The Secret of Rover

by Rachel Wildavsky

  Reaching over David’s head with his free arm, Crooked Nose shoved the door open and pressed David through it. Katie and her captor began to follow when suddenly the cashier called out.

  “You gonna pay for that?”

  The lank-haired woman, surprised, glanced down at a magazine that was clutched in her free hand. She must have been reading it when she discovered Katie and David. She had forgotten that she still had it.

  “Whoops,” she said. “Here.” Lank Hair thrust Katie at Crooked Nose. “This’ll ody take a secod.”

  Crooked Nose’s brows lowered as he seized Katie’s arm. “Forget it!” he growled. Katie winced, but stole a glance at Lank Hair’s magazine as the woman cut across to the register. What could be so important?

  A FIRMER FANNY FOR A FANTASTIC YOU! blared the cover. Beneath the caption was a picture of a loopily grinning lady with her bikinied backside to the camera.

  There was no time to ponder the absurdity of this. Lank Hair was in line and Crooked Nose was shepherding both children out the door and into the night.

  The grip on Katie’s arm was brutal. While maintaining his lurid, fatherly smile for the benefit of any onlookers, Nose half dragged the children around the side of the building to wait for Hair. In the relative quiet by the gas station’s far wall he pushed both of them roughly against the brick and leaned over them, his acrid breath on their faces.

  “Where you runnin’ to?” he demanded. “You go to dat uncle? Dat where you go?”

  Katie could not think. The pain in her arm was too great.

  “Where he at? He in New Hampshire, right? What town?”

  This, at least, was good. Nose had the wrong state.

  But David spoke up. “You cretin,” he said contemptuously. “It’s Vermont. A week on my parents’ computer and you couldn’t figure that out?”

  Katie was dismayed. Why had he told? But Nose grinned in satisfaction. “Vermont,” he said with a sneer. “Ha! Dat a nice try! What town in New Hampshire?”

  Despite everything Katie felt a surge of admiration. How had her brother thought of this so fast? Nose would assume that David was lying. Because he had said Vermont, that was now the last place the Katkajanians would look for Uncle Alex.

  But Nose was still hammering David about New Hampshire. “What town?” he again demanded.

  “You’ll never know,” said her brother, giving his arm an angry jerk where Nose was gripping it. “You’ll never—”

  But David stopped, midsentence and openmouthed. He stared, stunned, over Nose’s shoulder. Coming at them from around the corner he saw Hair, with her magazine tucked in a plastic bag and alarm on her face. And right behind her was a pair of enormous policemen dressed in blue, their massive chests glittering with badges and buckles and their holsters bulging with apparently real guns.

  They looked like a blue wall, and they did not look happy.

  David’s mouth closed, his words unspoken. Now what?

  Voices and static crackled out of the first policeman’s walkie-talkie. David and Katie could make out none of it, but without looking down the cop pushed a button on his hip and replied, “Yup.”

  A pause followed. All six of them stood in frozen silence as the policeman stared straight ahead, listening to the gibberish that continued to issue from his hip.

  “Got ’em. Boy, girl. With an adult female, adult male.”

  That must mean them. Them and Hair and Nose.

  There was another pause and more gibberish from the policeman’s hip. Then: “We came into the station and asked the clerk had he seen any kids, travelin’ alone. Guy pointed me straight at this lady who was buyin’ a magazine. Said she had ’em.”

  The cop was listening to yet more staticky conversation. This time Katie and David managed to make out a few words.

  “Bring ’im over for ID,” crackled the voice on the other end.

  Huh?

  But the policeman understood. “Ten-four!” he said, and again he pushed the button and the sound clicked off.

  For a moment both halves of the blue wall stared down at the kids. Then the walkie-talkie cop turned to Nose. Walkie-Talkie was an African American officer with a middle-aged face, penetrating eyes, and a deeply skeptical expression.

  “Hands offa those kids and up against the wall,” he said impassively. He looked to be about six foot three. Nose instantly dropped his hold on Katie and David and, raising both arms, put his palms flat against the wall of the gas station. As his head sank between his hands he threw David a private look of intense fury.

