Mr. And Miss Anonymous

by Fern Michaels

  Josh did his best to forget how wet and miserable he was as he watched the family get up and leave the kitchen. A minute later he heard voices in the driveway as they got into a car and drove off. He blinked at the fact that lights were left on and food was still sitting on the table. He knew Jesse was hungry. Maybe he could sneak into the house and take some food. He didn’t stop to think but ran toward the house, though not before he cautioned Jesse to stay hidden in the thick shrubbery. He returned with the bucket of chicken, some clothes from the dryer by the back door, and a headful of wonderful scents. He now knew what a family’s house smelled like. He felt giddy at the sudden knowledge.

  They ate first, devouring the fried chicken and biscuits. They had fried chicken at the academy, but it had never tasted like this chicken.

  “That was very good,” Jesse said. “We’re having a real experience, aren’t we, Josh?”

  “This is as real as it gets, Jesse. Quick now, change your clothes. You’ll feel better when you’re dry and comfortable. We have to leave here and find a place to sleep tonight. The police are going to be looking for us. So will the…lots of people are going to be looking for us. We have to look different so we…so we blend in.”

  Josh Baer prodded his companion. “Come on, Jesse, we have to keep moving, or they’ll find us. We have to find a place to ditch our old clothes. Jesse, are you listening to me?”

  Jesse mumbled something as he tried to keep up with Josh. “Why are we running away? Let’s go back, Josh. They’re going to punish us.”

  Josh drew a deep breath. He’d taken responsibility for Jesse, who was mentally challenged, when they were five years old and living in that first awful place. “No, they aren’t going to punish us because we aren’t going back. Promise me you’re going to do everything I say. Promise, Jesse.”

  “I promise. Where are we going? Who was that person with the gun? Are they going to catch us?”

  “I don’t know where we’re going yet. Someplace safe. He was just a guy with a gun, and I don’t know who he was. If you do what I say and listen to me, they won’t catch us. Do you understand me, Jesse?”

  “I always do what you say, Josh. You’re my brother.”

  “Except for yesterday, when you couldn’t find your book bag and we were late for class. Being late for class yesterday was a good thing, Jesse. If we had been on time for class, we’d both be dead.”

  “I’m getting tired. I wish I had some more of that chicken.”

  Josh was losing his patience. “I’m tired, too, Jesse. We have to get as far away from school as we can. It’s better if we move around at night because no one will be watching for us in the dark. Please, Jesse, try to keep up. We’ll find a place to sleep pretty soon.”

  Staying in the shadows, skipping from yard to yard, the two boys trudged along for hours as they sought a safe haven. The rain had stopped, and the cloud cover moved on, leaving the moon riding high in the sky. Josh wasn’t sure, but he thought it must be around midnight. He knew Jesse was more tired, but he was gamely putting one foot in front of the other. Jesse was always a good sport.

  If only Jesse had been smart enough not to swallow those pills. Well, there was no point in thinking about that now. Maybe someday he’d be able to tell someone who cared enough to listen.

  His eyelids drooping, Josh saw the bus in the empty lot out of the corner of his eye. He half-dragged, half-carried Jesse to the bus, praying that the door would be open. It was. They crawled in, and Jesse was asleep the minute he stretched out across the long seat at the back of the bus. Josh sat down, propped his feet up against the seat in front of him, and closed his eyes. Tired as he was, sleep would not come.

  He played the scene over and over in his mind. Why? He felt bad about stealing money from Mr. Dickey’s wallet. He felt even worse for taking all the money in Miss Carmody’s purse. He told himself they were dead and wouldn’t need it. Still, he’d stolen it. More for Jesse than for himself. Altogether it was $140. Enough to buy food for a little while until he could figure out what to do.

  He was smart. All those doctors who checked him all the time said he was exceptionally smart. The tests proved it. But he wasn’t smart in the ways of the world. How could he be? He had lived in group homes, under close supervision, then at the academy. He’d never gone anywhere in the outside world to gain any practical knowledge. He thought about the family he’d seen earlier. They looked so happy. He wondered if he would ever be happy.

