The Secret Window Read online

  She darted across the dark living room and out of sight. Meg and Gracie went upstairs, letting their hands slide over the silky-smooth banister.

  “Linda says at Christmastime they pin their greeting cards on a wide red ribbon and let it hang from the second floor all the way down to the floor in the foyer,” Gracie said. She was talking fast, as if she wanted to keep Meg from saying anything. “And they wind real holly around the banister.”

  At the top of the stairs was a carpeted hall with doors on either side, some opened, some closed. The girls peeked into each of the opened ones. Knapsacks and overnight cases were dropped on some of the beds. The rooms were beautiful, and each of them was at least twice as big as Meg’s bedroom at home.

  “This’ll be okay.” Gracie turned into the last room on the left and dropped her bag on the twin bed nearest the door. “Let’s go,” she said. “The party’s down in the rec room. Hurry up, Meggie.”

  Meg found her voice at last. “Where are Linda’s mother and dad?” she asked. “I thought you said they’d be home.”

  Gracie grabbed Meg’s hand and pulled her toward the hall. “Maybe they had to go out somewhere,” she said impatiently. “What difference does it make?”

  “Well, it just seems kind of strange.…” Meg needed time to think. “This is a pretty room, isn’t it?” she said lamely. “I wouldn’t mind having it, would you?” She looked at the braided rug, the white chenille bedspreads, the full, ruffled curtains. There was a worn teddy bear in a rocking chair near a window.

  “Yes, it’s a pretty room.” Gracie ground out the words between clenched teeth. “Come on, Meggie! What’s the matter with you? Don’t you know how lucky we are to be here?”

  There was no way Meg could explain the uneasiness she felt at the news that Linda’s parents had gone out. Reluctantly, she followed her friend down the wide, curving stairs.

  “That’s Mr. Bell’s study,” Gracie said, pointing through a dark doorway. “The family room’s back there.” She crossed the living room and hurried through the arch where Linda had disappeared earlier. Electric candles glowed in wall brackets. “This is the dining room—obviously. Just look at all the silver in that cabinet! And this is the door to the basement. Wait’ll you see the rec room!”

  Meg stopped Gracie as she was about to open the basement door. “Don’t you think it’s funny that Linda’s folks aren’t home? If I had a beautiful house like this, I’d stay around. I mean, something could happen—the stereo’s broken already.”

  “Oh, for pete’s sake!” Gracie sounded genuinely angry. “If you really want to know, they don’t even know about this party. They’ve gone to a wedding in Chicago, and they won’t be home until tomorrow afternoon. You and I are going to help Linda clean up after everyone else leaves.”

  “The note from Mrs. Bell—?” But Meg had already guessed the answer to her question. “Did you type it?”

  “Linda did. I told her my mother and your mother would expect a letter or a phone call or something. Look, Meggie …” She changed to a let’s-be-sensible voice. “What’re you getting so upset about? Linda’s folks wouldn’t care about the party if they did know. They want her to enjoy herself. We’re not babies—we’re not going to hurt anything. And we’re going to have a great time. Beginning now!”

  She flung open the door and started down the stairs. Meg followed, not knowing what else to do. But as she looked over Gracie’s shoulder, her uneasiness turned to panic. Blue light welled up from below, a murky blue that made her feel as if she were descending into a bottomless cave.

  “Wait—” she began, but Gracie interrupted.

  “Listen to that crazy stereo. It sounds like music from the moon!”

  Meg clung to the railing. There was no music, just a furious, throbbing hum. Whatever was wrong with the stereo was magnified a hundred times by the loudspeakers. Meg shuddered. She’d heard the sound before. The nightmare “real” dream of a couple of nights ago was waiting at the foot of the stairs.

  Numbly she trailed after Gracie. A sweetish fragrance filled her nostrils. It seemed to be a part of the smoky blue light that came from recessed lamps in the ceiling. Across the room, a group of boys huddled over the stereo, laughing loudly at the sounds the machine was making. Linda was with them, a paper cup in her hand. Three or four couples shuffled slowly around the room, their hands on each other’s shoulders or at their sides, swaying to a beat of their own. Another group was gathered around a corner table that held an array of bottles.

