Hidebehind

Two

For the first several hours, Penny and I quietly sat in our new room, unpacking (against my will) and lost in our own thoughts. We moved slowly, perhaps on purpose, because the sooner we finished, the sooner we'd have to go out and talk to the old woman we barely knew. I suppose neither of us wanted to see Grandpa, either—we knew him, at least, but we were uncertain if he would know us, and there was just something so weird about that.

Great Grandma came by once to ask us if we needed anything, any food or whatever. I told her we didn't. When she left, Penny said, "You didn't let me say if I needed something."

I answered, "Did you?"

And she said, "No."

Those were about the only words we spoke, until the second time Great Grandma came by; this time it was to tell us dinner was almost ready.

"Do you think school will be hard, here?" Penny asked me after we'd been left alone again.

I didn't know how to answer her. School wasn't really something on my mind. It was, in fact, the last thing I'd been thinking about. "Don't know, don't care."

She dropped the subject. "Did you see the jar on the patio?"

"No."

"The big old glass one full of those fat round bugs?"

I was annoyed not to know what she was talking about. "I told you I didn't."

Penny was going through a box of trinkets she'd had in her suitcase—earrings and hairbows and such. Lifting up and surveying a glittering headband, she advised, "You should go take a look. It's the strangest thing I've ever seen."

Stranger than those mannequins of mom and dad? I wanted to say, but I held back.

"I'm not scared to start school," Penny asserted somewhat triumphantly, again changing her train of thought. "I think it will be fun."

I could imagine that school for an eight-year-old really wouldn't be so bad, but I definitely wasn't looking forward to meeting a bunch of eighth-graders I didn't know and didn't want to know. If the school was anything like my last middle school, though, there'd be so many kids that I would be able to blend in and disappear into the walls.

"It's very pretty here," my sister rambled on. "Did you know this whole land is Great Grandma's? She told me when she helped me bring in my suitcase."

"Not the whole land."

"That's what she told me. She said everything was her farm, but she doesn't have animals anymore."

There was no use arguing with Penny. I just started to tune her out. I knew that Great Grandma had used to have a big old farm out here. A lot of the place still looked like a farm. We'd seen a big barn and fences and a henhouse and one of those big towers where people keep grain. Penny was right about one thing, though—there were no longer farm animals. The farm was not in use anymore. I remembered our mother once telling us that she'd come to this farm as a little girl and collected eggs from the henhouse. There weren't hens anymore. Just a couple of mangy dogs, some dinosaur old people, and, now, two kids.

"I think she wants us to come, now," Penny said.

I realized she was talking about Great Grandma, who was calling something from the interior of the house. I had lost track of time and my sister's conversation.

The two of us left the room; I followed Penny. She was braver than me, because she was younger. I didn't want to go. I had never wanted to come here in the first place.

It was then, at that first meal, that I saw Grandpa again. He was seated at the dining table, staring down at his empty plate, not moving or expressing any sort of emotion. He didn't look that old, really, but he looked sad. Just sad.

Penny sat down next to Grandpa. I sat across. He didn't even look up at us.

"Grandpa, we haven't seen you in a long time," my sister tried. She put a hand on his shoulder. "I'm Penny. I'm your granddaughter."

Grandpa didn't look at her but smiled when she'd touched his shoulder.

I said nothing.

"Are the two of you settling in?" Great Grandma asked, rounding the corner of the kitchen with a steaming plate of roast beef in her hands.

"Yes, thank you," said Penny, and I was glad to have her there.

Great Grandma wasn't going to let me avoid her prodding. "And you, Robbie? You too? Getting all your things unpacked?"

I was disgruntled. "Not Robbie," was what I said, knowing that I sounded ungrateful. "It's Robert."

The comment seemed to have shocked Great Grandma. She paused with the platter halfway to the table and stared at me. Penny stared, too. Grandpa was the only one who didn't seem offended.

"Yes," I tried again. "I'm unpacked. Thank you."

That appeased my Great Grandma. She placed the roast beef on the table and went back to the kitchen to get something else, saying, "Come on, Penelope. You can help me get the biscuits and jam."

Penny hopped out of her seat and followed my Great Grandma. I was left with Grandpa, feeling bad for snapping.

It was then that Grandpa spoke.

At least, I thought he'd spoken, so I turned in his direction. He was still looking down into his lap, but his hands were up and on the table. Had he actually said something? Yes, and he was saying something again. It creeped me out. He was mumbling . . . mumbling something I couldn't quite make out.

I suddenly wondered if he needed help. What was I supposed to do? This was not the Grandpa I used to know. "Are you ok, Grandpa? Can I get you something?"

He didn't move, just kept mumbling. And then I thought I was beginning to understand him. "It will . . . It'll get you. Hide behind you. It'll get you."

At first, I wasn't sure I was hearing him right, but when he kept repeating himself, I realized that I just wasn't making sense of his words—he was saying something would get me. Or a person. Maybe not me specifically. But something was going to get someone. Hide behind someone. Get someone. And as I figured out what he was saying, I began to feel really, really creeped out. A sort of empty feeling began to form in my stomach. Was he really saying that? What was going to get someone? Who hid? It made no sense, and because it made no sense it freaked me out. This was not my Grandpa. This old creepy man was not someone I knew.

Great Grandma and Penny rounded the corner, sharing a quiet conversation, and Grandpa stopped muttering. My sister clanked a jar of jelly down on the table, startling me.

"Are you ok, Robert?" she asked, looking at me strangely.

Now, I wasn't sure what I'd heard. Grandpa wasn't saying anything anymore. In fact, he looked up at the biscuits and grinned, resembling the genial old man I'd used to know him as. Making a split-second decision not to say anything (after all, I'd already started off poorly), I told her I was fine and concentrated on eating dinner.