Homecoming (2 page)

They spent almost four dollars on supper at the mall, and none of them had dessert.
They had hamburgers and french fries and, after Dicey thought it over, milkshakes.
At that rate, they could have one more meal before they ran out of money, or maybe
two more. It was still light when they returned to the car. The little ones horsed
around in the back, teasing, wrestling, tickling, quarreling and laughing, while Dicey
studied the map. People walked by their car, vehicles came and went, and nobody paid
any attention to them. In parking lots, it’s not unusual to see a car full of kids
waiting.

At half-past eight, Dicey herded everybody back into the mall,
to use the bathrooms they had found earlier. Later, Sammy and Maybeth fell asleep
easily, curled up along the backseat. James moved up to the front with Dicey. Dicey
couldn’t see how they were both to sleep in the front seat, but she supposed they
would manage it. James sat stiffly, gripping the wheel. James had a narrow head and
sharp features, a nose that pointed out, pencil-thin eyebrows, a narrow chin. Dicey
studied him in the darkening car. They were parked so far from the nearest lamppost
that they were in deep shadows.

With her brothers and sister near, with the two youngest asleep in the backseat, sitting
as they were in a cocoon of darkness, she should feel safe. But she didn’t. Though
it was standing still, the car seemed to be flying down a highway, going too fast.
Even the dark inside of it was not deep enough to hide them. Faces might appear in
the windows at any time, asking angry questions.

“Where’s Momma gone?” James asked, looking out at the night.

“I just don’t know,” Dicey said. “Here’s what I think, I think if she isn’t back by
morning we ought to go on to Bridgeport.”

“On our own?”

“Yes.”

“How’ll we get there? You can’t drive. Momma took the keys.”

“We could take a bus, if we have enough money. If we don’t, we’ll walk.”

James stared at her. Finally he spoke. “Dicey? I’m scared. I feel all jiggly in my
stomach. Why doesn’t Momma come back?”

“If I knew, James, I’d know what to do.”

“Do you know the way?”

“To Bridgeport? I can read a map. Once we get there, we can ask directions to Aunt
Cilla’s house.”

James nodded. “Do you think she’s been killed? Or kidnapped?”

“Rich people get kidnapped; not Momma. I’m not going to think about what might have
happened to her, and I don’t think you should, either.”

“I can’t help thinking about it,” James said in a small voice.

“Don’t tell Sammy or Maybeth,” Dicey warned.

“I wouldn’t. I know better. You should know I’d know better than that.”

Dicey reached out and patted him on the shoulder. “I do know,” she said.

James grabbed her hand. “Dicey? Do you think Momma meant to leave us here?”

“I think Momma meant to take us to Bridgeport, but—”

“Is Momma crazy?”

Dicey turned her head to look at him.

“The kids said so, at school. And the way the teachers looked at me and loaned me
their own books and talked to me. And Maybeth. Craziness can run in families.”

Dicey felt a great weight settle on her shoulders. She tried to shrug it off, but
it wouldn’t move.

“Dicey?”

“She loves us,” Dicey muttered.

“But that’s the only reason I can think of that might be true.”

“There’s nothing wrong with Maybeth. You know that.”

“It runs in families. Hereditary craziness.”

“Well, you don’t have to worry about it, do you? You’re the smart one, with A’s in
school and the science projects that get entered in the state contest.”

“Yeah,” James said. He settled his head back on the seat.

“Listen, I’m going to go to a phone and see where the bus station is and call them
up to find out how much tickets cost. You lay low.”

“Why?”

Dicey decided to tell him the truth. “Just in case. I mean, three kids in a car in
a parking lot at night . . . See, James, I think we’ve got to get to Bridgeport and
I just don’t know what would happen if a policeman saw us. Foster homes or something,
I dunno. I don’t want to risk it. But one kid . . . and I’m pretty old so it doesn’t
look funny.”

“Okay. That sounds okay.”

“We’ve got to get to Bridgeport.”

James thought about that, then nodded his head. “I never listened much to Momma’s
talk about her. What will she be like, Aunt Cilla?”

“Rich,” Dicey said.

“It would be a long walk,” James said.

“Long enough,” Dicey agreed. She got out of the car fast.