  Meg didn’t recognize anyone. Most of the boys were tall—much taller than the boys in Linda’s eighth-grade class.

  “What’s that smell?” she whispered, trying to keep her voice steady. “It’s grass, isn’t it? Somebody’s smoking grass! Oh, Gracie!”

  But Gracie was halfway across the room, calling to Linda.

  Meg felt as if she were frozen where she stood. Something terrible was going to happen. She knew it, just as she had known it in her dream. The blue light and the throbbing hum were no longer a mystery, but the fear was just as real, and the certainty that she must get away. She took a step and stumbled.

  “Watch it, clumsy.”

  Meg looked down. She had tripped over someone’s bare foot. A boy and girl lay in each other’s arms, sharing a cigarette and grinning up at her. “If you broke my toe, I’ll kill you,” the girl murmured lazily.

  Meg staggered backward. Any moment now the terrible thing would happen, the thing that came after the light and the sound and the bare foot in the dream. She gave a strangled cry and stumbled up the stairs.

  “Meg!” It was Gracie. “Where’re you going?”

  Meg looked back and saw her friend with a boy across the room. In the blue light, Gracie’s face was like a mask, her lipstick a dark streak. She could have been a stranger.

  Meg shook her head and kept on going. How could she explain this feeling of dread? What could she say that Gracie would understand? It was no use trying.

  The door at the top of the stairs was open. Meg slammed it behind her and leaned against it, shutting herself off from the party. But the panic was still there. Sobbing, she ran through the living room and out into the foyer. The big front door stuck when she tugged it, and she thought she was going to be sick right there in the Bells’ front hall. Then the door swung open, and with a soft wail Meg ran out into the June night.

  CHAPTER 10

  Giggles and Buried Treasure

  With trembling fingers Meg dug a half-dollar from her wallet and dropped it into the fare box of the cross-town bus. The first seat was empty, and she sank into it with a sigh.

  “What’s the matter, kid? Somebody after you?” The bus driver watched her in his mirror.

  Meg shook her head. “I just felt like running,” she puffed.

  She had, in fact, run the two blocks from Linda’s house to the bus stop as if a horde of devils were chasing her. And with every step she’d felt better. When she reached the corner and saw the lights of the bus a half-block away, she had almost laughed out loud. I made it, she thought. I got away. From what? She didn’t know. But the panic was gone. It had started to fade as soon as the Bells’ front door closed behind her.

  “You shouldn’t be out on the street by yourself at night,” the bus driver muttered. He had a nice face—a fatherly face, Meg thought with a pang. “You’re askin’ for trouble.”

  “It was—a kind of emergency.” Meg closed her eyes to end the conversation, leaning back to enjoy this feeling of relief. She needed time to think. In a few minutes she’d be home, and what would she tell her mother?

  I could say I left the party when I found out Linda’s folks weren’t home. Or when I smelled marijuana. Or when I saw that all the other kids were a lot older than Gracie and I, Meg thought. But she didn’t want to be a tattletale or sound like a goody-goody. The truth was that if it hadn’t been for the dream, she would still be at the party. She wouldn’t have smoked grass or done anything else she didn’t want to do. But
she would have stayed. As Gracie had said, she wasn’t a baby.

  I’ll have to say I just wasn’t having any fun, so I decided to leave. Her mother wouldn’t be satisfied with that explanation—particularly when Meg came in without her overnight case—but it would have to do.

  And what about Gracie? If something terrible was going to happen at the party, Gracie would be right in the middle of it. Yet there was no way Meg could have persuaded her friend to leave, even if she had tried. Gracie would have made fun of the “real” dream. She would have called Meg crazy.

  Meg thought longingly of Grandma Korshak, who’d be sitting in front of the television set right now, watching Lawrence Welk and humming under her breath. She’s not crazy, so I’m not crazy. I think. If only there had been a chance to talk with Grandma before the party!

  “Brookfield Avenue.”

  The bus driver shook his head when Meg stood up.

  “Someone should be meeting you at the corner,” he scolded, peering into the dark. “Do you have far to go?”

