12

Walking into Danger

NEW YEAR’S EVE FELL ON FRIDAY, but neither Min nor Toby were thinking about celebrating that evening. They stood just up the road from the end of Mabel’s drive and waved as Martha and her friend Joanie pulled away.

“I’ll pick you up right here at about three,” she had said. “I have to get the car back to Mum by four.”

“We’ll be here,” Toby assured her. They kept smiling and waving. They saw no need to tell her that Jess had dropped the news that Mabel was in Peterborough visiting her sister.

“Least said, soonest mended,” Toby quipped, quoting a saying Jess often used.

“Let’s go down the hill at least once,” Min said, trying not to reveal the fact that she had never gone tobogganing in her life. Her foster families had watched sports on TV. She had seen hockey and figure skating and Olympic athletes flying high on skis. But she had never taken part in any winter sport herself. She had had plenty of snowballs thrown at her, but those did not count.

“Sure,” Toby said. “Maybe we can make two or even three runs before we turn into detectives.”

As they swooped down the hill, Min felt a fountain of intense joy spring up inside her. The blowing snow was needling her cheeks and she had to gasp for breath because the air was so cold. But it was far more exciting than she had imagined. Toby steered them too close to a smallish evergreen tree that seemed to arrive from nowhere, but he managed to miss it — if just barely. When they skidded to a stop, she tipped her head back and yelled, “Again!”

They swooped down four times before they could make themselves stop.

“We can go along the edge of the woods,” Toby told her, picking up the toboggan’s rope and beginning to trudge through the drifts.

“I think it’s not too far away,” Min said, catching up. “We heard barking when we were at Mabel’s and she complained about them being across the creek on the other side of the valley.”

The snow was so deep it slowed them down. After a few minutes, they settled for walking on the road part-way. Then they were looking down into a valley where the sound of barking rang through the trees. As they stood, listening, a yelp of pain or fear reached their ears and they stared at each other, shocked, each struggling to hide the panic both felt.

“How will we get in to see?” Toby whispered as a man’s angry voice shouted indistinguishable words.

“I can ask for a drink of water,” Min told him. “I have that bit all planned.”

“You are one cool customer, Rapunzel,” he said, grinning at her. But he still looked shaken.

She was worried herself. The man had sounded in a rage at something or someone. Was he the one who had dropped Emily so that she was afraid to be picked up? She swallowed and mumbled, “Let’s go.”

Then the two of them came to the end of a lane, which had to be the one. Side by side for courage, they turned down the unpaved drive. Ahead of them, dogs yammered and whimpered, barked and growled. It sounded like a crowd scene in a horror movie called The Dogs. Min had watched The Birds at Natalie Snyder’s with the older children who were being fostered there, and had had nightmares afterwards. She shivered, imagining in a split second what would happen if wild dogs took over the earth.

She felt her mouth go so dry that she really needed the drink of water she was about to ask for.

“What do you kids want in here? Get out! This is private property,” a man’s voice bellowed at them.

They could not see him at first. Then he came out from behind a trailer hitched to a large truck. He was massive, but his face was hidden behind goggles and a hood pulled low. His mouth and chin were also covered by a dense matted beard.

“I just … wa—wanted to ask for a drink,” Min faltered.

“Eat some snow and beat it. We don’t need kids nosing around here.”

“Don’t yell at them, Roy,” a woman called from the house door. “They’re just children.”

“Kids can be spies,” he growled. Then he reached up into the cab of the truck and pulled out a shotgun. He raised it as though he was about to aim it at them and blast their heads off. In spite of herself, Min let out a squeak of terror. The man slid the rifle into the roof rack, fastened it down and laughed. It was a cruel laugh, like Bruno’s. The same laugh had sounded over and over in her worst nightmares.

“Who sent you here?” he demanded.

“Leave them be, Roy,” the woman said. “They’re not hurting you. I’ll get you a drink, kids.”

She had frowsy brown hair that hung low over her eyes and down past her shoulders. She smiled at Min and, although it was a nervous smile, Min found it reassuring. She was still wearing her housecoat! She kept shooting sideways glances at the man.

She’s afraid of him, Min thought. So am I.

“They don’t want a drink. They’re leaving now! Beat it right now, both of you, or you’ll be sorry,” he snarled.

Both Min and Toby had started backing up when they first heard him speak. Min was no longer thirsty. Her knees felt as though they were made of jelly. Toby’s face, usually pale, had grown as white as the snow on the hill. He had his head lowered and his hand, gripping the toboggan rope, was shaking.

“Do you want water?” the woman called after them. But she did not say it as though she hoped they would answer yes.

“No. We’re going. Come on, Tobe,” Min muttered.

Then, moving as though they were one child instead of two, they turned and ran, the toboggan clattering up and down behind them.