It was full dark, an overcast night. The parking lot was nearly empty; only two cars
besides theirs remained. Dicey wondered how many cars were left in the other three
parking lots that spread out from the other sides of the building. It felt as empty
as all of space must be. She hoped there were cars in each lot. The more cars there
were, the safer their car was for them.

Dicey headed confidently for the walkway, as if she had every right to be where she
was, as if she had an important errand to run, as if she knew just where she was going.
She remembered a telephone at the far end of the building. It wasn’t a real phone
booth, but a kind of cubicle hung up on the wall, with an open shelf underneath to
hold the directory. James could probably see her from the car, if he looked for her.
From that distance, she would look small.

The walkway was lit up, and the store windows were lit, so she moved through patches
of sharp light. At the phone, she took out the directory to look up bus companies
in the yellow pages. She ran her finger down the names, selected one that sounded
local and reached into her pocket for change.

She heard footsteps. A man approached her, in a uniform like a policeman’s, but tan
not blue, and without the badge. He took his time getting to her, as if he was sure
she’d wait, sure of his own strength to hold her, even at that distance. He moved
like he thought she was afraid of him, too afraid to run.

“Hey,” the man said. His shirt had the word “Security” sewn onto it. Where his belly
sagged, the shirt hung out over his pants. He carried a long-handled flashlight. He
wore a pistol at his belt.

Dicey didn’t answer, but she didn’t look away.

“Hey kid,” he said, as if she had shown signs of running and he needed to halt her.
He was heavy, out of shape. He had a pig-person face, a coarse skin that sagged at
the jowls, little blue eyes and pale eyebrows, and a fat, pushed-back nose. When he
came up next to her, Dicey stepped back a pace, but kept her finger on the number
in the book.

“You lost?”

“Naw. I’m making a phone call.”

“Where do you live?”

“Just over there,” Dicey said, pointing vaguely with her free hand.

“Go home and call from there. Run along now. If you were a girl, I’d walk you over,
but—”

“Our phone’s broken,” Dicey said. “That’s why my mom sent me here.”

The guard shifted his flashlight, holding it like a club. “Phones don’t break. How’s
a phone break?”

“We’ve got this dog that chews things up. Slippers, papers, you know. He chewed the
phone. The cord, actually, but it’s all the same—the phone’s broken.”

“Are you bulling me?”

“I wish I was.”

“What’s your name, kid?”

“Danny.”

She felt funny, strange, making up lies as quickly and smoothly as if she’d been doing
it all her life.

The man took a piece of gum out of his pocket, unwrapped it, folded it in half and
stuck it into his mouth, chewing on it a couple of times.

“Danny what?”

“Tillerman.” Dicey couldn’t make up a new last name, except Smith, and nobody would
believe that even if it was true.

“You don’t look more than ten. Isn’t it late to be out?”

Dicey shrugged.

The guard grew suspicious. “Who’re you calling?”

“The bus company. My sisters and me are going down to Bridgeport some time soon, to
stay with my aunt.”

He chewed and thought. “Sometime soon wouldn’t send you out after ten at night to
phone. What’s the rush?”

“My mom just got back from the clinic and she’s gonna have her baby, any day now the
doctor said, and my aunt needs to know what time the buses arrive so she can meet
us on Monday. So’s we can take a bus it’s good for her to meet. My mom asked me to
come find out so’s she can call first thing in the morning, before my aunt goes to
church. It’s hard for my mom to get around now—you know.”

“Where’s your father?”

“Gone.”

“Gone where?”

“Dunno. He just up and went, way back, last winter.”

The guard nodded. He reached in his pocket and pulled out the pack of gum. He offered
a piece to Dicey, but she shook her head.

“Can I call now, mister?”

“Sure thing,” he said. “I wouldn’t have bothered you except
that there’ve been some windows broken around here. We think it’s kids. I’m the security
guard. I’ve got to be careful.”

Dicey nodded. She inserted the coins and slowly dialed the numbers, hoping he’d go
away. But he stood there and listened. Behind him lay the parking lot, a vast open
space where occasional clumps of planted bushes spread long shadows over the ground.

An impersonal voice answered. Dicey asked about tickets to Bridgeport, how much they
cost.

