KIDNAPPERS

The next day, before band class started, kids tightened bows, greased cork, swabbed keys, squirted slide oil at each other, peered squinting through mouthpieces, tinkered with the cymbals and the xylophone and the tambourines. A pair of girls with trumpets were (mezzo-piano)running through their parts, the countermelody to the melody, their bells stuffed with rubber mutes. I sat doing nothing, totally dazed.

People at the rest home were going to freak if Grandpa Rose escaped.

My mom especially.

But Grandpa Rose was counting on me.

I was so worried I could have puked.

Home after school, I packed a backpack for the breakout. Then I sat at the table, pretending to solve homework equations, sketching the floor plan of the rest home instead. My mom was wearing some sweatshirt of my dad’s, with an emblem of crossed hockey sticks.

“You aren’t visiting Grandpa Rose today?” my mom (mezzo-forte)called, plucking her keys from the counter, snatching her purse from the armchair.

“Homework,” I (mezzo-piano)said.

She grabbed her uniform, kissed my head, and then flew out the door.

A spotted turtle was hanging around my brother. It still hadn’t rained. I watered my brother, snatched my backpack, and ran to the graveyard.

I crouched against the XAVIER mausoleum. Brown geese lurched through the gravestones, (forte)braying. I eyed the rest home through the fence, watching the windows.

Jordan Odom shuffled alone into the rest home. His lip was split again. His wrists were bruised. Dead leaves were stuck to his sweatshirt, his backpack, his hair, like he had been fighting somewhere on the ground.

My mom was mopping the cafeteria.

The mustached guard was sipping a cup of coffee.

I broke into the rest home through the window of room #53.

The breakout ended up being more of a kidnapping. Grandpa Rose was confused again. He didn’t remember me, was using words so bad that they can’t be written, (forte)swearing^unwritable.

“What’s this you’re plotting?” Grandpa Rose (forte)shouted.

“Quiet, Grandpa Rose,” I (piano)hissed.

In the room next door, someone (forte)shouted something about sewers.

I emptied my backpack, shaking out the disguise. A flowery shawl. A floppy straw hat. A wig of curly white hair that I had worn for a play, once, playing the part of a dead composer.

I yanked the wig over his hair, yanked the hat over his wig, wrapped him in the shawl.

“You devil,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.

“You agreed to this idea!” I (piano)hissed.

I tossed his suitcase out the window, boosted him through. He slipped, tripped, fell onto the concrete. His palms were scraped and bloody when I helped him stand.

Jordan Odom was gaping at us through the window of room #37.

I gathered the suitcase, then led Grandpa Rose off toward the ghosthouse.

We moved at about half a mile per hour. Grandpa Rose hunched over the cane, knuckles white, (mezzo-piano)panting. He seemed < confused now. He yanked the hat lower onto the wig, as the shawl snapped about in the wind. I could smell cookouts—grilling meats—and someone burning leaves. The road wound through swaying maple trees, passing squat houses. High school kids loading the trunk of a car. Middle school kids teetering across a plank of wood, leaping from a treehouse into gold leaves piled below. Elementary school kids sitting in a driveway, ripping heads from dolls, tossing the heads into the grass, (mezzo-forte)singing a song about babies. No one’s as weird as elementary schoolers.

“We’re being tailed,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.

“What?” I (piano)whispered.

The suitcase (forte)whacked against my knees. I glanced backward. An old man was hobbling after us. It was Jordan’s grandfather. Jordan was dragging him by his arms.

“Can we shake them?” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.

“We’ll cut through the woods,” I (piano)whispered.

Taking a corner in the road, we ducked into the trees. A branch hooked the shawl, snatching snarled strands of gold thread. Grandpa Rose wrenched the shawl from the branch. I glanced backward, but there was no one behind us, now.

“We lost them!” I (piano)whispered.

Grandpa Rose (piano)grunted, nodding. Wind (forte)gusted through and a flurry of maroon leaves tumbled whirling into the woods around us. We stumbled across the creek, scattering (forte)squawking herons.

Standing on the porch of the ghosthouse, staring at the chipped paint and the busted knob of the door, I realized suddenly just what I had gotten myself into. This time I couldn’t just peek in. This time I actually had to go inside.

