Shadow Show: All-New Stories in Celebration of Ray Bradbury (40 page)

Hayleigh got there first, but before she could turn the knob, Sharon had arrived, too, right beside her, and she put her hand on top of Hayleigh’s hand. So, in effect, they opened it together.

And likewise, once they’d opened the door and bolted across the threshold, and even though Sharon was large, they were able to head down the stairs side by side, breaking the rule at exactly the same moment, so that it could never be said that one girl was more responsible, that one girl was more to blame for what happened than the other girl. You could not say that.

W
hich one of them turned on the light over the basement stairs?

Sharon couldn’t remember whose fingers had actually scrabbled at the wall switch just inside the basement door, dousing the staircase with light. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that they were hurrying down those stairs, elbows bumping, feet shuffling in that tumbling rhythm induced by a succession of downward steps, and there was an overhead light to show them the way, to keep them from tripping. They were giggling, too, but the giggles popped up in between their panting breaths, so the giggles sounded like hiccoughs. The steps creaked a little bit, especially right at the top.

Why were they rushing? Sharon wasn’t sure. Hayleigh’s dad would be gone for at least an hour. It took about twenty minutes to drive out to the mall; it might take even longer on a Saturday, when the traffic stacked up because everybody was crazy to get to The Limited and Forever 21 and Sears. Even if Hayleigh’s dad finished his job right away, which wasn’t likely, given the seriousness of his voice when he talked to his boss—it seemed, Sharon thought, like a big, complex task, a real mess—they’d still have way over an hour to explore.

So why did they fly down the basement stairs, bumping and laughing?

She didn’t know. Hayleigh probably didn’t know either, Sharon guessed. Hayleigh had only been down here a few times herself, she’d told Sharon, even though she lived here; this was her dad’s special place.

It just seemed natural for them to go down the steps quickly, headlong, not tentatively. Maybe it was because, if they chickened out on the way, their scrambling momentum would carry them forward. Somehow they both had known, without talking about it, that the moment Hayleigh’s dad told them not to go down into the basement—“Never, never,
never
”—they’d come here. Right away. When you’re best friends with someone, Sharon reflected, that’s what happens: You start to know what the other person is thinking. It’s automatic.

They reached the bottom of the staircase. And then Sharon understood. She immediately realized why Hayleigh’s dad had declared the basement off-limits. This was Ed Westin’s workshop, and it was gorgeous. The kind of space you don’t want a couple of kids messing up.

It was the coolest workshop Sharon had ever seen. Everything gleamed. There were high wooden workbenches along three walls. Rising from the backs of the benches were square sheets of dark brown particleboard perforated by dozens of small, elegant holes. Tiny silver hooks jutted from the holes. From the hooks dangled a stunning variety of tools—hammers, chisels, drills, clamps, levels—in graduated sizes. It was all neatly organized.

Sharon didn’t know the names of a lot of the tools. She knew hammers, of course, and screwdrivers and drills, things like that, but some of the more specialized tools looked complicated. They looked densely compacted with a single-minded purpose. You could, Sharon thought with deep satisfaction, build anything down here. Anything you wanted to build.

A cabinet, a bookcase, a table, a boat. Anything.

Even a rocket.

“It’s the tools,” Hayleigh said. “That’s why he doesn’t like us coming down here. Messing with his stuff.”

Sharon did not require the explanation. She’d never have even
touched
anything in this room. It was all too beautiful. Too perfect. She wouldn’t consider putting a finger on one of the workbenches, because the wood had been stained a deep honey color, shiny and rich, a color that looked as if a dozen years of sunlight had been trapped in the lacquer. She’d never pick up one of the drills. She had too much respect for Hayleigh’s dad to do that.

“It’s
amazing
,” Sharon said.

“Yeah.”

They were still standing at the bottom of the stairs. They hadn’t moved forward since arriving there, arms hanging at their sides, heads turning.

