Hidebehind

Six

The next couple of days were pretty boring. I tried to avoid Grandpa and Great Grandma as much as possible, staying mostly in my and Penny's bedroom or wandering around outside. I actually thought Jay might show up again, but he didn't. Even though I hadn't wanted to see him outside the store, I was pretty bored at Great Grandma's and would have welcomed his company. I had had a little bit of fun exploring with him the day after I got there. But he didn't come back, and I didn't want to ask Penny to explore with me, because she'd just nag me about snakes and stuff. So that pretty much left me to wander the patio. Lucky for me, Great Grandma dug up some old books she had, so I spent some hours reading dusty, falling-apart copies of The Swiss Family Robinson and Tom Sawyer.

I kept wondering when the hoax would be over. I never really believed I'd be starting up school or staying here for good. The whole time I sat out on the patio reading, I was waiting for a cab to drive up and take us home, or for some stranger in a black car to come and tell me and Penny the secret that my parents were really alive and well and had just had to pretend to be gone for some reason, like a witness protection program or something. Each day that went by, I believed even more—not less—that it was all a colossal joke.

One late afternoon, about two weeks after we'd first arrived, it rained really hard. I couldn't go outside, and Penny had sort of taken over the entire bedroom to make it into a huge house for her paper dolls. The fancy room was too creepy for me to be in by myself, so that left the front room, where I'd played Battleship with Grandpa several days before. I'd scrounged up an old coloring book and some markers, and even though I wouldn't be caught dead coloring in front of my friends back home, I was bored enough to do it in front of nobody.

So there I was, sitting at the coffee table, coloring a picture of a dinosaur or two, when I heard Great Grandma's raised voice coming from the direction of her bedroom. I don't know if it was because I'd never heard her voice raised at someone besides me or because I was just so incredibly bored, but I was curious to know what she was saying. So I slid off the couch and inched quietly through the kitchen and toward the wing where her room was. It didn't take me long to figure out she was talking to my Grandpa.

"Knock off that nonsense, Thomas! You are not allowed out of this house—not after you and the Franklin boy tore up the school track in his father's truck. I have told you a hundred times that you're grounded. So I don't want to see you packing up a bag to run off with. There will be no sneaking out. Not tonight. Now you stay here in this room or there will be no supper for you, understand?"

My mouth must have been hanging wide open, because all of a sudden it felt dried out and I shut it to get my spit moving again. Why was she talking to him like he was a teenager? I felt embarrassed.

Some shuffling noises told me Great Grandma was on the move, and just in time I scooted around the refrigerator and hid as she sauntered in. She was a big woman, and I watched her hulking shadow move away from me into the front room before I would even breathe again. I didn't know why I was afraid of her right then; I just was.

"Penny! Robbie?" she called from the front room. "I'm going out to the grocery store! You want to come with me?"

How could I answer her? Any response would give my location away. Fortunately, Penny popped out of our bedroom and said, "Sure, Great Grandma, I'll go!"

"All right. Go ahead and get your rain jacket and boots. It's pouring out there."

"Ok."

Great Grandma stopped her. "Does your brother want to go?"

"Nah, probably not," Penny replied, much to my relief. "He's being a crab-apple."

Normally, I would've been peeved to have my little sister speaking for me, but right then, I was grateful. The two of them bustled about for a few minutes, putting on their rain gear, I assumed, and then I heard the front door open and close and the screen door squeal shut. I waited a couple of minutes, just to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything and weren't going to come back in, but after I was certain they had gone, I stepped out from behind the refrigerator and ran smack into my Grandpa. I jumped about a foot in the air, he startled me so much.