“Huh?”
“What happened to your eye?”
Her hair was dark. She was pretty. “I had a fight with a vulture,” he said. It was the usual story he used to impress people. “I had to break its neck.”
“Oh.” She had a glass of water in her hand. She drank some and poured the rest on the floor. “I heard you moving around. I thought maybe you were Billy or Paul. But I don’t know you.”
“I just got here.”
“You didn’t come with her?”
“I came with Max.”
“Max Palmer?” she asked.
“Uh-uh. Max Swanson.”
“I don’t know him either.”
“I—I’m really not supposed to be here,” he said. “I lost my mom’s key, see. And I think it fell into your basement.”
She looked confused.
“It was Max’s idea,” he said. “I wouldn’t even be here except he couldn’t fit through the window… Could you show me where the basement is?”
“You don’t know?”
“No.”
“Oh, my.”
Laughter rolled from the upstairs.
Four boys came tumbling down the steps. Three were riding pillows, one was riding the banister. They got to the bottom and started pelting one another with the pillows.
They stopped when they saw Buckeye.
“What happened to your eye?”
“A vulture,” said the girl.
There were more questions, almost identical to the girl’s.
One of the boys took out a crayon and started drawing on the wall. Buckeye watched. The crayon made a big face with a long nose, squinty eyes, glasses—it was the old woman.
Buckeye asked, “Won’t you get in trouble?”
The face had big lips and a long tongue. The tongue stuck straight out, catching snot from the running nose. The artist said, “What’s she going to do to us?”
“You ought to go upstairs,” said another. “She’s still in bed. Dying maybe.”
“Is she your grandmother?” asked Buckeye.
“Naw,” said another. “She’d just like to be. Silly old bag. Did you really come through the window?”
“Yeah.”
“Then for sure you have to go up there. You’ll scare the daylights out of her, I bet. Get up real close and look at her with your eye. Can you see through it?”
“No.”
“Then just pretend. She hasn’t given a good yell all day.”
Buckeye looked at the stairs.
“Go on.”
There was more laughter upstairs. Girls and boys.
“I’ve really got to get my key.”
“I’ll get it for you,” said the girl. “You go up.”
“She won’t be mad?” he asked. “I mean, I sort of broke in.”
“But that’s the idea,” said the boy with the crayon. “The idea
Buckeye looked up the stairs. The boys got behind him and started pushing. And before he knew it, he was starting up.
The stairs were narrow and full of the same stuffy smell he’d noticed when first coming into the house. He turned on another light and saw that the stairway walls were covered with more drawings. He moved past them, stepping into the second-floor hall just as another band of kids burst through a door at the hall’s end. They plowed into him, grabbing the banister, making screeching-tire sounds as they turned, starting down. One of the kids looked at him and stopped. “Oh, we got her good this time. Boy, did we ever!”
And then they were gone, tumbling down, spilling into the first floor, laughing, screaming, yelling.
Buckeye looked at the open door down the hall and turned on another light. There was writing on the wall beside the door—large letters in black crayon: HOME OF THE CAVE HOG.
He moved toward it, set his hand on the door, and peeked inside. Mrs. Halfbooger lay in bed, looking old and sick. There was a mound of dirt sitting on top of her, spilling over the bed and onto the floor. They’d gotten her good, all right.
He eased into the room, stepping softly, coming alongside the bed. She looked even older up close, almost like a skeleton. It hardly seemed there was a body under the blankets, under the dirt. She opened her eyes and saw him. He was looking at the dirt and didn’t know she was watching until she whispered, “Which one are you?”
He jumped, turning to look…
“I didn’t bring you here,” she said.
“No,” he said. He looked at her, afraid to say much else, looking at how her faded gray skin pulled across chin and cheeks—the facial bones looked nearly sharp enough to break through.
At last he said, “They put dirt on you.”
She looked down, wincing. It was as though she were seeing the dark mound for the first time. Her head trembled and fell back again, barely pressing a dent in the pillow. “From the basement,” she said. “They’ve made a mess of my basement, you know?” She breathed deep, or tried to. Her face buckled, showing an empty mouth, dark gums. “They spite me,” she said. “All I want is to love them, and they spite me.”
“Are you their aunt, or something?”
“No. I just brought them here. All I wanted… all that I… all that… What’s your name?”
“Sean.”
“That’s a nice name… nice… nice… I bought them things, you know? I would buy them things and go driving. I’d bring things home and wrap them up nice… and I’d go driving… and sometimes I’d see a boy or a girl playing alone, and I’d go talk to them. I know all about being alone, you know? All about it. I’d tell them I had presents and they’d come… to the car. And we’d unwrap things and sing and drive away… Nobody ever suspects an old woman. I’d walk away with them… I’d drive away with them… and nobody ever suspected that… that… Did you tell me your name?”
“Sean.”
“Yes. That’s right. I didn’t bring you here, did I?”
“I came through the window.”
“I should buy you something too, Sean. When I get better we’ll drive down to Kiddy Mart and get you… get you… whatever… anything you want. We’ll wrap it too, so you can open it… like Christmas or a birthday… When I’m better. When the headaches stop. Oh my, but I do get the headaches. Like battering rams…”
“You don’t have to buy me things.”
There was a crazy look on her face—a spastic, thin-lipped scowl. “I be so nice to them and they get like this. They say they don’t want to stay and I have to… make them… and they get like this. You should see the basement. Oh my… I try so hard and they get like this…”
“Want me to push off some of this dirt?”
“Dirt?”
“They put dirt on your bed. Remember?”
She looked up again. “Oh, dear me. I thought that was yesterday… or… Isn’t it something how it’s all gotten outside my head like this. Push it off for me. Oh yes.”
He leaned over and started shoving heaped clay onto the floor. It thumped on the wooden boards.
“You’re different, aren’t you?” she said. “I won’t have to make you stay.”