  Josh did his best to curl into the fetal position on the narrow seat. His last conscious thought before drifting off to sleep was that he knew in his heart, in his mind, in his gut, that somewhere out there in that strange, alien world he was just coming to know, he had a mother and a father. He wasn’t a test tube kid. He wasn’t. No matter what they said or did to him, he would never, ever believe that.

  The memory came almost immediately.

  He was back in the white building dressed in a long white shirt and standing in a long line with other children. To get the colored candies. The men in the white coats said they were M&M’s. He looked up at the pictures on the wall of the little candies dancing across a poster.

  He didn’t know how he knew, even at the age of six, that it wasn’t candy on the little white dish. Maybe it was because the other children got sick after taking the candies.

  He kept the colored candy under his tongue, then spit it out when no one was looking.

  Then again, maybe it was the way the men in the white coats whispered when he was next in line to receive the candies.

  They wrote a lot on the paper that had his name on it. Someday, when he learned how to read, he was going to search for those papers to see what they had written about him.

  He moved out of the line and waited for Jesse. Jesse was like him when they first came to this place, but he was different now. Sometimes he couldn’t remember his name and Josh would have to remind him. “What’s your name today?”

  The chubby six-year-old laughed as he ran out to the playground. He always laughed when he couldn’t remember his name. Josh followed him, trying to understand why Jesse couldn’t remember his name. Everyone was supposed to know their names. Jesse used to know his name before they started giving out the colored candies.

  Fifteen minutes to play on the swings and monkey bars, then the monitors would line them up to go back indoors. He moved closer to Jesse. “You have to remember your name, or they’ll put you in the slow line,” he whispered.

  Jesse laughed again as he scampered away from the swing he’d been swinging on.

  Josh followed him and watched as Jesse struggled with the monkey bars. He turned when he heard the whistle. Time to line up. The fast line and the slow line. Josh took his place in the fast line with another boy and one girl. Jesse waved as the monitor led him to the slow line, where the majority of the children were waiting. He waved again as he took his place in line. Josh didn’t wave back.

  Josh moved closer to the boy in front of him. When the monitor wasn’t looking, he whispered, “Do you like those candies, Tom?”

  “Heck, no. They’re bitter. When no one is looking, I spit them out. Don’t tell on me, okay?”

  “I won’t tell,” Josh said solemnly. He turned to the girl and asked the same question. “Do you like the candy?”

  The girl, whose name was Sheila, giggled, and said she put them in her ear when no one was looking. “Promise not to tell.” Again, Josh solemnly promised.

  Following the monitor inside, Josh knew if they swallowed the candies that he, Tom, and Sheila would go to the slow line, the line where the kids couldn’t remember their names.

  Josh stirred, then woke. Groggy, he looked at the darkness surrounding him. It all came back to him in a rush. He crept to the back of the bus to check on Jesse, who was still sleeping peacefully. Josh walked back to his seat and tried to go to sleep again, but sleep was elusive. His weary mind kept going to the family he’d watched from his hiding spot in the bushes. What he’d seen ear
lier was real—really, totally real.

  Josh knew that the outside world he was in was very different from the cloistered one he had lived all his life. He, Tom, and Sheila whispered about this other world after lights-out. They talked and planned what they’d do when they left the academy at eighteen. It was Tom who came up with the plan. Sheila, the bravest of the three, said it would work if they all did their part.

  They did have one fear, and Josh was the one who’d expressed it over and over: “What if the authorities don’t believe us?”

  Tom’s response was, “I have the goods.”

  Sheila said their remarkable memories would serve them well. All Josh could do was nod and hope they were right.

  Now he was on his own, with only Jesse to help him. He blinked away the tears forming in his eyes. He was never going to see Tom and Sheila again. Ever. If he was lucky, maybe he could find out where his two best friends were buried so he could visit them. He had to tell them how sorry he was that he was alive and they weren’t.

