Maddie feels herself slipping against the wall at her back, then catches herself, and catches her breath. She looks around as things come back into focus and the fear slowly subsides down her back. The dog starts scratching itself and the simple sight of it finally helps her pull herself together.
She can only speak the most obvious thing that comes to mind: “Um, we’re not supposed to be in here.”
“I rather guess not.”
With the old man nearest the meeting room, Maddie has a clear path to the hall door which she starts moving towards in small steps.
“I’m afraid that door’s locked honey.”
Maddie stopps, now suddenly worried as much about being locked in with this man as about being caught sneaking into the director’s office. She wants badly to leave, to just back out and forget this ever happened, but he is between her and the way back out. Then she remembers the window. It worked for Mustard it is good enough for her.
“I, um, have to go. I’m not supposed to be here.”
“So you let me know. Can I offer any help?”
“No. No thanks.” She stepped up on the same chair Mustard must have used in his quick escape, and hoists herself up on the window ledge. She pauses there on her arms and looks back, feeling like she should say something else and then she notices that the old man standing there is not really looking at her, he is looking up at the ceiling. When she looks up there is nothing there, but he just keeps on staring like he sees something, or like he’s listening for something. Then Maddie realizes why he is so still and why he is still holding the tall stick. He is just like the twelve-year old girl who came through last year for a brief time. She had a walking stick, she would look around like that, and she was blind.
Now the whole thing seems even weirder than before and Maddie really wants to leave, almost afraid as though the man’s blindness could be something catching. It was never her intention to be rude to anyone, especially someone with a handicap—that was something they were taught since day one at the Home. But today is not a particularly good day for her, and the best she can do is tell the man to excuse her, as she slips out the window.
She lands on tender feet and her knees almost give out, still weak from kneeling so long in the duct. She hobbles quickly along the wall and around the corner, realizing that she is alone for the first time outside the Home. She is not sure which way Mustard went since she doesn’t see him anywhere, but she is worried because the only way back in she knows is through the front gate, whereas Mustard must have another way in, since he got out in the first place to get to the window.
She takes stock of herself, feeling relieved at least to be in the open space and open air. Her clothes are splotched with grey, her palms and feet are almost black with dust. The only thing that was going to get her in more trouble than going back into the building through the front, was going back like this. If she thought she was in trouble before, this was almost as bad. Maybe it was best just to go back into the executive director’s office and just go back to her room through the duct.
Then she remembers the man and suddenly she is realizing that she shouldn’t have left him there. If he was blind, and if like he said, the door was locked, how in the world was he going to get out? Fof that matter, she realizes she doesn’t even know how he got in there in the first place. He couldn’t have come through the duct—he was just too big. Plus she would have heard him since he would have made far more noise even than her. He obviously didn’t come through the window. He must have had a key or something. But who was he, and why had he come to see her.
Now she really starts feeing bad that she left him all alone in there, him and what was no doubt his seeing-eye dog, and turns back to return to the window. Then she walks straight into him.
She screams out loud and nearly falls back as she staggers away from him. The old man. Standing there. With his dog.
“Oh dear. I startled you again. My apologies.”
He holds his hand out, like trying to give her a helping hand even though he doesn’t see her. Like she would actually take it. Her poor heart is pounding in her ears again, having too many surprises for one day.
“How, how do you keep doing that?!?”
“Doing what my dear?”
“Appearing like that? How did you get out of the room so fast?”
“Oh, of course you would want to know that.” He smiles, lowers his hand, patting the head of his obedient dog. “We walked.”
“No, I mean….”
“I understand what you mean. But walking is actually quite a useful and healthy activity. We try to walk everywhere, don’t we Argus?”
The dog ruffs like he means yes, and pants happily. Maddie stares at the dog, a handsome, old retriever. She needs to look at it, like it’s the only normal thing in a picture that doesn’t make sense.
“Why are you following me?”
“Now there’s a worthy question, one that deserves a worthy answer: I have something for you. Something for you and you alone.”
“Are you here to try to adopt me? To be a foster parent? You’re kind of old.”
“Interesting you should see it that way. That’s not why I’m here however.”
“But I thought, when you came in with director Ellinsworth…”
“Director Ellinsworth?”
“The people I saw you with.”
“Oh no. We came here quite alone. We always travel alone, don’t we boy.”
Again the dog’s happy reply and Maddie, despite her misgivings, finds herself wanting to give him a pat on the head.
“I think you may be a little confused about what you believe you saw. I am here on no business but to give you what is yours, something very special in the way that you are.”
“I don’t understand. What is it you want to give me? Is it something of mine from before I came here?” The wheels in her mind begins spinning faster, setting more thoughts in motion. “Is it from my parents? Do you know them? Are you here to bring me back?”
“No. But what I have to give you can help find the things you want the most. What I offer you is direction and purpose Maddie. And with those two things you will be able to find anything.”
“I don’t understand, mister. Can you just tell me…”
“In good time my dear, but first…”
The dog cuts him off, the quiet, complacent animal is suddenly on it’s feet, barking ferociously at something and the man turns his head, looking or listening for something Maddie can’t tell, but she still wants her answers.
“Mister, what do you want to give me? What is it?”
The dog is growling fiercely now, the cute harmless old pup now an aggravated guard dog. Maddie steps clear of the dog and finds herself tugging on the man’s overall. He puts a hand to her shoulder and tries to gently push her towards the wall of the building.
“I need to move you child.”
The questions in her mind are now spinning out of control. She has no idea what he is talking about, all this crazy talk, but there is something to it, something to his words, his seriousness, that means something to her. It’s important. It has to be. There has to be a reason for it. For all of it.
She hears tires skid over the frantic barking of the dog, a revving engine, and her shadow suddenly swings across the wall landing right next to her, as the bright headlights of an approaching car zero in on her and the man.
“Move now! You will know what to do when the time comes.”
The light suddenly flares so brightly that the car must have turned on its brights and she suddenly can’t see anything. As her hand press against her eye to shield against it she feels old man shoving her hard towards the wall.
She hits the ground tumbling, somehow missing the wall all together. The fall surprises her more than it actually hurts, or maybe it is just that she is too numb from crawling to actually feel it just yet, but she rolls onto he knees and tries desperately to rub the fireworks from her eyes.
She hears the screech of tires and the sounds of car door opening and then voices, men arguing, the old man shouting, the dog barking, but all of it slightly muted as though a wall just came up between them. She blinks her eyes, patterns of light returning, and her focus quickly returns. All she sees is the wall, but it is the wrong side of it. She is inside the building! Everything she hears is through an open window. She can see the tops of two heads, two large men struggling with someone. She jumps to get a better view out the high window and glances the old man caught between them. She doesn’t know why she is here, how in the world she got from outside to the office of one of the faculty members. The only door in the room leads to the hall.
The hall.
The sounds of struggle outside and she is running, out the door, through the hall, passing a startled counselors, and she is flying past the commons, past the courtyard, through the front lobby and out towards the main gait. She runs as hard as she can having to cover the entire distance around the building back to the corner where she had left him, and when she finally rounds it, with still wheezing breath, they are gone.
She can just make out the car, speeding away up the hill towards downtown, the dog running after it up the street. She drops her hands to her knees, double over with exertion, her legs trembling and feet bleeding and she looks up at the wall where they had been standing, as solid as any she had ever seen in her life. And she realizes for the first time there are kinds of trouble in life bigger than she could ever understand.
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