Roland West, Loner

by Theresa Linden

  “I wonder if Reinhard’s still at the house. I should call home.”

  She stood with her purse, nearly lost her books, and her pen fell. “Did you ever find the key to the box?” She stooped and set her books on the floor.

  “Mom said it was in my jeans. She put it in that dish in the laundry room.”

  Caitlyn blew air from her mouth and straightened up again, books secure in her arms, purse still on the floor. “That’s good.”

  “No, it’s not. ‘Cuz it’s not in the dish anymore. It’s gone. It’s just plain gone.” He bent over, snatched her purse, and set it on her books.

  “Maybe he has the key,” she whispered, eyes wide as if she saw a ghost. “Did anyone claim that fancy pen we found in the laundry room?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe it’s Mr. Reinhard’s. Maybe he dropped it when he found the key. And maybe he knows where you hid the box. Do you think you could’ve been followed when you went to the hiding place?”

  Peter shook his head. “Roland and I moved fast.” Even as he answered her, he remembered . . . Roland kept peering over his shoulder, as if he heard something or someone in the woods. Maybe they had been followed. “Have you seen Roland today? I wonder what his dad said about the writing in the book.”

  “I wish you would’ve shown me the book.” She put on her sulky face.

  “You’ll see it. Don’t worry. So have you seen Roland?”

  “No. I will, though, unless he dodges me. Do you think he forgave me?”

  “I don’t know. Does he seem like a guy who would hold a grudge? Don’t answer that. But if you see him, tell him we need to check on the box. Maybe I should keep it with me, just in case.” Why not? He could carry it around in the backpack until they figured out what its contents meant. “Yeah, tell Roland we have a mission today.”

  He slammed his locker shut. “Hey, why do you think Mom and Dad never mentioned they knew Mr. West? Roland’s been over our house. And Dad knew where he lived without asking, Roland said. So he obviously knew he was a West. You think he’d say something.” Trying to imitate Dad’s way of speaking, he said, “Hey, Peter, your new friend there, he lives in a castle. And me and his pop, well, we go way back.” He grimaced, shaking his head. “You know what I’m saying?”

  “Oh, Peter.” Caitlyn swooshed her hand at him. “People don’t have to tell you everything they know. I know things that I don’t tell you.”

  Peter grinned. “I’ll just ask the girls in your study hall.”

  She smacked his arm. “You’re not nice.” Her face melted. “Do you think he forgave me?”

  Chapter 41

  The first dismissal bell rang, and Roland bolted from Physical Science class. With his books on his hip, he weaved around the horde of students in the hall, on his way to serve his first detention. Kids shouted and cussed, pushed and fought, slammed lockers, and ran for the doors, all self-restraint cast aside.

  A girl in his path tried to climb onto a boy’s shoulders for a piggyback ride. Laughing and unsuccessful, she slid off. Still laughing, she stumbled backwards into Roland, breaking his stride. “Sorry.” She giggled.

  Roland maneuvered around her and glimpsed a figure at the end of the hallway, the only motionless person in sight.

  Caitlyn stood on tiptoes, peering into the crowd.

  His stomach sunk. He turned, deciding to take the long way to detention. He’d have time.

  “Roland!” Her voice rose above the chatter.

  He could duck into a classroom or speed up and disappear into the crowd. Maybe she’d think he hadn’t noticed her.

  “Roland!” Judging by the sound of her voice, she was almost upon him.

  He sighed and stopped.

  Before turning to face her, she caught up to him and said, “Hi.”

  He shoved his free hand into his jacket pocket and gave her a cold glance. “Oh, hi.”

  “I looked for you at lunch. I thought you always ate by that old tree.”

  “What’s up?”

  “Oh.” She bit her bottom lip and stepped back. “Um, Peter wanted me to tell you . . . Well, he wants to go get the box. He wants you to come over after school. And he was wondering what your father thought about the writing in the book.”

  “I didn’t show it to him yet.” He answered quickly and looked away. Peter wouldn’t be happy with his answer. “I’ll show it to him today. But, uh, I can’t go with him after school. I have, uh, I have to stick around.”

