‘You’re all up on the second floor,’ said Lester when he handed Lill the room keys and watched us climb down out of the bus. He was just as tense and jumpy as ever, and he looked almost sad as we left him there. For a second I wondered if Lester might panic and leave us there in the middle of the night; I supposed even less humble heroes might’ve thought about it. But the way Lester looked at Lill made me doubt it.
‘Promise you’ll be here in the morning, Mister Swan?’ I called back to him before he closed the door of the bus. Lester tilted his head like a listening dog and gave me a funny look.
‘Where would I go?’ he asked. And that was all the answer I needed.
Lill ushered us towards stairs that led to our rooms. Fish sniffed the air as we passed a locked door with a single window down on the first level. The sign next to the door said ‘Pool – Guests Only’.
‘Water,’ Fish said simply.
The pool sat, still and empty, reflecting dancing green light across the walls and ceiling of the small room. At any other time, being so close to that much water would’ve made Fish nervous and fidgety, but when I glanced his way he looked calm as calm.
Lill didn’t miss the way we all looked at that pool through the window, but she ordered us up the stairs ahead of her with the command of a drill sergeant in green-and-white camouflage. When we reached the second floor, Lill took the lead, holding Samson’s hand while looking for our rooms and fumbling one-handed with the room keys.
The rest of us dropped behind.
‘We can’t call home,’ I whispered to Will. He looked from Lill back to me, his eyes questioning. Lill was further ahead of us now, moving up the long hallway. I reached forward and tugged on the back of Bobbi’s shirt, noticing the way the angel tattoo on her back now reclined on one elbow, wings folded in, picking its teeth with the end of its pointed tail indifferently.
‘Bobbi, we can’t call home,’ I said to her.
‘Duh,’ she replied and rolled her eyes at me.
‘Of course she knows that…’ said the angel. But I ignored it.
‘Fish?’
‘I know, I know,’ he whispered back at me. ‘We can’t call home. But just how do you think we’ll get away with that?’
‘I’ve got a plan,’ I said.
‘Oh goodie,’ said Bobbi. ‘She’s got a plan.’
23
The trick would be in the timing. Wrangling Lester earlier in the day had been surprisingly easy, but I knew flimflamming Lill was going to be a lot harder – she had to believe, without a doubt, that we’d called home or she wouldn’t be satisfied.
I remembered Bobbi mimicking her mother over meat loaf at the dinner table the night before and how she’d sounded just like Miss Rosemary. I also remembered how Will Junior had threatened Bobbi with telling their parents how she called in to school, using her mother’s voice, to excuse her own absences when she ditched classes.
With two motel rooms, one across the hall from the other, I figured we just might be able to pull off my scheme.
It was for Lill’s own good, I told myself again and again. I had to keep her and Lester out of trouble. If we called home now, who knew what might happen? But if we could lie low until we reached Salina Hope Hospital tomorrow, maybe Lester and Lill could get on their way without anyone knowing that they’d helped us out, or blaming them wrongly for carrying us off.
Lill inspected both rooms before assigning the boys to one and us girls to the other. Bobbi and I were in 214 with Lill, and the three boys were in 215.
‘Just pick up your phone when it rings, Fish,’ I whispered to my brother before we separated. ‘Pick it up, but don’t say anything. Stay on the phone and let Bobbi in if she knocks. We’ve got to rely on Bobbi now.’ Fish nodded, glancing at Bobbi dubiously, and then followed Samson and Will Junior into Room 215.
Once inside the room across the hall, Lill pointed to the telephone and said, ‘Bobbi, please call your parents now and tell them where you all are. They must be worried sick, the poor folks.’
Bobbi shot me a wide-eyed What-Do-I-Do-Now? look and moved slowly towards the phone. She picked up the receiver like she was moving through water, watching Lill as the woman removed her sweater and hung it on the doorknob of the closet door. I nearly jumped for joy when Lill flicked the light on in the bathroom and closed the door behind her.
Bobbi may not have had a savvy in the same way as we Beaumonts, but it was time for her to use her very own special kind of know-how. Before Lill could return, I rushed to Bobbi’s side and told her exactly what she had to do. She looked at me like I’d lost my marbles.
