ON FRIDAY WHEN NEELY and Grub arrived at Halcyon they went directly to the doghouse for a visit with poor old Lion. Grub was still rolling around on the ground with his arms wrapped around his head to keep Lion from licking his face, when the kitchen door opened and Curtis came out. Neely went to meet him.
“Hi,” she said. “Here we are, right on time.”
Curtis wasn’t smiling. “Yeah,” he said. “So I see. You and your shadow. Who invited your shadow?”
Neely gave him a long stare. “What do you mean?” she asked. “You asked both of us, didn’t you? Because if you didn’t we can just go right—”
Curtis grabbed his elbows, squeezed his arms against his chest, and ducked his head, looking at Neely out of the tops of his eyes. “All right,” he said. “All right. He’s invited. He’s... His shoulders lifted in a jerky shudder. “Look at him. How can he let that mutt slobber all over him like that?”
While Curtis stared at Grub and Lion, Neely watched him curiously. “I guess you just don’t like dogs,” she said.
“I hate them,” he said. “I’d like to kill them all. I did kill one once.”
“You what?”
“I shot one. With my dad’s gun.” Curtis’s chin was jutting out again. “He tried to bite me so I shot him.”
Neely stared at him. It might just be another of Curtis’s lies. She hoped so. Giving him a really disgusted look she said, “I hope you’re joking.”
He looked away, up at the sky and then down at his arms, which were still hugging his chest. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m joking. Hey...what do you want to do? Want to play pool?”
“Sure,” Neely said. “I don’t know how, but I guess I can learn.”
When Grub tore himself away from Lion and came over, wiping his face, Curtis didn’t say hello. Instead he just turned to Neely and said, “Okay. Let’s go.”
As they were going down the hall Neely asked Curtis where his parents and Carmen were.
“Carmen’s around here somewhere,” he said. “In her room I think. My mom and dad are in Monterey. To see a doctor. My dad has this doctor’s appointment every Friday.”
“Oh. Is he sick?” Neely asked.
“Well, sort of. It’s his nerves. He’s very nervous,” Curtis said. “He doesn’t think he needs to go, but he has to because he said he would. He promised he’d see this doctor every week if we came here to live.”
That was interesting. Neely wanted to know who Mr. Hutchinson had promised and why he had to, but before she could ask they passed the stairs and Grub grabbed her arm. “Aren’t we going up to the nursery?” he asked. When Neely told him they were going to play pool instead he looked disappointed.
“Look,” Neely said. “Could Grub go play in the nursery?”
“Sure,” Curtis said. “Feel free, pal. You go right on up to the nursery. Don’t forget to get the key. It’s in the kitchen now. On one of those hooks near the door.”
“Why do you keep it locked?” Neely asked.
“I don’t. It’s Carmen. Carmen keeps it locked.” He shrugged, and then as Grub started up the stairs he called after him, “Hey, kid. Say hello to Monica for me.”
Neely was surprised. She hadn’t told him about Grub’s “playing with Monica” game and she was sure Grub hadn’t either. “Why did you say that?” she asked when Grub had disappeared up the stairs.
“Say what?”
“About Grub’s saying hello to Monica.”
“Oh, that. Because that’s where she’s supposed to be. The Monica ghost. Carmen said so. I asked her to go in the nursery with me, and she went in and looked around but she wouldn’t stay. She said that she’d never been there before. Like, not even when she used to come here when my dad was a kid. That room was always locked even then. Nobody ever went in there. So that must be why. Because it was haunted.”
Neely was a little bit shocked. While Curtis got down the pool cues and showed her how to hold them, she had a hard time keeping her mind on what he was saying. She kept thinking about Grub up there all alone in what was, maybe, a haunted room.
She hadn’t thought of it that way before—even that time when she’d held the sampler like a magic charm between the palms of her hands and concentrated on Monica so hard she’d seen her, or at least had almost seen her. Even then she hadn’t connected the nursery and Monica with words like “haunted” or “ghost.” Somehow she hadn’t ever felt that way about Monica. But now the word “haunted” kept popping into her mind, making it hard for her to concentrate on what Curtis was saying. But after a while she began to get interested in learning to play pool.
