Episode 2 - Home Alone in Bay Village

Survive!

Transcript

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Chapter one Surprise. The doorbell rang at 417 on a Saturday afternoon and nobody moved. Pierce was on the couch with his controller. Henry was on the floor with a beef stick. Duane was at the kitchen table with his notebook and three different colors of pen. Bear was doing something in the backyard that involved a golf club and a paper cup he'd set up as a hole. The doorbell rang again. Someone get that, Pierce said, not looking up. I'm busy, Henry said. He was not busy, he was just sitting there. The door opened on its own well, not on its own, but with a key. And then a voice said Boo. And that voice was followed immediately by two more voices saying the same thing, and then there was a general explosion of sound and motion in the front hallway. Pierce dropped his controller. Standing in the doorway, grinning like they'd won something, were two girls he hadn't seen since Christmas. Jane was twelve, tall, dirty blonde hair pulled back, wearing a volleyball hoodie and the expression of someone who had just pulled off exactly the move she planned to pull off. Behind her was Molly, ten, dark haired, carrying a tote bag with what appeared to be a ball of yellow yarn sticking out of the top. Jane Bear came sprinting in from the backyard, still holding the golf club, and launched himself at his older sister. Jane caught him, barely, and staggered backward. Easy Bear, you're going to break something. I'm fast, Bear announced as you were always fast. Jane set him down and looked around the room. Hi, Pierce, hi Duane, hi Henry. Please tell me that's not your fourth beef stick today. Henry looked at the beef stick. He looked at Jane. It's my third. Molly came in behind Jane and immediately spotted the chaos of the living room. Controllers on the floor, shoes in the middle of the carpet, a juice box tipped on the coffee table. Her expression was kind, but accurate. Did anyone clean anything today? Silence. Okay, Molly said, setting down her bag. I'll make queso. That was when Pierce's mom and dad appeared at the top of the stairs, already dressed up, already smiling, already holding overnight bags. Pierce looked at the bags. He looked at his parents. He looked at Jane. Wait, he said. His dad grinned. Surprise on the surprise. Jane and Molly are in charge tonight. We'll be back tomorrow morning. His mom blew a kiss. Jane has our number. Everyone be good. Don't burn the house down. And just like that, thirty seconds later, the door closed, and the car pulled out of the driveway. And there were six kids in a house in Bay Village, Ohio, with no parents, and the entire night ahead of them. Jane surveyed the room with the calm authority of someone who had absolutely been waiting for this moment. Alright, she said. Here are the rules. My rules. First, we have fun. Second, nobody gets hurt. Third, Duane, whatever you're planning to build, run it by me first. Duane looked up from his notebook. How did you know I was planning to build something? You have three pens out, and you're smiling at a blank page. That's a building something face. Duane considered this fair. Chapter 2. Queso in a Creek. Molly made queso from scratch. This was not a small thing. She moved through the kitchen with the focused confidence of someone who had done this a hundred times. Shredded cheese, green cheels, a splash of milk, the right pan, the right heat. Within twenty minutes the whole house smelled incredible. And everyone had found their way to the kitchen without being asked. Henry stood at the counter, watching the cheese melt with an expression usually reserved for major sporting events. Is it done? Not yet. Is it done now? Henry. What if I just try a small Henry? He retreated. But only about eighteen inches. Jane was at the kitchen table with Bear, already deep in a competitive argument about whether Rory McElroy was the greatest athlete alive. Bear said obviously yes. Jane said she could name fifteen better athletes. Bear said name them. Jane started naming them. Bear disputed each one with statistics. Duane sat in the corner, sketching something in his notebook. Pierce leaned over his shoulder. What is that? Floor plan of the house. Duane tapped the page. I was thinking while we're here with no parents, we could set up some traps, Pierce said. I was going to say security improvements. You were going to say traps. I was going to say traps. Duane confirmed. Pierce was about to say something else when he heard it. A sound from outside. Not the wind, not a car. Something else. A slow creak from the side of the house like someone stepping on the wooden deck boards, one careful foot at a time. He held up a hand. Everyone went quiet. Even Henry stopped staring at the queso. They listened. Nothing, just the neighborhood. A dog somewhere. A car passing. Pierce lowered his hand. Probably nothing. But Duane was already turning to a fresh page in his notebook. And the look on his face was not a probably nothing look. It was a we should prepare look. Outside in the gathering dark, a shadow moved along the side fence and disappeared. Chapter three. Victor Malone, Big Vic, was