The Kindness of Strangers (33 page)

Jordan had shrugged.

“How about this?” Bryn asked. “I asked you all to work together. Is there a way we can make room for the dragon so that the rabbits can be safe?”

“How?” Danny asked.

“Exactly,” Bryn said. “How? Is there a way you can find?”

“Hey, look,” Nate said. He stood by the cupboard and held up a little segment of fence. “There’s fences and cages here. We could build a fence.”

“No, put him in a cage,” Danny said.

“There’s not a cage big enough,” Jordan said.

“Sure there is,” Nate said. He held one up. “This will work. Look.” He set the golden cage down over the dragon.

“It’s not a real cage,” Jordan protested. “It doesn’t have a bottom or a lock. He’ll just knock it over.”

Nate laughed. “Dude, relax. It’s a plastic dragon, okay? It’s our world. If we say he can’t get out, he can’t get out.”

Jordan opened his mouth, eyes blazing, but then seemed to change his mind. His eyes glazed over, and his face slipped on a neutral expression.

Sarah fell asleep dreaming of that dragon rattling its cage. She woke at six. Jordan’s bed hadn’t been slept in. Downstairs the TV was off, but he wasn’t sleeping in the corner. Had he run away? She’d never entertained this possibility. A series of chastisements raced through her brain—you
knew
this was a bad idea, this was a disaster waiting to happen, what on earth made you think you could do this?

But then she saw him. The back door was open, and through the screen in the early-morning light, she saw him sitting with Klezmer in his lap, stroking the rabbit’s nose just where he liked it, up between his eyes.

The rush of relief made her feel shaky, and it struck her that she’d been very naive when she’d agreed to do this.

Chapter Seventeen
Jordan

J
ordan stood in the Ladens’ dark kitchen, drinking a glass of milk before he went to bed. He came down here every night to check the doors and peek out the windows at the backyard and driveway. Lots of places his dad could hide. Maybe behind Nate’s dogwood or in the corner by Danny’s apple tree. Those stupid trees Danny kept talking about. Sarah had told him that he could pick out a tree to plant if he wanted. But they didn’t get it. He wasn’t staying here. His dad wouldn’t let him. They were all such morons, acting like everything was going to be okay. And even if the police caught his dad, Jordan wanted to go to his own home. With his own mom.

Jordan peered through the window at the bushes by Mrs. Ripley’s back porch. That would be a hiding place, too. His dad was watching everything he did. Waiting. This was so bad. He almost wished his dad would just show up and do it—whatever he was going to do to Jordan. Dreading it made him sick.

Jordan could see Mrs. Ripley moving around her kitchen, talking to herself. Or was she singing? He didn’t like watching her without her knowing. It made him think of other things he didn’t like, so he turned his back to the window, leaning against the sink.

He heard Sarah call, “Hey, Danny? Can you run down to the basement and bring up some more toilet paper? It’s on the shelf beside the washer.”

Jordan set his glass in the sink and waited for Danny’s protest. “Why do I have to do it?” came the whine. This might be the moment Jordan had been waiting for.

He heard Sarah say, “Because I asked you to. Now, do it, please.”

Jordan figured he had two or three more rounds of this before Danny came down here and got the stupid toilet paper.

“I didn’t use the last of it,” Danny said. “Whoever used it up should have to go get it. It wasn’t me.” But his voice moved closer, growing louder, in the upstairs hallway.

Jordan crept down the basement stairs in the dark. He felt for the washer and then the shelf. He grabbed the plastic-wrapped twelve-roll pack of toilet paper and hugged it to his chest. Finally. It had taken a whole week to get Danny alone.

Footsteps thudded over his head as Danny tromped through the kitchen. The light clicked on at the top of the stairs, and Danny thunked down the wooden steps. It wasn’t until he reached the bottom that he saw Jordan standing there waiting.

Danny grabbed the railing, and his body jerked like he’d been shocked.

“Do you have it?” Jordan asked.

