“Why does it even matter?” Pete asked, his wounded pride turning to anger.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t, I guess. I just assumed…”
“Don’t you have anything better to do than bug me with stupid questions? Maybe you should go drink tea and listen to some birds. I swear sometimes that I have a sister instead of a brother.”
I kept on walking, thinking about Mom the whole way. I was hoping that maybe Holga might come over if I asked her to. Maybe a friend could get through to Mom in a way that Pete and I couldn’t. At the very least, I could bring home some tea, and maybe the smell of it throughout the house, and the warmth of it in her stomach, would make Mom feel better. If I could get her to smile just once, I thought, then maybe I could find other ways to reach her, and little by little, day by day, the person she used to be would start to take over from the ghost she’d become. Hopefully before Pete did something crazy.
It was seven blocks from our house to Holga’s. I took a shortcut through the park and got there in under fifteen minutes, only to discover that not only was Holga not there, but the tea shop was completely shut up, the windows all boarded over with plywood. The sign above the door was gone, too, but you could still see the outline of all the letters on account of the sun having faded the surrounding wood.
I sighed and stood there for a moment, staring. The whole block was eerily silent. I looked left past Leroy’s skate and bike shop, and then right past the laundromat and the old arcade (which mostly just had pinball machines now). The sidewalks were empty, and for a moment I imagined myself the lone occupant of some evacuated outpost in the middle of nowhere. I could scream if I wanted to and no one would hear me. I could shatter glass and kick in doorways and no one would care.
Had Holga left anything behind? Was the stockroom still full of tea? I decided to find out, but first I needed something to help me pry off the plywood.
A search through a bin in the alley yielded a broken tripod leg. After screwing off its rubber foot, I managed to jam the metal end of it in behind the wood covering the back basement window. I felt bad for breaking in, but Mom needed a jolt and I was desperate.
It took all my weight as leverage, but finally the nails gave way with an audible groan. I tossed the plywood off to the side and then set about breaking the glass as quietly as possible. My heart was pounding but I tried to stay calm as I cleared away all the fragments. It was an awkward seven-foot drop to the basement floor, but I managed it okay.
Thankfully, the power was on and the light switches worked.
I was in the larger of two separate storerooms, both of which were empty save for a few bare shelves and a small stack of collapsed boxes. I went up the short stairwell to the main part of the store, already knowing what I’d find there (nothing), but still foolishly holding out hope for something different.
Although some of the old scents still lingered, nothing remained of the tea stock. The room had been gutted completely except for Holga’s old counter, which was probably screwed down into the floor. I sighed, saddened now as well as disappointed.
Since the counter was still there, I decided to look behind it. Unlikely as it seemed, I was hoping that the black licorice at least might have been forgotten. It wasn’t, of course, but the glass jar itself was actually there, sitting like an empty reminder. I sighed again. That’s when I heard a sound from the opposite side of the shop.
I looked up to see Lars Messam standing in the doorway to the storeroom, blocking my only way out. Worse yet, he was holding the metal tripod leg that I’d used to pry my way inside. He smiled at me, showing teeth.
THIRTY-FIVE
Well, well, well,” Lars said, still smiling. “Looks like poor little Benji has backed himself into a corner.” He laughed maniacally.
The Messams always called me Benji, after that small dog from the movies we always watched at school when Finding Nemo was already checked out and my teacher was too tired to teach. They had nicknames for almost everyone they terrorized, most of them having something to do with animals. Now that I knew what they did for fun in their backyard, in their sandbox-turned-firepit, I understood why.
My skin went instantly cold. It didn’t matter that Lars was alone and only half the threat that he normally would have been. I knew I was in more danger now than I’d ever been inside my school or out on the playground. The tea shop was closed and boarded up, and nobody knew I was there. Lars could do anything he felt like and no one would see or hear.
