Eyes in the Fishbowl (6 page)

I told myself that I had to start planning—deciding what I was going to do—but for a long time all I seemed to be able to do was torture myself with “if only” possibilities. “If only” I hadn’t waited so long for the elevator before I realized it had stopped running; “if only” I’d risked being seen by Mr. Priestly and taken the down escalator in the first place; “if only” I’d tried to bluff it out with the two salesmen instead of hiding, like telling them I’d been in the men’s room and hadn’t realized the store was closing.

But the chance to do any of those things was gone, and when I came right down to it there were only two things left that I might do. One was to stay there under the bed all night and hope to go out in the morning with the early shoppers. And the other was to crawl out now and start trying to find a way out without being seen. The only problem was that knowing about the extra watchmen and the dogs made me pretty sure I wouldn’t be able to make it either way.

There was one other possibility that came to mind, but I didn’t consider it even for a minute. That was to go looking for the nearest guard and turn myself in, explain as well as I could, and face the music. Of course, there wasn’t a chance that they would believe all of my story, but they might believe part of it, and because I was a first offender they might let me off pretty easy. However, I’d never be able to set foot inside Alcott-Simpson’s again. Like I say, I didn’t consider it for a minute. Somehow I was going to have to find a way to get out without being caught.

I don’t know how long I lay there trying to get up my nerve to make a move, but it seemed like half a lifetime. I thought about the dogs a lot—what it would be like to be found by one—a huge shaggy head with long gleaming fangs lunging in towards me from the side of the bed. I pictured it coming in from different spots around me and each time the part of me closest seemed to shrivel in expectation. But for a long time I didn’t hear anything that sounded at all like a dog, and after a while I began to worry about other things.

As time went by it got quieter and quieter, and as it did I began to listen harder and harder. The faint sounds of the city seemed a thousand miles away, and I could almost feel all the dark floors of the store stretching out around me like a huge deserted city. Then I began to think again about the screams on the mezzanine and what I’d overheard the salesmen say. I thought about what it could have been that could “crawl up a wall” and frighten someone enough to cause a scream like that. I even began to imagine things crawling in towards me under the edge of the bedspread—horrible vague things that crawled up walls and maybe flew—

Then I began to hear things. First I heard footsteps. Not like a watchman’s feet, firm and heavy, but a light quick brush of sound that seemed very near and yet so soft that I couldn’t be absolutely positive. Then there were voices that were the same way—whispers so soft that I never quite got to the point where I said, “There, that time I know I heard it.” But once, without hearing anything, something made me turn my head and I saw the fringe on the bedspread swaying as if it had just been touched.

After that I lay there absolutely frozen for several minutes, but nothing more happened and the soft sounds seemed to have gone away. I was just beginning to tell myself that it had all been caused by the strain of waiting and that I had to pull myself together and crawl out, when suddenly very close to me a soft but very distinct voice said, “Hello.”

I jumped so hard that my head bounced off a metal mattress support and my face ricocheted off the floor. For a minute I was blinded by the pain in my nose and the dust in my eyes, but I could hear all right and what I heard was the same soft voice saying, “Oh, did you hurt yourself? Are you all right?”

When I managed to get my sight back, I saw what looked like a girl’s face, upside down in a pool of dark hair. As a rule I don’t even have the nerve to be nice to girls, but I guess a hard bump on the nose can really affect your personality, at least temporarily.

“Oh sure,” I growled. “Except for a concussion and a broken nose. What do you think you’re doing anyway?”

The face disappeared for a minute. In the meantime the pain began to fade, and I began to get back to normal. When the face came back, I kind of quavered, “What do you want?”

That’s the kind of stupid remark that’s my usual speed around people my own age, but at least this girl didn’t make things any worse by laughing or making a crack. She didn’t try to answer my stupid question, either. What she said was, “I’m Sara.” Actually, she didn’t say Sara, exactly. At least not the way it’s usually pronounced. The
“r”
was softer and sort of swallowed. But Sara is as close as I can get to it.

