12

It was wet in the park. I found a piece of cardboard and held it over our heads. We came out near the bridge by Gun Hill Road. Under the el we went into an Italian bakery. It was warm inside, and the window was steamed up. I bought a loaf of hot bread and a pineapple tart.

Outside we walked along, ducking into doorways and under store awnings. I passed Bubber hunks of bread. The tart I saved for last. All the time I was thinking about what we would do. We couldn’t go back to the house and we couldn’t stay on the street all day. Go to Grandma’s then. Was she still sick? We’d stay there and help her. But what if the man got Grandma’s address, too, and came there and said she was too sick to take care of us and took us away?

Bubber was hanging on to me, trying to hold my hand. I didn’t want him to. It was babyish. “We’re okay, aren’t we, Tolley?”

“Yeah, great.” I kept thinking about the man in the plaid jacket, and there was a tightness in my belly that wouldn’t go away.

“I don’t want to go to the orphan house,” Bubber said.

“Okay.” Would it be so bad? At least it was dry there, and they’d feed us.

“Tolley, let’s go see Momma. I’m cold. I don’t want to stay on the street. I want to go home.”

I gave him the heel of the bread. His hair was full of raindrops and he had bread crumbs all over his mouth. I thought of McKenzie, then Mrs. Winslow. She was nice. I’d take Bubber there, room fifteen. I’d let Bubber go in alone, then I’d duck out of there fast. I could take care of myself better alone.

Bubber was crying. He was eating and crying. “What’re you crying for?” It made me mad that he was crying. It was like he’d guessed what I was thinking and he was crying because I was going to leave him. And I suddenly saw him kicking McKenzie and trying to run after me.

What would I tell my parents? Where’s your brother? What would I say? What would I tell my father when he came home? I don’t know. I left him. He went to the orphan home. What if my parents went for him and he wasn’t there? Maybe another family would come and he’d go home with them and nobody would know where he was.

“Come on,” I said. I didn’t want to think anymore. We followed a woman into a butcher store and stood by the door like we belonged to her. The butcher sharpened a knife, then trimmed a piece of meat, weighed it and wrapped it. When the woman left, we left, too.

Near Burke Avenue a green panel truck slowly turned the corner. It was like the trucks the city used to pick up stray dogs. What if they were picking up stray kids? What if it was the man in the plaid jacket looking for us? We cut behind some buildings, then ducked down into an empty lot. It was a low place, drippy and wet. We were in back of the block of burned-out stores. I looked up at the high foundation walls. We went up an outside staircase to a door. It was boarded up, but a couple of the boards had been pryed loose. We slipped inside.

Inside, everything was burned and ripped out. It had been a restaurant, but now it was nothing—holes in the roof and metal ceiling hanging down. The rain dripped through everywhere. It was just a place to be for a while, and we fooled around exploring it.

The floor was wobbly. “Stay on the side,” I said. “You’re going to fall through.” Bubber was finding things, savers—a cracked dish, a spoon, the handle of a coffee mug that he tried on my finger like a ring.

In front, the checkout counter was smashed and filled with broken glass. In a drawer underneath, Bubber found a book of dry matches. He tried to read the cover. “B—Be—Be—”

“Becker. That’s good,” I said. “What’s this word?” I skipped “restaurant” and went to the next word.

His lips formed. “Hah—ho—hoo …”

“Home,” I said.

“Don’t help me.”

“You’re taking all week. What’s the first word?”

“B—B—”

“Becker’s Restaurant. Home-Style Cooking. That’s what it says.”

“Who cares?” He started lighting matches and throwing them at me. I grabbed the matchbook from him. “Give them back. They’re mine.”

“You don’t play with matches.” I put them in my pocket.

In the back there was a hole in the roof over a row of big black stoves. The roof had fallen in and plugged up the stairs. Nearby, there was a dumbwaiter like the one in our apartment, except this one was bigger and the door opened and shut like a mouth. It had a good rope and pulleys. I gave the rope a tug and ran the platform up and down. It was perfect.

Bubber leaned into the shaft and dropped some stones. I got the idea of riding the platform down to the cellar and looking around. Maybe there was still good stuff down there. I climbed on the platform and held myself back with the rope.

“Tolley, don’t—”

“Bye, Bubber.” I released my grip.

“Tolley—”

I meant to let myself down easy, but I couldn’t hold the rope. It slid through my fingers and I hit with a jolt I felt in my teeth.

“Tolley?” I saw my brother’s head in the shaft above me. “Tolley, are you all right? Are you dead?”

“Yes, I am dead,” I said. I sat there, blowing on my hands and wondering how I was going to get back up again.