Runaways (13 page)

Linda looked at her watch. “It’s quite a long way but I think there’d be time for you to get out to the ranch before dark. And then Mr. Smithson could bring you back in the car when he comes to get Pixie.”

Suddenly Stormy’s eyes went wide and blank. “To the ranch?” he asked. “To where Pixie lives?” He looked scared. Frantic even. And Dani knew why. And Pixie knew why too, or at least she ought to. She was the one who had convinced Stormy that her parents were crazy Frankensteins who would just love to get their hands on a kid who was all alone way out in the desert. But Pixie didn’t seem to see the problem at all.

“Yes,” she said. “When you get there just knock on the door, and if they don’t hear, it will be because they’re both still in the lab. They probably will be.” She sighed. “They both spend most of their time in that stupid place. So knock real loud and then if they still don’t hear just go on in and—”

“Go … on … in …,” Stormy was saying between pauses that sounded like gasps. “No … no … I don’t …”

It was then that Dani decided that she had to say something, anything to change the drift of the conversation. Because if she didn’t she knew for certain that Stormy was going to blow it. He was going to say something about the Frankenstein thing right there in front of Linda. And if he did, a lot more private stuff was certain to come out.

“Hey, Stormy,” Dani said. “I’ll go. If you don’t want to ride all the way out there by yourself, I’ll go.” She turned to her mother. “I guess he just doesn’t want to go all that way by himself. So I can do it, Stormy. Okay?” She went over, grabbed his shoulder and shook him. “Okay?” she said again, trying to make the word say a lot of other things too. Things like “Snap out of it, kid, before you ruin everything.”

“Really? Are you sure?” Linda said. “I could go over to the hotel and see if Mr. Grabler could take Pixie home in their car.”

Dani was surprised. One of the few things that Dani and Linda had always agreed on was the Grabler family. Dani had heard her mother say that Howie and Brenda Grabler might not be as inclined to punch noses as their son was, but they were awfully good at sneaky stabs in the back. On the one hand Dani knew that Linda hated to have to ask them for any sort of favor. But on the other, they were the only close neighbors who happened to own a car. At least, one that was in running order.

Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, Dani said, “No, that’s all right. I can go.” And a few minutes later she was out on Silver Avenue climbing onto the Black Phantom while the rest of them watched. Linda and Stormy, and even Pixie, who had managed to hobble out stiff-legged, stood on the front porch and watched as she put the kickstand up and got ready to ride. To ride out across the desert—all by herself.

O
UT ON SILVER AVENUE,
Dani turned her back on her mother and Pixie and Stormy as she got ready to ride out across the desert all the way to the ranch—all alone. As the thought began to sink in, she found herself moving more slowly. She had very carefully rolled up both legs of her jeans, had put up the kickstand and was just about to swing her right leg up over the seat when something hit her in the back, almost tipping her over on top of the bicycle. Actually, she’d been halfway expecting it—waiting for it, almost, but she wasn’t about to admit that. Instead she yelled, “Stormy, you klutz. Watch it.”

It was Stormy all right, hanging on to the back of her blouse and whispering in her ear, “I want to go with you. Take me along. Okay?”

“How …?” she started to ask, but actually she knew the answer. The same way they’d sometimes ridden her old wreck of a bike, with one of them pedaling standing up while the other sat on the seat. So she changed the question to, “Why should I do that?” But almost immediately she knew the answer to that one too. The answer was that if you had to ride six miles out into the darkening desert it might feel a little better to have someone on the seat behind you, even if it was only a nine-year-old klutz.

Looking back at Linda and Pixie, who were still standing on the porch, Dani said, “Stormy wants to go too. Okay?”

Linda wasn’t sure, at least not at first. “Won’t it be harder that way?” she asked. “With all that extra weight to carry?”

That was true, of course, but after Dani pointed out that they could take turns pedaling and resting, her mother agreed it might be all right. “But you’ll need to hurry along,” she said, looking up at the sky. “You don’t want to be out there on the bike after dark.”

Dani promised to hurry, but as she turned back to the bike Stormy jerked the handlebars out of her hands. “Me first,” he said. “Dibs on pedaling first.” There was a moment of confusion while they figured out who should get on first before they finally got under way, weaving and wobbling their way up Silver Avenue.

