Jonah Havensby (12 page)

His luck was holding out. Once again, there seemed to be very few people in the mall, even though it was later than he usually tried to get away with this. He felt a little more uneasy, because he’d have to grab the change and then walk through the Promenade and then through the older part of the mall to get outside. He looked around, grabbed some change and shoved his hand in his coat pocket and then walked very fast to the nearest exit without pulling his sleeve down.

Mrs. MacIntyre wasn’t lying when she said people might be worried about the weather. It was bitter cold out and a snow flurry had begun. The combination made it hard to see. Since it was just a flurry and not a large snowfall, the snow kicked up again in the wind. It made looking down just as difficult as looking straight ahead.

When he got back to the warehouse, he took the backpack from the little door. It didn’t seem that it had been moved. He climbed inside the warehouse and went upstairs, not sure what he’d find. His note was still there, and nothing seemed different than how he left it.

He immediately removed the electric blanket from the roll-top desk, unfurled it over his nest and plugged it in. He left his coat on. The wind was whipping through the broken window overlooking the warehouse.

He dropped the pack next to the desk and rested the tablet on top of it.

He went to the notebook and picked it up. He flipped though each page to see if anyone had answered him. He found nothing but the notes that were already there. He paged back to the note he had written, folded the cover open and left it on the control table, sure no one could miss it.

A chill blew through him. He kicked off his boots and got under the blanket, which had begun to warm. He turned to the food that he had left at the base of the control panel, but remembered he’d packed the spoon.

He got up and searched the backpack, shivering a little. He retrieved the spoon and dove back under the blanket. He made himself two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, slightly bothered by the fact he had only one utensil that tended to leave traces of either in both jars. He found that slightly amusing since he’d mix the two in a sandwich anyway, so what did it matter?

He drank from the two-liter bottle of lemonade, which turned out to be quite a treat. It was like having a real meal. He decided he would only drink when he really had to, in order to conserve it.

When he was finished, he got up and used the restroom. He rinsed off the spoon and put it back in the pack.

The blanket was sufficiently warm that he took his coat off and put it on the roll-tip desk. He got under the blanket, but his eyes wouldn’t close. He kept sitting up and looking at the door, waiting for someone to come through it. Maybe Zombie Dad would come creeping in.

He tossed and turned and sat up for a fourth time. This time he got up and got the tablet. He decided to listen, very quietly, to some of the songs Eric had suggested this afternoon. Eric certainly knew more hip-hop songs than he did, and Jonah liked a few of them, even though he was far more a top-forty guy.

He found himself giggling about some of the things he and Eric laughed about this afternoon. It struck Jonah that he hadn’t realized he’d been pretty lonely. He was usually happy enough in his own company, never really having met anyone new, but conversations with his father must have quelled the need for communication. He’d never really considered it before. Eric seemed pretty lonely himself.

Then his mind turned to Emma Wong. He wondered what her hair would look like straight down and out of the ponytail.

He drifted off to sleep.

The next morning passed without incident. There was no pain. He got up and rinsed some things out and left the warehouse around eleven o’clock. There wasn’t a sound from Grouchy. Jonah thought maybe he was having a good day too.

He walked through the crisp morning air, unsure where to go. He could head to the mall, but he thought he might kill some time before he went and go around the time school let out. Maybe Eric would be there again.

After hiding his pack, he turned and headed for the neighborhood that was over the freeway. He could do a little exploring and then walk to the mall later.

When he turned the corner on the first street, the first thing that struck him was that all the trees were bare. There had been at least some leaves on them last time he was over here, although there had been plenty of leaves on the ground as well. Now all the trees were empty. Some of the lawns were still covered in leaves, others were neatly manicured and the grass glistened with frozen dew.

He passed the house where he had picked up the five dollar bill and looked inside the car the business man had gotten into. It was expensive and large with a black leather interior. There was a small stick shift between the front seats. The dashboard looked like it belonged in an airplane. He didn’t realize he was doing it, but he casually made his way around the car looking for money on the ground. He thought that would be a stretch, so he moved on.

