“ I bet you don’t.” His teeth let go and his lips just started flapping. He felt like he was shooting himself in the foot.
“ I bet I do.”
“ Tell you what, if you get ’em all, I’ll carry your books for a year.”
“ And if I don’t?”
“ If you don’t, you can’t call me Arty Smarty Pants anymore.”
“ What can I call you?”
“ Art, or Arty, but you can’t call me anything else.”
“ It’s a deal, and even if I win I won’t call you that.”
“ Really?” Now he really felt stupid about his big mouth.
“ Really, but if I get them all you still have to carry my books.”
“ Okay.” He wanted to say he’d carry her books right now, but he couldn’t, he just puffed up and smiled. He hoped she would miss one or two, because more than anything he wanted to carry her books. He was hopelessly in love with her, he had been for the whole three months that she’d been in Palma. The very thought of her kept him awake nights. He was eleven and she was his first love.
As if reading his mind she held her books out to him and dumped them into his arms. “Might as well start carrying them now, because it’s in the bag.”
He felt the sweat trickle under his arms as he grasped the books. This couldn’t be happening. He didn’t have many friends, and here was the girl of his dreams, handing him her books to carry. Wait till the guys see him with her. They wouldn’t be making fun of him anymore.
“ Hey Arty,” she said, biting the right side of her lip, “you ever get the feeling that something is in your room with you? Something scary?”
“ You mean at night?”
“ Yeah, at night. When you’re alone. And it’s dark.” A curtain moved and she turned toward it. The curtain closed, fast. “Someone’s watching us.”
“ That’s just an old woman. She never comes out past the front porch. You should see her skin, black as black. And hair, whiter than the brightest white, she’s-”
“ Arty, I was talking.”
“ Oh, yeah.”
“ Last night, just before I went to bed, I got this feeling that someone was watching me. You know, like when you’re riding in a car, you can sometimes tell if someone is looking at you from the car alongside, and if you turn quick, you can catch them before they turn away.”
“ Yeah,” he said.
“ Only last night there wasn’t anyplace I could turn and look, except my window. I tried looking away and spinning around real fast, but there wasn’t anyone there. I even tried looking in the mirror to catch whoever it was, but I didn’t see anybody. But I knew there had to be someone. I could just tell. I was scared.”
“ You sure it wasn’t just a tree brushing against the house or the sound of the wind outside?” Arty asked, thinking how wonderful it was that she was talking to him. She was treating him like she would treat anyone else. Like he was her friend, and she didn’t seem to care that he was fat.
“ I don’t know. It felt like someone was watching me through the window, but every time I looked there wasn’t anyone there.”
“ Probably just a bad dream. I get them sometimes.”
“ I wasn’t asleep. It was creepy.”
“ Yeah, but sometimes, when you’re almost asleep, creepy thoughts can sneak into your brain. You think something is real, but it’s only the start of a dream.”
“ No, it wasn’t like that at all. I was wide awake.”
“ Did you tell your dad?”
“ He doesn’t live with us. My parents are divorced.” She said it with a sadness in her voice that Arty couldn’t miss.
“ Bummer.”
“ Yeah, it’s pretty shitty. I really needed to call someone.”
“ What about your mom?” He wondered how she could swear like that. If his father ever heard him talk like that, he’d be grounded till he turned twenty-one and spanked till there was no skin left on his butt. Thinking about his father brought the start of a frown, but he fought it away.
“ She was out on a date.”
“ Wow! So you were home alone? There is no way, just no way, no matter who got born or who died, that my folks would ever leave me home alone for even a minute.”
“ Well my mom leaves me alone lots. She has a bunch of friends, so she goes out a lot. I wish she’d stay home more. I hate it when I’m alone, especially at night.”
Arty thought about what she’d said for a second. He hated the magnifying glass he was always under at home and she hated being alone. “I’m never alone at home, unless I’m in bed, and I don’t like it. My dad is always after me to do something for him, usually I can’t wait to go to sleep.”
They walked in silence for a few seconds, then he added, “I wonder if I’d be scared without my folks there. I wouldn’t miss my dad, but if my mom wasn’t even there, if I was all alone, I bet I’d be scared. It’s only natural.”
“ Yeah, it was pretty scary.”
“ Most likely that’s what it was, you were just scared ’cuz you were alone.”
“ Probably.”
“ You can call me.”
“ What?”
“ If it ever happens again, you can call me and I’ll come over, even if I have to sneak out.” He couldn’t believe he’d said that. His lips were flapping again. If he got caught sneaking out his dad would break his legs.
“ Really?”
“ Yeah, really.” There he went again. What if she called him tonight? What could he do? Ah, but she couldn’t call. She didn’t know his number.
“ What’s your number?”
“ Eight-six-seven, seven-eight-eight-four.” He couldn’t believe how quickly he’d blurted out the number. “Any time you need me, call and I’ll come running.” Darn and double darn, he kept getting in deeper.
“ Thanks,” she said. “Can you write it down for me when we get to school? I don’t want to forget it.”
“ Sure.” He shifted the weight of her books from his right to his left hand. She had the big three with her, English, math and social studies. Their combined weight took a toll on his arm. “Hey, how come you don’t carry your books in your backpack like everyone else?”
“ Because I don’t want to.”
“ What’s in your pack?” he asked, studying it. She was wearing it snug against her back and there was definitely something in it.
“ It’s a secret.”
“ You can tell me.”
“ Maybe, when I get to know you better.” Wow and double wow! She wanted to get to know him better! In all his life he had never, ever felt this good.
She skipped a couple of steps ahead and he happily followed, watching her from behind. She was a little small for her age and she had a cute wiggle when she walked. For a second he thought he saw something in her backpack move, but felt he was mistaken. It must have been that little wiggle that caused the movement. He smiled and picked up the his pace so that he was walking next to her.
The old woman peering out from behind the curtains also saw something in the backpack move, but it was the sparkle the sun made shining off the locket that she was interested in. A shiver ran through her bony frame, and she muttered the words, “At last,” in a voice made harsh by too many years and too many cigarettes. Then she closed the curtains and slumped down on a worn sofa in a dark room.
