Runaways (19 page)

“Yeah,” Dani said. “I guess he ate some shrimp salad that the Grablers threw out, and it gave him food poisoning.”

“Oh dear.” Linda looked shocked.

“I know,” Dani said. “But he said he felt better after he threw it up. He’ll probably be here for breakfast. I’ll bet he’ll be here first thing in the morning.”

That was all she said out loud but as she headed for her room she was thinking that Stormy would have lots of reasons to show up bright and early tomorrow. There was, for instance, the fact that tomorrow would be Thursday, and the last thing Stormy had heard was that Thursday would be Dani’s last day in Rattler Springs. So he’d be right there, for sure, trying to talk her into waiting until he could come too. She smiled a little, picturing Stormy’s amazement when he found out she wasn’t going to leave after all. But then he certainly would ask why. She stopped smiling then, and for the next hour or so, while she got ready for bed and waited to go to sleep, she tried to decide exactly how she was going to answer that question. Waking up the next morning, she still wasn’t sure. She’d start, she told herself, by simply saying she’d changed her mind, and then just wait and see what came out of her mouth next.

But Stormy wasn’t there for breakfast. Linda made lots of oatmeal and waited until she was almost late for work. At the door she stopped long enough to say, “I’m worried about him, Dani. I’ll ask about him when I’m at the hotel.” She paused, looked at Dani quickly and then looked away before she said, “You know I have to give the Grablers my answer sometime today?”

“Yeah. I know,” Dani said shrugging. “And you’re going to say no.” Linda was watching her closely and if Dani didn’t let her face say that she understood, it was because she still didn’t. Not exactly anyway. But when the door closed and the sound of footsteps on the stairs died away, she suddenly got up and went to the window. Pushing aside the curtain, she looked out and watched while her mother picked her way along the narrow path between puncture vines and hedgehog cactus on her way to the alley. Watched her picking her way carefully through the thorns in her sandals and then, when she reached the alley, lifting her head and squaring her shoulders before she walked on down the alley toward the bookstore and the meeting with the Grabby Grablers. And it was right then that Dani really began to understand not only why Linda had to stand up to the Grablers, but also why she herself had to stay in Rattler Springs and help her do it.

It was only a minute or two later and Dani was still standing at the window when she became aware of some familiar thumps and clatters that seemed to be coming from the direction of Silver Avenue. It didn’t seem likely, so early in the morning, but it sounded suspiciously like the arrival of Pixie and the Black Phantom. Thinking, “She’s come for her money,” Dani headed for the front of the house.

“Hi,” a red-faced, sweaty Pixie said as Dani opened the door. “I came early so it wouldn’t be so hot. My mother will pick me up around eleven. Is that all right? I wanted to talk to you. Is Stormy here? Wheee ooh! I’m hot. May I have some water?”

She headed for the kitchen and Dani followed her. It wasn’t until Pixie was busy drinking that Dani managed to say, “I guess you came for the money. I found it on the floor after—”

“The money? Oh yes,” Pixie said. “I wondered what happened to it. Did I leave it here?” Putting down the glass, she held her hands under the faucet and splashed water on her face and arms. “Oooh, that feels good.” Still splashing, she began to ask about Stormy. “Have you told Stormy yet? Have you told him you’re not going to run away? What did he say? Did you tell him I got enough birthday money to pay for the tickets, but you still won’t run away?”

Dani waited. When Pixie finally ran down she said, “Look, Pixie. If you’d hush up for a minute I’d tell you.” She talked fast then, trying to get in what needed to be said before Pixie got going again. “About Stormy—he still hasn’t been here, but I know why now. I forgot to tell you yesterday. He’s been sick. He doesn’t know yet that I’ve changed my mind about running away. He thinks I’m leaving today.”

“Sick?” Pixie looked shocked and sorry, but at the same time kind of excited. “Is it serious, like polio or scarlet fever? They thought I had scarlet fever once but it was only measles. I wanted it to be scarlet fever because they were going to quarantine us. My mother and father too, and they weren’t going to let them go to Patagonia. But it was only measles, and they went.” She stopped for breath and then asked again, “What does Stormy have?”

When Dani explained about Stormy and the spoiled shrimp, Pixie shivered and said, “Ugh. That’s awful.”