  “Stick around? School? Why?” Her eyelids fluttered. Her bottom lip puffed out.

  Roland barely breathed. She had the most perfectly-shaped mouth a girl could have. She looked like a doll, a beautiful doll, like the French bisque Papa gave Mama one year.

  “Can you come over later?” she said.

  His heart skipped a beat. “Come over?”

  “I mean to Peter’s house?”

  “I don’t know. I, uh, I might.” At that instant, he felt like telling her everything, about getting his first detention, about Jarret begging him not to tell, about what Papa said to him—

  Had he lost his mind?

  Walk away. Get to detention. Don’t say a word. Just say ‘no’ and go. Roland stepped back, but then the words slipped out. “I have to serve detention. And then I might be in some trouble at home.”

  “Detention?” A smile flickered on her face.

  Was she laughing at him? He stopped breathing. His stomach twisted. He was a fool. “Something funny?”

  She frowned, pouting. “No. It’s just that you trusted me with that.”

  Roland breathed.

  “And now, I want to ask why you have a detention. But I won’t. I don’t want to push my luck.” She smiled and her green eyes sparkled under the fluorescent light.

  Then the final bell rang and she gasped. “I have to catch the bus.” She dashed away, her black and gray paisley-print skirt flouncing about her legs.

  The final bell? Roland made a break for the detention room, dashing down the hall, past the last few kids in the building, around the corner . . .

  He bolted through the door but stopped dead at the silence.

  Mr. Bonati, a twelfth-grade teacher, sat on the edge of the teacher’s desk at the front of the room, staring at his watch. He lifted his gaze. “You’re late. You need to be in the room and sitting at a desk before the last bell. What’s your name?”

  “Uh, Roland, Roland West.”

  “Mm. I’ve heard about you. I guess it was just a matter of time.” Mr. Bonati lifted a paper from his desk and gestured for Roland to come and get it. “Have a seat, Roland West. When you’re late to detention, you get the privilege of copying the Rules for Serving Detention, in your best penmanship, on a clean sheet of paper.”

  Someone in the room chuckled.

  Roland took the paper. The rules filled both sides of it. With a sigh, he turned to find a desk.

  Five other kids slouched at desks. Four he didn’t recognize but one he did: Foster Masson. Foster stared, tapping the eraser of his pencil over a doodling on his desk. A sly smile spread on his face. He gave a single nod.

  Chapter 42

  The bus screeched to a stop in front of Peter’s house.

  Peter popped up. He pictured himself stepping through the waterfall and diving through the pool to check on the box. It had better be there.

  Caitlyn didn’t budge from the seat.

  “Come on, Caitlyn.” He motioned for her to get her butt moving.

  She had spent the entire bus ride in silence, her forehead pressed to the window, her eyes stuck in an unfocused gaze. She hadn’t even complained about him drumming his thumbs on the seatback or folding and unfolding his arms the entire time.

  The bus sighed and the driver cranked the door open.

  “Caitlyn, come on.”

  She hugged her books and got up.

  Peter bounded to the front of the bus and leaped off.

  As Caitlyn stumbled off the bus, her algebra book slipped a
nd bit the dust. She looked at it but made no effort to get it.

  “Oh, please,” Peter said, sarcastically, “allow me.”

  He snatched the book and dragged her away from the bus so the driver could stop glaring and move on. Four cars had piled up behind the bus.

  Peter headed for the front stoop.

  Caitlyn stayed in place, staring at the cars behind the bus.

  “Come on.” Impatience eked out in his tone.

  “I saw that car at school. The black one.”

  “That’s nice. Let’s go. Let’s drop our books in the house.” He yanked open the screen door.

  “Look.” She turned but she hadn’t inched any nearer the door. “Does one of your guests have a big black car?”

  “I don’t know. Who cares? Gimme your books.” He reached a hand out.

  She strolled toward the house.

  He exhaled, stepped inside, and held the door open with his back.

  “Don’t you think it’s strange that the same car I saw at school just pulled into the parking on the bed-and-breakfast side of your house?” She dragged her feet up the steps and squeezed past him, into the house.