  The other cop had freckles and a youngish expression and was, if anything, even taller. He jerked his head toward Hair. “You too,” he said. Despite her confusion Katie noticed that Freckles seemed to be imitating Walkie-Talkie. He must be a new policeman, she thought, though he’s so enormous. New—that was good. He’d be easier.

  Hair followed Nose to the wall and leaned against it with both palms, as he had done. Walkie-Talkie turned to Freckles and raised his eyebrows, and Freckles stepped over to the two captives and began patting their sides.

  The policemen were frisking Nose and Hair! How much did they know?

  And how much did Katie and David want them to know? They had always thought of the police as their friends. But that was before they had been left with a nanny to whom they must not be sent back. That was before Katkajanian kidnappers had seized their parents. That was before the truth was a story no one would believe.

  Now Katie watched as Walkie-Talkie, hands on his hips, looked down at David. The cop was about to ask a question, and it was obvious from David’s panicky face that he didn’t have a clue what to say. But suddenly Katie did.

  Her mouth seemed to open by itself. “Mom!” she cried, her voice quivering in distress as she turned to Nose and Hair. “Mom and Dad—are you OK?”

  Five heads swiveled in her direction. Five faces stared blankly into hers, but the one she met was her brother’s. Katie’s eyes locked on David’s as she spoke and she poured her secret message through her gaze: Follow my lead. I know what to do.

  “Steven,” she pleaded, remembering the name Hair had given David. “They can’t do this to Mom and Dad! It’s over, Steven. We have to go home now.”

  Katie willed a small, pathetic break into her voice. She must appear to be heartbroken, as if at the end of a wonderful dream. She turned to Walkie-Talkie. “It wasn’t supposed to turn out like this!” she begged. “We just meant—”

  “What’s your name, sister?” Walkie-Talkie fished a pad and pencil from his pocket, and waved at Hair and Nose to drop their hands. Hair still looked very flustered but a wary relief was spreading over Nose’s face.

  “Susan—Susan Anderson,” said Katie. Right away Walkie-Talkie gave her a look and she instantly wished she had chosen a last name that sounded less fake. But she barreled forward. “This is my brother, Steven. And we—”

  But Katie’s story was interrupted. A police car was swinging toward them from around the back of the gas station, blue lights flashing. It braked a few feet from Freckles, and another enormous cop emerged heavily from the front seat. The back door opened as well and out stepped a familiar figure wearing a cap and jacket with the King Foods logo. The driver of their erstwhile home, the King Foods truck, stared at Katie and David.

  “This him?” said Walkie-Talkie, looking inquiringly at the driver and gesturing toward David.

  “That’s the one,” said the driver. But Walkie-Talkie was again talking to David. “You been ridin’ in his truck?”

  David threw a begging look at Katie. “Don’t be lookin’ at your sister, son,” said Walkie-Talkie sternly. “I’m askin’ you.”

  “Ye—yes,” said David tentatively. He had no idea what Katie was doing, pretending to be Susan and calling those creeps Mom and Dad.

  Katie chimed right in. “We both were,” she pleaded. “We didn’t know, though. We didn’t know it would turn out like this! We just . . . We just wanted to know if it would work.” She
cast down her eyes, as if ashamed.

  “We were being stowaways,” said David, following blindly. “We just wanted to see.”

  “Mom?” Katie turned to Hair. “Mom, I’m really sorry.” Katie spoke carefully, praying that Hair and Nose and David would hear the message behind her words. “We were awful, but we know it’s over. We know we have to be good. We know”—for this part she looked straight into Nose’s eyes—“we know you’re in charge.”

  Nose visibly relaxed and a smug smile snaked across his face. And Hair spoke. “Thad’s OK, sweetie,” she said. “You’re safe. Thad’s the maid thig.”

  Freckles was trying to suppress a smile. Despite his bulk this second cop seemed barely old enough to drive.

  Walkie-Talkie, on the other hand, still looked skeptical. He turned back to the King Foods man.

