The Gypsy Game (18 page)

“In the what?” Ken sounded amazed.

Toby nodded. “Left front leg. I heard everything they said.” Suddenly his face seemed to close and darken. “I heard them saying what they were going to do to my dad if he didn’t give me up.”

Ken got to his feet. “Oh, come on, Tobe. It can’t be that bad. I mean who ever heard of killer grandparents?” He was looking around nervously again. “Anyway, we have to get back. So why don’t you just grab your stuff and come along.”

“Forget it. I’m not coming.” Toby’s face was tight with anger. “And don’t you tell my dad anything. Not anything! I’ll do it myself. I’ll call him and tell him I’m all right. Okay? So go ahead, leave. Go on. Get out of here.”

It was a strangely different Toby Alvillar. April couldn’t remember ever seeing Toby really angry before. Cocky and sarcastic and aggravating as hell, sure, but never before just plain old squinty-eyed, shaky-voiced furious.

And Ken was angry, too. “Okay, we will. We’ll get out and leave you here to—to—get mugged or—murdered or whatever. Who cares? I sure don’t. Come on, everybody. Let’s go.”

And they did. One by one they went up the stairs and out the door, Ken and April stomping and glaring, Elizabeth crying, and Melanie pulling a whining Marshall behind her. Except for Marshall, nobody even turned to look back.

HE WAS ALONE again. All that was left was the scuff of footsteps on the stairs and the sound of Elizabeth’s sobs—and Marshall’s wailing, “Bear. We forgot Bear.”

And sure enough, there the big shaggy mutt was, sitting at Toby’s feet looking up at him accusingly. Just like the rest of them. Accusing him of being cruel and mean, when he couldn’t help what he was doing. When there was absolutely no other way he … And then suddenly Ken was dashing back into the basement to grab the belt that was attached to Bear’s collar and to pull him toward the door. To drag Bear away without even looking back or saying a word.

It wasn’t fair. Didn’t Ken know that he wouldn’t have run away if there was any other way out of the mess? Didn’t he see that? Right at that moment, more than anything in the world he wanted to yell, “Come back. Please come back! Don’t leave me here alone.”

But he didn’t. He couldn’t. Instead, just as Ken was almost to the top of the stairs, he yelled, “Hey, Kamata. Look out. You’re losing your pants.” Ken was grabbing at his pants as he disappeared through the cellar door. Toby tried to laugh.

After he quit trying, he sighed, sat back down on his
blankets with his chin on his fists, and stared into the candle flame. A few moments later he remembered the new bag of food and got up and investigated. Moving the candle closer, he pulled out a bag of cookies, some potato chips, and a huge deli sandwich.

“Great!” he said out loud. “Awesome.” He unwrapped the sandwich, stared at it for a moment, and wrapped it back up again. Being angry always did strange things to his stomach, and at the moment it seemed to be turning somersaults. His mind said hungry, but his churning stomach said forget it. He stashed the bag away in the old wooden box where he’d been keeping his backpack when he wasn’t using it for a pillow, and sat down again with his chin on his fists. He sat there that way for a long time, thinking. Thinking how unbelievable it was that it had only been four or five days—he wasn’t sure just how many—since he’d packed up and snuck out of the studio in the middle of the night. And only about twenty-four hours since he’d heard those strange, voices talking to Ken outside the gate of the Gypsy Camp and he had run away again.

The Gypsy Camp. Where the rest of them were going to start playing the new game all about some fairy-tale-type Gypsies who wore bright-colored, bangle-trimmed clothing and gobs of jewelry and who trained animals and told fortunes and danced and sang around their campfires as they kind of commuted around from one gorgeous camping place to another. That was a laugh, he thought, and tried to, but it didn’t come out very well. Some game it had turned out to be. Oh, the first part had been a blast all right. The part where February and Company had been really knocked out of their shoes when they found out that
he’d been telling the truth about being a Gypsy. Well, at least part Gypsy. But after that it hadn’t been much. A few arguments, his dad’s crazy painting of a Gypsy caravan, and then—the end. The end for him at least. Probably the rest of them would go on making costumes and trying to train the so-called bear, and learning to tell fortunes, and pretending they were wandering around all over the world, and fighting over what to do next—while he, Toby …

