Finding Fortune Read online

  “Well, honey,” she said. “I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is I can’t let you stay. You’re underage.”

  Something about the way she called me honey suddenly made me want to keep trying. “But I can’t go home now,” I said, flapping my arms at my sides. “It’s almost dark and my tire’s flat.”

  Hildy peered around my shoulder at my bike parked out in the weeds and she blew out a heavy sigh. “How about if we call your mother and check this out with her? You got a phone?”

  I shook my head no.

  Her wig inched back and forth as she scratched the stiff curls at the nape of her neck. I was bracing myself to be turned away when she pushed the front door closed and bolted the lock. Was she really going to let me stay?

  She patted at the pockets of her sweater. “I must have left my phone back on the stage,” she said with another ragged sigh. “Wait here while I go get it.”

  My heart sank. Her phone? Once she had disappeared down the murky hall, I anxiously checked my watch. It was after eight. Nora would be home from the diner by now and she’d have seen the note I had left for Mom on the kitchen counter. “I saw you with him tonight,” I had written. “I’ve gone to Allison’s and I’m not coming home until you get rid of him for good.”

  I paced back and forth under the small circle of light with my mind racing. This was crazy, but Mom had forced me into it. I couldn’t remember my mother ever telling me a lie before—not even a white one. But after what I saw in the parking lot at her office, there was no denying it. She had lied.

  I forced myself to take a few deep breaths. Nora would cover for me. Of course she would. She’d been just as worried as I had been about what was going to happen with Mom and Dad. She was even the one to come up with our private code: Rick Alert.

  Before Dad had moved out, Mom had started picking on him about everything. How would he ever get promoted to manager at the printing plant now that he was leaving for a year? Why hadn’t he gotten out of the army reserves when he had the chance? Why did he insist on keeping a smelly old hunting dog even though he barely went hunting anymore?

  But whenever Rick was around, Mom turned into someone completely different. She acted like Allison did whenever she had a crush on a guy—all flirty and weird, asking him a flutter of questions about the bank he managed and what it was like volunteering for the Bellefield Rescue Squad. Nora started to take more notice after she found her missing Desert Bronze eye shadow in Mom’s bathroom. “Rick Alert,” she had whispered when she showed me the evidence. We had never seen our mother wear eye shadow a single day in her life, and suddenly she was coming home from the drugstore with a tube of Big & Bold mascara and three colors of Covergirl Eye Enhancers.

  In a few minutes Hildy was back, holding out a clunky flip-phone and fixing me with a no-nonsense stare. “The cell service out here is pretty hit or miss,” she said as I reluctantly took the phone. “But I can usually get a signal when I’m in the foyer. Go ahead and give it a try.” I edged away a few steps, nervously punching in my sister’s number. I’d had it memorized ever since Nora had gotten her own phone when it was her turn to start junior high.

  The call not only went through, but Nora picked up on the very first ring.

  “Hi, Mom,” I blurted out. I cleared my throat, fighting to keep from sounding so phony. “Yes, I’m totally fine. I’m sorry I ran out of the house like that. But I was so mad, I just needed to get away for a little while and think about things. And I figured you probably needed some space too, considering how much we’ve been fighting lately.”

  I closed my eyes as I pretended to be listening to my mother vent. I could hear Nora breathing on the other end, trying to absorb the situation. She finally spoke up in a strangled whisper. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m in Fortune,” I babbled back at Nora. “At a rooming house.”

  “What? Your note said you’re at Allison’s,” she hissed. “And what do you mean you’re at a rooming house? There’s no rooming house in Fortune. There’s nothing in Fortune.”

  “Yes, there is,” I said. “And Mrs. Baxter, she’s the lady who owns this place, she says I can stay here if I have your permission.” I glanced over my shoulder to flash a grateful smile at Hildy.

  “Ren,” Nora said. “What are you talking about? This is sounding really weird.”

  My pulse sped up. Hildy was motioning for me to hand over the phone. “Uh—here’s the thing, Mom,” I stammered. “Mrs. Baxter wants to talk to you and make sure it’s all right for me to spend the night. You don’t have to worry about the money part. I’m paying for everything myself. With my babysitting money. Okay? Here’s Mrs. Baxter.”