  “Just a block,” Meg said. “I’ll be okay. Thanks.”

  When the bus pulled away, she walked with dragging steps past the Superette and along the sidewalk where Bill had whirled in endless cartwheels just a few short days before. She looked up at the windows of her apartment. Most of the building was dark, but there was a soft light in the Korshaks’ living room. The Deels’ second-floor apartment was lighted, too. As Meg looked, Rhoda passed a window and glanced out.

  Rhoda! Meg walked faster. Rhoda wouldn’t mind an unexpected caller on her first Saturday night in a new city. She’d be pleased. They could talk for a while, and Meg could put off facing her mother.

  She began to run toward the light.

  Rhoda’s welcoming smile almost split her small, freckled face.

  “What happened to the slumber party?” she demanded. Then, without waiting for a reply, she turned and led the way to the kitchen. “Boy, am I glad to see you! This was turning out to be the longest evening in the history of the world. My dad’s gone out, and I’ve read everything in the house. Now I’m making buried treasure. Want some?”

  “Sure. Whatever buried treasure is.” Meg looked around the kitchen. It was like the Korshaks’ but with interesting differences. Half the table was taken up with African violets—sturdy clusters of pink, purple, lavender, and white. Brightly enameled tins stood in a row on the counter, and there were cheerful paintings on the walls and even on the ends of the cupboards.

  “The paintings are my dad’s,” Rhoda said. “For a while he stayed home and painted every night. Now he goes out. The violets are mine. Look at that white one in the middle. It’s fifteen inches across.”

  Meg looked and admired, then joined Rhoda at the sink where she was preparing the buried treasure.

  “What you do,” Rhoda explained, “is peel a couple of bananas and push them down into a bowl of halfway melted ice cream—like this. And then you push in some peanuts—like this. And then some cherries. And then”—she opened the freezer door and popped the big bowl inside—“you wait. When the ice cream is hard again, you pour about a gallon of fudge sauce over the whole thing. It’s terrific! I made up the recipe myself. I figured it out once when my dad brought home some ice cream and put it into the refrigerator instead of the freezer.”

  “How long will it take to get hard?” Meg discovered that she was starving. So much had happened since she’d eaten.

  “Not long. Not long at all, if you don’t mind mushy ice cream.”

  Rhoda waved her into the living room and settled into a rocking chair. “Now tell me,” she said. “Why aren’t you at the party?”

  There was something about Rhoda that made talking easy. Meg understood why Bill had confided in her about his decision to give up the scholarship. Rhoda looked—Meg puzzled over the right word—she looked more than interested. She looked as if she cared.

  “I just wasn’t having any fun,” Meg said, because that was what she had planned to say at home. But then the rest of the story spilled out. She told Rhoda about the marijuana and the note that Linda had written and the feeling that something terrible was going to happen. She told her how much she dreaded tomorrow, when Gracie would call in a rage because Meg had run off without an explanation. She confided everything except the part about the “real” dream.

  “And so that’s why I came home,” she finished. “Tomorrow Gracie will probably say it was the best party she ever went to, but I don’t care. I’m just worried about what to tell my mother. If she knew all the stuff I’ve told you, she’d never let me go anywhere with Gracie again.”

  “I think you were smart to leave,” Rhoda said, her thin face solemn. “And I’m really glad you’re here. Why don’t you stay with us tonight? I have twin beds in my room. My dad won’t care—he probably won’t even know. We can have a slumber party of our own.”

  The rest of the evening was the way a slumber party should be—lots of talk, lots of giggling, popcorn popped in a frying pan, cocoa with marshmallows on top, and the buried treasure that was just as delicious as Rhoda had promised it would be.

  Rhoda talked about the friends she’d left in New York and about the summer after her mother left, when her father had sent her to a camp in Connecticut. “The thing is, I’m not the camp type,” she said. “I don’t like to swim or paddle a canoe or make beady things. I like to read and figure out science experiments and go to movies and play chess. The only time I had any fun was when we played softball. After two weeks, my dad came to visit me, and I told him I wanted to go home. He said I couldn’t. I had to learn to be adaptable, if I was having a bad time. So we said good-by, and while he was talking to my counselor, I hid in the back of our van. He didn’t know I was there until we were back in Manhattan, and then it was too late.”