Sharon wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did: Hayleigh’s dad was building something very special in this basement. That was why he didn’t want people coming down here. Sure, he was worried about them possibly bothering his tools—but there was more to it than that.

A
lot
more.

The realization gave Sharon a tingling sensation in the tips of her fingers and her toes. She knew what Hayleigh’s dad was building down here.

She couldn’t tell Hayleigh that she’d figured it out. Because the thing was, Hayleigh might not know herself yet, and it would be embarrassing for Hayleigh if Sharon—who wasn’t even related—knew before his own daughter knew. Sharon loved puzzles; she loved thinking hard about something until the answer came to her, clearly and vividly. She was good at doing that. Good at crossword puzzles, and sudoku and Scrabble and chess. Anything that required furious concentration, with some imagination sprinkled in, too. Hayleigh seemed to appreciate Sharon’s mind—she didn’t resent it, she wasn’t the least bit jealous of it—which made Sharon wonder why Hayleigh had wasted all that time with Samantha Bollinger, who, after all, wasn’t very bright. Borderline stupid.

“Your dad worked for the space shuttle, right?” Sharon said. She knew the answer, of course, because they’d discussed it many times, but she wanted to lead Hayleigh toward the truth about her dad’s project. Hayleigh would think she’d gotten there all by herself, and would be proud and pleased with herself. Sharon would never reveal that she’d helped her solve it, helped her with a series of hints. It would be enough for Sharon to know, deep in her heart, that she had made her friend feel smart.

“Yeah,” Hayleigh said. She shrugged. “When he was in the navy.”

“So he likes space stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I bet he could build anything.” Sharon swept her chubby arm around the room, indicating the vast bounty of tools. “With all this stuff, I mean. I bet he could build whatever he wanted to.”

“Yeah. So.” Another shrug.

Hayleigh started to walk toward one of the benches. Sharon pinched a piece of Hayleigh’s T-shirt when her friend went by; the fabric stretched out behind her as she kept on going.

“Wait,” Sharon said. “You can’t touch anything. Your dad’ll know we were here.”

“Let go.” Hayleigh pulled her T-shirt out of Sharon’s grasp. Then she shrugged. Sharon had once counted how many times Hayleigh shrugged in the course of just one hour: The astonishing total was seventeen.

“I’m not gonna
do
anything,” Hayleigh went on. “I’m just looking around.”

“Well, be careful.”

Sharon wished Hayleigh would pay attention and concentrate. She was close. So close. Close to figuring out what Sharon had figured out about what Hayleigh’s dad was building down here.

As she watched Hayleigh touch the tools, one by one, just a brief tap with two fingers and then on to the next tool, all around the room, Sharon let a picture of her own father rise up in her mind. Dressed in a suit and tie, he was holding a slim black leather briefcase, frowning. You could not fit
any
of these tools in that stupid briefcase, Sharon thought. Not a single one. Her father didn’t know how to build anything. He always called people to do work on their house: plumbers, carpenters, electricians. He’d called somebody to put a brick patio in the back. And if something broke—the stove or the refrigerator, the TV—he called somebody to handle that, too. Her father was always mad about something. Something was always “the height of absurdity.” That was the phrase he used. Her dad didn’t like things that were illogical or pointless or wasteful. He didn’t like half-finished projects or unmade beds or dirty dishes left in the sink. Or fat daughters.

But Hayleigh’s dad was different. He smiled a lot more than Sharon’s dad did, and made jokes, and teased her and Hayleigh—but that wasn’t the
most
different thing about him, Sharon now understood.

When they had first reached the bottom of the basement staircase, Sharon noticed it in the corner. That was her first clue. A piece of gray metal, shiny, cupped like a giant palm, running from the floor to the ceiling, resembling the side of an airplane
or . . .

A rocket.

That was it. That was the secret.