  Please, Nora, I prayed as I thrust the phone at Hildy. I knew she could do it, as long as she didn’t panic. My sister was good at acting. She had gotten a standing ovation at the high school last year when she played the part of the mother in The Glass Menagerie.

  “Hello, this is Hildy Baxter,” Hildy barked into the phone. “Yes, your daughter’s fine. She seems like a real sweet girl. Sounds like you two just need a little time to cool off. She’ll be perfectly safe here … if that’s what you decide to do.”

  There was a long pause and then an uncomfortable, puzzled expression flickered over Hildy’s face. I could hear the faint tinkle of Nora’s voice chattering on and on at the other end. Stop, Nora. I pressed my knuckles against my mouth. You’re overdoing it.

  Hildy was shifting her feet restlessly. “No need for explanations, Ms. Winningham,” she said. “I believe in giving people their breathing room. And if it makes you feel any better, I’m a mother too. I understand.”

  Hildy nodded. “You better write down my phone number though. Oh, you’ve already got it … Yes, that’s all right with me. But you’ll have to come and get her tomorrow, I suppose, because her bike tire’s flat. When should we expect you? No … no, you don’t need to give me an exact time. The afternoon works. We’ll be here. See you then.” My body tingled with relief as Hildy passed me back the phone.

  I turned away. “See, Mom? She’s really nice. And this is just what we need. A little time apart to … to take care of our problem,” I added, exaggerating the last two syllables.

  “Wait, Ren—” Nora almost screeched. “What’s that lady going to think when Mom doesn’t show tomorrow? And how long do you expect me to keep this up? Once Mom finds out you’re not at Allison’s, she’s probably going to call the police.”

  I drifted away from Hildy again, holding my fingers over the tiny speaker on her phone. “Oh, that won’t happen,” I said. “You won’t let it, right? Okay, Mom. Sounds good,” I jabbered before she could squeeze in a reply. “Love you. Bye!” Then I punched my finger down on the red End button. I didn’t have a plan for tomorrow afternoon, but suddenly I was too tired to care. I’d have to figure the rest out later.

  I handed the phone back to Hildy and she grunted as she flipped it closed. “So I guess that’s settled,” she said, shaking her head. “That mother of yours sounds like a piece of work. I wasn’t expecting her to let you stay … but at least she knows you’re alive and kicking now. Come on. I’ll show you to your room.”

  Once I had hefted up my backpack, Hildy switched off the overhead fixture and snapped on her flashlight again. “Watch your step,” she told me. “I keep the lights off when I can. Otherwise I’d go broke paying the electric bills on this place.”

  THREE

  A WAVE OF SHIVERS PRICKLED along the back of my neck as I followed Hildy through the entrance hall, watching the beam of her flashlight slide across the walls and past the dark corridors. Everywhere the light landed there seemed to be some creepy reminder of the past—rows of coat hooks and lockers, a rusted water fountain, and a glass display case that still had dusty trophies left inside. As Hildy led me up a wide staircase, I hung back on the landing, gripping the banister. The school felt haunted. I could have sworn I heard shuffling noises behind me and then a strain of faint piano music coming from somewhe
re above, but when I stole a look over my shoulder and cocked my head to listen, the sounds went quiet. I raced to catch up with Hildy. She was already rounding the corner at the top of the stairs.

  “How many other people live here?” I asked as I tagged along on the second floor, eyeing the doors on either side of the hallway. Most of them stood open, revealing empty, shadowy rooms, but I could see a crack of light shining beneath one door halfway down the hall.

  “Only six right now,” Hildy told me. “But I’m hoping for more.”

  I thought of the “Welcome to Fortune” sign that I passed on my bike rides. Population: 12. So more than half of Fortune’s residents lived right here in the school.

  There was a big piece of plywood propped against the wall near the end of the corridor. Hildy stopped at the doorway just beyond it. “Room 26,” she announced as she stepped through the entry and flipped on the overhead lights. “Nothing fancy, but the girls’ washroom is right around the corner.”

