The Girl with the Silver Eyes Read online

  “It’s hard work to keep pretending all the time. How am I going to find them, then?” Katie wondered. She brought the three birth announcements out of her pocket and tried to smooth the creases out of them. “I already looked in the phone book for the name of Lamont. There aren’t any at all, so I guess these people have moved away.”

  “What about the other ones?” Mrs. M. had to get out her reading glasses to look at them. “Eric Arnold VanAllsburg, born to Paula and Richard. Dale John Casey, born to Sandra and Alfred. Kerri Louise Lamont, born to Fern and Charles. Hmmmm.”

  Katie waited hopefully for Mrs. M. to come up with a brilliant idea. All she said was, “Get the phone book, and we’ll look for the other ones.”

  Though there were no Lamonts, there were eleven VanAllsburgs (though none of them was named Richard) and seventeen Caseys. Two of the Caseys had the first initial A, so they decided to try those first. Neither of them answered.

  Mrs. M. looked at the clock. “Well, they must all be still working. You’ll have to call in the evening.”

  “With Monica and Nathan listening?” Katie asked. “How am I going to do that?”

  “Well, I guess you’ll have to come over here and use my phone,” Mrs. M. decided.

  “If they had kids,” Katie said slowly, “wouldn’t somebody be home during the day?”

  “Maybe they leave ’em with a sitter. Speaking of sitters, you think that one you had today will be back tomorrow?”

  “I don’t know. She said it was a long way to come and didn’t pay enough. Maybe Monica will fire her.” Katie hoped so. “I can do more things to make her quit, but if I do, and Monica and Nathan find out, they might do something to me. I don’t think they’d be as understanding as you are.”

  “Oh, I’ve been around longer. The more you see,” Mrs. M. told her, “the more you learn to accept things. I guess we better not eat any more cookies; they’ll spoil your supper.”

  “I suppose. It’s almost five, and everybody will be coming home pretty soon. In fact, Mrs. G. has to catch a bus at ten after, so I don’t even know if she’ll be around until my mother comes home. I think I ought to see if there’s any way I can help Jackson Jones collect from Mr. Pollard. He always makes Jackson come back three or four times before he pays him for the paper.”

  “I’m not surprised. Mr. Pollard hates cats. He kicked poor old Lobo once, and Lobo limped for a week. What are you going to do?” Mrs. M. sounded most interested.

  “I don’t know. I’ll have to wait and see, I guess,” Katie told her.

  She wandered back to her own apartment, going by way of the deck to see if anyone was swimming. No one was. What was the use of having a swimming pool if nobody went in it?

  Mrs. G. had finally turned off the TV and was picking up her garbage to take it to the kitchen. Katie was disappointed; she’d hoped it would still be in the living room when Monica came home, so Mrs. G. would be fired.

  “Well, so long, kiddo,” Mrs. G. said, after she’d dumped her dirty dishes into the sink and the rinds, cores, and peelings into the garbage can. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  It was absurd that Monica should pay the woman to come here and sit and watch TV and eat Monica’s groceries all day. She hadn’t paid any attention to Katie at all; she hadn’t even asked where she’d been, the hour or more she’d spent in the apartment across the hall. What good was she?

  Katie stood on the balcony and watched unhappily as Mrs. G. tottered off to the corner to catch her bus. She intended to come back, and what could you do to frighten off somebody who was so absorbed in soap operas that she didn’t even notice what went on around her?

  All of a sudden she remembered the meat loaf and potatoes she was supposed to have put in the oven. Katie spun and ran to the kitchen, turning on the oven and getting out the meat loaf Monica had made the night before. Usually they baked such things at 350°. Would it cook fast enough if she turned it up to 400°? She stuck the meat loaf in and got out the potatoes. At home Grandma put big (clean) nails through the potatoes, to make them cook faster, but Katie couldn’t find any nails in Monica’s kitchen. Well, they’d bake at 400°, too, so maybe it would work out right. Maybe she ought to turn the heat up to 500°. She could turn it back down to the right temperature just before Monica got here, and nobody’d ever know the difference.