  Josh wondered if that would ever happen. His eyes finally closed, and he was asleep.

  A hard shake to his shoulder woke Josh hours later. He blinked as he raised himself on one elbow to look out the bus window. The sun was just creeping over the horizon.

  “I have to pee, Josh. I’m hungry. I don’t like it here. I want to go home. Let’s go home, Josh.”

  Josh stood up and had to duck. His six-foottwo frame was too tall for the bus. He crouched over as he led Jesse outside.

  Ninety minutes later the two young men stopped at a roadside shack, lured in by a sign that said it served the best bacon-sausage-and-egg sandwiches in California. Josh ordered six and two bottles of orange juice, seriously depleting his money supply. They wolfed down the food and asked the man behind the counter for directions to the nearest library.

  The day was beginning. People were walking in little groups, some walking dogs, others running, some jogging. Traffic was heavy in all directions. Overhead the birds were awake and singing their morning songs. Josh wished he had the time to enjoy and savor what was going on around him.

  Josh did a double take when he saw a sign for the university and realized they must be headed for the Berkeley Campus Library. He didn’t know if it was a bad thing or a good thing. He told himself there was probably more information to be gained from a college library than a public library.

  “I want to go home, Josh. Why are we going to this place?”

  Josh whirled around. “Listen to me, Jesse. We can’t go back. They…closed the school. The doors are all locked. We have to find somewhere else to go. You have to listen to me, Jesse, and pay attention. That man with the gun back at the school…He will come after us.”

  “Why?”

  Josh knew he wasn’t going to get through to Jesse, but he tried nonetheless. “He’s one of the bad guys. He doesn’t like us. He wants to kill us the way he killed Mr. Dickey and Miss Carmody and all our friends. When we get inside, you can open your backpack and draw while I work on the computer. Maybe…maybe the people in the library will let you hang up your pictures. You have to be real quiet in the library. You can’t talk to anyone, Jesse. Do you hear me?”

  “Will they really hang my pictures, Josh?”

  “Yeah. I promise. You’re gonna keep quiet, right?”

  Jesse squeezed his lips shut with his fingers and giggled.

  Josh’s eyes were everywhere as he walked through the security line, Jesse right behind him. It was a nice library. A big library. They could get lost inside for many hours. Even at that hour there were hundreds of people, mostly students, milling about. The only thing he didn’t like about libraries was the deathly silence. When you made a sound, everyone looked at you. Just then he didn’t want anyone looking at him.

  Two strolls up and down the aisle later, Josh picked out a table at the back of the library and settled Jesse. “Listen to me,” he whispered, “I’m going to be over by the computers. Do not move from this chair, Jesse. Stay here until I come back for you. If you get lost, someone will take your book bag, and they won’t give you anything to eat.” He hated saying things like that to Jesse, but sometimes he had to do it so Jesse wouldn’t blow things out of the water. As Josh had found out over the years, there was no telling what Jesse would do at any given time.

  Josh waited until Jesse had his colored pencils and his art tablet in front of him before leaving. He looked back once, and saw that Jesse was in his own little world. For the moment.

  Josh headed for the racks of current daily newspapers. He carried them to a small table, opened them, and proceeded to read everything printed about the carnage at the academy. What a crock, he seethed under his breath. He had a good mind to send the newspapers a scathing e-mail, telling them they had it all wrong. Maybe he would do that.

  As he pondered what he’d just read, his gaze was everywhere. He spotted it then, two backpacks with baseball caps stuck in between the straps. Josh looked around to see if anyone was watching. He snatched the caps, perfectly ordinary khaki-colored billed caps. In the blink of an eye he was back at Jesse’s table. He reached down for a bright-blue marker and scribbled the word “Jack” on the bill. On the one he plopped onto Jesse’s head he wrote “Bill.” Jesse looked up and smiled, but he didn’t take off the cap.

