VAN did not sleep well that night.
After taking out his hearing aids, turning on the night-light, and building a barricade of pillows, he curled up in the very center of his bed and tried to switch off his brain.
But his brain kept switching itself back on.
Mr. Falborg had to be talking about the Collectors, said his brain, in a voice that sounded a lot like the china squirrel’s. They’re why you’re in serious danger, right?
Of course, said Van. Please be quiet and let me sleep.
But what do you think it means, that you’re in danger? His brain plowed on. What are they going to do to you? Are they going to drop you into that pit? Are they going to do something worse?
I really don’t want to think about that, said Van. Please, please, please, STOP.
For a few seconds, his brain went still.
Then, when Van almost felt safe closing his eyes, it asked, Remember what Nail’s note said? That if you don’t go back to the Collectors, you’ll be their enemy? So you have to go back. But do you think it’s a trap? Are you going to tell Mr. Falborg about them? And how did Mr. Falborg know about you being in danger in the first place? Maybe he knows all about the Collectors. Maybe he knows you’re supposed to spy on him. Maybe he’s trying to trick you. Maybe you should go into hiding. Or maybe you should run away. But where would you go?
By this time, Van had sandwiched his head between two pillows and clenched his eyelids and his teeth. Of course, this didn’t do anything to shut out the voice, which was coming from inside.
What else might the Collectors be hiding? What do you think is down in that Hold? Hey. Hey, are you awake? Hey.
Van shut his eyes tighter.
Hey! Hey, Van? Hey, Minivan? Hey. Hey. Hey.
The voice in his head seemed to have changed somehow. It was higher. Quicker. And he’d never called himself “Minivan.”
“Hey. Are you awake? Are you awake yet? How about now? Hey. Hey, Van. Hey. Hey. Hey.”
Something small and slightly damp pressed against Van’s face. He shoved aside the top layer of the pillow sandwich, opened his eyes, and found himself nose to nose with a silvery squirrel.
“Barnavelt?” Van whispered. “How did you get in here?”
“I’m a squirrel,” Barnavelt answered. Van realized that he’d been hearing the squirrel’s voice perfectly clearly, even without his hearing aids, just like he’d heard the voices of Nail’s rats. Still, he scooted back toward the head of the bed and reached for the bedside table.
“I can climb almost anything,” said the squirrel, hopping after him. “Except glass. And mirrors, which are a kind of glass. And once I fell off a telephone wire, but it was icy, so that doesn’t count. Hey, is this your bed?”
“Yes,” said Van, putting his hearing aids in place. “It’s my bed.”
“It’s nice.” Barnavelt gave an experimental hop. “Bouncy. I bet I could—hey! Are those spaceships on your sheets?”
“Barnavelt,” Van broke in, as the squirrel started bouncing again. “Are you here to spy on me? Because I haven’t had the chance yet to do what Nail said, but—”
“Spy on you?” Barnavelt stopped bouncing. “Of course not. I’m just a wish collector, not an information collector. They’re mostly spiders. I can’t sit still long enough to be a spider.”
“Then . . . why are you here?”
“Why am I here?” Barnavelt echoed. He stared around the room, his eyes going foggy. “Why am I here?”
“Did you come to warn me about something, or to get something, or—”
“Pebble!” the squirrel exploded. “Yep. That’s it. She wants you.”
“Wants me to what?”
“To talk. She’s outside.” The squirrel leaped from the bed to the windowsill, poking his nose through the opening. “See?”
Van wriggled out of bed and hurried to the window. Hunched in the shadows beside the building’s front stoop was a baggy-coated girl.
“Is this a trick?” Van whispered.
The squirrel blinked. “Is what a trick?”
“This. Getting me to come outside. Is somebody going to kidnap me again?”
“I don’t think so,” said Barnavelt. “But I may have missed that part.”
Van took another look out the window. The streetlights were on, and the glow of the moon rinsed the sidewalks, turning the pavement to silver. There was no one else in a long dark coat lurking near the doorstep—at least not as far as he could see.
“Okay,” he said at last. “Just let me put on my robe.”
The building’s halls and stairways were deserted. No neighbors were awake to notice the very small boy in a blue robe with a squirrel riding on his shoulder. Van pushed through the building’s front doors into a rush of cool night air.
Pebble was waiting for him right outside. She grabbed his arm with both hands, yanking him around the stoop and dodging behind two potted pines and a row of trash cans. There she whirled around so that the beams of the streetlamp would fall on her face.
“Thank you for coming out,” said Pebble rapidly, but in the most polite tone Van had ever heard her use. “Sorry if we woke you. But I had to talk to you.”
“Why?” A little shiver ran through Van’s body, even though the night wasn’t cold. “What is it?”
“I smell pretzels,” said the squirrel, sniffing the air. “Do you smell pretzels?”
Pebble’s voice dropped to a whisper. Even with the streetlights, Van couldn’t follow her lips.
