Then it happened.
I was cleaning a utility pole on a street I had never been on before. I had just removed another one of those stupid triangle markings when a cop car zipped by me. It didn’t have its lights or siren on, but it was moving fast. It pulled up to the curb halfway up the block.
A woman came out of the house where the cops had parked. She hurried toward them, and they all stood there for a while. The cops had their notebooks out, so I guess the woman was making some kind of report. She kept waving her arms around, and I could hear her voice from where I was standing even if I couldn’t make out what she was saying. She sounded upset.
Then she looked out into the street. She looked right at me. She must have said something to the cops, because they turned too. The woman started down her driveway away from the cops. At first she was walking fast. Then she began to jog in my direction. I turned and looked all around, trying to figure out what had caught her attention. When I turned back again, she was right in my face.
“It was you, wasn’t it?” she said.
“What?” What was she talking about?
Then the cops were there too. One of them was the cop who had talked to me twice already.
“That boy was hanging around outside Mrs. Eakins’ house just after it was broken into,” she said.
That’s when I recognized her. She was one of the two women who had been out running that day.
“He heard me,” she said to the cops. “It’s my own fault. Rob is always telling me I should be careful what I say. I tease him about being paranoid, but it looks like he’s right.”
The cops looked as confused as I was. One of them said, “M’am, if you could just—”
“He heard me,” the woman said. Her voice was loud and shrieking. “He heard me tell my friend.”
“What did you tell your friend?” one of the cops asked. The other one, the one who had talked to me before, kept his eyes on me.
“I told her that my husband put up security stickers to scare off burglars, but we didn’t really have any security alarms. He heard me. He was hanging around and he heard me.” She turned to me. “Who did you tell? Who was in on it with you? Where’s my car?”
What?
The cop who had spoken to me before said, “I think we should have a talk, Colin.” He led me away from the woman. She kept coming after me, but the other cop finally got her turned around. He took her back to her house. The first cop took me over to the police car. He started to explain that he wanted to ask me some questions, but that I didn’t have to talk to him if I didn’t want to. He said I could phone my mom if I wanted to. He kept asking me if I understood what he was saying.
chapter nine
I felt terrible calling my mom and making her to leave work to come to the police station. She asked me what had happened. She sounded worried, not mad, when I told her. She didn’t yell at me. That made me feel a little better.
“I didn’t do anything,” I told the cops.
“Did you hear Mrs. Franklin say that there was no real security at her house?”
“Yes,” I said. “But I didn’t know until today where she lived.”
I couldn’t tell if the cops believed that.
“Do you belong to a gang, Colin?”
“No, he does not,” my mom said. She was angry—at the cops.
“Have you ever been a member of a gang, Colin?”
“No,” I said.
They asked me a million more questions. I told them how I had got the job. I gave them Dave Marsh’s name and Ray’s and Stike’s. I let them look at my work sheet so that they could see that I had been near that woman’s house this morning because I was supposed to be there. They made my mom and me wait while they left the room. When they finally came back, they said, “You can go for now, Colin.”
For now?
“He didn’t do anything,” my mom said. “He’s a good boy.”
The cops didn’t reply, but one of them held the door for my mom.
Stike wasn’t the only person in the warehouse when I got there the next morning. Ray was there too, his arms folded across his chest. He watched me ride up the long driveway to the warehouse. His eyes never left me. He made me so nervous that my bike wobbled when I got off it. Stike waved me over. He stepped aside to let Ray do the talking.
“The cops called me,” Ray said. “They asked a lot of questions about you. What’s going on, Colin?”
“I didn’t do anything wrong,” I said.
Ray looked long and hard at me.
“Do you remember what I said about second chances?” he said finally.
I nodded.
“Well, I meant it. I’m going to believe you, Colin. But if the cops call me about you again, I’m going to have to let you go. I’ll have no choice. The utility companies won’t like it if the cops think that someone who’s working for them is up to no good.”
“But I’m not—”
“Keep your nose clean, kid,” Ray said gruffly. He turned and went back inside.
“I didn’t do anything,” I mumbled to Stike.
“Do your job and you’ll be all right,” Stike said.
It’s a good thing I didn’t see any cops that day because I sure looked suspicious. The whole time I was working, I looked around to see if there were any cop cars sliding by. There weren’t, but that didn’t help me relax. Every time I pedaled around a corner, I held my breath. What if my next stop was right near another crime scene? What then?
The same thought was still on my mind when I took my break for lunch.
The cops had questioned me about those break-ins.
That one cop had asked me, “Am I supposed to believe it’s a coincidence that every time there’s a break-in in this neighborhood, there you are?”
The question had scared me.
Then I thought, it’s also insulting to be asked that. I mean, how stupid would I have to be, to be standing right near the scene of the crime every single time? It was bad enough that the cops thought I was a criminal. It was even worse that they thought I was a stupid criminal.
My mom was waiting for me when I got home. I held my breath again. Had the cops called her? Had they been to the apartment?
