“Don’t worry,” another woman said. “They weren’t inside when it happened.”
Gran stood with the crowd, looking at the house while listening to the story. From what he could gather, the two sisters, who had lived together for almost forty years in that very house, had been fighting. It had gotten so bad that they had refused to stay under the same roof on any given night.
So one night Therése would stay in the motel down the road. The next night, Theresa would return and insist that Therése get herself other accommodations, so Theresa would stay with an old friend. This had been going on for months. Anytime they were in the house together, they would start arguing, about their dogs, but especially about Propositions P&S, M&H.
“Lucky they weren’t there last night,” a woman in the crowd said. “Their dogs, too. No one got hurt.”
“I saw both sisters at City Hall,” said a man.
“On either side of the aisle,” said another.
“Fighting like tigers,” said yet another.
“Moose,” a voice behind Gran said. Gran turned to find a face that looked familiar. He had an enormous mustache. “This is what I’ve been telling everyone,” the man said, raising his voice to address everyone in the throng. “This is clearly the work of a malevolent moose. Or many of them. Many malevolent moose, running amok. Had we had helicopters patrolling like I’ve been recommending, this wouldn’t have happened. They would have seen this marauding mass of moose miles away.”
“Oh c’mon, Walter,” a woman in the crowd said. Now it clicked in Gran’s mind. The mustachioed man was Dr. Walter Woolford, the proponent of Propositions M&H.
The woman who had addressed him looked familiar, too.
“Don’t ‘Oh c’mon’ me, Phyllis,” Dr. Woolford retorted.
That must be Phyllis Feeley, Gran thought. He’d seen their faces together, on signs on this very property, for so long it was both surreal and strangely natural to see them together in the flesh.
They continued to argue, getting louder, and soon other adults in the crowd joined in. There was heated discussion of moose, and helicopters, and money, and schools, and parks, and the town of Carousel, and what it needed most. Gran heard enough arguing at home, and felt that there were few things uglier than hearing grown people arguing in public. He began to make his way out of the mob when something caught his ear on the edge of the crowd.
“Sinkhole,” a voice said.
The voice was coming from a very old man holding the hand of a very small girl. He leaned her way, and explained what had happened to the sisters’ house. He had a wheezy voice, like a dying vacuum cleaner, but there was something about his humble and resigned manner that made Gran feel like he was the one who knew the truth.
“The earth beneath a home,” the old man continued, “or beneath anything at all, gets compromised, gets hollowed out, and before you know it, it can no longer support the weight of a house. The house falls in.” The old man sighed, and Gran heard the last words he said as he walked away, holding the little girl’s hand. “Been seeing too much of this over the years.”
Gran turned to leave too, and when he did, he saw someone he didn’t expect to see again, and certainly not so soon—certainly not in the light of day.
It was Catalina Catalan.
Gran had no intention of talking to her. Or moving anywhere near her. He felt ashamed that he had followed her the night before, and felt she had every right to be angry with him. He expected her to turn and flee, as she had last night.
But now she was walking over to him, and then she was pushing through the crowd to get to him, and finally she was taking his hand and pulling him down the street. She led him away from the town and into the hills, and all the while Gran thought about her hand holding his hand. He thought about how coarse her hand was, how thick the skin of her palm felt, how rough. The way Catalina was holding his hand was not a way that could be considered romantic or even friendly, but she was holding it anyway and that was something.
He had no idea where they were going, and Catalina hadn’t said a word the whole time they’d been walking. It was only when they were deep into the woods at the bottom of the valley, away from all eyes and ears, that Catalina stopped, got very close to him, and spoke.
“So are you working for the Hollows?”
“The what?” Gran managed to say. He had no idea what the Hollows were. It was incredible he could talk at all, because being alone like this with Catalina, so near he could smell her perspiration, the earthy smell of her flannel, had him dizzy and disoriented.
“How can you say you’re not working for them?” she asked.
“Who is ‘them’?” he asked.
“The Hollows. You know exactly what I’m talking about.”
Gran didn’t mean to, but he laughed. He laughed in a sudden loud burst. It was just a reaction to the cloak-and-dagger nature of Catalina’s questioning.
A look of pure fury came over Catalina’s face. Then her arm reared back and her fist plunged into Gran’s stomach.
The world looks very different when your cheek is pressed to the ground.
And your body feels different when you can’t breathe. When you are on the ground and you can’t breathe, your limbs feel leaden. Your lungs seem to be breathing not air but straw. Your eyes feel wet with acid.
Gran made these observations as he writhed on the ground, feeling the pine needles on his face, gasping for air. And then, for the second time since he’d known her, Catalina Catalan was on her knees next to him, helping him recover. And it was at that moment that he finally figured out who the old woman on Catalina’s T-shirt was. It was Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the Supreme Court justice. The way Catalina was positioned gave him a close look at her face, and it was almost as if, as Catalina rested her hand on Gran’s back, Ruth Bader Ginsburg was there too. It was a strange feeling, but not unpleasant. Catalina began to move her hand ever so slightly in circles on his back, and even while Gran struggled for breath, he knew it had all been worth it.
