The Stranger Next Door (2 page)

“He doesn’t like kids,” Benjie said.

“Or cats,” said Pete.

“Maybe they’ll have a boy my age,” Alex said. He liked that idea: a neighbor boy to sit with on the school bus and to eat lunch with. It might not be so hard to be the new kid if another boy was new at the same time.

Benjie scowled briefly, then brightened. “One twelve-year-old boy would be okay,” he said, “as long as the quintuplets are in first grade.”

“Maybe they’ll have a cat,” said Pete.

“What are you meowing about?” Alex asked. “Is your food bowl empty?” He took the box of cat crunchies out of the cupboard and shook some into Pete’s dish.

Pete waited until Benjie went back outside before he strolled across the kitchen floor, hunched over the bowl, and began to chew. It was frustrating that he could understand everything people said, but they were not capable of understanding him. On the other hand, since they nearly always misinterpreted his remarks as a request for food, their ignorance did keep his bowl full.

Instead of returning to his homework, Alex thought how nice it would be to have someone else from Valley View Estates at school. Maybe if Alex wasn’t the only one,
the sixth graders who had lived around here all their lives would quit picking on him.

His thoughts slid back to the ugly incident at lunch that day. School had just started on Tuesday, so this had been only the fourth day, and Alex still felt like an outsider. Determined to try to make new friends, he had carried his lunch tray to a table where two boys from his class were eating.

“Mind if I join you?” he asked.

The boys, Duke and Henry, looked at him without smiling. Duke said, “Actually, we do mind. We don’t like spoiled rich kids.”

Startled, Alex asked, “What makes you think I’m rich?”

“You live in one of those mansions in Valley View Estates, don’t you?”

“My family moved into a new house there a couple of weeks ago,” Alex said, “but I wouldn’t call it a mansion, and we certainly aren’t rich.”

“You took away our trails,” Duke said.

“What?”

“That whole area where the Valley View houses are being built is where we used to ride our dirt bikes. We had trails all over, and the first thing you people did was bulldoze them.”

“That’s right,” Henry, said. “You wrecked our dirt-bike trails.”

“It was never your property,” Alex said. “That land belonged to the Fircrest Paper Corporation for thirty years. They’re the ones who bulldozed it and made it into building sites and sold it. My family had no control over that.”

“You bought the lot,” Duke said.

“All we did was answer an ad in the newspaper about a house that was for sale. The first time we saw Valley View, the roads were paved, the lots were staked out, and three houses were already under construction. We didn’t know anything about your trails.”

“Sure,” Duke said.

Alex turned away and carried his tray to a table on the other side of the cafeteria. He no longer had much appetite.

Spoiled rich kid—what a joke, he thought. Mom and Dad had saved for years before they bought the house in Valley View Estates.

Alex’s family had lived all summer in a borrowed camping trailer parked next to where their house was being built so that the money they would have spent on rent could go toward the cost of building the house.

“I know it’s crowded,” Alex’s dad had said, “and none of us have any privacy, but it’s only for three months. We can stand it for three months in order to have a smaller mortgage with more affordable payments for the next thirty years.”

They had finally moved out of the trailer and into their
new home two weeks ago. Compared to the trailer, the house was spacious and beautiful, but three bedrooms and two bathrooms was hardly a mansion.

As for being spoiled, Alex had spent most of his summer chopping and stacking firewood and taking care of Benjie while Mom and Dad were both at work. In the evenings, he and Dad painted the house and picked rocks out of their future lawn.

Alex had looked forward to the start of school, hoping to make some new friends who lived nearby. His friends from his previous school kept in touch over the summer, but it wasn’t the same as when they lived in the same neighborhood.

He used to get together with Randy and John almost every day after school to shoot baskets or ride skateboards or just to hang out together. Now they had to set a date and time when their parents could drive them back and forth. The visits had become less frequent as the summer went on, and now that school had started, Alex knew he would see his old pals even less often.

So far, only four other houses in Valley View Estates were occupied; two of the families had preschool kids, and two were couples without children. Several homes were finished and for sale, but Alex rarely saw potential buyers looking at them. He certainly hoped the new neighbors would have a boy his age.