six feet two inches of bad decisions. He had a square jaw, a long dark coat, and the permanent expression of someone who had not found anything funny in several years. He cased houses for a living, he was good at it, he was patient, he was precise. Fingers was none of those things. Fingers was five foot four, narrow as a coat rack, and wore a bright yellow beanie hat that Big Vic had told him seventeen times to take off because it was visible from space. It's cold, Fingers said, for the seventeenth time. It's fifty two degrees. That's cold to me. They were crouched behind the hedges at the side of the Jaderson house watching the windows. Big Vic had been scoping this street for two weeks. Nice houses, good neighborhood. Parents gone for the night. He'd watched the car leave, the bags in the back, the wife waving from the window. Perfect. What he had not accounted for was the light still being on in every single room. There are kids in there, Finger said. I can see that. A lot of kids. I can count. Big Vic. That one kid in the window is drawing something. What's he drawing? Big Vic squinted. Through the kitchen window, a skinny kid with glasses was bent over a notebook scribbling intently. Doesn't matter. It looks like a floor plan. Kids draw all kinds of things. Big Vic? We wait until they're asleep. Big Vic said firmly. We go in quiet. We're out in ten minutes. Nothing to it. He pulled his collar up and settled in. Fingers pulled his yellow beanie down over his ears and looked at the house. In the upstairs window, the kid with the notebook looked up, looked directly at the hedges for a long moment, and then wrote something down. Fingers had a bad feeling about this. He usually ignored his bad feelings. He was starting to think that was a mistake. Chapter 4, Operation Fort House. Duane called it Operation Fort House. Nobody voted on the name. He just wrote it at the top of the page in capital letters and underlined it twice, and somehow that made it official. They were all around the kitchen table now, queso in the center, chips on both sides, Jane's phone playing Taylor Swift at a reasonable volume. Jane had negotiated this, Duane had accepted as a condition of getting full cooperation. I saw someone behind the hedges, Duane said, tapping his pencil on the floor plan. Left side of the house near the fence. They were there for at least three minutes. Maybe it was a neighbor, Molly said, and neighbors don't crouch. A pause. Everyone thought about this. Okay, Jane said, and her voice had shifted. The sassy confidence was still there, but underneath it was something sharper, more focused. She was twelve going on 35. Assume it's a problem. What do we do? Duane spread his notebook on the table. I've identified six entry points. Front door, back door, side door by the garage, three windows on the ground floor. We can't cover all of them with people. But we can make all of them unpleasant. Unpleasant how? Pierce asked. Duane smiled the specific smile he reserved for engineering moments. I need to see what's in the garage. Jane pointed at Pierce. You go with him. I want someone with sense present at all times when Duane is near tools. That's actually very reasonable, Duane said. Bear raised his hand. What do I do? You're fast, Jane said. You're our early warning system. I want you watching the front windows. You see anything move, you come tell me immediately. Bear's eyes lit up. This was, in his mind, the most athletic assignment possible. He was already moving toward the front room. Henry, Jane said. Henry looked up from the queso. You're with Molly and me. We're going to make it look like adults are home. Henry considered this. How? Jane smiled. Shadow puppets, loud voices, and your absolute gift for making noise. Henry stood up straight. This was the role he was born to play. Duane picked up his notebook. Garage, now, we have maybe two hours before they try something. Chapter 5. The Garage of Wonders. The Garage was, in Duane's professional opinion, magnificent. Not because it was neat. It wasn't. It was the organized chaos of a family that actually used their garage, but because of what was in it. A coil of garden hose, three bags of marbles from a game nobody had played in years, a skateboard with one wheel missing, two cans of WD forty, Christmas lights still in their box, fishing wire thin and nearly invisible, a tub of sidewalk chalk, an old air horn from a boat trip, a stepladder, four paint buckets empty. Pierce watched Duane walk the perimeter of the garage with the reverence of a chef entering a very good kitchen. Okay, Duane said. Here's what I'm thinking. He thought out loud for the next seven minutes without stopping. Pierce listened, asked three clarifying questions, and by the end was looking at the garage the same way Duane was. The fishing wire across the back steps will be invisible in the dark, Duane said. Attach it to the paint bucket stacked on the railing, and anyone who trips it gets a paint bucket avalanche. No paint in them, so no mess, just loud. Loud is good, Pierce said. The marbles on the side path, classic, almost embarrassingly simple but effective. Nobody expects marbles, nobody. What about the side door? Duane