“Okay.” Meredith decided to wait until Dani rang the bell. She didn’t want to appear too eager.
When the doorbell rang, Mikey leaped up and yelled, “Cumpnee!” This was his version of the word “company.”
“I’ll get it, Mikey.” Meredith got up from the couch.
“No! Me.” He raced to the door.
Okay, we might as well get this part over with first.
Dani would meet Mikey right away, and they would have that behind them.
Meredith sat on the edge of the couch and watched her brother pull the heavy front door open. He looked up at Dani who stood outside on the stoop behind the glass storm door and said, “Hi.”
“Well, hi, right back.” Dani looked down at Mikey. “Is Meredith home?”
Mikey did not open the storm door to let Dani in, but turned and yelled, “Mewey! Cumpnee!”
Meredith stood up from the couch. “Mikey, it’s okay. You can let her in.”
“Okay, Mewey.” He turned back to Dani and opened the storm door for her. “Come in, pwease.”
“Thank you.” Dani stepped into the house and smiled at Mikey and then at Meredith.
Dani looked nice in dark blue jeans and a yellow turtleneck that peeked out from under her green and yellow Whickett lacrosse jacket. The yellow complemented her blond hair. Dani didn’t have a hat on, and Meredith thought she must be cold. No gloves, either. She must be superhuman.
Dani nodded her head toward Mikey. “Cute.”
Meredith couldn’t help but smile. “Thanks.” Meredith thought that if everyone could just meet Mikey, they would know right away how great he was. She said to her brother, “Mikey, close the front door, okay?”
“Okay.” He closed the heavy door and stood next to Dani staring up at her.
Meredith shook her head and laughed. “Mikey, I want you to meet Dani.” She then looked at Dani and said, “Dani, this is my brother, Mikey.”
Dani stuck out her hand. “Hey, dude. What’s up?”
“What up?” Mikey laughed and put his hand in hers. They shook vigorously. “Dude,” he added when he finally let go of Dani’s hand.
Dani leaned down so Mikey wouldn’t have to strain his neck to look up at her. “Hey, dude, I hear you’re into karate.”
He mumbled something and Dani looked to Meredith for a translation.
“Oh,” Meredith said, “he said ‘taekwondo.’ Don’t worry. I always get it wrong, too.”
“Oh, okay.” Dani turned back to Mikey. “Can you show me some of your taekwondo moves?”
Meredith motioned for Dani to back up. “Mikey, show her your warm-up routine.”
“Okay, Mewey.” He then threw several punches and kicks, each one propelled by a spirit yell. He ended his routine and then bowed to Dani.
Dani bowed back with a look of utter disbelief on her face. “Mikey, dude, that was amazing. A lot of kicking and kind of loud, but amazing.” She looked at Meredith. “He’s great.”
“Thanks. I can use him for protection if I ever need it.” Meredith meant it as a joke, but when she saw Dani’s face turn serious she realized she had hit a little close to home. Dani had, after all, protected her from Ben’s verbal abuse the other day in class. And Dani, with their lockers so close, must have seen all the times kids accidentally knocked into her in the hallway.
Dani said seriously, “Well, let’s hope it never comes to that.”
Meredith knew she was probably blushing so she rushed past Dani to grab her coat off the hook near the front door.
“Comes to what?” Meredith’s mother asked as she stepped into the living room.
Meredith swallowed hard. “Oh, nothing. Mikey was just showing us his moves.”
“I heard.” She turned toward Dani and said, “You must be Danielle. I’m Meredith’s mom.”
“Nice to meet you.” Dani offered her hand. Meredith’s mother shook it and nodded.
“I hope you girls—”
She stopped her sentence short because Mikey rushed over to Dani apparently wanting another handshake. Dani smiled at him and stuck out her hand. As they shook hands, Dani said again, “Nice to meet you, dude.”
“Meet cha, dude,” he mimicked and gave Dani another tight hug around the waist.
“Oof.” Dani coughed and changed her voice to sound as if Mikey had knocked the wind out of her. “Strong, too.” In a normal voice, she said to Meredith’s mother, “He’s great.”
“Yeah, we like him. We think we’ll keep him.”
At Dani’s perplexed expression, Meredith’s mother added, “That was just a joke, Danielle. You two girls have fun and stay warm. Meredith, do you have your gloves?”
Meredith nodded.
“And your hat?”
