“That’s enough,” Mr. Hill said sharply, and he snatched the photos away from Ruby and gave them back to me.
“What’s got into you, Mr. Hill?” she asked, confused.
“Take Elliot into the room with the others, Ruby,” he said.
Elliot had been sitting quietly in the chair, staring out the window at a bird that had landed in the yard.
“Come on, Elly,” Ruby said. “You can have a snack. Cook has applesauce today. I know how you love applesauce.”
Elliot didn’t move. He was watching the bird.
“Elliot, go with Ruby, please,” said Thurman Hill.
“Bird,” Elliot said.
“Yes, son, that’s a robin, remember?” he said gently. “You can tell by the orange breast. Now I need you to go with Ruby.”
Ruby came around in front of Elliot and offered him both of her hands. Elliot took them and rose clumsily from the chair. I was surprised to see how small he was. His head didn’t sit straight on his shoulders, and he held his arms in a funny way. His pants were pulled up high and fastened around his narrow waist with a leather belt, and he was barefoot.
“That’s it, Elly. Come with Ruby,” she said.
“Wait,” I said, turning to Thurman Hill. “If my mother was never here, how does Elliot know her word? He called me soof.”
“Ruby, take Elliot to the rec room,” Thurman Hill said. “And put some socks on him, please. These floors are cold.”
Ruby left then, holding Elliot by the hand like a small child.
As soon as they were gone, Thurman Hill turned to me, and this time the look on his face was easy to read. He was angry. His mouth formed a tight dark line, which cut through his face like a colorless gash halfway between his chin and his nose.
The sea-glass eyes flickered and flashed as he spoke.
“You have no right to be here,” he said.
“No right?” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She’s sent you here for more money, hasn’t she? Well, she won’t get another cent out of me. Not one. You tell her promises have been made and paid for,” he answered.
His fists were balled up now like two tight white rocks.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “Bernadette called and wrote, but you wouldn’t answer us. That’s the reason I came. I don’t know anything about promises.”
“Bernadette? Is that what she’s calling herself now?” he said with a strange hollow laugh. “Well, she can call herself by any name she wants, but it doesn’t change a thing. I tore up those letters and ignored her for a reason. I won’t have her coming around here stirring up trouble. Not for me. Not for Elliot. Not now.”
Just then a small woman in a blue dress and white sneakers pushed open the door and came running into the room.
“Come quick, Mr. H.,” she said. “Elliot’s having a tantrum. Ruby told me to come get you.”
Her face was round like a plate, and her eyes sloped down at the corners, making her look sad even when she turned and smiled at me.
“Hello,” she said. “I’m sorry to interrupt, but Mr. Hill really has to come now.”
In the distance I heard what sounded like an animal howling. Thurman Hill put his hand on her shoulder and spoke gently to the woman.
“I’ll be there in a minute, Sally,” he said. “Go back and tell Elliot I’m coming.”
“I’m afraid he’s going to hurt himself,” she said.
“I know. I’ll be there in a minute,” he said.
Then he turned back to me and his voice was hard again—
“I’ve done my part,” he said. “Now you do yours. Leave us alone. For God’s sake, just leave us alone.”
Thurman Hill left me standing in the alcove feeling completely lost. I tried to make sense of the things he’d said, but I couldn’t. He thought Bernadette was someone else. He thought I’d come for money. Who did he think I was? And why was he so angry?
The howling grew louder and there was a rhythmic thumping now too, like someone banging something hard against a table, or the wall.
“Elliot!” I heard Thurman Hill cry. Don’t!”
I’m not sure how long I stood there before Ruby came back in. She didn’t say anything, but after a quick look over her shoulder, she pulled open one of the drawers in the gray filing cabinet and began to flip quickly through a section of folders. She went through once, and then a second time as I held my breath.
“Nothing under ‘It.’ Should be here if your mother was at Hilltop thirteen years ago, because these go back fifteen. But there’s no ‘It.’”
