Jonah Havensby (21 page)

The hardware store in Kensville, which was the first of these odd robberies, had no alarm system, but the other two, much larger, corporate stores did. Police were checking to see if any employees had connections to all three stores and would have known the alarm codes. Since the alarms were deactivated, the intruder, or intruders, would have had hours to take whatever they wanted and escape.

The list of items stolen included a microwave oven, some food storage bowls of various sizes, two shower curtains and two large area rugs.

Jonah felt at least some sense of relief that these break-ins couldn’t possibly have anything to do with him. Sure, someone had brought him an electric blanket and some food, but he was content in the fact that no one had dropped off a microwave.

He scanned the rest of the news for anything else of interest, read some scandals related to a couple of different sports stars and paged through the entertainment news, but got bored quickly. He considered getting Eric back on the walkie and playing ‘Kat Skratch’, but he didn’t know if the co-op would link up at this distance, so he settled on a couple rounds of ‘Bupple’, which actually got quite challenging after a while.

Finally, he settled back and watched a few episodes of a sitcom he watched pretty regularly that he found he could stream from the network’s website. It hadn’t struck him until he looked at the episode list that he probably hadn’t watched television in more than a month. He could hardly believe that it had been so long since he was forced to leave his home.

Just as he started to drift off, he remembered the digital recorder Eric gave him. He got up and dug through his pack and found it. He pushed the button for voice activation and then looked around for a good place to hide it. He decided to place it next to one of the back legs of the control panel. It would be out of sight, but would still clearly pick up noise in the room. He wondered what it might pick up. He hadn’t seemed to have any visitors since the day of the last food drop-off. He laughed at himself when he wondered if he snored. Would it pick something like that up? He didn’t know if he did, but his dad snored when he fell asleep on the couch sometimes.

When he had the recorder hidden away, he ducked back into his nest of furniture covers and covered himself with the electric blanket. He was fast asleep by nine o’clock.

He woke up just before eight in the morning, well before the big truck usually bounced past the warehouse.

Today was a good day. There was no pain. There hadn’t been pain for the last three days, since just before he spent two nights at Eric’s house. As always, on the good days, he sprang up and began his morning routine. He unpacked his backpack and took stock of the clothing. It was odd that he would usually find something that at least needed rinsing out, but Eric had washed all of his stuff. He smelled both sweaters and they both had a fresh clean scent. He checked the basketball shorts and found that the dirt stain had at least faded in the wash and was now only noticeable if you really looked for it. He was happy about that.

He took off his sweater and the t-shirt in one motion and then shivered. The sweater obviously had retained some heat and now he truly felt how cold the room was. He went into the bathroom and used the ever-shrinking bar of soap to clean himself up. He washed his hair and took notice of the fact that it was much easier to do now that it was short. He didn’t even have to mess with it much when he rinsed it out, he just ran his hands through it and it looked fine.

He kept the jeans he slept in and threw on his tan t-shirt and brown sweater. He went through his routine of packing everything back into place.

It was then that he remembered the recorder under the control panel. He reached to the back leg of the panel and grabbed it.

The recorder had only one minute and thirty seconds of recording. The first twenty seconds he identified as himself moving to his nest and shifting into place. The next fifteen seconds were obviously the sounds of him shifting as he fell asleep. There was another twenty seconds where he thought someone might be coming into the room, but after listening to it three times, he could make out that it was just the sound of wind rattling the broken window. The remaining time he identified as himself shifting in his sleep. At one point, he even heard himself mumble something but he couldn’t at all make out what he said, even listening to it four times. It made him laugh.

He pushed the erase button and then pushed the voice activation button again and replaced it under the control panel.

He decided to have a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. While he was making it, he vaguely wondered when, or if, the food would go bad. It was definitely kept chilled - it certainly never exactly got hot in the office. He knew you didn’t put peanut butter in a refrigerator and you didn’t have to necessarily keep bread in one, but he wasn’t quite sure about the jelly and the lemonade. Everything still tasted normal, so he decided to put it out of his mind, at least until after he was finished eating.

