THE OLD PLACE
Justin was barely out of bed the next morning—in fact, he wasn’t out of bed—when he opened his eyes and found Chip standing there. “What?” Justin asked.
“When’re you getting up?” Chip asked.
“It’s Saturday, mutt. Sleep-in day.”
“We gotta go somewhere.”
Justin groaned. “Why don’t you go without me, and tell me about it when you get back?”
“You have to come,” Chip insisted. “Now, while Mom’s at work so she won’t wonder where we all went.”
“All?” Justin sat up and reached for his jeans. “Who’s all?”
“Just you and me. And Luther and Lily. And Kate.”
“Does this have anything to do with Little Billy?” Justin asked, pulling on a T-shirt.
“Maybe. It depends on what you think after our secret meeting.”
“Secret meeting, huh?” Justin yawned. “Can I have breakfast first?”
“Okay. But hurry.”
Justin poured a bowl of cereal. “Where are the others? Why don’t we have the meeting here?”
“Lily already went to Luther’s house to get him. They’re going to meet us there. Kate’s in her room. She’s ready to go when you are.”
“Where’s there? Not far, I hope.”
“Not too far. Just down Lost Goat Lane, and off on a side road. Sort of between here and the Wilsons’. It’s our hideout.”
Justin, Kate, and Chip hadn’t walked very far down Lost Goat Lane, which ran between their house and the Wilsons’ farm, before they saw Luther and Lily coming from the other direction. Chip ran to join them, and they veered off onto another dirt road.
Justin had already guessed where they were headed. “How long have the little kids had a hideout at the Old Place?” he asked Kate.
“I don’t know. A month or two maybe.”
The Old Place stood out from the cornfields surrounding it because it was the only place in the entire area where there were any trees, apart from the ones in people’s yards and those along the big canal. The original house burned down ages ago, before Justin was born. All that was left of it was a brick chimney and a crumbled foundation. A little way off was a barn with a caved-in roof, and next to it a pen where the original owner might have kept a pig or a cow.
Behind that was what used to be a pasture, now overgrown with thorn bushes that grabbed at your skin and clothes if you tried to walk through them. Beyond the weed-filled pasture was maybe ten acres of woods. It wasn’t an inviting forest. It was a place that, in contrast to the well-tended fields, looked dark and spooky. Justin had actually ventured into those woods once by himself. He had returned scratched and bleeding from the thorns in the pasture, figuring he was lucky not to have stepped on a snake or run into something scarier in the thick underbrush among the trees. After that he’d stuck to the area around the barn and the old cow pen, which had grown up in sweet grass.
“It used to be my hideout, too.” Justin smiled, remembering how when you were in the loft you had to walk carefully on the beams to keep from breaking through the mostly rotten floor. “Back when I was in grade school.”
Kate had said hardly a word since they started walking. Instead of paying attention to what he had just told her, she said, totally off the subject, “You think Dad likes Chip?”
“I guess. Why?”
“He barely spent any time with him,” Kate said, then added in a kind of bragging way, “He took me to the movies.”
“He let me drive his car.”
Kate stared. “By yourself?”
“Why not?”
“You don’t even have a driver’s license!”
“I have a learner’s permit.”
“You’re supposed to have a grown-up in the car with you!”
“So? Dad’s an adult.”
“You know what I mean. What if you had an accident?”
“He says I’m a natural with cars. Like him.”
“Mom would be mad if she knew,” Kate said.
“So don’t tell her!” Justin shot back, angry with himself for bringing it up.
“I won’t!” Kate said indignantly, as if she wouldn’t think of such a thing. Justin could have pointed out that she’d gotten him into trouble several times, but he kept his mouth shut.
By then they could see the chimney of the Old Place. It was so covered in morning glory vines gone wild that the faded red bricks were barely visible. The crepe myrtle and hibiscus bushes around the foundation of the burned-down house were as big as trees. Unpruned dead branches stuck out like claws between clusters of pink and red flowers. Mom had never forbidden them to go there, but she had warned them to be extra careful if they played there. Rats lived in old barns, she’d told them, and snakes went in to eat the rats.
Chip, Luther, and Lily were in the pen by the barn, arguing about a lizard. Chip had a rusty can, and wanted to catch it.
“No,” Luther said, trying to take the can away from Chip. “Lizards like to lie in the sun. He doesn’t want to be shut up in a dark old can.”
Lily gave the can a whack that knocked it out of both of their hands. “Justin’s here,” she said, and that put an end to the lizard discussion.
Justin smiled to himself. He had often wondered why Chip and Luther, who were so tight, put up with Lily. Now he understood. She was sort of like a referee who kept them from fighting over things that didn’t matter that much.
“Okay, I’m here,” Justin said. “What’s this all about?”
“This place.” Kate waved her arm around the weedy area. “Think it’ll do?”
Justin didn’t have to ask what for. He had guessed what they had in mind. He looked at the rickety barn, thinking it was probably just about ready to collapse. He went inside anyway. The others followed. They stood there looking up at the sky, which could be seen clearly through a hole in the roof.
“It’s better than where he is now,” Luther said. “At least there’s light.”
Justin walked out of the barn and looked at the rail fence around what had once been a cow pen. Some of the wooden rails had fallen down. With a hammer and nails, he could probably make a pen that would hold a goat—at least a small one.
“It might do,” he said finally. “With a little fixing up.”
“How would we get Little Billy out of the garage?” Chip asked.
“How would we get him here without being seen?” Kate asked.
“What if we get caught?” Luther asked.
Everybody had questions. Nobody had answers. Except Lily, sort of.
Lily was upside down, hanging by her knees from the top rail of the corral fence. “We need a plan,” she said.
“Yeah,” Justin said. “One plan is to stop swinging on that old rail before it breaks and you fall on your head.”
Lily turned right side up and straddled the rail. “I mean a game plan. Like in soccer, where everybody plays a position.” She pointed at Justin. “You and Kate have to get him out, because you’re the only ones tall enough to reach through the window. We’ll keep watch and let you know if Mr. Grimsted is coming.”
Justin kicked at the dirt, considering what all of them were thinking—and what nobody had said.
“It would be stealing,” he said finally.
Chip put on his stubborn face. “We can’t leave him there.”
“We have to rescue him,” Luther insisted.
Lily climbed off the fence and stood next to Chip and Luther. “We can do it.”
Kate looked at Justin. “They’re right, you know. We got Little Billy into this mess. We have to get him out.”
Only later did Justin realize how nice it was of Kate to put it that way. Because they weren’t the ones who got Little Billy into that mess.
He was.