Here’s what Daddy would say: Excuse ME? Can someone KINDLY explain how GARBAGE is on the SIDEwalk? In what universe is THAT okay?
That’s how Daddy talked when he got mad.
Justin walked around the trash and almost tripped over his old tricycle. He’d left it there on the front walk a long time ago. He hadn’t even put it away like he should.
Up the stairs to the door. His door. It didn’t feel like his door, really.
He pushed the lever on the heavy brass doorknob. It was stiff. He almost couldn’t do it. But then it clicked and the door opened.
He pushed it and went inside quickly, feeling guilty, like he was doing something he shouldn’t be.
The hallway was dark, but he was used to that. Everything was dark all the time now. If you wanted light, you had to go out and play in the plaza. Which was where he was supposed to be. Mother Mary would be wondering where he was.
He went into the kitchen. Usually Daddy would be in the kitchen; he was the one who mostly did the cooking. Mommy did the cleaning and laundry, and Daddy did the cooking. Fried chicken. Chili. Casserole. Beef Burgundy, but they called it Beef Burpundy after one time when Justin was eating some and burped really loud.
The memory made him smile and be sad at the same time.
No one was in the kitchen. The refrigerator door was open. Nothing was inside except an orange box with some white powder inside. He tasted some and spit it out. It tasted like salt or something.
He went upstairs. He wanted to make sure his room was still there. His footsteps sounded really loud on the stairs and it made him creep slowly, like he was sneaking.
His room was on the right. Mommy and Daddy’s room was on the left. But Justin didn’t go in either direction, because he noticed right then that he wasn’t the only person in the house. There was a big kid in the guest room where Meemaw slept when she came to visit at Christmas.
The big kid was a boy, Justin thought, even though his hair was really long and he was turned away. He was sitting in a chair, reading a book, with his feet up on the bed.
The walls of the room had been covered with drawings and colorings that someone had taped up.
Justin froze in the doorway.
Then he slid backward, turned, and went to his room. The big kid hadn’t seen him.
His room was not the same as it used to be. For one thing, there were no sheets or blankets or anything on his bed. Someone had taken his favorite blanket. The nubby blue one.
“Hey.”
Justin jumped. He spun around, flushed and nervous.
The big kid was looking at him with a kind of puzzled look on his face.
“Hey, little dude, take it easy.”
Justin stared at him. He didn’t seem mean. There were lots of mean big kids, but this one seemed okay.
“You lost?” the big kid asked.
Justin shook his head.
“Oh. I get it. Is this your house?”
Justin nodded.
“Right. Oh. Sorry, little dude, I just needed a place to stay and no one was living here.” The big kid looked around. “It’s a nice house, you know? It has a nice feeling.”
Justin nodded, and for some reason started to cry.
“It’s cool, it’s cool, don’t cry. I can move out. One thing we have plenty of is houses, right?”
Justin stopped crying. He pointed. “That’s my room.”
“Yeah. No prob.”
“I don’t know where my blanket is.”
“Huh. Okay, well, we’ll find you a blanket.”
They stared at each other for a minute. Then the big kid said, “Oh yeah, my name is Roger.”
“My name is Justin.”
“Cool. People call me the Artful Roger. Because I like to draw and paint. You know, from the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist.”
Justin stared.
“It’s a book. About this kid who’s an orphan.” He waited like he expected Justin to say something. “Okay. Okay, you don’t read a lot of books.”
“Sometimes.”
“I’ll read it to you, maybe. That way, I’d be paying you back for living in your house.”
Justin didn’t know what to say to that. So he said nothing.
“Right,” Roger said. “Okay. I’m…um, going to go back to my room.”
Justin nodded fervently.
“If it’s okay with you, I mean.”
“It’s okay.”
TEN
51 HOURS, 50 MINUTES
“THAT’S THE LAST of the fuel,” Virtue reported mournfully. “We can run the generator for another two, three days at most. Then no more electricity.”
Sanjit sighed. “I guess it’s good we finished off the ice cream last month. It’d melt otherwise.”
“Look, Wisdom, it’s time.”
“How many times have I told you: Don’t call me Wisdom. That’s my slave name.”
It was a tired old joke between them. Virtue would call him Wisdom only to provoke him, when he thought Sanjit wasn’t being serious.
For a part of his life, Sanjit Brattle-Chance had been called Wisdom by just about everyone. But that part of his life had ended seven months earlier.
Sanjit Brattle-Chance was fourteen years old. He was tall, thin, slightly stooped, with black hair down to his shoulders, laughing black eyes, and skin the color of caramel.
He had been an eight-year-old orphan, a Hindu street kid in Buddhist Bangkok, Thailand, when his very famous, very rich, very beautiful parents, Jennifer Brattle and Todd Chance, had kidnapped him.