Hard Hat (9 page)

Stevie had the weird sensation that between her and Regina, she was the one with some common sense and she was going to need to draw on it to get them out of the house in one piece. She thought about Carole and Lisa. Although they weren’t there, there seemed to be ways they were always with her. So, what would Carole do? The answer was obvious. Carole would find a way to get a horse to rescue them. That seemed highly unlikely. Lisa, on the other hand, would very sensibly say that the thing to do was relax. They would be rescued.

“So, what have we got with us?” Stevie asked, eyeing the backpack.

Regina rummaged again and handed Stevie the bag of raisins and a warm can of diet soda. It didn’t look like much of a meal, but Stevie opened the raisin bag and chewed on a couple pieces of the dried fruit.

“What else?”

Regina stuck her hand in again. “I’ve still got the stethoscope,” she said. “It didn’t do us much good on the other side of the wall; I don’t know that it’ll be helpful in here.”

“Probably not, but we can listen to each other’s hearts. Let me have that a second.”

Stevie stuck the earpieces in her ear and held the other end to her own heart. It was beating, all right. She thought it was probably beating faster than it usually did, and it had already had quite a workout that night.

Listening to her heart beat was not going to be a full-time occupation. She stood up and put the stethoscope against the wooden wall above a filing cabinet. There were no sounds at all at first, and then she thought she heard a sort of scurrying sound. She definitely did
not
want to know what that was.

She took the stethoscope over to the concrete wall she knew was part of the front of the house, facing the street. There she could hear lots of sounds.

“Water running,” she said.

“Could be a water main or a sewer,” Regina suggested.

Stevie hoped it was a water main. “There’s a subway!” she said. She pulled the earpieces out of her ears and could hear nothing. Back against the wall with the stethoscope, it was clear as could be.

“It’s just a block from here. Sometimes I notice it late at night,” Regina confirmed.

“Well, it’s definitely there,” Stevie said.

She listened some more. She could hear people walking by out on the street. There was the sure and sharp clicking of a woman’s high heels. Stevie wondered where she’d been that night. Theater, dance? Maybe a fancy restaurant? Not that it mattered, but it was something to think about.

Then there was another sound, something she never expected to hear.

“Hooves!” she declared. “It’s a horse!”

“Give me a break,” said Regina.

“No, for real,” said Stevie, offering the stethoscope to Regina, who took it and listened.

“Clip-clop, definitely a horse,” she said.

“Who would go for a ride at this hour and in this place?” Stevie asked.

“It must be a police horse,” said Regina. “There is a stable here—”

“Yeah, but it’s way over on the West Side,” said Stevie. If there was one thing she knew about New York City, it was where she could find a stable. “And I doubt they let riders go out at night.”

“So it’s definitely a police horse,” said Regina.

“Just what we need!” Stevie told her. Then she turned toward the wall they’d been listening to and cried, “Help!” She put the stethoscope to the wall again to see if there was any response. Nothing.
“Help!”
she screamed louder. Again, no response. “Come on, help me here,” she said to Regina, who was looking at her very doubtfully. Regina shrugged. Together the two of them screamed as loud as they could:
“HELP!”
Then they listened again, Stevie with the stethoscope, Regina with her ear pressed against the wall. The only sound they heard was the sound of hoofbeats receding.

Stevie shook her head. For just a few minutes she’d been sure that the Carole system of rescue was going to work—that there would be a horse to come to their aid. But that wasn’t happening.

She listened some more at the wall. If the policeman hadn’t been able to hear them, it was very doubtful
that anybody else would. It turned out not to make a difference, though. There were no other sounds from outside. Stevie glanced at her watch. It was nearly midnight. Nobody was out on the street in the city that never sleeps.

And then there
was
another sound. It was the clip-clop of horseshoes on asphalt again. Only this time there were more clips and clops.

“Two horses,” Stevie told Regina, who just looked at her in disbelief.

“Some tracker you are,” said Regina. “I bet you can tell whether they’re left- or right-handed from the way the clips and clops come down the street.”

“Of course not,” said Stevie. “Horses aren’t ‘handed’ the way people are.”

“I wouldn’t have known that,” said Regina, but she clearly wasn’t impressed. In fact, she seemed irritated. “It’s not that you’re horse-crazy that bothers me,” she said. “It’s that you’re horse-silly.”

“Little do you know,” said Stevie, trying to keep the irritation out of her own voice. It wasn’t going to do any good to get into another argument at this point. And besides, the policemen and their horses didn’t seem to be coming to their rescue any better in twos than singly.

When she could no longer hear the hoofbeats, Stevie took off the stethoscope and sat down again on one of the boxes of paper. She leaned back, resting her head against a filing cabinet. She closed her eyes and drifted into an uneasy sleep.

C
AROLE SAT BOLT
upright in bed. Something was chasing around in her mind. She glanced at the clock. It read 2:13
A.M
. She squeezed her eyes shut in an attempt to clear her mind a little. What was it that was chasing around?

Maxi. No, it wasn’t Maxi chasing around, it was Carole chasing Maxi around. As she settled back onto her pillow, she remembered the day she and Lisa had had with Maxi. She sighed. They just had a few more days of Maxi chasing and then she’d be able to rest.

It would be easier if Stevie were here
, Carole thought. Stevie always seemed to find ways to make the toughest chore more fun. She’d have thought of all sorts of
clever and fun things to do with Maxi. It might not have made the work any easier, but it would have made it more enjoyable.

Things were always more fun when Stevie was around.