But no.
“We’re going out to eat,” she said, grinning.
I stared at her. We were on what my mom called a tight budget. We only ever ate out on my birthday—and that was more than a month away.
“Aren’t you going to ask why we’re going out?” my mom said. Before I could answer, she told me. “I was offered a job today. As a dental hygienist. I have to pass my exams, of course. But one of the dentists who teaches us has his own practice. He said I’m the best student he’s ever taught. His hygienist is moving in a couple of months and he has to find a replacement. He asked me if I would be interested. He said if I do as well as he thinks I will on my exams, the job is mine.”
“You’ll do great, Mom,” I said. “I know you will.” No one worked harder than my mom.
When we got home from dinner, my mom went to bed. So did I. We both had to get up early. But I couldn’t sleep.
I pulled out my sketchbook and started to flip through it, looking for a blank page. I started to sketch a girl—alyssa. But it wasn’t very good, so I erased it. I stared across my tiny room. I had a whole shelf of books. My mom was a big believer in reading. Okay, so most of my books were secondhand. A whole pile of them had been bought at library book sales for twenty-five cents each. A lot of them were either picture books or books with a lot of pictures in them, like a book about the history of railroads and another full of pictures of animals. My mom bought them so that I could practice drawing. One was about dogs. I flipped through it until I found a picture of a Jack Russell terrier. I propped the book open to that page and started to sketch. I drew it so that the dog was jumping up the way Buster had jumped up on me. I sketched in his trailing leash. And I drew the same black-and-tan markings that Buster had. It looked pretty good, if you ask
me.
When I finished, I flipped back through my sketchbook. I had pages of tags that I had copied. I knew I was right about them. They were done by the same person. But I didn’t care about that anymore. All I cared about was keeping my job and not ruining my mom’s summer.
The next morning, I got the jitters all over again.
My first stop after the utility control box was on the same street where the first robbery had happened. In fact, it was the exact same utility post.
I was getting my spray bottles out to clean it when I heard a car slow down behind me. One thought flashed in my mind: Cops.
“Hey, kid,” a voice said.
I was sweating as I turned around.
But it wasn’t cops. It was a man in a regular car.
“Is this woodside Crescent?” he said.
I nodded.
“Jeez, Would it kill them to put in a street sign?” the man said.
I turned and pointed to a sign that was half hidden by the leaves of an elm tree. The man just shook his head.
“Hide it, why don’t they?” he said. “Same with the house numbers around here. Would it kill these people to put them where a person on the street could actually see them?” He shook his head again. “I don’t suppose you know where number one-two-four is?”
I glanced at the closest house. It was number one-zero-five, which meant that one-zero-six was right across the street.
“Sure,” I said. “It’s on the north side of the street, nine houses down,” I said, counting them off in my head as I scanned the street. “Right there,” I said, pointing at the house. Wouldn’t you know it? It was the same house that had been broken into my second day on the job.
The man thanked me and drove away. I watched him turn into the driveway.
I finished up and went to my next stop. I didn’t think about him or the house until I was sitting in the park a few hours later, eating my lunch.
chapter ten
Alyssa was there, with all five dogs. Cody, the German shepherd, was nosing into her backpack looking for treats. She scolded him and pushed him away. So far she hadn’t noticed me. I decided to find someplace else to eat. Then I thought, why should I leave? I hadn’t done anything.
I sat on the bench farthest away from her, with my back to her. I took out my sketchbook and a pencil, and I sketched the houses across the street while I ate.
Something jumped up onto the bench beside me and lunged at my sandwich.
Buster, trailing his leash again.
Then I heard barking—a lot of it.
I turned. Alyssa was standing there, straining to keep a grip on four leashes while she bent down to grab the leash Buster was trailing. I ducked down and retrieved it for her. She didn’t say a word when I handed it to her.
“You’re welcome,” I said sarcastically.
Her cheeks turned pink.
Buster leaped up onto the bench again. This time he got hold of my sandwich. I was so surprised that I dropped my sketchbook.
“Buster!” Alyssa said. But he had already gobbled up what was left of my lunch. Alyssa picked up my sketchbook and started to hand it to me. Suddenly she smiled. “This looks like Buster,” she said, looking at the picture I had drawn the night before.
“It is.”
“Did you draw it?”
I nodded.
“It’s really good,” she said.
“Thanks.”
She handed the sketchbook to me. But she didn’t walk away. Instead she stood there, looking at me.
“You could be an artist or something if you wanted to,” she said.
It was my turn to get red in the face.
“My art teacher said I might want to think about art school,” I said.
She frowned. “So Why are you doing this?”
“What do you mean?”
“Cleaning off all those marks. why are you doing it?”
She sure asked strange questions.
“It’s a job,” I said. “For the summer. The utility companies are only paying minimum wage, but it’s better than nothing.”
She shook her head impatiently. “What I mean is, why take chances?”
