Bigger than a Bread Box (20 page)

“No, it doesn’t sound crazy to me,” I said through the crack. I tried to make my voice sound as kind as I could. “It doesn’t sound crazy at all.”

Miss Adda kept talking. “Have you ever lost someone you loved?” she asked me.

“I have,” I said. For a moment I could smell my father in the dark stairwell, the smoke on his shirt, though it was probably just the lingering smoke from the cab on my own clothes. “I have.” I knew it wasn’t what Miss Adda meant, but it felt true.

“I’m so alone,” said Miss Adda. “And it’s so hard. Waking up each day. Knowing that I’ll never see him again in this world. That all the things I never said to him are inside me, waiting, and they will just have to live there forever, unsaid. Thinking of all the things we can never do again together. The cup of coffee I’ll never bring him. The umbrella he’ll never hold over my head in the rain.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. I didn’t know what else to say.

“I am too,” came the sad voice from the other side of the door. “I am too.”

Then Miss Adda got lost in her memories, I guess, the coffee and the rain, because she started to cry again. Her weeping got fainter and fainter. I could tell she was walking away. I heard her shuffling again in the shards of china.

“Miss Adda?” I called out, panicked. “Hello? Are you still there?”

It was too late. She didn’t answer me this time. Maybe because she didn’t hear me, or maybe because she was drowning in the past, lost in her memories.

I stood there in the dark at the top of the stairs, waiting. Then I realized there was nothing to wait for, and I started to yell. “HELLLLLLLLLP!” I called out as loud as I could. “HELLLLLLLLLLLLP! Please, let me out!” But as loud as I was, nobody came.

Finally my voice got hoarse and I gave up on Miss Adda. I made my way back down the stairs to where I’d felt the wrench hanging on the wall and I took it down. Then I went back to the door and began to hit at the old wood near the dead bolt, right at the crack where the door met the frame. At first I was tapping more than pounding. The wrench was so heavy I was almost afraid I might throw my weight too far back and fall down the stairs again. But the more I tapped, the more confident I got, until I was really banging at that door. I could feel splinters and flakes of paint chipping. I could feel the door heaving. Small bits of wood began to fall to the ground. At some point I realized that I
would
eventually break through, unless Miss Adda got sick of hearing me bang and let me out.

I thought about everything that had happened.
BANG!
About the bread box and the spoon.
BANG!
About my dad.
BANG!
About my mom. I thought about what I’d say to
Mom and to Dad, about the things I wasn’t mad about anymore and the things I still was.

I started to get hungry, so then I thought about how I wanted a hamburger.
BANG!
It must be dinnertime by now.
BANG!
I thought about making my hamburger a cheeseburger.

I wondered how long I’d been gone. I wondered what my mom was doing.
BANG!
Maybe she was still mad enough that she didn’t care.
BANG! BANG!

I was banging so hard I didn’t hear what was happening on the other side of the door. Suddenly the door flew open.

Light flooded into my eyes, and I squinted in the bright glare, my wrench raised. I almost pounded into the chest of a very tall man in a police uniform. He stared down at me in surprise as I dropped my wrench. We studied each other in silence as the tool thumped down the basement steps behind me.

“Who are
you
?” the policeman asked. His teeth were very white in his dark face, even in the shadow of the basement stairwell, and his voice was gentle.

Behind him, another officer, a woman with a blond ponytail, was struggling to walk Miss Adda away. Miss Adda was crying.

I looked back up at the cop in front of me, confused.

“Who are you?” he asked again.

Still I didn’t answer.

“You okay?” he asked kindly.

Then I started to cry. I couldn’t help it. I didn’t even try to help it, not this time. I just fell apart. He was so big and strong-looking. I was, well, a kid who’d fallen down half a flight of stairs and then been locked in a strange basement. I lost it.

