Skritch, rustle. Skritch, rustle. Where was the guard? Why didn’t he come?
He woke with a start to a resounding thud and a sharp squeal. “What!” David sat bolt upright on the floor of the old house. It was black as tar and he was terrified.
“Rats,” said Katie’s voice beside him in the dark. “It’s rats.”
“What was that noise?”
“My shoe—I threw my shoe at one.”
“Katie, I can’t see a thing!”
“Yeah, it’s dark. I’m throwing at the sound. You can’t sleep; we both need to stay awake. We need to make noise or we won’t keep them away.”
David leaped to his feet. Had there been a table he’d have leaped onto that. He was trapped in a lightless room with rats.
Katie had been crouching, removing her other shoe. But now she stood beside him and began stamping her feet.
“David, make noise! We’re bigger than they are.”
But David was frozen with fear.
Katie stamped again, and now she jumped. She tried to shout, but her shouts felt puny in the dark and she could not get them out of her throat.
There was a long, bold skitter as something ran clean across the floor not three feet from where they stood.
David gasped. He felt panic rising in fumes around him, clouding his mind. Stay cool, he told himself. Stay cool. Don’t give in to fear. He relaxed his clenched fists and drew in a deep breath, hoping it would calm him.
But he released that breath in a scream. There was something else in the room and it wasn’t a rat.
The skittering to and fro had been replaced by bedlam. Another rat had raced across the floor even closer to them than the first, and this one had just been attacked. They could see nothing but they heard the thud that landed in the path of the darting rodent and the battle that was raging inches from their feet.
An anguished, half-strangled squeal mingled with David’s scream and the besieged rat streaked from the room. Racing after it went something that yowled a high-pitched yowl.
A high-pitched and very familiar yowl. Slank.
“David, he’s here!”
“It’s got to be him!”
And sure enough, within seconds the soft, comfortable meow they knew so well came toward them across the blackened room and the sleek body of their cat was curling about their ankles. They scooped him into their arms, squeezing him tight and burying their faces in his warm, silky fur.
“He’s come to save us,” cried Katie, “to save us from the rats!”
“They sure are gone for now,” answered David, as Slank’s meows dropped a register into a deep, rumbling purr. He massaged the back of the cat’s neck, rubbing him just the way he liked best.
“Oh, Slanky, you didn’t get hit by a car!” David couldn’t see Katie, but he could tell she was crying. “It took you days, but you came right back to your own house and you came inside and you saved us.”
David’s hand, which had continued to rub the cat, stopped short.
“Katie.”
“What?” She was still nuzzling Slank’s neck.
“Katie. He came inside.”
“Right, David. That’s where we are; maybe you noticed.” She was not too upset to be sarcastic.
“Kat, think! He came in. He has no key, Kat!”
“Oh . . . Oh!”
“And how did he come in, Katie? Because however he came in, he could go out the same way. And however he goes out—”
“The cat door! David, how did we miss that? How did we forget the cat door?”
“The only question is, will we fit?” David’s voice was bright with excitement for the first time in days. “Wait!” he added.
But Katie had already dropped Slank and begun feeling her way toward the kitchen door where their father had cut a special hole for the cat, years and years ago.
It was strange how boldly they moved through the inky house, now that they knew where they were going. By the time David caught up with Katie, she was already there. She had sprawled across the filthy floor and was trying to slide through the little door headfirst.
“Wow,” she said. “It’s going to be really tight. And I’m smaller than you are.”
“Take off the frame.”
Both children began prying at the metal rim that was nailed around the edges of the opening, and to which a rubber flap was attached. Without it the hole would be at least two inches bigger, and that might make the difference.
They easily tore away the rubber and a faint, useful light came through the opening. But the metal was murderously difficult to remove in the total darkness of the kitchen, and with no tools.
“We need something to wedge under it; that’s the problem,” said David, shaking his now-bleeding fingertips.
“David, the drawers!”
“What?”
“Oh, please! We’re in the kitchen! Didn’t you used to live here? Check the drawers and cabinets. I’m sure we left some old stuff here!”
They had. It was a dirty business, because those drawers were now filthy with the droppings of mice and rats that had rampaged through them in the owners’ absence. But by swallowing their distaste and feeling around, they found an old, bent spatula and, better still, a bottle opener. Armed with these tools they set back to work on the cat door and soon heard the welcome crack of nails wrenching free of old wood.
“That’s going to do it!” said David, joyfully eyeing the new and larger hole in the pale light. He dropped onto his back and gripped the wooden edges of the door, preparing to slide out.
“Wait! My shoes. And the food.”
“Yuck,” said David, remembering the sandwiches.
“Don’t be stupid!”
“You’re right,” he said. “Go get them, OK?”
“Come with me!”
Reluctantly he rose and returned with her to the detestable living room, where they found Slank sitting guard by the paper bag that was now all they owned in the world.
“Good Slank. You didn’t let the rats get it.” David stroked Slank’s arching back while Katie tied her shoelaces.