“What do you want?” I asked, trying and failing to keep my voice calm. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t go so far as to kill me, but it was easy enough to imagine him leaving me there on the floor with a broken leg. What would I do then? How would I get out?
“I want you to whimper,” he told me. “Whimper like the scared little runt you are.” He started making dog sounds, a series of sad whines and howls, eerie in their authenticity.
“Just let me go!” I begged him. “I can give you stuff. I’ve got hockey cards and comic books. They’re yours. You can have them.”
“I don’t want your stupid cards and comics,” he told me. “I want you to scream like my brother screamed.” He took a few steps toward me, smacking his open palm with the end of the tripod leg. He shook his head. “You shouldn’t have left your wagon behind. You probably thought it wouldn’t matter, that I wouldn’t recognize it from when you and your dimwit brother delivered flyers, but I did.”
“It’s not my fault that Lester stepped in the trap,” I said.
“You were trespassing. If you hadn’t been, it wouldn’t have happened. Lester would still be here instead of lying in a stupid hospital bed in Paulson. That’s your fault.” He pointed an accusatory finger and continued his slow approach.
Panic was setting in now, heightened by a sudden feeling that not only was Lars getting nearer, but that the walls were closing in, too. The whole room was shrinking around me. Escape was impossible. My only option was to stand and fight.
I took a deep breath and clenched my fists, preparing for the inevitable.
It was then that a second figure appeared at the storeroom entrance. My first thought was that Lars hadn’t come alone. I imagined his father, probably drunk and hungry for revenge, but my brain was working faster than my eyes. It wasn’t old man Messam at all. It was Pete, holding what appeared to be a fish bat, probably the same one I’d seen him club rainbow trout with on numerous occasions.
“Hey, jerk-face!” Pete yelled. “Leave my little brother alone!”
I should have been grateful for his sudden arrival, I should have felt glad that I didn’t have to face Lars all on my own, but instead I felt a pang of resentment. It came from those two simple words and how they sounded when Pete put them together: little brother, as if I were six instead of eleven, as if I were completely incapable of taking care of myself even though I’d been doing exactly that for nearly two weeks now.
Lars had jumped at the unexpected sound of Pete’s voice, but was quick to regain his composure. He turned to Pete and then back to me, his body sideways so that he could keep us both in view. If he ever stopped smiling, it was too brief for me to notice.
“All right,” he said. “Which one of you two monkeys wants to go first?”
Despite the fact that it was two on one now, he actually seemed to be looking forward to it.
The corner of the counter stood between Lars and me, so my right hand was out of sight. I closed my fingers around the empty jar. It was the same kind of jar that Mom used for canning, the glass thick and heavy. I picked it up, my heart now pounding like crazy.
Lars was two-handing the broken tripod leg like a baseball bat, and would likely knock the jar right out of the air if my timing wasn’t just right. What I needed was for Pete to command all his attention for at least a second or two.
Those two words kept going through my mind: little brother, little brother. Lars was a little brother, too, it occurred to me. Only by a few minutes, but with Lester as a siblin
g, that wouldn’t matter. I’d seen how the two of them were in the schoolyard, the way Lester always chose the target and just expected Lars to follow along, which he did without fail. Little brother probably meant the same thing to Lars that it did to me. He probably carried the same resentments that I did. The only question was, could I use this against him? I decided to make that gamble.
I gritted my teeth and looked at Pete. “Get lost!” I told him. “I didn’t ask for your help and I don’t want it. Just go away.”
It was hard to tell who was more surprised by my words, Lars or Pete. They both stared at me in disbelief, although on Pete’s face there was also hurt. He’d appeared like a hero at just the right moment, only to be told to bug off by the very person who needed rescuing. And as for Lars, it was clear by the look on his face that he himself would never have dared to talk to Lester like I was now talking to Pete.
His attention quickly shifted away from me and settled on Pete. How would big brother react? He was obviously dying to know.