After a minute I said, “Hi” or “Hello” or some such remark.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“I’m Dion. Uh—Dion James. What are you doing here? Did you get shut in, too?”

She just went on looking at me for a while without answering, and then she said, “You’d better come out from under there. They always look under the beds.”

“Yeah,” I said, “I was afraid they would. But I didn’t have much time to pick a place.” I remember that right about then I was getting a surprised and hopeful feeling that maybe she wasn’t going to turn me over to the guards—that maybe she even meant to help me.

“Can you get out?” she asked.

I began to try to scoot out, but the bed was awfully low. It’s really amazing what you can do if you’re scared enough. I couldn’t remember having any trouble getting under the bed at all. I wiggled and puffed for a minute without making much progress until the girl reached under and got hold of my foot. She pulled and I pushed and before too long I was out.

It wasn’t until then, when I saw her face right side up, that I realized who she was and where I’d seen her before. The light was dim where we were, but it was bright enough for me to be pretty sure it was the same girl I’d seen Rogers chasing a few days before on the main floor. She was dressed differently, but I was sure I remembered the eyes and the smile and the long black hair. Instead of the suede jumper, she had on a short shiny skirt with a low belt and a matching blouse with long tight sleeves. She looked very expensive and stylish, except that around her shoulders there was something white and pink and frilly that didn’t seem to go with the rest of it. The frilly thing had slid around while she was helping me, and when she noticed that I was looking at it she started straightening it out. She had very small hands—very brown—and there was something about the careful way she touched the lacy stuff that made it obvious she really liked the way it looked. When she got it straightened out, I could see it was one of those little jackets that women wear in the hospital or when they’re having breakfast in bed—I’d seen them in the movies and places like that. This one was one big mass of ribbons and lace and little pink flowers.

She said, “Isn’t it beautiful?” The way she said it wasn’t the way most girls would talk about something they were wearing. It was more the way you’d talk about a sunset or something.

“Yeah, nice,” I said. “But look. Hadn’t we better be getting out of here before we get caught?” But then all of a sudden it occurred to me that maybe she belonged there in some way. She looked too young to be an employee, but maybe she was the daughter of one of the big shots who was working late or something like that. She certainly didn’t seem as worried as you’d think a young girl, trapped in a closed department store would be. As a matter of fact, she didn’t seem anywhere near as worried as I was.

She finished fixing the jacket and smoothed her hair down before she answered. Her hair was very thick and almost to her waist, and when she moved her head it slid around on her shoulders—soft and heavy like black silk. Her face was smooth and even, the kind that looks best with straight plain hair. In the half-light it seemed to have a kind of patterned perfection that was almost weird, like a planned design or a face seen through crystal. After a minute she said, “We’ll have to find you a place to hide.”

She looked all around and then she nodded and said, “Stay there a minute.” She ran out of the display room and disappeared around the corner. She was back before I even had a chance to start worrying; and she was carrying a comforter, one of those fluffy satin quilts stuffed with feathers. She turned back the top of the bedspread and took out the pillows and told me to lie down across the bed where the pillows had been. It was a king-size bed so I just about reached across it from side to side without hanging over. She folded the quilt into a long fat roll and tucked it over me and patted it into the same shape the pillows had made. Then she pulled the spread back where it had been. “It looks just the same,” she said. “Lie still.”

“Hey,” I said, but I heard her running again, out of the room.

For a minute or two I lay there in an absolute panic. It had all happened so fast and the girl had seemed so sure of what she was doing that I just went along with her, but suddenly I began to see the loopholes. It was a good hiding place, all right, if it weren’t for the dogs, but they wouldn’t be fooled for a minute. And what was going to happen to the girl? I was about to jump up and make a run for it when all at once she was back.

“Shhh,” I heard her whisper. “I’m back. I had to put the pillows with the others so they wouldn’t be noticed. Are you all right? Can you breathe?”

“Pretty well,” I said. “But what about the dogs? And what are you going to do?”

