Saving Houdini by Michael Redhill Read Free Book Online Page B

house. He opened the bedroom door again, but they were coming up the stairs! He saw their long shadows stroking upwards against the curving wall beside the steps. The girl was a lot younger than he, probably three, and her long black hair fell to either side of her neck in pigtails. He went back into the room and stood with his fist on the doorknob.
    “Three bedrooms,” said the agent. “One for the two of you, one for Adele, and one for whoever is coming next!” There was warm laughter.
    He backed up toward the window and tried to lift the inner pane. Maybe he could climb onto the roof and wait. And what if he fell off the roof? Now they were in the hallway.
    “Which is my room, Mummy?” came the girl’s voice.
    “Let’s go look first at the master,” said a male voice, friendly and stern all at once. They walked by the door.
    Dash scooped up all of his belongings and threw them into the closet. They lay there as plain as anything but there was nowhere else to put them. And then he realized he had nowhere to put himself either, so he got into the closet too.
    “This could easily be Adele’s room,” said the agent, entering. “With a desk under the window, and her bed right here in the corner.”
    “Oh, it’s lovely, Trevor. Don’t you like it?”
    “Very roomy. What is the asking, again?”
    “Sixty-two.”
    “Wow. That’s a lot of money,” the father said. There was a brief silence and Dash heard them move closer to the other side of the closet door. Trevor spoke quietly. “I thought we were going to try to keep it under fifty-five, Lois.”
    “Do you know what this house will be worth one day?” said Lois. “You won’t think twice of spending sixty-two hundred dollars when we sell it for
twenty thousand.
”
    “When’s that? Two thousand and six? When we’re a hundred?”
    He moved away. Dash heard the lady sigh. Then they all followed the agent back into the hallway, and she was saying, “Perhaps it will go for less, but I doubt it. I heard of a house on Logan that went for
seven thousand.
”
    And then he was alone again. He’d been breathing so shallowly he was beginning to feel light-headed. It was getting hot in the closet. He pushed the door open a hair. He felt the cool, fresh air rush in. He opened it another crack, half an inch. Then he saw the shoe. The little, black polished shoe. Just the side of it.
    “Are you bad?”
    The girl was standing in the middle of the room, holding the head of a doll in her hand. She was turning it thoughtfully. “No,” he said. “Are you?”
    “Mama and Papa are buying a house. This isn’t your house.”
    “I’m just here for a couple of minutes,” he said.
    She fixed her huge brown eyes on his. She wasn’t half as scared as he was. With a look of serious consideration on her face, she began twisting her upper half to the left and right. “Do you
live
in there?”
    “Um, yeah. For now.”
    “Where do you make tinkle?”
    “I think I hear your mum calling you.”
    She left the bedroom. He heard her voice out in the hall. “There’s a boy in that room!” she called out gaily, and everyone ignored her. Then their voices faded as they all went back downstairs to the main floor, and out into the front garden.
    Dash breathed slowly. The voices rose around the side of the house. He came out of the closet and warily looked out the window. The agent—a lady in a shiny black fur coat—led the family into the backyard. The mother was very pregnant and she held Adele’s hand. The father, it seemed, was no longer interested in the property. He smoked a cigarette and walked behind them with a distracted manner. As they passed out of his view, the girl turned around and looked at him through the glass.
    Then he heard footsteps clomping back up the staircase and he lunged for the closet again.
    “Kid? Are you still in here?”
    Walter.
    “First bedroom at the top of—”
    “Come on,” Walter said, appearing in the doorway, “bettergetcher