  She went back to her post on the balcony, waiting for people to show up. Somebody did, although she didn’t know who he was.

  He was about as old as Nathan, she guessed, only she liked his looks better. He didn’t have a beard, and he had a nice, friendly face. He parked his car in the lot—in the space for 3-A, which probably didn’t matter since Mr. P. didn’t have a car—and came toward the front door below her. When he looked up and saw Katie, he waved.

  The new man was tall and had sandy hair and blue eyes. Katie was very conscious of eye color, now; she kept hoping she’d find someone who had silvery eyes like her own. Of course the newcomer was much too old to have been exposed to that experimental drug or whatever it was, but maybe that wasn’t the only thing that gave people special abilities.

  “Hi,” he called up to her. “Do you know if there are any furnished apartments available in this building? I’m looking for one.”

  Katie leaned over the railing. “I don’t know. The sign says furnished and unfurnished. My mother rented this one unfurnished a week ago. The manager lives in the basement, if you want to ask him.”

  “OK. I will.” He grinned at her and went on inside. It would be nice, Katie thought, if Mr. Pollard moved out and this man moved in. He didn’t look to be the type who would swear at her if he ran into her on the stairs.

  She saw Jackson Jones coming on his bicycle, far down the street. A little dog ran after him, yapping and nipping at Jackson’s pant leg.

  She could communicate with cats. Could she do the same with dogs? From a block away?

  She didn’t know if she’d have to say it loud enough for the dog to hear it or not, but it was worth a try.

  “Stop that,” she said aloud. “Jackson’s a nice boy. Don’t bite him.”

  Of course, the dog couldn’t hear her. But it suddenly stopped running after Jackson and trotted back into its own yard. So she didn’t know if she’d communicated or if the dog had simply gotten tired.

  That was something most other people couldn’t do, either. Talk to dogs and cats. Well, of course, anybody could talk to them, but most people didn’t get answers back. Not that she’d had an answer from the dog, but he’d done what she said. She wondered what old Dusty would have had to say, if she’d been able to get him to respond? Dusty had been an old dog when she went to live with Grandma Welker, and he’d had to go live with the Tanners when Grandma died. He’d been a nice old dog, even if he didn’t talk to her. She missed Dusty.

  Katie turned her head and saw that Mr. P. was getting off the bus in the opposite direction. He saw Jackson Jones and broke stride, then continued on more slowly, carrying his jacket because it was so hot.

  She’d bet he didn’t intend to pay Jackson today, either, if he could help it, Katie thought. Did he keep the boy coming back time and after time for his money just to be hateful? She decided that he was mean enough to do just that.

  They met on the edge of the parking lot, just a few yards out from Katie’s balcony. She could look down and see Mr. P.’s bald head, the strand of hair gone askew, and the wallet in his hip pocket, too. Katie’s fingers curled around the railing. Could she work that wallet out of the tight pocket?

  “Could I collect today, sir?” Jackson Jones asked, as politely as if he hadn’t tried to collect several times before.

  “Gee, I don’t think I’ve got anything smaller than a twenty dollar bill,” Mr. P. said. “I’ll look and see, but I’m pretty sure I don’t.”

  He seemed surprised when the wallet almost slid out of the pocket into his hand, and then he opened it up to check its contents.

  Katie closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, then look
ed to see how it was working.

  The wallet seemed to writhe in Mr. P.’s pudgy fingers, almost as if it were alive. Probably he’d intended only to pretend to peek into the bill compartment, but instead he suddenly found the bills sliding out past his fingers, moving with a will of their own. They eluded his grasp and went sailing off in several different directions.

  Mr. P. yelped and grabbed, nearly falling over his own feet. One bill blew right up against Jackson Jones’s shirt and stuck there until Jackson put a hand over it.

  “This one here’s a ten, Mr. Pollard,” Jackson said. “I can make change for that.”

  Mr. Pollard, however, wasn’t listening. He was pursuing his money. One bill skidded merrily across the sidewalk, defying his efforts to put a foot on it to stop it; another lodged in a tree branch, blending with the leaves. And a third wafted to the feet of the man who had been looking for an apartment, just as he came out the front door.