“I have another hiding place. I’ll go there in a minute. Don’t worry about the dogs. They won’t find you. There are ways of making them go other places. They’ll come soon with the men, and then they’ll go back downstairs. When it’s safe, I’ll come back and show you how to get out of the store. Just remember not to move until I come back.”

She was quiet then and I wasn’t sure whether she was still there. I whispered, “Sara.”

She said, “yes,” from very nearby. I decided she must be sitting on the floor near the head of the bed.

“You’d better go. They’ll find you there.”

“I’ll go soon, when it’s time. The others will tell me.

I was thinking about that, wondering if she’d said what I thought she said and what it meant, when suddenly I felt her touch the spread over my head. “I’m going now. Don’t move.”

I lay there, trying to listen through the thick quilt and stuff over me. It seemed like years but it probably was only a few minutes before I heard voices. There were two or maybe three men, and they were going back and forth across the floor. They came closer and I heard another noise—a sharp whining bark. It was quiet for a while, and then there was more whining and voices giving commands. The dogs went on whining and whining, but they didn’t seem to be getting any closer—and then I heard someone walk right into the room where I was hidden.

I held my breath and hoped that the quilt would muffle the sound of my heart pounding. I could hear a man moving around, but no dogs’ sounds, up close at least. In fact, the dogs were still whining now and then someplace quite a ways off on the other side of the floor. Finally the bed moved a little as if the man had put his hand on it as he got down to look underneath. “No sign of anything here!” he called a minute later, and then I heard him go on to the next display room.

Things had been quiet again for quite a while when I heard Sara’s voice saying, “All right, you can come out now.”

After we’d fixed the pillows back the way they’d been before, I said, “Okay, how do we get out?”

“Do you want to go right now?” Sara asked.

I guess I stared at her. The way she said it, it was like she thought I might want to sit down and play a hand of cards first or something.

“Well, I’m not exactly looking forward to the trip downstairs,” I said. “But waiting around isn’t going to make it any better. No telling when they’ll be back with the dogs.”

Sara thought a minute. “They’ll go to the employees’ room now and drink coffee. In an hour they’ll take the dogs around again. But you’re right. Now is the best time. Come on, we’ll go this way.”

She started towards the emergency staircase, so I told her that it was locked. She only said, “I think it will be open now.” And it was.

At the top of the stairs we stopped and stood for a while listening. All of a sudden she said, “Now—hurry.”

We ran all the way, and when we got to the ground floor we stopped and listened again, and then she led the way through a storage room that I recognized as one Rogers had dragged me through once. At the door that led out into the alley, she stopped.

“Aren’t you coming, too?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I can’t,” she said, “because of the others.”

I
T WASN’T EXACTLY
the kind of thing that happens to just everybody, and for several days I thought about it a lot. I went over it and over it in my mind—the scream, getting locked in, the dogs and why they hadn’t found me, and the girl.

Sara was a real puzzle. Who she was and how she happened to be in the store after closing were the biggest questions; but I also wondered about why she bothered to help me, and how old she was, and if I’d ever see her again. The way I remembered her, she was really beautiful—dark and foreign looking, with perfect skin and teeth and eyes like something from outer space. She had that way of moving some girls have, soft and bendy, like their bones have some rubber in them. But, she
did
look awfully young at times, as if she might be only twelve or so—more of a little kid than a girl.

The next few days I dropped by the store every afternoon and took a quick look around; but I didn’t see anything new. And I didn’t see Sara, either. And meanwhile, something turned up at home that gave me something else to think about for a while.

The thing that happened at home had to do with a letter, a letter about a job that my dad could have had if he’d wanted it. Well, actually it wasn’t entirely a sure thing. Nobody gets handed a job they haven’t even applied for. That was what really burned me up, Dad didn’t even intend to apply. In fact, I wouldn’t even have found out about it if I hadn’t just happened to run across the letter. But I did find the letter and I read it and I made a scene about it; not that it did any good. Afterwards I wished I’d never even seen the letter, and I wouldn’t have if it hadn’t been for Mrs. Grover’s nervous headaches.