Nothing But Blue (14 page)

 

By the time Snake comes back I've concluded that the recorded message was because I'd remembered the number wrong. It's very likely the way my memory is these days.

Snake hands me a cup of coffee along with a bunch of sugar packets and some creamers. “Here. I didn't know how you took it.”

“Thanks.” I stir in sugar and cream and take a sip. I point to the robot clock and the other sculptures. “Did you make those?”

Snake laughs. “Yeah.”

“They are really cool. I mean, more than cool. They're beautiful.”

“Thanks. I don't like things to go to waste, so I make something out of it. Keeps me out of trouble.”

We watch as the robot clock's hands tick toward nine.

“Do you think the pound is open yet?” I ask.

“Could be.” He looks up a number on his computer, then dials on the phone by his bed and hands me the receiver.

I describe Shadow to the woman who answers. “He's about forty pounds, silver fur, pointy ears. Friendly.”

The woman puts me on hold, then comes back. “A few dogs were picked up yesterday,” she says. “He could be one of them, I don't know.” She hangs up before I can ask anything else.

 

The pound is a few miles away.

Snake's rattly bike is leaning against the side of the motel. I glance at it skeptically.

“I was using my uncle's car,” he explains, “but it broke down on the road. Right before I first saw you actually. I had to have it towed here.” He points to the dark blue station wagon in the corner of the lot. I hadn't noticed it before. It looks just like the car I slept in. How strange.

“Is your uncle Ryan Sanchez?” I ask.

“Yeah, how'd you know?”

I tell Snake about coming across the car on the road and sleeping in it.

“Ha,” he says. “It must be that you are meant to be here.” He grins.

I wonder about the fancy woman's watch in the glove compartment. Why would Snake have that? But I don't mention it.

Snake points to his bicycle. “So this is what we've got for now. I'm pretty good carrying a passenger,” he says. “Seriously. Hop on.”

The seat is wide and wrapped in duct tape. Snake pats it and shrugs. “I'm addicted to duct tape. What can I say?”

He gets on and balances. “Ready?” he asks.

I stretch my leg over the bike and adjust myself. “Okay.” I lift my feet off the ground. I have to hold on to something to stay balanced, but the only thing to hold is him. I falter a bit and almost fall.

“Grab on to my waist,” Snake says.

I tentatively reach my arms around him and place them on his hips. We ride this way down the road.

At a stop sign, he takes his hand off the handlebars and puts it over mine. It is such a simple touch. He holds it there for a brief second before taking it away and pushing forward again.

The shelter is really run-down and smells like pee. The dogs are barking from behind a solid, locked door. It's a cacophony. I strain to hear Shadow's bark among them, but if he's there, he must not be barking.

The woman at the front desk asks all sorts of questions: Why doesn't my dog have a collar? Where did I lose him? How long have I owned him? What vet do I take him to? Do I have his health records? Is he registered?

I answer the best I can—a mixture of lies and some truth, but I have no proof that Shadow is my dog. I have no records. I don't even have a photo of him.

“If you can't prove he's yours, you can't have him,” the woman says. “You can adopt him if no one claims him in twenty-four hours. There's a seventy-five-dollar adoption fee.”

“But I don't have seventy-five dollars!” I blurt, my voice rising.

Snake leans over to the woman and smiles politely. “Can't you just take us to him and see if the dog recognizes her? Don't most dogs know their owner from a stranger?”

The woman glares first at Snake, then at me, and shakes her head. “Rules is rules. You prove the dog is yours, you can have him, or you can pay to adopt him, that is,
if
you qualify.” She taps a pen on the desk. “There are forms to fill out. You need a permanent address.”

I glare back at her.

“And just so you know,” she says, “this is a kill shelter. We keep the dogs for one week. He's been here three days already.”

The dogs are still barking off and on. This time I recognize a single, sharp bark.

“That's him! That's his bark!” I give the woman a pleading face. “He wants out.”

