Chapter 13

Nobody Is Home

My grandmother’s house was eight houses away, so all I had to do was count eight trap doors. That was easy. But I had better count carefully, because I didn’t want to come down into someone else’s house and get arrested for burglary.

Every trap door had a light bulb over it. When I got to the second trap door, I could hardly see in the dimness, so I felt around for the light string and pulled it. The click echoed loudly around the attic. A big spider, upside down on the rough splintery boards of the ceiling, looked at me angrily and then ran away to a darker place. I would have to turn on each light as I got to it, in order to see where I was going.

When I got to the eighth door, I knelt beside it and inspected it. The metal staircase was folded up intricately and lay on top of the trap door. I pushed down on it, but it didn’t unfold downward. It wouldn’t, of course, because it was blocked by the boards that my grandmother had nailed into place. Then I tried pulling up on it, and it lifted a few inches although it was very heavy. The machinery of rods and springs was designed to be pulled downward from below, but I thought I could hinge it upward if I pulled hard enough. I braced my feet far apart, grasped the metal rods, and heaved, and the whole trap door swung up on its end. I didn’t want it to topple back again and make a booming noise. Also, if my head was in the way and it fell on me, I would get splattered. So I found a baseball bat sticking out of a box, and used it to wedge open the heavy door.

Then I knelt beside the square opening. I was looking directly down on the three wide boards that my grandmother had nailed into place. They were nailed at either end, the nails driven up into the ceiling. I crouched forward and put my eye to the crack between two of the boards. I found myself looking down from a ceiling view into my own house, and saw one of my socks on the floor eight feet below me. I wanted more than anything to get down there, just to be back home again. It was very strange, but I felt as though my grandmother would be there, like usual, if I could only get in.

I was pretty sure that if I jumped in the air and landed with my full weight on the boards, I would go crashing through them and get into our house. But that would make a lot of noise, and I might get hurt.

If I could pry loose one of the boards, I was sure I could fit through the space. The boards were pretty wide. But I would need a tool to pry it loose with. I don’t know why, but people put their tools in the basement and their books and clothes in the attic. There were lots of books and clothes.

I found a plastic ice scraper for a car window, but when I tried to pry loose one of the boards, the ice scraper broke. Then I found a large plastic Donald Duck doll sticking out of a box by the back legs. When I took it out and looked at it, I realized that the hand was thin and flat, so maybe the arm would work as a wedge tool. It could bend a little, so it wasn’t likely to snap off like the ice scraper had done.

It was slow work, and I kept scraping my knuckles on the rough boards. Gradually, one of the boards came loose. The nails were very long, and made a groaning sound as they pulled out, one bit at a time. I had to fetch some old clothes out of another box and wad them under my knees. I was there for about half an hour before one end of the board finally came loose. The other end was easy to loosen after that. I held the board tightly with two hands and wiggled it until the last nail came loose, and then I drew the board carefully up and set it next to me. Then I put back all the clothes I had borrowed, and also put back the Donald Duck.

I slithered through the hole where the board had been, feet first, and dangled by my hands. I was only a few feet above the floor, so I let go and fell with a loud bang. I didn’t care about the bang. I didn’t think about it, because I was so excited to be home again. I looked into my bedroom. I felt like I hadn’t seen it in a thousand years, but it was the same as always, my bed messy and unmade. Then, my heart hammering, I ran downstairs.

I knew my grandmother would never come home again. But everything looked so normal around me that I almost felt like she had to be here. “Grandma?” I said. I didn’t shout. I didn’t want to make too much noise. I really half expected to see her in her bedroom, but it was empty. I stood in the doorway and turned on the light. I even looked under the bed. I knew she wouldn’t be under there, but I wanted her to be home so much that I wasn’t thinking clearly.

I went downstairs checking each room as I passed it; the schoolroom, the storeroom, the living room, and the kitchen. But nobody was home. It was strange and spooky to see everything just as we had left it, and to think that it wasn’t ours any more. The pot of spaghetti sauce was still sitting on the stove. I wondered if the sauce technically belonged to Mr. Jubber now.

While I was standing in the kitchen, I heard an awful sound. I heard the front door of the house open and footsteps come in.