Noah's Rainy Day (48 page)

I yelped with pain as I scooped little Max into my arms, feeling something pop in my forearm. It wasn’t a natural sort of pop. Max didn’t make a sound, his head lolling against my shoulder. “Look at that, Max. The rats are scattering,” I said, trudging my way back to the center of the pit. “Can you wrap your arms around my neck, Max?” No answer. “Max?”

I reached for the lead and tugged. Streeter pulled all the slack out of the lead as I neared the center. He stared down the hole, pulling the lead taut.

“That’s my friend, Streeter, up there,” I said. “He’s going to get us out of here.”

Cradled in my arms, looking more like a filth-encrusted runt pig than Maximillian Bennett Williams III, the boy stared up at Streeter.

“Not Papa?” he asked, listless, but alive.

Streeter smiled at the boy, offering him a little wave. But I could see all the pain Streeter felt for the boy in his wide blue eyes.

“Not Papa. I promise. He’s gone. You have been so brave and strong. I’m so proud of you. Your mom and dad will be proud of you, too,” I said.

Max lifted his heavy eyelids. A hint of a smile played around his lips.

“But I need you to be brave and strong for a little bit longer, okay?” I pointed up the hole at Streeter and said, “See that man up there, Max? He’s my friend. And he’s your friend, too. He’s going to lift you out of this hole and wrap you up in a warm blanket. Would you like that?”

The little boy’s eyes widened with fright. He hung limp in my arms.

I added, “I need you to be brave for me while he pulls you up. You’ll need to hold on tight.”

For the first time, the child moved. His filthy pink sleeve slid around my neck.

“Not to me. To the rope,” I explained.

Max’s grip on my neck tightened.

I shushed him. “It’s okay. I promise. I’m going to have my friend pull you out first. Then I’ll come up and hold you some more. Okay?”

That didn’t quiet his fear.

“Besides, I need to get your friend Noah. And we don’t want to stay down with these stinking rats anymore, do we?”

Max’s little arm eased from around my neck. I kissed his soiled cheek.

I looked up at Streeter. He pointed at the lead, made a motion of winding it around little Max, and shook his head. I nodded. Winding the lead around Max’s chest in his weakened condition may cause further damage. I looked back into Max’s exhausted eyes.

“A blanket? Your coat?” Streeter said.

I answered, “That might work. I can wrap him up like a cocoon.”

“How about this?” he said, holding up Beulah’s harness.

“Perfect. Toss it down.”

He did, careful not to let it fall too far from me.

I caught it and slipped the harness over little Max’s chest, pulling his hands from my neck, threading each of his arms into the shoulder loops. I latched the lead to the harness and gave the thumbs-up sign to Streeter. He pulled the boy upward, slowly. The boy’s head lolled to one side, which concerned me. Max stiffened and squinted in the bright light that Streeter shone down the hole. A good sign. The boy had some reflexes.

Once Streeter had him, he quickly stripped the boy and wrapped him in blankets, setting him on the floor beside the bench. Streeter dropped the lead and harness down the hole and motioned for me to get going. I trudged back through the heap to Noah.

“Noah?” Startled by his ashen appearance, I felt for a pulse. “Noah, it’s me, Auntie Liv.”

He had a pulse, but it was so weak I wondered if it was my heartbeat
pounding through my fingertips. I pried open his eyes, moving my head so the light flashed across his face. His pupils responded. He was there. Buried deep, but there.

Noah’s skin was a pale gray, his face sagging and sallow, and his lips had that haunting bluish tint. He had a dirty pink sweater draped across his legs and a small coat spread across his chest. Little Max had layered everything he could over Noah to keep him warm, including a pink stocking cap pulled over his head. He was still strapped in his chair, wrapped in a blanket, with his snow pants and coat, just as Frances had described putting on him late last night when they were headed to the police station, before he’d been taken from the backseat of her minivan.

Fletcher had dropped Noah down the hole, chair and all.

“Are you okay, bud?”

No smile. No response.

I knew he wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t hurry. I prayed both boys would live, that we’d found them in time.

“You’re my hero,” I said, swallowing the tears that were welling inside me and I kissed his forehead.

