Scared Stiff (3 page)

I sounded fierce. “She didn't! She's hurt or something! She didn't go anywhere unless someone made her!”

The officer gave me a cool look, then spoke to Uncle Henry. “This kind of thing happens all
the time, sir, and almost always the person shows up safe and sound, on their own.”

“Not Sophie Van Huler,” Uncle Henry asserted. “You'll see. If she could come home, she'd be here now.”

“You check in with us in the morning, sir.” The cop looked at me. “You going to see to the children, Mr. Svoboda? I mean, I can't leave them here in an empty apartment.”

I looked at Uncle Henry in panic. Would they put Kenny and me into a foster home or something? Like Billy?

“Yes, yes, certainly, I'll see to the boys,” Uncle Henry said impatiently, waving a hand.

“You give us a call in the morning. Let us know when Mrs. Van Huler comes home,” the officer said.

“If
she comes home,” Uncle Henry said.

It was only after the officer had gone that Uncle Henry noticed my face.

“Of course she'll come back, Rick. It's only that the police, with their wait-and-see attitude, make me angry. No doubt many of the people they are called upon to find
do
walk off of their own accord. If they knew Sophie, they'd
know
she
wouldn't do that. Where's your father? Off on a trip, is he?”

So Ma hadn't told him. I had to.

Uncle Henry was sober. “Good thing the officer didn't know that, or he'd think your ma was so upset about your pa that she forgot about you two, and we know that's not the case. Well, look here, I've got to get back to work. I'm a night watchman, you know, and I only got your message because I forgot my arthritis medicine and had to come home for it on my supper break, and Mrs. Biggers saw me. I've got to get back. You throw a few things in a suitcase—you got a suitcase?—or a paper bag, clothes and your toothbrushes, that kind of thing, and we'll get your brother and go.”

I was still worried about Ma, but at least the police weren't going to take us to a foster home, and Uncle Henry would see to us.

“Shall I get Kenny dressed? Or leave him in his pajamas?”

“Bring him the way he is. I got my house right out in the street; we'll put him to bed right away.”

Startled, I paused before I went after the clothes we'd need. “Your house is in the street?”

“Live in a school bus. Thought your ma'd have told you that, when she talked to me last week. I called to tell her where I was. Good thing, considering this. Mind, I'm not set up to take care of a couple of kids indefinitely, but your ma'll show up shortly, no doubt. We'll manage until she does.”

The school bus was sort of startling when we got there. I'd expected a yellow bus, like the ones some of the kids rode to school, but this one was painted purple. With bright-colored swirls and flowers all over it.

Uncle Henry saw me looking at it as we crossed the street, and snorted. “Fancy, isn't it? Never would have painted it that way myself, but that's the way it was when the feller handed it over to me.”

Kenny staggered between us, still half asleep. Uncle Henry opened the door of the purple bus, and I boosted Kenny up the steps and stopped, astonished.

On the outside it looked weird, but inside it was wonderful.

“It's like a real house!” I said, pushing Kenny toward the couch on one side. Opposite the couch was a table with two benches upholstered just like the couch in striped brown and tan fabric. There was a television and a tiny kitchen, and through a door beyond that I could see a bed.

“I only got the one bed,” Uncle Henry said, coming in behind us. “I work nights and sleep days, so I'll have to keep on sleeping back there. You kids'll have to sleep on the couch. It opens up. Here, Kenny, stand up, and I'll show you.”

“I never saw a TV in a bus before,” Kenny said sleepily.

“No TV tonight, and none played loud when I'm sleeping,” Uncle Henry said, opening up our bed. “I'm a bit hard of hearing, but not deaf, you know. My only other sheets are in the washing—I get Mrs. Biggers to do my laundry—but I have a blanket for you. You need to use the bathroom before you crawl into bed?”

“You have a bathroom in your bus, too?” Kenny asked, impressed.

“How else am I going to live in it?” Uncle Henry asked. “I'm too old to be going out to a public restroom. Door on the right, just before the bedroom.”