Suddenly he was lying on his face on the dirty blankets and, well, not exactly crying but close enough to it to be glad that no one was around to hear the weird noises he was making. After the noises stopped, he went on lying there, thinking and worrying. For a while his mind was mostly on the mess he was in. About what it was like to have no place to live except a pile of dirty blankets in a crummy hideout that really belonged to some weird people who might get tired of having him around at any moment. And nothing to eat, once this new bag was empty. And no friends, now that Ken and the others had given up on him. No people at all except a crazy old beggar woman, a poor retard named Mickey, and skinny Vince, who had killer headaches and a long, sharp knife.

He rolled over, pulling the ragged old blankets higher around his shoulders, and went on thinking about Mickey and Vince. His fellow cellar rats, as Garbo called them. He wondered where they went every day and what they did all day long. Garbo said they’d gone to work, but that couldn’t mean real jobs. Not for a lamebrain like Mickey or a guy who could only work in between headache attacks. So that probably meant begging as she did or maybe picking up bottles and other trash to sell the way a lot of poor people
had to do. He also thought about how Vince took care of Mickey and how Mickey looked at Vince as if he were some kind of a god.

In between thinking about himself and his fellow cellar rats, Toby spent most of his time thinking about his dad. About how his dad had asked for a message that he was all right, and how on earth he, Toby, could get a message to him without giving everything away. Most of all, without having to explain why he had run away. Because that was the one thing he absolutely couldn’t do.

After what seemed like hours of just sitting there worrying, Toby decided to examine his new bag of food again, and this time he did manage to eat the sandwich, a few potato chips, and a cookie or two. After that he got out his flashlight and went to get a drink from the liquor store’s water faucet. It was dark and scary outside, and everything was wet and dripping. There had been no sound of rain in the depths of the basement, but obviously there had been quite a lot. He was on his way back to the cellar when he heard mumbling and scuffling feet, and there was Garbo pushing her cart around the corner of the building. A soggy, bad-tempered Garbo, who growled and groaned and smelled like a wet cat.

“You still here,” she muttered crossly when she saw Toby. “Dumb kid. Go back where you came from. I don’t care how bad it is, kid. It can’t be any worse than trying to stay alive in this hell hole.”

But a few minutes later, after Toby helped her get her cart down the stairs, she began to warm up a little. “Thanks, kiddo,” she said when she was sitting among her blankets and mattresses. “Come back and talk to me in a
few minutes after my poor old bones have warmed up a little.”

So he went back to his corner and waited, and after a while she called him over and told him to sit down. He did what he was told, but then, when she just sat there staring at him for a long time, he began to think about telling her to forget it and clearing out. Clearing out not just from her corner, but away from the whole disgusting rat hole of a cellar. He probably would have, too, except that right at that moment he was having this desperate feeling that he just had to talk to somebody. Anybody. Even poor old Garbo.

At last Garbo, who had been fussing around with her ragged mittens and wrapping and rewrapping a whole bunch of scarves and shawls around her shoulders, finally looked at Toby and chuckled her sly, sarcastic laugh. “Well, well. Let’s see, what was it you said your name was? Not that it matters. You’ve probably thought of a better one by now. Am I right?”

“My name is really Toby,” he surprised himself by saying.

Garbo’s sharp glance seemed to pry into his brain. “Really Toby,” she said, nodding thoughtfully. “So how do you like being an outcast, Toby, my lad? A throwaway human being?”

Toby decided to try to make it into a joke. “Who’s a throwaway human being?” he said, trying to grin. “Not me.”

“Yes, you are, dearie.” The chuckle was gone now. “Just like everyone else who can’t support themselves because they happen to be a little bit different. A little bit too old or
too lacking in brainpower or too sick.” She flicked her sharp old eyes in Toby’s direction. “Or too young.” She nodded. “At least in your case, dearie, it’s a difference that time may take care of. If you manage to live that long. We throwaway humans tend to die a bit early. Like poor old Jeb, for instance.”

“Yeah, I know,” Toby said, trying to sound understanding.

Garbo’s lips curled in an angry smile. “No, you don’t. Not yet, you don’t. How could you possibly know anything about the deadly kind of differences that most of us cellar rats have to live with? How could a sharp, young kid like you possibly know anything about it?”

