Is Anybody There? (11 page)

She gave me a small gift-wrapped package. I opened the velvet box inside and took out the watch.

“Put it on, Marcus.”

When I pulled the strap to its tightest, it fit my wrist. This was the size Dad’s wrist had been at the end. I stood looking down at it, feeling very close to him.

Mom touched my hair. “OK?”

I blinked away the tears. “OK.”

“Now. We’re not going to be sad at Christmas. Let’s open the rest of the things.”

I got a card with twenty dollars in it from Grandma, and Grandpa Mullen sent me two great-looking books:
The Cay
and
The Whipping Boy.
Aunt Charlie sent a construction kit so I could make my own radio. The print on the box said
It plays. It’s supersonic. It really works.
I decided Aunt Charlie had a lot of faith
to think I could ever put it together. Miss Sarah and Miss Coriander had knitted matching sweaters for Mom and me, red with a yellow diamond pattern.

“Are we going to look spiffo or what?” Mom asked me, holding her sweater against her. She sat on the rug, surrounded by torn wrapping and cards. Not Nick’s card, though. It was special. I knew that and I knew why, but I felt good anyway.

Robbie had bought me a chefs hat and an apron that said
WHAT’S COOKING?
in big red letters across my stomach. He was right. It wasn’t ordinary.

“You certainly got a lot of nice things,” Mom said, and I said, “Yeah. And I got stamps from Anjclica. You know, the girl we met in the mall?”

“Well!” Mom smiled. “Are you sure
you
didn’t take my roses? Anjelica, huh?”

Luckily, just then we heard the putt putt of the big car in the driveway next door.

I looked at my watch. Dad’s watch. “Ten minutes to twelve,” I said. “Miss Sarah and Miss Coriander are off to midnight mass.”

The last tape was coming to an end with
readings from Westminster Abbey, and Mom and I sat together, listening to the old familiar words that will always mean Christmas. When the clock struck midnight, Mom put her arms around me and pulled me against her shoulder.

“Merry Christmas, Marky,” she said.

“Merry Christmas, Mom.”

I got into my pajamas and puttered around my room a bit, putting stuff away. For some reason I didn’t feel like going to bed and I definitely wasn’t sleepy. When I was little I believed Santa would be creeping into my room at this time on Christmas morning, making sure I was asleep before he filled up my big red sock. And I’d have been struggling to stay awake so I could catch a glimpse of him.

But it sure wasn’t the hope of seeing Santa that kept me awake tonight. Too many things on my mind, too much jumbled around in my head. The missing sleeping bag, Nick, the gift giving. I looked at my bike picture. What had he done with the one he’d taken of Mom?

“His Christmas gift to himself,” I said out loud. “Because he loves her.” I knew it and I
knew I was beginning to accept it. There was nothing else to do.

I thought about Anjelica and I wished I’d told Mom about her being here. I couldn’t decide why I hadn’t. In a way I wished I’d told Mom about the sleeping bag too. Well, I hadn’t told that either. It didn’t matter.

My stamp album was in the drawer of my desk. I got it out. Then I emptied Anjelicals stamps from their envelope, lined them up in front of me, and went carefully through my album, page by page. Every single one was a duplicate. That made me sad, especially when I remembered how she’d saved them for me all year. Working carefully I took out all the repeats I had, replaced them with Anjelica’s and put my originals back in her envelope. There!

It must be about one thirty
A.M.,
I decided. Miss Coriander and Miss Sarah’s car had lumbered up the driveway a half hour ago. Christmas morning, and midnight mass over. Everyone would have stood around on the sidewalk outside the church with its big lighted candle in the window, wishing each other Merry Christmas, teary and happy the
way people always are after midnight mass. I could still remember. Mom had stopped going when Dad got sick, and she’d never started again. Maybe she would if she and Nick …

I clicked off my lamp, got into bed, and lay, watching the moon shadows pale as ghosts on my ceiling, counting on my fingers the things I knew for certain had been taken. My sleeping bag, Mom’s clock, the flashlight, food. Wait a sec! I propped myself up on my elbow. Across the room, my mirrored self looked back at me, a pale shimmering blur. Sleeping bag, flashlight, clock, food—it sounded like supplies for a camping trip! Someone going off who didn’t have the right equipment and didn’t— Hey! What about my pup tent? It was always kept in the left-hand corner of the garage, covered with spiderwebs and dust. It had been there so long that I didn’t notice it anymore. Was it still there?