‘She thinks you’re crazy,’ her angel tattoo sang in my head.
‘This isn’t like calling in to trick the school secretary, Mibs,’ Bobbi whispered harshly. ‘What if it doesn’t work?’
But we could already hear Lill washing her hands in the bathroom and had no time to argue. ‘Just do it,’ I said, pointing to the number printed on the motel phone.
Bobbi dialled, glancing over her shoulder towards the bathroom as she made a room-to-room call. Lill opened the door and stepped back out into the room, smoothing her skirt and scraping at the pie spatter that had dried on the front of it. She looked up as Bobbi started talking.
‘Hi, Mom, it’s Bobbi.’ Bobbi shot me a glare as she pretended to talk to her mother, with Fish now sitting silently on the other end of the line across the hall. But Bobbi was a good actress; at times during her brief, one-sided conversation, even I forgot for a moment that she was faking as she explained to dead air where we were and how we’d got there and how we would get down to the hospital in Salina tomorrow.
‘No, Mother, we’re perfectly safe. I promise!’ Bobbi insisted. ‘Yes, Mother, you can talk to Mibs. She’s right here…’
Bobbi rolled her eyes and slumped her shoulders dramatically as she held the telephone out to me. I looked sheepishly at Lill and took the phone, hoping I could do half as well at play acting as Bobbi had. I held the receiver to my chest for a moment, as though looking for the courage to put it to my ear.
‘I’m going to check on the boys,’ Bobbi said, grabbing a room key and getting up to leave the room. ‘My mother wants to talk to you next, Lill,’ she said, opening the door, then letting it slam shut behind her. Lill’s face was pale. She chewed the cuticle on her pinkie and took a deep breath. I could tell she wasn’t looking forward to the idea of talking to the preacher’s wife, and I felt shamed and sorry for tricking her. It’s for her own good, I reminded myself, then I lifted the phone to my ear just as I heard Bobbi knocking on the door across the hall.
‘Miss Rosemary? It’s Mibs. I’m sorry…’ I started out. I measured my pauses as I spoke haltingly into the phone, trying to make it seem as though I was getting a tongue-lashing from Miss Rosemary.
There was a clatter on the other end of the line.
‘You’re going straight to hell, Mississippi Beaumont,’ said Bobbi in a voice so much like Miss Rosemary’s that I nearly dropped the phone. Then she snickered. ‘Put that waitress on. Then start praying.’ Bobbi was way too good at this. I hoped she’d go easy on poor Lill.
I held the telephone out to Lill and swallowed hard.
‘She wants to talk to you,’ I said.
I held my breath the entire time Lill was on the phone with Bobbi-slash-Miss Rosemary. I wasn’t entirely sure what Bobbi said – I was only able to catch a word or two of Bobbi’s end of the conversation when her voice rose in pitch and volume and carried out from the receiver. But Lill worked hard to make it known that all us kids were healthy and whole and in good hands with her and Lester. She gave over the name of our motel and the phone number.
‘We’d be glad to bring the kidlings home or down to the hospital in Salina, Mrs Meeks, unless you’d rather come and get them right away,’ Lill said nervously.
My lungs felt fit to burst. I wished I could hear Bobbi’s reply; that girl was fast on her feet when it came to deceit and I couldn’t decide whether I ad
mired her or felt sorry for her for having such a skill.
At last the conversation began to wind down. ‘That will be just fine, ma’am,’ said Lill. ‘We’ll see you all in Salina tomorrow then.’
‘Yes, ma’am…
‘Thank you, ma’am…
‘God bless you too, ma’am…’
I could just picture Bobbi in the room across the hall, saying ‘God bless you’ to Lill in Miss Rosemary’s stern voice. I shook my head, praying Bobbi didn’t push her luck and wishing she’d just hang up the phone.
When Lill finally set the telephone down, colour was returning to her cheeks.
‘That went better than I expected,’ said Lill with her little smile. ‘That Rosemary seems like a good, strong woman. She’s going to call your family and tell them you and your brothers are safe, Mibs.’
‘Great,’ I said half-heartedly, feeling low, low, low about our double-dealing deception.
