The House on Maple Street nad-19 Page 4

  ‘I wonder if she’ll ever believe me again?’ Laurie asked bitterly.

  ‘She will,’ Trent said. ‘Come on.’

  They went over to the west side of the park, where they could watch Walnut Street. The day had turned cold and dim. Thunderheads were forming overhead, and a chilly wind was blowing. They waited for five endless minutes and then their mother’s Subaru passed them, heading rapidly toward Greendowne Middle School, where Trent and Laurie went… where we go when we’re not playing hookey, that is, Laurie thought.

  ‘She’s really humming,’ Trent said. ‘I hope she doesn’t get into an accident, or something.’ ‘Too late to worry about that now. Come on.’ Laurie had Trent’s hand and was pulling him back to the telephone kiosk again. ‘You get to call Lew, you lucky devil.’

  He put in another quarter and punched the number of the History Department office, referring to a card he had taken from his wallet. He had barely slept a wink the night before, but now that things were set in motion, he found himself cool and calm… so cool, in fact, that he was almost refrigerated. He glanced at his watch. Quarter to three. Less than an hour to go. Thunder rumbled faintly in the west.

  ‘History Department,’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘Hi. This is Trent Bradbury. I need to speak with my stepfather, Lewis Evans, please.’

  ‘Professor Evans is in class,’ the secretary said, ‘but he’ll be out at…’

  ‘I know, he’s got Modern British History until three-thirty. But you better get him, just the same. It’s an emergency. It concerns his wife.’ A pointed, calculated pause, and then he added:

  ‘My mom.’

  There was a long pause, and Trent felt a moment of faint alarm. It was as if she were thinking of refusing or dismissing him, emergency or no emergency, and that was most definitely not in the plan.

  ‘He’s in Oglethorpe, right next door,’ she said finally. ‘I’ll get him myself. I’ll have him call home as soon as…’ ‘No, I have to hold on,’ Trent said.

  ‘But…’ ‘Please, will you just stop goofing with me and go get him?’ he asked, allowing a ragged, harried note into his voice. It wasn’t hard.

  ‘All right,’ the secretary said. It was impossible to tell if she was more disgruntled or worried.

  ‘If you could tell me the nature of the…’

  ‘No,’ Trent said.

  There was an offended sniff, and then he was on hold.

  ‘Well?’ Laurie asked. She was dancing from foot to foot like someone who needs to go to the bathroom.

  ‘I’m on hold. They’re getting him.’

  ‘What if he doesn’t come?’

  Trent shrugged. ‘Then we’re sunk. But he’ll come. You wait and see.’ He wished he could be as confident as he sounded, but he did still believe this would work. It had to work. ‘We left it until awful late.’

  Trent nodded. They had left it until awful late, and Laurie knew why. The study door was solid oak, plenty strong, but neither of them knew anything about the lock. Trent wanted to make sure Lew had only the shortest time possible to test it.

  ‘What if he sees Brian and Lissie on the corner when he comes home?’ ‘If he gets as hot under the collar as I think he will, he wouldn’t notice them if they were on stilts and wearing Day-Glo duncecaps,’ Trent said.

  ‘Why doesn’t he answer the darn phone?’ Laurie asked, looking at her watch.

  ‘He will,’ Trent said, and then their stepfather did.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘It’s Trent, Lew. Mom’s in your study. Her headache must have come back, because she fainted. I can’t wake her up. You better come home right away.’ Trent was not surprised at his stepfather’s first stated object of concern – it was, in fact, an integral part of his plan – but it still made him so angry his fingers turned white on the telephone.

  ‘My study? My study? What the hell was she doing in there?’

  In spite of his anger, Trent’s voice came out calmly. ‘Cleaning, I think.’ And then tossed the ultimate bait to a man who cared a great deal more for work than wife: ‘There are papers all over the floor.’

  ‘I’ll be right there,’ Lew rapped, and then added: ‘If there are any windows open in there, shut them, for God’s sake. There’s a storm coming.’ He hung up without saying goodbye. ‘Well?’ Laurie asked as Trent hung up.

  ‘He’s on his way,’ Trent said, and laughed grimly. ‘The son of a bitch was so stirred up he didn’t even ask what I was doing home from school. Come on.’ They ran back to the intersection of Maple and Walnut. The sky had grown very dark now, and the sound of thunder had become almost constant. As they reached the blue U.S. mailbox on the corner, the streetlights along Maple Street began to come on two by two, marching away from them up the hill.

  Lissa and Brian hadn’t arrived yet.

  ‘I want to come with you, Trent,’ Laurie said, but her face proclaimed her a liar. It was very pale, and her eyes were too large, swimming with unshed tears.

  ‘No way,’ Trent said. ‘Wait here for Brian and Lissa.’ At their names, Laurie turned and looked down Walnut Street. She saw two kids coming, hurrying along with lunchboxes bouncing in their hands. Although they were too far away to make out faces, she was pretty sure it was them, and she told Trent. ‘Good. The three of you go behind Mrs. Redland’s hedge there and wait for Lew to pass. Then you can come up the street, but don’t go in the house and don’t let them, either. Wait for me outside.’

