Elaine Orr - Jolie Gentil 00.5 - Jolie and Scoobie High School Misadventures (11 page)

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

THOMAS EDWARD and I reached a truce of sorts. If I will play Monopoly with him he’ll pretty much go to bed when he’s supposed to. He tries really hard to win, because I usually let him stay up until the end of a game. He seems to think he has more control over bed time when he wins.

“Jolie
?” Six-year old Hannah is not nearly as whiney as she was when I first started sitting for them in late September. “Can I have more strawberries?”

I
had learned the hard way that if she eats strawberries she stays awake for an hour or more, but bananas seem to help her relax. “Banana time,” I said.

In the past this would have brought at least a pout, but I stick to my guns, so she doesn’t bother anymore
. “A big banana,” she said.

“Can I have half, Hanny?” her brother asked.

How about that? He’s actually helping.
Thomas Edward (he won’t let anyone call him anything else) has heard me tell her she can only have half close to bed time. Hannah will always share with her brother, something that used to surprise me, but no longer does.

“Okay,” she said, and watched happily as I peeled and sliced a banana.

It was eight o’clock. Hannah went to bed at eight-thirty, and Thomas Edward at nine. Now that he and I are pals I cut him a little slack, but not much. He’s so smart he’d soon find reasons to drag bedtime out for an hour.

HALF AN HOUR later, I was winning at Monopoly for a change. Hannah was sitting on my lap resting, as she said, before going to bed. The scratching noise at the back door made all three of us look toward the kitchen. I shifted Hannah off my lap and said, “I’ll just check…”

“No!” Thomas Edward said this in a loud hiss
. “We have to go upstairs! We need the phone.”

For some reason, his tone was so urgent that I picked up the portable phone from its cradle and said, “Why…?”

“Please, Jolie, just hurry.” He had Hannah’s hand and she was following him without question. He seemed so panic-stricken that I decided to follow them upstairs and then ask questions.

We were at the top of the steps, and I said, “Okay, Thomas Edward, what…?”

There was a much louder noise from the back of the house. It almost sounded like the door banging open. I’m not a nervous person, but I knew this was not normal. Big as she was, I swung Hannah on my hip and started for the master bedroom. There was a walk-in closet in there.

“No,”
Thomas Edward whispered. “Here.” He ran into his room.

He opened the door to his closet and gestured that we
should go in. Just before he closed the door there was enough light for me to see the dead bolt. He closed the door slowly, so it didn’t make a sound, and I could almost feel him wince when the deadbolt made a small click.

It was a larger closet than I would have guessed
. I’d never had to open it. I put Hannah down and pushed the dial tone button, expecting the phone dial to light. It didn’t. I pushed again and again, and lifted the phone to my ear. No dial tone.

“Is it dead?” Thomas Edward whispered.

“Tommy?” Hannah said this in a very low whisper.

“It’ll be okay,” he whispered. “We’re safe in here.”

Footsteps ran up the carpeted stairway. I knew it wasn’t their parents, they would have been calling out.

“I know they’re here,” a man’s voice said, quietly.

“Hiding,” another man grunted.

You can’t panic
. They’re depending on you
. In reality, I was depending on Thomas Edward. He seemed to know there was a problem right away. And he certainly knew where to lead us.

“Not in the master,” the quieter voice said
.

“I looked in both the kids’ rooms,” the other man said.

I envisioned two men in trench coats, each carrying a gun.
Calm down.

“You look under the beds in their rooms?” the quieter voice asked.

“You do hers,” the other voice said. He had walked into Thomas Edward’s room.

I sensed Hannah was about to cry, and put my lips to her ear
. “Shhh.”

“Hey
.” The quieter voice was louder now. “This closet has a deadbolt.” His hands rattled the knob and there was a smell of urine. I didn’t think it was mine.

“Get out your knife to pry…”

The sound of a siren, very close, reached us, and tires screeched.

“Inside, upstairs!
The back is open.”

I was sure it was Scoobie’s voice
.
How could he be here
?

Almost immediately t
he two men were sprinting down the hallway and stairs toward the front door. I had locked it, as usual. I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to slow them down. I only wanted them gone. I pulled Hannah closer and reached for Thomas Edward. I found his shoulder. “Good job,” I whispered.

He gave a sob and lunged for me. The three of us leaned against the wall, amid a mix of short and long clothes
. The wetness was definitely from Thomas Edward.

“Stop!”  A different man’s voice was very loud
. “I said stop!” 

I could hear the front door being flung open, and one of the men yelled a very loud expletive
. It was suddenly very quiet, and another set of tires squealed out front.

“On the flo
or! I said on the damn floor! Hands behind your head.” This was apparently from a police officer, and he called the men a word even my father would not use if he hit his thumb with a hammer.

“Can we go out?” Hannah asked, in a low voice.

“I think they know we’re in here. They’ll call for us in a minute,” I said, quietly.

There were suddenly a lot of voices downstairs
. “Where are the kids?  What did you do with…?”

“We’re up here!” I yelled
. Thomas Edward and Hannah were both sobbing loudly and clinging to me. It took several seconds to find and twist the deadbolt. A large person pulled it open and the three of us almost fell into the arms of the policeman I’d often seen on the boardwalk.

“It’s okay, you’re okay
.” Both kids had fallen into him and would not let go. I watched him bend down and place his gun on the floor and he shoved it further away with his foot. “It’s all okay now.”

I was shaking so hard I had to lean against the door jamb
. “How did you know?” My voice was a squeak, and I heard someone running up the steps faster than anyone else had.

“Jolie! Jolie!” 

It was Scoobie!  “I’m all right. All of us are.”

“Scoobie!”  The voice from below was harsh.