I brought my jar up and reared back to throw it, only I hadn’t considered one thing: After what I’d just said, Pete wasn’t sure if the jar was meant for Lars or for him. His eyes widened, which was all the clue that Lars needed. He turned back toward me just in time to see the glass missile flying toward his head.
He managed to duck away from it while at the same time springing toward me, his anger bolstered by what I had just attempted to do to him. His arm came up, and then the world went black. I came to a moment later on the floor, my head ringing and my eyes seeing stars.
The broken tripod leg was beside me on the floor, too, I realized, and Pete was standing over it, yelling, “Bug off or I’ll give you another one!”
I sat up, the world spinning.
“You’re gonna pay for that!” growled Lars. He was on the opposite side of the room now and holding his arm in a way that made it obvious Pete had landed a pretty good shot with his trusty fish bat, probably while Lars was preoccupied with me.
I blinked my eyes a few times just to make sure that I wasn’t hallucinating. Had Pete really done what we’d so often dreamed of and actually turned the tables on a Messam? It sure looked that way, though I wasn’t confident that Lars was quite finished yet. He gritted his teeth and flexed his arm as if testing whether he could still use it. I could tell by the look on his face that the effort pained him, but somehow he still managed to turn the grimace into a smile.
“Stay back!” Pete warned him again.
Lars stood his ground and flexed his arm a second time. “Hits a man with his back turned and now he thinks he’s a tough guy.”
“You’re not a man,” said Pete. “And if you touch my brother again, you’ll be joining yours in the hospital.”
He was talking big, but it was obvious that he was still afraid, and fear was what the Messam twins fed on. Fear was their everything.
“We’ll see about that,” said Lars, a murderous glint in his eyes. “We’ll just see.”
Sensing that round two might be imminent and that Pete might not get so lucky twice, I grabbed the broken tripod leg and unsteadily got to my feet beside my brother, who I wasn’t any less angry at but was at least willing to work with for the next few minutes.
“Dumb and dumber, side by side,” said Lars, but words were all he had now. As scared as Pete and I might still be, we both had weapons. Lars was unarmed and outnumbered, and a little bit injured as well. A reluctant retreat was really his only option. It took a moment, but he seemed to come to this realization as well. He slowly backed up toward the stairs, all the while shaking his head and wagging his finger at us, as if to say, Next time, next time…
And then he was gone.
THIRTY-SIX
If Pete expected a thank-you, he wasn’t going to get one. As soon as I got outside and determined that Lars wasn’t out there waiting for us, I walked off and left Pete behind me, or at least I tried to. He quickly caught up, his radio firmly in hand. He must have brought it with him and set it down outside the tea shop’s window before following me in, or rather, before following Lars in.
I could only assume that Pete had been tailing me from a distance since I left the house, and that Lars had somehow managed to get between us. I guess I should have been watching for Lars when I passed the arcade. He and Lester always used to hang out there, scaring quarters out of all the kids.
I started walking faster.
“Hey, wait up!” Pete told me.
“Just leave me alone,” I said. My head was pounding. I reached up to feel where I’d taken the hit.
“What’s your problem?” he asked me. “I just saved your sorry butt, in case you hadn’t noticed. What the heck were you doing in there anyway?”
“Doesn’t matter. You’d just say that it was stupid.”
I changed direction and kept on going.
“C’mon, Ben. Don’t be like that. We need to get home and put some ice on that eye before it swells shut.”
“We don’t have any ice,” I reminded him. “It all melted.” If Pete hadn’t been so busy listening to his radio, he might have noticed.
“Fine, forget the ice, then. We still need to get home. Mom’s probably worried sick.”
“I bet she hasn’t even noticed,” I said, which was probably a little unfair, for as much as she’d been walking around the house like a zombie, I knew that she still cared. It was obvious that Pete did, too, or he wouldn’t have come after me, but I wasn’t about to acknowledge that. I kept walking north, the complete opposite direction of home.
