The Secret of Rover (16 page)

The door opened and Walkie-Talkie returned to the room alone. He stood at the head of their table, arms folded across his massive chest.

“The King Foods Corporation's not gonna press charges,” he said.

“Good! Then we go,” said Nose, rising.

“Not so fast,” said Walkie-Talkie. “I got a few more questions before I release these children to your custody.”

At this, Nose's unruffled expression began to crack. “You no can keep my cheeldren from me!” he said sharply. “You got no cause for dat!”

“They hab to go hobe,” protested Hair. “They deed sobe rest!”

But Walkie-Talkie was unmoved. “Officer Sanders, will you take these kids to the lobby, please?” he said.

Katie rose to follow, her concern deepening. But David's heart leaped as they passed out the door and back to the lobby. The way he saw it, they had just gone from three adults to one. He turned to look at their lone remaining captor and grinned up at the young man's frank and friendly face. Sanders. So that was Freckles's name.

He's big, David thought, but he's way too nice. We can take him.

Katie had deposited herself dejectedly on a rickety chair in the lobby. David dropped lightly beside her, flicking a candy wrapper off his seat before he did so. Sanders had stationed himself at the receptionist's desk and a quick sideways glance revealed that he was staring at them with a look of compassion.

Oh, yeah. His “parents” were being interrogated. David hastily rearranged his expression along serious lines and turned a worried face to their jailer.

“How 'bout the Wizards?” the cop asked, looking genuinely sorry for him. “You like basketball?”

David did, and for a while that gave them something to talk about. But forty-five minutes and many professional sports later, neither David nor Katie wanted to talk about anything. The hour was growing late, they were tired and
hungry, and it had become obvious that while Sanders was certainly very nice, he wasn't going away. They were close enough to the exit to taste it and, compared to before, they were very lightly guarded. But if they couldn't make a break for it pretty soon, the others would emerge from the back and this opportunity would slip through their fingers.

Then—from somewhere deep in the pocket of his pants—Sanders's cell phone rang.

The big cop hitched his body to the side and fished out the small, trilling object. He peered at the screen that displayed the number of the caller and his eyes lit up. He clutched the device close to his face and cupped his hand around the mouthpiece for privacy.

It wasn't quite private enough. Both of them heard his low, eager voice. “Hi, sugar,” said Sanders.

David looked at Katie and Katie looked at David. Both had precisely the same thought. This was a development. This—
this
—was an opportunity.

They could not hear everything, but very soon they heard enough to know that all was not well between Sanders and his sugar. The cop was hunched tightly over his phone and his murmurings into it acquired a troubled and urgent quality.

“Honey,” they heard him saying in tones of gentle remonstrance. “Honey, you know that's not true!” Sanders's eyes flicked upward over the top of his phone and met the
children's gazes. Nice though he was, his brow lowered coldly and he stared down at the desktop. Sugar continued to talk. He continued to listen.

“No, baby.” Sanders's voice, which he had labored to keep low, was rising and there was a pleading note in it. “No, that's not what I meant!” Again he glanced upward and again he saw the children. This time he turned his body impatiently away, seeking escape from their eyes.

Sanders was pouring every ounce of his gigantic self into the tiny sliver of a phone that he clutched to his massive head. Their three other captors were still locked away in the back room. No more than a tissue hung between Katie and David and the highway to Vermont.

But the lobby was a single large square and the only door that led to freedom stood smack in front of the desk where the cop sat. A wave of despair washed over Katie. They were so close but so utterly, utterly trapped.

“Officer Sanders?”

David rose and loped over to the desk where Sanders sat. Katie's hopes stirred. Maybe her brother had a plan.

Sanders, flustered, looked up from his call. His face was flushed from his struggle with Sugar.

“Officer Sanders?” said David, who was now standing right before him. “I'm really hungry.”

It was brilliant. There was no food in the lobby. To get any, Sanders would have to leave. David was a genius.

Sanders put his hand over the receiver. “Won't be too
long now,” he replied. A tight smile appeared as he did so. “They'll be out pretty soon.”

“We haven't eaten anything for hours!”

From across the lobby Katie chimed in. “And we're thirsty, too!”

Sanders's smile grew a little more desperate. “It'll only be—” He broke off as a torrent of words that even the children could hear erupted from inside his phone. Beads of sweat appeared on Sanders's forehead.

David spoke again. “We're
starv
—”

Sanders raised his hand, cutting him off. Then without allowing the phone to budge from his ear, he reached deep into his pocket and removed his wallet. Katie and David watched as, one-handed, he unfolded it and extracted a five-dollar bill.

He wouldn't. It couldn't possibly be that easy. He wasn't really going to
give them money and send them away
.

Still glued to the phone, Sanders held out the five, met David's eyes, and mouthed: “
For the food court. Come right back
.”

“Mmm-hmm,” he murmured into the phone. “Me too, baby.”

Katie rose and turned for the door, trying to act casual and trying to quiet her pounding heart. But where was David?

From behind her she heard his voice. “No!” he repeated loudly. “We're
really
hungry!”

A surge of anger flooded over Katie at this totally unnecessary risk. Incredibly, though, it paid off. The cop glowered, but he fished out a second five and handed it to David without a word.

“Thanks!”

Now both children bounded for the exit. Katie shouldered open the wide glass door and they pushed through it into the warm and humid night air. Every cell in her body wanted to run but she knew they were still in Sanders's line of sight.