“Are you sure?” I asked, coming over to stand by her.
“I’m positive.” She pushed against the drawer with one well-padded hip, in a vain attempt to close it. “Nothing even close. And I looked through twice. I’m sorry.”
I could tell she meant it. But I just couldn’t believe Mama wasn’t in there somewhere. She had to be. Elliot knew her word. She was in the photographs. She’d been here. I was sure of it.
“May I look for myself?” I asked. “Just in case you missed something?”
Ruby looked nervously toward the door.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” she said.
“Please.” I took a step toward the filing cabinet.
“Afternoon, everybody,” said a deep male voice from the doorway.
I turned around and saw an officer in a gray uniform with a wide-brimmed hat and a gold badge on his shirt. He had a gun in a black leather holster strapped around his waist.
“You ready?” he said.
Thurman Hill must have called the police and told them some lie about me being somebody I wasn’t. Or maybe he’d told them I’d run away, just so they’d come and get me and he could get rid of me. I didn’t know whether people got put in jail for running away or not, but I wasn’t about to hang around and find out. I pushed past all of them and ran for the door as fast as I could.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Hot
I was halfway down the driveway, running with my backpack slung over one shoulder, the suitcase in one hand and the jelly beans under the other arm, when Sheriff Roy Franklin, Ruby’s husband, finally caught up with me. He’d come to pick his wife up from work.
“Please don’t take me away,” I pleaded as he closed a huge hand around the top of my arm and steered me back around toward Hilltop.
“Calm down,” he said. “Nobody’s taking anybody anyplace. I just want to talk to you.”
Ruby had come out on the front porch and was watching us walk back up the driveway. Roy carried my suitcase, and I had the jar of jelly beans in my arms. I wasn’t crying, but I was close.
“Can I call Bernie?” I asked.
“Who’s Bernie?” he said.
By then we’d reached the porch where Ruby was waiting, and she started to fill Roy in on my story.
“Bernie’s the neighbor,” she told him, “in Nevada. She took a bus here by herself, Roy.”
“Does your family know where you are?” Roy asked.
“Yes. But Bernie’s going to be worried,” I told them. “I was supposed to call her back a long time ago. Please can I call her now?”
“I think maybe that’s a good idea,” Roy said.
We went back inside to the little office so I could call Bernie. To my relief, there was no sign of Thurman Hill anywhere.
“Oh Heidi,” Bernie said as soon as the call went through, “where on earth have you been, baby? Are you all right? You were supposed to call me back ages ago.”
I lost it and began to cry.
“I’m at Hilltop, Bernie. With a sheriff. Thurman Hill is awful, and he won’t tell me anything. He thinks I’m somebody else. He thinks I want his money. And Mama’s not in the files. I want to come home, Bernie,” I sobbed into the phone. “I want to come home.”
Ruby pulled a tissue out of the sleeve of her sweater and handed it to me. I blew my nose and tried to catch my breath.
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“Let me speak to her,” Roy said, reaching for the phone. I handed it to him and stood there sniffling and dabbing at my eyes as Ruby handed me more tissues. Roy stretched the phone cord out and moved a few feet away, then turned his back to me and kept his voice so low, I couldn’t hear what he was saying to Bernadette.
My clothes were damp from the downpour I’d been caught in back in town, and I was shivering. Ruby went and made me a cup of instant hot chocolate in the kitchen, and when she came back, she brought her coat and wrapped it around my shoulders. It was warm and soft and smelled flowery, like Georgia’s breath after she ate a Violet.
Roy talked to Bernadette for quite a while, and I stood there drinking my cocoa and trying not to cry again. When he was finally finished, he handed me the phone.
“I think I know the answer to this already, but tell me what his eyes are saying, baby,” Bernie said. “It’s important.”
Sheriff Roy Franklin was a big man with black hair going gray on the sides and a large mustache that hung over both his upper and lower lip. His eyes were large and brown, dark, like the color of the ground beans in the drawer of Bernie’s coffee mill. When he smiled, little lines formed at the outer corners.