  It was an old classroom with bare wooden floors—practically empty except for a metal chair and three cots lined up along the opposite wall. Each cot had a folded blanket and flat-looking pillow stacked at one end—sort of like the pictures Dad had sent of his army barracks in the desert.

  “I forgot to ask if you’re hungry,” Hildy said. “Dinner’s over, but if you come downstairs, Madeline can get you something to eat. She’s not much of a cook.” Hildy pressed her wrinkly red lips together. “But oh well, none of us have managed to starve to death so far.”

  “That’s okay,” I said. “I already ate, and I brought plenty of food.” I gave my backpack a little pat. “Sandwiches and fruit … All kinds of stuff.” Without knowing exactly how long I’d be staying, I didn’t want to blow any of my precious babysitting money on meals.

  “You sure?” Hildy’s eyebrows drew together, making a sharp M across her forehead. It looked like she had drawn them on with a black Sharpie marker.

  I nodded.

  “Well, suit yourself,” she said, turning to go. “I’ll be back in a while to check on you.”

  “Sounds good. Thanks,” I murmured as Hildy clicked on her flashlight again and shuffled off. I lowered my backpack and gazed toward the long row of windows and the blackness swallowing the sky beyond them. If only I had a phone. I could call Nora back and pour out everything that had happened that day in one long weepy gush. “Jeez, Ren,” I could hear her saying. “You’ve really done it this time.”

  I turned away from the windows and straightened my shoulders. Staying in this place, even if it was haunted, would be a small price to pay for making Mom come to her senses.

  At least that’s what I told myself before I heard the crash right outside my door.

  When I ran to the doorway and peered out, there was a little boy huddled on the floor next to the wall. He was staring at the long sheet of plywood that had been propped near the door. Now it was splayed flat on the ground beside him. The boy slowly turned to look up at me. In the shaft of light from the classroom, his eyes were as round and shiny as quarters.

  “Shik,” he said.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Mine says I can say that word if I change the last letter.”

  I might have laughed if my heart hadn’t been lodged in my throat. “What happened?”

  The boy turned to study the board again as if he was seeing it for the first time. “I guess I tripped,” he said. He pushed himself to his feet and dusted off his skinny knees. He was wearing cargo shorts and Chicago Cubs bedroom slippers.

  “So you live here?” I tried again.

  “Yep. In the library.” He crossed his arms. “I’m Hugh Miliken.”

  “Hi,” I said stiffly. “I’m Ren.”

  “Like the bird.”

  “Oh, not that kind of wren. It’s spelled R-E-N, not W-R-E-N. It’s short for Renata.”

  “Oh. That makes more sense. You don’t look anything like a bird.”

  I could see him sizing me up—my soccer-team T-shirt, my crazy hair. Most of it had exploded out of my ponytail during the bike ride. “You’ve sure got a lot of freckles,” he said.

  “Yep.” What else was I supposed to say?

  His eyes stayed riveted on my face. “Sometimes when I see people with freckles, I wish I could get a Magic Marker and connect the dots so I could see what picture comes out.”

  “Huh. Interesting.” I smiled for the first time in hours. He was such a weird kid, I couldn’t help it.

  “Are you sure you’re fourteen?”

  I stopped and squinted down at him. “How’d you—?” I glanced at the board on the floor, putting two and two together. “Wait a minute. You were spying on us, weren’t you? Downstairs. And out here in the hall…”

  Instead of answering, Hugh looked down at his puny wrist and let out a gasp, which would have made sense if he had been wearing a watch, but he wasn’t. “Oh, man, I better go,” he said. “Mine’s probably looking for me.”

  “Who’s Mine?”

  “That’s my mom.”

  “So why do you call her Mine instead of Mom?”

  Hugh’s shoulders twitched with impatience. “It’s a long story,” he said. But then he told me the whole thing anyway. “We used to live in Chicago, and when I was really little, we would go to the park and the other kids would come up to my mom in the sandbox or on the swings and try to tell her stuff, and I would say, ‘Mine! Mine!’ because I didn’t want to share her with anybody. Plus her real name is Madeline,” he rattled on, “so now everybody, besides Hildy, copies me because Mine’s way easier to say and takes up less time because it only has one syllable instead of three.”

  “Makes sense,” I said.