  “Hey, what’s going on?” The newcomer picked up the bill, examined it, and then spotted the twin to it in the tree. “Whose money? Yours?” he asked Jackson Jones.

  Jackson was busy writing out a receipt. “Well, part of it’s mine, to pay for the paper. The rest of it belongs to him.” He gestured toward Mr. Pollard, who had finally managed to capture the last of the bills and was cautiously drawing it out from under his foot.

  Mr. Pollard was red-faced and perspiring when he came back and accepted Jackson’s receipt. He looked up and saw Katie, and his face got even redder. “Funny,” he said to no one in particular, “how that kid is always around when things fly in all directions.”

  “Oh, how’s that?” the newcomer asked.

  Mr. P. muttered something Katie didn’t understand; she didn’t think the other man understood it, either.

  “My name’s Cooper,” the man said. “Adam Cooper. I’ve just rented Apartment 2-C. Are you one of my neighbors?”

  “Hal Pollard, 3-A,” Mr. Pollard admitted, accepting the bills that Mr. Cooper handed over to him. “Thanks.”

  “I hope we got it all. What happened, a sudden gust of wind?”

  “I guess so. Excuse me, I think I’ll take a swim before supper. It must be ninety-five in the shade.”

  Well, at last someone was going to use the pool. Katie wasn’t sure she wanted to share it with nobody but Mr. P., though.

  Jackson Jones called, “Thanks, Mr. Pollard,” and then looked up at Katie and grinned. “See you later,” he said.

  Adam Cooper still stood below her. “Hi, again. Listen, are you busy, young lady, or would you help me haul things in tomorrow morning? When I bring my stuff over? I’ll pay you.”

  Katie shrugged. “Sure. Why not. Are you going to swim in the pool?”

  “Not tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Why, you need a swimming partner?”

  “Somebody besides Mr. Pollard,” Katie acknowledged.

  “You don’t like Mr. Pollard?” Adam Cooper asked.

  “I don’t think anybody likes Mr. Pollard. He kicks cats and doesn’t pay his bills and tells lies and swears at people even when they don’t do anything.”

  “That right? Sounds terrific. Tell you what, after we get my junk carried in tomorrow, we’ll go swimming. OK?”

  “OK,” Katie agreed, and then, after she’d gone back inside the apartment, she wondered uneasily if her mother would agree to that or if the new tenant fell into the category of “strange men” and was therefore to be treated warily.

  She had no sooner gotten inside than she smelled the meat loaf and potatoes.

  Oh, no! She’d burned up their supper! Katie jerked open the oven door and the smoke poured out into the room just as Monica put her key in the lock.

  7

  MONICA INSPECTED THE CHARRED FOOD. Nathan said, “Who drank my beer?” and Monica looked at the dirty dishes in the sink.

  “Mrs. G. wasn’t a very good sitter,” Katie ventured.

  “Did she drink all three beers, or did you have some?” Nathan demanded.

  “Grandma Welker said drinking beer was almost as bad for you as smoking,” Katie said, “and besides, it tastes terrible.”

  Monica ran a finger over the dust left in the fruit bowl. “And she ate all the bananas and oranges and apples, too?”

  “I think there’s a few left in the refrigerator. She ate your Danish, though.”

  Monica and Nathan looked at each other, and then at the hard and unappetizing food. “Maybe we could cut the bottom off the meatloaf and the rest would be edible,” Monica said uncertainly. “I still have stuff left for salad, if the sitter didn’t eat that, too.”

  Katie was afraid Nathan was going to lose his temper, but he didn’t. “Why don’t you make the salad,” he suggested, “and I’ll go after pizza. What do you like on yours, Katie?”

  It was the first time he’d ever called her anything but “kid.” Did that mean he was beginning to accept her, a little?

  “Anything but pineapple,” she said. “I had pineapple pizza once, but it wasn’t as good.”

  “OK. Pepperoni, Canadian bacon, mushrooms, olives, sauce, and plenty of cheese,” Nathan decided. “Be back in half an hour.”