Hayleigh’s dad, Sharon realized, was building a rocket in this basement. He couldn’t discuss it, because it was probably illegal. You were probably supposed to get a government permit or something. But Hayleigh’s dad was not the kind of person who filled out forms and waited around for government permits—unlike her own dad, Sharon thought, who always did things the right way, followed all the rules, just so he could complain when things didn’t work out
after I did everything they told me to do
, he’d say bitterly—no, Hayleigh’s dad wasn’t like that. He was a rebel. He’d do it his own way. If he got into trouble—well, fine. He’d accept the consequences. Pay the price.

Sharon didn’t know how she knew, but she knew. It was a rocket. Hayleigh’s dad had the skills, and he had the tools, and naturally he didn’t want kids fooling around with his stuff. He was building a rocket down here, and one night, one night very soon, Sharon quickly theorized, he would move it outside, maybe load it into the back of his truck and take it out to the park—
no
, Sharon scolded herself,
not the park, that’s a dumb idea, way too public
—take it out to the country, out to a big field with no houses in sight. There he’d kneel down and set up his rocket and light the fuse and run away and then squat down behind a tree, a finger stuck in each ear, and watch as the rocket rose with a great
whoooooosh
into the night sky, shedding sparks and smoke and one long, trailing, beautiful yellow-blue flame, as vivid and pure as the respect Sharon felt for Hayleigh’s dad, respect for his dream, and for the fact that he had worked so hard to make it come true. Respect and awe.

Had Hayleigh figured it out yet? Sharon couldn’t tell. Her friend was still strolling around the basement, grazing the tools with her fingertips, and Sharon began to get an odd sense that Hayleigh had been in this basement more often than she’d said she had. She seemed way too familiar with the layout, Sharon noticed. When she touched a tool, it wasn’t with any degree of surprise at how it felt; she’d sneaked down here many times, Sharon suspected. It made her think slightly less of her friend.

Surely, though, if Hayleigh came down here with any regularity, then she’d figured it out by now. She must know her dad is building a rocket, Sharon thought. And maybe she’d told Samantha Bollinger.

Sharon felt a flicker of jealousy. She decided that she had to ask Hayleigh about it.

“Did you ever,” Sharon said, “bring Samantha down here?” She had tried to sound casual, but her voice betrayed her. It was shaky, too high-pitched. There was also a hint of belligerence in it.

“Huh?”

“Before she moved away, I mean,” Sharon said. “Did you and Samantha ever come down here, too?”

Hayleigh shrugged. She’d positioned her palm along the front of one of the tall workbenches. She followed the smooth beveled edge all the way to the end of it. Then she looked back at Sharon. Her eyes were blank.

“Samantha,” Hayleigh said, “didn’t move away.”

“What?”

“Samantha disappeared. They never found her. She rode off on her bike one day, and she never came home. She’d told her mom she was coming over here, but that wasn’t true. We never saw her.” Hayleigh’s voice was flat. Calmly informational. “It drove her mom crazy and she killed herself. Remember? She locked herself in that garage and turned on the car engine, and that’s how she died. Don’t you remember that, Sharon? I don’t know why you always want to go past their house. Just her dad lives there now, all by himself. He’s gotten sort of crazy. Crazy from being so sad. And from thinking all these weird things about me and my dad.”

It was true. Sharon had to admit it. She had blocked out the real story of Samantha Bollinger, told herself another story she liked better, changed Samantha’s fate, so that it suited what Sharon wanted to feel.

“Anyway,” Sharon said. “You get it now, right? You’ve figured out what your dad does down here, right?”

“Yeah,” Hayleigh said. She shrugged. “I guess I’m sorta surprised that you figured it out, though. So soon, I mean.”

So soon?
Sharon wanted to laugh.
I’m smart,
she thought.
I may be fat and ugly, but I’m smart, okay? I’m a smart girl.

That’s what her father had said to her once:
At least you’ve got brains
. She could fill in the first part of the sentence, the part he didn’t say but clearly meant:
You may be fat but at least you’ve got brains.

“Your dad’s building a rocket down here,” Sharon said, blurting it out. She wanted to giggle, too, just from how thrilling it all was.
A rocket!
Think
of it!