It was tiny, but it had a toilet and a wash basin and a shower. If I hadn't been so upset about Ma, I'd have enjoyed seeing it all.

When I went back out front, Uncle Henry was starting the engine. I slid into the other seat, hoping he wouldn't make me go to bed right away.

“It's so nice inside,” I said. “So different from what it looks like on the outside.” Then I was afraid I'd insulted him, and I didn't know what to say next.

Uncle made that snorting sound again, and I decided it was the way he laughed. “That's the whole point,” he said. “Places I have to park it sometimes, I don't want anybody to think it's any more than a hippy bus, full of junk. Don't want 'em ripping off my TV and stereo and such. To look at it from the outside, nobody'd bother with it. I keep the curtains closed, so they can't see in.”

We were moving through the darkened
streets now. “You just live in this? And you park it on the street?”

“No, no. Not very often, anyway. Stay at the Wonderland RV Park.” He made that snorting sound again.

“That sounds . . . interesting,” I observed.

“Sounds more interesting than it is,” Uncle Henry said.

He didn't talk anymore, and I couldn't think of anything else to say, either. I wanted to be reassured that everything would be all right, that Ma would indeed show up safe and sound in the morning, that Pa would come back.

Uncle Henry wasn't too used to kids, I guess; he only saw us when he came over for dinner for his birthday, or Ma's, or on Christmas Eve when we opened presents together. But last year he gave me a Swiss army knife, and it was a neat one with all kinds of blades and tools, so I knew he was kind. Ma must have told him what I wanted, and he'd brought it, and even wrapped it in pretty paper.

If he thought everything would be all right, he'd probably have said so.

He didn't, though, and it made me afraid to ask what he thought.

I didn't know what we'd do if Ma didn't come home.

On the ride through the mostly darkened city I thought it all through in my mind again, how that guy in the car had been driving slowly beside Ma, and how when we got up to her she'd sent us to Willie's for the groceries—almost as if she wanted us away from her while she talked to the man in the car—and how my school stuff was in the apartment so we knew she'd been there, except for the notebook she'd dropped on the steps.

What had happened to her?

Had she sent us to Willie's because she was afraid of the stranger? Did she know him? What if he'd followed her into the apartment house, and made her go away with him?

Why would he do that? And if he had, what did he mean to do to her? How could we convince the police to look for her? What if they couldn't find her, even if they did look?

By the time we pulled in at the Wonderland RV Park, I was convinced Ma had been
kidnapped. It was the last of the three troubles in this batch, and the worst of all. It was the worst trouble I'd ever been in in my whole life, and I didn't know what to do about it.

Uncle Henry was right about the Wonderland RV Park. I don't know what I expected, exactly, but not rows of old trailers and a few motor homes, most of them pretty run down.

There weren't any more like the purple bus.

Uncle Henry had his own space, way at the back where, he said, the purple bus wouldn't scare off any overnighters. Overnighters were people who were traveling and only stopped there to sleep before going on.

They didn't have many tourists, though. Not since the Wonderland Amusement Park had been closed down over a year ago.

“That's why this place looks sort of tacky,” Uncle Henry told us the next morning. “Mrs. Biggers—she's the manager, working for the heirs of the estate, the family that's fighting
about what to do with the amusement park—does the best she can, but the Mixons don't want to spend any money, so she doesn't have anything to work with.”

“Who are the Mixons?” Kenny asked. I could tell by his eyes that he'd cried himself to sleep.

“Family owns both the parks. Old Mr. Mixon built Wonderland and ran it for years, but when he died the heirs couldn't decide what to do with it. One granddaughter wanted to keep on running it, but the rest of them wanted to sell the property and divide up the money, so they're still battling it out. It's valuable industrial property, and they could get a lot of cash out of it. In the meantime, until it's settled, it's a cheap place for me to live, and close to the warehouse where I work,” Uncle Henry said. “I walk to work.”

I could see why it was cheap. Nothing had been painted or fixed in a while, it looked like. It didn't matter to me. I didn't intend to be there very long. Ma would surely be back soon, I thought.

