Under Their Skin

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  “—shouldn’t have shown them those pictures,” Mom was saying.

  “They’re bound to be curious,” Michael’s voice rumbled in response. “It’s human nature.”

  “Yes, but I don’t want to encourage them,” Mom said. “We’ve got to stifle that curiosity.”

  Eryn reeled back from the door. Was this really Mom talking? She’d been all about encouraging curiosity their whole lives. She was the one who’d bought Nick the globe, so he could pick out new places to explore. She was the one who’d told Eryn about prime numbers when she was only in first grade, and had encouraged Eryn to figure out and put up lists of prime numbers on the wall in her room. (Okay, Eryn had been a pretty weird little kid too, just like Nick.)

  Eryn recovered and pressed her ear harder against the door.

  “The way I see it, we give them innocent little details here and there, and they’ll lose interest,” Michael said. “Because it will start seeming routine and boring. And then they won’t find out everything else.”

  “Everything else”? Eryn thought. There’s an “everything else”?

  “I thought I was supposed to be the psychology expert,” Mom said sharply. “You’re supposed to be better with computers.”

  “We’re supposed to be good together,” Michael said in such a smarmy voice that Eryn recoiled from the door.

  Ugh, ugh, ugh, she thought. Is Michael flirting?

  She didn’t want to listen to that.

  She began tiptoeing away from the door, back toward Nick. He was bent over something caught in the carpet, glinting in the moonlight.

  “Look!” he whispered. “It’s a red hair! Want to bet it’s Ava’s?”

  Eryn studied the single hair Nick picked up from the carpet.

  “That’s what Michael would call an innocent little detail,” she told him. “It’s not enough. We’re not going to stop until we find out everything. Everything else.”

  EIGHT

  Life went on.

  Nick thought anyone watching him and Eryn would assume very little had changed for them. They were living half the time in a house six blocks away from Mom’s old house; they had a new stepfather—so what?

  Lacrosse and tennis season ended, and basketball season started for both kids. Eryn got a part in the school play, and Nick got picked as stage manager. They did math homework and social studies projects; language arts essays and science labs. Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year’s Day all passed in a blur.

  But underneath it all, both Nick and Eryn were watching and waiting. Besides the red hair Nick had found on the carpet, Eryn found other red hairs in the bathroom, along with some that looked much shorter and sandy brown.

  Nick agreed with Eryn that hair color and length was just an “innocent little detail.” But it seemed to prove that the pictures of Ava and Jackson really were pictures of Ava and Jackson.

  Nick found a pencil under the living room couch that had been sharpened down to about half its normal length, so that the only words left on it were iddle school honor roll student. He and Eryn agonized for the rest of the day about how if only they could see the first part of the pencil, they’d know what school Ava and Jackson went to. They even imagined somehow going from school to school, asking if anybody had lost a pencil. But then at dinner that night, Mom said, “Has anybody seen my favorite pencil?” So it turned out that the pencil was just from the school where Mom worked, in the next town over from Maywood.

  Nick was so disappointed that he hassled Mom. “What are you doing using a pencil that’s supposed to belong to some kid at Cedarcreek? Did you steal it? Really, Mom? Stealing from an honor roll student?”

  Sometimes it could be funny to hear Mom tie herself in knots trying to explain that she’d done nothing wrong

  But before Mom could reply, Michael interrupted, “That’s enough, Nick. Stop baiting your mother.”

  The look he gave Nick was both stern and annoyed.

  Okay, that didn’t go well, Nick thought.

  Michael didn’t scold Nick or Eryn often, but what if he’d just been holding off at the beginning of the marriage? What if having a stepdad just meant that now there were three adults who’d tell Nick off whenever he did something wrong?

  Across the table Eryn wiggled her eyebrows up and down at Nick. Nick couldn’t figure out what she meant. He gave her his best If you can think of anything to help me out, go for it look.