  “Not really.” He took her books from her. She really ought to get a backpack like everybody else. “It’s probably Mr. Reinhard. He is, after all, our history—”

  His sentence died in his throat. Mr. Reinhard wouldn’t be coming from school, since he was no longer their history teacher.

  They exchanged bug-eyed looks.

  “Do you think he’s following us?” she said.

  “I don’t know. Come on.” He tossed his backpack and her books onto the couch and bolted to his room. After snatching his hiking backpack, he flew down the stairs.

  Caitlyn stood in the kitchen, munching on an oatmeal cookie and talking to Mom about the fancy pen they had found in the laundry room.

  “Hey, Mom.” Peter leaned on the bar counter. “Maybe I should’ve mentioned this sooner, but I saw Mr. Reinhard creeping around our house the other night.”

  Mom laughed and set down the knife she’d been using to cut vegetables. “Yes. I see him creeping around here a lot, too.” She dumped the vegetables into a crock-pot.

  “Really?” He couldn’t believe it. Mom’s caught him too, huh?

  Mom put the lid on the crock-pot and turned to face him. “Peter, I know you don’t particularly like Mr. Reinhard. But your aunt Lotti does. So I want you to respect their relationship.”

  His mouth fell open. Was she for real? “But he was creeping around our house in the dark. Doesn’t that bother—?”

  “Peter.” Mom’s face showed her zero-toleration stance.

  “But Mom, he was—”

  “Enough.” She picked up the knife. “Aunt Lotti enjoys his company, and that’s all we need to know.” She dropped the knife into the sink and blasted the water.

  Peter rolled his eyes, disgusted. “Come on, Caitlyn, let’s go.”

  “I have to go to the bathroom.”

  “You’re kidding me. Why didn’t you go while I was upstairs? He could come walking through those doors any second now.” He made a nod in the direction of the glass door that led to the guests’ quarters.

  THE OVERCAST SKY DULLED the shadows and colored the forest in grayish hues of brown and green. Caitlyn hadn’t spoken a word since they sprinted from the house to the cover of the trees. So they walked to the sound of their footsteps and an occasional skirmish among squirrels.

  Peter couldn’t shake the empty feeling in his gut. What if they got to the hiding place and found someone had taken the box? If only Caitlyn would move a little faster.

  “Why are you so quiet?” he said. “Don’t you have anything to say about school, or your sisters, or the trees? I usually can’t get you to shut up.”

  That should’ve riled her up, but she only gave him a blank look. Then a warm breeze blew her hair over her face and hid her eyes. Leaving her tangled locks in disarray, she turned away and put up the hood of her blue sweater.

  “Aw, come on, what’s the matter?”

  “He hasn’t forgiven me.”

  “He? You mean Roland? How do you know he hasn’t forgiven you?”

  “He wouldn’t even look at me when I was talking to him. You know how when you don’t want to make eye contact, you just look at someone’s nose or mouth?”

  He was about to say something about her hiding behind her hair, but she didn’t give him a split-second to reply.

  “That’s what he did to me,” she said.

  “Oh well. Give him time. I’m sure he’ll eventually forgive you. Just be persistent like the widow with the judge, in the Bible.” He grinned. “You know, just be yourself.”

  Caitlyn turned her hair-sheathed face toward him. “Did I ever tell you I don’t like you?”

  “Yeah, all the time.”

  “Why can’t you—”

  Something scurried in the woods behind them. Caitlyn stopped walking and turned around.

  “Don’t stop.” Peter tugged her arm. “It’s probably an animal, but if we are being followed, let’s not stand here and wait for him to catch up. And hey . . .” A few yards ahead, an overgrown trail branched off the main trail. They could use it and still get to the waterfall. “Let’s get off this path, just in case.”

  The wind grew stronger. Leaves quivered overhead as they crunched along a narrow path. The woods had seemed quiet when they started out, but now twigs cracked, bushes rustled, and the wind blew in noisy gusts.

