by Richard Peck
“You mean like initiation into a sorority?” I said, not really getting it.
Natalie sighed.
“Well, sororities are kind of tacky,” Tanya said, “unless you’re pledging Kappa at the University of Virginia. That sort of thing. Let’s just say this is something you can do to make yourself a part of us. You have something to decide, Kerry. When we pull up the drawbridge, which side of the moat do you want to be on?”
We sat there, and all I could see in my mind were drawbridges being pulled up. Tanya’s hand rested on the table beside the doll in the drawstring bag, looking at the ceiling with its pinpoint eyes. Makenzie was a little pulled back from the table. I wondered if she’d had to do something to prove herself.
But Tanya was saying, “Makenzie, get a picture of this with your phone in case we want to e-mail it to everybody. We’ll have that option.” And Makenzie was scavenging around for her phone.
I really didn’t know where this was going. Just for a moment I wished I was home, in bed. But the moment passed. We had to get busy. We had all these coffins to deliver in the right order. Alyssa’s award was going to be the last.
“I have a black sweater that will be better for you, Kerry,” Tanya said. My only bulky sweater was Christmas red. The wrong color of course. She had the sweater ready too, under the table. “Black will help you blend in with the night.”
All she had to do was hand it over. All I had to do was take it.
SURELY WE’D SAT around that table for hours. The remains of the whipped cream were dry in the bowl and at the corners of Makenzie’s mouth.
Then we were hours more, driving all over to leave the awards at the guys’ houses. The night was velvet. Moonless. Most of the porch lights were out since it was past the trick-or-treaters’ bedtimes. The crosswalks were empty.
We drove through every curving street up at this end of town. Chase Haverkamp lived on an estate. You couldn’t see the house from the road. You couldn’t get past the gate. We had to leave his coffin on the doorknob of the gatehouse. I didn’t know where Spence Myers lived. We didn’t go there.
We’d had to give up our witch hats. They didn’t fit in the Audi. Makenzie and I took turns darting out of the backseat of the car to leave the awards. We didn’t buckle up. How could we? We were in and out. Natalie drove, and Tanya sat up front beside her, checking off the addresses on the list by the light of a little pen flashlight. Organized. It was fine. It was fun. But I was getting a little worried. Something was gnawing at me.
Then finally, finally we’d delivered all our coffins. Natalie was turning down the hill to another part of town. She was a cautious driver, always with the turn signal, careful not to attract a cruising village cop car.
We were down low in the town, several blocks below where I lived. We turned on Harper Street, which was a line of tired little ranch type houses, from the 1950s or whenever. Picture windows. A lot of unraked leaves. The Metro-North railroad tracks ran right behind. A city-bound train rumbled through as we made the turn.
The Audi crept along the street where nothing stirred at this hour. The witching hour. Natalie killed the lights and coasted into the curb, mashing leaves. She killed the engine. We sat in the dark for a moment or two. “Here’s the baby. Put it in your pocket. Keep both hands free.” Tanya handed it over her shoulder to me. I saw the shape of it coming toward me, the doll in its little sack, in Tanya’s hand. Makenzie sat there in the back beside me, still as a statue, separate. I took the doll, though I really didn’t want—
“And here’s the key.” Tanya handed it back.
The key.
“It’s to the front door.”
“I have to go inside?” I went cold all over.
“Yes,” Tanya said in her evenest voice. “You’ll be fine. Alyssa’s in the city tonight, and her mother works a late shift. There is no father.”
“I have to go inside?” Me? Into some strange house?
“Yes,” Tanya said. “You’ve got the key. You’re not breaking in. And look—nobody’s around, and it’s dark as pitch except for the streetlight. If anybody did see you going up to the house, they’d just think it was Alyssa coming home. She’s always out all hours. Or her mother. And anyway, who’s to see?”
“But what do I do when I get inside?”
“Well, for a start, you don’t turn on a light.”