That night, Alex told his parents about the dirt-bike trails. “The kids at school resent us for living here,” he said. “They think it’s our fault that their trails are gone.”

Mrs. Kendrill turned to Benjie. “What about you?” she asked. “Have the children in your class been nice to you?”

“At first they didn’t talk to me,” Benjie said, “but I showed them my picture of the flying blue elephant and told them how he pulls the moon into the sky with his trunk every night, and after that they let me play with them.”

“One boy named Duke called me a spoiled rich kid,” Alex said.

Mr. Kendrill choked on his coffee. “Don’t we wish?” he sputtered.

“Ignore them,” Mrs. Kendrill advised. “They’ll get used to the fact that there are homes here now. They’ll find someplace else to ride their dirt bikes.”

Ignoring them was easy to say, Alex thought, and hard to do.

Pete jumped down from his perch on top of the piano. He marched to the door and glared through the glass. How dare those boys be mean to Alex, who had rescued Pete from the animal shelter when Pete was only six weeks old!

“Let Duke ride past me on his dirt bike,” Pete said. “I’ll shred his tires and bite him in the ankle.”

“Sorry, Pete,” Alex said. “You can’t go outside yet unless you’re on a leash. You might get lost.”

“Lost!” Pete howled. “I’m descended from mighty beasts who can find their way in the jungle in pitch dark. I know every inch of this property, and I’m sick of that leash and harness! You’ve made me wear it all summer.”

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Mrs. Kendrill said, and she poured crunchies into Pete’s bowl.

“No wonder he’s so fat,” Mr. Kendrill said. “Every time he meows, somebody feeds him.”

“Fat! I am not one bit fat,” Pete said. Then, to prove his fitness, he sprinted across the room, leaped to the top of the computer desk, and knocked two pencils to the floor. He peered over the edge of the desk as they rolled to a stop.

“You had better exercise that cat, Alex,” Mrs. Kendrill said, “or none of us will get any sleep tonight.”

Alex put Pete’s harness on him, then snapped on the leash, opened the door, and followed Pete outside.

Pete flopped onto the sidewalk, which was still warm from the afternoon sun. He rolled back and forth—partly because it felt good to scratch his back and partly because he hoped he could wriggle out of the harness. It was embarrassing to walk around attached to a leash, as if he had no more sense than a foolish dog.

When the harness stayed firmly strapped around Pete’s shoulders and middle, he stood, then rubbed against Alex’s ankles.

Alex leaned down and stroked Pete’s fur. “It’s a good thing I have you to talk to, Pete,” he said. “None of the kids at school will have anything to do with me.”

Pete headed for the vacant house next door. He loved to sniff around the outside, especially when Alex let him climb the front porch steps, leap on a window ledge, and look in.

“This is the last time we can come here for your walks,” Alex said. “People are moving in tomorrow, and they won’t want us prowling around their house and peeking in their windows.”

Pete jumped on the porch rail.

Alex leaned against the rail beside him, watching the crescent moon appear over the maple tree. “Star light, star bright, first star I’ve seen tonight.” He murmured the old rhyme, then wished that he would make a friend.

With his thoughts on his wish and his eyes on the sky, Alex didn’t notice the three people walking past his house.

Pete saw them. His tail twitched, and his ears went flat.

“Well, look who we found.”

Alex jumped at the sound of Duke’s voice. Duke, Henry, and a boy about seventeen years old stood on the sidewalk. The older boy resembled Duke; Alex wondered if he was Duke’s brother.

“That the kid you told me about?” the older boy asked.

“That’s him,” Duke said.

“What do you want?” Alex asked.

“Just want to see which mansion the rich boy lives in.”

“I told you before, I’m not rich.”

“Right,” Duke said.

“Right,” echoed Henry.

Pete’s tail thrashed back and forth. Those kids had better not come any closer. If they did, they would have to deal with the fierce jungle beast.

Alex put one hand on Pete’s back. He didn’t want the cat to jump off the railing and run toward Duke and Duke’s buddies.

“That your cat?” the older boy asked.

“Yes.”

“He’d make a mighty good meal for my dog.”

