The Most Dangerous Thing - Laura Lippman [44]
The first day of school came and went, without incident. But just as a change in barometric pressure anticipates a hurricane’s impending arrival, things were changing, even if we didn’t acknowledge it. Tim, advised by his father at breakfast that he would need a scholarship if he planned to attend school beyond community college, came home and cracked the books. Sean and Gwen raced through their homework so they could be alone. Mickey and Go-Go were left to their own devices. The last month of summer had been like this, too, with Sean and Gwen isolating themselves from us. But their continued desire to be just two instead of five was somehow more striking, now that a new season had arrived. The first day of school established what we had long suspected: the five of us, as five, as a star, as a constellation, were over.
Hurricane David moved up the coast. It was not as destructive as feared, not in the United States. Five dead in Florida, which was as remote to us as the Dominican Republic. As was Savannah and the Carolinas and even Virginia and suburban Washington, D.C., and western Maryland. It was only when the rains started in Baltimore on September 5, the second day of school, that we cared about Hurricane David. Yes, we were young, but this is how people are: we care about what affects us. Two thousand Dominicans, five Floridians—we could not muster true worry in the abstract. But when the rain started that afternoon and there were disturbing reports that the creek might rise and cross the road, as it had during Agnes, Mickey’s mother called Tally Robison and asked her to send her home.
“Mickey?” Tally said. “Mickey’s not here.”
Sean was. He was lying on top of Gwen in her bedroom, the pretense of homework abandoned. They had all their clothes on—Tally Robison was within earshot, after all, and the door was ajar, house rule—but they were dizzy and amazed at the things that could be accomplished through their clothes. At Tally’s polite knock, Sean jumped back with so much force he almost hit the opposite wall. But they had their clothes on. No one could prove anything.
Tally, who had come up the stairs on swift, stockinged feet, took in the scene—the rumpled bedspread, the mussed hair, the high color in Gwen’s and Sean’s faces—without comment. She told them that Mickey was missing and her mother was worried, asked if they might know where she was.
“There’s one place—” Gwen began.
“We’ll go,” Sean said quickly. “It’s just over the hill.”
He called Tim at the Hallorans’ house, who arrived with slickers and high-beam flashlights. Like Gwen and Sean, he did not invoke Chicken George’s name. Why didn’t anyone say his name? Did we really believe that we would get in trouble if our parents found out we had formed a friendship with the odd man who lived, off and on, in the woods? What was our transgression? That we had traveled so far from home in our walks there, or that we had stolen from our families’ pantries at his instigation? That Sean and Gwen had then used the cabin to do whatever they did? Or was it something less rational, a desire to have a secret for the sake of the secret? Chicken George belonged to us. He had been missing for many weeks at this point and we believed we would never see him again. Still, we did not speak of him, not then. Tim, Sean, and Gwen walked, calling Mickey’s name, the flashlights strafing in the growing gloom. The rain had started, heavy and thick. Hurricane rain.
When they crested a hill, still about a half-mile from Chicken George’s, they saw Mickey and Go-Go running toward them, breathless.
“What happened?” Tim asked. “What’s going on?”
Neither one answered.
“What happened?” Tim repeated.
“Something bad,” Go-Go said.
Mickey tried to keep going, but Tim caught her by the arm. “Show us.” She paused, and it seemed she was considering whether she could outrun Tim. She probably could, but she didn’t try. Mickey was crying—and Mickey never cried. Shrugging off