There was no opportunity to read Annie’s letter until after the supper dishes had been washed and put away. Megan listened halfheartedly to the news on the radio, which was the usual sort of thing that didn’t interest her very much: reports on a city council meeting, a governor’s conference, a high speed police chase that ended in a crash, the death of some supposedly prominent person she’d never heard of.
Would it be on the radio if her mother got hurt or killed in a car crash?
It was a horrid thought—which just sprang into her mind—and Megan couldn’t put it aside. What if something did happen to Karen Collier while she was away, and nobody even knew where to find her children or her father to tell them?
Megan put the last glass into the cupboard and headed for her tiny bedroom, glancing guiltily at the door when the letter crackled as she drew it out of her pocket. She wasn’t quite sure why she felt guilty about writing to Annie, but she had an uncomfortable feeling that Grandpa might not approve.
She flopped across the bed and unfolded the pages, eager to see what her friend had to say.
Dear Megan:
I was so glad to hear from you. It was very upsetting when you moved away without telling me. I knew your mother must have made you go, that it wasn’t your fault, but I’m really disappointed that we won’t be together at the lake.
I guess, from the postmark on your letter, that you did go to the cottage where your grandpa was staying. I’m addressing this in care of Mr. Davis, because you didn’t give me a box number, so I hope it gets to you. Is it nice there? Have you been swimming, or is the water still too cold?
Mom let me get the swimsuit I wanted, the red and white one. I went to the pool with Shirley and Tammy, but it wasn’t like going with you.
Mrs. Morgan told my mom you had moved out at night. We couldn’t believe it, but Mrs. Morgan said she looked in the windows and you weren’t there, only some boxes; and then that lady your mom worked with came and got them. She wouldn’t tell Mrs. Morgan anything about where you were.
When I came home from school this afternoon, there was a man talking to Mr. Morgan on their front porch. After he went away, Mrs. Morgan came over and talked to Mom and me. She said he was asking about you. I mean, your whole family, only he didn’t seem sure what your name was. We all thought that was funny. He knew you were red-haired, though.
Well, I hope nothing is wrong. Mr. Morgan didn’t know where you were, so he didn’t tell the man anything like that. His nephew was there, you remember that homely one that yelled at the boys when Sandy hit a ball into their backyard? The one named Guy? My dad says he’s ‘the shifty one.’ I guess he means Guy’s a creep. He was asking questions, too, but Mom said it was nobody’s business where you were, so she wouldn’t have told even if she knew. She said you probably didn’t have a chance to call me or anything, and it wasn’t because we weren’t friends anymore. I was sure glad to get your letter.
We’ve got one more day of school, and then we’re out for the summer. Write to me again if you get this. I miss you.
Love, Annie.
There was a tight feeling in Megan’s chest.
The Morgans had lived one house down from the Colliers, and though Mrs. Morgan was pleasant enough, she was awfully nosy. She always stopped Mom to talk and asked questions that Mom didn’t usually answer, though she smiled and stayed polite. The idea of anybody getting information about the Colliers from the Morgans was disconcerting, and it made Megan feel as if she were guilty of something, even if she didn’t have any idea of what it was.
It also made her scared. There had to be a reason why an unknown man would be looking for them. And since that happened right after the family had taken off without telling anyone, the two events seemed tied together. The timing was too perfect for it to be a coincidence.
If only Mom would come back and tell them what was wrong! She had to tell them, Megan thought fiercely. Whatever it was, surely she and Sandy would be better off knowing about it, rather than just getting more and more scared.
She smoothed out the pages and read them again, but it didn’t make anything clearer. And the cold sense of dread grew in her stomach so that she felt half-sick with it.
* * *
“Megan! Wake up!”
The whisper was a hiss in the darkness, and she came awake groggily, rising on one elbow.
“Sandy? What’s the matter?”
“Shhh! I don’t want to wake Grandpa up. Listen, come into my bedroom and listen!”
What kind of a sentence was that? Megan wondered. “Listen to what?”
“If I knew what it was, I wouldn’t have to ask you to listen to it, would I? I think somebody’s prowling around outside.”
She came wide awake then, aware of the night chill, or maybe it was goose bumps, because the fear came flooding back. After debating with herself for almost the entire evening, she’d finally shared Annie’s letter with her brother. Then she’d wondered if that had been a mistake, because it was obvious that Sandy was scared, too.
And now he thought someone was prowling around the cottage.
