Hard Hat (10 page)

“But you knew we weren’t,” Stevie said.

“Right. And we also knew you wouldn’t want your mother or anyone else to know that.”

“Weren’t you worried about us?” Regina asked. Stevie thought she must be wondering the same thing she was: Why had it taken them so long to come to the rescue?

“Of course we were,” said Ann. “Like crazy. But we couldn’t come over here until our parents were asleep. We sort of figured you two had gotten back to ghost stories and lost track of the time.”

“For four hours?” Regina asked.

Liza shrugged. “We’re here now. You’re safe. Want to complain about something else?”

“Thanks for coming back to get us,” Stevie said.

“No problem,” said Liza. “We were glad to be of service, at risk of life and limb—”

“Lots of problems, actually,” said Stevie. “So thanks. Say, does anybody want to get a good night’s sleep?”

She didn’t have to ask the question twice. As fast as they could, the five kids all returned to the basement, squeezed back through the window, and began the journey home. Stevie was the last one out. She looked behind her into the darkness, realizing they’d left the light on in the secret room. It didn’t matter. The contractor would certainly know that someone had been there. She didn’t think he’d ever be able to figure out who it was. She whispered good-bye into the shadows behind her. If there was one thing of which she was certain, it was that she would never return to that house again. Ever.

M
AXI WAS CRYING
and Stevie could hear her. She wasn’t far away, but she wasn’t close, either. The sound she made was a long moaning wail that cut into the night. It faded for a second and then came back, louder, more insistent.

“I’m coming!” Stevie called back, trying to reassure the child. Where was Carole? Where was Lisa? She had no idea. She was only aware of herself and the crying child. She couldn’t find Maxi. All she could do was hear her.

She reached out in the darkness. Her hand hit something. It was a lamp and it crashed loudly to the floor.

“What’s that?”

Stevie squinted in the dim light and realized it was Regina who had spoken.

“Someone was crying,” Stevie said, now sitting up in bed.

“What? I don’t hear any crying. What time is it? What’s going on?”

Stevie could only answer one of those questions, so she did. “It’s three-oh-four,” she said. She reached over and picked up the bedside lamp she’d so unceremoniously knocked to the floor. She tried the switch. It turned on. “What’s that sound?” she asked.

“Oh, that,” said Regina. “It’s a siren.”

Of course it was a siren. They had sirens in Willow Creek. Stevie heard them occasionally, but usually not late at night and never so close—except for the time the Ziegler twins had decided to have a barbecue in their fireplace without opening the flue. That had been pretty big excitement on the street where Stevie lived. But it had happened in the middle of a Saturday afternoon, not at 3:04 in the morning.

Regina lay back down on the pillow. She closed her eyes. “Let’s go back to sleep,” she said.

It seemed like an awfully good idea. They hadn’t
been in bed very long at all. As soon as they’d left the old house, the kids had scurried back to their own homes and gotten into bed as fast as possible. Both girls were grateful that the garden door to the Evanses’ house had been unlocked. Otherwise they would’ve had to climb the fire escape to Regina’s window on the third floor, and frankly they’d had enough adventure for one night.

Now, though, there seemed to be more adventure going on. The sirens were getting louder and more insistent.

“They’re stopping!” said Regina.

“That’s good,” said Stevie.

“No it isn’t,” Regina replied.

“Why not?” Stevie asked. Although there were sirens in Willow Creek, they were much more common in New York, and Stevie recognized that Regina was going to be more of an expert on them than she was, especially in her sleepy state.

Regina explained patiently. “What you want with sirens is to have them fade away as the emergency vehicles pass by. These just got louder and stopped. Whatever they’re doing, it’s nearby. In fact, it’s on this block. C’mon.”

She slipped out of bed, grabbed a bathrobe, and slid
her feet into slippers. Stevie followed her into the hall.

They went down a flight of stairs into the front room on the second floor. They pulled the curtains aside and lifted the shades. The whole street, narrow to begin with, was filled with police cars and emergency vehicles. There was a fire department rescue truck and two ambulances. All of them were clustered at the end of the block, right next to the building that had so recently been Stevie and Regina’s prison.

Stevie’s voice stuck in her throat before she could ask the question that Regina sputtered out.

“Did—Did the fire come back?”

The girls opened the window as wide as they could and hung out to get a better look. One glance answered that question. There were no fire trucks, just other emergency vehicles. Whatever the problem was, it wasn’t fire.

Stevie thought about sighing with relief, but the fact that the place was filled with emergency vehicles right after they’d been stuck in it suggested to her that perhaps all this activity might have something to do with them.

“What’s going on, girls?”

It was Mrs. Evans, standing behind them, also wearing her bathrobe and slippers.

“Beats me,” said Regina.

Stevie thought that was a good answer.

“Elisa?” Stevie recognized her own mother’s voice. “Oh, Stevie,” her mother said. “Well, good morning, ladies. Some wake-up system you have in this city!”

The mothers laughed. Stevie and Regina weren’t quite so sure a laugh was in order.

“Gee, what are you girls doing here?” Mrs. Evans asked. “I thought you were over at Peter’s house.”

In the confusion of the escape and their overwhelming desire to be someplace safe and familiar, both girls had completely forgotten that Peter’s mother had told Mrs. Evans they were staying over there. Regina, ever fast on her feet, came up with an answer. “Stevie got homesick,” she said.

