The Unseen
Page 16
“All right, Gussie, I see you,” Xandra said. “Come on in.”
The door swung wide and Gussie bounced across the room to launch herself, facedown, into the middle of Xandra's animal collection. Pushing to a sitting position, she started checking out the nearest animals, which happened to be a pig, an alligator and a shaggy Chincoteague-type pony. As Gussie hugged, kissed and whispered to each toy, Xandra watched with curiosity. Gussie was acting, Xandra decided, like a kid who'd never played with a stuffed animal toy before, which certainly wasn't the case.
“Hey, kid,” Xandra said. “What's the big deal? Your room is full of stuffed animals.”
Clutching the pony to her chest, Gussie nodded enthusiastically. “I know,” she said. “But yours are better.”
“How come?”
Gussie thought for a moment, tipped her head, smiled her killer smile and said, “Because they're yours.”
Xandra was still thinking that one over when Gussie reached into her pocket, brought out the tiny teddy bear and said, “I had to bring Ursa back.”
And when Xandra said, “No, you didn't. I gave him to you, remember?” Gussie nodded and said, “I know. But he was lonely for all his old friends, especially the bears. He's really lonesome for the bears.”
So Xandra let Gussie crawl around the bed for a while reintroducing Ursa Minor to all the other bears before she said, “Okay, kid. Enough is enough.” Shoving a very large shaggy bear into Gussie's hands, she said, “Here, take Baloo with you. He'll keep Ursa company.”
That night when the lights were off, Xandra worked at the awareness thing, listening and sniffing, squinting and doing quick sideways glances. But there was nothing—at least nothing for sure. Once or twice there was a brief purring sound, and one other time a fleeting smell of newborn kitten. But that was all. And nothing at all that hinted at hooded figures with fiery eyes and flashing teeth.
But the very next evening there was another “intra-family altercation” of a sort. It happened in the family room, over what channel they were going to watch. The twins weren't there, so the participants were Victoria and Xandra on one side and Quincy on the other. Quincy only won because he was bigger and stronger, which was especially unfair because Quincy could have gone to his own room and watched it on his own “overprivileged-eighteen-year-old's” private TV. Except that he kept saying it was the kind of movie that needed to be seen on a giant screen. So he sat there and watched the stupid wide-screen war movie while Xandra got more and more infuriated. Some yelling had gone on, most of it by Xandra, before Tory suggested that she and Xandra go to her room and play Scrabble, which they did.
That was something they hadn't done for a long time, so all by itself, that was a big change. And another change was that Xandra didn't get upset when Tory won two out of their three games. At least not very. But later that night, when Xandra was sitting on the window seat, she thought she saw a dark hooded figure oozing between tree trunks and hedges. Just about then, however, an owl flew by and while Xandra watched its flight, the hooded shadows blended into the smooth and silent night.
The next week went by like that, with only vague hints of Unseen creatures, and then one morning when Xandra woke up, the Key was gone. The strong necklace of heavy string was still around her neck but the feather had disappeared. It had been there the night before and there was no way it could have been taken without her knowing. She searched everywhere, under and around every stuffed animal, under the bed and between the blankets, before she allowed herself to remember that she'd been warned that it would happen.
Even while she was remembering that both Belinda and the grandfather had told her that no one had a Key for long, Xandra felt miserable and angry. And she started the day by letting everyone know it, without, of course, telling them why. She was still feeling angry and ill-treated when she got off the school bus that afternoon, and there they were, both of the Twinsters, waiting for her in the driveway of the Hobson Habitat. She was suspicious at first, with good reason. And then very much surprised.
One of the twins, Nelson she thought at first, but it turned out to be Nicholas, was holding a large cardboard box and in the box were three very young kittens.
“Hey,” Nicholas said. “Look what we brought you. Three new candidates for the Xandra Hobson Society for the Prevention of Kitten Murder.”
“Yeah,” Nelson said. “These guys we know were about to throw these dudes in the river when we came to the rescue.” He grabbed the box out of Nicholas's hands. “Come on. Let's take them down to the basement.”
Xandra was so surprised she almost forgot to be angry. But on the way to the basement she demanded to know how they knew. “When did you find out about … about what I do in the basement?”
They both laughed. “We've known for years,” Nicholas said, and Nelson added, “We've always known. We used to check it out every once in a while when you weren't around. The owl was pretty cool.”
“And the skunk.” Nicholas was laughing. Holding his nose, he said, “That skunk was really breathtaking.”
“You knew? But you didn't tell on me?”
Nelson grinned and shrugged. “We figured it was your business.”
So Xandra was busy in the basement again, and this time the twins were in on it too. Like buying kitten milk at the pet store and asking their friends about people who might want to adopt a kitten in the near future. Of course they could still be disgusting, like when they started calling Xandra M.M., which stood for Metal-Mouth because of the braces on her teeth. And by just naturally being their cocky, teenage Greek-god selves.
And as for Belinda? Xandra thought about her every day, remembering all the secret private things they had been able to talk about. But she also remembered Belinda's promise that they would meet again, and how she, Xandra, had known immediately that it was true.
In the meantime Christmas came and went, and there were still nights on the window seat when Xandra thought she saw fiery eyes in the dark garden. But then more often than not a silent owl-shaped shadow would drift by, and when she opened the window she would detect a faint aroma of baby skunk.
Published by Yearling, an imprint of Random House Children's Books a division of Random House, Inc., New York
Copyright © 2004 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law. For information address Delacorte Press.
Visit us on the Web! www.randomhouse.com/kids
Educators and librarians, for a variety of teaching tools, visit us at
www.randomhouse.com/teachers
eISBN: 978-0-307-54858-0
v3.0