  “Mom, Nick and I can do the dishes tonight, even though it’s not our turn,” she said. “That way, you and Michael can catch up on your work or read or watch TV, whatever you want.”

  “That’s very nice, Eryn,” Mom said. “Thank you.”

  “We accept your offer,” Michael said, grinning.

  That’s supposed to help me? Nick wondered, glaring at Eryn. Making yourself look good when I just got yelled at?

  Eryn motioned with her head for Nick to help her start clearing plates from the table. Nick picked up the spaghetti bowl and followed her into the kitchen.

  “Thanks a lot,” he muttered.

  “I just got an idea, and I wanted to tell you as soon as possible,” Eryn said. “This was the quickest way I could think of.”

  “Okay,” Nick said.

  Eryn rinsed off the one curl of spaghetti she’d left on her plate and turned the garbage disposal on. Masked by its grinding roar, she told him, “We could just start calling schools and ask if Ava and Jackson go there. And then we could figure out a way to skip school someday and hang out at the other kids’ school when they’re coming out at the end of the day. We know what they look like. We could find them. We don’t have to wait for Mom and Michael to give us permission to meet them.”

  Nick stared at his sister. This was far beyond asking questions and looking for hairs and cleat marks on the carpet. This was breaking rules. This was totally disobeying.

  Nick thought about Michael glaring at him. He thought about how Michael was probably going to start scolding Nick and Eryn more and more. He thought about how much those locked doors at the back of the upstairs hallway bothered him every time he went past. He thought about how likely it was that he and Eryn would get caught if they skipped school.

  But Mom and Michael wouldn’t catch us until after we met Ava and Jackson, he thought. Whatever punishment they’d choose, it’d still be worth it.

  “All right,” he said. “Let’s do it.”

  NINE

  It was two forty-five p.m. School was out for the day, and Eryn was supposed to be in the auditorium in fifteen minutes to rehearse for the play. Rehearsal didn’t involve changing clothes, so she thought this was a better day for sneaky behavior than one of the days when she had basketball.

  Pretending she was only curious about how cloudy it looked outside, she walked away from all the other kids moving books into or out of their lockers and strolled toward the side door of the school. It looked cold and forbidding outside—the leafless January trees looked dead. Eryn held back a shiver and glanced at a list of numbers she and Nick had put together the night before. Then she punched one of those numbers into her cell phone.

  “Bluffsview Middle School,” a pleasant voice answered.

  “Hi,” Eryn said, trying to pull on the two days of acting lessons she’d had for the school play. She tried to sound like a nice, respectable kid anyone would want to help.

  Which, really, shouldn’t feel so much like it required acting.

  She swallowed hard and went on.

  “I’m trying to find a friend who moved away a few years ago, and then I lost track of her,” she said. This was the best story she and Nick had been able to come up with. “I know she’s somewhere in Maywood, but I can’t find her address or phone number. Do you have an Ava Lightner who goes there? Or maybe a Jackson Lightner? That’s her brother.”

  “Oh dear, we can’t give out personal info
rmation about our students,” the woman said, sounding much more horrified than Eryn would have expected. “But I would like to help you. If you give me your name and contact information, I could put it out on the local school listserv, and maybe that could lead to your friend contacting you.”

  No, no, no, no, no! screamed in Eryn’s brain. I can’t have my name on any school listserv! Mom would see it!

  She almost hung up or did the old I’m sorry—I can’t hear you. I think we’ve got a bad connection trick. But what if the woman called Eryn back? What if she put Eryn’s cell number on the listserv even without a name, because she wanted so badly to help?

  “Oh, that’s a great idea!” Eryn said, trying to sound grateful. “Except . . . oh darn, my parents get so worried about privacy and stuff like that. They wouldn’t want my name and number—what would you call it? Publicized?”

  “That is very sensible of your parents,” the woman said approvingly.

  “Right,” Eryn said. “So, just as a favor, could you let me know anyway if Ava goes there?”

