Free The Secret of Rover by Rachel Wildavsky Page B

over. Katie was right. They did know; they’d been hearing these directions all their lives.
    He continued. “There are mountains ahead, and you keep the two big peaks in front of you, as if you were heading straight between them. But before you get there—”
    â€œ
Way
before you get there—”
    â€œYou come to the creek. And you follow it upstream, to the left. You just keep following the water and following the water—”
    â€œAnd then you’re there.”
    Both children were silent.
    At length David spoke again, this time quite off topic. “If we found Uncle Alex, do you think he’d tell us what Rover is?”
    â€œDavid, we have bigger problems than that!”
    â€œYeah, well, this one’s always bugged me.” And it had, too. And now that he was tired and depressed it was bugging him again. David sighed. “Just a thought,” he said, moving on. “And you’re right—we do have bigger problems. Like, how do we get ourselves nearly to Canada? Have you figured out that part, Kat? I mean, seeing as how we don’t have any money.”
    Katie overlooked his sarcasm. “No,” she admitted. “I don’t know how we do that. Maybe we’ll hitchhike or something.”
    â€œGreat! We’d be very inconspicuous, a couple of twelve-year-olds with our thumbs out. The police would pick us up before we left the neighborhood.”
    â€œOK, so we won’t hitchhike. We’ll figure out something else. You can’t expect me to think of everything.”
    â€œAnyway, we have a bigger problem,” David continued gloomily. “We have to get out of here. And we’re locked in, Kat.”
    â€œProbably,” she admitted. “But I guess we should check anyway. Just in case.”
    Neither of them wanted to explore the house. Neither of them wanted to move an inch from where they had been put. Although they used to live there, the place now struck them as intensely creepy. It wasn’t just the dust and the cobwebs and the silence; it was the darkness, too. Whoever had nailed the boards over the windows had done a much better job in the rest of the house than they had in the living room. There were almost no cracks between the pieces of wood in the other rooms, so beyond where they sat the place was nearly pitch-black.
    But reluctantly they rose to their feet and rattled every door. With their bare hands they tried fruitlessly to turn the heavy screws that fastened the bars to every window.
    It was hopeless. There was no way out.
    Despondently they returned to the living room to wait out the long, miserable day.
    They did not want to eat the Katkajanians’ food. But they both felt the importance of saving the chocolate with which their pockets were stuffed, and at length hunger drove them to open the battered brown bag. It contained adozen more of the same acrid sandwiches they had eaten the night before.
    â€œTwelve of them!” Katie cried in dismay. “How long are they leaving us here?”
    She had not wanted the Katkajanians to return, but now she feared they never would.
    They each ate two sandwiches, telling themselves they’d better save the rest. Then they braced themselves for the long day and the coming night. The plan was that Katie was to sleep now, so that she could be up through the dark hours to scare away any rats that might emerge. After all, as she explained to David, she didn’t like rats, but they both knew they bothered David worse than they bothered her.
    It wasn’t a great plan, but it was the best they could come up with. And as it turned out, the plan failed.
    David had meant to stay awake. Certainly—certainly—he wanted Katie awake at night. But his body ached with weariness from his short night on the furnace room floor. And the light was very dim in this old house, and his mind and heart were heavy.
    Weighed down by tedium and sorrow and worry, both