The wobbling didn’t last long. After the minute or two it took for Stormy to get the feel of riding the Black Phantom with a passenger on the seat, things quieted down. At least the ride did. Stormy himself was another matter. Pedaling away like crazy, he kept up a steady stream of comments about the Black Phantom and how great it was. Things like “Smooth—smoooooth ride,” and “Big old balloon tires,” and “New Departure coaster brakes,” and “Double-walled something or other,” and “Real leather seat,” and on and on and on.

After a while Dani stopped listening. Sitting on the real leather seat with her feet dangling, she held on to Stormy’s belt and watched their shadow stretching out ahead of them as the desert sun sank toward the western hills. She wondered about the fact that, for the moment at least, Stormy, with his single-track mind, seemed to have forgotten all about where they were going and what they might find when they got there. Dani wished she could forget uncomfortable facts like that. Not that she believed that they were on their way to a Frankenstein-type laboratory. No way. But the truth of the matter was that nobody knew what the Smithsons were doing out there in their lonely desert hideaway. And it was impossible to know how they might feel about a couple of kids barging in and interrupting whatever it was.

And then there was—the desert. That was another thing Dani would just as soon forget about, but that, of course, was impossible. Impossible to forget where and who you were—two kids on a bicycle, a miserable little wobbly bump in the middle of hundreds of hot, dry, sinister miles. Far away from civilization, and going farther out every hot, dry, sinister minute. For a while she concentrated on trying not to think about it and that, of course, involved trying not to look at it. Which wasn’t all that easy. Hard to keep from looking, for instance, at the faraway, endlessly empty horizon. Or else, nearly as bad, at the scrawny, thorny things that were making a pitiful attempt to grow beside the road. And trying hardest of all not to look up—at the endless desert sky.

With her mind so occupied with things to not think about, Dani had pretty much stopped listening to Stormy’s bicycle babble, when she suddenly realized he’d stopped doing it. Not that he’d become quiet, because he hadn’t. But the sounds he’d started making weren’t exactly words. They were, in fact, more like puffs and groans.

“What’s the matter?” she asked.

“Nothin’,” he panted. “Nothin’ the matter.” But a minute later he was groaning again.

“You’re tired,” Dani said. “Let’s stop. Let me pedal.”

Stormy shook his head fiercely and went on pedaling faster than before. But the groans were back in a minute and before long he braked to a stop and jumped down. “Okay,” he panted. “Okay. Your turn. For a little while. Just a little.”

There was, Dani realized soon afterward, one real advantage to being the one doing all the work. Being the pedaler rather than the passenger meant that your mind was occupied with such things as keeping the bicycle upright in spite of Stormy’s wiggly presence on the seat behind you, with avoiding potholes and washouts. And even with noticing, now and then, how “smoooooth” the Black Phantom ride actually was, at least compared to her old ten-dollar junker. And even how she needn’t have bothered to roll up her pants legs because the Black Phantom’s chain guard was so efficient. None of which added up to a whole lot, except for keeping her mind occupied with stuff she wasn’t trying not to think about.

But six miles is a long way. Even six more or less paved and comparatively flat miles. And they were still a long way from the O’Donnell land when, dripping with sweat and gasping for air, Dani braked to a stop and let Stormy take over. They had changed places three or four times, and the cruel desert sun had finally gone down behind the western hills, when the roof of the ranch house appeared on the darkening horizon.

Dani was doing the pedaling at the time. “There it is,” she told Stormy. “I can see it.”

That was a mistake. “Where?” Stormy gasped, and, trying to lean out far enough to see around Dani, pulled her and the Black Phantom off balance. “Where?” he said again as the bike slowed, wobbled around desperately, and finally tipped over, dumping them both off onto the ground. Jumping to his feet, Stormy stared out across the desert with a horrified expression on his face. “Where?” he demanded again as Dani got slowly to her feet, dusted herself off and glared at him.

Grabbing his head in both hands, she turned it toward where, way up ahead, the slightly irregular horizon was broken by a short stretch of regularity. “There,” she said. “That flat place. That’s the roof.”

