I'm gonna throw the breakers until we know it's safe.”
“Awww,” David moaned.
“Won't be long,” Dad said. He disappeared into the corridor under the boys, heading for the kitchen and the basement stairs.
Smoke coiled up from the blown bulbs in the chandelier.
“Cool,” David said.
Xander elbowed him. “That's
not
cool.” He headed toward their bedroom with a bucket of sudsy water. Dad had said their furniture was arriving in the afternoon, and if they wanted to set up their room, it had to be clean first.
David followed him into the bedroom. They had positioned their flashlights on the floor and dresser to illuminate the areas they were cleaning. David had apparently dropped the broom when the lights came on. He picked it up now and began sweeping a pile of dust toward the door. Xander sat the bucket down by one of the windows. He pulled a washcloth out of the water and lathered up the glass. The windows and frames were so filthy, glass cleaner and paper towels simply didn't cut it.
David said, “When are we going to look for more portals?” “When we get a chance, I guess.”
David swept a big cloud into the hallway. Granules of dirt and other debris rained into the hardwood floor and linen closet door on the other side of the hall. He turned around, leaned on the broom handle, and said, “I thought we were going to do it today.” Xander continued to inscribe big, soapy circles on the window. He said, “You want a bedroom, don't you?”
“Yeah, but . . .”
Xander had to smile. “You thought putting your new room together would be the most excitement you'd have after we got here.”
“Guess I was wrong.” He looked back through the door, at the linen closet.
Xander said, “Don't even think of going in there on your own.” “I'm not.”
Xander didn't like the way he said it.
Their bedroom faced the front of the house. As Xander wiped away the soap, he saw a big moving van pull up to the end of the road. 9
Until now, Xander had lived in the same house, in the same room, his entire life. That room had been too small to be creative with the placement of the furniture. The most they could do was swap the position of their bunk beds and dresser, change the posters on the walls, and alternate who got to sleep on top.
The bedroom in their new house was huge. Xander had no idea how much fun simply arranging furniture could be. Using bunk beds to save floor space was no longer necessary, and the boys quickly decided to have their own beds with no one above or below them. Each boy had wanted to put his bed in the tower. When the argument got loud, Dad had ruled that neither of them could use it. So the tower became their homework and reading area, with a writing desk and beanbag chair. They had voted to keep the dresser that was already in the room, as well as their old one from Pasadena.
That way, each boy would have his own dresser for the first time in their lives.
“I don't know what to do with all the space,” David said with a big grin. He was looking into one of the empty drawers of their old dresser, which a losing toss of a coin had awarded him. Neither dresser mattered to Xander, but after he ended up with the one from their new house, he wondered if his things would disappear from any of the drawers.
He imagined a pile of boxers suddenly appearing on some family's kitchen counter one day.
Each boy would also get his own night table and bedside lamp. It was almost like having your own room. But not.
Dad's music pounded from the master bedroom. Most of the lyrics and high notes didn't make it as far as the brothers' bedroom, but the bass thumped in the floors and off the walls.
Xander opened a box full of rolled posters and began sorting through them. He selected one and flattened it against the wall above his bed. The edges were torn, the tips of the corners lost long ago. It was a lithograph of a tiled mosaic hanging in Naples' Museo Archeologico Nazionale that featured a scene of Alexander the Great at the Battle of Issus. Xander was named after the ancient Greek king of Macedon.
It was a family tradition, dating as far back as anyone could remember, to name King children after great kings and queens. Fortunately, the practice did not extend to marrying people with royal names. That would really crimp their pursuits of love. Still, Mom insisted there was a Queen Gertrude. Dad said only in Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, and that didn't count.
The Alexander in the poster had long sideburns, down to his jawlineâthe guy would have been hip today, twenty-three hundred years after his death. Xander touched his own face. He could not grow sideburns yet, just a bit of fuzz; as soon as he could, he would.