held up the garden hose. Hooked to the outdoor faucet, coiled on the top step, nozzle pointed inward at the door. If the door opens, it pulls the coil, which pulls the trigger. Pierce stared at him. You thought of that in four minutes. I thought of it in two. The other two were logistics. They worked for forty-five minutes. Duane designed, Pierce built. The fishing wire went up. The marble field went down on the side path, carefully positioned, so anyone walking would hit them. The hose trap took fifteen minutes, and some creative nodding that Duane had learned, and probably from a YouTube video, about sailing. The air horn was the last piece. Duane tied it to the inside of the front door handle with fishing wire angled so that if the handle turned more than halfway the horn would sound. He stepped back and looked at his work. There is one flaw, Pierce said. I know. If one of us forgets and opens the front door, I know. I'll brief everyone. Duane. Henry opens that door and gets air horned in the face. I said I'll brief everyone, Duane said, with slightly less confidence than before. Chapter six. Meanwhile, outside. Big Vic had been crouching behind a hedge for two hours, and his knees were informing him of this fact in significant detail. Fingers next to him had eaten a granola bar, a bag of chips, and what appeared to be a small sandwich he had produced from his coat pocket. Big Vic had not asked about the sandwich. Some things were better left unexplored. The lights keep moving, Fingers said. He was right about that. Through the windows shadows moved past, back and forth up the stairs down again. For the last twenty minutes there had been what sounded like a very loud, animated conversation happening inside, including occasional bursts of laughter, and at least one voice doing what appeared to be an impression of a sports announcer. They're still awake, Fingers observed. Obviously. It's 9 30. I can read a watch. Big Vic, these are children. Children go to sleep. They'll go to sleep. What if they don't? Big Vic turned his square jaw toward Fingers with the slow patience of a man who had spent many years tolerating many things. Fingers. Do you want to split the take from this house or not? Obviously I want Then we wait. Fingers tugged his yellow beanie down. Fine. They waited. At 10.15 the downstairs lights went off. At 10.30, the upstairs lights went off. By 1045, the house was dark and quiet. Big Vic stood up, his knees protesting loudly. He straightened his coat. He looked at the house with professional calm. Side door, he said quietly. You first. Fingers looked at the house. The house looked back at him, dark and silent. Why me first? He whispered. Because you're smaller. That's not a reason. Fingers. Fingers sighed, pulled his beanie down one more time, and started toward the side of the house. He did not see the marbles. Chapter seven Marbles. They heard it from upstairs. All six of them were in Pierce's room, not asleep, very much not asleep, lying in the dark and sleeping bags and on the floor with the lights off and their ears on full alert. Jane had her phone face down. Molly had her knitting in her lap but wasn't knitting. Bear was by the window which faced the side yard, his nose practically pressed to the glass. The sound came at ten fifty two. A sudden, spectacular clatter of small objects on the stone path, followed immediately by a man's voice saying something that was very clearly a bad word, and then a thud, and then a second thud, and then what could only be described as a person rolling. Bear spun around from the window. His eyes were enormous. He pointed outside. Pierce was already up. Marbles, Henry whispered, with the hushed reverence of a sports commentator watching a crucial play. The marbles worked. Quiet, Jane said, but she was grinning. From outside came scuffling sounds, then a second voice, lower, more irritated, and what sounded like a hissed argument happening in the dark. Bear pressed his face back to the glass. There are two of them. One of them is on the ground, the other one is standing over him. Oh oh, the standing one slipped a little too. He grabbed the fence. He paused. He's very annoyed. Can they see us? Molly asked. The lights off. We're invisible. Duane was on his knees at the other side of the window, watching. He pulled out a small pen light and shielded it, checked his notebook. They'll try the side door next. That's the logical move after the path doesn't work. How long do we have? Pierce asked. Sixty seconds. Maybe ninety. Jane stood up. She was twelve years old, and in this moment she looked considerably older. Positions, she said quietly. Everyone knows where to be. Go. Chapter eight. The hose. Fingers had never been so embarrassed in his professional career, which was saying something because he had once gotten his coat caught in a revolving door during a getaway. His right knee hurt, his left elbow hurt. His dignity was somewhere back on the marble path. And he was not going to retrieve it. He limped toward the side door with Big Vic close behind him, both of them moving carefully now, testing each step. Side door, Big Vic murmured, slow, quiet. Fingers reached the door. He tried the