Finding Fortune (3 page)

I turned away. “See, Mom? She's really nice. And this is just what we need. A little time apart to … to take care of our
problem
,” I added, exaggerating the last two syllables.

“Wait,
Ren
—” Nora almost screeched. “What's that lady going to think when Mom doesn't show tomorrow? And how long do you expect me to keep this up? Once Mom finds out you're not at Allison's, she's probably going to call the police.”

I drifted away from Hildy again, holding my fingers over the tiny speaker on her phone. “Oh, that won't happen,” I said. “You won't let it, right? Okay, Mom. Sounds good,” I jabbered before she could squeeze in a reply. “Love you. Bye!” Then I punched my finger down on the red End button. I didn't have a plan for tomorrow afternoon, but suddenly I was too tired to care. I'd have to figure the rest out later.

I handed the phone back to Hildy and she grunted as she flipped it closed. “So I guess that's settled,” she said, shaking her head. “That mother of yours sounds like a piece of work. I wasn't expecting her to let you stay … but at least she knows you're alive and kicking now. Come on. I'll show you to your room.”

Once I had hefted up my backpack, Hildy switched off the overhead fixture and snapped on her flashlight again. “Watch your step,” she told me. “I keep the lights off when I can. Otherwise I'd go broke paying the electric bills on this place.”

 

THREE

A WAVE OF SHIVERS PRICKLED
along the back of my neck as I followed Hildy through the entrance hall, watching the beam of her flashlight slide across the walls and past the dark corridors. Everywhere the light landed there seemed to be some creepy reminder of the past—rows of coat hooks and lockers, a rusted water fountain, and a glass display case that still had dusty trophies left inside. As Hildy led me up a wide staircase, I hung back on the landing, gripping the banister. The school felt haunted. I could have sworn I heard shuffling noises behind me and then a strain of faint piano music coming from somewhere above, but when I stole a look over my shoulder and cocked my head to listen, the sounds went quiet. I raced to catch up with Hildy. She was already rounding the corner at the top of the stairs.

“How many other people live here?” I asked as I tagged along on the second floor, eyeing the doors on either side of the hallway. Most of them stood open, revealing empty, shadowy rooms, but I could see a crack of light shining beneath one door halfway down the hall.

“Only six right now,” Hildy told me. “But I'm hoping for more.”

I thought of the “Welcome to Fortune” sign that I passed on my bike rides. Population: 12. So more than half of Fortune's residents lived right here in the school.

There was a big piece of plywood propped against the wall near the end of the corridor. Hildy stopped at the doorway just beyond it. “Room 26,” she announced as she stepped through the entry and flipped on the overhead lights. “Nothing fancy, but the girls' washroom is right around the corner.”

It was an old classroom with bare wooden floors—practically empty except for a metal chair and three cots lined up along the opposite wall. Each cot had a folded blanket and flat-looking pillow stacked at one end—sort of like the pictures Dad had sent of his army barracks in the desert.

“I forgot to ask if you're hungry,” Hildy said. “Dinner's over, but if you come downstairs, Madeline can get you something to eat. She's not much of a cook.” Hildy pressed her wrinkly red lips together. “But oh well, none of us have managed to starve to death so far.”

“That's okay,” I said. “I already ate, and I brought plenty of food.” I gave my backpack a little pat. “Sandwiches and fruit … All kinds of stuff.” Without knowing exactly how long I'd be staying, I didn't want to blow any of my precious babysitting money on meals.

“You sure?” Hildy's eyebrows drew together, making a sharp M across her forehead. It looked like she had drawn them on with a black Sharpie marker.

I nodded.

“Well, suit yourself,” she said, turning to go. “I'll be back in a while to check on you.”

“Sounds good. Thanks,” I murmured as Hildy clicked on her flashlight again and shuffled off. I lowered my backpack and gazed toward the long row of windows and the blackness swallowing the sky beyond them. If only I had a phone. I could call Nora back and pour out everything that had happened that day in one long weepy gush. “Jeez, Ren,” I could hear her saying. “You've really done it this time.”

I turned away from the windows and straightened my shoulders. Staying in this place, even if it
was
haunted, would be a small price to pay for making Mom come to her senses.

At least that's what I told myself before I heard the crash right outside my door.

When I ran to the doorway and peered out, there was a little boy huddled on the floor next to the wall. He was staring at the long sheet of plywood that had been propped near the door. Now it was splayed flat on the ground beside him. The boy slowly turned to look up at me. In the shaft of light from the classroom, his eyes were as round and shiny as quarters.

“Shik,” he said.

“Excuse me?”

“Mine says I can say that word if I change the last letter.”

I might have laughed if my heart hadn't been lodged in my throat. “What happened?”

The boy turned to study the board again as if he was seeing it for the first time. “I guess I tripped,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his skinny knees. He was wearing cargo shorts and Chicago Cubs bedroom slippers.

“So you live here?” I tried again.

“Yep. In the library.” He crossed his arms. “I'm Hugh Miliken.”

“Hi,” I said stiffly. “I'm Ren.”

“Like the bird.”

“Oh, not that kind of wren. It's spelled R-E-N, not W-R-E-N. It's short for Renata.”

“Oh. That makes more sense. You don't look anything like a bird.”

I could see him sizing me up—my soccer-team T-shirt, my crazy hair. Most of it had exploded out of my ponytail during the bike ride. “You've sure got a lot of freckles,” he said.

“Yep.” What else was I supposed to say?

His eyes stayed riveted on my face. “Sometimes when I see people with freckles, I wish I could get a Magic Marker and connect the dots so I could see what picture comes out.”

“Huh. Interesting.” I smiled for the first time in hours. He was such a weird kid, I couldn't help it.