That earned Stevie a strange look from her mother, who knew perfectly well that Stevie never got homesick, but there was so much else going on at that moment that she didn’t inquire any further. Stevie hoped she never would.

“Well, come on,” said Mrs. Evans, mercifully changing the subject. “We’re not going to learn anything
standing here. Let’s join the rest of our neighbors on the street and see what’s really going on.”

For the first time Stevie noticed that a crowd was collecting on the corner. She smiled as she watched them. There was a large cluster of people, most of them in pajamas and bathrobes, some in quickly assembled outfits, all trying to determine what was going on.

Mrs. Evans tucked a set of house keys into her bathrobe pocket and led the way down the stairs and out into the street.

If a lot of that evening had already been surreal to Stevie, standing out on the street that night might have been the most surreal. Nobody had any idea what was going on, but Stevie and Regina, who did have an idea of what was going on, were most confused of all. Or at least Stevie suspected they had an idea.

“Do you think we set off some kind of alarm?” Regina asked.

“Probably not,” said Stevie. “If there was an alarm system, we would have tripped it ages ago—like the first time we were in there.”

“Okay, so what’s going on?”

“The contractor came back and saw that the place had been broken into?” Stevie suggested. That seemed like a very real possibility.

“At three o’clock in the morning?” Regina asked.

Maybe it wasn’t such a real possibility after all.

Nearby, Mrs. Evans was greeting neighbors. The big question on everybody’s lips was “What’s going on?”

“I heard there was a homeless person living in there,” one person said. “Maybe they’re just evicting him.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?” Regina whispered to Stevie. They exchanged smiles.

“Oh, no,” said another neighbor. “It’s the Perseys—they’re the ones who own the place. I think they’re moving in this week.”

“At three o’clock in the morning?” Stevie whispered to Regina.

It was funny that the two of them had some pretty dumb ideas about what was going on, but it seemed the adults’ ideas were even dumber!

“It must be bad, whatever it is,” said another neighbor. “Otherwise we wouldn’t need all these rescue trucks.”

That made sense.

By the time Stevie, Regina, and their mothers had arrived on the scene, all the emergency vehicles were parked and empty, so it was clear that the emergency rescue people had already gone in. They began coming out, emptyhanded.

“I guess there’s nobody to rescue,” Stevie observed quietly.

“We already knew that,” said Regina.

But the trucks didn’t leave. In fact, more police cars and detectives arrived. And then a large van pulled up and four men went into the house. They were in there a long time.

“I guess they found a body,” said the neighbor who had been convinced the Perseys were moving in that night.

Stevie was sure he was wrong. If there had been a body, they’d have had a medical examiner’s truck instead of the big van they’d brought. She was even surer there wasn’t a body when the van group returned and took a couple of dollies and handcarts back in with them.

“What are those for?” Regina asked.

“They use them to carry heavy things,” Stevie explained. “You see moving men with those.”

“Oh, right,” said Regina.

“Stevie,” said her mother. “Isn’t this exciting? There’s always something going on in New York!”

Stevie nodded in agreement, but she wasn’t so sure. She was afraid this “excitement” was going to have some repercussions, and she was already thinking about what it was going to be like to be grounded for a year.

For a long time nothing happened. Nobody moved from the street, and nobody came out of the house. The neighbors waited with anticipation.

Then things started happening very quickly. The van crew began emerging from the house, their dollies and handcarts loaded down with filing cabinets. Each cabinet had wide yellow tape around it, stating
POLICE EVIDENCE
:
DO NOT TAMPER
.

“That’s not evidence,” Stevie grumbled. “Those are just filing cabinets!”

“The same ones we were sitting on a couple of hours ago,” said Regina.

Stevie was pretty sure Regina was right about that, though she couldn’t tell the difference between one filing cabinet and another. On the other hand, she was quite certain there hadn’t been any other filing cabinets in the house.

Then, just in time to reassure Stevie that they were, in fact, the same filing cabinets, an officer came out carrying a backpack, a container of chocolate milk, some cheese crackers, and a large bag of raisins.

“T
OAST
,” R
EGINA SAID
.

The very word Stevie was going to use.

“Hi, guys. How’s it going?” It was Peter. He was there with the rest of his family. They were all in their bathrobes, too.

“Did you see that?” Regina asked, pointing to her backpack and its contents, now safely in the hands of the law.

“How could you forget it?” Peter asked.

“I wasn’t thinking of evidence,” said Regina. “I was just thinking about getting out of there!”

“Maybe I should have thought of it,” said Stevie.

“No, it’s my bag,” Regina said.

“Well, the police don’t know that,” said Peter. “How could they find out?”

“DNA evidence on the raisins,” Stevie said.

“I suppose, or maybe fingerprints,” said Peter.

“How about my name tag?” said Regina. “It’ll save them a lot of lab work if they just read it.”

“You are so busted!” said Peter.

“Will you visit me in jail?” Regina asked.

“Visit you? We’ll be in adjoining cells!”

“Oh, hi, Peter,” said Mrs. Evans. “Pretty exciting, isn’t it?”

“It sure is, Mrs. Evans. But I guess we’ll probably never really know everything that’s going on here, will we?”