Free Is Anybody There? by Eve Bunting Page B

and I’d wave back and retreat.
    “It’s like trying to get past a sentry box,” I told Robbie.
    But after lunch Miss Sarah came out and opened the trunk of their Buick, and she and her sister began carrying out green branches and pots of poinsettias and chrysanthemums.
    “The plants are for Christmas Eve midnight mass, Robbie,” I said. “They’ll be loading for a while. And then Miss Sarah will drive the stuff over and come back. I’ll go now, while they’re busy. Keep watch.”
    “I’ll signal if I see Nick coming home,” Robbie said. “I’ll whistle.”
    Of course I wouldn’t need a signal. The first thing we’d see would be Nick’s Dodge cruising up the driveway, and then it would be too late. “Just throw yourself in front of his car,” I said. “That’ll work better.”
    “You don’t think anyone will come in here while you’re gone, do you?” Robbie asked, jerking his head this way and that, like a nervous chicken.
    “No. I told you. All the locks were changed. If someone does,
then
you can whistle.”
    I raced up Nick’s steps. What if this time he
had
locked the door? He should. But if he wasMr. Fox in person, he’d know he didn’t have to.
    The door was open. I slid inside and closed it behind me.
    The apartment was flooded with sunlight.
    I checked the stuff on the table beside the couch first. No clock. Well, would I expect him to have it where Mom or I might see it? I’d need to open drawers and closets to check properly, and that would be hard to do. I felt like a crumbum even thinking about it.
    “But if he’s a thief …” I said out loud. “Besides, he said I should come up anytime.” Not to look through his private things, though. He hadn’t invited me to do that. So?
    I opened the drawer on the bedside table and pawed through his stuff. I checked the closet. The top shelf was filled with packages, Christmas wrapped. Maybe he’d hidden something behind them.
    I dragged over the wicker chair and lifted the packages out. There were tags on all of them and they were all for Blake, whoever that was. Most of the wrapping paper was faded and torn as though the packages had been around for a long time. There was a new one,though, big and square, wrapped in green foil with a green ribbon. The white, stuck-on card said
To Blake
again. Weird! Then I found a small, square box in the same kind of green foil marked “To Caroline with love from Nick.” With love to my mother! I jammed it all the way back where there was nothing but dust. There hadn’t been anything in that pile for me. Well, Nick wasn’t on my Christmas list either.
    The closet-sized bathroom smelled of Nick. The mat by the shower still had two great, damp bear prints on it. I almost hung up the towel he’d left in a wet heap on the floor, but I remembered in time not to move it. That would have been a mistake. Anyway, I wasn’t here to pick up after him.
    Back to the living room. A wicker chest with a broken brass hasp on top was filled with records and books and photographs. Some of the pictures were framed. Most of them were of a kid with blond curly hair and big blue eyes. In one he was about two, in another one a bit older. I turned the picture over. Printed on the back were the words “Blake, age two years two months.” So that was the Blake onall those old Christmas presents. But why were they still in Nick’s closet? I flipped over all the pictures. There was one at age five where he looked exactly like Nick. Poor kid, I thought. In a couple of them he was with a woman whose name on the back was Anne. Anne and Blake at age three. And then I found one with a trio: Nick, Anne, and Blake. Blake was six, according to the label on the back. The date placed it as being taken seven years ago. So Blake would be thirteen now, same as me.
    Nick didn’t have his beard back then. He looked kind of young himself, and he was smiling down at Blake in such a soft, loving way it made my throat hurt. I remembered Dad