  “No, I cannot,” the woman said. “I’m sorry. Good-bye.”

  And then she hung up on Eryn.

  Eryn stood there gulping in air, her heart pounding as if she’d just run all her warm-up laps at basketball practice. That had gone so much worse than she ever would have expected. It had gone so badly, she didn’t dare try to call any of the other schools.

  “Eryn, hurry up! You’re going to be late!” her friend Caitlyn called behind her, from beside the lockers. “What are you doing over there?”

  “Nothing,” Eryn said quickly. “Just looking outside. Thinking.”

  “Oooh, that sounds dangerous,” Caitlyn joked. “And you’re really going to be in danger if you don’t get into the auditorium right now. You know how Mr. Sondarelli gets upset if anyone’s late.”

  Eryn turned and followed Caitlyn toward the auditorium. She laughed automatically at Caitlyn’s teasing, but she didn’t really listen as Caitlyn chattered on.

  Caitlyn wore the most outlandish clothes of any of Eryn’s friends—right now she had on army boots, a green-and-purple flowered peasant skirt, and an orange long-sleeved T-shirt. But that was the only radical thing about her. That was the only radical thing about any of Eryn’s friends.

  All of them would have been horrified if Eryn told them she had been thinking of skipping school to find Ava and Jackson. Eryn hadn’t even told her friends anything about Ava and Jackson, because she knew they would think the whole thing was weird. It was weird enough that she had a new stepdad.

  We’re all such rule-followers, Eryn thought. We go to school, we go to after-school activities, we go home and eat dinner and do our homework. It’s like we’re robots or something.

  It had taken the mystery of Ava and Jackson to make her see how bland her life was, how ordinary and dull.

  And I can’t do anything about it because there’s no time with school and after-school activities and homework, Eryn thought. And Mom will find out and stop us if Nick and I try too hard to solve the mystery.

  She was stuck. And as far as she could tell, she and Nick would stay stuck and stymied on the Ava and Jackson mystery forever.

  But everything changed that very afternoon: It started snowing.

  TEN

  “Two-hour delay!” Nick cried, stomping down the stairs. “Woo-hoo!”

  He peered out the front window. From the midpoint of the staircase, all he could see outside was snow. Big, lazy flakes of it floated gently down from the sky.

  “We don’t have to be at school until ten!” he crowed.

  “What? Where’d you hear that?” Mom said, looking up from the couch, where she was bent over her laptop.

  “Ryan texted me,” Nick said. Sometimes it paid to have a friend whose father was the school superintendent.

  “But I haven’t gotten any notification,” Mom protested. She typed something on her keyboard. “Oh. Oh no. Maywood has the delay, but my school doesn’t.”

  She abruptly got up and went into her bedroom. Nick could hear voices murmuring. Then she came back.

  “No worries,” she said. “Michael has an important meeting he can’t miss at nine thirty, but he’ll stay home with you and Eryn until then. So you’ll only have a little time on your own before the bus comes.”

  Nick’s excitement over the delay diminished a little.

  “Mom, we’re twelve,” he said. “We’re old enough to stay home by ourselves for the whole two hours.”

  Mom seemed to be studying him a little too carefully.

  “I wonder . . . ,” she began.

  “What?” Nick said.

  “Well, Eryn seemed so moody last night, and now you’re grumpy too—are both of you entering the brunt of the trials and tribulations of puberty?” she asked.

  Nick knew why Eryn had been moody the night before: Her plan for finding Ava and Jackson had failed. Nick figured they’d just think of a different plan. But it wasn’t as if he could tell Mom that.

  And hearing Mom talk about puberty was about the last thing he wanted to do with his precious two-hour delay.

  “How about we pretend you didn’t just say that, and I’ll go let Eryn know about the delay?” Nick offered.

  “Nicholas!” Mom exclaimed. “Show some respect!”

  Nick realized that if he wasn’t careful, he could end up spending his whole two-hour delay confined to his room. Without electronics.