It was almost nine when he had everything ready to go. He put the green gem around his neck and under his sweater, and he had Eric’s money in his pocket. He would leave everything else in the backpack in the little door under the stairs.

He was just about out the door when he heard the crackle of the walkie-talkie.

“Hey Hell Kat, you up yet?” Eric’s voice said.

Jonah threw his pack on the control panel and dug for the walkie. “Yep, just about ready to go. You at school?” He asked into it.

“Yeah, just heading inside. Is my bike okay?” Eric asked.

“Don’t know,” Jonah replied. “I haven’t been out yet. I’m sure it’s fine.”

“It better be,” Eric said, although there wasn’t really much threat behind it.

“It will be at the mall, just like we planned,” Jonah said. “You got any big plans today?”

“Just staying out of Oswald’s way,” Eric responded. “He seems a little more cranked up than usual lately.”

“Someone needs to teach that bonehead a lesson,” Jonah said.

“Yeah. You and what army?” Eric shot back. “I’m walking inside, hit me back when you get home.”

That struck Jonah as oddly funny. Was this warehouse office home now? He supposed it was. The thought didn’t sit well with him at all. Actually, it was kind of disturbing. “Later, Danger,” he said, and then replaced the walkie back in the pack.

He zipped up his coat and then zipped the pack closed. He was halfway down the stairs when he remembered something. He went back up the stairs and got a piece of bread. On his way back down, he balled it up and tossed it in Grouchy’s direction.  Grouchy’s head popped out of the nest. He looked angry, as usual. “Yep. Good morning to you too,” Jonah said without stopping.

The bike was exactly where he left it. He stuffed his pack into the little door under the stairs and then put the tablet inside his coat where it would stay if he balanced it right. He unlocked the bike and took off for the mall.

Main Street was in the thrall of a busy Monday morning. People came and went from shops and restaurants. Delivery trucks ambled up and down. Jonah dodged the traffic easily enough. He took note of the bus stop, the one he would be walking to from the mall. According to the digital clock on the bank, he had about thirty-five minutes to make it back to catch the right bus or he would have to wait another two hours for the next one. He peddled a little faster.

He liked riding to the mall. It was certainly faster than walking. He wondered if he could borrow Eric’s bike every day. He supposed that wouldn’t be fair to ask. He knew Eric walked to the mall from where the school bus made a stop about ten minutes away. He could certainly bring the bike to the mall every day and trade it. That plan made no sense either, since Eric rode home with his mom. Oh well, he was only half-serious about it anyway.

He pulled up to the bike rack at the center entrance to the mall, the closest to Eric’s mom’s store, and found that there were three bikes locked there already along with two scooters.  He doubted anyone was shopping this early, so they must belong to employees. He slid Eric’s bike into place and fastened the chain around it, wrapping it around one of the poles provided by the rack.

He turned and left the mall, crossing the parking lot. As he walked, he thought about what Eric had said about spending the day dodging Logan Oswald. What a pain. He wished there was something he could do about it. He’d ask Eric if anything happened today when he got back.

He was just crossing past an alley when the pain started. This was only the second time the pain had started in the middle of the day. It shot into his left eye like a needle and drilled straight back through his head. He doubled over and put the heel of his hand on his eye. He silently begged it to stop. He had stopped the pain in the mall, but he didn’t know how he did it or exactly why it had stopped. He begged it to stop. Then he demanded it to stop.

He ducked into the alley. There were too many people on the street that might want to stop and help him. That would lead to questions.

He stopped next to a dumpster hidden from the street. He slumped against the wall. He rubbed at his eye. “No!” He cried. “Please!” he was doubled over in pain again. And then everything went black.

XIV

Eric had the early lunch period. There were two scheduled lunch times that were a half-hour each. One was eleven-thirty to twelve and the next was twelve to twelve-thirty. From junior high through high school students were allowed to pick which one they would like to have. Eric had the late lunch period last year, so he switched to the early period this year.

As he dropped his books in his locker, Eric did his usual survey of the hallway. He knew exactly which kids had lunch period at the same time and which kids were just transferring books for their next class.