I scooped his chair into my arms, feeling the sharp pain in my left arm, the ache in my ribs, as I did. I wanted to scream from the pain. But I didn’t want to scare Noah. If my arm wasn’t broken before, it was certainly broken now. I wondered if any of Noah’s delicate little bones had been broken in the fall, if his spine had buckled, if he’d had any seizures. And if so, how many. How bad was the damage? How much could this kid take?

I hooked Beulah’s harness around my nephew’s chair and watched as Streeter pulled him up through the hole.

When he made it to the top, I saw Noah lean over in his chair, his forehead wrinkling as he looked for me down the hole. Even clinging to life, he was more worried about me than himself.

And I cried.

Noah

SHE DID IT!

Auntie Liv found me and saved little Max. I was hoping she’d find my football pin and figure out that creepy Mr. Fletcher had little Max the whole time, but for the life of me, I don’t know how she figured out where he took us.

I knew Mr. Creepy drove us a long time, went way up in the mountains and out in the woods, a really long drive from our house, somewhere where his tires crunched in heavy snow, on back roads that weren’t paved, because I could hear the gravel under his tires. But the Rocky Mountains are a big place and if I was really truthful about it, I didn’t have a clue how Auntie Liv would figure out where he took us. And I was scared. Really scared. The pain in my broken leg made me feel angry and alive but mostly I was trying to hold on to my “mad” so little Max’s whimpering and shivering wouldn’t get me down. I knew if I cried, if I started worrying too much, I’d cause myself to have a seizure. And that would have really scared little Max. I was trying to stay brave because he needed me. By the time I did have my seizure, little Max had already passed out. Or at least that’s what they told me.

And Auntie Liv found us. Found me. But I was just coming out of my seizure and it was all a blur.

Now that we’ve had time to talk, Auntie Liv said this is where she found the kid’s backpack. Said the kid was an older boy that Mr. Fletcher had kidnapped a couple of years ago. When she told me his name, I remembered him. He was the “Boy Who Had Disappeared.”

I’d heard about Clint at school. He was a legend. The kids all said he disappeared because he always stuffed his food in his milk carton at lunch and threw it in the garbage so the lunch monitors couldn’t make him eat all his food. They’d warned him many times to eat everything on his plate. But he didn’t. And after three warnings, the boy simply disappeared. POOF! Someone started a rumor that he got lost in the woods and was eaten by a bear. We all thought the lunch room was haunted, that Clint’s ghost wandered from table to table, stole our butter pats, took cookies, or made our goulash taste yucky.

None of that was true. Auntie Liv told me Mr. Fletcher had kidnapped Clint and left him out in the woods, near the hole where he had dropped me and little Max. But Clint eventually made it out of the mountains to a house. His parents sent him to school at a different place the next year and no one ever told us. So I wonder who’s stealing my cookies at school? Well, it’s not the “Boy Who Disappeared,” that’s for sure. ’Cause Auntie Liv promised me Clint didn’t die, so he can’t be haunting the lunch room.

The doctor is just about done wrapping up my leg with the wet plaster. He told my mom and dad that I’ll have to wear this cast for several weeks. I think it’s so cool! It’s blue, like my school’s colors, and it matches the frame of my wheelchair. Everyone here at the hospital is so nice. I’m glad the doctor’s keeping me overnight for observation. He said they want to make sure I didn’t hit my head, receive a concussion, or suffer any trauma from hypothermia, whatever that means.

Okay by me, as long as they don’t have to poke and prod and keep me up all night like they usually do when I have to stay here. And as long as they don’t feed me goulash. The food here is actually good, but I’m full. Emma brought me a Dairy Queen Butterfinger Blizzard—my favorite—which Mom fed me while we were waiting for x-rays so the doctor could set my leg. Now that the doctor is finishing up, I’m excited about
going back to my room because I told Emma to let Mom and Dad know I wanted some time alone to talk with Auntie Liv. If she ever gets here and has her arm x-rayed. She said she’s busy wrapping up some loose ends on the case and will be here pronto to stay the night with me in my room, so my mom and dad can go home and get a good night’s sleep.

I can’t wait!

I have so many questions about what happened out there, and she promised to tell me the whole story, leaving out no detail. That’s what I was hoping because how am I ever going to get better as a spy if she keeps things from me? Yeah, I know I said I didn’t want to be a spy anymore. But I do. I just have to grow up a little bit so I’m not so scared.