“Good things,” I said.
“That’s what I thought,” she said.
“That’s one remarkable lady,” Roy said after I hung up. “Wants what she wants, though.”
“What did she tell you?” I asked.
He reached into his pocket. At first I thought he was going for his handcuffs and I felt a lump rise in my throat. But then he pulled out a quarter.
“Heads or tails?” he asked me.
“What?” I said.
“Heads or tails? Call it in the air,” said the sheriff as he flipped the coin, caught it, and then slapped it down on the back of his other hand and covered it.
“Heads,” I said.
He looked at it and nodded.
“Do it again. Heads or tails?”
“Tails,” I said.
Again I was right.
He did it ten times in a row, and each time I got it right.
“What on earth, Roy?” Ruby said.
“I’ll be danged, it’s just like she said,” said Roy.
“Like who said?” asked Ruby.
“Bernadette, the neighbor. She bet me this little girl could guess ten coin flips correctly in a row, and sure enough she did. Guess I’ve got no choice but to keep my part of the bargain.”
“What bargain?” asked Ruby.
“I promised Bernadette that if she guessed ten flips in a row, instead of taking Heidi down to the station like I’d planned to, I’d take her to our house, feed her a home-cooked meal, and give her a warm bed to sleep in for the night.”
“Roy,” Ruby said.
“What, Rube? You don’t want her to have to bunk downtown, do you? She’s twelve years old and a couple thousand miles from home.”
“Of course not,” said Ruby softly. “It’s just—we don’t know the whole story yet.”
“I know enough of it to know what’s best right now. As for your boss, I need to talk to him. Where is he, anyway?”
“He’s probably back in the rec room. Elly’s been having a hard time this afternoon,” Ruby said. “He’s been banging his head.”
“You meet Elliot yet?” Roy asked me.
I nodded.
“Rube’s sweet on him, in case you couldn’t tell,” Roy said. “I’ll be back in a minute. I’ve got to go have a word with Mr. Hill.”
“Ask him why Elliot knows my mama’s word,” I said.
Roy looked to Ruby for an explanation.
“Soof,” she said. “You know how I told you Elliot says that a lot? Well, Heidi says her mother does too.”
“And he called me soof today when he saw me,” I said.
“Elliot says soof a lot, Heidi. It probably doesn’t mean anything,” Ruby said.
“I think it does. I think everything means something, even when you don’t know what it is,” I said.
Roy smiled at me.
“Why don’t you two wait out in the car?” He handed Ruby the keys. “Put the heater on, Rube. She’s shivering.”
Ruby carried my suitcase this time and I carried my backpack and the jar of jelly beans out to the car, which was parked at the top of the driveway.
I got in the backseat and Ruby got in the front so she could start the engine and turn on the heater.
“Do you need me to come back there and sit with you?” she asked over the back of the seat.
I would have liked that, but I shook my head no.
“Do you have any brothers or sisters?” she asked me.
“No,” I said. “Do you?”
“One sister. Jill. She lives in North Branch.”
“You have kids?” I asked.
I thought I saw a shadow cross her face.
“Nope,” she said. “No kids.”
Neither of us said anything after that. The car heated up quickly, and the combination of the warmth and the hum of the heater made me feel drowsy. I rested my head against the back of the seat, closed my eyes, and fell asleep. I didn’t wake up until we pulled into the Franklins’ driveway and Roy turned the engine off. Even though I was awake, I sat there with my eyes still closed.
“Should we wake her up, or do you want to try to carry her inside?” Ruby whispered.
“What do you mean, ‘try’?” said Roy, pretending to be insulted. “She’s just a slip of a thing.”
Ruby laughed. She had a nice laugh. Musical, like the wind chimes Bernie and I made once from a kit she ordered through the mail.
