“Ah, perfect.” She turns to Eli. Their faces are only a few inches apart, hers tilted up and his tilted down, and even though they’re pretty much just standing there, it feels sweet and intimate and, I don’t know,nicein a way that makes it feel like something deep inside is clawing to escape. “Please stop teaching kids to make weapons. People keep coming up and tellingmeabout it, like I could possibly stop you, and it’s really cramping my style.”
“Don’t they know anything?” he asks. I realize he’s got a hand on the small of her back. I scrunch my toes in my shoes.
“Clearly not about you, if they think I can intervene. Stop creating problems,” she says, and then kisses him on the cheek. “Great meeting you! I love your hair, by the way,” she tells me, and I call out “Thanks!” as she walks over to Javier and starts talking.
“So, right,” Eli says, and I tear my eyes off of Javier and try to remember what we were talking about. “Brian Hendricks thought he could stand downriver with a fishing line attached to his duck, pull it along, and no one would get suspicious.”
By later that afternoon,it’s started snowing. It looks like it’s snowing kind of a lot, actually, though it’s not like I’m a snow expert. Virginia Beach gets snow sometimes, yes, but we don’t really get major snow. We getstay home for thirty-six hours until it goes away againsnow, which usually got me out of school, but it wasn’tbig dealsnow.
But this is like…a lot of snow? It’s all over the ground and everything, including the driveway, which seems like something someone should worry about.
No one does, as far as I can tell, but then I hear small footsteps thumping up the attic stairs and I scoot under the desk where I’m hiding, making myself as small as possible.
“Is anyone in heeeeeeere?” Thomas shouts, because he’s the kind of kid who likes to narrate his seeking loudly. Luckily it’s adorable. The light’s already on, so he barges in and stomps over to the wardrobe against the far wall. Besides that, the attic’s got a bed and a desk and also an impressive collection of boxes, like someone could sleep up here if they wanted to, but it’s probably a last resort. “In here? Noooo,” the kid goes on. I think he’s three, but I wouldn’t swear to it. “In here? Noooooooo.HMMM.”
In a very cute lapse in spatial reasoning, he checks the drawers in the wardrobe. Next, he rips the blanket off the bed and looks under it, as if I could be perfectly flat.
Finally, he sighs to himself, loudly says “No one’s here!” turns, sees me, and screams.
“Sorry!” I yelp and try to stand so fast I bang my head. “Ow.”
“You scared me.” This poor kid looks like he’s about to cry. Shit.
“I know, I know—I’m sorry,” I say, still sitting on the floor, and I half reach out to this kid I don’t really know just in case a hug would be comforting. “I didn’t mean to.”
He frowns and his lip wobbles for another moment, but then he frowns, his eyes narrowing.
“You were under the desk?”
“Yeah. Good spot, huh?”
He nods, clearly bookmarking it for later use.
“Was I the last one? Should we go back down?”
“Yeah.” He runs toward the stairs. “I already found my dad. He was behind the stairs, which was really easy. Caleb tried to hide behind a curtain but I found him right away, and that other guy was in a closet but that waseasy, and Grandma’s friend was…”
The kid goes around a corner and I can’t really hear him anymore, which is too bad because I could use some hints on hiding places.
I’m apparently very slow because by the time I get downstairs, he’s already counted up to twelve, face smushed into a corner of the couch while various adults chat nearby.
Am I a grown-up who could easily opt out of this game if I wanted to? Yes. But instead, do I panic a little and then scamper downstairs because we’replayingagameand I need to win or at least make a respectable showing? Also yes.
At the bottom of the stairs, there’s a door that turns out to have a coat closet behind it, and just as I pull it open Thomas shouts “READYORNOTHEREICOME!” and wow, I’m bad at this game.
“Shut the door,” Javier’s voice says from behind the coats. I jump a mile in the air but, to my credit, don’t scream.
“Sorry,” I hiss as tiny steps run toward the stairs. “Do you know where?—”
“There’s room in here. Just close the door, for the love of god,” he hisses. So I lurch forward into a face-full of coats, close the door behind myself, and flail vaguely downward until Javier’s hands find mine and guide me.
“It’s really dark in here,” I whisper, settling in and removing—a shoe?—from underneath me.
“Well,” he says, and he has a point.
“Does anyone else ever get to do the seeking?” I ask in a whisper. “Or just Thomas?”
“When it’s just him and adults, I think Thomas does all the seeking,” he whispers back. “Hiding is a lot easier. You just sit here in the dark and wait while he expends energy.”