  “You want to press charges?” he asked.

  “I’ll have to speak to my dispatcher,” said King Foods.

  “Okay.” Walkie-Talkie stashed his pad in his pocket. “We’re gonna have to talk this over. There’s a substation right over at the visitors’ center. Everybody’s gonna need to sit down for some questions.”

  “Officer, we need to take dese cheeldren home!” Nose slapped a fatherly hand on David’s shoulder. David wanted to barf.

  “Some questions,” repeated Walkie-Talkie. “Now you”—this was for King Foods, who nodded—“you walk on over and meet us there. And you four—Anderson’s your name?” Neither Nose nor Hair replied. “Into the car.”

  As they climbed in, Katie realized with despair that there would be no opportunity to explain her plan to David. She just had to hope he would figure it out.

  They had only one chance of getting away: They must convince all four of their captors that they didn’t want to escape. The police had to believe they were with their parents. Nose and Hair had to believe they had given up. Only when everyone was certain that Katie and David had nowhere to go would the children no longer be watched.

  The police substation was indeed in the visitors’ center, but it was in the back with its own separate entrance. It was quieter here, away from the endless river of families streaming in and out of the food court. Inside was a lobby lined with dirty plastic chairs and presided over by a battered and vacant receptionist’s desk. A door behind the desk led to a small cluster of windowless rooms.

  Katie and David, with Hair and Nose, were taken to one of these rooms and left to wait around a long table. Freckles remained to watch over them while Walkie-Talkie spoke with King Foods in the room next door.

  David looked around. Even with Walkie-Talkie gone he didn’t like the odds. To escape they’d have to get out of this room, down the short corridor, and then through the lobby. That meant there were at least three doors between them and freedom. Three doors and three adults.

  He sighed and tried to pay attention to what Freckles was saying. It was all small talk. It turned out the young cop was a baseball nut. He knew they had boarded the truck in Washington DC, so he was rambling cheerfully on about the Nationals. David appreciated the good intentions, but he wished the guy would be quiet so he could study the layout of this place.

  Katie was worried too, but not because she was planning a run for the exits. Hair and Nose had been asked to produce their driver’s licenses, and Walkie-Talkie was plainly unhappy that neither adult was named Anderson. Katie’s whole strategy depended on everyone thinking they were one big happy family.

  The door opened and Walkie-Talkie returned to the room alone. He stood at the head of their table, arms folded across his massive chest.

  “The King Foods Corporation’s not gonna press charges,” he said.

  “Good! Then we go,” said Nose, rising.

  “Not so fast,” said Walkie-Talkie. “I got a few more questions before I release these children to your custody.”

  At this, Nose’s unruffled expression began to crack. “You no can keep my cheeldren from me!” he said sharply. “You got no cause for dat!”

  “They hab to go hobe,” protested Hair. “They deed sobe rest!”

  But Walkie-Talkie was unmoved. “Officer Sanders, will you take these kids to the lobby, please?” he said.

  Katie rose to follow, her concern deepening. But David’s heart leaped as they passed out the door and back to the lobby. The way he saw it, they had just gone from three adults to one. He turned to look at their lone remaining captor and grinned up at the young man’s frank and friendly face. Sanders. So that was Freckles’s name.

  He’s big, David thought, but he’s way too nice. We can take him.

  Katie had deposited herself dejectedly on a rickety chair in the lobby. David dropped lightly beside her, flicking a candy wrapper off his seat before he did so. Sanders had stationed himself at the receptionist’s desk and a quick sideways glance revealed that he was staring at them with a look of compassion.

  Oh, yeah. His “parents” were being interrogated. David hastily rearranged his expression along serious lines and turned a worried face to their jailer.

  “How ’bout the Wizards?” the cop asked, looking genuinely sorry for him. “You like basketball?”