She wasn’t too bad at it. Not great, but almost as good as Curtis and he’d had a lot more practice. She almost won once or twice, and one time she almost certainly would have except that Curtis changed the rules at the last minute. After he’d changed them two or three more times she decided she was going to read up on the rules before she tried to play pool with Curtis again.
Once when she’d kind of given up on trying to keep Curtis from cheating, she decided not even to watch him taking his turn. Instead she wandered off into the library. She hadn’t been there since the Hutchinsons moved in, and before that it had been her favorite room, next to the nursery, of course. She hadn’t had a chance to look at the family portrait over the fireplace since she’d learned about Monica.
Standing in front of the fireplace, she stared up at the picture of the man with the slick, dark hair, the pale-faced woman, the two boys and the little girl. Mostly she looked at the pretty little girl and the two sleek-faced brothers with their heavy brows and blank, dark eyes.
This time there was something about the picture that made her feel uneasy, as if the peaceful calm she’d always felt in the library had been spoiled. But later, sitting in the alcove near the shelf of books about girls and horses, it came back again. A comforted feeling, as if she were in a place where someone could be safe and happy. She was still sitting in the alcove when Curtis came looking for her.
“Hey,” he said. “I won. I ran the whole table.”
Neely wasn’t a bit surprised. An hour or so later when she announced she was getting a pool headache, Curtis tried to talk her into a game of chess, or badminton, but she said “no, thanks” and started up the stairs to get Grub. Curtis followed her, still arguing about it being too early to go home.
When they got to the nursery Neely noticed the door wasn’t quite closed and she was just putting out her hand to open it when Curtis grabbed her arm and whispered, “Shhh. Listen. Someone’s talking.”
Neely listened and, of course, it was Grub. Grub’s voice talking steadily but not quite loud enough for her to hear the exact words. She shoved the door open and went in. Grub was sitting on the floor playing with the model barnyard. He had the dog in his hand and he was making him round up a herd of cows, sheep, and pigs. When he saw Neely and Curtis he jumped to his feet and said, “Hi. Is it time to go?”
Then, as he bent down to put the dog back in the barnyard, Neely saw him smile and whisper something—something that looked like good-bye.
Neely glanced at Curtis. She wasn’t sure if he realized that Grub had been telling Monica good-bye, but from the look on his face she thought maybe he did.
Chapter 29
CURTIS KEPT ON PHONING. SOMETIMES HE JUST WANTED to talk. Usually he talked about the school he went to in Beverly Hills and about the places he used to go with his friends. Places like Universal Studios and Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland. And how all his friends had lots of money but he had the most money so he usually got to decide what they were going to do. And what great times he’d had and how much more fun it was than living out here on the edge of nowhere. But on Friday when he called, the last Friday before school started, Neely could tell right away by the sound of his voice that something was wrong. It was almost as if he’d been crying.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“Matter? What makes you think something’s the matter?”
he said in an argumentative tone of voice, and then before she even could answer he said, “Yeah. You’re right. Something’s the matter but I don’t want to talk about it.” There was a gulping sound and then he went on, “Hey, can you come up?”
Neely suppressed a sigh. She really didn’t want to say yes, but at the same time she couldn’t help feeling sorry for poor old Curtis. Not to mention curious about what had happened to upset him so much. She wondered if it might be something to do with Monica.
“Well, I don’t know... she was saying when he added, “Both of you. Bring Grub, too, if you want to.”
“Well, I’ll see,” Neely said. “I’ll see if—”
Just then something tapped her on the shoulder and she turned to see Grub standing behind her, smiling and nodding his head.
“Okay,” she said, shrugging off her misgivings. “We’ll see you in about an hour. Okay?”
Curtis and Grub said okay in unison.