Megan slid out of bed, shivering in her thin summer pajamas. Together they padded silently across the living room. Megan caught a little toe against the leg of a chair and stifled an exclamation of pain. Her heart was thudding so loudly it felt as if it could break out of her chest.
They reached the door of the bedroom where Sandy slept and eased inside. “Now listen!” Sandy commanded, so softly she could barely hear him.
At first there was nothing. Megan began to hope he had simply imagined whatever it was, or had had a bad dream. Sometimes when you woke from a nightmare, you couldn’t tell what was real and what was not.
And then it came: from the porch outside Sandy’s open window, the unmistakable sound of breathing. When she thought her heart would stop altogether, they heard a metallic sound, as if someone had run into the trash can and shoved it against the wall.
Sandy’s hand reached for hers, and they stood there, not daring to speak. If they could hear whoever was out there, he could also hear them.
Why hadn’t she told Grandpa about the stranger in town, asking for redheaded kids? Why hadn’t she showed him Annie’s letter? Why wasn’t her mom here where she belonged, so they didn’t have to try to deal with this themselves?
The metallic scraping sound came again, and then there was a clatter, a scrabbling noise, and a crash.
A moment later, while they were still paralyzed with fright, Grandpa spoke behind them. “What in tarnation’s going on?”
He didn’t wait for an answer but clumped noisily through to the kitchen, opened the back door, and looked out. Megan and Sandy were right behind him when he turned on the light.
“Well, fella, where did you come from?” Grandpa asked.
He didn’t sound scared, so Megan eased up to look past him.
Tension began to ooze out of her, making her aware of how shaky she felt.
There was an intruder on the porch all right, but it wasn’t the stranger from town or back home. It was a dog that had just knocked over the garbage can and clawed the lid off from it to rummage through the pork chop bones from supper.
He was big and brownish-gray in the light from the dim bulb. He lifted a huge head to look at them, poised to run, until Grandpa spoke.
“Hungry, are you? Where’d you come from, boy? The way your ribs are sticking out, I’d say it’s been a few days since you’ve had much to eat.”
The dog continued to hesitate, wary yet unwilling to be driven off.
Sandy was tremulous in his relief. “He’s starving, Grandpa. Can we give him something to eat?”
“Well, he could have picked a better time to get acquainted than two o’clock in the morning,” Grandpa said. “But he’s hungry, all right. See if he’s interested in those leftover pancakes I was going to feed the chipmunks tomorrow.”
The pancakes vanished in three gulps when Sandy tossed them to the dog. The animal then gave a couple of tentative wags of his tail, obviously looking for more.
“There was a little of that cream gravy left,” Megan offered. “And a few peas.”
“All right. Pour those over some bread, that’s the best we can do on the spur of the moment,” Grandpa agreed.
For the next ten minutes, they rounded up every scrap that wasn’t enough for another meal, and the dog ate every morsel. By the time they came to the end of it, he was licking crumbs off Sandy’s hand.
“Can we keep him?” Sandy demanded.
Grandpa ran a hand through the gray hair that was standing up in tufts, making it look even worse. “That’s no decision to make in the middle of the night. Remember, once this cast comes off I have to go back to work, and I don’t have a place in the city for a big dog.”
“Maybe Mom would let us keep him,” Sandy said eagerly.
“And maybe she won’t, if you all wind up in an apartment,” Grandpa said dryly. “But I guess it won’t hurt to let him hang around until morning, anyway.”
“We could use a good watchdog,” Sandy said. “Couldn’t we, Megan?”
Now was the time, maybe, to tell Grandpa about the stranger who had asked about redheaded kids. Somehow, though, Megan’s tongue wouldn’t quite say the words, and then it was too late, at least for now. Grandpa slid the bolt on the back door, hitched up his pajamas, and headed back to bed. “We’ll talk about it tomorrow,” he said. “Good night again.”
Back in her own bed, Megan took a while to warm up. Grandpa had left the dog out on the porch, but after Grandpa’s snores drifted through the cottage, there were other sounds. Surreptitious ones that Megan figured out without getting alarmed again.
Sandy was bringing the dog in through the window, and she had no doubt that he was getting warm faster because the dog had joined him on the single bed.
Tomorrow, she thought, she’d better tell Grandpa what they knew, and what they suspected. Just in case anyone really did come prowling around.
It was a long time before she stopped straining to hear sounds in the surrounding darkness and fell asleep.