“Do they ask you about us?” she said. “When they take you off on your special walks? Do they ask after your family?”
He nodded. “They ask if you are all well.”
“And how we’re treating you?”
He hesitated. It seemed an odd question, and he sensed the snare wire sneaking around his ankle again. After a moment, he shook his head. “They only ask if you’re well and how I’m doing. How I like school and that.”
“They’re being careful,” she muttered under her breath. “But they still ask how he is. Checking up on him.”
“Gran?”
She tensed as he called her that. She always did these days and it was possible, just possible, that he used it more often because of that.
“You understand what honesty is, don’t you, boy?”
He nodded.
“And respect for your elders.”
It took him a half-second, but he nodded to this as well.
“Then you know you have to tell the truth when an adult asks you a question. You need to be honest, even if it might get someone in trouble. Always remember that.”
Whilehe liked all the elders in Cainsville, Mrs. Yates was his favorite, and he got the feeling he was hers, too. There had been a time when his grandmother had seemed almost jealous of her, when she would huff and sniff and say she thought Mrs. Yates was a very peculiar old woman. His parents had paid little attention—Gran had made it quite clear she thought everyone a little peculiar in Cainsville.
“There are no churches,” she’d say. And his mother would sigh and explain—once again—that the town had started off too small for churches and by the time it was large enough, there was no place to put them, the settlement being nestled in the fork of a river, with marshy ground on the only open side. People stillwentto church. Just somewhere else.
It was his mother whose family was from Cainsville. Gran only accompanied them because she didn’t like to be left out of family trips. She didn’t like the town and she certainly didn’t like Mrs. Yates. But that day, as she went off to visit his great-aunt, Gran sent him off with two dollars and a suggestion that he gosee what Mrs. Yates was up to. Just be back by four so they could make it home in time for Sunday dinner.
He went to the new diner first. That’s what everyone in Cainsville called it. The “new” diner, though it’d been there as long as he could remember. It still smelled new—the lemon-polished linoleum floors, the shiny red leather booths and even shinier chrome-plated chairs. The elders could often be found there, sipping tea by the windows as they watched the town go by. “Holding court,” his grandmother would sniff, saying they were watching for mischief and waiting for folks to come by and pay their respects, like they were lords and ladies. He didn’t see that at all. To him, they were simply there, in case anyone needed them.
Today, he found Mrs. Yates in her usual place. He thought she’d be surprised to see him, but she only smiled, her old face lighting up as she motioned him over.
“Mr. Shaw said he spotted your car coming into town,” she said. “But I scarce dared believe it. Did I hear the rest right, too? Your gran brought you?”
He nodded.
“Does she know you’re here?”
“She said I could come talk to you if I wanted.”
Then he got his look of surprise, a widening of her blue eyes. “Did she now?”
He nodded again, and he expected her to be pleased, but while her eyes stayed kind, they narrowed too, as she surveyed him.
“Is everything all right, Bobby?”
He nodded without hesitation. Gran thought she was clever in her plan, that he would tattle on her to Mrs. Yates without realizing that’s exactly what she wanted. He had no idea what she hoped to gain, but if Gran wanted it, he wasn’t doing it.
“Are you sure?” Mrs. Yates said, those bright eyes piercing his. “Nothing is amiss at home?”
He shrugged. “My sister’s annoying, but that’s old news.”
He thought she’d laugh, pat his arm and move on. That’s what other grown-ups would do. But Mrs. Yates was not like other grown-ups, which was probably why he liked her so much. She kept studying him until, finally, she squeezed his shoulder and said, “All right, Bobby. If that’s what you want. Now, do you have your list of gargoyles?”
He pulled the tattered notebook from his back pocket. He’d been working on it since he was old enough to write. Cainsville had gargoyles. Lots of them. For protection, the old people would say with a wink. Every year, as part of the May Day festival, children could show the elders their lists of all the gargoyles they’d located, and the winner would take a prize. If you found all of them, you’d get an actual gargoyle modeled after you. That hardly ever happened—there were only a few in town.
It sounded easy, finding all the gargoyles, and it should be, except many hid. There were ones you could only see in the day or at night or when the light hit a certain way or, sometimes, just by chance. He’d been compiling his list for almost four years and he only had half of them, but he’d still come in second place last year.