Only she wasn't. Uncle Henry took us with
him when he went down to the police station and filed a missing-persons report. I thought they should call in the FBI, because I was certain Ma had been kidnapped—otherwise she'd have come home by now—but they said there was no evidence of kidnapping. She'd just run off for reasons of her own, the officer said.

It made my throat hurt to think about it. It couldn't be true; Ma wouldn't have abandoned us. I guess Uncle Henry knew how I felt, because he put his hand on my shoulder and squeezed it.

“Maybe we ought to go by the apartment on the way back to my place,” he said as we left the station, “and see if you can find any of that evidence they think they have to have.”

There wasn't any, though.

It felt awful, walking through the empty apartment. Ma's stuff was still there, same as we'd left it.

“What would be a clue?” Kenny asked. “Bloodstains?”

“Blood would mean somebody hurt her!” I said, getting sicker by the moment. I stared at Uncle Henry, who was looking through the stuff
on Ma's desk. “We don't have any reason to think that, do we?”

“Not at all,” Uncle Henry agreed. “Well, blamed if I can see anything that would make the police or the FBI go looking for her any sooner.”

I could tell by his voice that he didn't expect them to do much, and I waited for Uncle Henry to take charge himself.

Instead, he sighed and put the things back on the desk. “Well, I guess there's nothing to do but wait for Sophie to show up. I'll check with the hospitals, make sure she didn't get hurt and have amnesia, something like that. The police are used to dealing with this kind of thing. Maybe they're right. Maybe your ma will show up on her own. No reason for anybody to kidnap her that I can think of, and not likely in broad daylight. They couldn't expect any rich relatives to pay a ransom, because she doesn't have any rich relatives.”

Was he giving up, just like that? He couldn't, I thought. He just couldn't! What if he did, and we never got Ma back?

“What are we going to do, then?” I asked.

Uncle Henry looked around. “I guess you boys better pack some more clothes and bring them on back to my place. While you're doing that I'll check with the manager and see how long the rent's paid for.”

He was back before we'd put our stuff into the old suitcases. “Got two weeks left,” he announced. “Looks like there's enough money in her bank account to pay it for another month, but we can't get it without her signature, and I can't afford to pay it. Let's think positive. She'll likely turn up by then.”

My eyes were kind of blurry. “This is the last day of school,” I said, “and we've already missed the morning. There's supposed to be a party this afternoon.”

“You want to go to the party?” Uncle Henry asked, and I shook my head.

“No.” Up until Ma disappeared, it had sounded like fun, but no more. “I guess we've got to pick up our report cards, though.”

“I'll call the school and explain the circumstances,” Uncle Henry said, sounding gruff. “I should think they could mail them.”

So we went back to the Wonderland RV
Park. “I need to sleep a few more hours before I go to work again,” Uncle Henry said when we reentered the purple bus. “You kids help yourself to what you want to eat. I'll get some more stuff later, but there's plenty of peanut butter and jelly. You need anything, that's the manager's trailer over there, with the sign. Mrs. Biggers.”

He disappeared into the back bedroom, and Kenny and I looked at each other.

“Isn't anybody going to find Ma?” he asked.

It didn't look like it, I thought. Not very fast, anyway, and what was happening to her in the meantime?

When I didn't answer him, Kenny said, “Pa would find her, if he knew she was missing. Wouldn't he, Rick?”

Would he? He and Ma had had a fight before he left, but I couldn't believe he'd let anybody get away with kidnapping her.

And he was one person who wouldn't believe she'd walked away on her own, just abandoning us.

Pa had.

The thought hurt as bad as when I'd
accidentally pounded a nail through my hand the time I was trying to build a birdhouse.

But when Pa left, he knew we still had Ma. Mothers usually got to have the kids when parents split up, didn't they? And Pa couldn't have taken us on the truck with him. Not for more than a single trip.

“Couldn't we call Pa?” Kenny asked hopefully.

“Where are we going to call him?” I asked, and hoped I didn't sound as if I was going to cry, even if I felt like I might. “We don't know where he is.”