I heard the key swipe the lock and the door opened. Bobbi, Will and Fish all sauntered into the room, looking like a bunch of cats who’d just finished feasting on an entire flock of canaries. Fortunately, Lill was so relieved to be off the phone, she didn’t even notice.
24
‘If I’m going to be responsible for you kidlings until tomorrow, I’d better get us some supplies.’ Lill was so happy to believe that things were sorted out and settled with the adults, she looked five years younger and ten centimetres taller. ‘Would anybody like to cross the road with me? I saw a Mega Mega Mart as we drove in and I have a bit of money left.’
We all shook our heads, saying nothing. Better to lay low, I thought. After all, people were still looking for us.
‘Nobody?’ said Lill in her little voice. ‘Well, all right then. Why don’t y’all sit tight and watch some TV until I get back.’ Lill moved to pick up the remote control from the desk by the telephone but Fish jumped up and grabbed it before she could reach it. Why is it that adults are always telling kids to go watch television as though we have nothing better to do?
‘I got it,’ said Fish, holding up the remote and smiling a cockeyed Fish smile. Lill looked around at the four of us, now spread out across the beds and chairs in the room.
‘Where’s –?’
‘Samson’s okay,’ said Fish, anticipating her question. ‘He’s in the other room. We’re all okay. You can go to the shop – we’ll be fine.’ Another smile.
‘Well, okay,’ said Lill, a bit unsure. She cast one look back at us before leaving the room, as though something suspicious still tickled her senses. ‘I’ll be back in a shake – no later than twenty or thirty minutes.’
As soon as Lill stepped out, the four of us all gulped for air as though we’d not drawn breath since getting to the motel.
‘I can’t believe that worked,’ said Bobbi.
‘Remind me to never tell Mother that you can do that,’ said Will.
‘We’ve got a bigger problem,’ said Fish, ruining our small moment of triumph by turning on the television and flipping to a local news channel. It took less than a minute before our pictures flashed across the screen with ALERT! MISSING! ALERT! scrolling along the bottom, just as Fish and I had seen on the little TV back in Emerald.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ said Bobbi, who, like Will, hadn’t seen the newscast at the diner.
Will stared slack-jawed at the screen with his sister. Looking resigned and unhappy, Fish tossed the television remote back and forth from hand to hand like it was a hot potato.
‘Man, are we in trouble,’ said Will, shaking his head with a grimace as his own image flashed up on the screen. ‘Maybe we really should have called home.’
‘It’s better that we didn’t,’ said Bobbi. ‘Do you really want the police storming in here tonight? You know that if we’d called home, Mother would have phoned big brother and he’d have been here in no time flat – he and every other officer from here to Topeka. What do you think would happen to Lester and Lill then? They’d get in huge trouble.’
Will turned his head sharp and sudden.
‘Bill’s more than a little protective,’ Bobbi continued.
‘He’s going to be mad,’ said Will, and for the first time on that whole trip Will looked painfully, miserably unhappy.
‘Shh!’ Fish shushed everyone with a violent and well-aimed blast of wind, looking momentarily pleased with himself. Then he turned up the volume of the television.
‘… according to a source close to the family, the father of three of the missing children is one of the victims of last Thursday’s ten-car pile up on Highway 81 outside Salina, Kansas. The man sustained serious injuries and is still unconscious and in critical condition at Salina Hope Hospital.’
I threw myself back on to the floral bedspread and put my hands over my face.
‘It will be all right,’ the singsong voice said inside my head.
I looked up at Bobbi, who was looking right back at me intently. She nodded at me once.
‘It will be all right,’ the angel’s voice repeated. Bobbi gave me a brief, kindly smile – it was there and gone again like a flash of Rocket’s sparks.
The older girl got up and turned off the TV. ‘That stays off,’ she said, looking from me to Will to Fish. We all nodded and watched as Bobbi unplugged the cord from the wall for good measure.
‘It will be all right,’ Bobbi said out loud to everyone.
Lill returned nearly an hour later with a smile almost big enough for her body and several bags from the Mega Mega Mart. She dumped their contents on to the closest bed.