  They seemed to take it for granted that the new sitter had been responsible for cooking the meat loaf and potatoes at 500°, and Katie didn’t volunteer the truth. She thought if they hadn’t both been a little late coming home, and she hadn’t lost track of the time because she was helping Jackson Jones get his money from Mr. P., it might have come out all right, anyway.

  Monica began to make the salad. “How did you get along with Mrs. Gerrold?”

  Katie shrugged. “All she did was watch television and eat. Oh, and talk to her sister on the phone. She didn’t pay any attention to what I was doing. I was gone for several hours, and she never even noticed.”

  “Oh? Where were you for several hours?”

  “Just across the hall. Talking to Mrs. Michaelmas. She’s nice. She has a cat named Lobo. Lobo means wolf,” Katie told her. “Hey, I got an idea! Why don’t you ask Mrs. M. if she couldn’t keep an eye on me, instead of a sitter? It wouldn’t cost so much if she didn’t have to come over here and stay, and she wouldn’t eat all our food and mess up our apartment. Why don’t you ask her?”

  Monica considered. “You like her?”

  “Yes. She has lots of great books to read. She lent me some of them.”

  “And she likes you?” Why did Monica have to sound so astonished about that?

  “Yes. She gave me cookies. She wouldn’t do that if she didn’t like me, would she?”

  “Maybe I’ll talk to her,” Monica agreed, and Katie’s spirits soared.

  It was so warm that evening that after they’d let the pizza settle, Monica and Nathan and Katie all went swimming. Mr. P. had been in and was just coming out. Unlike Nathan, who was tanned and muscular, Mr. P. was pale and looked as if he never did anything more strenuous than swear at kids he met on the stairs or trot to avoid paying the paperboy.

  He glowered at Katie even now, when she hadn’t done a thing except dip one toe in the water.

  Nathan didn’t seem to notice that Mr. P. was in a bad humor. “Good day for it, eh?”

  “It’s been a miserable day,” Mr. P. asserted. He picked up his belongings from one of the lounge chairs. “I’d advise you not to leave anything lying around here.”

  “Why? Somebody in the building steals?” Nathan asked.

  “I don’t know about steals. But I left my shoes and socks here the other day—way back from the edge of the pool—and some joker poured water over them. The shoes were full when I came to get them.” He looked right at Katie when he said that, although he couldn’t possibly know she was responsible.

  “Well, this is the first time any of us has been down here,” Monica said, slipping off her sandals. “I’ll race you, Katie.”

  Katie was a fairly good swimmer. The water was cool and soft as silk against her skin. She didn’t beat Monica racing to the far end of the pool, but she nearly tied her.
For the first time in a good many days, she forgot all the problems in her life and just gave herself over to enjoying herself.

  She had dived to the bottom of the pool and then surfaced for air when she suddenly realized there was someone standing on the edge of the pool.

  It was the new tenant, Adam Cooper. He wasn’t wearing a bathing suit, but he didn’t seem to mind that she splashed a little water on him when she came up.

  “Hi,” he said. “How’s the water?”

  “Feels great,” Nathan said, floating on his back. “You live here, too?”

  “I will, tomorrow. I’d asked the little girl to help me haul things in, in the morning. And then it occurred to me that maybe I’d better talk to her folks, first. Make sure it was all right with them. People get ideas, these days, about strange men and little girls. With no elevators in this place, it will save my legs, if somebody can help with the small stuff. I’ll pay her, naturally. My name’s Cooper, Adam Cooper.”

  “Nathan Osmond,” Nathan said.

  “I’m Monica Welker,” Monica said. She’d stopped swimming and clung to the side of the pool. “Well, I guess it’s all right, Mr. Cooper, if Katie wants to do it. She’ll have a sitter keeping an eye on her, of course.”

  “Of course. Well, good. I’ll see you around ten, then, Katie.”

  “OK,” Katie said. Had he come back tonight just to make sure it was all right with her mother? That seemed nice of him, not to want to risk causing any trouble.

  Adam Cooper stood there for a few minutes longer, talking to Nathan and Monica, while Katie tried to see how long she could stay underwater. And finally, when she came up, Mr. Cooper was gone.