“He saved our lives, David,” said Katie, her voice quaking. “I wish we could take him. But,” she added sadly, “I know he’d just come home again.”
“We’ll get him back someday,” said David. “Bye,” and though he wasn’t the kissy type, he kissed the top of Slank’s warm head. “Now, we’re out of here.”
And they were. With light steps and a rush of excitement, they raced back to the kitchen, dropped to the floor, and slid, easily now, through the hole in the door. When they leaped to their feet on the other side the night air washed over their flushed and dusty faces.
Night usually seems dark, because one generally enters it from a lighted place. But entering it now from their blackened prison was almost like stepping into day. The sky was a gorgeous wilderness of moon and sparkling stars and a fresh breeze was up.
They were free. David’s wristwatch shone in the moonlight and he peered at it. It was ten thirty.
It was ten thirty p.m., they were free, and they had no idea how to get to the one place on earth where they could possibly go.
It was amazing, Katie reflected a few minutes later, how quickly you could go from being thrilled to be free to being worried about what you’d do next.
Having no alternative, the children had set out walking. And no sooner did they do so than they remembered that they were in a blasted wasteland of ruined buildings and rubble-strewn empty lots.
A few buildings still showed signs of life. Lights shone in the occasional window and from somewhere they heard faint music. But the street where they walked was deserted—unless you counted the dangerous criminals who surely prowled the alleyways, or yet more of the fierce rats from which they had just worked so hard to escape.
And all of this surrounded them in every direction. So it didn’t much matter which way they went.
Which didn’t mean they couldn’t have a fight about it.
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“Katie,” said David, “nice plan about finding Uncle Alex. That would be the uncle who lives about a million miles away. As I recall, this was the stage where we were going to figure something out.”
A car rolled slowly past them. In its darkened interior they could dimly see a pair of young men eyeing them suspiciously. Katie and David caught their breath as the car braked slightly, but to their immense relief it only hesitated, then moved on.
Great. They looked too poor to rob. Katie resumed their conversation. “Like you have another idea,” she said. “A better idea than Uncle Alex.”
“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “Your plan can still be stupid, whether I have a better idea or not.”
At this Katie stopped short and folded her arms across her chest.
“What?” said David.
“Go on! Go ahead. I don’t have to walk with you.”
“Give me a break.”
“We don’t have to stay together.”
“OK. Sorry. Let’s keep moving—this isn’t a great place to stop,” said David, looking around uneasily.
“And I don’t have to think of everything, either,” Katie continued, still not moving.
“You haven’t thought of everything. I thought of the cat door, remember?”
“Well, now you can think of something else. And if you can’t, don’t be on my case about it.”
“I said sorry! My bad.”
Katie unfolded her arms and, with a sigh, resumed moving forward. “There’s a gas station around the next corner,” she said, remembering one of the few functioning businesses in that blighted neighborhood. “Let’s go there.”
“Because . . . ?”
“Because it has one of those little stores and they might let us use the bathroom. I want to wash my hands with soap.” She was still thinking about the droppings in their old kitchen drawers.
“Katie, we don’t want to be seen, remember? What are they going to think about a couple of kids showing up in the middle of the night, on foot, with no adults?”
“At that place? I hate to tell you, David. They’re not going to care.”
She was right. The man behind the thick glass shield gave them a curious look, but he said nothing. With a wordless nod he indicated the bathroom. “Think of something,” Katie hissed in her brother’s ear as she headed in. “Get an idea.”
The bathroom door clicked shut behind her and David leaned with feigned casualness against it, looking out the window and trying to pretend that there was nothing odd about him hanging out in a gas station in the middle of the night.
While he stared, a massive tractor trailer turned ponderously off the street and rumbled, snorting, into the blaring light of the filling station. king foods, blared the logo from the side of the truck, amid gargantuan swirling photos of fruits, meats, and pastries.
David watched as, with much backing up and adjusting, the driver positioned his vehicle beside the diesel pump. Then the man cut the motor, leaped from his cab, and vanished on the far side of his truck to hook the gigantic rig up for fueling. This done, he reappeared, hitched up his jeans, and sauntered toward the small convenience mart where David waited for Katie.
David’s heart began to pound and he shrank behind a cooler full of iced drinks. He willed Katie not to choose this moment to emerge from the bathroom. The clerk might not care what they were up to, but the driver was an unknown.
“Evenin’,” said the driver to the clerk.
The surly clerk did not reply.
“How far to the state line from here?” the driver persisted.
“Which way you heading?” The clerk looked as if it pained him to speak.
“Headed north,” the driver replied. “Toward Yonkers. Soon’s I get there I got to cut west. ’Bout how long’s it gonna take me, from here?”
“Yonkers is four, four and a half hours,” said the clerk.
“Pack of those,” the driver said, slapping down a bill and gesturing toward a box of cigarettes. “Got a delivery for you,” he added. “Be bringing it in, in a minute.”
But David scarcely heard. His mind was humming. Katie had said to think of something and he had. North. The driver was headed north.