The woman shakes her head. “Not unless you prove it or pay for it.”

I am about to freak out. I want to jump over the counter, through the little Plexiglas window, and choke her until she agrees to let Shadow out. Before I can, though, Snake takes me by the shoulders and leads me out the door.

“What are you doing!” I yell when we get outside. “Shadow is in there. I have to get him!” I am bursting in all directions.

Snake holds me tighter and shushes me. “Don't worry, we'll get him,” he whispers. “I have an idea, but we have to come back after dark.”

The For Sale sign went up the day after Jake's party, and the move became more and more real. The thought of strangers traipsing through our house, examining things, turning knobs and opening doors, stepping around our furniture, circling the yard and pointing at the roof, all while trying to decide if our house was good enough for them, was excruciating.

We were supposed to get twenty-four hours' notice and be out when potential buyers came. But that afternoon I must not have gotten the message. My parents were gone and I was watching TV in my room, hoping Jake would call, when a car drove up.

I looked out the window. Three people piled out of a white SUV, a young couple and a Realtor. It was obvious who the Realtor was—she wore a sunflower-yellow pantsuit and carried a clipboard.

A girl about four or five in a purple tutu burst out of the car after them and ran around the maple tree. The mother called her, and the girl ran back and wrapped herself around her father's leg.

I could hear the Realtor giving an annoying sales pitch, like our house was a used car. “It's old, needs some fixing up, but it could be a pristine Victorian, and it's the best zip code in the state. You know what they say—location, location, location.”

The woman had a large cloth slung over her shoulder. A whining cry came from it, and I realized she was carrying a baby. They all entered the front hallway. I turned down the TV and strained to hear.

“There's plenty of room for additions,” the Realtor said. “You could tear down the back, add a couple of decks. Take out this wall to expand the kitchen. And of course you'd cover these floors with carpet.” She wasn't trying to sell this house—she was trying to create another house.

She went on about making the attic into a playroom when the woman's voice interrupted her: “Do you mind if we look around by ourselves? We like to get a feel for a place without any outside interference.”

In spite of my fixed scowl, I laughed. I bet that totally pissed off the Realtor. I sat back on the bed, grabbed a candy bar from my nightstand. Small feet ran up the stairs and blasted into my room like a full-speed tornado. It was the little girl.

“Oh,” she said when she saw me. “I'm Sophie.” She twirled in a circle and made her way over to the window. Her purple tutu stuck out around her. “I
love
this room!” she blurted. “If we move here, this is going to be
my
room.”

I glowered. This room would never be hers. But she kept twirling and dancing and smiling. Finally she plopped onto the bed next to me. She looked at the candy bar still in my hand, then gave me a giant grin. I got another one from the drawer and gave it to her.

“It's like a magic forest in here,” she said, taking a big bite of chocolate.

“It's haunted,” I said. I thought maybe I could scare her out.

“Really?”
she asked, her eyes growing wide. She didn't look scared at all, more delighted.

“Yup. Super scary, mean ghosts.”

“I'm not afraid.” She pointed to the mural of trees. Three on each side of the window. “Do they live in the forest?”

I nodded. “They come out at night and fly all over the house rattling things.”

The girl got up and studied the mural. She crouched down and peered at the mushroom-shaped house. “They must be very small. I think they are good ghosts. They just need a friend, somebody who's not scared of them,” she said with authority. She stood back up. “I will live in this room with them, and I won't share it with my baby brother. There are enough rooms for him to have his very own.”

As if on cue the cries of a baby started up. The man and woman stood in the doorway. The woman shushed the baby in her pouch. It reminded me of a kangaroo.

“Sophie,” the man said, “you need to stick with us.” He turned to me. “I'm sorry. I didn't know anyone was here. Is she bothering you?”

“I'm not a bother!” Sophie declared. “This is going to be my room. It's perfect!” She started her twirly dance again.

The woman rocked the baby. She put her hand on the man's shoulder and whispered, “This is a good house.” She looked at me. “Do you like it here?” she asked. She looked so kind and genuine.