There were the popular girls giggling to each other over by Emma Wong’s locker. She waved and looked like she was on her way over to say something, but got sidetracked when Heather Montrose showed her something in her notebook.

Gavin Thomas had just knocked the books out of Nathan Channing’s hands and Nathan was scrambling to pick things up as papers went flying and Gavin and his buddies laughed and moved on when they saw the guidance counselor, Mr. Jackson, coming down the hallway.

The skateboard freaks were huddled over someone’s board looking at some new artwork one of them had done. Members of the drama club were huddled at the foot of the stairs seemingly in an impromptu practice. And Paige Ryan, the ninth-grade student council president, was busily running up and down the hallway selling raffle tickets for the Winter Ball.

Just another day in paradise.

Just like every other day, Eric felt left out of a lot of things. He noticed when other kids called to each other up and down the hallway or when kids were talking about making plans for after school or for the weekend. He told himself it didn’t bother him, but it did.

The fact was, Eric MacIntyre was just plain ignored, which was almost worse than getting picked on. At least kids like Nathan had something to complain about. Nathan was a nerd in every sense of the word. He was the first with his hand up in every class, he had a slightly greasy look to him, and he looked like you could snap him in half like a twig. In short, kids like Nathan stuck out in ways that made them easy targets. The bullies gravitated towards those kids. Eric, on the other hand, was just seemingly out of place. Sure, he was in some advanced classes, and he was smart and got good grades, but there was nothing about him that stuck out enough to garner that much attention. In a way, that was a much lonelier existence.

The thing that irritated him most was that he could remember going to birthday parties for some of these kids when they were much younger. The school certainly wasn’t big, he could almost name everyone he saw. These kids had grown up together. But sometime around the beginning of the seventh grade, things changed.

Eric had never gone in for sports. He thought of himself as mostly uncoordinated, so he just kind of left those options alone. But the kids that grew up loving stuff like that began to hang out together much more, especially if they had joined the football team.  For whatever reason, those guys became the kings of the school.

He noticed that other cliques began to form around common interests as well. Kids who liked science flocked together, kids who liked skateboarding bonded over that. By the time eighth grade happened, and for whatever good reason, Eric had been left out in the cold. Kids either stopped talking to him, or looked down on him. He couldn’t see the rhyme or reason to it, he perpetually walked around thinking he had just missed the boat.

It’s not like he wasn’t guilty of the same thing. He wasn’t exactly friendly with Nathan Channing, although they were in advanced science and advanced algebra together. He felt like he had no reason to strike up a conversation with Nathan, and there was that whole greasy thing about him that made him look kind of gross. Eric was also smart enough to know that befriending Nathan might just put a target on his back.

There were people who acknowledged his presence, especially a few kids who didn’t do their homework on a regular basis and didn’t pay enough attention in class to understand the assignment. Those kids would usually catch him in study hall and either ask him for his class notes or flat out ask to copy his homework. Eric would share his notes, but he felt he’d be the first person to get busted if he let someone copy his homework.

There were three or four of the cheerleaders who fell into that category, but also crossed into a different one. Those girls loved his mom’s store and were usually asking if he could get discounts and if he knew when specific things were going to go on sale – as if he kept any track of such things. Emma Wong was different, but Emma Wong talked to everyone. If he told the truth, he’d say he was a little intimidated by her.

Then there was Logan Oswald. Logan found it hard to ignore anyone that was more than a head shorter than him. He’d once seen Logan actually make a sixth grader cry in the middle of recess and walk away feeling like a real tough guy. Logan was a kid who liked to intimidate and threaten just to see if he could scare other kids, demanding lunch money was just part of the act, not the end-game. Eric liked to think he put on a good cover, but Logan did scare him a few times, usually when they were off campus. He’d seen Logan get detention enough times for his antics, only if a kid was brave enough to actually tell someone in authority the truth. Eric was a lot like most kids in that he was intimidated enough by Logan to let the lunch money thing slide without incident on the occasion a teacher happened by while it was in progress. But sometimes Eric’s mouth would get the better of him and he’d really end up irritating Oswald. Those were the few occasions he thought Logan might actually beat him up.