  “Hey,” he said suddenly. “You know those cabinets in your room?”

  I took a step back so that I could see past the threshold. Sure enough, there was a long row of cupboards running along the side wall. “Yeah?”

  “I wouldn’t open them if I were you.” He hesitated. “Or actually, you can open all of them except the last one—the one on the end.”

  “What do you mean? Why shouldn’t I open the one on the end?”

  “You might sleep better tonight if you don’t.”

  I started to ask what in the heck he was talking about. But all at once, he was checking his fake watch again. “Oops, time’s up,” he said. “Sayonara.” Then he left me with my mouth still hanging open as I watched him scamper out of sight.

  I turned toward the classroom again and stood frozen in the doorway, staring at the row of cabinets underneath the worn green countertop across the room. The last cabinet in the row looked like all the others—wooden with a small metal knob. My stomach flipped over at the thought of reaching out to open it. But how was I supposed to stay there if I didn’t find out what was inside?

  I marched over to the mystery cabinet. Then, holding my breath, I leaned down and snatched at the handle, scrambling backward as the door banged open. It was so dark inside the cupboard I could barely see. I crouched like a crab, bracing myself for who knows what to come popping out from the farthest corner.

  But it was empty except for some dead bugs and cobwebs. I stood up and pivoted with my fists on my hips, warily eyeing the doorway. That little kid was probably still out there in the hall spying to see if I had fallen for his trick. Just to be sure though, I opened all the cabinet doors to take a quick peek inside. Empty … empty … empty … and then I let out a muffled shriek of surprise.

  Somebody was staring back at me … or some thing. A grinning, hollow-eyed skull.

  I shrank away and stayed stooped over for a few seconds, hugging myself, peering into the skull’s empty sockets. Now I understood what that kid had been trying to tell me—to stay away from the cupboard on this end of the row, not the other. But how creepy could you get? What kind of people kept skulls in their cabinets and then left them there to freak out unsuspecting guests? I edged a little closer. I could see some other mysterious shapes sitting farther back in the
shadows. I knelt down and leaned forward, straining to get a better view, but no matter what angle I tried, I couldn’t quite see. “Ewww … ewww … ewww,” I whined as I slowly reached my hand into the cabinet, past the skull’s jutting jawbone and those bared yellow teeth. I grabbed at the largest object and pulled it toward me, sighing with relief as it came into the light.

  It was one of those old-timey hourglasses—the same kind that the Wicked Witch in The Wizard of Oz uses to count down Dorothy’s last hours. Kind of eerie, I thought as I turned the dusty wooden frame upside down and watched the sand trickle through the glass … but not nearly as creepy as the skull. I set the hourglass back in the cabinet and gritted my teeth as I groped for what looked like a small pile of shells. I snatched one from the pile and sat back on my heels to examine it. It had button holes punched through it, just like the shells I had seen heaped in the alleyways of Fortune.

  None of it fit together. What did a skull have to do with an hourglass and a pile of used button shells?

  I put the shell back and closed the cabinet, and while I was at it, I decided to close the classroom door too, thinking I might feel safer once I shut out the darkness on the other side. Then I grabbed my backpack and hurried over to sit on the middle cot. That’s when I noticed there was a blackboard on the wall across from me with something written on it—a single word, dead center, scrawled in chalk.

  What did that mean? Was this supposed to be another prank like the skull, something to scare the roomers who were moving in? I knew it was crazy, but I couldn’t help thinking the no was some sort of mysterious message meant only for me.

  No, Ren, you shouldn’t be here. Go back home where you belong.

  My mouth had gone as dry as cotton balls, and all of a sudden I could hear every little sound—my breath turning shallow and the moths outside batting against the screens. There was nowhere to look without getting spooked. Not at the chalkboard or the cabinets or the row of pitch-black windows … I scooted my back against the wall and sat hugging my knees, fighting to stay calm. Part of me wanted to go find Hildy. But how could I trust the sort of landlady who kept a skull in her cupboard? And what would I say to Hildy once I found her? That I wanted to go home? Mom probably hadn’t even been there to read my note yet. If I gave up now, my entire plan to get rid of Rick would fizzle out.