The man gave a roar of laughter. “Look at them go!” he said. “Like scared rabbits.”

Then the house door slammed and dozens of dogs, already growling, began to bark hysterically.

Out of sight of the house, Toby and Min slowed a bit to catch their breath, but speeded up again as soon as they could. In minutes they reached the road. Min bent over, trying to ease the pain in her side. She was shaking and gasping from a mixture of terror and a weakness that made her knees feel like buckling beneath her. Gummy-Worm knees, she thought.

“This way,” Toby said, turning his back on the route leading to Mabel’s house. “I think there’s a little cottage up here somewhere. If nobody’s there, we can at least hide. I saw it when Jess and I were out here getting pumpkins for Hallowe’en. I think she knew whoever owns it.”

Min stumbled after him without a word. She was losing hope of ever finding refuge. She kept making herself go on for what seemed miles, and then they rounded a bend and there was the cottage, set back in a clump of snowy evergreens.

“I hope somebody’s home,” Toby said, going to the door.

Min hoped so too. She felt frozen to the bone. Her teeth were chattering, partly from the icy wind and partly from fear that the man would come after them. He had seemed to positively enjoy frightening them, and he might want to chase after them and terrorize them some more. He had seemed even scarier because his eyes were invisible behind the dark goggles.

Toby lifted the brass knocker and hesitated. Then he banged it twice and waited, holding his breath.

“Come in. Please, come in,” a woman’s voice called.

Min’s eyes met Toby’s. Something was wrong. She felt dread tightening every muscle. Did he feel the wrongness too?

But Toby straightened his shoulders, whacked her on the back to encourage her — and himself — and turned the doorknob.

As the door swung wide, Min peered into the shadowy hall. Nobody was there.

“I’m out here,” the voice called. “Thank fortune you’ve come, whoever you are. I think I’ve stranded myself and I was afraid I was stuck here for the duration.”

Leaving the toboggan outside and wiping their snowy boots, Toby and Min followed the voice and were startled to discover an elderly lady in a bright scarlet jogging suit standing on her kitchen counter. Then they saw the lightweight stepladder that had fallen over on the floor, and her predicament became clear.

“Oh, my,” Min said, staring up at the crinkled old face smiling down at them. Whoever she was, her eyes were as blue as Toby’s. Her hair was flyaway and as white as spun sugar. And she looked tired, as though she might topple over any minute.

Toby picked up the stepladder and stood it where it could easily be reached. Then he went up a couple of steps and held out his hand to help her down. She clutched it gratefully and, holding fast first to his hand and then to his shoulder, slowly backed down to the floor.

“How long were you stuck up there?” Min asked, bringing a chair and placing it where the woman could collapse onto it.

“What a thoughtful pair you are!” the woman said, breathlessly. She sank onto the waiting chair and beamed up at Min. “I didn’t know what to do. My balance isn’t good any longer. I thought I had placed the stepladder on its feet, but the minute I stepped off it onto the counter, over it went.”

“It could happen to anyone,” Toby said.

The woman’s eyes twinkled. “I doubt that,” she said. “I think it was my lucky day that the two of you showed up at my door before I did something foolhardy in an effort to save myself. Now, what are your names and how can I help you? … No, take off your coats and boots first and you can make yourselves some hot cocoa. You look frozen to the bone.”

Before long the three of them were sitting in her living room toasting themselves in front of a fire made with real logs. The cocoa slid down and warmed their insides and Min felt she had known Miss Hazlitt forever.

Then Toby’s cell phone chirped. “Excuse me,” he said, answering it.

It was Jess, of course. Min did not even have to strain to hear the angry voice. “Where in the Sam Hill are you? Martha just phoned here to say she couldn’t find you and she had to give the car back to her mother. She was worried sick, especially when she discovered that nobody is even home at Mabel’s place. You and Min let her think you would be at the house, apparently.”

“I’m sorry, Jess.” Toby started to make excuses, but Jess’s voice cut into whatever he was about to say.

“I’ll come for you right now if you’ll give me directions.”

Min heard Toby gulp. Jess was going to want to know what they were doing out here. She would never understand.

“Who is it?” Miss Hazlitt asked quietly.

“It’s Jess … Jessica Hart,” Toby said.

Miss Hazlitt’s smile became a wide grin. “Let me talk to her. I’ll tell her where you are,” she said. “Jess Hart used to be in my Sunday School class. She was the brightest one.”

She took the receiver out of his hand. “Hello, Jess. It’s Elizabeth Hazlitt speaking. The youngsters are at my house. I am so thankful to them. They arrived just in time to save me from a fix I had gotten myself into.”

They could hear Jess’s voice squawking.

Miss Hazlitt winked at them.

“You know where I live,” she said into the phone. “Yes, same place. You come for the kids when you’re ready and the three of you can have tea with me. English tea. You know what that means.”