Stevie was in New York, though, probably having the time of her life. Carole and Lisa would get a whole bunch of postcards from all the great places she’d been in the city. The postcards would arrive long after Stevie got home and had a chance to tell them all the fun stories about her trip. And all they’d have to tell her was how fast Maxi had run into which stall at which time. They could tell her how much Maxi loved to ride the ponies. Stevie would like that. It wouldn’t surprise her, but she’d like it.

Carole’s eyes drifted closed again. It was silly to think about what Stevie was doing at that moment, because it was obvious that she’d be sleeping. Anybody with any sense would be sleeping at 2:13 in the morning, even in New York where there were so many street noises it must be impossible to sleep. Yes, even Stevie would be asleep then.

Carole’s last thought before she fell back to sleep was of Stevie standing on the top of the Empire State Building, waving at her.

“S
TEVIE
!” A
WHISPERING
voice penetrated Stevie’s sleep.

“Wha—”

“Stevie!”

Her eyes fluttered open.

“Did you hear that?”

The only thing she’d heard was Regina’s voice. She shook her head.

“Listen!”

They sat quietly, waiting, listening.

Stevie looked at her watch. It was almost a quarter past two. Who was still awake at that hour? And why?

It occurred to Stevie that perhaps the only thing worse than having her mother find out what she’d been up to would be if those men came back and discovered two girls in their secret room. The secret of it was still a mystery, since the only thing they’d found was paper, but the fact that those men didn’t want anyone in the house had come through clear as a bell.

She stood up and flicked the light off. It wouldn’t exactly hide them from those guys, but then it wouldn’t advertise their presence, either. As long as the men didn’t go into the kitchen, where they would
come across a large and rather suggestive hole in the floor …

“I guess that won’t make much difference,” said Stevie, sitting back down. Regina shrugged. It didn’t hurt, either—at least until they’d found out what that noise was. Regina took Stevie’s hand and held it tight. They were in this together.

There was a distinct shuffling in the basement. Then a thump, followed by a
shush!

And another thump, and another.

Stevie pressed her ear to the door, but all the sounds were muffled. Then she remembered the stethoscope. She slipped that into her ears and tried listening again.

At first all she could discern were footsteps. There was a click that sounded like a light being turned on. She grimaced, looking at Regina. What if it was the two men again? The next thing they would hear would be the sounds of keys going into the locks. How would they ever explain? How could they ever get away?

Stevie held her breath. What she heard next was not a key going into a lock. It was the distinct sound of a sneaker hitting the bottom step of the staircase up to the ground floor.

“Be quiet!” one voice said. It was a familiar voice. It wasn’t gruff and it wasn’t threatening.

“Our moms are going to kill us!” said another voice.

“Well, they’ve got to be here someplace and we have to find them!” said the first.

Liza and Peter. That’s who was speaking.

“Shhhhh!” Stevie suspected that was Ann.

Stevie knocked on the door.

“Hey, guys!” she said.

“Is that you?” Peter asked.

“Who were you expecting?” Regina snapped back.

“Of course it’s us. Get us out of here!”

“How’d you get in there?”

“There’s a slight weakness in the kitchen floor,” Stevie said.

“We fell,” Regina explained.

“Are you okay?” Ann asked.

“We will be as soon as you get us out of here!” said Regina.

“Well, how are we supposed to do that?” Liza asked.

“How should I know?” said Regina. “You’re the ones in charge of rescuing!”

It was funny and it made Stevie smile, but it didn’t solve the problem. She had an idea, though. “I think I saw a ladder upstairs,” she told them. “In the parlor, by the stairs going up to the next floor.”

“Well, how are we going to get it to you?” Liza asked.

“Through the ceiling!” Regina snapped. She was clearly annoyed with the rescuers’ inability to rescue them.

Stevie knew that they’d figure it out and that the most difficult part was going to be walking on the kitchen floor with the ladder. If it collapsed with the two girls there alone, how would it behave with more kids and a ladder?

Stevie took a deep breath and thought of what Lisa would do. Logically, she understood that the weak floor was a problem, that Peter, Ann, and Liza would know it was a problem, and that they would solve it.

They did.

A few minutes later Peter had laid the ladder across the weakened kitchen floor and was crawling along it to the edge of the hole, testing the strength of the floor as he went. When he neared the hole the girls had fallen through a mere four hours earlier, he was especially cautious. He obviously knew he had to be sure that the floor would hold him, the ladder, and one of the girls. Fortunately there was a beam right there. He could stand securely on the part of the floor right over the beam. Carefully he lifted the long wooden ladder
and slid it down into the room where Stevie and Regina were trapped.

One at a time, the girls climbed up the ladder and then walked along the floor over the beam to the safety of the dining room, where they found Liza and Ann waiting for them with hugs.

Peter left the ladder in the hole. There was no point in bothering to pretend they hadn’t been there.

Stevie found herself overwhelmed with relief as she stood embracing her rescuers. She’d really thought they were going to be in there a lot longer and that their rescuers were going to be much more angry than relieved.

“How did you know we were stuck?” Stevie said.

“Regina’s mother called,” said Ann.

“Oh, she must be going out of her gourd!” said Regina.

“Give us some credit,” said Ann. “She thinks you’re sleeping over at our place.”

“How’d you swing that?” Stevie asked.

“When you didn’t show up at ten, I guess your mom got worried. It was about eleven when she called. Our mother answered the phone. She knew a bunch of us had come in earlier, including Liza, and I think she just figured we were all together. I heard her on the phone. It
was perfect. ‘Oh, no problem,’ she said. ‘The kids are all upstairs. They’re so quiet, they must be asleep. I’ll send them home in the morning.’ And that was it.”

“Mom didn’t want to bawl me out?” Regina asked.

“I guess not. I guess she figured as long as you guys were at our house, it was okay.”