“Yeah, Mom. I’ll be fine. I don’t think we’ll be gone that long.” Meredith just wanted to go look at the house, divvy up the work, and then come home. She didn’t want Dani to be subjected to her any longer than necessary.
“Okay, you girls have a good time.” Meredith’s mother headed back into the kitchen.
“Bye, Mom.” To Mikey she said, “And you have fun watching SpongeBob. I think you missed some. Do you want me to start it over?”
He didn’t say anything, but just stared blankly at his sister. He then looked at Dani and said, “Ki come?”
Dani looked perplexed again and said to Meredith, “I need a translator, I think.”
“He wants to come.”
“Oh, he can come if it’s okay with your mom.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yeah, I have three seat belts in the front of the pickup.”
Meredith was baffled. It almost sounded like Dani didn’t mind hanging out with her. And with Mikey. Confused by this apparent turn of events, Meredith said, “Okay, let me go ask,” and went to check with her mother.
Meredith came back into the living room with two thumbs up and handed Mikey his coat.
Dani smiled at Mikey. “Yeah, dude! You can come.”
“Yeah, dude!” Mikey echoed and waited for his big sister to start the zipper to his coat.
Dani said to Meredith under her breath, “And if we need any protecting,” she pointed to Mikey, “we’ll be all set.”
“Absolutely. Let’s go.”
Dani’s pickup truck was a lot newer than Meredith’s father’s pickup. The white exterior looked freshly washed, and the burgundy interior looked and smelled like freshly applied Armor All. Mikey sat in the middle of the truck’s front seat that held the three of them quite comfortably.
“Nice truck,” Meredith said once they were buckled in and on their way down Center Street.
Dani looked at Meredith over the top of Mikey’s head. “Thanks. It’s my dad’s, but he usually drives his Honda to and from work. He lets me use his truck if he doesn’t need it, so, basically, I use it all the time. Someday I’ll get my own, though.”
“You really want a truck? Not a sports car or something?”
“Nah. You sit high up in a truck. And if you have to haul cargo, you’ve got the room.”
“Okay.” Meredith thought about it for a moment and asked, “What cargo do you plan on hauling?”
Dani laughed and Meredith smiled because she liked the sound.
Dani looked at her again. “Well, you got me on that one. I don’t know. I’ve just always liked trucks. Probably because my dad does.”
“That’s cool, I guess. Oh, I brought my digital camera, by the way. My grandparents gave it to me for Christmas. We might be able to get some good pictures with the flash, since it’s dark.”
“Yeah, I know. We didn’t think about the fact that the sun goes down early, did we? Did we, Mikey?”
“No,” he said and smiled up at Dani.
Dani looked back at the road and said, “But we’re going to be okay, because Center Street is so lit up they can see us from space. Right, Mikey?”
“Right.” He looked at his sister. “Right, Mewey?”
“Right, Mikey, right.” Meredith squeezed his hand. He had grabbed her hand the moment they got in the truck. He was probably a little nervous about the new truck and the new person in his sister’s life.
Mikey reached up and grabbed at Dani’s hand on the steering wheel. Dani looked at Meredith, presumably for a translation of his gesture. Meredith said, “I think he wants to hold your hand, too.”
“Oh, okay. Gee, I’m a little slow.”
Meredith watched Dani cringe.
“Oh, Meredith. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean that. It just came out...wrong.” Dani took Mikey’s hand in hers.
Meredith couldn’t see, but figured Dani was probably turning red. “It’s okay. You didn’t mean it. And hey, he’s heard worse.” Although Meredith felt bad that Dani was embarrassed by her slip, she couldn’t help but turn her artist’s eye toward Dani’s new expression. She hadn’t seen this one before. Embarrassment. She took a mental photograph of the moment and knew she was going to add one more sketch to her growing collection of the many moods of Dani Lassiter.
They pulled into the parking lot of the auto parts store. Mikey fumbled with his seatbelt and said, “Weddy, Mewey?” He wanted to race.
They stepped out of the truck and Meredith grabbed him by the shoulders. “No, Mikey, we’re not going to the auto parts store.”
She looked toward the store and saw three guys, probably in their mid to late twenties hovered over the open hood of a blue sports car. One of the guys, the one with the weak mustache, leaned into the engine with a cigarette dangling from his mouth. That probably wasn’t the safest thing to do, Meredith thought, and she wanted to get as far away from them as possible. The guy with the dark complexion and dark hair pointed to something deep in the engine and was obviously telling the cigarette guy what to do. The third guy wore a red checkered hunter’s jacket and leaned against the side of the car looking bored. Meredith turned away, but something about them made her uneasy.