I couldn’t breathe. Or believe this. And I couldn’t picture myself in somebody’s dark house with all the furniture around like shapes. And what about burglar alarms? Every house up on Ridge Road had them.
“I can’t—”
“The front door opens right into the living room. All these houses are the same. Very simple layout.” Tanya seemed to be speaking straight ahead, not over her shoulder. But I heard. I heard. “Two bedrooms with a bath between,” she said. “Turn left out of the living room. Then left again, and you’re in Alyssa’s bedroom. She’s got the front one. There’s a ceiling light, but don’t turn it on. You can see enough from the streetlight out here.”
“But what am I supposed to do?” I was trying not to whine. But what was I supposed to do?
“Nothing, really. Just take the doll and put it on the pillow of the bed. Right there where she’ll see it as soon as she comes in and turns on the light. Who knows? She may not be back till morning. Then she’ll find it.”
“But what’s the point?” I said. “I don’t get it.”
“I know you don’t,” Tanya said. “Think of the whole thing as a treasure hunt.”
Natalie sighed.
“A treasure hunt,” Tanya said. “Except you’ll be leaving something, not taking something.”
Silence sort of fell. Was I waiting for her to change her mind?
“And the sooner you go, the sooner you’ll be back.”
I pushed open the door. A night breeze scudded the leaves along the sidewalk.
“It’s the third house back,” Tanya said, low. “Count back three houses.” So they hadn’t parked in front of Alyssa’s house. That made sense, I supposed.
“Where’s the key?” Tanya said.
“In my hand.”
“Don’t drop it. You’ll never find it again in all these leaves. Don’t these people ever rake?”
The car door closed behind me with only a click. I was a little dizzy out here, and the wind had turned colder. My feet barely found the sidewalk. But I was walking now, blending with the night in Tanya’s black sweater. I had the key in a death grip. I could feel the doll in my jeans pocket. The houses were close. Now I was in front of the third one. I looked back once at the dark car by the curb, and it seemed miles away.
There wasn’t much to the front yards. I was already on a concrete step, up to a front door. The storm door was loose, shuddering in the wind. I held it open with an elbow while I found the lock with the key. There was just enough light.
And I thought, just for a moment: I’m on my own here. I can still back out. I can make this not happen. But the moment passed, and the key slid right in. I turned it, and I was ready to run—poised—in case of a burglar alarm. But no bells rang except maybe in my head. I had to go on, and now I was inside, closing the door behind me. It was two or three shades of dark in here. The furniture was just one shape after another. For a moment I couldn’t tell up from down. Then I saw an opening into blackness, a door on the left that went to the bedrooms and the bathroom. I went that way like a sleepwalker, careful not to run into anything or touch anything. Maybe I wasn’t there at all.
Now I was in this little hallway area that closed in on me. I needed to turn left again. I couldn’t see my feet, so it was like walking through leaves, but quieter. The door to Alyssa’s bedroom was open, and there was some light from outside. Pale silvery light fell across the bedspread.
I was in this girl’s bedroom, and I didn’t really know who she was. I didn’t know her. But there was this jumble of little things on a chest of drawers. And shapes. All these shapes. I fumbled in my pocket for the dol
l. Then I fumbled in the other pocket where the doll really was, shifting the key from hand to hand.
I had the doll now. The baby. All I had to do was leave it on the pillow. Right where she’d see it. My hand tingled to get rid of it.
I put it there, not touching the pillow, and turned.
And then: “Alyssa?” someone said.
My feet froze to the floor. Light flooded the room. The ceiling light was on, and this woman was standing in the door to the dark hall. A woman in a bathrobe, clutching the collar of it at her throat.
“You’re not Alyssa.” She stepped back. She’d been asleep, and now she wasn’t.
Somewhere outside a car started up and gunned away over the mashed leaves.
“Who are you?” she said. Alyssa’s mother said. “What are you doing here? Why are you in this house?”
Good question.
“I said, who are you?”
I was terminally terrified. I could hear my heart. It was about to jump out of Tanya’s sweater.