Danny’s mouth hung open, but he didn’t speak.

“Something’s missing, out of my backpack, Danny. What did you do with it?”

Danny glared at Jordan and turned to go back upstairs.

“Hey, wait. Your mom wants the toilet paper, right?”

Danny looked to the shelf, saw it was empty, then frowned at Jordan, seeming to finally recognize what Jordan held.

“I’m not mad,” Jordan said. “I know why you took it. I just need to know where it is.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Give me the toilet paper.”

Jordan clutched it tighter and shook his head.

Danny clenched his fists, acting like he was going to beat Jordan up for the toilet paper, and Jordan almost wished he’d try. Danny-boy might be surprised to discover that Jordan fought back these days. But Jordan knew that Danny would never hit him. He’d never hit anyone.

Danny looked over his shoulder, up the stairs.

“No one can hear us,” Jordan said. “That’s why I came down here.”

Danny’s mouth began to tremble. “I didn’t know.”

“Nobody knew.” A fist of anger clenched in Jordan’s belly. He’d worked so hard for no one to know. And it was all ruined. This was his only hope.

“No, I didn’t know what the disk
was,
” Danny said. “I thought it was homework. I just . . . I just thought it might be your paragraph for Miss Holt or something. I didn’t know.”

“Now you do. So what did you do with it?” Jordan
had
to get it.

“I just—I didn’t . . .” Danny’s gaze wandered around the basement, and a tear shone on his cheek. Jordan didn’t have time for him to cry. “When you, you know, were mean to me that day, at your pool, and told me not to come back . . . you said your parents thought I was stupid and they were just being nice to me because my dad was dead—”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but what did you
do
with it?”

“You were really . . . saving me, weren’t you?”

Jordan stared at his friend. He remembered how it made him hurt inside to say the things he’d had to say to Danny. How he’d tried to think of the worst things, to make sure Danny never came back. “How long did that take you, Sherlock?”

Danny’s face clouded. Jordan didn’t know why he’d said that. He didn’t have to be mean anymore, did he? What was wrong with him?

“Not long when I saw the pictures,” Danny said. “Why didn’t you just tell me? Tell Billy? Tell
somebody
?”

“Where’s the disk?”

“You were such an asshole. You said your parents couldn’t believe you’d be friends with me. They . . . they didn’t really say that, did they?”

“Danny, who cares? Where is it?” He heard footsteps overhead.

“It’s gone.”

Before Jordan could question him, Sarah’s voice came from the top of the stairs. “Danny? You down there?”

All color drained from Danny’s face.
No
. Jordan needed to ask Danny more. “Y-yeah.”

“You seen Jordan?”

“H-he’s down here, too.”

She quickly descended a couple steps, low enough to peer at them. She knew that something was up, Jordan could tell. All week she’d seemed terrified of leaving Danny and Jordan alone together, not that there was much chance of that happening, with Danny practically holding Nate’s hand every single second. “Everything okay?” Sarah asked.

“Yeah,” Jordan said. “We were just talking about school.”

Sarah smiled, relief softening her face. “Do you miss it?”

“Kinda,” he said. “But Danny says I’m lucky now that they’re doing fractions. My tutor hasn’t given me any yet.”

Danny stared at him, eyes wide. It felt almost good, familiar and comfortable, to make up a lie. Jordan handed him the toilet paper.

“Well, hurry up, you two. It’s almost ten. You need to get to bed.”

“Okay,” they said, both heading for the stairs. But she walked away, ahead of them.

Jordan grabbed Danny’s T-shirt. He whispered, “What do you mean, ‘It’s gone’?”

“Jordan—I was . . . There were pictures of me. I . . . I couldn’t let—”

“You were in a swimming suit!”

“But still . . . is . . . is that what they would’ve done to me? Those other pictures?”