“I know,” Dani said. “But he’s probably all right by now.” She was just starting to tell about seeing Stormy in his room and how he’d said he was getting better when she became aware of the sound of footsteps. Footsteps slowly crossing the kitchen, the squeak of a hinge—and then there he was. Stormy himself.

Dani jumped to her feet. “Stormy,” she said. “Where have you been? Are you still sick?”

“No. Not sick.” He shook his head in a funny crooked way, holding it a little to one side, and his voice was whispery.

He sounded, Dani thought, as if he was trying to speak without moving his lips. But it wasn’t until she’d started across the room toward him that she began to see and understand. Began to see that something was terribly wrong with Stormy’s face. His right eye was almost swollen shut and there was a big dark bruise all around it, and both his lips were swollen and caked with blood. As she approached he backed away, holding her off with both hands.

“Don’t,” he whispered. “It hurts.”

“Stormy.” Dani’s voice was sharp with anger. “Who beat you up? Was it Ronnie? It was Ronnie, wasn’t it?”

He shook his head again in that strange, careful way. “No. Not Ronnie,” he said. “It was …” He looked away, refusing to meet Dani’s eyes. “It wasn’t her fault. I stole her tip money. She was awful mad.”

Dani gasped. Pixie was beside her then, whispering and jabbing her shoulder, trying to get her attention. “Who?” Pixie whispered. “Who did it?”

Lowering her voice, Dani breathed the answer into Pixie’s ear. “His mother. His mother beat him up.”

H
IS FACE WASN’T THE
worst of it. Later in the kitchen while Stormy was trying to eat watered-down oatmeal without moving his lips, Pixie pulled Dani around behind him and pointed to where, below his shorts, you could see big purple welts up and down the backs of his legs. Pointing to the welts, Pixie had begun to ask, “Stormy, what—?” when Dani shushed her and pulled her away. It wasn’t until Pixie agreed to keep her mouth shut by putting her own finger to her lips and nodding in agreement that Dani allowed her to come back and sit down at the table.

Sitting there across the table while Stormy ate, watching how slowly and painfully the oatmeal was disappearing, and comparing it to the way he usually disposed of food, Dani felt her throat tightening with fury. Like Pixie, she desperately wanted to ask about what had happened and why. But that sort of question, she kept telling herself, would have to wait. When the oatmeal was finally gone, Stormy began to talk without being questioned. He started, however, by asking some questions of his own.

His first question was, “You going today, Dani? You running away today?”

It wasn’t until that moment that it suddenly dawned on Dani how much of what had happened had been, at least partly, her own fault. It wasn’t hard to guess why he had tried to steal Gloria’s tip money. Not when she, Dani, had just told him that she was going to run away today, and that he wouldn’t be able to come with her because
there wasn’t enough money to pay for his tickets.

Suddenly Dani could see what must have happened almost as clearly as if she’d been there. She could see how, after he’d talked to her, he’d been so desperate to get ticket money that he’d gone into Gloria’s room to look for some—and how Gloria must have caught him taking her money. And maybe she’d had a lot to drink at the time. Dani had heard, everyone in town had heard, about how Gloria acted sometimes when she’d had too much to drink.

“Are you going?” Stormy was repeating. “Today?”

“No! No!” Dani almost shouted. “I’m not going. I’ve decided not to go at all. Or at least not for a long time.”

Stormy stared at her wide-eyed, and then started his wide jack-o’-lantern grin. Started, winced with pain, and stopped. But his voice had a grin in it as he said,
“Okay.
That’s okay then.”

“Stormy,” Dani found herself asking, “when did she …?”

He frowned and shook his head.

Dani’s nod told him she understood what mustn’t be talked about. “When did you get hurt?”

His eyes fell. “Last night. It was last night.” But then he looked up quickly. “She was sorry this morning. Really sorry. She brought me a real breakfast. From the cafe. Ham and eggs.” For a moment his eyes, even the swollen one, had that familiar hungry gleam, but then it faded. “Only I couldn’t eat it. Too much chewing.” He thought for a moment. “She told me not to come here today. She said I had to stay home. But I didn’t because I thought you were …”

Dani nodded. “Because you thought I was leaving.”

“Umm,” he agreed. He started to stand up then, so slowly and painfully that Dani jumped up to help, but he held her off. “No, don’t,” he said. At the door he stopped, looked at Pixie, and asked, “Did you ride here? On the Black Phantom?”

