemed to be all around
them, echoing back from the steep cliffs on each side—and suddenly there he was, a huge, bristly, lop-eared face looking down at them from a ledge above the ravine.

A steep narrow path led up the cliff toward the ledge like a rough natural staircase with giant-sized risers. David scrambled up each step and then reached down to pull Blair up behind him. The last rise was a high one, and as David crawled up over it on his hands and knees, his forehead and eyes and nose received a bunch of enormous sloppy kisses. Then he was so busy hugging Nightmare and wiping off kisses and saying things like “Hi there, boy,” and “Good dog,” and “Cut it out,” that he forgot all about Blair. But at last he remembered and pulled him up, and Nightmare went through the whole act again, kissing and nuzzling and just about knocking Blair off his feet with affection.