  “Was he angry?”

  “Was he!” Rhoda chuckled. “But after a while he started to laugh. Then he called the camp and told them to send my things home, and I never had to go there again.”

  “Bill went to camp once,” Meg said. “He didn’t like it much either.” My brother and Rhoda are a lot alike, she thought.

  At twelve o’clock they switched on television and watched the Midnight Horror Show. At two o’clock they went to bed. Even after the lights were out, they kept on talking, sharing every funny, sad, or silly thing they could think of.

  Finally Rhoda’s voice cracked, and she gave up. “Good night, Meg.”

  “Good night.” With a contented sigh, Meg closed her eyes. Funny world, she thought. A terrible evening had changed into a terrific one.

  But a moment later she was sitting up in bed, staring into the darkness. Behind her eyelids the blue light had been waiting, and the ominous hum of the stereo in Linda’s rec room. The fear was there, too. With Rhoda’s help she had banished it for a while, but it hadn’t really gone away.

  For the rest of the night, Meg tossed and turned while the blue light flickered around her. She shouldn’t have left the party. She was glad she had. If she’d stayed, she would have had a good time. If she’d stayed, she would have been sorry. I’m strange, creepy, crazy, she thought, just before she finally went to sleep. That was what Gracie and Linda would say—and, yes, maybe even Rhoda, too—if they knew the truth.

  CHAPTER 11

  The Secret Window

  Meg opened her eyes to sunshine and the sound of church bells. When had she finally dozed off? It seemed just a few minutes ago. Now she was fully awake, churning with thoughts of the night before and of what the day might bring. There would be an angry phone call from Gracie. She jumped out of bed. It would be terrible if her mother answered the phone and found out that Meg had left the party.

  In the other bed, Rhoda slept soundly. One arm hung over the side, and the other was flung across her eyes. The sheets were tangled around her like the wrappings of a mummy.

  As quietly as possible, Meg dressed. The bedroom door across the hall was closed; Rhoda’s father must have come in very
late. Meg decided to wait until she got upstairs to use the bathroom. She went out to the kitchen and found a notepad and a pencil next to the telephone. Good slumber party, she wrote. See you later. Thanks for letting me stay. She moved one of the African violets to the edge of the table and propped the note where Rhoda couldn’t miss it.

  The apartment corridors were quiet, with fat Sunday papers lying in front of most of the doors. Meg hurried upstairs and picked up the paper at the Korshaks’ door. She took a deep breath, slipped her key into the lock, and tiptoed inside.

  The apartment was full of life. Grandma Korshak was an early riser, and Meg’s mother was, too. A radio played hymns in the kitchen, and the shower roared in the bathroom. Meg tiptoed down the hall to her bedroom. Only Bill’s door was still closed.

  Swiftly she combed her hair into its usual single glossy braid. She rubbed her cheeks to give them color and ran her tongue over her teeth. Okay so far, she thought. As long as no one had seen her come in, there wouldn’t be questions about her missing overnight case. She wondered how she’d get it back. Maybe Gracie would bring it over, but she doubted it.

  Grandma was in the kitchen, humming “Onward, Christian Soldiers” along with the radio choir and poking at the bacon on the stove.

  “Meggie!” She pattered across the linoleum and gave Meg a hug. “I didn’t think I’d see you before I went home. Your mama said girls stay up and talk all night at these parties, so you’d probably sleep until noon. How is it you’re home?”

  “I just didn’t want to stay any longer.” Meg hurried to change the subject. “When are you leaving, Grandma? I have to talk to you before you go.”

  The bacon sputtered, and her grandmother rushed back to the stove. “I go right after lunch,” she said. “There’s a bus to Waukesha at two thirty. But first, we go to church together, your mama and Bill and me. And then we go to a restaurant for lunch. My treat.” Her smile slid away for just a moment. “I want us to do something together—a family, see?—before I go. Now you’ll come with us, huh?”