  David did, and for a while that gave them something to talk about. But forty-five minutes and many professional sports later, neither David nor Katie wanted to talk about anything. The hour was growing late, they were tired and hungry, and it had become obvious that while Sanders was certainly very nice, he wasn’t going away. They were close enough to the exit to taste it and, compared to before, they were very lightly guarded. But if they couldn’t make a break for it pretty soon, the others would emerge from the back and this opportunity would slip through their fingers.

  Then—from somewhere deep in the pocket of his pants—Sanders’s cell phone rang.

  The big cop hitched his body to the side and fished out the small, trilling object. He peered at the screen that displayed the number of the caller and his eyes lit up. He clutched the device close to his face and cupped his hand around the mouthpiece for privacy.

  It wasn’t quite private enough. Both of them heard his low, eager voice. “Hi, sugar,” said Sanders.

  David looked at Katie and Katie looked at David. Both had precisely the same thought. This was a development. This—this—was an opportunity.

  They could not hear everything, but very soon they heard enough to know that all was not well between Sanders and his sugar. The cop was hunched tightly over his phone and his murmurings into it acquired a troubled and urgent quality.

  “Honey,” they heard him saying in tones of gentle remonstrance. “Honey, you know that’s not true!” Sanders’s eyes flicked upward over the top of his phone and met the children’s gazes. Nice though he was, his brow lowered coldly and he stared down at the desktop. Sugar continued to talk. He continued to listen.

  “No, baby.” Sanders’s voice, which he had labored to keep low, was rising and there was a pleading note in it. “No, that’s not what I meant!” Again he glanced upward and again he saw the children. This time he turned his body impatiently away, seeking escape from their eyes.

  Sanders was pouring every ounce of his gigantic self into the tiny sliver of a phone that he clutched to his massive head. Their three other captors were still locked away in the back room. No more than a tissue hung between Katie and David and the highway to Vermont.

  But the lobby was a single large square and the only door that led to freedom stood smack in front of the desk where the cop sat. A wave of despair washed over Katie. They were so close but so utterly, utterly trapped.

  “Officer Sanders?”

  David rose and loped over to the desk where Sanders sat. Katie’s hopes stirred. Maybe her brother had a plan.

  Sanders, flustered, looked up from his call. His face was flushed from his struggle with Sugar.

  “Officer Sanders?” said David, who was now standing right before him. “I’m really hungry.”

  It was brilliant. There was no food in the lobby. To get any, S
anders would have to leave. David was a genius.

  Sanders put his hand over the receiver. “Won’t be too long now,” he replied. A tight smile appeared as he did so. “They’ll be out pretty soon.”

  “We haven’t eaten anything for hours!”

  From across the lobby Katie chimed in. “And we’re thirsty, too!”

  Sanders’s smile grew a little more desperate. “It’ll only be—” He broke off as a torrent of words that even the children could hear erupted from inside his phone. Beads of sweat appeared on Sanders’s forehead.

  David spoke again. “We’re starv—”

  Sanders raised his hand, cutting him off. Then without allowing the phone to budge from his ear, he reached deep into his pocket and removed his wallet. Katie and David watched as, one-handed, he unfolded it and extracted a five-dollar bill.

  He wouldn’t. It couldn’t possibly be that easy. He wasn’t really going to give them money and send them away.

  Still glued to the phone, Sanders held out the five, met David’s eyes, and mouthed: “For the food court. Come right back.”

  “Mmm-hmm,” he murmured into the phone. “Me too, baby.”

  Katie rose and turned for the door, trying to act casual and trying to quiet her pounding heart. But where was David?

  From behind her she heard his voice. “No!” he repeated loudly. “We’re really hungry!”

  A surge of anger flooded over Katie at this totally unnecessary risk. Incredibly, though, it paid off. The cop glowered, but he fished out a second five and handed it to David without a word.

  “Thanks!”

  Now both children bounded for the exit. Katie shouldered open the wide glass door and they pushed through it into the warm and humid night air. Every cell in her body wanted to run but she knew they were still in Sanders’s line of sight.

  The children turned left—casually, casually—as if they were heading around the building toward the main entrance and the food court. But within just a few paces they had cleared the window and then they knew they could no longer be seen.