  ‘I’m afraid, Trent.’ The tears had begun to spill down her cheeks now.

  ‘Me too, Sprat,’ he said, and kissed her swiftly on the forehead. ‘But it’ll all be over soon.’ Before she could say anything else, Trent went running up the street toward the Bradburys’ house on Maple Street. He glanced at his watch as he ran. It was twelve past three.

  The house had a still, hot air that scared him. It was as if gunpowder had been spilled in every corner, and people he could not see were standing by to light unseen fuses. He imagined the clock in the wine-cellar ticking relentlessly away, now reading

  00:19:06

  What if Lew was late?

  No time to worry about that now.

  Trent raced up to the third floor through the still, combustible air. He imagined he could feel the house stirring now, coming alive as the countdown neared its conclusion. He tried to tell himself that imagination was all it was, but part of him knew better. He went into Lew’s study, opened two or three file-cabinets and desk drawers at random, and threw the papers he found all over the floor. This took only a few moments, but he was just finishing when he heard the Porsche coming up the street. Its engine wasn’t snarling today; Lew had wound it up to a scream.

  Trent stepped out of the office and into the shadows of the third-floor hallway, where they had drilled the first holes what seemed like a century ago. He rammed his hand into his pocket for the key, and his pocket was empty except for an old, crumpled lunch-ticket. I must have lost it running up the street. It must have bounced right out of my pocket. He stood there, sweating and frozen, as the Porsche squealed into the driveway. Its engine cut out. The driver’s door opened and slammed shut. Lew’s footsteps ran for the back door. Thunder crumped like an artillery shell in the sky, a stroke of bright lightning forked through the gloom, and, somewhere deep in the house, a powerful motor turned over, uttered a low, muffled bark, and then began to hum.

  Jesus, oh dear Jesus, what do I do? What CAN I do? He’s bigger than me! If I try to hit him over the head, he’ll – He had slipped his left hand into his other pocket, and his thoughts broke off as it touched the old-fashioned metal teeth of the key. At some point during the long afternoon in the park, he must have transferred it from one pocket to the other without even being aware of it. Gasping, heart galloping in his stomach and throat as well as in his chest, Trent faded back down the hall to the luggage-closet, stepped inside, and pulled the accordion-style doors most of the way shut in front of him.

  Lew was galumphing up the stairs, bawli
ng his wife’s name over and over at the top of his voice. Trent saw him appear, hair standing up in spikes (he must have been running a hand through it as he drove), his tie askew, big drops of sweat standing out on his broad, intelligent forehead, eyes squinted down to furious little slits.

  ‘Catherine!’ he bawled, and ran down the hall into the office.

  Before he could even get all the way in, Trent was out of the luggage-closet and running soundlessly back down the hall. He would have just one chance. If he missed the keyhole… if the tumblers failed to turn at the first twist of the key…

  If either of those things happens, I’ll fight with him, he had time to think. I can’t send him alone, I’ll make damn sure to take him with me.

  He grabbed the door and banged it shut so hard that a little film of dust shot out of the cracks between the hinges. He caught one glimpse of Lew’s startled face. Then the key was in the lock. He twisted it, and the bolt shot across an instant before Lew struck the door. ‘Hey!’ Lew shouted. ‘Hey, you little bastard, what are you doing? Where’s Catherine? Let me out of here!’

  The knob twisted fruitlessly back and forth. Then it stopped, and Lew rained a fusillade of blows on the door.

  ‘Let me out of here right now Trent Bradbury before you get the worst beating of your goddamned life!’

  Trent backed slowly across, the hall. When his shoulders struck the far wall, he gasped. The key to the study, which he had removed from the keyhole without even thinking about it, dropped from his fingers and thumped to the faded hall-runner between his feet. Now that it was done, reaction set in. The world began to look wavery, as if he were under water, and he had to fight to keep from fainting himself. Only now, with Lew locked in, his mother sent off on a wild-goose chase, and the other kids safely tucked away behind Mrs. Redland’s overgrown yew hedge, did he realize that he had never really expected it would work at all. If ‘Daddy Lew’ was surprised to find himself locked in, Trent Bradbury was absolutely amazed. The doorknob of the study twisted back and forth in short sharp half-circles.

  ‘LET ME OUT, GODDAMMIT!’

  ‘I’ll let you out at quarter of four, Lew,’ Trent said in an uneven, trembling voice, and then a little giggle escaped him. ‘If you’re still here at quarter of four, that is.’ Then, from downstairs: ‘Trent? Trent, are you all right?’

  Dear God, that was Laurie.

  ‘Are you, Trent?’

  And Lissa!

  ‘Hey, Trent! Y’okay?’

  And Brian.

  Trent looked at his watch and was horrified to see it was 3:31… going on 3:32. And suppose his watch was slow?

  ‘Get out!’ he screamed at them, plunging down the hallway toward the stairs. ‘Get out of this house!’

  The third-floor hallway seemed to stretch out before him like taffy; the faster he ran, the farther it seemed to stretch ahead of him. Lew rained blows on the door and curses on the air; thunder boomed; and, from deep within the house came the ever-more-urgent sound of machines waking to life.