The children kept listening as the women made plans. Finally Jess simmered down and agreed she would join them for “an English tea” — whatever that was. Min had never heard of such a thing.

Toby climbed up to screw in the light bulb Miss Hazlitt had been trying to replace, and came down safely. They took out her garbage. And they talked a lot — especially about Toby’s father and the tsunami.

Miss Hazlitt asked Min about her family, but when Min shook her head and closed her lips tight, the old lady let the subject rest without prying or even looking surprised.

“Min is Jess’s foster daughter,” Toby put in, not looking at her.

Min was unsure how she felt about his volunteering this to a stranger. Yet, in the next breath, she felt relief surge up in her heart. He had not only saved her having to talk, he had said the thing that mattered.

Toby went on to tell the old lady horror stories about his twin sisters and the chaos they could create. Even Min could not help laughing out loud at their incredible exploits.

“ … and then,” he went on, “there was the afternoon Grace painted the bathroom wall, as far up as she could reach, in stripes of every kind of shoe polish Mum owns.”

“Heavens!” Miss Hazlitt said, choking with laughter. “Your poor mother!”

“Grace keeps telling Mum that she’ll be good if they get her a dog,” Toby went on.

At that Miss Hazlitt started on a new tack, one that so shocked them it stopped their conversation cold.

“I had a dear little dog myself,” she said, her voice sad. “She was a tiny, cream-coloured Peke stray I found outside my door one morning last month. I took her in and nursed her as well as I could. I called her Daisy.”

She went on, not noticing their shocked silence as she told the story. She’d had the dog a couple of weeks before Christmas. Then, when she had it outside one day, a “coydog” had come racing through and snatched it up.

“There’s a man who rides a big motorcycle living nearby,” she went on, still not noticing their tension. “He’s not a nice man, but he came roaring along just as that animal was racing away with Daisy in its jaws. He rode straight at it. I think the coyote dropped Daisy and she fled into the bush, but I couldn’t find her. She left no track I could follow. She weighed next to nothing and she was such a timid little thing. I’m sure she must be dead. But it breaks my heart thinking of her. She had just begun to trust me.”

Nobody said a word. Min felt she was suffocating. Should she tell?

“Where do you think she came from?” Toby asked bravely.

“I suspect she ran away from the kennel up the road. It’s a puppy mill, really, but the authorities just can’t seem to get it shut down. I do my best not to think about the poor animals they raise. The neighbours say they are supposed to be guard dogs, but the woman has little ones too and sells the puppies.”

“We could try looking …” Toby said after a moment.

“No, no. If nobody found her, she would have frozen by this time. Let’s not tell Jess. She’d be broken-hearted. Even as a little girl, she was forever rescuing lost kittens. I remember her mother shaking her head over her, saying she would end up going out and saving lost animals. Then she married Gregory and went out to help wounded people.”

Like me, Min thought. She rescued me.

Her eyes met Toby’s. Her own horror looked back at her, but he shook his head ever so slightly.

“You’re right,” he said firmly to Miss Hazlitt. “We shouldn’t say a word about your losing your dog. Jess would feel awful. What did you say Daisy looked like?”

“She was a bundle of bones and her breath was terrible. I was planning to take her in to the veterinarian, but I had no way to get there. Then one day she was just gone. I only had her for about two weeks. I searched and searched, but there was no sign of her. I suppose I shouldn’t have told you about it. It’s too sad.”

Min swallowed hard and made herself begin to talk about Christmas, the tree they had cut down at Mabel’s and the books Jess had given her. Miss Hazlitt had been a school librarian, so they had plenty to discuss after that and, when Jess’s van pulled up in front of the cottage, the subject of lost Pekingeses had been forgotten. Almost.

Jess greeted Miss Hazlitt warmly before she gave the kids a glare to remember. “When we get home, you will phone and apologize to Martha,” she told them. “She was beside herself with worry.”

Min nodded and Toby blurted out that he had been planning to do just that. Jess’s face softened and it grew almost warm as Miss Hazlitt launched into the story of their finding her marooned on her counter.

After that, they all began to enjoy themselves. Hearing tales of Jess’s childhood fascinated Min. She began to feel secure, no longer worried about getting into trouble. She helped get the “tea” ready. It was a large, delicious meal with lots of choices — slices of homemade bread and butter, cheese, ham, a bean salad, hard-boiled eggs that Miss Hazlitt had helped her devil, raisin buns, sardines and something strange called marmite.

But she should have realized that Dr. Jessica Hart was not one to let them off so lightly.

The minute they were in the van, her first question came at them fast and hard. “What were you two up to out here? You told me Martha was taking you tobogganing, Toby, but Martha says it was your idea, not hers, and you only asked for a ride as far as Mabel’s drive.”