“Whatcha think?” he asked David, who had settled on the floor with his PSP. He glanced up at the poster.
“Aren't you sick of looking at that? I am.”
Xander let the poster spin back into a roll. He said, “Just because you don't put up the one Mom and Dad gave
you
.”
“Michelangelo's
David
? The guy's
naked
.”
“It's art.”
David made a disgusting sound with his lips. “I'll find a different poster of King David, thank you.”
Footsteps in the hallway drew their attention. The clomping boots of the moving men. When they'd arrived, all they wanted to do was grumble about having to haul the stuff through the woods to the house. Then Dad had slipped each of them some extra cash and that was that.
“This one?” someone said.
Another answered, “No, down there. She said by the bedroom.” A man came into view carrying a box. He opened the linen closet door and stepped in to slide the box onto one of the shelves. Another mover, coming up behind, bumped the door and it swung shut.
David gasped.
The door didn't latch, however, and the second man kicked it open with his boot. The first man turned in the closet and took the box from his colleague. The second man looked in at them. “Hey, boys.”
Xander and David were too stunned to answer. The man gave them a puzzled look, then both movers pushed the closet door shut and clomped away. David turned from the open dresser drawer to stare open-mouthed at Xander, who returned the expression.
David said, “He almost . . .”
Xander nodded. “And another thing . . .” He walked to the linen closet door. David moved up behind him. Xander opened it. Two boxes inside. “It must only work with people.”
“Good thing. We'd lose all our towels.”
“We'd get them back dirty,” Xander said, “along with some kid's schoolbooks.”
When they shut the door, they jumped. Dad was standing there. He had turned down the music and they hadn't noticed.
“How you guys doin'?” Dad said.
“Good, good,” Xander said, a little too quickly.
“Fine,” David said in that higher Toria voice he got when he was scared or nervous.
Dad looked past them into their room. “Getting settled in there?”
“Getting there,” Xander said, and went into the bedroom. David and Dad followed. Xander sat on his bare mattress. David sat on his, facing Xander.
“What do you think?” Dad said. “Is this going to work?”
Xander looked around the room appreciatively. “It's cool.”
“Yeah,” David agreed.
“So . . .” Dad looked from son to son. “Stay here tonight?” “Really?” David said, hopping up.
Dad said, “If we can get the lights back on.” He looked at his watch. “An electrician should be by anytime now.”
“All right!” David said.
Xander smiled his agreement. Dad scanned the floor near the walls. “You haven't seen any mice up here, have you?”
Xander shook his head. “Did you catch some?”
“A couple in the kitchen cabinets.” He put his finger to his lips in a hushing gesture. “Don't tell your mother.”
“Can I see?” David asked.
“Next time.”
David furled his brow. “Do they have a mouse problem at the school?”
Xander kicked his leg, then stood to make it look like an accident.
“I don't know,” Dad said. “Why?”
Before David could complete the task of wedging his foot into his mouth, Xander said, “I was telling him that rodents are everywhere out here in Hicksville. Not just in old houses.”
“Yep,” Dad agreed. “They're everywhere.” He turned to leave then stopped at the door. “Mom's got the boxes of sheets and blankets in our room. Come get some.”
“Be right there,” Xander told him.
When he was gone, Xander punched David in the arm.
“Idiot.”
David frowned. “I'm not used to secrets.”
“Everybody has secrets,” Xander said, irritated. He brushed past David on his way out the door. Over his shoulder, he said, “Even this house.”
Mom was sitting on her bed when Xander looked in. She was examining the pages of a photo album that was open beside her. With her hair falling over her face, he thought at first she was crying. He rapped gently on the master bedroom door. He was relieved to see a beaming smile when she looked up.
“Hey, Xander. Come sit.” She patted a clean spot on the bed. Boxes and items wrapped in newspaper covered the rest.
“I came for our sheets and blankets,” he said. “Dad said you had a box.”
“Oh, sit with your mom a sec, will ya?”