“Are you sure you're fourteen?”

I stopped and squinted down at him. “How'd you—?” I glanced at the board on the floor, putting two and two together. “Wait a minute. You were spying on us, weren't you? Downstairs. And out here in the hall…”

Instead of answering, Hugh looked down at his puny wrist and let out a gasp, which would have made sense if he had been wearing a watch, but he wasn't. “Oh, man, I better go,” he said. “Mine's probably looking for me.”

“Who's Mine?”

“That's my mom.”

“So why do you call her Mine instead of Mom?”

Hugh's shoulders twitched with impatience. “It's a long story,” he said. But then he told me the whole thing anyway. “We used to live in Chicago, and when I was really little, we would go to the park and the other kids would come up to my mom in the sandbox or on the swings and try to tell her stuff, and I would say, ‘Mine! Mine!' because I didn't want to share her with anybody. Plus her real name is Madeline,” he rattled on, “so now everybody, besides Hildy, copies me because Mine's way easier to say and takes up less time because it only has one syllable instead of three.”

“Makes sense,” I said.

“Hey,” he said suddenly. “You know those cabinets in your room?”

I took a step back so that I could see past the threshold. Sure enough, there was a long row of cupboards running along the side wall. “Yeah?”

“I wouldn't open them if I were you.” He hesitated. “Or actually, you can open all of them except the last one—the one on the end.”

“What do you mean? Why shouldn't I open the one on the end?”

“You might sleep better tonight if you don't.”

I started to ask what in the heck he was talking about. But all at once, he was checking his fake watch again. “Oops, time's up,” he said. “Sayonara.” Then he left me with my mouth still hanging open as I watched him scamper out of sight.

I turned toward the classroom again and stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the row of cabinets underneath the worn green countertop across the room. The last cabinet in the row looked like all the others—wooden with a small metal knob. My stomach flipped over at the thought of reaching out to open it. But how was I supposed to stay there if I didn't find out what was inside?

I marched over to the mystery cabinet. Then, holding my breath, I leaned down and snatched at the handle, scrambling backward as the door banged open. It was so dark inside the cupboard I could barely see. I crouched like a crab, bracing myself for who knows what to come popping out from the farthest corner.

But it was empty except for some dead bugs and cobwebs. I stood up and pivoted with my fists on my hips, warily eyeing the doorway. That little kid was probably still out there in the hall spying to see if I had fallen for his trick. Just to be sure though, I opened all the cabinet doors to take a quick peek inside. Empty … empty … empty … and then I let out a muffled shriek of surprise.

Somebody was staring back at me … or some
thing.
A grinning, hollow-eyed skull.

I shrank away and stayed stooped over for a few seconds, hugging myself, peering into the skull's empty sockets. Now I understood what that kid had been trying to tell me—to stay away from the cupboard on
this
end of the row, not the other. But how creepy could you get? What kind of people kept skulls in their cabinets and then left them there to freak out unsuspecting guests? I edged a little closer. I could see some other mysterious shapes sitting farther back in the shadows. I knelt down and leaned forward, straining to get a better view, but no matter what angle I tried, I couldn't quite see. “Ewww … ewww …
ewww
,” I whined as I slowly reached my hand into the cabinet, past the skull's jutting jawbone and those bared yellow teeth. I grabbed at the largest object and pulled it toward me, sighing with relief as it came into the light.

It was one of those old-timey hourglasses—the same kind that the Wicked Witch in
The
Wizard of Oz
uses to count down Dorothy's last hours. Kind of eerie, I thought as I turned the dusty wooden frame upside down and watched the sand trickle through the glass … but not nearly as creepy as the skull. I set the hourglass back in the cabinet and gritted my teeth as I groped for what looked like a small pile of shells. I snatched one from the pile and sat back on my heels to examine it. It had button holes punched through it, just like the shells I had seen heaped in the alleyways of Fortune.

None of it fit together. What did a skull have to do with an hourglass and a pile of used button shells?

I put the shell back and closed the cabinet, and while I was at it, I decided to close the classroom door too, thinking I might feel safer once I shut out the darkness on the other side. Then I grabbed my backpack and hurried over to sit on the middle cot. That's when I noticed there was a blackboard on the wall across from me with something written on it—a single word, dead center, scrawled in chalk.

What did
that
mean? Was this supposed to be another prank like the skull, something to scare the roomers who were moving in? I knew it was crazy, but I couldn't help thinking the
no
was some sort of mysterious message meant only for me.

No, Ren, you shouldn't be here. Go back home where you belong.

My mouth had gone as dry as cotton balls, and all of a sudden I could hear every little sound—my breath turning shallow and the moths outside batting against the screens. There was nowhere to look without getting spooked. Not at the chalkboard or the cabinets or the row of pitch-black windows … I scooted my back against the wall and sat hugging my knees, fighting to stay calm. Part of me wanted to go find Hildy. But how could I trust the sort of landlady who kept a skull in her cupboard? And what would I say to Hildy once I found her? That I wanted to go home? Mom probably hadn't even been there to read my note yet. If I gave up now, my entire plan to get rid of Rick would fizzle out.

I unzipped my backpack and dumped everything on the blanket. In my rush to leave the house I had thrown in all sorts of stuff—a toothbrush, three apples, my tattered copy of
Little Women
, two changes of underwear, three peanut butter sandwiches, some granola bars, a couple of T-shirts, a bottle of water, my zebra-stripe wallet, and my favorite picture of Dad, on the couch hugging Old Blue. Dad had sneaked him indoors one Sunday when it had snowed and Mom was off running errands. Nora had snapped the picture, saying she could use it for blackmail someday. We were in heaven that afternoon, Dad and Blue and me, tucked under the blanket watching the football game.