The door (piano)creaked open. Grandpa Rose hobbled into the ghosthouse, leaving footprints in the dust. Dead leaves (piano)rasped against the floor. Tattered curtains (piano)fluttered in the wind. Grandpa Rose collapsed on the hearth of the fireplace, wiping sweat from his forehead with his sleeves.

I stepped into the ghosthouse. The door (mezzo-piano)creaked shut. I had never been inside the ghosthouse before. But I had heard stories whispered, at the bus stop, in the locker room. Stories about floating jewelry, dancing mirrors. Stories about sinks of blood. Stories about ghosts like lightning blinding kids’ eyes.

Grandpa Rose scratched at his beard with both hands, looking from staircase to fireplace, from fireplace to entryway.

“Will you be okay sleeping here?” I (piano)said.

“I’ve slept on floors before,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.

“I can bring you food,” I (piano)said.

“I’ll drink the well’s water,” Grandpa Rose (forte)said.

His volume was making me nervous. I felt like, if there were ghosts living here, we should be talking very quietly, or our voices might bring the ghosts out. There wasn’t a room that didn’t seem haunted. From the entryway, I could see halfway into the bathroom, where the faint shadow of something was flickering over the chipped basin of the sink. The wood floor in the kitchen was staggered with tilted floorboards, like something underground had tried to break through. A hooked chain dangled from the ceiling over the staircase, probably for a chandelier, maybe for a hanging. On the wall above the fireplace was a circle of paint a shade darker than the rest, like where once a portrait had hung, or where a ghost had sunk into the walls. Even the smell in here was freaky. My skin kept tingling, like something invisible was brushing against me.

“I need to get home right away, so that I’ll have an alibi for when the nurses realize that you’re gone, but after school tomorrow I’ll be back so that we can start looking—” I (piano)said.

I heard something (piano)murmuring.

Suddenly Grandpa Rose was looking nervous too.

“Do you hear something?” Grandpa Rose (piano)whispered.

I backpedaled into a wall. Grandpa Rose gripped the cane. Stories about vanishing doorways. Stories about ghosts like fog scorching kids’ skin. Stories about voices shrieking in the fireplace. Something (mezzo-piano)murmured again. Something (mezzo-forte)clanked. Something (mezzo-forte)twanged. The door (forte)slammed open.

I dropped the suitcase, the latch (forte)snapped, socks spilled across the floor.

“Calculator?” someone (glissando)said.

Jordan stepped into the ghosthouse, dust swirling at his high-tops.

“We didn’t shake them, kid,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered.

Jordan pointed at me.

“What are you doing?” Jordan (forte)said.

“Nothing,” I (forte)said.

“Didn’t you hear what happened to Mark Huff?” Jordan (forte)said.

“Ghost, attic window, tripped out,” I (forte)said.

“And you came here anyway?” Jordan (forte)said.

“You have to leave,” I (forte)said.

Jordan wrapped an arm around my shoulders, like a coach about to teach a secret play to the star player.

“Listen, Calculator, I get what you’re doing,” Jordan (piano)whispered. “Your grandpa hated the rest home, so you found a different place for him to stay. But Grandpa Dykhouse, my grandpa, he hates the rest home too. He’s miserable, living there. He can’t eat, can’t sleep. He’s always depressed. I want a room for him here.”

Grandpa Dykhouse stepped into the doorway, wringing his hands. He was wearing faded jeans and a maroon sweater.

“Jordan?” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)whispered.

“There are other abandoned houses,” I (piano)hissed.

“This is the only haunted house,” Jordan (piano)said.

“This house is taken,” I (piano)hissed.

“I’ll tell your parents where you’re hiding your grandpa,” Jordan (piano)said.

“Mr. Rose?” Grandpa Dykhouse (piano)whispered.

“King Gunga, everything’s all set now, you can live here,” Jordan (forte)called.

I had never heard Jordan use a nickname before that wasn’t mean. I wanted a nickname like Grandpa Dykhouse’s. I wanted a nickname like King Gunga.