He wondered if Eric lived over in this neighborhood. That might be weird if Eric’s mom saw him walking around, but he figured he could get away with saying he was on a break from being home-schooled and decided to get some air.

He walked down the next block and took a left; he circled back down the next block. It looked virtually the same as the other block, large houses of different sorts, some with cars out front, some with cars in the driveway, others looked empty.

He passed one house which had a tall, brick chimney with smoke curling up into the chilly air. Jonah thought that sounded nice. He pictured a large room full of people talking and carrying on while a fire roared in a huge fireplace. The image was nice, but he doubted the house he was looking at would accommodate the palatial proportions he was thinking of.

He went down to the end of the block and walked down another street. More of the same. Although there were some nice cars on this block that he checked out.

It was only twelve-thirty when he checked his watch, but he was getting bored. This wasn’t part of the routine he had developed, and it held little interest. He turned and started walking towards the mall.

He walked down Main Street. He had started to recognize some of the people that worked in the neighborhood, certain people who would come and go at certain hours. He wondered if they recognized him too, the kid who was always walking around.

IX

Elm Street, which Jonah usually took, was a busy thoroughfare with more shops and restaurants, but it occurred to him he really hadn’t explored the area. He was lost in thought at all the activity going on around him and took a left up the next street just a little too fast. He walked right into Jenna Worth, who let out a small cry and held her hand out in front of her, clearly frightened.

“Sorry,” Jonah said.

“Oh,” she said, catching her breath. “Hi. It’s you.”

Jonah appreciated that she had recognized him again.

“Are you okay?” He asked. “I didn’t mean to…”

“No, it’s not you” She explained. “I’ve just been a little jumpy lately. I’m sorry.”

“Oh, I read about that,” Jonah said.

She tried to smile politely. “You and everyone else.” The smile seemed tense. “Everyone thinks I’m a little nuts.”

“I can walk you to the diner,” he said. It was just a few blocks back the way he’d come. “I mean, if you’re scared.”

“I’m not that scared,” she deflected. “But thanks.” She took him up on the offer.

“So was it really scary?” He asked, gently.

“It was and it wasn’t,” she said. “I mean, it’s not every day you see something like that. I mean, everyone is telling me it must have been a costume. Even Mister Nolan said that to the police. But he was this close to me.” She stopped and turned toward him.  She was about a nose taller than him.

“Weird,” she said, noticing that Jonah was the same height as the Red Devil. She turned and started walking again.

“What?” Jonah asked.

“Nothing,” she said. “Really.” She smiled another tense smile. “I just know it wasn’t a costume. But since when do devils help people? You know?”

Jonah shrugged.

“He was real, and he was kind of scary looking, I guess. But he was nice. He saved my life.” She said. “But if he was real, then I have to believe in a Red Devil. That’s a lot to take.”

She took a breath and stopped again. “I think he was flirting with me,” she added.

He ignored this and continued. “It sounds confusing. He looks bad, but he’s actually good,”

“That’s just it,” she agreed. “On top of the fact he shouldn’t exist.” She stopped about a block up. “You really don’t have to walk with me, I mean, unless you’re going there anyway.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” he said.

“Okay. Well, thanks,” she said, and turned and walked away.

Jonah watched after her, for a minute, then turned and resumed his walk to the mall.

He turned on the next block, as he originally intended. This block had fewer, smaller trees. Instead of growing out of strips of grass at the curb line, these trees looked more purposefully planted. There was no grass, all the way to the curb, and there was a tree planted every several feet in piles of rocks and mulch.

The places here were of a different type than the neighborhood Jonah walked through. They were built of brick and very tall. They looked like houses that had been split down the middle. Each side had a metal fence around its small half of the property.

There was a park a few more blocks up. He made a mental note of it. That probably wouldn’t be a bad place to kill some time. There were picnic tables and two swings. There was a jogging track around the perimeter and a few people were running around it now. Jonah thought it would be too cold to do that.