“Fine,” said Pete. “Just keep walking, then. I’ll go home by myself. I’ll be the responsible one.”
I turned and charged him then, the rage that I had hoped to release on Lars Messam coming out belatedly. I didn’t go for Pete—I went for his radio. Only I wasn’t quick enough. Between the residual effects of a hangover and the more immediate effects of having my bell rung, my balance and reflexes weren’t what they should have been.
Pete deftly swung the radio away from me and spun around as I passed, like a matador gracefully avoiding a bull.
I would have tried a second charge, but I somehow got my legs crossed while turning and ended up tripping over my own two feet. I reached out to brace for impact, scraping both of my palms on the sidewalk. I had to scream then, not out of pain or anger, but out of frustration.
Pete looked down at me like I was having some sort of meltdown, which I guess I was. I sat on the curb, looking at my burning palms and feeling the beat of my heart in the angry lump just above my eye. All this for some licorice and tea.
“Now can we go home?” Pete asked me. “Please?”
I sighed and got to my feet, and twenty minutes later we were tromping through our front door, into the same stale air that I’d left behind, although it was a little bit better because of the window I’d left open.
Mom wasn’t there to greet us as we came in. She didn’t run up to hug us and tell us how worried she had been, or how close she had come to calling Wayne Sheery. She didn’t inspect my wound with a careful finger, or go to the bathroom to get the gauze and the hydrogen peroxide. I’d been right when I said that she probably hadn’t even noticed that we were gone. She was still curled up in bed when we looked in on her, in exactly the same position as she’d been before.
Pete and I shared a worried look, after which I went into the bathroom to take care of my injuries on my own. I opened the medicine cabinet, and that’s when I noticed the pills—Mom’s pills. The bottle that Dad and I picked up in Paulson was completely full. Mom hadn’t been taking them.
THIRTY-SEVEN
My eye continued to swell to the point that I could barely open it by the next day. But at least my headache was gone.
As always, the first thing I did upon waking was look over at Dad, to make sure that he was still there, which he was, although he wasn’t alone. Mom was sitting with him at the dining room table.
At first I thought this might be a posit
ive development, that Mom might finally be facing what had happened, but as I got closer to the table, the reality became clear.
Mom was drinking cold instant coffee that she obviously hadn’t stirred real well. There were coffee grounds on both the lip of the mug and at the corners of her mouth. She didn’t seem to notice. Her eyes held an eerie intensity.
“I should have known,” she said, mostly to herself. “I should have guessed.” She was more alert than I’d seen her in weeks, but not in a good way.
“Guessed what?” I asked her, while reminding myself that today I would have to make sure that she took her pill.
“My sparrows,” Mom said. “The merlin must have killed them.”
Merlins are small brown falcons that often feed on songbirds. There was one that had been nesting in our neighborhood for years. She usually used the same tree, a tall pine that was just five doors down from our place. I didn’t often see her, but regularly heard the loud keening sound that she made to attract a mate, which this year she hadn’t, so far as I could tell. Normally her offspring would have fledged by this point in the summer, but I’d only seen or heard just her.
“I don’t think so, Mom,” I said. As efficient as merlins were at hunting sparrows, there was no way that only one of them could have devastated a whole flock so quickly. Besides, it was dragonfly season, and the falcon was most likely feasting on big flying bugs.
“Yes,” Mom went on, nodding to herself, and not even acknowledging the fact that I’d spoken. “Had to be. It’s the only thing that makes sense.” She sucked back the rest of her coffee in one mad gulp, spilling some in the process. A dark rivulet ran down her chin.
“She’s a menace,” Mom continued, looking right through me, like I wasn’t even there. “She has to be stopped. None of the songbirds are safe. She’ll pick them all off one by one, until there’s nothing left but glass.”
“Glass?” I said, getting very worried now. “Mom, are you okay?”
The Absence of Sparrows Page 15