  “Sorry, Mom,” he said. “It was a joke.”

  “Young man, you need to understand that some jokes just aren’t funny, and . . .”

  Nick tuned Mom out and hoped that simply nodding as he walked up to Eryn’s room would work. He tapped on Eryn’s door.

  “Come in,” Eryn said groggily.

  She was still in bed, even though she should already be downstairs getting her breakfast by now.

  “We’ve got a two-hour delay because of the snow, but Mom doesn’t,” Nick said.

  Eryn’s face lit up.

  “Two hours by ourselves?” she said. “We could—”

  “Michael’s staying home with us,” Nick added.

  Eryn’s face fell.

  “Oh,” she said, and turned over as if she was just going back to sleep.

  Nick looked around, and noticed that sometime last night Eryn had taken down most of the posters from her walls: the cute puppy and kitten posters with inspirational sayings, the five different views of Liam from The Best Band. A full band poster of TBB was torn in half by the trash can.

  Yikes, Nick thought. What was it Mom said Eryn might be starting? “The brunt of the worst trials and tribulations of puberty?”

  He took a step backward, out of Eryn’s room.

  After Mom left for work, Michael let Nick play an hour of video games while Michael took care of some work e-mail. Eryn stayed in her room. At nine, Michael looked out at the snow—which seemed to be getting heavier—and said, “Kiddo, I think I’m going to need to take off now, to make it to my meeting on time. Your bus comes at nine forty-five. You and Eryn can make absolutely certain you don’t miss that bus, right?”

  “Sure,” Nick said.

  “You know your mother and I will consider this a test to see if you can be trusted to stay home on your own for even longer periods of time, don’t you?” Michael said.

  Why did adults always have to ruin good news with comments like that?

  Michael left, and Eryn came downstairs.

  “We have forty-five minutes to ourselves?” she said. “Do you think that’s enough time to—?”

  The phone rang just then. Nick picked it up. It was Mom.

  “Maywood just canceled all classes today completely!” she said.

  “Yes! Yes! Yes!” Nick screamed, pumping his fist up and down with every Yes!

  Across the room,
Eryn mouthed the words Snow day? Nick grinned and nodded. Eryn tilted her head thoughtfully, then crept toward him, like she wanted to eavesdrop. Or argue with Mom.

  Nick turned to the side so Eryn couldn’t grab the phone from his hand.

  “No, Nick, this is awful.” Mom’s voice on the other end of the line sounded grim. “The snow is worse than ever. Michael’s going to have to change his meeting—”

  “He just left,” Nick said.

  “Oh, okay, I’ll try to catch him on his cell,” Mom said. “Don’t go anywhere. I’ll call right back.”

  “Where does Mom think we might go?” Eryn asked sarcastically as Nick hung up. Evidently she’d heard that part.

  “Outside, I guess,” Nick said, shrugging. “To build snowmen, or have a snowball fight, or something like that. Want to do that later on?”

  He looked out the window. The wind had picked up, and now there was so much snow swirling around, it was hard to see even the mailbox at the end of the driveway.

  “It’s like something you’d read about in a book,” Eryn said. “Where there’s a blizzard and the pioneers have to hold a rope going out to the barn to milk the cows, or else they’ll get lost and wander out onto the open prairie. . . .”

  Why did she sound almost like she wanted to get lost wandering on the open prairie?

  “Maybe we should wait until it calms down a little before we build our snowman,” Nick said.

  The phone rang again.

  “Is Eryn there with you right now?” Mom asked when Nick picked it up. “Put me on speaker phone, so both of you can hear me at once.”

  “Okay,” Nick said.

  He pushed the speaker button and put the phone down on the table between him and Eryn.

  “Michael’s stuck in a snowdrift at the college,” Mom said. “He’s fine, but AAA told him it will be a few hours before they can get a tow truck out to him. Also, the city just closed down Apple Tree Boulevard because of an accident.”