She was glaring at him, and for a minute or two he was speechless, but then suddenly he hit on a good angle. The Gypsy thing. “How could I know anything about being different?” he began. “I’ll tell you how. I’ll tell you what my whole family and all my ancestors know about being different.”

Garbo’s glare had faded, and there was interest in her quick glance. “All right, tell me,” she said.

So Toby started in on a long story about how he was a Gypsy and how he and all his ancestors had been driven from town to town and country to country because they were “different.” He put in a lot that his father had told him about his grandmother’s life in Romania, and about the Gypsies in Europe and everything. Putting in all kinds of details that made it sound almost as if he’d been there himself and had seen it all happen. And as he really got into the story, he almost began to believe that he actually had lived in a Gypsy caravan and been chased and persecuted all
over everywhere just because he looked different and had different ways of doing things.

Garbo seemed to be buying it. At least she let him go on and on without interrupting, even nodding now and then as if to say she understood. But then, just as he was getting to the most important part, about all the thousands of Gypsies who were killed in the Nazi concentration camps, Garbo suddenly broke in. “All right, enough,” she said. “Enough about being a Gypsy. So some of your ancestors were Gypsies. But that was their problem. So how about telling me what
your
problem is? The truth, boy. How about telling me the truth about why you’re holed up here with the rest of us cellar rats?”

The truth. There wasn’t any good reason to tell anyone the truth right then. Certainly not a crazy old beggar woman. But suddenly the thought of being able to tell someone the whole thing, just as it happened without leaving out any parts or adding any new ones, was kind of like the lifting of a great dark cloud. Taking a deep breath, Toby started at the very beginning.

APRIL WOULD ALWAYS remember that long walk home after they’d left Toby in the church basement as one of the most awful experiences of her life. Even though she was wide awake and it was still more or less daylight, it had the same feeling as a nightmare. A kind of looming, dark cloud feeling, as if no matter how bad things were at the moment, you knew for certain that they were just about to get a whole lot worse.

The day was fading away, and long spooky shadows were beginning to creep across streets and sidewalks. Marshall was whiny, Elizabeth was sobbing off and on, and Ken was still stomping and glaring. Except to answer Marshall, who kept tugging on them and asking worried questions, nobody tried to make conversation.

The first question Marshall asked was, “Where’s Toby?” And when no one answered, he asked it again and again: “Where’s Toby? Where’s Toby?”

“You know where he is,” April said at last. “He’s still back there in that cellar.”

A little while later Marshall started jerking on the sleeve of Melanie’s raincoat. “Does he live there now? Does Toby live in that cellar?”

“I guess so,” Melanie said. “Stop pulling on me, Marshall. I guess that’s where Toby lives now.”

“Why?” This time Marshall was tugging on Ken’s jacket. “Why does he live there now?”

“How do I know? He didn’t tell me anything he didn’t tell all of you guys. I guess he just likes it there. I guess the dumb jerk just likes living in a stinking black hole.”

Marshall tugged on the jacket again. “But why …”

Shoving Marshall’s hand away angrily, Ken said, “Cool it with the ‘whys.’ Okay, kid? I don’t have any answers. I don’t know
anything
about Toby Alvillar. Not anymore.”

After that no one talked. While they were still on Arbor, the only other people they passed were a few ratty-looking characters who all seemed to be in a hurry to get someplace else. And then, wouldn’t you know it, just to make matters worse, it began to rain. Not a drenching, soaking kind of rain, but a soggy, miserable drizzle.

Miserable! That was the only word for that whole walk home. But at least nobody laughed at them this time. Not even on Norwich, where there were quite a few other pedestrians. April didn’t know exactly why nobody laughed. But for whatever reason the people who glanced up at them from under their umbrellas didn’t look like they even wanted to smile.

At the main alley Ken turned off and headed for home, but the rest of them went on to the storage yard. They went back in the way they’d come, through the fence, but after they’d fed Bear and pounded the plank firmly back into place, they went out through the gate, locked it behind them, and went on home. Outside the door of the Rosses’ apartment they stopped long enough to remind Marshall
again not to say anything about Toby, and then April went on up to the third floor.