“It’s okay. He’s the one who called.” I thought the police officer who yelled to the people downstairs was named Sergeant Tortino. He gently pried Thomas Edward’s hands from his neck, which was reddening from the pressure. “I’ve got you now.”

Since the sergeant was wrapped in kids I flung myself at Scoobie
. “You called them. Thank you, thank you.” I was sobbing now.

“We need to get this locked down
.” It was the harsher-voiced officer, who had just come upstairs and stood in the bedroom doorway. “We gotta get ‘em out of here.” He was more than six feet tall, with close-cropped brown hair, and made a very imposing presence.

The man
, whom I assumed was a policeman, looked at me. “I know this was scary, but I gotta ask you to calm down for a few minutes. Please.” He was maybe fifty and had on a coat and tie, unlike Tortino, who was in uniform.

I sniffed and drew my hand across my eyes
. “Okay.” I turned to the two kids. “You guys were really good,” I said, in a wavering voice. I was supposed to be in charge of them, for Pete’s sake.

Thomas Edward disentangled himself from Tortino
. His face was suddenly composed, though there were still tears on his face. “I need to change my pants. Do you know who to call?”

“Yeah kid, we do, we sure do,” said the man in a suit.

FOR SOME REASON, WE WENT to Aunt Madge’s rather than to the police station, and the two kids, Scoobie and I rode in the unmarked car the man in the suit had
. Even in the haze of activity I had decided he was not with the local police, but I wasn’t sure why I thought this. Maybe his sort of big-city attitude.

There was another dark car with no insignia in Aunt Madge’s lot, and both porch lights were on
. Aunt Madge, in a bath robe, came to her side door and waved us in. She shut the door quickly behind us.

When we were in the kitchen, still without any greeting from anyone, she turned to what was now a group of two men in suits and a woman of about forty in a pants suit.

“Where are my parents?” Thomas Edward asked.

“Safe,” the woman said.

“Why wouldn’t they be?” Aunt Madge asked, in a sharp tone.

Scoobie and I looked at each other
. Neither of us had said anything except “yes sir” since Sergeant Tortino had turned us over to the man in the suit.

As we made a hurried exit from the Finch house, Hannah had not been sure she wanted to leave Sergeant Tortino
. He was in uniform after all. Tortino had told her there would be a puppy where she was going, and Jolie’s nice auntie would give her some milk. She had informed him that she wanted strawberries. It was the only time anyone smiled.

“Shut the curtains,” one of the men said.

Aunt Madge looked momentarily angry, and then complied by walking to the sliding glass door. Before she shut them, she let Petey in. He stayed glued to her ankle. As she walked back to us, Hannah said, “Do you have strawberries?”

Aunt Madge’s face relaxed
. “I have bananas.”

Hannah gave me a look, and then stared at Aunt Madge for a second.

“Come on Hanny. See, they’re on the counter.” Thomas Edward took her hand.

The woman said, “I should take the kids…”

“No,” Thomas Edward said. He didn’t even look at her as he took a banana and started to peel it.

“Why don’t you all sit?  I’ll put on some tea
.” As Aunt Madge walked to her electric kettle, which would already be full in preparation for breakfast, I walked into the breakfast room and dragged in one more chair. Everyone sat.

“Who were those men?” I asked.

The man who had driven us to the Cozy Corner looked at me, not unkindly. “We can’t give you a lot of specific answers. In fact,” he looked at Aunt Madge, “we came here for a few minutes so we didn’t have to take them to the police station. More exposure there, more questions.”

“If there is so much danger, why are these children here and not on the road to safety?” Aunt Madge asked.

“The local police are outside and, frankly, we didn’t know if there would be others on the road.”

Thomas Edward had led Hannah and Petey to the sofa
. Petey had joined them in hope of a piece of banana. Thomas Edward walked back toward the adults at the oak table. His voice was quiet. “Was it the same people?”

“I honestly don’t know, Thomas Edward,” the man said.

So, whoever he is, he knows the kids pretty well.

“My name is Sid,” he said, nodding to Aunt Madge and Scoobie and me
. Nodding to the other man in a suit, he added “This is Pat, and she’s Lilli.”

In an almost inane force of habit, Scoobie and I said who we were.

The man named Sid turned to Scoobie. “The locals said you called. How did you know to do that?”

He took a deep breath
. “I knew Jolie was babysitting there. I was walking by and I saw two men standing at the gate in the back. It looked funny, so I stood behind a bush and watched them. When they opened the gate and started walking toward the house I ran to the call box on the corner. I only knew the intersection, not the house address, but then I remembered the Finch’s name, and the dispatch guy said he’d have somebody on the way ASAP.”

“A call box,” Pat said, almost in disbelief.

“Very handy things,” Aunt Madge said. “Of course they’re all coming out in a year or two.”

“Cell phones,” Lilli murmured.

Several girls in Lakewood had them, but I didn’t. I’d been trying to talk my parents into getting more than the one they kept in the car glove box. If the call boxes were coming down I had another reason. Especially now that I hadn’t had one when I really, really needed it.

Sid sighed and shook his head, looking at Scoobie with respect
. “You probably kept at least three people safe tonight.”

“And my parents?” Thomas Edward asked, again.

“They’re en route to a safer location.”

“Yeah, right,” Thomas
Edward said, with no attempt to hide his sarcasm.

“Can we have a dog in the next place?” Hannah asked.

“We’ll see,” Thomas Edward said.

I realized I was looking at a young man much older than his years
. It was slowly dawning on me that the Finch family must be in some kind of protective custody, or something. Then it occurred to me that the whiney tones of both children earlier in the fall could have been because they’d been uprooted.