Free The Secret of Rover by Rachel Wildavsky

Trixie’s head. She muttered angrily in Katkajanian and brushed the filth from her face. Impatiently pushing aside cobwebs, she led the way in.
    They followed. They had no choice.
    The front door opened straight into the small front room. Once it had been their living room and they had done their best to keep it clean. Though it had not been so very long since they had lived there, they could see in the beam of Trixie’s light that in their absence it had become filthy with spiders and dust.
    The driver dropped her paper bag onto the floor. “Thad’s sub food,” she said in her flat voice, nudging it with her foot.
    Trixie grunted in affirmation. “Water’s in the sink,” she added. “We’ll check on you later. So you’d better be good.”
    Then, incredibly, she and her two helpers turned back toward the door. They were going to leave. That was it. That was all they planned to say.
    Now Katie’s voice shook, too, but not just her voice, and not from fear. Now it was her whole body. The outrage. The utter outrage.
    â€œWhat are you doing to our mother and father?” she demanded loudly. “When are you letting them go?”
    â€œAnd what about us?” added David. “How long are you planning to leave us here, in this—in this—”
    Trixie wheeled around, hands on hips. “You think this is bad? You think this place is bad?” She stared at David, hard, as she spoke. “You haven’t seen anything. If you aren’t good, this is gonna get a lot worse.”
    Then she turned on Katie. “And do you want your mother and father? Do you want to see them again?”
    A terrible, cold fear seemed to stop Katie’s heart. She raised her clasped hands to her face in an involuntary appeal. “Are they alive?”
    â€œOh, they’re alive,” said Trixie. Katie felt as if her heart resumed beating at these words. Trixie was watching, and now she sneered. “That’s very sweet,” she said. “But listen up, cupcake: If you want to see your parents again, you
shut up
. You
don’t
.
Tell. Anybody
.”
    With that dreadful warning, she and her companions stepped out the door and shut it tight. Katie and David heard the key turn in the lock. They heard the creaking deadbolt slip into position, barring them in. Then their jailers’ footsteps clomped down the front steps, the cardoors slammed, the motor came to life, and their only hope of escape rolled away from the curb and was gone.
    They were alone.

    Fortunately, they were not left in total darkness. By the time Trixie and her friends drove away, the blackness outside had faded to gray. And while the windows of their ancient house were boarded over, the boards had been hastily and sloppily applied. Cracks between the panels of wood sent shafts of the rapidly brightening daylight across the floor.
    But Katie and David were beyond appreciating this small piece of good luck. They felt that they had sunk as low as it was possible to sink.
    And as bad as it was for both of them, David had a special and secret problem: rats. He was mortally afraid of them. When they had lived in this house—and how, he now wondered, had they ever lived here?—he had kept this shameful fact from Katie. She was his sister and they had few secrets from each other, but he had never wanted her to know this one. It was going to be hard to conceal it from her now.
    Katie sank to the dusty floor. She crossed her arms on her raised knees and buried her face in them. “Sit,” she said to her brother, her words coming muffled through her arms. “We’re going to be here for a while.”
    â€œIt’s too dirty,” he replied. No way was he sitting on that floor, where the rats could get him.
    â€œThey don’t come out in the daylight,” she replied. “We aren’t going to see them till tonight. You may as well rest now.”
    So she did know.