I sat up, lay down again. I’d check in the morning, because if it had disappeared too, I was on the right track. Maybe this meant it had been a kid. No grown-up, real thief would take that kind of stuff and leave money and
watches. He could even have had the stereo and the TV. The thought that it might be a kid didn’t seem so scary.

I punched up my pillows and turned my face to the wall. Had that tent been there when Robbie and I went over the garage stuff? Today, with Anjelica? I hadn’t paid attention to anything when she was there, except her.
IWAKFC!
If I was going to lie here awake I should concentrate on figuring out what that meant, not hassle my head about this other stuff.

But what about the tent?

The last time I’d used it, Robbie and I’d slept in his backyard under the plum tree and plums fell on us all night long. At first we thought it was bird droppings but pretty soon we figured it out.

“A purple-pitted pup tent!” Robbie had said in the morning.

Had the guy taken it? No way was I going to be able to sleep without knowing for sure.

I got up, went down the hallway past Mom’s half-open door, past the dining room with its bare, empty table, bigger with the extra leaves we’d put in so we’d all have room at dinner-time.
What were those faint creaking sounds? I stopped, listening. The creaking stopped too. Maybe the floorboards in here were squeaky and I’d never noticed. I tiptoed on. Then I heard the creaking again.

I was in the kitchen, the linoleum cold and clammy under my bare feet. No sounds now. Nothing but the night quiet and the
chirp chirp
of a mockingbird in the tree outside. My chest was bursting, my ears ached from listening. Silence.

I was just about to take another step when I heard a small thud, soft and muffled. It came from the laundry room. Someone was in there, not five feet from where I stood. The cold clamminess was all over me now. Thoughts started inside my head and never finished themselves. How did he get in? What was he doing? Should I run back and wake up Mom? Should I yell? If only I had the blackthorn stick I could …

The wooden block with our kitchen knives stuck in it was on the counter. All I had to do was slide out a knife. But I could never use a knife, not on anybody, not for any reason. The wooden cutting board was beside it,
small and square with a sturdy handle. Could I hit someone with this if I had to? If I had to. But I wouldn’t have to. I’d take one quick look and retreat. I picked up the board and went soundlessly forward, carefully, very carefully easing my head around the door.

The laundry-room window was a rectangle of dusty moonlight, the washer and dryer two cubes of reflecting light. A figure stood with his back to me at the bottom of the steps that came down from the attic. His hands still gripped the upper rungs. He’d been up there. The creaking had been him coming down. He’d been up there all the time. That was what I’d been sensing, feeling.

I was shivering as if I had flu and I sucked in a deep, quivery breath and tightened my grip on the handle of the cutting board. He was small, this person. He probably wasn’t any bigger than I am. That gave me courage. If he’d been a big guy, a monster guy … I licked my dry lips. What I had to do now was leap forward and—

You can’t hear someone lick his lips, so it had to be that he sensed me behind him. He spun around, and we were looking directly at
each other. T-shirt, jeans, bare feet. One side of him was in moonlight, the other in shadow.

“You’ve been staying up there, haven’t you?” I whispered. “You’ve been there for days and days.” My voice was rising in spite of myself.

He put a finger to his lips.

“Sh!” he whispered.

I’d never seen him before in my life, not in person, but I knew who he was.

I couldn’t believe my eyes. “You’re Blake,” I whispered. “Blake Milardovich. Nick’s son.”

“Yes. But how do you—”

I interrupted. “Your dad has photographs.”

“Oh.” He stiffened, like a scared animal, while a car went slowly past on the street outside.

“I have to use the bathroom,” he whispered. “Please don’t go for your mom … please! Can you let me talk to you first?”

I nodded.

“Promise?”

I nodded again. I heard him in the little bathroom and remembered the green footprints … his! He’d been the one all the time.

“Sorry I can’t flush,” he whispered when he
came back. “I can only do that when you’re out.” Behind us in the kitchen the clock gave its usual hiccup and Blake jumped. “That clock’s been giving me heart attacks for days,” he whispered. “Could I get something to eat?”