handle. Locked, expected. He reached into his coat for his kit. Two minutes of careful work, and the lock gave. He turned the handle slowly, slowly, and eased the door open an inch. The hose hit him in the face. Duane had estimated the water pressure at approximately medium high, which was enough to produce a solid, continuous stream from a nozzle at close range. The door opening pulled the coiled hose taut, which yanked the nozzle into firing position, which directed approximately thirty five degrees of cold garden hose water directly at whoever was opening the door. That was Fingers. He leapt backward with a sound that was less a word and more a frequency, crashed into Big Vic, and both of them went down in the dark side yard in a tangle of coat and yellow beanie and general soaking wetness. The hose continued to spray cheerfully into the night. Upstairs, Pierce's room erupted in absolutely silent laughter. The kind where everyone has their hand over their mouth and is shaking but making no sound, because making sound would ruin everything. Henry was lying completely flat, face in his sleeping bag, vibrating. Bear had tears streaming down his face, he was keeping score in his head. Marbles one, hose two, bad guys zero. Duane, remarkably calm, was already turning to the next page of his notebook. They'll try the front now, he said quietly. They're frustrated. Frustrated people make less careful decisions. Jane wiped her eyes and straightened up. Henry. Henry surfaced from the sleeping bag. Yeah? You're up. Chapter 9. Henry's Moment. Here's the thing about Henry Jaderston. He was born for exactly this. Not the danger part, not the strategy part, but the loud, ridiculous, keep everyone confused part. That was his natural habitat. That was where he lived. The plan was simple. Make the house sound occupied by adults. Jane had coached him for all of four minutes, which was about three minutes and fifty seconds more than he needed. Henry went to the top of the stairs. He waited for Duane's signal. A single tap on the wall. Tap. Henry took a breath. Then, in the deepest voice he could produce, which was surprisingly deep for an eight-year-old who primarily squeaked, Margaret, I told you the alarm is on. Anyone comes near this house and they'll regret it. I've already called Frank at the station, and he's sending someone around. From downstairs, Molly, coached, ready, called back in a mom voice so accurate it briefly confused Pierce. I know, dear. I already talked to Frank. He's on his way. A pause. Henry warming up. Good, good. Frank's a good man. Molly, he is. Do you want more queso? Yes, I do want more queso. Jane had her face buried in a pillow. Bear was on his back on the floor, staring at the ceiling, silently losing his mind. Even Duane had stopped writing and was just smiling. Pierce crept to the front window and looked out. Two figures were frozen at the foot of the front path. One tall, one small with a yellow hat. They were very still. The tall one turned to the small one. The small one appeared to be whispering something urgent. The tall one put his hand up like stopped talking. They stood there for a full minute. Then, Margaret, I'm going to walk the perimeter just to be safe. Molly, be careful, dear. I will. I have the flashlight. Pierce watched as the two figures below looked at each other, looked at the house, and then very quietly stepped back toward the street. Henry came padding down the hall, grinning from ear to ear. Did it work? Pierce watched the figures stop at the sidewalk, consult each other, and then slowly, reluctantly, retreat farther. Yeah, Pierce said, but they didn't leave. They're just regrouping. Chapter 10. The Airhorn. They came back at midnight. This time it was just Big Vic at the front door, and he was not messing around. No more side roots, no more careful patience. He'd watched the house go quiet, watched the upstairs go dark again, and decided that the adult voices were a bluff. He'd heard a kid's voice in there. He was sure of it. His kit made short work of the front door lock. He turned the handle. The air horn was the loudest thing any of them had ever heard inside a house. It was designed for boats, which meant it was designed to be heard across open water at a distance of a mile. In a quiet residential hallway at midnight the effect was something beyond sound. It was physical. A wall of noise that hit Big Vic like a wave and sent him stumbling backward off the front step, his hands over his ears, his professional composure completely gone. Every dog in a three block radius began barking. A light came on in the house next door. Fingers, still on the sidewalk and still slightly damp from the hose, watched Big Vic tumble off the front step and said nothing. He had said everything he had to say, back behind those hedges two hours ago, and nobody had listened. He helped Big Vic up. Big Vic straightened his coat. His ears were ringing. His expression had moved past professional and through annoyed and arrived somewhere in the vicinity of unsettled. There's a kid in that house, Fingers said quietly. Who built all of this? Marbles, hose, air horn. He's got a notebook, Big Vic. He's been planning. Big Vic said nothing. I