howling with laughter.
“Girls! Wait’ll you hear this!”
Willa winced. How could she have been so wrong ... about everything? Laughter erupted in the kitchen. It was time to leave.
As she turned to go, something moved in the corner, making her jump. It was the bird, stirring in its cage. In the dim light its feathers shone dully, red and gold with a metallic sheen. Willa watched as it slowly pulled its head out from under its wing and looked at her. Willa held her breath. Instead of the parrot she thought it was, this creature looked more like a hawk or an eagle. Long, sharp talons gripped the perch, and above a cruel yellow beak two eyes burned like embers. It stared evenly at her as Willa stood frozen in her tracks. As the bird looked right through her, she felt her thoughts laid out, bare and open. Then the bird blinked, and such warmth flooded into its eyes that Willa felt comforted, embraced, and happy. And strong. And brave. It was odd, but she no longer felt the sting of embarrassment over her misguided mission, even though she could still hear Horace and the ladies giggling in the kitchen.
Reluctantly, Willa turned to leave, but caught sight of something scurrying under the sofa. It must be one of the cats she kept hearing but not seeing. Willa bent to look beneath the sofa. “Here kitty, kitty ...”
There was a soft skittering and a rustling in the floor-length drapes. Willa followed the sound along the drapes to a big armchair in the corner. Aha! Got you cornered now, thought Willa as she knelt on the chair and looked over the high back.
Crouched on the floor behind the chair was a hairy little man, only a few inches tall, staring up at her with large, scared eyes. Willa stared in shock. Behind her an angry voice suddenly filled the room.
“WHAT IN HEAVEN’S NAME ARE YOU DOING?”
Willa spun around. Miss Trang was in the doorway, a bag of groceries in her arms, her face dark with anger. Willa shrunk back in the chair.
“I — I was just ... looking for your cat, and ...” Her voice trailed off. Horace, Belle, and Baz appeared in the dining room, watching with wide eyes.
Miss Trang dropped the bag and tin cans clattered across the floor. “We don’t HAVE a cat!” she hissed, moving slowly toward Willa and casting a cold, cold shadow. Willa opened her mouth but no words came out. Miss Trang leaned closer and closer, until her face was inches from Willa’s. Willa stared into her unblinking eyes — they were golden in colour, with flicks of red shooting through them. She held her breath as Miss Trang stared at her for a long, terrible moment.
Swick! Everyone turned to see a tiny suitcase slide out from under the piano, followed by the hairy little man Willa had seen behind the chair. He crawled out, his face puckered purposefully, picked up the suitcase, and stomped toward the front door.
Miss Trang’s mood changed as she spun to follow the little man out into the hall. “Wait! Don’t go!” she pleaded. “She didn’t mean it. It won’t happen again!” Belle shook her head at Willa. Horace gave her a sympathetic grimace. In the hall the front door opened and closed with a bang.
Willa peeked out the window. The little man reached the sidewalk, looked right, then left, then right again, before marching off to the right.
“Now you’ve done it,” Belle muttered ominously. “Do you know how hard it is to find a good brownie? He worked day and night, nonstop. And never asked for a penny in return. Lived entirely on tea and biscuits.”
Willa was stunned. “That was a brownie?”
Before anyone could answer her, Miss Trang re-entered the living room, ducking to fit through the doorway. Her eyes were really ablaze now. Her hair had worked its way out of her neat little bun and was floating like snakes in the air around her head.
“You interfering little pest! Why do you keep bothering us?” Her voice boomed, lower than before. And she was getting larger by the minute. Her head brushed the ceiling now, and her shoulders had broadened. The room seemed crowded, too small to hold her. As she advanced on Willa, teacups and china figurines fell crashing to the floor. Belle and Baz disappeared into the kitchen. Horace remained, trying to make peace.
“Miss Trang, please! Think of your blood pressure.”
She loomed over Willa now, her head hunched forward as her shoulders pressed up against the ceiling. She became wedged there for a moment and flailed around with one arm, smashing the ceiling lamp. The room went dark. Willa dropped to the floor and crawled between Miss Trang’s tree trunk legs as the woman thrashed about in the dark, breathing noisily through her nose and grunting like a great beast.
Willa reached the dim light of the hall, stumbling through the tin cans to the front door. Behind her Miss Trang, or the thing that used to be Miss Trang, roared out after her as she made her escape.
“Don’t tell anyone what you saw here! I’m warning you!”
Willa didn’t tell a soul. In fact, as the next few days dragged on in their boring and ordinary way, it became harder and harder to believe the incident had happened at all. Willa couldn’t stop thinking about the place. It seemed every time she pondered one of the house’s mysteries another five or six came to mind. First the coins, then Miss Trang, then the old man in the tree who had pelted her with acorns again as she ran away that day. And what about the loud crashing upstairs, and the strange bird, and the little man behind the armchair? Was it possible? Did brownies really exist?
And then there were the tin cans. The ones she had tripped over in the front hall. Cat food.
Chapter Three
A new job and a shocking discovery
The summer was definitely not working out as planned. Willa’s odd jobs work hadn’t really taken off. She spent one hot day cleaning out Mr. Santos’s garage, and another afternoon washing Mrs. Blanding’s St. Bernard dog, who managed to get soap suds all over her, the yard, and the neighbour’s fence, which she then had to wash off as well. Other than those jobs and three lawns to mow, for the next week or so Willa didn’t have much to do except think about the old folks in the boarding house. Once she had regained her nerve she began to wander by there once in a while, walking slowly, hoping to see someone but ready to run if it was Miss Trang. To her disappointment the curtains were always drawn tight and not a soul could be seen. She wondered if they’d all left town. Maybe Belle had finally gotten her way and they’d gone to the seaside for a vacation.
“Honey! You’ve got a job this morning! Hurry up and I’ll take you on my way to work.”
Her mom was rushing around the kitchen as Willa straggled down the stairs, trying to flatten her crazy slept-on hair with her hands. She was tired but glad for the work — she felt guilty she hadn’t been making much money so far this summer.
Mom pushed some toast toward her with a glass of juice. “A lady just called, wants you to come by right away.”
Willa spread some marmalade on her toast and grimaced. “I hope it’s not another garage.”
“She didn’t say what she wanted you for. It’s at that old place, the rooming house near the park. Now hurry and eat, I’m running late.” Her mom hurried out the door, not seeing her