When they got to Halcyon House that day Grub again insisted on going first to visit Lion. But this time, while Grub and Lion were still wrestling, Reuben came out of his little house. He was wearing his familiar old floppy hat and his face was as worn and saggy as his overalls. Standing on his front step he stared at the giggling Grub and the bouncy, tail-wagging Lion. And Neely stared at him.
Watching Reuben made her feel creepy without exactly knowing why, except that he’d been a kind of bogeyman for so long—for all those months when the only real threat to Grub and Neely’s secret visits to Halcyon was the danger of being caught by the fierce-looking old man. But now, as Neely watched, Reuben’s face broke into a different pattern of cliffs and valleys and his mouth stretched into what was unmistakably a grin. Neely watched in surprise, and then went over and held out her hand.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Neely Bradford. And that’s Grub.” She smiled and shrugged. “He likes dogs a lot.”
Reuben nodded. “I see,” he said. “They are old friends, are they not? Your brother and Lion?”
Neely gulped. Did that mean that Reuben knew about all their secret visits to Halcyon? She certainly hoped not. “Old friends?” she asked. “Well, sort of. Some people make old friends in a hurry.”
Reuben turned his surprising, saggy smile toward Neely. “Quite true,” he said slowly. Then he went on staring at Grub and Lion until, at the sound of a slamming door, he glanced up, turned on his heel, and disappeared into his cottage.
It was Curtis who had slammed the door as he emerged from the kitchen carrying a net and two badminton racquets. He was wearing baggy khaki shorts, there were blotchy red spots on his face, and his eyes were even jumpier than usual. A few minutes later when Grub had disappeared in the direction of the nursery, and Neely and Curtis were heading for the tennis court, Neely asked again if anything was the matter.
Curtis shrugged and didn’t answer, but when they got to the court and Neely was helping him string up the badminton net, he suddenly said, “It’s my stupid father. It’s my stupid paranoid father that’s the matter.” His eyes were narrowed to angry slits and some muscles around the corners of his mouth were twitching.
“Paranoid?”
“Yeah. You know what that means?”
Neely thought she had a general idea but before she could answer Curtis went on, “That means you think everyone’s out to get you. Unless you get them first.” Curtis’s voice was getting higher and tighter. “What it means is you’re nuts. Crazy. Psycho!”
He was practically shrieking before he stopped. Neither one said anything for a minute or two. Then Neely said, “Oh. Is that why he has all those guns? Because he’s worried about someone trying to get him?”
“Yeah. That’s part of it. And all that survival stuff too. He just thinks somebody’s going to start a revolution any minute and kill everybody unless you kill them first. And what’s even stupider, he thinks that if I go into Monterey with him and go to the aquarium or walk around Cannery Row or something while he’s at the doctor’s I’ll get kidnapped or something.”
“Oh,” Neely said. After a moment’s thought she asked, “Couldn’t your mom go to the aquarium with you, so you wouldn’t have to go alone?”
“No. She didn’t want to go anywhere today. She’s still in bed.”
Neely looked at her watch. “In bed? Is she sick or something?”
“No, she’s not sick. She just doesn’t feel like getting up. Sometimes she doesn’t get up all day. She just lies there and drinks chardonnay and plays solitaire.”
That was a pretty amazing thought. For a moment Neely tried to picture her own mother lying in bed all day...and gave up. It was just too completely unimaginable. When she’d finished getting her end of the net tied up she asked, “Who told you your father was paranoid?”
Curtis’s frown made Neely think of an angry cat.
“Okay, okay,” she said. “Forget it.” She smiled apologetically. “Sorry I asked. Okay?”
Curtis clutched his elbows and the frown gradually faded. “Everybody told me,” he said suddenly. “All my cousins. All my stupid, fat-headed cousins. And Carmen. And my mom too. Everybody says so. That’s the reason he has to go to the shrink every Friday. My uncle made him promise to go to the shrink or we couldn’t live here—in this house.”
“Your uncle? How come your uncle gets to tell your father what to do?”
“Because he’s the trustee. That means he gets to say when my father gets money from the estate. And when he doesn’t. That’s why we had to come here to live. Because my crummy uncle decided the trust wouldn’t pay our rent anymore, so we had to live here or nowhere.” Curtis threw a bird up into the air and smashed it so hard it went clear off the court and into the tall weeds.