Min sat, head down, miserable and mute. A cold fear spiralled up from an iceberg hidden deep within her. Why didn’t Toby answer? It had been his idea to get Martha’s help.

Toby coughed nervously. Then he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry, Jess,” he mumbled at last. “Min and I —”

Then Min’s courage returned and she was inspired. She burst out, “It was my idea really, not Tobe’s. I had never ridden downhill on a toboggan, not once, until today. I wanted to try it and I nagged at him to arrange it. It was stupendous!”

Nobody spoke for a long minute. In that small silence, Min realized that she had blown it totally. She hated talking, let alone nagging at a boy. Jess would guess she was lying. Why hadn’t she left it to Toby?

Then Jess laughed. “I love you both,” she said. “And you have a right to make private plans. Tobogganing is fun. I’m glad you went for it. But I don’t want you doing something dangerous behind my back and I don’t appreciate being told lies. Next time, just say you can’t explain. Thank fortune you had a cell phone so I could find you. I don’t see why it was such a secret, and I suspect there is more to the story, but never mind. Next time, just tell where you are going and we’ll forget today.”

Min and Toby sighed in unison. Min bit the thumb of her mitten to keep from shrieking with relief.

“You’re on,” Toby said. “We’re really sorry we worried you. Right, Min?”

“It led to my seeing Miss Hazlitt for the first time in years,” Jess said, turning into her driveway. “She was one of my favourite people when I was a child. She helped get me out of trouble many a time. My adoptive parents were over protective and apt to pile on too many rules. I made up my mind to try not to do likewise, now that I have a child myself.”

By now, Min was clutching her braid so tightly her hand ached. When she heard the last few words, she let her fingers uncurl very slightly and she began to breathe normally again.

Toby, looking back at her, saw her face go pink and her mouth widen in a slow smile. As their eyes met, he must have seen how frightened she had been before Jess’s words let them off the hook. “Hey, Rap, don’t sweat it,” he said. “Jess’s bark is not that bad, and she never bites — not hard enough to make you bleed, anyway.”

“Yeah, I know,” Min said. But her shaking voice betrayed her.

Jess was halfway out of the van, but she swung around and peered at Min. Then she reached her right hand back between the seats and grabbed Min’s knee-cap. “I think you must have forgotten my promise,” she said. “I’ll say it again and add a new bit: You will never leave me unless you wish to go, Min, and even if you decide you can’t stand life with me another minute, I’ll fight to hold onto you. You’ve been with me for just over a week and already I feel you’ve been mine always. I don’t say such things lightly, either. Ask Tobe.”

Before Min could take in the full sense of what she had just been told, Jess was out of the van and heading for the house.

Wordlessly, Min and Toby followed her, to be met by a leaping Cassie, a meowing Maude and no sign of Emily.

Before even undoing her coat, Min gathered her puppy up and clasped her to her chest. Cassie bounced and wiggled and licked and gave small yelps of ecstasy.

Toby laughed and bent to stroke Maude, who did her best to trip him up in her purring circles.

Jess searched for and found Emily in a dark corner of the bathroom, huddled behind the toilet. Her tail waved when Jess crouched to pet her, but she did not make a sound. And when Jess drew her out and lifted her into her arms, she did not look at any of them, but beyond them into some distant space. “Such a pretty Lady Emily,” Jess crooned. “Such a beautiful Pekingese. You will feel happier soon, wait and see.”

Emily ducked her head down and gave Jess’s thumb one lightning lick. Then she went on pretending she did not know they had come home.

“How long will it take her to learn that we’re her friends?” Toby wondered aloud.

Min said nothing, but she remembered hearing her various foster parents say, “She doesn’t trust us. How long will she go on like this?”

“However long it takes, her trust will be worth winning,” Jess said, looking up. And, for a split second, her smiling eyes met Min’s.

“After that tea, none of us needs any supper,” Jess said a few minutes later. “But I have to go to the store. And my friends Pauline and Terry have invited me in for a celebratory drink. You probably don’t remember, but tomorrow is New Year’s Day.”

They stared at her. She was absolutely right about their having forgotten.

“I won’t stay long. Take good care of the menagerie,” Jess called, pulling her gloves on.

Toby nodded and Min said, “Of course.”

After she had left the house, though, a silence fell between them. Min was thinking of Miss Hazlitt and Daisy. Emily was probably Daisy. As a matter of fact, Emily was almost certainly Daisy. The veterinarian had said she had puncture wounds in her back, as though she had been bitten by another animal. That awful man in the goggles had probably saved her when he tried to run the coyote dog down. How terrifying the whole experience must have been for her!

But she’s mine, Min thought. I found her.

Miss Hazlitt found her first, another inner voice answered sternly. And you have Cassie.

Stubbornly, Min shut her mind against the thought. Cassie or no Cassie, Emily needed her. Emily was hers by right.