“Kerry Williamson,” I said. I’d have told anything. I’d have shown her ID if I had any. And how could I run? She was standing there in the only door.
She’d heard me come in the house. She was somebody’s mother, so she woke up the instant she heard the key in the door. It was a wonder I hadn’t walked right into her in the little dark hall.
“I’m in tenth grade,” I said.
It was an insane thing to say. What did I mean? Was I trying to say that I was only in tenth grade, so I wasn’t responsible for anything? That it wasn’t like I was a senior? I don’t know why I said that. I was crazy and too scared to cry.
“Why?” Alyssa’s mother said. She’d put on her glasses, and her hair was a mess, and her nose was red and runny. Suddenly I knew. She had a cold, so she’d called in sick, and that’s why she wasn’t at work. I could figure all that out. I just couldn’t figure out why I was here.
“What’s that on the pillow?”
“A doll,” I heard myself saying. “I’ve brought it for Alyssa.” That almost sounded like a reason, or so I thought after I’d said it. An excuse.
She wasn’t scared of me now. Anyway, she’d heard the car drive away just as I had, the Audi. The minute the ceiling light went on, the car cut out. She knew I was alone.
“Give it to me.” She put out her hand. She was this mother, so I had to do it. If I behaved, maybe she’d just let me go or something. Maybe we could just make this be—not happening. I picked up the doll and handed it over.
It rocked in the palm of her hand under the glaring light. The little bag had fallen off, so it was this fairly nasty small slick pink thing in her hand. She’d have seen the fake blood on the slit neck.
“What is this supposed to mean?” The light glinted off her glasses. She looked so tired, and I was so tired.
“I don’t know what it means,” I said. Mumbled.
“Then why did you bring it here?”
“It’s Halloween,” I said, remembering that it was. “It’s just like a Halloween type thing.”
“And how did you get in here?”
I held out the key.
She was so surprised she didn’t even take it. Then she took it. “How in the world did you get this? Did Alyssa give you a key? Do you know her?”
I thought about saying yes, but Alyssa could walk in the door this minute. She was always out till all hours, and it was all hours.
“I don’t even know who she is,” I said, “exactly.”
Mrs. Stark stared at me, trying to make some sense out of this.
“She’s a senior,” I said, but then, her mother would know that.
“Did you steal this key?” Mrs. Stark said. “Somebody did.”
“No. Tanya gave it to me.” I blurted that out before I thought. Still, they’d left me here. They’d dropped me in this. Didn’t they care? No, they didn’t.
Now Mrs. Stark was wide awake. “Tanya Spangler?” she said. “That could explain almost anything.”
Could it?
She was stepping aside, though it was too late to run for it. She knew my name.
“I’m just going to tell you one thing,” she said. “And you’re not going to understand it.”
We were close, there in that little room. But I waited and listened and almost looked at her. If I did everything she wanted me to, maybe she’d let—
“You’re being used,” she said. Whatever that meant.
And was that it?
No. No. She walked me out through the living room and flipped on a light. The room came alive with colors.
A picture hung by the door. I caught one glimpse of it, a framed photograph of a girl. Not as pretty as Natalie. Not as great-looking as Tanya, but dramatic. Maybe a little older. Alyssa? I didn’t recognize her. I didn’t recognize a lot of people. It was a big school, and you couldn’t know everybody, and it was important not to get involved with people you wouldn’t want to know later.
My head was spinning out of control, but the door was right here, a reach away. Mrs. Stark was behind me. I could feel her there, all the way down my spine. But she didn’t touch me, hold me back. She was leaning around me to open the door, and I was this close to freedom, to blending with the night.
Then she said, close to my ear, “You’re Carolyn Williamson’s daughter, aren’t you?”
And that broke me. Into pieces. It broke me apart. She knew my mother.
CHAPTER THREE
Blending with the Night
I RAN, KICKING through the leaves, up one street after another. It was like running in a nightmare. Running and running, and are you even moving?