“. . . what a pile of lies . . .”
“What?” Van whispered.
Pebble’s eyes flicked over the street. “I want to apologize.”
“For what?”
“For what they did. Jack and Beetle and Rivet.”
“Jack?” squeaked Barnavelt. “Where?”
Van took a little step backward. “Did they make you come here?” he asked warily. “Are you supposed to spy on me? Or talk me into doing what they said?”
“What?” Pebble looked genuinely surprised. “No! Nobody knows I’m here.” She flinched as a shadow fluttered through the lamplight. “But they might be watching.” She whirled back toward Van. “They shouldn’t have done that. Jack and the guards. But that’s their job. I hope you won’t hold it against me. I mean—against all of us.”
Van wondered if anyone else had ever been asked not to hold a grudge about being kidnapped. “Well, I didn’t like it,” he said. “But it wasn’t your fault.”
Pebble’s voice was smaller than before. “So . . . you’re not mad at me?”
“No,” said Van. “I’m not mad at you.”
Pebble’s shoulders seemed to melt. She took a deep breath, her body tensing up again. “Okay,” she said, almost to herself. “Good.”
Van watched her closely. “Why do you care if I’m mad at you?” he asked. “Why do all of you want me on your side, anyway? Is it just because I already know some of your secret stuff?”
“No!” said Pebble quickly. “Well, partly. But it’s—you’re—” She threw her hands up. “You can do stuff other people can’t do!”
Van had spent a lot of his life noticing that other people could do things he couldn’t. They could hear things he didn’t hear, and catch words and meanings he didn’t catch. They always seemed to be taller and stronger and older than he was. With some effort and imagination, Van could generally keep up with everyone else. But the thought that he could do something others couldn’t made him stop breathing for a moment. “Like what?” he asked.
“You can hear the Creatures,” said Pebble. “You can see wishes. You noticed us in the first place.”
Van shrugged. “All the Collectors can do those things too.”
“Yes, but we’re Collectors!” Pebble argued. “You’re the only one from the outside who’s been able to do that stuff since . . . ever.”
“Really?” Van asked hopefully.
“Plus, the other side?” Pebble plunged on. “They’re dangerous. Really dangerous.”
Van folded his arms. “More dangerous than a bunch of guys who steal me out of my bed in the middle of the night and dangle me over a bottomless pit?”
“I told you,” said Pebble. “Jack and the guards aren’t bad guys. They just act like it.”
“Doesn’t that make them bad guys?”
Pebble’s eyebrows rose. She was quiet for so long that Van stopped waiting for an answer.
“It might help me want to be on your side if I knew what that side is,” Van told her. “I mean, what are all of you doing down there? Why are you collecting people’s wishes?”
Pebble flashed another look over her shoulders. “That’s our job. We keep everyone safe.”
“From wishes?”
“From what would happen if everybody’s wishes came true.”
Van shook his head. “What would be so bad about that?”
Pebble looked at him like he’d just asked what was so bad about bubonic plague. “Do you know what kind of things people wish for?” she hissed. “Do you want to get trampled by dinosaurs? Do you want an eight-year-old bully to be king of the whole world? Do you want every food in the world to taste like chocolate ice cream? Do you know how sick of chocolate ice cream you would get?”
“Chocolate ice cream,” sighed the squirrel on Van’s shoulder.
Van hesitated. “Why should I believe you?”
“Because I know.” Pebble’s eyes were wide and exasperated. “I know both sides.” She hunched over, rooting through her coat’s many pockets. “Here.”
She pushed something into Van’s hand. Even in the semidarkness, he could see that it was a photograph, but he couldn’t tell what was in it.
The light of the streetlamp flickered with another sweep of shadowy wings.
Pebble jerked back. “I have to go. Come on, Barnavelt.”
The squirrel hopped from Van’s shoulder to Pebble’s head. “Do you smell pretzels?” Van heard the squirrel squeak again before the two of them whisked away into the dark.
Van hurried back up the stairs to the apartment. The door of his mother’s room was still shut, with only darkness sliding through the gap beneath it. Van slipped into his own room and closed the door. Then he climbed back into his fortress of pillows and turned on the bedside lamp.
The photo Pebble had handed him was old and wrinkled, as if it had been kept in a pocket for a very long time. There were two people in the picture.
One was a slender older man with crinkly blue eyes, gray hair, and a neat white suit. Van recognized him immediately. Mr. Falborg.
Standing next to him was a girl of five or six years old, with big dark eyes and short brown hair that curved against her round cheeks. Mr. Falborg’s hand rested on the girl’s head in a familiar, playful way, and both of them were beaming at the camera.
The girl had some of the biggest ears Van had ever seen. They stuck out through the strands of her hair like . . .
Like mushrooms on the trunk of a tree.
Van held the picture closer.
The girl’s eyes were exactly the color of mossy pennies.