Carlsons were lined up on the sofa, Amy between her parents. A thin red-haired child, Hildie noted, with thick, round glasses perched on a snub nose, who looked not only frightened, but angry. Hildie offered the little girl an encouraging smile, but the child’s face remained frozen.
“He really can go home anytime?” she asked into the phone. Apparently, the boy’s suicide attempt hadn’t been terribly serious, or at least didn’t appear so to the doctors in Eden. “Do you think his mother could bring him up here on Saturday? Both Dr. Engersol and I think he’s a prime candidate for the Academy, but of course we never reach a final decision until after we’ve talked to the children and made our own evaluation.” She listened for a moment, then spoke once more. “No, there’s no real rush. We’ve got a couple of spaces still open for this year. As long as we know they’re coming by Friday, we can make all the arrangements.” Saying a brief good-bye, she hung up the phone, then gathered Josh’s records together as she greeted the Carlsons.
Or, rather, Amy Carlson, since her words were directed only at the little girl, who had now drawn her knees up defensively and wrapped her arms around her legs. “Why do I get the idea you’re not nearly as glad to see me as I am to see you?” Hildie asked, rising from her chair and circling the desk to drop to her knees and face Amy directly.
“Because I’m not glad to see you at all!” Amy said defiantly, her face screwing up in an expression that clearly reflected the fear that threatened to overwhelm her. Amy had been scared ever since she’d first awakened that morning. “I don’t want to come here. I want to go home.” She did her best to glare at the woman, but failed as tears welled in her eyes. She clamped them shut, unwilling to let Hildie Kramer see her cry.
“Well, I don’t blame you,” Hildie agreed. “If anybody had tried to send me away to school when I was ten, I just would have flat out refused to go. I’d have thrown a tantrum so bad my parents never would have suggested such a thing again.”
The words startled Amy. Involuntarily, she opened her eyes again. “You would?” she asked, her expression guarded, as if she suspected a trap.
“Of course I would,” Hildie went on, rising to her feet, and reminding herself once more that she really ought to take about twenty pounds off her too-ample body. “And I wasn’t nearly as smart as you are. If you’ve changed your mind, how come you didn’t figure out a way to make your parents let you stay home? If I could have done it, I can’t believe you couldn’t!”
“Well, I tried,” Amy told her before thinking about her words. “I even locked myself in the closet, but Mom had a key.”
“Not smart,” Hildie observed. “If you’re going to lock yourself in a closet, always make sure you have all the keys with you.”
Amy’s arms dropped away from her legs, and then her feet edged off the sofa and fell to the floor. The beginnings of a smile played around the corners of her mouth, and she ran her fingers through her shock of red curls. “I already thought of that,” she admitted. “But Daddy said he’d have taken the door off the hinges.”
“Oh, did he? Well, come and take a look at this.” Hildie moved to the closed door of the closet in the opposite wall. After only a moment’s hesitation, Amy got up and followed her. “Is this pretty much like the closet in your room?”
Amy studied the paneled door and its richly carved walnut frame, and then nodded. “It’s not as nice as this, but it’s sort of the same.”
“Then look at the hinges, and tell me what happens if you pry the pins out.”
Frowning, Amy moved closer and studied the hinges for a second, then examined the crack on the other side of the door. “You can’t get it off,” she finally announced. “Even if you take the pins out, the door won’t come off unless it’s open.”
“Very good,” Hildie told her. “Which is why we don’t have any locks on the closet doors around here. Can’t have kids like you locking themselves inside and making us rip out the door frames, can we? Now, what do you say we go take a look at your room?”
Taking Amy’s hand in her own, Hildie led the little girl out of the office, beckoning the Carlsons to follow. Ignoring the old-fashioned elevator whose ornate brass cage fascinated all the boys of the Academy, she crossed the broad hall to the foot of the stairs that swept up to the second floor in a graceful, oddly romantic, curve. Just by the look on the little girl’s face, Hildie knew she was correct in her guess that Amy would find the stairs far more appealing than the rattling old elevator. With Amy’s parents behind them, Hildie ushered their daughter up the stairs, then up a second flight to the third floor, where there were ten rooms, five on each side of a narrow hallway that ran the length of the house. Halfway down the hall, Hildie opened a door and stepped aside to let Amy enter first.
Amy paused at the threshold and peered suspiciously inside, as if sensing that by going into the room, she would be agreeing to accept it.
Inside, directly opposite the door, Amy peered at a dormer window with a cushion-covered seat in it and brightly flowered curtains pulled back to let the sunlight flood into the room. The room was papered in a rosebud pattern that matched the curtains. Against one wall stood a daybed, heaped with pillows. Opposite it was a chest of drawers, a small desk, and a set of bookshelves. In one corner, its door standing ajar, was a closet.
Without thinking, Amy headed to the closet and examined its latch. “It really doesn’t have a lock,” she said, almost to herself.
“Would I lie to you?” Hildie asked.
“But what if I have something I want to lock up?” Amy asked, then realized the implication of her own question. “I mean, if I decide to stay,” she added.
“Why don’t we figure that out when, and if, it happens?” Hildie paused, then asked gently, “So, what do you think, Amy? Will this be all right?”
“It — It’s pretty,” Amy admitted. “But—” She turned to her mother, her eyes flooding once more with tears. “Do I really have to stay here, Mom?” she pleaded, running to fling her arms around her mother’s waist. “Why can’t I go home?”
Margaret Carlson patted her daughter gently, while her worried gaze met Hildie Kramer’s encouraging smile. “But, honey, just yesterday you were excited about coming here. Don’t you remember?”
Amy did remember. When they’d visited the week before, the big old house had seemed really neat and Mrs. Kramer had appeared to be nice. Now, however, the thought of being left all alone here made her tremble. “I changed my mind,” Amy wailed. “I want to stay with you and Daddy, and Kitty-Cat!”
“Kitty-Cat?” Hildie Kramer asked. “You didn’t tell me you had a cat.”
“He’s all black, with white feet, and he sleeps with me,” Amy sniffled.
“Well, for heaven’s sake, we have a cat here. His name’s Tabby, and he was wandering around all day yesterday, looking for a place to sleep. But nobody seemed to want him. Maybe he could sleep with you.”
“But—” Even as Amy started to protest, a yellowish cat appeared at the door, almost as if by some prearranged signal. It looked around for a second, then went directly to Amy, rubbing up against her leg and mewing plaintively. Amy hesitated, then squatted down and put her hands on the cat’s head. “Is what she said true?” she asked the cat. “Don’t you have anyplace to sleep?”
As Amy gathered the cat into her arms and sat down on the bed to begin making friends with it, Hildie nodded to Frank Carlson.
Amy’s father, understanding the unspoken signal, went downstairs to bring his daughter’s luggage up.
Josh was propped up in bed, a new copy of
A coyote?
Probably just a rabbit.
Maybe he should get dressed and go see.
After all, hadn’t Dr. Hasborough agreed that he could go home that afternoon? It wasn’t like he was sick or anything. In feet, his wrists didn’t even hurt anymore. So why did he have to wait until his mother was done with work and could come and talk to the doctor? Why didn’t they just let him go? He wasn’t more than a mile from where he lived — what was the big deal if he walked home?
He glanced at the clock, frowning. Where