Three blocks more and he had to cross the very busy Harvard Avenue. It was a four-lane road with a median separating the two directions. He had to walk down to Elm Street to use the crosswalk, which joined a sidewalk that led directly to the mall entrance.

He went in and walked directly to the spot he’d met Eric. Eric wasn’t there, so he sat down on the bench next to the wall, plugged in the tablet and scanned today’s headlines. There was nothing new, so he started a game of ‘Bupple’ in which you had to blow a bubble big or small enough to fit in the hole in the game board and then tip the tablet back and forth to get it in that hole. He considered starting a new game of ‘Kat Skratch’ on his own, but decided to wait for Eric to continue the co-op game.

Eric showed up about an hour later. He went directly into his mother’s store and came out about five minutes later. He dropped his backpack at the foot of the bench in the center and sat down, unzipping the pack and unloading some school books. He looked up and saw Jonah looking over at him.

“Hey,” Eric said in greeting.

“Hey,” Jonah returned. “You want to play ‘Kat Skratch’?”

“Can’t,” Eric said. He held up a book. “Homework.”

“Maybe I can help,” Jonah said, and unplugged from the wall. He stuffed the cord in his coat pocket and slid the tablet in the back of his jeans. He walked over to the bench and sat down. “What are we working with here?”

Jonah held up each book in turn, Spanish, Math and Science. He explained that he had gotten some other stuff done at school.

“What’s the math?” Jonah asked.

“I’m in the advanced class, but it’s pretty straight forward. There might be some algebra mixed in.”

“Let me see it,” Jonah said. Jonah opened the book, folded inside was a homework sheet of about twenty problems.

It didn’t look too complicated. He was sure it would be easier if he read the two chapters that the homework sheet covered.

“I’ll take this one,” he said.

“Really?” Eric asked. “Where’s your homework?”

“I’m already done,” Jonah lied.

“Okay, cool,” Eric said, but pulled out a notebook. “Do it in this though, I’ll have to copy it to the sheet.

They got down to business.

Forty-five minutes later, they were both deep into homework. Jonah wasn’t bad at all at math. He never would have taken the science book. Science was his dad’s thing. His dad had tried on several occasions to engage him, but he just couldn’t get interested in the Periodic Table and the like. Math pretty much made sense to him though. He steered clear of things that were too advanced. The chapter included some things about geometry that he simply couldn’t grasp, so he skipped those problems.

Jonah had actually been home schooled, that wasn’t much of a lie, he’d just never thought to call it something that formal. His father had taught him subjects out of actual school text books, although he wasn’t sure where his father had gotten them. He had either ordered them online or found a text book store somewhere Jonah knew nothing about.

It never really felt like schooling, or at least as far as Jonah could tell. His father would spend at least one hour on different subjects, but it was more discussion than just a lecture. His father was much more interested in finding if Jonah understood the material. At the end of those discussions, Jonah would have to read the lessons for the next day and complete any problems or questions at the end of those chapters.

“You know you’re going to have to check this, right,” Jonah said to Eric. “Don’t just copy it.”

“Don’t worry, I’ll look at it,” Eric said, finishing his science homework by snapping the book closed. “You done?”

“Almost,” Jonah answered.

“Here, just give it to me.” Eric said, “I can finish it tonight.” Jonah handed the notebook and the book over, Eric scanned it quickly. “Thanks, man.”

“No problem,” Jonah said.

The next few hours were filled with conversation, ranging from sports, which Eric barely knew anything about, to hip-hop, which Jonah knew almost nothing about, to hot actresses, which they looked up on Jonah’s tablet. In between were bouts of ‘Kat Skratch’, Eric’s phone couldn’t get the ‘Bopple’ App.

Mrs. MacIntyre appeared around six-fifteen, briefcase in-hand and pen in-hair. “Hi,” she called to Eric as she walked over. She kissed him on the side of his hair and brushed his hair out of his eyes. He shook in back into place. “Well hello, Jonah,” She said sweetly.