I don’t remember ever having been carried before that, though of course I know both Mama and Bernie must have carried me plenty when I was little. Roy picked me up out of the backseat and carried me into the house, and I don’t think I breathed once the whole time, just clung tight to the jar of jelly beans, which clicked and clattered as they knocked against each other. The only other sound was the soft soof, soof of his shoes as he carried me carefully up the steps, across the porch, and into the house. I was sorry when he put me down, sorry to have to open my eyes. It felt so good to be taken somewhere by somebody, instead of having to get there on my own.
Roy and Ruby lived in a white house with yellow shutters and window boxes all across the front. There was a screened-in porch on the side and a white rope hammock slung between two trees in the yard.
Ruby showed me the little back bedroom where she said I could change out of my dirty clothes. Before I did that, though, I asked Roy what Thurman Hill had told him back at Hilltop.
“Nothing. He said he wouldn’t talk to me without his lawyer present, so I’ll have to go back up there tomorrow to see what’s what,” he told me. “Now go get changed, so Rube can put dinner on the table.”
I’d been changing my underwear and socks each day since I’d left Reno like Bernie had told me to, but I’d been wearing the same jeans and T-shirt and the red sweater ever since I left home. What I really wanted was a hot bath, but I was too shy to ask, and besides, I was starving. I shoved my dirty clothes into the corner of my suitcase and pulled on some clean ones. I tried to run a comb through my hair, but I hadn’t combed it in so long, it was really tangled, so I left it. When I went back out to the living room, Roy was sitting on the couch reading the paper. Ruby came out of the kitchen drying her hands on her apron.
“If I’d known earlier you were coming, Heidi, I would have made something ahead of time. As it is, frozen potpies will have to do. I’ll make up for it with breakfast tomorrow, though, I promise. Dinner in about five, you two,” she said, and went back into the kitchen.
Roy looked at me and smiled.
“She’s no slouch in the kitchen,” he said.
“Did you ask Thurman Hill how come Elliot knows my mother’s word?” I asked.
“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, I guess.” Roy laughed. “Bernadette teach you to get right to the point, d
id she?”
I shrugged.
“Did you ask him?” I said again.
“Tomorrow, Heidi,” he said in a tone I knew—when Bernie used it, it meant not to ask again.
We ate at a round wooden table in the kitchen. There were place mats with pictures of horses on them, and the paper napkins had flowers printed around the edges and were folded into triangles under each fork. I sat between Roy and Ruby. The potpies were filled with turkey and vegetables, the thick buttery crusts oozing gravy from little tear-shaped slits cut through the top. There was salad and cottage cheese and little bowls of applesauce sprinkled with cinnamon sugar.
I was so hungry, there was hardly a second my mouth wasn’t stuffed too full for me to talk. For dessert Ruby dished out three big bowls of strawberry ripple ice cream, but I only made it halfway through mine before I ran out of steam.
“You look bushed,” Roy said.
“It’s no wonder—she’s been sleeping on a bus for the past three nights. I’ll run you a bath, Heidi, and then you can go to bed,” Ruby said.
“Can I call Bernadette first?” I asked. “I’ll call collect.”
“Of course,” said Ruby. “You show her where, Roy.”
Ruby went to run the bath and Roy took me into his den to use the phone. We only talked for a minute. I told Bernie that Ruby and Roy were being really nice to me and that I was going to take a bath and go to bed. She seemed relieved to hear it.
“I’m not going to worry about you tonight, Heidi-Ho,” she said. “Sounds like you’re in good hands.”
Mama called for Bernie in the background.
“I’m coming, Precious,” she called back. “Your poor mama’s had a headache all day long today. The worst one ever.”
“Kiss her for me,” I said, adding, “and tell her that I love her, Bernie.”
Since love was not one of the words that Mama said, it wasn’t a word I used very often either. For some reason that night, though, maybe because of the longing Roy had stirred up when he’d carried me in from the car, I wanted Mama to know that I loved her.