  Just beyond a cluster of overgrown bushes, the trail opened to a rocky area of boulders and pine trees. Beyond that, the ground dropped off to the valley far below.

  “Let’s climb up and see if we can spot anyone.” He headed for the highest boulder, one that rose about fifteen feet.

  “You’ll be like a beacon.” She stood with her hands on her hips. “Let’s just hide in the boulders and wait.”

  He stuck the toe of his shoe into a crack, clutched onto the cold stone wherever he could get a hold, and pulled himself up. “Hide? What if we’re not being followed? Won’t you feel pretty stupid?”

  “Around you? Never.”

  He reached the top and straightened.

  Thick gray clouds rolled across the sky and cast roaming shadows in the valley below the boulders. On the other side, bushes and pine trees blocked the view of the path they had come down. But between tree trunks and branches, about fifty feet away, something moved.

  Peter sucked in a breath.

  It wasn’t something. It was someone, someone wearing a gray jacket.

  “Caitlyn,” he whispered, scrambling down.

  She spun to face the woods.

  He clamped onto her arm and jerked it. “Come on,” he whispered, dashing to the far side of the boulders. “We’ll go with your idea and hide.”

  Her body jerked, and her arm slipped from his grasp. She let out a low grunt.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of Caitlyn that formed a still-life picture in his mind. Her mouth and eyes were opened as wide as they could possibly go. Her long red locks and her hands reached for the cloudy sky. She reminded him of a first-time skydiver. A split-second later—back to real time—she tumbled to the ground and landed on her face. A few pine needles and dead leaves blew up around her.

  Leaves crunched nearby.

  “Get up.” Peter’s heart raced. He yanked her to her feet.

  She dashed behind the boulders and squeezed into a gap between rocks.

  He squatted close to her and waited.

  “What’d you see?” she whispered, eyes still wide.

  “Shh.”

  The wind rattled the leaves and made branches creak, but it didn’t hide the other sounds. A bush rustled. A twig cracked. Something drew nearer.

  Peter held his breath.

  Something thrashed in a bush on the opposite side of the boulders.

  Peter squeezed closer to Caitlyn.

  A thump. A patter. A squirrel zoomed past.


  Caitlyn gasped then moved her lips to speak.

  His hand shot out. He clasped her mouth shut. “Wait,” he whispered, his voice barely audible. He rose up enough to peek through a crack between rocks.

  Someone stepped into view. A gray jacket showed between rocks. Then the figure moved, shuffling through pine needles, scraping near the rocks, along the rocks . . .

  Peter’s heart pounded. Don’t come around the rocks. He pressed his body to the cold boulder.

  On the other side, a stone slipped. A man grunted. More stones slipped. He must’ve been climbing the rocks. Once he made it to the top, he could look down. He would see them.

  The ground dropped off a short distance from them, sloping sharply down to the valley. They could climb down there. The man wouldn’t follow. Would he?

  Caitlyn’s round eyes looked about ready to pop.

  Another grunt and a sliding sound came. Had he slipped back down? Pine needles crunched. The footfalls moved away.

  Peter and Caitlyn exhaled together. They waited a good five minutes before moving.

  Then Peter got up and checked the other side of the boulders. “He’s gone.”

  Caitlyn came up behind him. “Are you sure?”

  He shrugged. “Well, I don’t see him.”

  “Was it Mr. Reinhard?”

  “I don’t know. That’d be my guess, but I only saw a gray jacket.” He crossed the clearing and pulled back the branches of a bush that blocked an overgrown path.

  “Why are you going that way? Didn’t we come from there?”

  “Yeah, we’re going back home.”

  “Why? I thought you wanted—”

  He shook his head. “Not as long as he’s in the woods. We can go another time. The way I see it, if he’s following us, he doesn’t know where the hiding place is.” He grinned. “So, it’s safe.”

  Chapter 43

  Untouched snowdrifts covered the ground as far as the eye could see. Bare trees and a weathered wooden fence broke up the white on one side of Harry’s huge back yard, distant houses and a red barn, the other. Clumps of snow and dried cattails surrounded the frozen pond at the back of the yard.