“From where to Bridgeport.”

Dicey grabbed at a name. “Peewauket.” That was what the map said. She pronounced it
Pee-Walk-It. The guard, listening narrowed his eyes.

“From Peewauket?” the voice asked, saying it Pwuk-it.

“Yeah.”

“Two dollars and forty-five cents a person.”

“What’s the rate for children?”

“The same. The charge is for the seat. Unless you’ve got a child under two.”

“What time do buses run?”

“Every other hour, from eight to eight.”

Dicey thanked the voice and hung up the phone. She stood with her arms hanging down
at her sides, waiting for the guard to leave.

He was studying her with his little piggly eyes. He held his flashlight now in one
hand and slapped it into the palm of the other. “You better get back now,” he said
and then added, “You didn’t write anything down.”

“I’ve got a good memory.”

“Yeah? I’ll give you a test.” His body blocked the way to the safe darkness of the
parking lot. “You don’t remember anything about broken windows in the mall, do you?
For instance, just one for instance, at Record City.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“I wonder about that. I really wonder, Danny. You said Danny, didn’t you? Tillerman,
wasn’t it? You see, we figure it was probably kids did it, account of nothing’s been
stolen. Or maybe just one kid did it, that’s what I’m thinking.”

Dicey glared at him. “I said I don’t know anything about that.”

He put one arm out to bar her in, resting his hand against the side of the phone.
“I can’t think of why I should believe you. Nope, now I come to think of it, I don’t
think I do believe you. The only question in my mind is, what do I do with you?”

Dicey thought fast, then acted just as fast. She lifted her right knee as if to hit
him in the groin where she knew it would hurt bad. He lowered his arm and stepped
back, to protect himself. In that one second while he was off balance, Dicey took
off. She sprinted into the darkness of the parking lot. As soon as she was in the
cover of the shadows, she turned left around the corner of the building, away from
their car. He thundered after her.

Dicey ran smoothly. She was used to running on beaches, where the sand gave way under
your feet and each thrust of your legs was hindered. Running over asphalt was easier.
Dicey pulled away from her pursuer. His steps were heavy and his breathing was heavy.
He was out of shape and too fat to catch up with her. She had time to crouch behind
one of the little islands of green that decorated the parking lot. She had on a dark
shirt and jeans, her face was tanned and her hair brown; she was confident nothing
would give her away.

He stopped by the front entrance shining his flashlight out over the parking lot,
like one bright eye. Dicey watched him. He listened, but his chest was heaving so
much that she was sure he couldn’t hear anything but the blood pounding in his ears.
She smiled to herself.

“You haven’t got a chance,” he called. “You better come out now, kid. You’re only
making it worse.”

Dicey covered her mouth with her hand.

“I know you now. We’ll find you out,” he said. He turned quickly away from the parking
lot and looked farther along the front of the mall. He hunched behind the flashlight.
He used the beam like a giant eye, to peer into the shadows. “There you are! I can
see you!” he cried.

But he was looking the wrong way. Dicey giggled, and the sound escaped her even though
she bit on her hand to stop it.

He turned back to the parking lot, listening. Then he swore. His light swooped over
the dark lot, trying to search out her hiding place. “Danny? I’m gonna find you.”

Dicey moved softly away on soundless sneakers through the covering shadows. He continued
to call: “I’ll remember your face, you hear? You hear me? Hear me?”

From halfway across the parking lot, safe in her own speed and in shadows, Dicey stopped.
Her heart swelled in victory. “I hear you,” she called softly back, as she ran toward
the empty road and the patch of woods beyond.

Much later, when she returned to the car, James awoke briefly. “Everything’s okay,”
Dicey whispered, curling down onto the cold seat to sleep.

D
icey awoke at the first light. A chilly dew beaded the windshield. James’s body leaning
against her side was the only warmth in the car. He still slept, so she didn’t move,
even though her stiff muscles ached to be stretched. She watched the sun rise into
a cold gray sky that turned warmer and brighter as the first peach-colored beams of
light grew golden, then yellow, then white. Surrounded by sleepers, Dicey sat content.
The car was a cave within which they were safe. It held them together; and it protected
them from outside forces, the cold, the damp, people.