“My brother’s dog is huge,” Duke said, “and hungry.”

Alex quickly looked to see if a dog was nearby.

Duke and Henry laughed.

Pete dug his claws into the railing. “Bring your dog around here,” he said, “and he’ll need thirty stitches in his nose.”

To Alex’s relief, Duke’s brother turned around and walked back the way he had come. Duke and Henry followed.

Alex wiped his palms on his jeans. Why did Duke and his pals want to know where he lived? What did they plan to do? He hoped they didn’t intend to come and hassle
him here at home. It was bad enough to have to deal with them at school.

Alex picked Pete up. “Time to go home,” he said. “It’s dark.”

Pete growled once, to let Alex know that he would prefer to stay outside. The darker it got, the more Pete liked it. When Alex didn’t put him down, Pete put his front paws on Alex’s shoulders, butted his head under Alex’s chin, and allowed himself to be carried into the house. A cat works up an appetite outside, even on a leash. It was time for a little snack.

C
lifford dumped his load
of library books on the hall table. Sixth grade had a lot more homework
than fifth grade.

Rocky came wagging to greet him. After petting the dog, Clifford headed for the kitchen. He hoped Tim would get home from work early, as he had the last two nights, so they could eat dinner soon. Clifford was starving, even though he’d had an apple and a bag of chips after school.

Just before he reached the kitchen, he heard Mother and Tim talking softly. Clifford stopped, knowing he shouldn’t eavesdrop but too curious not to listen. Something was wrong in his family, and he didn’t know what it was.

Whispered conversations, which stopped abruptly when Clifford arrived, had been going on for weeks, making Clifford more and more uneasy. Mother and Tim were hiding something from him.

What was going on that they wouldn’t tell him? Were they planning to get a divorce? He had rarely heard them argue, but Clifford couldn’t think what else they would be so secretive about, and Mother had seemed jittery and unhappy lately for no particular reason.

He paused just outside the kitchen.

“We’ll have to tell Clifford tonight,” Mother said. “We can’t expect him to do this without knowing why.”

“We’ll tell him as soon as we reach the motel.”

Motel! Clifford blinked. Had Mother and Tim planned a surprise vacation? But Mother wouldn’t be unhappy about that.

“Hi,” he said, stepping into the kitchen. “What’s this about a motel?”

“We have something to tell you,” Mother said. Her fingers fidgeted with a paper napkin, twisting it tightly. Clifford could tell from the look on her face that the news was not a surprise vacation.

“We’re moving,” Tim said.

“Moving!” Of all the possible scenarios Clifford had imagined, never once had the idea of moving occurred to him. “Why? Where are we going?”

“We don’t know yet,” Mother said.

How could they be moving and not know where?

“When?”

Tim and Mother glanced at each other. “Today,” Tim said. “In half an hour.”

“Today!” Clifford said. “How can we leave so soon? We haven’t packed anything.”

“We won’t be taking any furniture or household items,” his mother said. “This is a fresh start; we’ll buy all new things after we get there.”

Clifford’s jaw dropped. His mother, queen of thrift-shop bargains and surely the most frugal person on earth, was planning to buy all new furniture? All his life she had told him to make do with what he already had rather than ask for something new.

Clifford looked at Tim. “What about the shop?”

Tim owned A-One Auto Repair. He had been a mechanic in someone else’s shop when he and Clifford’s mother married, but three years ago he had purchased his own place, and now he had two full-time employees, Kenny and Lance.

Sometimes on Saturdays, he let Clifford spend the day there, running errands and watching Tim work on cars. Lately he had even taught Clifford to do some minor repairs, then supervised to be sure they were done correctly.

Tim took great pride in the fact that no customer had ever returned to complain about work done at A-One.

“Kenny and Lance can run the shop,” Tim said.

“But you own it!” Clifford said.

“I’ll buy a different shop. Taxes are too high in Southern California anyway.”

Clifford could not believe that Tim would walk away from his business, no matter how high the taxes. Tim had spent most of his adult life dreaming of being his own boss; if he had to move to a different city, why wouldn’t he sell the business first so that he’d have the money necessary to start a new one?