Read Online Cave Under the City by Harry; Mazer - Free Book Online

our building I checked the mailbox. The light wasn’t good and I had to feel around in the box. There was a postcard. I put it in my pocket and went quietly up the stairs.
    At our door, I slid the key carefully into the lock, the tumblers fell, the door clicked open. I remembered nights I was supposed to be home early and came in late, sliding in like a snake, praying my parents were asleep. Was my father sitting up in the living room, waiting for me now?
    The apartment was empty. A little light came in from the street. The pipes rattled. I tiptoed through both rooms, opened all the closet doors, then shut them again. I even looked under the bed. Then I went into the bathroom and turned on the little light over the sink and read the postcard. It was from my father.
    It was a picture postcard. The Capitol on one side. And on the other there was just room for a couple of lines. “Dear Family, Job ended in Baltimore. Looking for work in D.C. I miss my boys and my dear wife. Morris Holtz.”
    I turned the postcard over and over again. The picture on one side and three stingy lines on the other. Like every word cost him a dollar. “Looking for work in D.C.…” Where was his address? Where was he staying? Did he have my letter? And my mother’s? Where was I going to write him now? How was I going to tell him what had happened?
    I saw my scared face in the mirror. I hit my head against the wall, made my brains rattle. I had to think and I couldn’t think. What was I going to do? Should we go to my grandmother’s? Should we stay here? Should we stay where we were? I didn’t want to go out again. I was home, it was warm here and our beds were here, and everything was nice.
    I went from one room to the next, from one side of the apartment to the other. On the floor near the door, I saw a piece of paper and picked it up. Notices from the landlord were slipped under our door. I went to the window with it. The paper had an official-looking seal on the top. “Subject: Brothers, Tolman and Robert Holtz.…” I didn’t read the rest of it. It was McKenzie again.
    I spread out a blanket and started throwing in things we could use. Clothes, another blanket, candles, cans of food, a pot and a frying pan, and a kitchen knife. I found a box of wooden matches, sugar and salt, and a tin of Dutch cocoa. My father’s tools were in the back of the closet. The toolbox was too heavy to carry, but I took a hammer and some nails and the saw he kept on the shelf, oiled and wrapped in newspapers.
    Even Bubber’s rabbit. Momma had made it for him when he was little. It used to be yellow and furry with two red-button eyes. Now it was mangy, only one eye left, and the insides coming out of the nose. Bubber still slept with it. I threw it in and tied the four corners of the blanket together.
    The last thing I did was write a note.
    â€œDear Pop, Bubber and I are all right. We are not far away. We have a place to sleep and we are waiting for you to come home. Your son, Tolley.”
    I put the note in the corner of the picture that hung in the hall. It had an old-time country scene with cows and farm women in long dresses gathering grain. That was where my parents always left notes for each other.
    Outside, I threw the bundle over one shoulder and walked that way for a while, and then threw it over the other shoulder. Something sharp dug into my side. Tolley … I heard my mother’s voice. What are you doing? You’re going to live in a hole in the ground? Where’s your common sense?
    Was this one of my stupid things? I stopped to get my breath. A dog came at me out of a dark alley. I heard the chain and his nails on the cement. I ran. Farther on, I leaned against a car. My eyes shut. Tolley …
    Leave me alone, Momma. I just want to be someplace.
    A man came out of the fog. I didn’t move. I was so tired I didn’t care. He could have murdered me and I wouldn’t have