On the way over, he glanced around. “Big,” he said.
“Needs some work.” She was talking about the old wallpaper, stained and hopelessly outdated. “I like it, though.”
When he sat, she tapped a picture in the album. “Remember this?” Xander about six years old, standing next to Mickey Mouse in front of Sleeping Beauty's Castle at Disneyland. Xander's face was twisted in terror, his face glistening with tears. His mouth was open so wide, you could almost see that little hanging thing at the back of his throat.
Uvula
, he thought it was called. What made it worse was Davidâthree years old, big happy grin, holding Mickey's white-gloved hand. Xander frowned. “You made me stand next to him. I thought he was creepy.” He thought about it. “David was too young to know better, that's all.”
She smiled, closed the book. She touched his hand. “I want to show you something.” She stood and went to a bookcase, where a half-dozen ceramic figurines had been unwrapped and were on display. She selected one and returned to the bed. She rotated it in her hands. It was a chipped and faded ceramic rooster, about a foot high. He knew it meant a lot to her.
“Nana gave you that before she died,” he said. Cancer had taken his grandmother when Xander was two. He sometimes thought he remembered her face, but couldn't be sure.
Mom nodded. “And
her
mother gave it to her. She brought it over from Portugal, when she immigrated to the States. She used to say it was the only thing they had left from the old country, except our blood.” She pushed her fingers into a hole in the base of the rooster and pulled something out. It was a fat roll of dollar bills. The outside one was a twenty.
“Mom!” he said in a hoarse whisper.
She held up the roll. She said, “It was going to be a surprise, but this move has been so hard on you . . . It's for your car.”
“My
car
?”
“It's not that much yet, and you have to chip in, but maybe by the time you're sixteen . . .”
“But how . . . ?”
“You know we don't have a lot of extra money. When you were born, your father and I decided I'd quit my job and be a full-time mom. That made things tight, but . . .” Her eyes scanned his face. “It was the right decision. Last year, when you started talking about a car, I realized we weren't ready for something like that. The car, gas, insurance . . .” She shook her head. “I started putting a little aside every month. I cut more coupons, didn't go to the hair salon so much.”
“Mom . . .” He didn't know what else to say.
“It added up,” she said, looking at the wad. She seemed as amazed by its size as Xander was.
“How much is it?” A pang of guilt rippled through him for asking.
“Almost two thousand, but I hope we'll have more by the time you turn sixteen in January.”
“Two
grand
?” He leaned over the album and threw his arms around her neck. “Thank you.”
“Now, Xander, you have to contribute. I only meant toâ” “I will! I will! I'll get a job as soon as I can!”
“Your bedding is right there. David's too.” She indicated a box on the bed.
Unable to stifle his grin, he stood and picked it up. “Thank you,” he whispered again.
SATURDAY, 12:02 A.M.
The bulbs in the bathroom emitted only a dim, yellowish glow.
Better than nothing
, Xander thought, standing in front of the toilet bowl in only his boxers. The electrician had kept the power off in some parts of the houseâthe basement, the library, the far hallway on the second floor. He'd explained that some wiring and fixtures needed replacing first.
He flushed. The toilet shook and rattled like an excited dog at the end of a short leash. The water in the bowl disappeared in a loud
whoosh
. It filled again with a choking-gurgling sound that made Xander believe stepping into the woods to relieve himself would prove a better experience. At the sink, he turned on the faucet. Water did not immediately come out. Rather, the faucet sputtered and spat. A trickle of water followed, slowly building to a steady flow. He splashed it onto his face and looked at himself in the murky mirror. His hair was a mess, but he didn't look as tired as he felt.
He had tried to sleep, but found himself watching the shadows of branches and leaves play across his ceiling in the moonlight. Finally, he'd tossed his bedding aside and gotten up. His clock had read 11:57. He was glad his mother had put a night-light in the hall; he might have never found the bathroom without it.