‘Today’s your lucky day, kidlings,’ she said as we checked out the pile, amazed by how much stuff she’d come back with. There was a mountain of candy bars, T-shirts, crisps, lipgloss in both pink and red, Pop-Tarts, playing cards, magazines, cotton buds, nail polish, crayons, duct tape, a new first-aid kit, a clean new tie for Lester, a Slinky, seven tooth brushes, six packs of Snappy Strawberry Bubble Tape for Bobbi, five pairs of flip-flops, four sticks of deodorant, a pack of combs, animal crackers, underwear and swimsuits.
Lill laughed. ‘I just kept on shopping until I was sure I’d spent every dollar Ozzie made me pick up off the floor. That money was too greasy to get attached to, just like that diner.’ She tossed Fish a pair of swimming trunks. ‘I had to guess on all the sizes, so the fit may not be perfect.’
‘We can go swimming?’ I asked, holding up a purple suit with yellow straps that looked almost right for me.
‘Kids and pools… well, they’re like birds and sky, aren’t they?’ said Lill. ‘Besides, even bad kids need to have a little fun sometimes.’
We all stared at Lill, dumbfounded.
‘Well, go on,’ she laughed again, ‘stop staring at me like I just dropped out of the heavens and get changed. What good is a pool without any kids in it? I’m going out to the bus to check on Lester; I’ve got some ideas for him about how to deliver all those pink Bibles. I think he just needs to take a different approach. Lester just needs some confidence in his own skills.’ She waved the duct tape in the air. ‘He also needs some help covering up all those broken windows in that bus of his.’
Lill put the roll of tape around her wrist like a big silver bracelet and picked up the new tie – not pink, but blue with green stripes. She smoothed the silky tie with her fingers, smiling to herself; Lester wasn’t the only one working on his charms. Maybe some good would come from this big mess I’d made after all.
25
The boys returned to their room across the hall to change into the colourful swimming trunks Lill had picked out for them. Bobbi went into the bathroom, happily toting a cherry red bikini. I changed as quick as I could into the purple one-piece, frustrated that it was too loose despite all manner of yellow straps and strings that I did my best to make heads and tails of.
I’d never felt bashful in a swimsuit before that day, but things in my life were changing faster than I could keep up with; I felt a tad vulnerable being a jig shy of jaybird-naked in a swimsu
it that better suited someone older. I pulled an oversized T-shirt over my head just as Bobbi emerged looking trim and pretty and all grown up and filled-in in her bikini. She wrinkled her nose when she looked at me.
‘What’s with the T-shirt?’
‘My suit doesn’t fit so good.’
‘Let me see.’
I removed the shirt and let Bobbi adjust all the yellow straps. By the time she was finished, the swimsuit fitted much better.
‘Thanks,’ I said weakly, still shy about leaving the T-shirt behind.
Bobbi shrugged. ‘No problem.’ We left the room, making sure no one saw us coming or going, and joined the boys downstairs in the empty pool room.
The room was hot and humid, lined in lime green tile and dusty, artificial plants and trees. The pool was small and shaped like a jelly bean, but just the right size for four kids. Samson was nowhere to be seen, but that didn’t worry any of us; everyone was used to his disappearances by now.
Will was already in the pool, his hair wet and dripping into his black eye. Fish stood at the edge of the pool with his arms folded, staring at the water with a determined look hardening his scratched face.
‘You getting in?’ I asked my brother carefully, keeping my eye on Bobbi’s angel, where it shivered on her back, gripping its pointed devil’s tail in one hand and reaching up to grasp its halo with the other, as Bobbi stepped down into the water in front of me. Fish smiled his cocky brother smile and nodded.
‘I’m good,’ he said simply.
‘Good.’
‘Cold… C-cooold.’ The cold water engulfed the picture of the little angel as Bobbi plunged underwater and the faltering voice in my head grew muffled and bleary.
Will Junior vaulted up out of the water and grasped my wrist, pulling me over into the pool next to him with a splash. Getting my head back above the surface and my wet hair out of my eyes, I found Will’s face close to mine, his hand still holding my wrist loosely underwater. Then he moved forward and his lips touched mine, quick and awkward with the taste of chlorine and salt, like maybe he’d just slipped and bumped his face into mine accidentally. It happened so fast that I hardly had time to react before a dancing funnel of water splashed Will ferociously in the side of the head.