Pixie nodded. “Yes,” she said. “It’s on the front porch.”

For a moment Stormy looked longingly toward the front door. Then he shook his head slightly and said, “I’m going to the bathroom. Okay?”

When he disappeared Dani and Pixie went on sitting at the table, and for several minutes neither of them had anything to say. Now and then they looked at each other. Pixie’s eyes were bleak, blue marbles. Huge and round as always, but without the usual fireworks.

Stormy was gone such a long time that, after a while, Dani went to see if he was all right. When she came back she told Pixie that she had found him in her bedroom. “He’s asleep,” she said. “Sound asleep. He probably didn’t sleep much last night.”

Pixie nodded and asked the same question that Dani had been asking herself. “What are we going to do?”

Dani shook her head, and went on shaking it, fighting against a frightening feeling of helplessness. “I don’t know,” she said.

“Could you just keep him here?” Pixie asked.

“I don’t think it would work. Gloria would just come and get him. She did once before when my mom let him stay a long time.”

She was still thinking about Gloria, thinking about the time she’d screamed at Linda for letting Stormy stay over, when suddenly there was a loud knocking noise. Not on the door but on the kitchen window. Talk about coincidence. Somehow, even before she looked up and saw her peering in at them, Dani knew who it would be.

Pixie was staring too. But as Dani got to her feet Pixie tugged at her arm. There was a halfway smile on her lips and a small electric flicker was back in her eyes. “Dani,” she whispered. “We haven’t seen him, have we? We’re worried about him. But we
haven’t
seen him.”

Dani nodded and went to the door.

“Hi, Gloria,” she said. “Did you want to see my mother? She’s still at the bookstore.”

Gloria was wearing a sharp-looking purple skirt and a lavender sweater. Except for some smeared eye makeup and the wild tangle of her blond hair, she seemed about the same as always. Her smile looked unreal, but no more than usual. “Hi there, girls,” she said, trying to see past them into the kitchen. “Has my kid been here this morning?”

“You’re looking for Stormy?” Dani asked.

“Yeah,” Gloria said. “I need to find him. I—He had a little accident last night. Fell down some stairs. You know, those steep stairs over at the hotel. Banged himself up some. I need to see if he’s all right.”

“Oh,” Dani said. “Well, if we see him we’ll—”

But then Pixie took over, pushing Dani aside and stepping in front of her. Her eyes had that familiar flicker as she said, “An accident? Oh dear. How terrible. Did he break any bones?” Gloria seemed to be trying to answer, but Pixie didn’t wait for it. “We haven’t seen him for a long time, have we, Dani? We’ve really been wondering where he’s been lately. Would you like us to help you hunt for him? We could do that. Couldn’t we, Dani?”

But Gloria was shaking her head and backing away, trying to keep her balance as her high-heeled shoes sank into the sandy path. “No, no. Real sweet of you kids to offer, but not necessary. I’m sure he’ll turn up soon.”

They watched her go, until she had disappeared down the alley and around the corner of the hotel, before Dani went in to check on Stormy. He was still sound asleep.

Back in the kitchen the two of them sat at the table again for a long time without speaking. For Pixie, an amazingly long time. But when they started to talk it was both at once. Not using the same words exactly but what they said meant the same thing. What Dani said was, “I guess I’ll have to run away after all, and take Stormy with me.”

And what Pixie said was, “Yes. And I’ll go too.”

There was another long pause before Pixie said, “When?”

“Today, I guess,” Dani said. “Like I was planning. After today it would be too late. She’d find him and take him back.”

Pixie nodded and went on nodding. After a while she said, “How?”

“That’s what we have to figure out,” Dani said. “Plans. We have to make plans.”

“Okay,” Pixie said. “We’ll make …” She hushed then, cocking her head and listening. “It’s the car,” she said. “My mother’s coming.” She got slowly to her feet.

“What are you going to do?” Dani asked.

“Shhh.” Pixie’s voice was firm. “I’m planning.” She disappeared into the living room and then Dani heard her footsteps on the front porch. In a minute or two she came back. “I asked her if I could stay longer, and I can. I said we were right in the middle of working a puzzle and we just have to finish it. Which is kind of the truth, huh?” Her small white teeth flashed in an innocent smile. “It’s nice when things can be kind of the truth. Isn’t it? So—anyway she said all right. She said they have to meet someone in town later tonight so I can stay till then.”