“The roof,” Stormy whispered. “The roof of the Frankenstein house.” His eyes had gone round and wide and his mouth had too, at least until it closed in a kind of gulp. “Where they …” He gulped again. “Where they make the …”

Dani had to resist a temptation to say, “Yeah. Where they make the monsters.” But she knew she’d better not. Not if she didn’t want to have to drag him the rest of the way, or go on without him. Instead she only said, “Where the Smithsons live. Where my mom and I lived when we first got here. And where Pixie lives now. Okay? And so now we’re just going to go up there and knock on the door and ask them to come and get Pixie. Okay?”

Stormy’s eyes rolled wildly and his “Okay” wobbled a little. But after he’d gulped a couple of times he said it again more firmly. “Okay. Let’s go.”

They walked the rest of the way. No one decided to, or even mentioned it, but for some reason no one tried to climb back on the bike. Pushing the Black Phantom between them, they moved forward slowly, watching the level spot on the horizon as it got larger and nearer in the rapidly fading light.

The ranch house Chance Gridley had built when he won all that money was a long, low building with an overhanging roof and deep verandas on two sides. It sat there all alone on the flat, open desert. All alone except for the outhouse, a couple of small shedlike barns and the well’s windmill pump. Beyond it, and all around, was nothing but desert. No lawn or garden, nothing but a few dead tree stumps, all that remained of Chance’s hopeless attempt to provide his ranch house with a little protection from the desert sun.

It looked, Dani decided, almost exactly the same as it had that first day when she and Linda had arrived from Sea Grove. It had been late in the day when they’d finally made it to the ranch. The sun had gone down and a red-tinged twilight was fading into darkness when their ancient truck, loaded with everything they owned, wheezed and clattered to within a few yards of the house and died a final and permanent death. And there they were—stuck in the desert hundreds of miles from home. Remembering that day, Dani shuddered.

And she shuddered again as she realized how the whole thing was repeating itself, in almost the same way. Here she was arriving again, just as darkness fell, in this awful place. A sudden feeling of panic made her come to a quick stop, almost jerking the handlebars out of Stormy’s grip.

“What’s the matter?” Stormy was asking and, as Dani came back to reality, she had the feeling he’d been asking over and over again. “What’s the matter? Dani. What’s the matter?”

Before she could stop herself Dani gasped, “I’m afraid.”

Silence. A long silent pause before Stormy whispered, “Me too.” Another pause and then, tugging on the bicycle, trying to turn it around, he added, “Let’s go back.”

Dani shook her head. Looking back over her shoulder in the direction of Rattler Springs, in the direction of six miles of rapidly darkening desert, she realized that the thought of going back through the desert night was even more terrifying, at least to her, than whatever danger might lie ahead of them.

“No,” she said. “I can’t.” Pulling the handlebars away from Stormy, she started toward the ranch house. As she walked across the yard, pushing the bicycle, she could still hear him calling after her. A high-pitched, frightened voice, calling from a distance, “Wait. Don’t. Don’t go in there.” But then, as she raised her hand to knock on the heavy front door, the voice came again, only this time from right behind her. “Wait for me. I’m coming too.”

W
HEN DANI KNOCKED ON
the door of the ranch house, softly at first and then more loudly, nothing happened for a long time. She knocked again, even harder, and was turning toward Stormy to say, “Maybe they’re asleep,” when a light appeared in the small diamond-shaped windowpane, followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. The quick, sharp footsteps came closer and closer, and the heavy door swung open.

Light poured out. Startlingly bright electric light. And standing in the midst of it, a small, thin-faced woman wearing heavy gloves and dusty coveralls. “Yes?” the woman said sharply. “What are …” She stopped then, and her quick, searching gaze moved to the bicycle and then out into the yard. Her voice was even sharper when she asked, “Where’s Portia?”

Dani found her voice and said, “I’m Dani O’Donnell, Mrs. Smithson. Linda’s daughter. What I came to tell you is about Pixie. Portia, I mean. She’s at my house and—”

“Hello, Dani.” Another silhouette appeared against the light beside that of Mrs. Smithson. “Portia’s at your house? She’s in town?” The speaker was the pale, thin-faced man Pixie had introduced as her father. “How did she get to town?”

“She rode in,” Dani said quickly. “On this bike.”