“Which way to the can?” the driver asked, and the clerk pointed toward the bathroom door. As the driver turned in that direction, his eyes swept the small space and landed on David.
He had been seen. It was all up. David stood, breathless, with his heart frozen in his chest.
For an instant the driver stared at David in astonishment. His brow lowered and David could practically hear the man’s mind working. What was a lone kid doing in a place like this in the middle of the night?
Still frowning, the driver put his hand on the doorknob of the bathroom and turned it. He found it locked, and at this his face relaxed.
Of course. David’s parent must be in that bathroom, right there. Now, reassured, the man nodded politely at David. “Evenin’,” he began.
But at just that moment the clerk, glancing at a monitor before him, observed, “Your tank’s full.”
The driver grunted and turned back toward the exit. David’s heart resumed beating as the man strode outside and disappeared yet again behind the massive vehicle. Katie slipped out of the bathroom. David seized her arm and pulled her behind a more distant rack that held magazines, snacks, and sundries.
“That was so close!” she whispered. “I almost walked out and then I heard him!”
“I know. And he actually saw me. He assumed you were my mom or dad. But did you hear what he said? Katie, he’s going north.”
She looked at him quizzically.
“North, Kat! Like us! We’re going the same way!”
“So what? Are you going to ask him for a lift?”
They heard the clerk’s chair swivel, and over the top of the rack they saw him craning his neck and peering at them curiously. Quickly David snatched a magazine, opened it, and pretended to read.
“No,” he said under his breath after a moment. “We’re not going to ask for a ride. We’re just going to take one.”
“Where, on the roof?” Katie was finding this conversation frustrating.
“Ever heard of stowaways?” her brother responded testily. “They sneak onto trains or ships and find a place to hide. When they get where they’re going, they sneak off. We can stow away in the back of this truck.”
“But he’d have to open it.”
“Look out the window.” David was facing the front of the shop, and over the top of the magazine rack he had a clear view of the pump where the truck was parked. Katie had been facing him and had seen nothing. But now she turned around and gasped.
The great doors at the back of the trailer were flung wide open and a ramp had been dropped to the pavement. The ramp led straight up and inside the glowing interior of the truck. It looked like the road to the Promised Land.
“But where’s the driver?”
“Inside,” said David.
“Little problem!”
“We have to wait for him to leave, that’s all.”
“And hope he leaves it open.”
David was still clutching a magazine in front of his face. Katie seized one as well and, like her brother, stood staring tensely at pages she did not see, waiting and hoping and feeling as if by radar for any sign of movement at the truck.
CUT THE CALORIES AND KEEP THE YUM! chirped the headline on the page in front of her. Like I care; the thought flashed through her mind and was gone. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that the magazine David was “reading” was actually upside down.
She also observed, in silent amazement, that David’s right hand was moving. Katie watched as it stealthily reached for the rack, where it removed from a wire prong two bubble packs containing flashlights and batteries.
David was stealing! Stealing was very wrong—as wrong as it got. But . . . like a high-powered computer, Katie’s mind scrolled through the days ahead, imagining and anticipatin
g what she and David would need to accomplish. Her eyes roved, flickering, over the rack before them and landed on a map labeled THE EASTERN STATES: PRIMARY AND SECONDARY ROADWAYS. Noiselessly she removed the map from its slot and slid it into her pocket.
Now she, too, had stolen. Wanting, somehow, to get her bearings, she glanced across at David’s watch. It was five minutes before eleven. Heart pounding, Katie resumed staring at her magazine.
Then everything happened at once.
A loud sigh erupted from the clerk. He rose from his chair, stretched, and stepped through a door at the back of his booth. At the same instant, the truck driver emerged from the back of his truck, pushing a dolly on which he had balanced a couple of shrink-wrapped boxes. He descended the ramp with a clatter, wheeling the dolly, and headed across the pavement to the store where Katie and David hid with their magazines and purloined loot.
The driver shouldered the door open and entered the small store amid a gust of warm night air. He sighed with what looked like annoyance when he realized that the clerk had stepped away. Then he set down the dolly in front of the cashier’s window, thumped across the floor to the bathroom, and shut himself into it, turning the lock with an audible click.
For an instant David looked at Katie and Katie looked at David.
“Now!” he mouthed.
Without a sound they slipped from behind the rack, out through the door, and across the wide open space to the truck. The gas station was brightly lit and the truck seemed very far away. If either the clerk or the driver emerged now—or even looked out the window—they would be seen and everything would be over. But they dared not run for fear of being heard.
They had reached the ramp that led into the truck. It rattled alarmingly as they darted up it.
“Hide!” cried Katie. Inside, an aisle ran down the center of the truck all the way to the back. On either side of the aisle—arranged in rows like the seats in a theater—were tall stacks of boxes and crates. Katie headed down the central aisle, ducked behind the third row of boxes, and dropped to a crouch. David followed. Quickly he noted that the boxes were fastened down and would not slide as they traveled—good.
The Secret of Rover Page 7
