by Vicki Grant
I saw the rake leaning against the wall. I walked over and picked it up. “Come on,” I said. “We’ll be okay.”
Bebi looked at me for a couple of seconds before she stood up too. She grabbed a big bottle of water from the shelf. She held it upside down like a club. She handed a bottle to Richard and motioned for him to do the same.
We started walking to the door in single file. I wished I’d grabbed a water bottle instead of the rake. At least a water bottle would hurt if I had to hit someone with it.
We all heard the noise at the same time. We stopped dead. Someone was on the other side of the door, panting. Not panting the way a runner does after a marathon. This person was panting like a hungry animal about to tear apart a carcass.
Lot of good my little rake would do now. I put my arm around Bebi like I was trying to protect her, but who was I kidding? She must have felt me shaking.
Something shushed along the floor. It wasn’t very loud, but we all jumped as if a hand grenade had gone off.
A sheet of paper slid under the door.
We stared at it for a few seconds. I let go of Bebi, picked it up, raced back and put my arm around her again. I don’t know if it made her feel better, but it helped me.
Are you all right? was written in big purple letters.
Bebi crinkled up her face and whispered, “Weird.” I was thinking the same thing. You don’t expect your kidnapper to ask how you’re doing. (If they really cared, they wouldn’t have dragged us here in the first place.)
Thinkingthatkindoftwiggedsomething in my brain. Maybe this wasn’t what it seemed. Maybe there was some hope after all. I had an idea.
I whispered, “Do you have anything to write with?”
Bebi patted her pockets and then shook her head. The only thing Richard had was a chocolate bar. I squinted at him. What was he doing with stunt poo? My guess is he’d been planning some late-night fires after all.
I took the bar and peeled back the wrapper. I flipped the note over and scratched out an answer with it. The chocolate smudged a bit, but you could still read it. Yes, I wrote. R U? Somehow it just seemed safer to write an answer than say it.
Richard and Bebi looked at me like “What are you doing?” It was a long shot. Someone had wiped my face, turned on the light and sent us the note. Maybe the person wasn’t as bad as we thought. Or maybe the bad guy had gone and left us with someone else—someone good. I decided to appeal to their better nature. As far as I could tell, it was our only way out of there.
I pushed the note under the door. Ten seconds later, a new sheet of paper came back. It said, I am now. Thank you.
I could feel my heart slowing to a normal rate. Whoever was guarding us was at least polite. That seemed like a good sign.
I wrote back, U weren’t B4?
The answer took a while to come. No. I was scared.
I tried to reply, but the bar crumbled in my hand. I wanted to keep communicating. I had the feeling that’s what would save us.
“Um, sorry,” I said out loud. “I can’t answer you. My chocolate bar ran out.”
The person laughed. Bebi squeezed my hand. Richard’s eyebrows shot up. You could feel us all relax a bit.
“What were you afraid of?” I said.
There was shuffling on the other side of the door. The person coughed a few times and then whispered, “You.”
“Me? Us?” I said.
“Uh-huh.”
I looked at Richard. Those fires had been such a bad idea.
I started to narrow down who our kidnapper could be. We didn’t use a fire with Bert. We used one with the lady, but she didn’t seem scared. She didn’t even try to put it out. I realized now too it couldn’t be Bebi’s dad. He wouldn’t abduct his own daughter.
I mouthed the words, “It’s Naked Guy.”
“Why were you afraid of us?” I said. I tried to sound innocent.
The voice was sort of stumbling and higher than I expected it to be. “I watched you all day...I watched your game...I knew sooner or later you were going to come for me.”
I shook my head at Richard. We both knew immediately it couldn’t be Naked Guy. We’d already got him.
Who was it?
The person was getting more and more agitated. “Then today, I heard you talking on your porch. You said you were coming tonight.”
Our porch? Who could have heard us talking on our porch?
I looked at all the water, the canned food. I thought of the curtains moving, someone watching us. It was a hot day. Windows would be open.
The answer kind of washed over me. I suddenly knew it wasn’t a man at all.
It was Marjorie.
A sick old lady had caught us. It didn’t make sense—but who else could it be? Did she have a helper? What did she do all day in her house? I tried to think if any other kids had gone missing.
Then I tried not to think about it. It was too creepy.
Her voice was getting louder and faster. She was panting again.
“I knew I’d have to come outside...,” she said. “I’d have to put the fire out...What if someone saw me? What if...”
She started making the type of whimpering noise dogs make when they want to be let in.
“We weren’t going to ring your doorbell!” I said. “Honest. We really weren’t.”
I could hear her trying to get her breathing back under control.
“Are you all right, Marjorie?” I said. “Would you like some water?”
“No, thank you. You’re very kind,” she said. She obviously forgot it was her own water I was offering her.
She paused.
“I’m sorry I did this to you,” she said. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I...I just...panicked.”
She had to stop again and calm herself down.
“As you may have guessed,” she said after a while, “I have a condition...a phobia. A fear of the outside. I get panic attacks. I can’t control them.”
Richard had been quiet, but now he suddenly felt the need to pipe up. “If you were so afraid of the outside, how come you came out and kidnapped us?” I kicked his leg. Was he nuts? Why get her riled up now? That’s all we needed.
“Good point!” She laughed, but when she spoke again she was serious. “Tonight I saw one of you boys pointing the camera at my house. You did it for the longest time. My anxiety skyrocketed. I felt like a trapped animal. You were coming to get me! I was overcome by panic. I had no choice. I had to get to you before you got me.”
We could hear her moving her feet around. “I couldn’t bear the thought of you seeing me, so I snuck up on you from behind. I realize that was a mistake and that of course you’d be frightened, but I wasn’t thinking straight. I was only going to ask you to leave me alone, but you screamed and tried to get away. I was so terrified that I dragged you in here.”