Take chances? Then I remembered what Stike had told me about the kid who got beaten up.
“Did you see something?” I said, trying not to look as nervous as I felt. “Do you think the guys who did the graffiti are going to beat me up for erasing it?”
She looked at me like she thought I was crazy.
“What are you talking about?” she said.
“What are you talking about?”
We stared at each other for a moment. Then she seemed to relax a little.
“I’m Alyssa,” she said.
“I know. I heard that doctor say your name—Dr. Evans. What kind of doctor is he, anyway?”
“He’s a vet,” she said. “I worked for him on the weekends during the school year last year.”
“That’s how you got into the dog-walking business, right?” I said. “You walk dogs for people who visit that vet.” I figured that out from what she had said to him.
She looked surprised, but she nodded.
“Is your brother okay?” I said.
Her eyes clouded. “He’s still in the hospital.”
“I’m sorry.”
She gathered up all the leashes. “I have to go,” she said. “I have to get these guys home.”
“I should get back to work.” I started to get up. “See you,” I said, like that was ever going to happen.
“Yeah,” she said, smiling just a little, but smiling all the same. “See you.”
I watched her go. I wished I was good enough to draw a picture of her from memory.
After she left, I put my sandwich wrapper in the garbage and picked up my sketchbook to put it away. I flipped it open to look at the picture of Buster. Alyssa was right. It was good. I thumbed through some more pages. Some of my other sketches were good too.
Then I saw some of the graffiti I had copied—the loopy initials and the other stuff.
I stopped at one page and stared. It was the first triangle I’d cleaned up—the one with the E and the nine and the N. It was from the street where the first break-in happened. I stared and stared at it.
Then I flipped to the next page where I’d copied another triangle. I stared at that too.
I jumped on my bike and raced back to the most recent crime scene.
I stared at the last triangle I had copied down and counted the houses on the street. My mouth was hanging open. What were the chances? I thought.
Then I saw someone come out of the house. It was the woman who had accused me of being involved in the break-in. I got on my bike and got out of there, fast. I headed back to the park where I’d had lunch so that I could think.
I sat on the same bench and flipped through my sketchbook. I looked at all three triangles.
“Hey,” someone said behind me.
I turned. It was Alyssa. She had only two dogs with her now—Buster and Cody, the German shepherd.
“Hey,” I said.
“I thought you said you were going back to work.”
“I thought you said you were taking the dogs home.”
“I am,” she said. “I have one to go.” She looked down at my sketchbook. Her smile faded. “What are you doing?” she said.
I had been sitting there wondering who to tell. The cops? Would they believe me or would they think I’d been involved? Ray? What would he think? I knew my mom would listen to me. She would believe me. But what about a regular person? What would a regular person think?
“You know the areas where I’ve been working?” I said. “There’s been a bunch of break-ins—at the house where the people were on vacation, at the house of an old lady who’s practically deaf, and at a third house that has security company stickers but doesn’t really have an alarm system.” I had been thinking about it and thinking about it. “I think that whoever broke into those houses knew what they were doing.”<
br />
“What do you mean?” Alyssa said.
“I think they knew that family was away. And that the old lady was deaf—if she hadn’t got up to get a glass of water, she would never have been hurt—”
“What are you saying, Colin?”
“I think someone marked those houses,” I said.
“Marked them?”
“Maybe someone who knows the people who live around there left marks to tip off the thieves.”
She shrugged out of her backpack and sank down onto the bench beside me. “What are you talking about?”
I flipped to the first triangle and showed it to her. She frowned.
“This was on a utility pole near the first house that was robbed,” I said. “It was right in front of number one-zero-five.”
She was still staring at the triangle. I could tell she didn’t get it.
“And one-zero-five is on the south side of the street,” I said. “The house that was robbed was on the north side of the street, exactly nine houses east of where this triangle was.”
She still didn’t get it.
“It’s a code,” I said. “N for the north side of the street, E for the house being east of where the triangle was, nine for the number of houses away.” I flipped to the next triangle and explained that one to her. Then the next one. “You get it?” I said. “Whoever painted these triangles onto those poles was tipping off the thieves.”
She looked serious as she nodded.
“What are you going to do?” she said.
“Go to the cops, I guess,” I said.
It sounded like a good idea until she said, “Are you sure you want to get involved?”
chapter eleven
I stared at her.
“Why wouldn’t I want to get involved?”
Cody, the German shepherd was nosing around her backpack again. But he was behind Alyssa, so she didn’t notice.
“You don’t know who the thieves are,” she said. “They break into people’s houses. They’re probably dangerous.”
I gulped.
“Maybe. But the cops are suspicious of me,” I said. I had already told her about the cops talking to me after the first two robberies. Now I told her about the woman who had accused me of being involved. “She said I’d overheard what she said about her house having no alarm system,” I said. “The cops took me in for questioning. If there’s another robbery, and I just happen to be there, they’re going to arrest me. I just know it.”
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