I opened my mouth. I had planned to tell them all sorts of stuff about snakes in the basement, diseased rats in the attic, termites eating through the walls. I was even going to make up a story about a murder years ago, but I didn't. Instead I nodded.

“It's a lovely house,” the woman said, smiling. “If we buy it, we promise to take very good care of it. We wouldn't change a thing.”

The man nodded in agreement.

Before they left, Sophie ran back to me and whispered, “I won't tell anyone about the ghosts. I promise.”

I imagined her living here, twirling around in her tutu in my bedroom, looking for the ghosts at night. She was an okay kid, but it didn't make me feel any better about anything.

Snake's idea is to break Shadow free.

We wait until dark, then bike back to the pound. Of course the doors are locked. The dogs bark from inside. This time Shadow is using his more serious bark. Three short barks in a row, a pause, then three more. Poor pup, locked in a smelly prison where innocent creatures are meaninglessly murdered.

“Hang on, I'm coming!” I yell to let him know help is on the way.

“Shh,” Snake says. “I don't think anyone lives near here, but we shouldn't take any chances.”

“What would they do if they caught us?”

“I don't know. Call the police or something. We'd get in trouble for breaking in, but once we get Shadow, I doubt anyone will ever know we were here. You met that woman—she won't even notice if Shadow is gone.”

“I hope not,” I whisper. “One cop near this town already saw me. I can't risk being seen again. We can't get caught.”

We go around to the back. There's a high chainlink fence surrounding a small gravel yard where they let the dogs out to poop.

“I'll climb over, find a loose window or something, and unlock the front for you,” Snake says.

I nod, glad I don't have to attempt climbing the fence. It's taller than I am.

Snake shimmies up one side and down the other like Spider-Man, and all of a sudden he's in the yard. He starts fiddling with the windows to see if he can get one to open. No luck. He goes around to the other side of the building. I wait and am just about to go around to the front when he comes back frowning.

“There's no open window.”

“Oh,” I say, deflated.

“There is one other way, though.” He points to the back door by the yard. “There's a dog door. I can't fit through, but you might be able to.”

I squint to see what he's talking about. A small flap of plastic covers a rectangular cutout at the bottom of the door. “It looks pretty small,” I say.

“It's our only chance. You'll have to jump the fence first, though. Can you do that?”

“I don't know,” I say. I jam my fingers and toes in between the metal spaces and attempt to hoist myself up. My foot slips out.

“Lift one hand, then a leg, then hand, then leg,” Snake directs. “Use your legs.”

I squeeze my calves and it's a little easier.

“That's it,” Snake says.

Slowly, I move one foot at a time. Eventually I manage to get to the top. I put my left leg over the metal bar. I try to pull the other leg over, and I'm horizontal. I clutch the thin bar for dear life. I'm sure that if I move, I will fall. It's a good eight feet. It could hurt.

“Just take it slow,” Snake says encouragingly. “Try to lower one leg and find a grip.”

I can't find a foothold at first and wave my leg around, but then I manage to get my toes into the space and from there it's suddenly much easier to lower myself down. I jump the last bit and wipe my hands together. I smile triumphantly.

“Not bad,” Snake says. “Now through there.” He points to the dog door.

Is he serious? It looks even smaller up close. It may be big enough for a medium-size dog, but for a grown human, and a chubby one like me?

“It's really small,” I say.

“You can fit easily,” Snake says.

“I . . . I'm not . . .” I start. “Have you seen me?”

“Have
you
seen you?”

I look down, embarrassed.
No, I have not seen me,
I think. I run my hands down my sides. Has my body changed? Have I actually become stronger? Smaller? Can that happen without even noticing?

I squat in front of the dog door. The dogs are barking up a storm inside. They know something is happening. I put one arm through the flap, twist my shoulder, and get the other arm in. I slide on my arms and legs and manage to crawl the rest of the way through.