Chapter Ten
I had no idea what time it was when my eyes flew open in the darkness.
“What was that?” I asked with fright, sitting up from my fetal position on the landing.
“What was what?” Riley asked.
“You didn’t see it? A flash of light? It moved across the ceiling.”
“Are you sure?” he replied.
“I don’t know.” Was I dreaming this?
We both scurried on our backsides into the corner under the window.
“Do you hear anything?” Though I spoke in a whisper, the sound of my voice seemed to echo up and down the stairwell.
“No. Do you?” Riley replied.
I shook my head and hugged my knees to my chest. “It’s so dark in here. This must be what it’s like to be blind. I wish we knew what time it was.”
I wanted to know how long it would be before the sun would come up. If we could just survive until then…
Then whoosh! Another flash of light swept across the ceiling.
“There! See?”
“Maybe it’s lightning,” Riley whispered shakily. “Maybe we’ll hear thunder in a second.”
I counted out loud—one second for every mile—but reached twenty and there was nothing. Just silence when I stopped counting.
Riley grabbed hold of my arm. “What are we going to do?”
“Just sit here and be really quiet,” I replied. “The light can’t hurt us.”
“But what if it’s more than just a light?” he asked. “What if it’s a ghost and he wants to murder us?”
“There’s no such thing as ghosts,” I assured him, trying hard to believe it myself, which was no easy task through my blinding terror.
“Then why’d you come out here with me?” Riley asked. “If you didn’t believe in ghosts?” He sounded like he was on the verge of tears.
“I don’t know. I just thought it would be a cool thing to do.”
Suddenly, there was a voice in the distance. It was crying out for help.
“What’s that?” Riley clutched my hand and squeezed it so hard, he cut off the blood supply to my fingers. There was an unexpected, loud crashing sound and we both screamed our lungs out as light filled the stairwell.
“Riley James? Josh Wallace?” someone shouted.
We both fell silent at the sound of our names. Heavy footsteps pounded up the stairs. The beam of light traveled jerkily up the wall.
Slowly coming to realize that it was not a ghost, but a flesh-and-blood human being moving toward us, I leaped to my feet. “We’re here!” I squinted and shaded my eyes against an intense spotlight.
“Hello boys,” the woman said good-naturedly. Immediately I realized she was a female police officer. “Your parents have been pretty worried about you.”
All the breath sailed out of my lungs. We were saved!
Bending forward, I fought to hold back the urge to vomit, while Riley sprang to his feet and dashed straight into the policewoman’s arms.
* * *
“You really saved our bacon,” I said to Leah after we got out of the cop car in front of Riley’s house. It was almost midnight and both our mothers had squeezed the daylights out of us and wept tears of joy.
Leah folded her arms. “You might not think so later when my dad gets home. He was in the middle of a surgery when they told him you two were missing. My mom’s been a nervous wreck ever since we got home from the doctor.”
We both looked over at Mrs. James, who was still talking to the police officer.
“How is she?” I asked, thinking of how sick she’d been all day.
“Turns out she didn’t have the stomach flu after all,” Leah replied. “She’s pregnant.”
My eyebrows lifted. “Really?”
Leah moved closer and lowered her voice. “I heard her talking to the nurses. She’s afraid to tell Dad because they were supposed to be all done having kids. They only planned to have two.”
“So it was an accident?” I whispered.
Leah nodded. “Dad’s not going to like that. Not one little bit.”
Again, I glanced over at Mrs. James, who’d always been such a great mom to all of us on the street. I couldn’t imagine she wouldn’t be happy about having another baby.
The cops got into their car and drove off. As soon as they disappeared around the corner, a shiny black car entered the neighbourhood and pulled into the driveway. It was Leah’s father.
“Oh great,” she said with a sigh. “You should probably go home, Josh.”
I felt like a deer caught in the headlights as Dr. James got out and slammed the car door. He strode purposefully across the lawn and smacked Riley hard across the face.
“Ow!” Riley cried, holding his cheek with a hand while Mrs. James covered her mouth.
“Get in the house!” Dr. James shouted. “Right now!”
Everyone fell silent.
When Dr. James reached the steps, he turned and pointed a finger at me. “As for you, Josh Wallace, I don’t want you coming around here anymore. Do you understand me? You’re nothing but trouble. Stay away from my kids. Leah! Get in the house! Now!”
Leah ran inside and Dr. James followed her in.
My mother slowly approached Mrs. James and touched her shoulder. “Everything will be all right,” she gently whispered. “Maybe wait a few days before you tell him your happy news.”
“Happy news?” She shook her head. “I don’t think he’s going to see it that way. Maybe I won’t tell him at all.”
My mother considered that for a moment. “A baby’s not something you can keep secret forever, Margie.”
Mrs. James shot her a desperate look. “Isn’t it?” She turned and strode to the door.
We watched until she disappeared, then my mom gathered me into her arms. “Don’t worry, Josh. You’ll still be able to play with Riley and Leah again. Their father’s just angry because he was worried. He’ll get over it.”
“I don’t know, Mom. He looked pretty serious.”
As we turned to walk home under the hazy glow of the neighborhood streetlights, I took hold of my mother’s hand. “What did she mean about keeping the baby a secret from Dr. James? How could she do that?”
My mother hesitated before answering the question. “She’ll come around. She’ll find the right time to tell him and everything will be fine.”
Though my mom didn’t explain what, exactly, Mrs. James was contemplating, I was old enough to have learned a few things and I was pretty sure I understood what she meant.
“I hope she has the baby,” I said, glancing over my shoulder at the showy brick house at the end of the street. “I’ll be sad if she doesn’t.”
We went inside our modest little bungalow, where Mom sat me down at the kitchen table. She asked if I was hungry. Naturally I said yes.
“How about a grilled cheese sandwich? I promise, nothing tastes better than a grilled cheese when you’ve had a rough day.”
“Okay.”
While my mom stood at the stove with a spatula, watching over the cast iron frying pan, I told her all about the old Clipper Lake Hotel and how we got locked in the stairwell.
A short while later, when I bit into that crispy, buttery grilled sandwich, I was never so happy to be home…and to be a member of this family, and no other.
Meanwhile, down the street, major decisions were being made—decisions that were about to affect the course of all our lives.