For a crazy moment I thought about going to my dad’s instead. I was with him part of the time, once in a while. I was back and forth, so why not now? He had an apartment in White Plains, and I could double back to the station and take the next train. Be there for breakfast.
But I didn’t have any money, so I just kept running, numb all the way home. A car turned ahead of me under a streetlight. In case it was a police cruiser I jumped into a bush with branches like claws.
I was on Linden Street before I knew it. We lived in the Groveland, a big old apartment building that had gone condo. It was on the edge of the Old English Village part of town.
Now I was walking, breathing in heaves, almost home. I’d brought my keys. I was well supplied with keys that night. So I could get into the lobby downstairs. The front door snapped shut behind me. On the long table a big bowl still held some Halloween candy. The usual fake fire glowed in the lobby fireplace.
I took the elevator up, and my door key was in my hand. The morning paper was already on our mat. I left it there. I didn’t even look down. I didn’t want to see some headline reading:
LOCAL TENTH GRADER NABBED IN . . . I didn’t know what . . . NABBED IN DISTRIBUTING DOLLS TO PEOPLE’S BEDROOMS.
Besides, if I left the paper on the mat, it would mean I’d come home earlier, before it was delivered. I turned the key in the lock, quiet as a mouse.
Inside, I could see my bedroom door from here. At the end of the hall. But this was the trickiest part. I had to walk past my mother’s bedroom door.
And a line of light was under it. A bright fan of light across the dark hall floor. My flesh crept.
Her light was on, but I wasn’t about to knock and turn myself in. It had to be nearly daylight. Why wasn’t it? She shouldn’t see my face. Who knew what she’d be able to read in it?
I kept walking on little mouse feet, past her door. Then I was in my room, on the safe side of the door.
I nearly lost it then. But I was home free, maybe, and maybe my mother had gone to sleep, waiting for me. She must have. The most important part was that Mrs. Stark hadn’t called her. And Mrs. Stark knew her. How? But she did.
I don’t remember any more about that night. I must have tried to stay awake as long as I could, so I’d be ready for my mother if she barged in. But then I slept, hard and fast and friendless. Then it was the n
ext day, a school day. About an hour later.
And I don’t think my mother had come into my room. But had I folded up Tanya’s sweater that neatly? And left it on the chair to remember to take it back to her?
I WASN’T EVEN late for school, though still numb. But I remembered to stuff Tanya’s sweater into my backpack. I meant to throw it at her and walk away. She’d walked away from me. Worse.
Then all morning I kept looking around at these people in my tenth-grade classes. Geometry and whatever. They weren’t real, and lunch was. Were these the people I was stuck with now? Now that Tanya and Natalie and Makenzie had dropped me in it? And probably dropped me? And didn’t care?
Kimberly Cook was tenth-grade class president. There she was in second period, though I didn’t particularly know her. And the guys were all so immature. There were some very recent voice changes in some of them. And a Mets sweatshirt on one of them. It was whole classrooms full of the clueless. Whole bunches of wannabes who didn’t even know who they wanted to be. I knew.
I dreaded lunch. I wanted to stop all the classroom clocks, which was a new feeling. Then I thought about not going to lunch at all. I could throw Tanya’s sweater at her some other time. Why hadn’t I brought an energy bar or something? But my feet took me to the food court. I went through the salad bar and dropped down at the far end of the usual table, the end where I used to sit alone, before.
Nothing tasted like anything, and I was invisible, and it was September again: that thundering buzz of everybody knowing everybody else. Everybody locked in.
I decided that if they came to lunch, they’d find me on my phone. It would be like an IM had just popped up on my screen. Maybe from Abby Davis, though I hadn’t heard from her in a month. I decided how to act. Then they were there, and my phone wasn’t even in my hand.
They swept up and dropped down around me like birds. Chattering birds on a branch here at this end of the table. With their designer water and low-carb salads. And Tanya and Natalie were wearing pajamas.
Pajamas? I was mad at them, and they were wearing pajamas? As usual, I was way behind, and they were way ahead.