Soon he could breathe again, and he sat up, and she sat across from him. They were both sitting in the middle of the forest on a bright autumn day. It all seemed so normal and wonderful to Gran until he remembered that Catalina Catalan had just punched him, and was accusing him of working for something called the Hollows.
“I don’t work for the Hollows,” he said. It seemed a very strange sentence to say, given he had no idea what it meant.
Catalina squinted at him.
“Then what were you doing there last night?” she asked.
“I followed you,” he said.
“You followed me where?”
“I saw you disappear. So I stayed outside the hill. I wanted to know where you’d gone.”
“Nowhere.”
Gran knew this was not true. “You went into the hill,” he said.
“No I didn’t,” she said.
Catalina was doing something people sometimes do when they don’t want someone to know something. They deny something even though any reasonable person would recognize their denial as untrue. Gran had seen what he had seen and he was sure about it.
“I saw a handle in your hand,” he said.
“No you didn’t,” Catalina said.
“I saw a stairway,” he said.
“No you didn’t,” she said.
“And a huge room,” he said.
“Nope,” she said.
“It was lit up like a church at night.”
“No it wasn’t.”
By this point Catalina had risen and was standing over Gran in a threatening position, as if she might punch him again.
“You didn’t see any of that,” she said. “I was out jogging and came around the hill and tripped over you. That’s all that happened.”
“But—” Gran began.
This time she kicked him.
The funny thing about having the wind knocked out of you once is that sometimes, the second time, you’re ready for it. Which in this cas
e Gran was. When Catalina reared up to kick him—in the stomach, with her foot—he steeled himself. He curled into a ball, ready for impact.
Gran knew that punching and kicking is not highly evolved behavior. It demonstrates that the kicker or puncher hasn’t fully developed the ability to deal with their temper, and to express themselves like humans do, as opposed to the way of cavepeople or wolverines.
As if hearing his thoughts on human nature versus that of animals, Catalina did not kick Gran very hard. It was not a direct hit this time—more like a grazing. She grunted, then stood, her breath heavy with frustration.
“I have to go,” she said.
“Let me go with you,” Gran blurted out. He was surprised by his own boldness, and the strength of his voice.
“You can’t come with me,” she said.
But there was something in her voice that held open the possibility that she would listen to him.
“Let me help you,” he said.
“Help me with what?” she asked.
“With whatever you’re doing.”
“I’m not doing anything.”
“You were inside the hill.”
“That’s crazy. You’re crazy,” she said, but she said it unconvincingly. Gran felt like he was making progress.
“You were in the hill. I saw you,” he said. “I can help.”
She looked at him hard. “Are you good at anything?”
Her face implied that she was doubtful. Gran thought of telling her about making little animals out of colored clay—he thought he was good at that—but he was fairly sure this wasn’t a skill useful to the current situation.
Then a look came over her, as if an idea had occurred to her. “Can you get that wheelchair?”
“What wheelchair? My mom’s?”
“I’ve seen you pushing her around on it. Can you borrow it tonight? Can you get it to the junkyard by 11:20 tonight?”
Gran quickly did the calculations. His mother’s wheelchair typically sat next to her bed while she slept. She went to bed at ten. After she was asleep, he could sneak into her room and quietly roll the chair out of the bedroom. Then somehow out the front door. Then down the street at night, all the way to the junkyard—a place he’d never been. He didn’t know the town even had a junkyard. And he had to go there two hours after he usually went to bed himself. It was an impossible task.
“I can do it,” he said.
Gran lay in bed that night, unable to believe what he was about to do. He was about to steal his mother’s wheelchair and take it to the other side of town. To a junkyard. Only now, as he lay, heavy head on pillow, did he realize that Catalina might be asking him to actually throw his mother’s wheelchair into the junkyard.
Was that her plan?
No. Why would she want his mom’s wheelchair in the junkyard? Did she plan to sell it?
No. He trusted Catalina. But why did he trust Catalina, a girl he had seen emerge from a hillside? A girl who had punched him and kicked him? It made no sense. But he did. He trusted her.
So at eleven, when he was sure his mother was asleep, he rose from his bed, tiptoed down the hall, and opened the door to her room. She was sleeping soundly, as she always did. He stood in her doorway for a full minute, to make sure she was truly asleep. She didn’t stir.
He thought for a moment about the rightness of taking his mother’s wheelchair. He knew she needed it, and removing it from the house was a grave offense. But he was only borrowing it, the same way his mother often borrowed money from Gran, and even Maisie.
Once every few weeks, she would ask for five or ten dollars, for groceries, for batteries, for anything. “You won’t miss it during the borrowing,” she’d say, and Gran and Maisie would feel a little thrill at being useful in this way—that their carefully saved money now was crucial to the functioning of the household. They would always give her the money, knowing she never failed to return it, usually within a day.
