Chapter Thirty-Four

Trudy

 

The dogs howl with the sirens and claw the floorboards like they are digging to China to reach us.

“Let’s get out of here!” I yell.

We slam the drawers and lock the gun cabinet. Then Hoot hands me the papers, and I put them in the elastic of my shorts. The pages are cool and crinkly. After Hoot hands me the key, I jump on the bed to return it to the back of the frame. Once I am off, Paris straightens the bedspread so it will look like nobody’s been there.

For our escape, Hoot unlocks the window and pushes it wide open. I put one leg out and am about to leap before I realize that I am at least six feet from the ground. But if I don’t jump, I have got some major explaining to do to the police, as well as my parents.

“You can do it, Trudy.” Paris’ words push me from behind. “Keep your knees bent and roll when you fall.”

Has Paris been talking to Teddy? The sirens get louder and our options are running out. I follow his instructions and jump. Then I stumble into a roll with an oomph. For several seconds I stay on the ground to make sure I am okay and all my limbs still work. Then I get up and wipe the dirt from my shorts before securing the papers again. Energy tingles through me and in that instant I understand my brother a little better.

Paris jumps next and rolls just like he told me to. He stands with his hands on his hips like he is part of the Flying Wallendas, too. If I had time, I’d applaud.

Hoot has one leg out of the window preparing to jump when I yell for him to stop. “Hoot, we need to put the dogs back into the bedroom,” I say. “We have to make it look like we haven’t been here.”

With obvious reluctance, he turns and goes back inside.

Paris drags a rusty metal lawn chair over to the window, and we stand on it so we can see inside the room. Hoot stands by the door, wiping sweat from his forehead, his hand on the doorknob.

“We’ll distract them as soon as you let them in,” I call to Hoot.

The sirens sound like they are three or four blocks away.

Paris yells at him to hurry.

Hoot looks up at the ceiling as though to say a final prayer. Then he opens the door and runs toward the window. The dogs charge after him and go right for Hoot’s ankles. He screams.

To distract the dogs, Paris and I begin to pound on the window and howl as loud as we can. One of the dogs stops and looks at us, her head turned sideways. When Hoot reaches the window, he dives straight through, head first. Paris and I have to duck out of the way so he doesn’t crash into us.

I slam the window shut. The wild barking is suddenly muffled. Dog slobber covers the glass. The sirens stop mid-scream in front of the house.

Paris leads the way through a thick hedge that pokes at us. Then we run down the alley behind the houses. Hoot limps as he runs. When we are finally far enough away, we stop to look at Hoot’s ankles. Both are covered with bite marks and blood, enough to make me wish I had my dad’s first-aid kit.

Hoot sticks a finger in a hole of his ratty undershirt and tears off a piece to make a bandage. He insists he is okay.

“You got them?” he asks me.

I lift my shirt enough to reveal the folded papers. Papers with all the names and addresses of the rock-throwers and cross-burners in Charleston and Dorchester Counties.

“Now what do we do?” I ask.

The three of us exchange looks. We haven’t thought this far ahead. Like the rebel flag incident, we never actually thought we would pull it off. But we have.

“I’ll talk to Nana Trueluck and ask her what we should do,” I say.

“Well, I’m done,” Hoot says. “You asked me to get the names, and I got you the names.”

“Sorry about your ankles,” Paris says to Hoot.

Hoot shrugs it off. “It’s not that bad,” he says. He seems more concerned about other things. “Do you two swear on a stack of Bibles that you will never tell a soul where you got that list?”

“I swear,” Paris says.

“I swear, too,” I say.

“You better be telling the truth,” he says, “or I’ll end up like one of those barbeque ribs.”

We do a quick pinkie swear, and Hoot limps off down the alley.

Paris and I turn in the direction of my house and do our usual routine of pretending we don’t know each other, him following twenty yards behind and on the other side of the road to throw people off. We are getting good at walking this way—together but apart.

When we arrive at my house, I pass Nana Trueluck’s car in the side driveway and go through the gate into the backyard. A few minutes later Paris does the same. No one can see us in our backyard. But I tell Paris to hide in my treehouse anyway, while I go into the house to get Nana Trueluck. He hesitates at the tree.

“I know it looks rickety,” I say, “but it’s perfectly safe.”

The papers tucked in my pants start to get wet from my sweat. I need to put them someplace cool and safe.

“What about Vel?” Paris says. “She’s in on this, too, even though she didn’t stay for the bulldog part.”

He has a point. I tell him to wait in the treehouse, and I walk through the backyards to get to Vel’s house. When I go in the back door, Rosemary is ironing in the kitchen.

“Hello, Miss Trudy,” she says, smoothing a sheet with her hand.

“Hello right back, Miss Rosemary,” I say.

I have never called her “Miss” before, and the look she gives me confirms her surprise. As far as I know, Miss Josie is the only colored person I know who white people and colored alike call “Miss.” Rosemary is darker than Miss Josie and Paris, and I wonder if white people come in shades, too. In the winter I am very light, but in the summer I turn a light pink. I never tan like some of the girls in my school do. But even if I did, I don’t much see the point of baking in the sun.

“Vel around?” I ask.

“She’s up in her room reading.” Steam rises from one of Vel’s pink shirts that Rosemary is pressing into the ironing board. “That girl is going to turn into a book someday, she reads so much.”

It makes me smile to picture Vel as a pink book with blonde curly hair. I take the steps to Vel’s room two at a time and lean against the door-jamb.

“We did it,” I say.

She looks up from her book, and I show her the yellowing notebook paper under my shirt, damp with sweat.

She jumps up from her bed, and I hand her the sheets.

“Holy moly!” she says. “And you didn’t get eaten by those dogs?”

“Miss Josie’s barbecued ribs worked,” I say, not telling her how close we came to being kibble.

“What do we do now?” she asks.

I like that she is saying “we.”

“Paris is hiding in my treehouse. Can you go wait with him while I talk to Nana Trueluck and ask her what we should do with them? He can tell you all about what happened at that house.”

Vel slides on her flip-flops and the two of us walk to my house.

With Vel and Paris in the treehouse, I stand on the small side porch that leads to the kitchen. I take a deep breath and wonder how to explain to Nana Trueluck what we have just done. But we need her to tell us what to do next. Otherwise, we may have risked our lives for nothing.