saw the notebook, Fingers continued. Through the window hours ago, he was drawing a floor plan of this house to use against us. He paused. I think he knew we were coming. The house was quiet now. The air horn had gone silent. But lights were on in two neighboring houses, and somewhere, not far away, a car turned onto the street. Big Vic looked at the house one more time. Then he turned and walked away. We're done here. Fingers followed, shaking his wet sleeve. I told you about the notebook. Chapter 11, The Long Night. They didn't celebrate, not right away. Jane made everyone stay in position for another 30 minutes, watching every window, every door, the street outside. She was calm and precise about it. No gloating, no relaxing, no assuming. Pierce respected this more than he would have expected to. Bear was practically vibrating with the need to celebrate, but accepted the 30-minute rule. He channeled it into whispered narration of the night's events. And then fingers hits the marbles, and it's a total wipeout, and the score is kids four, burglar zero. Until Jane told him to stop. Henry fell asleep at approximately the seventeen minute mark sitting upright against the wall with a beef stick in his hand. Nobody disturbed him, he had earned this. Molly sat next to Jane on the floor and they leaned against each other, which was for Jane and Molly a significant moment of peace. They argued the way only sisters can argue fast and sharp and over before it starts, but this tonight had reminded them of the other thing they were good at, being a team. Good call on the queso, Jane said quietly. Good call on the whole thing, Molly said. At twelve forty seven, Jane declared the house clear. Everyone exhaled. Then they did celebrate, quietly, with chips and the rest of the queso, and one last beef stick for Henry, who woke up at the sound of the bag opening with the instincts of a hunting dog. Duane sat at the kitchen table and wrote a full debrief in his notebook. Entry points tested, traps deployed, results, what worked, what could be improved. He gave the knight an 8.5 out of ten. What would make it a ten? Pierce asked. Duane considered. Better coverage on the back door. I didn't have time to get to it. If they'd been smarter, they would have tried that first. They weren't that smart. One of them was Duane said, his expression thoughtful. The tall one. He figured out the voice thing eventually. He'll remember that. Pierce looked at him. You think they'll come back? Duane tapped his pen on the notebook. Not tonight. Maybe not this week, but the tall one is patient. I could tell from watching him. He paused. He'll be more prepared next time. The kitchen was quiet. Outside Bay Village was still and dark and peaceful. Then so will we, Pierce said. Chapter twelve. Morning. Pierce's parents came home at 9 15 the next morning, the car pulling into the driveway in the cheerful Sunday light. They found the following six children, all present and accounted for, sitting around the kitchen table eating cereal. The house was reasonably clean. There was a faint smell of queso, and, for reasons nobody fully explained, the side door was slightly damp. The front door, for reasons also not explained, had a small hook on the inside handle that had not been there before. How was everything? Pierce's mom asked, setting down her bag. Good, said Pierce. Fine, said Jane. I had beef sticks, said Henry. The queso was excellent, said Molly. Bear held up an imaginary scorecard. Four stars. Duane said nothing. He was writing in his notebook. Pierce's dad looked at the hook on the front door handle, he looked at the kitchen. He looked at his son with the expression of a father who suspects something happened, and is doing the math. He did not ask. Some things were better left as they were. Good, he said, glad everyone had a good time. After breakfast in the backyard, Pierce stood with Duane and Bear and Henry while Jane and Molly argued cheerfully inside about something involving a Taylor Swift song, and whose version of events was correct. Bear was already swinging a golf club. Henry had a beef stick. Duane had his notebook. Book it for the record, Bear said. Kids four, bad guys zero. That's not how records work, Duane said. It is now. Pierce looked out past the backyard fence toward the tree line, toward the creek glinting in the morning light. He thought about the compass in Duane's bag, the iron key on his dresser, the stone map with its three more doors, downstream and waiting. He thought about the tall man in the dark coat, walking away, patient, already planning. He thought about what Duane had said, next time, more prepared. Both of them, he picked up his water bottle. All right, who wants to go to the creek? Henry raised his beef stick. Bear was already running for the gate. Duane clicked his pen and tucked his notebook under his arm. The morning was bright and warm, and the summer was still almost entirely in front of them. Somewhere downstream, three doors waited. And somewhere in Bay Village a man in a dark coat looked at his notes and thought about a kid with a notebook and a floor plan and a garage full of supplies. He was patient. He could wait. End of book two.