While they were hunting for the bird Neely was careful not to ask any more questions. And she certainly didn’t mention that Curtis had just as much as admitted that all his big stories about his father and why he and his family had come to Halcyon House had been lies.
When they started playing she let Curtis win sometimes, even though she could have won every game if she’d wanted to. Curtis wasn’t much of a badminton player. He puffed and panted and every few minutes he fell over his own feet. When he missed a shot he got angry at the racquet or the net, or sometimes at the bird.
Once when the bird got stuck in a tree he threw a rock at it to get it loose and the rock bounced back and hit him in the head. It wasn’t a very big rock and it couldn’t have hurt all that much, but when he finally got the bird down he stomped on it until it was completely flat.
“Hey,” Neely said, laughing. “What are you doing that for? Now we can’t play anymore.”
Curtis stopped glaring at the smashed bird and gave Neely a cocky grin. “Sure we can,” he said, and pulled another bird out of his pocket. “My serve. Are you ready?” Then he threw the squashed bird into the bushes and started serving.
For a while after that he was pretty cheerful, as if squashing the bird had made him feel better. He was still in a pretty good mood when Neely said she’d better go get Grub and head for home.
“Hey,” he said as they were going up the stairs to the second floor. “All that stuff about my dad was a lie. Okay? I was lying about him.” He ducked his head and grinned his twitchy grin. “I’m a good liar,” he said. Which wasn’t exactly news to Neely.
Chapter 30
ON THE FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL GRUB WALKED DOWN TO the bus stop with Neely even though his bus, the one that went to Carmel River School, wasn’t due for quite a while.
“I’ll go back up to the house before your bus comes,” he said. “I just want to wait with you for a while. Like old times.” So Neely swallowed a grin and said, “Okay. Like old times,” and started talking about Mrs. Kingman who would be his teacher for the third grade. They were still talking when Carmen’s beat-up old Buick came down the hill and turned out onto Highway One. She pulled up at the bus stop and Curtis got out.
“Hi,” Neely said. She was surprised that Curtis was going
to ride the bus. She’d heard that new kids from outside the district had to come with their parents on the first day.
Curtis said hi and then, nodding toward Grub, he asked, “What’s he doing here? I thought you said the bus for elementary school kids doesn’t come till later.”
Neely waved at Carmen as she backed and turned the car around before she answered Curtis’s question. “He was just keeping me company for a while. How come you’re riding the bus today? Won’t your parents have to go to the office to fill out the transfer forms and stuff like that?”
“No,” Curtis said. “My dad called the school. And I’ve got all the papers from my old school with me. I didn’t want my folks taking me to school like I was some wimpy little elementary school dweeb. Who needs it?”
Neely didn’t say anything about how Curtis was just one summer away from being an “elementary school dweeb” himself, but she let her grin suggest it. Then she pulled Grub aside and went on telling him about Mrs. Kingman.
Fortunately Neely had been in Mrs. Kingman’s class herself three years before, so she was able to tell Grub how great she was and how she always made her class work at being a “community,” which basically meant they all had to get along and be nice to each other, or else. Hearing about being part of a community seemed to cheer Grub up for a minute, but then he sighed and frowned.
“I probably won’t do it right,” he said. “You probably have to go around talking to people and saying the right kinds of things and... He sighed again.
Neely smiled. “What kinds of things?” she asked.
Grub shrugged. “I don’t know. That’s why I don’t do it right.”
Neely was still suggesting some things Grub might say that morning when he met people he hadn’t seen since last year, when she glanced over to where Curtis was leaning against the school bus sign. He’d taken some papers out of his backpack and was pretending to be looking through them, but he was really watching Grub and Neely out of the corners of his squinted eyes. She was about to tell him what she and Grub were talking about and see if he had any suggestions, when the middle-school bus came into view and Grub dashed off up the hill.
The Trespassers Page 10
