Nicole noticed that Alex shared his with Shadow when he checked in on her. David, of course, was thrilled to have his favourite meal again.
Full of food, the group lay around the bedroom, telling stories and playing games of twenty questions and I Spy. No one mentioned how strange it was to be doing such things after everything that had happened earlier in the day. The fact that they had come very close to death went unsaid. Later, a few arguments broke out—but they were at the ends of discussions like: who could skate better, or whether The Real Ghostbusters cartoon would be as good as the movie. No one blamed anyone for anything other than who made the office chair go to one side of the hall when it was pushed.
When darkness started to fall, they felt content. For a little while, they got to be themselves; the people they were before they actually met. Before anything had happened.
The next day would go back to their new normal.
DAY 7
ALEX
Alex stretched in the warm sunlight when he awoke. Something felt odd. He looked at the others around him, all still sleeping, and he realized what the strange sensation was: he woke up on his own—not because something terrible had happened.
The others looked like they would stay asleep for a while. David was curled up in the corner, the flashlight lying next to him on top of his book. In the opposite corner lay Kaitlyn and Hannah—Hannah mostly in Kaitlyn’s lap. Next to Ryan’s mat-fort, Nicole slept up against the wall as if she had fallen asleep while keeping guard. In the fort, Ryan lay sleeping. Actually, Alex couldn’t tell. He could have been sleeping, or he could have just had his back to them as he curled up with his new cat.
The cat. It must have come back during the night.
An idea occurred to Alex. He stood up very slowly, keeping his eye on the fort for any movement, then moved, even more slowly and quietly, to the door. Once in the hall, he closed the door behind him; he wanted to keep the cat in there. His sock feet made no noise as he ran down to David’s workshop.
What a mess. David needs to be a bit more organized. He was looking for something very particular, that he had seen on David’s tour, but he couldn’t be certain where anything was in the chaos. He moved broken pieces of lumber, wires, the large springs from the couch, a pile of cans—some full of screws and nails. Then, as if it had been laid out for him at just that moment, he saw what he was looking for.
A ribbon with a bell on it.
Alex had no idea why it was in the building, which is why it stuck out in his memory so clearly. He picked it up and weighed it in his hands. If it was too heavy, the plan wouldn’t work, but it was quite light and the ribbon was the perfect length. He put it in his pocket and quietly made his way back to the bedroom.
After turning the knob ever so gently and pushing the door without a sound, he was back. Everyone was in the same place, but Nicole’s eyes were open, watching him. She looked at him strangely as he tiptoed to the mat-fort.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
Kaitlyn woke up immediately. “What’s happening?” she asked Nicole, also with a whisper when she saw that Hannah was still asleep on top of her. Hannah stirred, but did not wake.
“I don’t know,” Nicole whispered back. “What are you doing?”
Alex, crouched at the mat-fort, put his finger to his mouth for them to be quiet. This was a very delicate plan. He would not be blamed for scaring off the cat this time. “Ryan?” he whispered into the fort. “Are you awake?”
Ryan turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder. Sunlight glimmered in his eye.
“Wicked. Good morning,” Alex said, as politely as possible. He wasn’t sure how Ryan would react to his plan, especially since he had threatened to get rid of the cat just the day before. “Is the cat in there with you?”
Ryan looked away, then rolled over to face out, taking the sleepy, but now-awake cat with him. The cat stretched, digging his little claws into the boy’s shirt. Ryan smiled.
Alex smiled back. “Great. That’s wicked,” he started, unsure of where to go next. “Um ... can I see him? Like, can I hold him for a sec?”
Ryan squeezed the cat against him. Evidently, he remembered Alex’s threat.
“I’m not going to hurt him. I swear to God.”
Ryan kept squeezing. The little cat tried to wriggle his way out, but Ryan would not let him go.
“That’s okay,” Alex said. “You can hold him, actually. That’s fine.”
“What are you doing?” Nicole demanded, now crouched next to him.
Alex said nothing, but pulled the ribbon with the bell out of his pocket. He let it dangle in front of the cat, whose eyes lit up at the sight of it. “I have a present for him,” Alex said. “It’s a collar. You know, so he can have something to wear.”
Nicole must have immediately clued into his plan, because she said, “It looks really nice. I bet your cat would like to wear it!”
“Yeah,” said Alex, as he stuck his hand into the fort, dangling the bell.
The cat batted at it, making it ring. It wasn’t loud enough to wake everyone up, but it was loud enough for Alex’s plan.
“There,” Nicole said, “see? He totally likes it.”
“Do you want to put it on him, Ryan?” Alex said.
Ryan sat up and took the bell. He stared at the two the
