“What are you doing under the bed? You’re getting your clothes all dirty. Get out of there at once. And get him out too!” Reuven’s mother’s tone left no question about obeying.
“Oof. Let’s get out of here fast, before she gets really mad,” whispered Reuven. “Last time she swept me out with the broom.”
“Okay, okay! We’re coming out,” he called, and we emerged from under the bed. We stood up, brushed off the dust and headed toward the door. Reuven’s mom looked at us with a look of pure displeasure.
“Where are you going? What about your homework? When are you going to do it?”
“It’s not for tomorrow. I can do it tomorrow!” answered Reuven, and we ran out into the street.
We walked along the length of Olei Hagardom Street, passing Zilbershtein’s house and the garden center. We entered the park and walked along the pebble path bordering the circular lawn. On the north side was an elevated stage surrounded by a little trench where once water had flowed and goldfish had swum, but which now looked like a sewage ditch filled with broken bottles and garbage. Pine trees surrounded the path, and a thicket of prickly bushes grew along the fence. We found a small hidden corner.
“The spy obviously has a partner,” said Reuven, “and according to the math, the partner must live in this neighborhood.”
Reuven’s enthusiasm scared me. One spy, we could handle—but two? It seemed a bit dangerous for two boys like us. What if the spy had a gun? What if, at this very moment, he was telling his partner about the two of us and they were planning to rub us out? I was thinking of suggesting to Reuven that we should just call the police and let grown-ups deal with the spies. I mean, even in Eight on the Track of One, the children got help from adults. On the other hand, I recalled that Peter from the Secret Seven said you only go to the police when there is concrete, cut-and-dried evidence.
I parted the thorny bushes and looked toward the road. I was trying to figure out how to say all this to Reuven without sounding like a coward. The street was deserted except for a short man standing near the bus stop, his back toward us. The streetlamps flickered and I could hear the buzz of the electric current. A faint beam of light illuminated the bus stop. The bus chugged its way to the stop and braked with a loud squeal. Some people got off and hurried to their homes. The man got on the bus and the bus proceeded to the next stop.
“That’s him! That’s him!” screamed Reuven straight into my ear, forgetting all the cautionary rules. A person born deaf and a kilometer away could have heard that scream. I, on the other hand, have excellent hearing—that is to say, I had excellent hearing until that moment. For a long time after that scream, I heard ringing in my ears. It may explain why it became hard for me to hear my mother telling me not to climb trees, not to enter the house with sand in my shoes, and a lot of “nots” that for some reason I never seemed to obey.
I didn’t get a chance to ask who “him” was, because a strong jet of water struck us just then. The park’s sprinklers turned on precisely at that moment. We jumped up to escape the torrents of water and ran, soaked to our skin, until we were out of range of the sprinklers. We sat down on a dry bench at the edge of the park.
“Did you see him?” asked Reuven. His wet curly hair was clinging to his head.
“Who?” I asked, wringing out my soaking shirt.
“The spy! He got on the bus at that stop. Didn’t you see?” Reuven cried excitedly.
“But why would he get on?” I said, “The next stop is the end of the line. People just get off at this stop.”
“He’s probably trying to shake off a tail!” said Reuven. “This is a classic precautionary measure! Never take the same route twice. Come on! Let’s cut through the park and get to the final stop before the bus does!” Reuven took off, racing headlong through the park even though the sprinklers were furiously spraying water. We didn’t care. We weren’t made of sugar and, anyway, we were already soaking wet. The pebbled trail we ran along was familiar to us from the sixty-meter sprints we did in gym class. Our soaking clothes might have hampered our running, but I’m sure I broke the class record, and maybe even the school’s. I wish I had had a stopwatch to time myself.
We got to the terminal of the number-sixty bus and hid behind the trunk of a huge poplar tree across from the stop. We peeked out, our heads poking out from either side of the tree, and watched as the bus came to a nice, slow stop. We heard the swish of air from the opening doors. Two women got off the bus. One was short and dressed in a long, green dress. She looked from side to side, and then set out slowly, disappearing around the corner. The second woman was also short. She was wearing a white dress and holding a heavy shopping basket. She walked quickly to the nearest alley. We waited for the spy to get off. No spy appeared. The bus doors closed with a strong hiss, and the bus started off along its way. The spy had disappeared as if the earth had swallowed him up.
“He’s not there!” I whispered to Reuven.
“I don’t get it. I saw him get on the bus with my very own eyes. He had to get off here,” muttered Reuven.
“Maybe he stayed on the bus?” This seemed to me a reasonable conjecture.
“Can’t have. I looked very carefully. There was no one else on the bus. Anyway, the driver always makes everybody get off at this station.”
This was definitely very strange. A grown-up, even if not especially tall, had simply disappeared into thin air. We came out from behind our hiding place and watched the bus as it continued along its route, turning onto Hahagana Street and slowly driving to the first bus stop. We looked to our left and our right, ahead and behind. There was absolutely no trace of the old man. This was so strange that I actually looked up at the sky—maybe he had sprouted wings and flown away? But the sky was clear of old flying men.
Where had he disappeared to? Had the bus actually swallowed him?