Special Agent Pierce called me a hero and told me how proud he was of me. Denver Police Chief Gates gave me a special police officer’s badge and told me to apply for work when I got old enough. But I think I was most excited about Special Agent Linwood. Auntie Liv calls him Jack. He took me aside and told me how brave I was, how lucky little Max was that I was there to care for him, to protect him like I did. He didn’t talk to me like the others did. He treated me like a fellow spy. When he talked about how lucky little Max was to have me and said not all kids are that lucky, I think I saw a tear come to his eye, but I’m not so sure. I don’t think FBI agents cry. Spies sure don’t. Besides, I was so excited because Agent Linwood gave me his FBI cap, snugged the strap and put it on my head, as the ambulance was taking me off to the hospital. I think he knows kids. Knows I’m not invisible. He’s a lot like Auntie Liv. Has the gift.

I like Agent Linwood. And I think Auntie Liv does, too.

Anyway, although all the rescuers and emergency people have been so nice to me, I’m glad to have some time alone with the doctor. It sure seems like a lifetime ago when my rainy day began and turned to sleet once Mr. Fletcher dropped me and little Max down that hole. I was glad I broke little Max’s fall and even more glad that he broke my leg. It will be a great story at school. Most of all, the single ray of sunshine in my rainiest day ever was when I heard my name called in the slimy pit of that frozen outhouse.

By my Auntie Liv.

THE GENTLE PURR OF
Noah’s soft snoring was the best Christmas music I’d ever heard in my life. And seeing him warm and snug, tucked in the hospital bed beside mine—both of us relatively unscathed from the horror that was creepy man Fletcher—was the best gift I had ever received. His tiny little cast from his knee to his toes was covered in signatures from well wishers, whereas my cast from my elbow to fingertips was unmarked as yet.

My sisters and brothers-in-law had just left; Frances was happy that I was planning to stay with Noah overnight, even though my injuries didn’t warrant the attention. She would get a good night’s sleep for once, not worried about the care Noah deserved. And she would be well rested to prepare a second Christmas Eve dinner so that we could all gather around the table together tomorrow night. Mom and Dad were on their way, driving to see for themselves that little Noah was well, and that I was, too.

I hadn’t heard Jack come into the room, let alone step up to the bed where I was sitting, watching Noah sleep across from me. Jack’s kiss startled me. Without a word, he sat beside me, his arm around my waist. I was grateful that Frances had brought me a fresh set of clothes and that the hospital let me take a shower in the employee changing room. Otherwise, I would still be wearing the clothes I’d borrowed from Phil that were soiled
from the outhouse and too formfitting for my taste. I smelled antiseptic, sterilized, but at least I didn’t smell as bad as I had before I changed. Jack didn’t seem to mind one bit.

“How are you?” he whispered.

I nodded, smiled, and glanced over at Noah who was fast asleep, wearing the FBI cap Jack had given him. “Great, now. You made his day.”

“He made mine.”

A long silence passed between us as we sat watching Noah sleep.

“Do you want to talk about it? Your son?”

“Someday,” he said, sighing and kissing me on the cheek. “For now, I hope it’s enough that you know how much I love you.”

Stunned by his heartfelt admission, I turned to him to reply. But he had already moved off. I turned just in time to see him step away, put his finger against his lips to hush me, and offer a wave good-bye. I closed my gaping mouth, wondering what I would have said if he had stayed, realizing a good night’s sleep might clear my swimming head.

I don’t know how long I sat there, letting the words “I love you” hang in the air, but I was pulled from my wistful reverie by an energetic voice.

“Noah!”

With my back to the door, I heard little Max call before I saw him run toward the hospital bed, his dad following into the room. Noah’s eyes fluttered open and a smile instantly appeared on his face. Little Max jumped against the bedside, latched onto the metal bed railings, and climbed over the bars as if Noah’s bed was a playground jungle gym, cuddling up beside Noah before Max or I could stop him. Noah’s laugh erupted, causing little Max to do the same, contagion in the room.

“You were so brave,” I said to little Max. “I’m proud of you.”

“Noah’s the brave one. You should have seen how brave he was with Papa cursing and yelling and slamming his fist against the steering wheel on the drive to the woods. Noah just laughed. Which made me laugh. Which just made Papa even madder.”