Jordan didn’t say anything for a minute. He suddenly felt like he hadn’t slept for three months. He heard his mother’s voice:
Well,
make
him like you.
He shrugged. “I don’t know.” And he felt his own eyes sting with tears. “No, Danny. No. I wouldn’t let them. That’s why I said that stuff. That’s the only reason.” He wrinkled his nose against the burning feeling in his face. The look in Danny’s eyes made Jordan feel . . . happy. Jordan was glad Danny knew he didn’t mean those things.

“Don’t tell anyone, okay?” Danny asked.

Maybe Danny’s dumbness could help Jordan. “I won’t if you won’t.”

Danny frowned. “But everyone already knows about you.”

“But that’s the only disk with . . .” Jordan looked at the floor. He didn’t want to say the words out loud. His throat got thick. His voice went raspy, like when he talked to Dr. Bryn. He looked into Danny’s blank face, waiting for Jordan to finish his sentence. And Jordan realized: Danny didn’t have a clue. He had no idea what Jordan had been about to say. Jordan’s heart did that funny jump, kicking in its extra beat. Danny thought people really cared about pictures of him swimming. Please. “I just wanted to know what happened,” Jordan said. “I knew I put five disks in the backpack, but the police only had four.” He took a deep breath. “So what did you do? Did you, like, smash it?”

Danny paused a second too long before nodding. “Yeah,” he said, in this fake-cheerful voice. Another extra beat hit his ribs. Jordan knew that the disk still existed somewhere in this house. He’d have to look for it. But Danny shared a room with Nate now that Jordan had moved in. It wouldn’t be easy.

Danny continued up the stairs, but at the top he stopped. Without turning around, leaving Jordan staring at his back, he said, “I’m sorry, Jordan, about the things we said. Billy and those guys. We didn’t know.”

“You never said anything, Danny. It’s okay.”

“But I . . . I just—you know. I didn’t try to make them stop.”

The feeling inside Jordan was new and very strange. He didn’t know what to do with it.

“It’s okay,” he said again. He reached up and patted Danny’s back.

J
ordan couldn’t sleep. He was wide awake. What did that mean, he wondered, wide awake? Could you be narrowly awake? He sighed. That’s the sort of thing not being able to sleep would leave him wondering about for the rest of the night. He looked at the clock. “The wee hours,” his grandma had called them. What did
that
mean? They weren’t shorter. They actually felt longer when you were awake during them.

He liked this bed better than his own old one. Only room for one, that’s all, just like the hospital. He could lie in almost any position and feel both sides of the bed.

He smiled in the darkness, remembering what a chicken Danny had been the first time he’d spent the night at Jordan’s house. He’d made Jordan close his closet door and his bathroom door before they turned out the lights, and Danny had to turn the lights back on to get up to pee. Danny
loved
ghost stories and stories about monsters and vampires and stuff, but he’d get himself all hyper and scared every time. Back in third grade, Danny thought there were monsters under the bed. He told Jordan they had to keep their hands and feet in the bed. If they let their arms drop over while they slept, the monsters could grab them and pull them under.

Jordan let his leg drop over the side and tapped his toes on the floor. He wasn’t afraid of the monsters under the bed. Had he ever been afraid of such make-believe monsters? He couldn’t remember any. He’d never even been afraid of the dark. He kind of liked the dark.

No, the only things under this bed were Jordan’s shoes. His running shoes from Kramble, the gym shoes he’d had on when Sarah took him to the ER, and a pair of sandals and some brown leather shoes Reece had brought from Jordan’s house when they were finally allowed to get some of his stuff. Deep inside one leather shoe was the broken wing he’d stolen from Dr. Bryn’s office. He thought he was busted the day all the Ladens came to therapy and they had to make a “world” together in a dollhouse. Sarah had picked out that purple angel. Danny and Nate had complained because it was broken, but Sarah said she wanted it anyway. Jordan kept waiting for Dr. Bryn to ask him, “What happened to the other wing?” but she didn’t.

Deep inside the other shoe were the letters from Jordan’s mother—he folded each one as small as he could and crammed them into the toes of those shoes so none of the Ladens would look at them.