  He reached the stairwell at last and hurried down, his upper body so far out in front of his legs that he almost fell. Then he was whirling around the newel post and hurtling down the flight of stairs between the second floor and the first, toward where his brother and two sisters waited, looking up at him.

  ‘Out!’ he screamed, grabbing them, shoving them toward the open door and the stormy blackness outside. ‘Quick!’

  ‘Trent, what’s happening?’ Brian asked. ‘What’s happening to the house? It’s shaking!’ It was, too – a deep vibration that rose up through the floor and rattled Trent’s eyeballs in their sockets. Plaster-dust began to sift down into his hair.

  ‘No time! Out! Fast! Laurie, help me!’

  Trent swept Brian into his arms. Laurie grabbed Lissa under the arms of her dress and stumbled out the door with her.

  Thunder bammed. Lightning twisted across the sky. The wind that had been gasping earlier now began to roar like a dragon.

  Trent heard an earthquake building under the house. As he ran out through the door with Brian, he saw electric-blue light, so bright it left afterimages on his eyes for almost an hour (he reflected later he was lucky not to have been blinded), shoot out through the narrow cellar windows. It cut across the lawn in rays that looked almost solid. He heard the glass break. And, just as he passed through the door, he felt the house rising under his feet. He jumped down the front steps and grabbed Laurie’s arm. They stumble-staggered down the walk to the street, which was now as black as night with the coming of the storm. There they turned back and watched it happen.

  The house on Maple Street seemed to gather itself. It no longer looked straight and solid; it seemed to jitter, like a comic-strip picture of a man on a pogo-stick. Huge cracks ran out from it, not only in the cement walk but in the earth surrounding it. The lawn pulled apart in huge pie-shaped turves of grass. Roots strained blackly upward below the green, and the whole front yard seemed to become bubble-shaped, as if it were straining to hold the house before which it had spread so long.

  Trent cast his eyes up to the third floor, where the light in Lew’s study still shone. Trent thought the sound of breaking glass had come – was still coming – from up there, then dismissed the idea as imagination – how could he hear anything in all that racket? It was only a year later that Laurie told him she was quite sure she had heard their stepfather screaming from up there.

  The foundation of the house first crumbled, then cracked, and then sundered with a croak of exploding mortar. Brilliant cold blue fire lanced out. The children covered their eyes and staggered back. The engines screamed. The earth pulled up and up in a last agonized holding action… and then let go. Suddenly the house was a foot above the ground, resting on a pad of bright blue fire.

  It was a perfect lift-off.

  Atop the center roof peak, the weathervane spun madly.

  The house rose slowly at first, then began to gather speed. It thundered upward on its flaring pad of blue fire, the front door clapping madly back and forth as it went. ‘My toys!’ Brian bleated, and Trent began to laugh wildly.

  The house reached a height of thirty yards, seemed to poise itself for its great leap upward, then blasted into the rushing spate of night-black clouds.

  It was gone.

  Two shingles came floating down like large black leaves. ’Look out, Trent!’ Laurie cried out a second or two later, and shoved him hard enough to knock him over. The rubber-backed welcome mat thwacked into the street where he had been standing.

  Trent looked at Laurie. Laurie looked back.

  ‘That would’ve smarted like big blue heck if it’d hit you on the head,’ she told him, ‘so you just better not call me Sprat anymore, Trent.’

  He looked at her solemnly for several seconds, and then began to giggle. Laurie joined in. So did the little ones. Brian took one of Trent’s hands; Lissa took the other. They helped pull him to his feet, and then the four of them stood together, looking at the smoking cellar-hole in the middle of the shattered lawn. People were coming out of their houses now, but the Bradbury children ignored them. Or perhaps it would be truer to say the Bradbury children didn’t know they were there at all.

  ‘Wow,’ Brian said reverently. ‘Our house took off, Trent.’

  ‘Yeah,’ Trent said.

  ‘Maybe wherever it’s going, there’ll be people who want to know about the Normans and the Sexies,’ Lissa said.

  Trent and Laurie put their arms around each other and began to shriek with mingled laughter and horror… and that was when the rain began to pelt down. Mr. Slattery from across the street joined them. He didn’t have much hair, but what he did have was plastered to his gleaming skull in tight little bunches. ‘What happened?’ he screamed over the thunder, which was almost constant now. ‘What happened here?’

  Trent let go of his sister and looked at Mr. Slattery. ‘True Space Adventures,’ he said solemnly, and that set them all off again.

  Mr. Slattery cast
a doubtful, frightened look at the empty cellar-hole, decided discretion was the better part of valor, and retreated to his side of the street. Although it was still pouring buckets, In did not invite the Bradbury children to join him. Nor did they care. They sat down on the curb, Trent and Laurie in the middle, Brian and Lissa on the sides.

  Laurie leaned toward Trent and whispered in his ear: ‘We’re free.’

  ‘It’s better than that,’ Trent said. ‘She is.’

  Then he put his arms around all of them – by stretching, he could just manage – and they sat on the curb in the pouring rain and waited for their mother to come home.

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