“Sure. What do you want?” I stood aside so he could get past me.

He headed for the cupboard where the cereal is kept, got a dish, went for milk. In the wedge of light from the open refrigerator I saw how dirty he was, the red T-shirt stained, his jeans gray with attic dust, dirt clotted in his hair. His feet were black, blackest between the toes. Knobby feet, like Nick’s. He started to eat the cereal before the door closed.

“Here!” I grabbed three bran muffins, all that were left in the package, and held them toward him. “I don’t understand why you didn’t just go up to Nick’s apartment. Nick … I mean, your dad would have been so happy.”

“Oh sure,” Blake said. “He’d have been—”

“Marky!” That was my mother calling.

Blake bumped the cereal dish on the table and I grabbed it up, spilling oat crispies over the floor.

“Coming!” I yelled and started off fast for Mom’s room.

She was sitting up, and as soon as she saw me she switched on her lamp. “Why aren’t you sleeping? What time is it?”

“About two, I think.” I looked down at the cereal bowl.

“You
can’t
be hungry,” Mom said, and then she smiled and lay down again. “OK, OK. You can always be hungry.”

“Do you want something?” I asked.

She shook her head. “And you hurry up and get back into bed. Count sheep or something.”

“I will. Good night, Mom.”

Blake was in the laundry room again, his back pressed tightly against the wall beside the dryer.

“It’s OK,” I whispered. “I’ve thought of a place where we can go to talk.”

I gave him the cereal, took the muffins, then carefully opened the door between house and garage.

He followed me into Mom’s car, with him behind the wheel and me in the passenger seat. It was cold and very dark. I switched on the dashboard light and reached into the
backseat where Mom keeps the old tartan blanket.

“Here.” I shared it with Blake. He’d dripped milk down his front in the dark, and I got him the box of tissues, too. There was no point trying to question him while he ate, but that didn’t take long. “You want more?” I asked.

He shook his head. “That’s OK. I had some crackers earlier when you and your mom went out. And I took a can of tuna from the back of the cupboard. If I go way to the back I figure neither of you will notice. I stole some meat loaf a while back. Yesterday I had a can of stew.”

“And peanut butter,” I said.

He nodded. “You knew?”

“Not really. How long have you been up there anyway?”

“Five days.”

“Five days? Holy smoke! Why?” I asked. “What are you trying to prove?”

“I came to find my father. My name is Miller now. I knew it had been Milardovich because my mom got a letter addressed to that name once. When I asked her about it she said she
changed it. Miller was easier. But she acted angry. I figured it out.”

“She didn’t want your father to find you?”

“No. She said we were hiding because he’d been bad to her, and to me. I was just six. He was glad when the judge gave me to Mom because he never liked me, but she knew he’d be mad because we took off and—” I could see his hands, clenched tight on the steering wheel.

“Wait a sec,” I said. “I’m not saying your mom was lying, but she made a mistake in some of that. Nick
did
like you. He liked you a lot. He …” I remembered the photographs. I remembered the wrapped gifts from all those Christmases past, and Mom saying how Nick had searched and searched. I remembered Robbie’s cousin Jimmy, and how mad Nick had been at the bullying assistant coach, mad enough to fire him even. I remembered the way Nick always was with old Patchin. “I don’t believe Nick would ever be bad to anybody, Blake. I honestly don’t. And he
did
try to find you. He’ll be so jazzed—”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I haven’t decided what I’m going to do. I might just go home again.”

“That’s crazy. Where’s home, anyway?”

“San Jose.”

“San Jose? How on earth did you find Nick from there?”

“He was on TV when his team won the championship. Coach Milardovich. The La Costa Cougars. I remembered how he looked, sort of. Like me, in a way.” Blake glanced quickly at me, then went back to watching his fingers tap the steering wheel. “Funny, I can’t remember any of the bad things Mom says he did. Just the good things. Mom says I’ve blanked out the bad ones. Anyway, I came. I called Information.”

“Does your mom know you’re here?”

“Mom? Are you crazy?”

“But you’ve been gone for over five days. She’ll be berserk by now.” I began kicking off the blanket, feeling I should run and call her right away.