The policeman seemed to take everything in—my bloody nose, my messy hair, my tears—and he leaned forward and scooped me up, as easily as if I were Lew, and carried me out of that awful house in his big arms, through the green kitchen and the gross hallway, past Miss Adda arguing with the other officer on the front steps. I remember his badge scratching my arm. I closed my eyes and let myself be carried.

The policeman set me down on the sidewalk, next to his squad car, a little ways from the house. The sunlight was almost gone. It was cold outside, and I’d left my jacket in the kitchen, but it felt good, all that cold, fresh air. I sucked it in and looked around. The officer who’d carried me out was hunting around in the car for something, so I just waited.

Behind me, I could hear the policewoman wrestling Miss Adda away, through the yard and down the street. I didn’t want to see Miss Adda, so I didn’t turn around until she really started yelling. Then I looked down the block and saw the policewoman was trying to get her into another squad car.

Everything was happening very fast, too fast. I watched Miss Adda, in her blue dress and soggy slippers, slap at the officer. She looked different outside her house. She looked worse somehow, more crazy. Her bun had come loose, and her hair looked like the fake spiderwebs people decorate with on Halloween.

It was my fault, this mess, whatever was happening to Miss Adda. None of this would be happening if I hadn’t come here and scared her. I noticed her skinny legs sticking out of the car door after the rest of her was pushed inside. I could hear her manic voice, from a distance, yelling, “No! No!
She’s
the one. Take her. She took my spoon! With her magic! My spooooooooon!”

The other squad car drove off with Miss Adda, leaving behind a sad old slipper on the sidewalk. I didn’t want to look at the slipper, so I turned to stare at the nice policeman who was climbing back out of his car. He was holding a gigantic blue sweater, which he handed to me.

“How did you know to come here?” I asked, wiping my nose with my arm before putting on the too-large sweater. “How did you find me?”

“Actually,” he said, “we’re not exactly sure what happened. Someone—I guess Mrs. Tompkins there—dialed nine-one-one from the house and then hung up. So we made a routine stop. When she came to the door, we heard you banging, and it all just seemed way too funny not to take a look. When we tried to come inside and she
hit Officer Griggs in the face with a spoon, we decided she needed to go to the station for a while. We’ve talked with Mrs. Tompkins before, about other matters, but they were always little things—nothing like this has ever happened.”

“She didn’t mean to lock me down there,” I explained. “She was in shock. I didn’t want for this to happen. What will you do to her?”

“That’s really for a doctor to decide now,” said the officer. “But that lady needs some help, any way you look at it. She was saying some nutty things.”

“Yeah,” I said. I could imagine what she’d been saying.

Then it was like the policeman realized that he was talking to a kid. His tone changed and he asked me, “Now, what’s
your
name, honey?”

“Rebecca,” I said. “Rebecca Rose Shapiro.”

“Well, Rebecca Rose Shapiro, I’m Officer Johnson. What say we get in the car, where it’s warmer, and then see if we can’t get you home to your parents. They’ll need to help you decide what to do next. Whether you want to press charges or not.”

“I don’t,” I said.

“Let’s just get you home,” he insisted.

I nodded and slid into the car, thinking,
Home. If only he could
.

C
HAPTER 21

I
expected Officer Johnson to have a clipboard or a computer. From TV shows I’d seen, I thought he’d want to take a statement. I figured he’d have to call someone on a CB or a radio or something. But none of that happened. In fact, he didn’t do anything but put the key in the ignition and ask, “Now, where do you live?”

“Baltimore,” I said right away. Then, because I didn’t want him thinking I was some kind of runaway, I added quickly, “But I’m staying with my grandmother right now, on a street called Woodland, kind of over near the zoo. Do you know where that is?”

He turned back to look at me. “Are your parents staying there with you?” He looked a little concerned.

“Well, my parents—they aren’t exactly together right now,” I said. “We’re staying—my mom and brother and me—with my grandmother while Mom … um … 
figures things out. Just the last few weeks, I mean.” I took a deep breath. “I guess they’re … separated.” As I said it, I realized I hadn’t said that word to anyone before. I didn’t think I’d even said it to myself.