Now Gran would do the same. He would borrow something that would not be missed during the borrowing. His mother wouldn’t use the chair while sleeping, would she? And whatever Catalina was doing seemed important. Gran’s mother would likely agree with the use of her chair this night. Surely she would agree.
He crept toward the chair and put his hands on its handles. He turned it toward the door. A loud squeak pierced the quiet of the room. He looked down at his mother, expecting her eyes to be open. But they stayed closed. Her breathing remained steady.
He rolled the chair quickly, quietly out of the room and into the hallway. And that’s when he saw Maisie.
“What are you doing?” she asked. She stood in the hallway in her stars-and-planets pajamas. Then, as if remembering she was a cat, she said, “Meow.”
Her meow had been loud enough to wake their mother, so Gran shushed her and turned to close the door to their mother’s room. This gave him enough time to think of an explanation that might work for a five-year-old.
“I’m cleaning it,” he said.
“Why?” she asked him.
“She asked me to.”
“Why?”
“It hasn’t been cleaned in a while. Why are you awake?”
“I thought I heard something. Can I watch you clean it?”
“No,” he said.
“Why?”
Gran knew that Maisie’s Whys could last a while. And he knew that once she was awake, she could be very difficult to put back to sleep. So Gran found himself setting the wheelchair up in the hallway, and then found himself pretending to clean it. Actually, he wasn’t pretending. He got some spray cleaner from under the kitchen sink, and a roll of paper towels, and for ten minutes cleaned the chair. His sister was at first fascinated with the process, and then became bored.
“I’m going back to sleep,” she finally said.
And after she was back in bed and Gran had tucked her in, he closed the door to her bedroom. He wheeled the chair to the back door and carried it down the wooden steps as quietly as he could. He stepped into the night. A bright three-quarter moon was above, casting sharp shadows.
Gran looked at his watch. It was 11:11. The junkyard was at least three miles away, and he was supposed to be there in nine minutes.
The only way to make it there in time would be to take the hill. There was a very steep hill that ran directly from his house into town. But this hill was too steep to ride a bicycle down. Or a skateboard or scooter. Too steep for anything, really—especially a wheelchair. He’d end up in a dozen pieces, strewn all over the road. You’d have to be a loon to ride anything down a hill like this.
But it was the only way to get there in time. If he was late to the junkyard, Catalina wouldn’t wait. And he’d lose the only chance he’d ever have of knowing what she was doing in the hill.
So he steadied the chair at the top of the slope and he took a deep breath. He looked down the road, plotting his course. If he turned regularly, pivoting like a skier, he could still travel quickly but stay in control.
Okay, he thought. Okay.
He plotted a second course, too—the course he’d take if he lost control and had to crash. He spotted bushes and shrubs on either side of the road that looked marginally less painful than if he were to skid across the road on his face.
Okay, he thought. Okay.
Finally he was ready. He put one foot on the foothold, the one where Maisie usually rode. Then, with his right foot, he pushed off, gently.
The chair rolled slowly, squeaking slightly. Then it descended. The wheels took on new life, hungry for speed.
Wow, he thought. Wow.
In seconds he was traveling so quickly his eyes watered in the wind. He could barely see the road. He turned the chair, as he planned to—like a skier—but it was far harder to maneuver than he’d planned. The chair tilted, as if it would topple. He leaned away from it just enough, and just in time, to keep it on four wheels.
Oh no, he thought. Oh. No.
He must have been going thirty miles an hour. r />
He was going as fast as when his father drove them in the car. It was so fast he couldn’t see anything clearly. There was a jumble of road, wind, trees, his hands. He thought of the times he’d wiped out on his bike, on his skateboard. First there was speed. Then a bump. Then the horizon line went diagonal. Then all command of limbs and gravity was suspended. The world spun and the ground flew up to smash his face and bones. This had happened before.
But this time.
This time the wheelchair tilted, and groaned and squealed, but Gran stayed calm. He leaned left and right, making minor adjustments to every bump and swerve, and somehow stayed upright. He flew down the main drag of town, through the outskirts and around that slow bend and that sharp turn. Gradually the road evened out, and Gran found—to his great surprise—that he was alive and unscathed.
In seven minutes he arrived at the junkyard.
He was two minutes early.
“You made it.”
Gran was in the middle of the road as the chair slowed to a stop in front of the junkyard’s rusted gate. The voice came from the shadows. He knew it was Catalina. She emerged into the pale blue glow of the lamplight. She was wearing her usual T-shirt, her flannel around her waist.
“Are you okay?” she asked. “Your eyes look crazy.”
“I’m fine. Just a fast ride here.”
Gran looked at the enormous gate in front of them.
“Do you have a key?” he asked.
Catalina looked at him. “Sort of. Follow me.”
She walked around to the dark side of the junkyard perimeter. Gran guessed that she planned to cut through the fence with clippers, and his stomach tightened thinking about being part of this. It couldn’t be legal. His mom, if she ever found out, would be disappointed. She would be devastated.