Meredith shrugged off her unease and turned Mikey to face the dark four-gabled Victorian House. “We’re going to take pictures of that house.”
“Scawey house.”
“What?” Dani had come around to their side of the truck.
“Oh, we always pass this old house on the way to kar—, oops, taekwondo, and he calls it the scary house.”
“Yeah, it does look kind of scary. Is he going to be okay?”
“We’ll find out, won’t we? Hey, Mikey. Let’s go take some pictures, okay?”
He took a big breath and exhaled loudly. “Okay, Mewey.” He reached up for her hand.
Dani went to his other side and held out her hand. He grabbed it without looking. He just stared at the scary house looming in front of them. As they headed down the sidewalk leading to the front gate, Meredith was overcome with emotion at the kindness Dani showed her brother. She looked at Dani through a slight haze of tears in her eyes. When Dani looked back and smiled, Meredith blinked back her tears and mouthed the words, “Thank you.” She dropped her chin slightly to indicate Mikey.
Dani continued to smile. She said in a low voice, “No problem. He’s sweet.”
Meredith could have sworn Dani was blushing again.
With no lights and no signs of life, the house was positively creepy. The chain link fence around the property stood like a metal sentry warning passersby to stay out. Lights from the neighboring stores created eerie shadows across the face of the dark house and yard. The upstairs balcony, quaint by day, was gloomy and foreboding by night. The dark house now seemed cold. Meredith didn’t much feel like a tea party anymore.
The century-old oak tree that towered over the house creaked and moaned, and Meredith felt a chill go up her spine at the sound. In the dark, she couldn’t make out the wonderful rose color of the exterior, but she held onto the fact that the bright color was there, because otherwise she might lose her nerve and run back to the truck. Why had they come in the dark?
They stopped in front of the gate that opened up to a concrete walkway leading to the front porch. Meredith let go of Mikey’s hand so she could take her camera out of its case. “Let me take a couple of pictures. I can zoom in on anything you want so if you see something just point it out.” She turned on the flash and snapped a few pictures of the front of the house. She took wide shots to include the yard, but she also took a couple of close-ups. “It’s such a beautiful house, you know?”
Dani grunted in disbelief. “Yeah, well, it’s kind of creepy right now. We should have come in the daytime.”
“Yeah, duh. Live and learn, I guess.”
Dani said, “Hey, Mikey. You want to go up to the house with me?”
“No.” He pulled her away from the gate that she had just unlatched.
“Meredith, how about you? Do you want to go up?”
“I’d better stay here with the scaredy-cat.”
“Would that be him or you?” Dani laughed and extracted her hand from Mikey’s. She stopped laughing as soon as she stepped inside the yard. The dark shadows seemed to suck away her bravado. The long path to the house was choked with dead grass, but she picked her way carefully over the uneven terrain. She turned her head and said to Meredith, “We should have brought some flashlights.”
“Dani,” Meredith pleaded, her voice barely above a whisper, “maybe you should come back.” She fidgeted where she stood on the sidewalk. They didn’t have permission to take pictures of someone’s private property, let alone trespass in the yard.
“No,” Dani called back, “it’s cool. I’m just gonna check out the front porch. Maybe look in the windows. If the coast is clear, you guys should come up. Okay?”
“Okay,” Meredith said with resignation. “Hey, Mikey Spikey, let’s get ready to go up to the front door.”
“Scawey.”
“Oh, I know it’s scary, but Dani’s up there and she’s very brave. Besides, Mikey, you are the only one of us that knows taekwondo. What if Dani needs you?”
He looked at her as if considering this and said, “Okay, Mewey, c’mon.” He pulled her by the hand through the open gate and practically dragged her up the walkway.
Meredith called, “I hope the coast is clear, because we’re on our way.”
“I see you had no choice.” Dani smiled.
“None.”
“Hey, Meredith. Take my picture on the landing.”
“Okay.” She pulled Mikey to a stop. “Wait a second, Mikey. Let me take Dani’s picture.”
Dani held the banister with one hand while the other was shoved deep in her bulky letterman’s jacket. Meredith snapped the picture. She zoomed in a little and snapped another, but watched in horror as Dani, along with the banister, went tumbling to the ground.
“Dani!” Meredith screeched and ran to her. Dani sat in the wilds of what used to be a flower garden. The flowers were long dead from the winter cold.