probably meet more people tomorrow, but that’s a good start,” Alan said, closing the notebook.
“You’re not going to write down our other assignment, are you?” Ziggy said.
“What other assignment?”
“Our homework. Remember Mrs. Tench said to find out about The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and report back? I bet if we don’t . . .”
“We’ll get fired,” they all said together.
“Who’s getting fired?” said Alan’s mom, coming in from the kitchen.
“Oh, not us, Madame Nearing,” Josée said. “They like us there.”
“Well, so Mrs. Tench seems to think. She was very pleased with you all today, at any rate. In spite of the paint-wars. Now, it’s time you were getting home. Ziggy, your grandfather should be here any minute. And he’s giving Josée a ride home?”
“Yep. And thanks for dinner, Mrs. Nearing.”
“You’re quite welcome,” she said. “I’m sorry I wasn’t more animated, but there’s a lot on my plate at the moment. It’s just a blessing that you three have an interesting project to keep you occupied before school starts.”
“We don’t need to be occupied, you know, Mom,” Alan said.
“Yes, I know, but still.” A car pulled into the driveway—a cab, with its top light off. Ziggy’s grandfather drove a cab in Laingford, and often ferried Ziggy around. When Ziggy’s parents, who were entomologists (bug scientists) were away, as they often were, Ziggy stayed with him. They were due back soon from an extended journey up the Amazon river, and Ziggy was a little nervous about it. He hadn’t seen them for almost a year and a half. “Here’s your Vati, Ziggy,” Mrs. Nearing said.
They said their goodbyes, and Alan’s mom shooed him off to bed. “It’s getting late, and now that you’re a working man, you need your sleep,” she said. Working man. Alan rolled his eyes, but inside, he rather liked the sound of that.
Lying in bed with Picasso curled up at his feet, Alan thought about Ziggy and what it would be like for him to see his parents again, after such a long time. They stayed in touch via email and letters when they could, but still, a lot happened in a year. He could understand Ziggy’s worry. What if they were different? What if they’d changed so much, Ziggy didn’t even recognize them? And in the next thought, he wondered, as he often did, about his own father.
Michael Nearing, a prizewinning photojournalist, had disappeared in Haiti when Alan was two. Alan had a vague, foggy memory of riding on his dad’s shoulders, but that was it. There were pictures in an album, of course, and his mom kept a family photo of them all on the mantelpiece in the living room. In it, his mom, dad, six-year-old Candace and his two-year-old self were sitting on some rocks somewhere in Kuskawa: a family picnic. Candace said she remembered it, but he didn’t. There had never been any word, any confirmation of his father’s death, and his mom still held out the possibility that he was still alive, although she rarely talked about it. What would it be like if his father suddenly came home, after nine whole years? It would be definitely weird. Something to put in the notebook, for sure.
It would be nice, he thought, not to be the only working man in the family. And one day . . . one day he would be a professional private investigator, and would go down to Haiti himself and find out what had happened. One day.
FIVE
Alan was shovelling out the pigpen, all alone. It was nighttime, and there was a full moon. Suddenly, a large pig wearing overalls shuffled up to him with something in its mouth and dropped it at his feet.
He looked down and saw a large, gleaming handgun.
“Look,” the pig said and blew on it. A layer of fine, white dust rose from the gun and settled on his boots. “I’m going to bust out of here,” the pig said.
“You could just climb the apple tree,” Alan said, and the pig gave him a boost up to the first branch, which was higher than he remembered. The pig was a good climber.
Halfway up, they stopped and had an apple.
“Hey!” the pig said suddenly and pointed with his trotter. Alan looked up and saw the attic window of the inn, very close. A face appeared at the window. A person waving at him. It was his father, he was sure of it. He yelled and started to fall . . .
. . . and woke up, his heart beating like crazy in his chest. He lay there, breathing for a while. It hadn’t been a nightmare, exactly. But he didn’t much want to go back to sleep again. He was still half-dreaming, and he knew that if he went into the Inn, Mrs. Creasor or somebody, maybe Fred the donkey, would tell him that there was nobody up there and it was locked and he couldn’t go in. That would turn it into a nightmare for sure.
His alarm clock said it was three a.m. He got up and put on a bathrobe, not bothering to turn on the light, as there was a full moon, just like in his dream. The rain had stopped. He stood at his bedroom window, enjoying the air wafting in. The backyard was all lit up in blue and silver. The moonlight was so strong, he thought he would probably be able to read by it if he took a book out there. The leaves on the trees were wet, catching the light and twinkling, as if someone had put tiny lights on them. It smelled great; wet earth and growing things.
I should get up in the middle of the night more often, he thought. Maybe he would go out there and see if he really could read by moonlight. In any case, he was wide awake, now. Might as well sneak downstairs and get some milk and maybe a piece of pie, if Ziggy hadn’t eaten it all.
He took his birthday flashlight with him. It was a gift from his sister, a pocket-sized version of the kind the police use, she said. Black and smooth, with an adjustable beam. He didn’t really need it, but it was good to have it, just in case. He wasn’t planning to turn on any lights (it might wake his mother), and anyway, he liked the way it felt to creep around in the dark, when there was enough moonlight to see by.
The stairs, lit by the window above the front door, were easy. He could see all the way into the living room from the stairs, too. More silver-blue light was pouring in from the window in there, so that the little green night light that was always on in the downstairs hallway looked pale in comparison. Picasso, who could see just fine in the dark, glided ahead of him, heading towards the kitchen. If someone was up, maybe there was food available.
If I was in pioneer times right now, he thought, I wouldn’t have a flashlight, and you couldn’t just turn on the light if you needed to. You’d have to strike a match. I wonder if they had matches back then.
In the kitchen, he found two plates on the counter, covered with plastic wrap. One was his mother’s half-finished piece of pie, and the other was a whole, kind-of-large piece. He cut a tiny sliver off the big one, and decided, heroically, that he would let his mom have the rest.
The light from the fridge, when he opened it to get some milk, spoiled the sneaking-around feeling he’d been enjoying. He might as well eat his snack in real, twenty-first century light, and that meant the study. It was a small room opposite the living room, where the computer was, and all the reference books were. He usually did his homework in his room, but he and his mother shared the computer, so he did a lot of it down there, too. It was a good room for writing essays in, and they had started doing serious essays in school last year. I’ll have to set things up better in there before school