I had to ask. “Why did you come for me too then?” I said. “You rang my doorbell.”
“Because you were in it together! You’d notice he was gone, you’d come after me...” She moaned. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry about your head, about everything. I really am. I used to be a nurse, so I was pretty sure you were okay. But I was also sure that I’d got myself into a terrible mess now. I knew I had to call the authorities, but I was too scared to pick up the phone. I was pacing by the window wondering what to do when I saw the girl. I remembered her talking with you today, staring at my house. I had to grab her too! This whole thing was snowballing out of control. I know it sounds crazy, but...but...”
I’m not sure if she was laughing or crying. “But I guess I am crazy. Who would keep themselves locked up in a house for five years if they weren’t crazy?”
“You’re not crazy,” I said. “We shouldn’t have been playing that stupid game. We bugged a lot of people. I bet you’re not the only person who wanted to kill us.”
“I didn’t want to kill you!” she said.
I didn’t have time to explain that it was just a figure of speech. The doorbell rang.
I heard her gasp.
“Oh no!” she whispered. “There’s a police car here!”
Her breathing started going nuts again.
Marjorie whispered, “They’re coming to get me! They know what I’ve done! They’re going to take me downtown! They’ll put my picture in the paper! Everyone will see me!”
The doorbell rang again.
We heard Marjorie begin to rock back and forth. She seemed to be humming or something.
There was a loud knock on the door. A man’s voice said, “Open up! Police!”
“Please,” Marjorie whispered. “Help me. Don’t make me talk to them.” She was begging. “Tell them what I did. Please. Please.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “We’ll help you. You hide. We’ll talk to the cops.”
Marjorie unlocked the door.
She disappeared by the time we’d stepped into the house.
door number nine
I opened the front door.
“Hello, Officer,” I said. “Is there a problem?”
It was the same cop we saw before. He looked at me like “You again!” Then he saw Bebi and smiled.
“Not anymore,” he said. “Seems like we found our missing girl. This you, Miss?” He pulled a photo out of his pocket and showed it to her.
She nodded.
“Your father’s very worried about you,” he said. “You’re going to have some explaining to do.” Bebi’s face went pale. I got the feeling she’d rather be kidnapped again than have to face her dad. She squeezed my hand. I was worried I’d never get to see her again once her dad found out what happened.
“This is all my fault, Officer.” The voice surprised us. We turned around to see Marjorie walking down the hall.
She was big and tall and very pale, but she wasn’t old. Thirty-five or forty, maybe. She had this quivery smile on her face.
“I shouldn’t have kept the girl so long,” she said. “I haven’t been feeling well. The kids were helping me.”
The officer winked. “Maybe you’d like to tell her dad that. He might not be so hard on her then.”
I could feel how nervous that made Marjorie. “Sure,” she said. She cleared her throat. “There’s one more thing too. Would you mind driving me to the hospital on your way back? I think it’s time I saw somebody about...my condition.”
She rubbed her hands together and swallowed. “You might like to talk to me about a few things too,” she said.
“No problem,” the cop said. “We can chat in the car after we drop Bebi off. Now, why don’t you boys run along home?”
I turned to Bebi. “See you tomorrow?” I said hopefully.
Her face still looked scared, but her eyes lit up a bit. “Yeah,” she said. “That would be nice.”
The cop tapped his foot. I got the feeling he didn’t trust teenage boys any more than her father did. I gave Bebi’s hand another squeeze, and then Richard and I headed down the stairs.
“Boys?” We turned back around. Marjorie was rubbing her fingers together as if she was trying to get something sticky off them.
My heart started thumping. I didn’t know what she was going to say. It’s weird. She was the one who kidnapped us but I still felt guilty. Marjorie was going to be in a lot of trouble all because we got bored one day and decided to play some stupid game. I wanted to apologize to her but I didn’t know where to start.
She looked at me in a way that made me think I didn’t have to. She said, “I certainly hope I’ll bump into you on the street some time soon.”
It’s funny—but that made me feel kind of better.
I watched her step out the door.
I’m pretty sure she smiled as she closed it behind her.
As she got in the car, Richard elbowed me in the ribs and whispered, “I told you Nicky Nicky Nine Doors would be fun.”
Vicki Grant is a best-selling and award-winning author of many books for juveniles and young adults, including I.D. and Dead-End Job in the Orca Soundings series and Pigboy in the Orca currents series, all of which were ALA Quick Picks. Her comic legal thriller for teens, Quid Pro Quo, won the Arthur Ellis award for Best Juvenile crime Fiction. Vicki lives in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Visit her website at www.vickigrant.com
Praise for Pigboy by Vicki Grant
“Grant hits the nail on the head when she brings both mucous and underwear into the story line...Grant writes a compelling story with lots of suspense, but it’s the journey to Dan’s personal redemption that is most enjoyable to read...Highly recommended.” —CM Magazine
“This quick read is perfect for reluctant readers, especially boys. In a story of bravery and redemption, Grant moves quickly to first establish Dan’s post on the lowest rung of the social ladder, and then chronicles his eventual rise to the top.” —KLIATT
“Dan’s wry sense of humor catches readers’ attention and has them rooting for him practically from the first page. Pigboy is a great quick read for boys who may be reluctant readers, but others will enjoy it as well.” —School Library Journal
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Table of Contents
Cover Page
Title Page
Copyright Page
Dedication
Prologue
Door Number One
Door Number Two
Door Number Three
Door Number Four
Door Number Five
Door Number Six
Door Number Seven
Door Number Eight
Door Number Nine
About the Author
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