Officer Johnson looked at me with sad eyes and said softly, “I’m sorry to hear that, Rebecca.”

“It’s okay,” I said, even though it really wasn’t.

“Maybe we should try calling your mom before we head over there. Just in case.”

I nodded. In case of
what
? I wasn’t sure. But I said “Okay,” and told him Mom’s cell phone number.

I watched him dial, but almost immediately, he hung up. “It went straight to voice mail,” he said. “How about we call your grandmother?”

“What about my dad?” I asked. “Can’t we call him? He’s my
dad
.”

“Sure,” said Officer Johnson. “We can call him if you want, but right now our main concern is just getting you home, and you said he’s in Baltimore, right? So maybe let’s try your grandmother first.”

“Yeah,” I said. “But Gran’s number is unlisted.”

“And you don’t know it?”

“I can’t remember,” I said, looking at my lap. “I had it in my phone but I … lost the phone.” This all sounded so … neglected. I knew that, but it was just that things were weird right now. This would never have happened at home. “Can’t you just drive me to her house?”

“I’d really like to make sure you’ve got someone waiting for you first,” he said. “Under the circumstances.”

“Circumstances? What do you mean?”

“Well …” He looked a little uncomfortable. “Just … we like to talk to a grown-up before we go dropping kids off, but I guess we can try your dad next if you want to.”

Dad didn’t answer either. Officer Johnson’s glances were getting more and more worried, and I was feeling more and more pathetic.

“Please,” I begged. “Can’t you just take me home? I just want this to be over. Please?”

“I guess that’s the next step,” he said. “If you really think they’re there. If they’re not, we’ll have to figure something else out.”

“They’ll be there,” I said, nodding furiously. “Even if Mom’s working, Gran never goes anywhere at night. She goes to bed early, and so does my brother, Lew.” It was past dinnertime. Surely they’d be home. “They’re just not good with phones.”

Officer Johnson drove me back home, along the same wide roads the cabdriver had taken, past the same vacant lots and industrial buildings, which looked even more deserted in the darkness. A few times he turned on his siren briefly so he could run a red light, and we were there in no time. When we turned onto Gran’s cozy street and I saw the porch light shining yellow from a block away, relief washed over me.

But nobody was there. Inside, the house was dark and empty. We knocked and knocked, but nobody came to the door, so we walked slowly back to the sidewalk and got into the car.

“Maybe they’re looking for me at the police station?” I said hopefully.

“Maybe,” he said, reaching for his phone.

I sat there in the squad car, staring at the house, while Officer Johnson called the department to see if my mom had reported me missing. That took a while because someone there had to check the computer system or something. As the moments ticked by, I got increasingly nervous. I wished and wished for them to come home. I willed them to pull up with takeout. I crossed my fingers and wondered what had happened. If they weren’t just picking up a pizza or something, where could they be?

Then Officer Johnson hung back up and said apologetically, “Nope, I’m so sorry, but nobody’s reported you missing. I don’t think I have any choice but to take you over to DFCS for the night. Just for the night.”

“DFCS?”

“Department of Family and Children Services. My shift is ending, and I’ve got to take you somewhere, Rebecca.” He really looked like he felt terrible saying that, which made me more worried than anything else. “You’ll be better off there than at the station.”

Department of Family and Children Services?
That was where you went when you didn’t
have
parents. Or when you had horrible parents. Or when your horrible parents went to jail. Kids like me didn’t go to DFCS.
I
wasn’t supposed to go to DFCS!

“Please, just a minute longer?” I begged as he put the key into the ignition. “I’m sure they’ll be here soon. They’re probably out looking around the neighborhood for me. Or can I just go knock again, please? One last time? Maybe they were all up in the attic and didn’t hear you or something.…”