“Is Rochelle with him? And Samuel?”
My father nods. “They’re all back. There are men with them too. They look like Secret Service.”
“Where have they been?” I ask.
My father looks at his feet. There are rumors of prison camps, detention centers, mass graves even, but no one knows for sure. All we know is that most of Mom’s friends have vanished, and if we’re discovered, so will we.
“I don’t know, but they look horrible—skinny as sticks and wearing the same clothes they had on the day they disappeared.”
“Have you spoken to him?”
“Summer, I can’t! If someone saw us talking, they might make the connection.”
“But he can tell us about my family,” my mother begs.
My father shakes his head. “It’s best if we keep our distance, especially you, Lyric. He’s going to be in the school every day. He’s probably going to reach out to you, but you have to avoid him. You can’t let anyone think you know him.”
“You want me to ignore him?” This hurts my heart. Terrance Lir was like an uncle to me when I was little. When he and his family disappeared, we cried for days. I can’t imagine turning my back on him, especially if he’s been suffering.
My mother pulls me into a hug and squeezes like I am never coming home again. Her kiss leaves a wet ring of electricity on my cheek. “Be careful, and don’t forget to breathe.”
“You too.”
She smiles at me. It’s a crumpled thing, too small for her face. I remember when it used to shine like a star, fueled by her endless joy, but now it’s running on fumes. She can’t even muster enough power to bring her eyes along for the ride.
My father goes to his room and returns with his gun. While I eat cereal, he checks the clip to see that it’s loaded, reinserts it, and clicks off the safety. He double-checks the charge on his Taser and gives two canisters of pepper spray good shakes before putting them in his pockets. Then he turns to me.
“Get Bex. It’s time to go to school.”
Chapter Three
As soon as the elevator doors open, I wish we had taken the stairs. Mrs. Novakova, short and squat, is lurking inside, like a creepy garden gnome peering out of the brush.
“Getting off?” I ask.
She frowns and shakes her head. Of course she’s not getting off. How else will she interrogate us? I press the button for the lobby and hold my breath when the doors slide shut.
“You take these girls to the school, Leonard?” she asks my father in her thick, growly accent. She’s been in our building for fifty years, ever since emigrating from Eastern Europe—maybe Hungary, maybe Russia—I can’t remember. It’s someplace where the neighbors used to spy on one another for the government.
“Yes, Mrs. Novakova,” my father says as he watches the floor counter blink from four to three to two . . .
Mrs. Novakova’s mouth curls in disapproval, revealing her lipstick-stained teeth. “You never catch me near that school today. Mixing with us is wrong, especially the children. They are animals, and filthy, too! Always digging in trash cans, making too many babies, and living in filth. Like gypsies back home. Only good gypsy is dead gypsy. You stay away from them. You get disease. Who knows?”
“If they had a disease, I think we’d all have it by now,” my father says. “They’ve been here awhile.”
“Make no difference! You have crazy cow disease for ten years, then kaput! A man walks around, not even knowing he’s dead. That’s their plan. They spread sick to us, wait for us to die. I try to tell people. No one listens to old woman. Don’t you bring one of them back here!”
“I won’t, Mrs. Novakova,” I say.
Bex looks like she’s going to laugh, until I shoot her a look. Mrs. Novakova is old-school evil who rats on anyone she deems suspicious. Neighbors who have found themselves on her bad side have been dragged out of their beds and questioned by cops and gang members alike. I’ve learned to let every word I say to her roll around in my mouth to dull the sharp edges first.
“What are police doing to get rid of them, Leonard? I pay taxes for beach and I’d like to go down and take a walk,” she barks. “My husband and I spent every Friday night strolling along pier, until the coloreds and the Polacks took over. They bad enough. Now it’s those things.”
It takes every ounce of self-restraint for me not to roll my eyes. When her husband was alive, they fought day and night. An hour didn’t go by without her screaming to everyone who would listen about what a disappointment he was, how he had never amounted to anything, how she should have married Pavel, a very well-to-do tailor who had the common courtesy to die young and leave his widow a fortune. Her husband passed away two years ago. He choked on some soup. Really. I mean, who chokes to death on soup? Someone who’s looking for a way out, that’s who.
By the time we reach the lobby, Mrs. Novakova has given us an advanced-placement class on “the Chinks,” “the Spics,” “the Japs,” “the Kikes,” and “the towel heads,” all of whom she describes as filthy and “up to no good” and plotting to kill us all. My father has a patience with her he never has with me. He says “Good day,” and when the doors slide open he leads us outside.
“Someday she’ll die,” he promises when she’s out of earshot.
“I wouldn’t bet on it,” I reply.