“Jordan, I’m going back to the rest home, tonight. I agreed to come along only to make sure that Mr. Rose was going back to the rest home tonight too,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

“You aren’t going back there. You hate the rest home. This house is yours now. Now you live here,” Jordan (forte)said.

“Yes, I hate the rest home. This house, however, is filthy, in all likelihood is contaminated with asbestos, and looks about ready to collapse,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

“So? You can’t count that stuff! You said you wanted to die! So then isn’t an extremely dangerous house actually perfect?” Jordan (forte)said.

Grandpa Dykhouse ignored this.

“Mr. Rose, it’s Mr. Dykhouse,” Grandpa Dykhouse (mezzo-piano)whispered. “Do you remember meeting earlier? At breakfast? Talking about boats?”

Grandpa Rose was hunched on the hearth, (piano)muttering something about shells for cheap coffins.

Dogs were (mezzo-piano)barking somewhere. The door (mezzo-piano)creaked shut. Grandpa Dykhouse hooked his glasses to his sweater, shaking his head at me, like I had gotten a problem wrong.

“Nicholas, I’m sorry, but your grandfather can’t stay here,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

“He has to,” I (forte)said.

“He can’t be left alone, the state that he’s in,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

“You can’t take him back there!” I (forte)said. “Our family heirlooms are hidden somewhere, and we’re losing our house, we don’t have the money we need to keep it, unless we find the heirlooms! Grandpa Rose is the key! He hid them! He thinks he can find them! He thinks we can find them together!”

“How do you know these heirlooms exist?” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

Dogs (mezzo-forte)barked again. Beyond the broken window in the kitchen, dusk had fallen across the meadow. I sat on the staircase, burying my hands in my hair. I felt like I was flunking the biggest exam of my life.

“I know there’s a map, I don’t know where. I know there are tattoos, I don’t know whose. I know Grandpa Rose lived here, I don’t know when,” I (piano)said.

“He lived in this house?” Grandpa Dykhouse (mezzo-piano)said.

“If we lose our house, we lose my brother. My brother is buried in our backyard,” I (piano)said.

Grandpa Rose wiped ash from his hands onto his pants, leaving streaks of white across the gray, (piano)muttering something about prison hulks.

“He’s confused now, but he made me swear to bring him here. You can’t take him back to the rest home. The heirlooms could save our house. Please, Grandpa Dykhouse, just leave here, don’t tell anyone where we are, forget you ever saw us,” I (piano)said.

Grandpa Dykhouse ran his hands across his cheeks, shaking his head again.

“He can’t be left alone,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said. “If he’s going to stay here, somebody needs to stay here with him.” He raised a finger, like someone about to give a warning. “And—I can do that—but under certain conditions.” He waved at all the empty rooms. “We’d need food. We’d need blankets. We’d need soap, jackets, silverware, pillows.”

Jordan (forte)cheered. Something (mezzo-piano)squealed in the kitchen. Mice, or maybe chipmunks.

“I don’t know if he’ll want a roommate,” I (forte)said.

“It’s a roommate or the rest home,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said.

“He gets confused sometimes. Plus he’s been to prison. He won’t be easy to live with,” I (forte)said.

“I was a school librarian for almost forty years,” Grandpa Dykhouse (forte)said. He crossed his sneakers, leaning against the wallpaper. “There’s nothing he can do I haven’t already seen.”

Grandpa Rose lay across the hearth, his wig’s curls tangled, his face hidden under the brim of his hat.

“My father built this house,” Grandpa Rose (piano)muttered. “I’ve done wrong my whole life. Been nothing but greedy. I don’t care what happens to me after we’ve found them. After we’ve given them to your mother I’ll live wherever you want. But until then I refuse to die, I refuse to quit, I will not stop looking. We can’t leave them buried. The heirlooms are worth a fortune. I want to do one good thing.”

His chest rose and fell. White ash whirled. Dogs (forte)barked again. The porch (piano)creaked. A dog (forte)whined, claws (piano)clicking across the porch. Before I could shout, or scream, or warn anybody to hide, a silhouette appeared at the window.

Zeke peeked through. Zeke’s eyes were > his normal eyes. Twice as big, maybe.

“Heirlooms?” Zeke (forte)said.

As per usual, Grandpa Rose was (piano)snoring.