  Back at his own table, Josh gathered up the newspapers to carry them back to the rack. He positioned them just the way they were when he got them. Behind him, a woman in a hat with a big flower on it was waiting for the papers he’d just read. He mumbled, “Excuse me,” and went back to his table.

  Feeling slightly invisible with his curly hair tucked under the cap, Josh bent over the computer and logged on. He took one last look at Jesse, who was contentedly filling page after page with his drawings, before Josh lost himself in the only world he truly knew. The Internet.

  It was fast approaching the noon hour when Josh looked up at the clock on the wall. Jesse would be getting hungry. He clicked the mouse one last time and almost passed out when he saw a picture of himself on the screen. He slouched down in his chair as he read the small caption under his picture.

  KILLER LOOKS LIKE BOY NEXT DOOR!

  DEAN SAYS JOSH BAER WAS A TROUBLED BOY.

  He could hardly believe what he was reading. They were blaming him! They were blaming him for killing Tom and Sheila and all the others. Even the teachers. Were they crazy? Why would the media accuse him? He wished Tom and Sheila were there so he could talk to them. What would they do or say? He turned off the computer just as a tall man, almost as tall as he was, walked by his table.

  Josh was about to get up when he saw the tall man heading toward the lady in the pretty hat. He watched out of the corner of his eye to see if they would notice or pay attention to Jesse. They talked for a minute, then they left together, but not before the woman pointed to Jesse, who was bent over his drawings. Josh felt his heart flutter in his chest. Why did she point to Jesse? What did it mean? Instinctively, he knew they had to get out of the library immediately.

  Josh did his best to hurry his friend, but Jesse refused to leave until his drawing was finished. Josh looked down and got dizzy at what he was looking at. Jesse had perfectly captured what had happened that morning at the shoot-out. Right down to the guy who looked like a soccer player holding the automatic weapon. Jesse’s art more than made up for his other inadequacies. Josh had never been able to figure that out. In the earlier years, Sheila had said God gave Jesse his art so he wouldn’t miss being normal. Even back then Josh hadn’t bought that theory, but he couldn’t come up with anything better to explain what a wonderful artist Jesse was.

  “I’m done. Will you hang them up now? I’m hungry.”

  “When we come back I’ll hang them up. We have to go now. I’m hungry, too.” Josh expected Jesse to give him a hard time, but he was agreeable to leaving. Probably it was the mention of food. You could always tempt Jesse with food.

  The sky was overcast as the two boys left the libra
ry. Josh looked around anxiously to see if either the lady with the hat or the really tall man was anywhere in sight. He let his breath out in a loud swoosh when he didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “Let’s run, Jesse. We haven’t had any exercise in a few days. We have to stay in shape.”

  Jesse giggled as he lumbered off at an awkward trot, Josh pounding the pavement behind him.

  Fifteen minutes later, burgers, fries, and milk shakes under their belts, Josh asked for directions to the public library.

  By two o’clock, Jesse was settled with his art pad, pencils, and markers, while Josh logged on to the computer. His mind raced as he looked down at the sickening pictures Jesse had drawn. As far as he could tell, Jesse hadn’t left out one detail of that awful scene. He hated what he knew he had to do next. But, he told himself, there was no other way. He had to do his best to protect and keep Jesse safe. If he kept Jesse with him, it was only a matter of time before they were caught. All the money in his pocket would go to feed Jesse. He didn’t mind that, but what would they do when the money ran out?

  Josh logged on to the computer and typed up an e-mail to the FBI. He gave his name and his student ID number from the academy. The letter was short and succinct.

  Dear Agents,

  I did not kill my friends or the teachers at the academy. I don’t have a gun and wouldn’t know where to get one. You have to keep Jesse safe. When you see his pictures, you will understand why. Jesse likes to eat and draw. He’s like he is because of what the people who own the academy did to him. Only eight of us that I know of are normal. I am not a troubled young man like the dean said in one of the newspaper articles. Tom had all the proof, but that man killed him. He kept the proof hidden at the academy. Only Sheila and I knew about it. They’re dead now, so only I know.