The children turned left—casually, casually—as if they were heading around the building toward the main entrance and the food court. But within just a few paces they had cleared the window and then they knew they could no longer be seen.

“Man!” David exploded in glee. “Can you believe that?”

“Shhh! David, what do we do now?”

“Love makes men
stupid
.”

“David, focus! We have, like, about sixty seconds before they're after us and that's if we're lucky. We need a truck or a place to hide or—”

“I'm buying food.”

“What!”

“I'm hungry!”

“That's crazy!”

“I'm very hungry and I just got us ten dollars, no thanks to you.”

“I—I—you're on your own.”

“What's that supposed to mean?”

“I'm not going with you.”

“What—”

She was as good as her word. Katie turned on her heel and struck out across the parking lot toward the gas station.

It was a miracle that they had gotten away. If they got caught again they would be held under lock and key. She didn't intend to let that happen—not to her. If David followed her, fine. If not—well, she wasn't looking back to find out.

But as Katie approached the now familiar station the old panic began again. Why had she decided to go this way? She would immediately be recognized. But then, she couldn't go to the visitors' center either. That was where they would look for her the minute they discovered Sanders had let them go. And she could not go near the trucks. Every driver there would surely be talking about the recent excitement over the stowaways.

It was after five thirty a.m., and day was breaking. They had been all too visible by artificial light. Daylight would not help. Again Katie felt the net closing in. Only moments before it had released them, yet already it threatened to engulf them once more.

Katie's desperate eyes roamed from left to right, searching. Just ahead of her at the gas pumps, a man was
attempting to fill up a small, battered white truck and swearing as he did so.

“It won't take my card!” he cried, to no one in particular. In exasperation he dropped the nozzle and stalked past her, headed for the cashier.

Katie looked at the side of the truck. It was painted all over with apples and across the top ran the words: fresh to you . . . from the green mountain state.

The Green Mountain State. That was Vermont!

Katie did not really want to leave her brother behind. Though she had been very angry, she earnestly hoped he was watching her and would follow her lead. But this was her chance and she meant to take it. She walked straight to the truck, opened the back door, and climbed in.

Follow me, she thought, willing David to read her mind. Don't be mad. Please, please be watching. Please, please follow.

He did. Stunned by her willingness to walk away, David had not gone to the food court after all. An instant later he slipped in after her and Katie closed the door and clicked it shut, sealing them inside.

This had been their boldest move yet. They had climbed into this truck under the full glare of the lights and with people all around. Both children stood motionless inside the door, afraid to breathe. Together they listened for the shouts of outrage, the angry footsteps. They heard nothing.

Then the man returned, still muttering. From behind their metal walls they listened as he reinserted the nozzle into the tank. They heard the swoosh of the fuel as it flowed in, filling it.

In the meantime, though, some kind of commotion seemed to have broken out in the direction of the visitors' center. From behind the sheltering walls of the truck Katie and David heard one—no, two—sirens speeding that way. Through the cracks of the door they faintly saw flashes of blue light from the bars atop the police cruisers.

Those lights and sirens—those were for them. Their escape had been discovered.

Hurry, hurry. And in fact the man was done. He removed the nozzle, sealed the tank with the cap, hopped into his cab, and started the motor. With a jerk that sent them tumbling to the floor, he pulled away from the gas station and onward toward the open road.

“We don't know where he's going,” David protested, worry in his voice. “He's
from
Vermont. That doesn't mean he's going
to
Vermont.”

“Yes, he is,” said Katie, her pulse at last slowing down. “Look,” she added, fishing out her flashlight and turning it on. She shone the thin beam around the interior of the small truck.

“See? It's empty.” The sweet perfume of apples flooded the truck, and rattling crates and boxes were piled everywhere, but she was right; there was no fruit in any
of them. An unzipped duffel bag containing a jumble of worn laundry lay tossed in a corner. “He's
made
his deliveries. He's
been
to New York. Now he's going home.”

There was a long silence as David took this in. Then a wide smile spread across his face.

“Yes!” Again David whispered his victory cry and pumped his fist in noiseless jubilation.

“Not yet!” said Katie.

“That was, like, out of a movie or something,” said David, still basking.

“It's not over,” she cautioned.

“No, but man, back there? Katie, we did it!” he said. “They caught us, but we got away. We've gotten away twice,” he amplified, remembering with pleasure their earlier escape through the cat door. That had been his idea too, if memory served.

“We lost 'em,” he continued. “We got off track, but now we're right back to where we were. We're on our way to Vermont, like we should be.”

“Yeees, but . . .”

“But what?” This was very annoying, this “but” so soon after such a triumph.

“But we're not just back to where we were. It's worse now,” Katie said.

“Because . . . ?”

“Because now we know they're looking for us. The Katkajanians, I mean. And of course, now the police are too.”

It was always so depressing to listen to Katie. “Um, New Hampshire?” said David. “We're OK, Kat, thanks to me. As soon as the cops let those two clowns go—the guy with the funky nose and the woman with the bad hair—they'll be headed for the wrong state.”

“For a while, but not for long.”

“You just don't want to admit it. You won't admit it because that New Hampshire thing was mine—I thought of that.”

“Give me a break, David.” She sighed. “Look, the New Hampshire idea was good—it was very good. And it's going to keep them off our trail for a couple of days. But then they'll figure it out and when they do, they'll be after us again. And then . . .”