from inside the still-standing, sliced-in-half tenement.
My instinct was to make a run for it, but I had left my backpack several yards away, in the opposite direction of the hole in the fence. It would take me too long to scramble over the wreckage, retrieve my backpack, then squeeze myself out through the fence again. I estimated that it was better to hunker down and wait to see what was coming. Hopefully, the person wouldn’t notice me amidst the piles of debris. Then my mind began to stray back to the image of the ghost passing through the rooms.
The plink-plinking came again, louder this time, and I tell you, I nearly fainted from fear. The fact that I didn’t makes me think that it must be amazingly difficult to faint from fear.
I saw no figure of ghostly light. Instead, a figure of darkness appeared within the depths of the ruined tenement’s third floor. It was black and bent, a giant bug with massive feelers stretched out in all directions. Mom had once been to Puerto Rico and she told me that she had seen cockroaches the size of kittens. They had nothing on this thing. It shuffled along, disappearing behind the exposed beams, keeping in the shadows, plinking as it moved.
I couldn’t run now even if I wanted to. I was paralyzed with terror.
Then I saw the others.
There were two more of these bug things, creeping along in the shadows, their feelers extended. It was too much for me. I couldn’t hunker any more. I bolted back to my knapsack, snatched it up, and ran, not caring that my backpack was plinking like mad.
Oh. My knapsack was plinking.
Much like the giant cockroaches. Which meant they were probably hauling scavenged items, same as I was.
I was at the fence when I realized this. I stopped and turned around, looking up at the tenement’s third floor. From my present angle, I couldn’t see very well into the interior, but it didn’t matter. One of the giant cockroaches was standing a few yards away from me, having just emerged from the bottom floor of the tenement. He was staring at me with an alarmed look on his face. He did have a face. It was filthy and bearded. He shifted his weight, and his feelers plink-plinked. They were made of old metal pipes that were sticking out of a sack strapped to his back. Most were lead, but some were copper, which fetched a tidy sum at the scrap-metal dealers.
Just as I remembered the words of that young, nicely dressed guy at the Ninety-third Street demo site—how the metal scavengers weren’t beyond using violence to protect their territory—the figure held something up for me to see. He had been holding it in his hands the whole time, but I had been so focused on his face and feelers that I hadn’t noticed it. It was a large bronze-colored sheet of metal with tiny white rectangles all over it. I stared at the thing. It was so oddly familiar. Then I realized what it was. The cover of the building’s mailboxes. The metal scavenger had ripped it off the wall. I could see the names on those little rectangular pieces of paper: Tess Bailhouse, J. Rodriguez, R. S. Anderson, Robert/Shelly Weinstein . . . I might have some of their stuff in my backpack. Bits and scraps of their lives. It made me feel ooky. It made me feel like one of those grave robbers who dig up caskets and slip the wedding rings off dead people’s fingers.
The scrap metal scavenger glanced at my backpack, sagging and lumpy with my loot. He smiled at me with brown teeth, and he raised his eyebrows.
“We done all right,” he said, giving the mailbox cover a proud shake. He wasn’t alarmed anymore. He had taken my measure and had decided I was on his team.
That made me feel even ookier.
I squeezed through the opening in the fence and climbed the garden fence in about two minutes, no wiggling, no stumbling. I don’t know how I did it.
By the time I got home, Jeremy was already there with her friend Arthur.
“Hey, where were you?” Jeremy said. “We waited outside the school
My instinct was to make a run for it, but I had left my backpack several yards away, in the opposite direction of the hole in the fence. It would take me too long to scramble over the wreckage, retrieve my backpack, then squeeze myself out through the fence again. I estimated that it was better to hunker down and wait to see what was coming. Hopefully, the person wouldn’t notice me amidst the piles of debris. Then my mind began to stray back to the image of the ghost passing through the rooms.
The plink-plinking came again, louder this time, and I tell you, I nearly fainted from fear. The fact that I didn’t makes me think that it must be amazingly difficult to faint from fear.
I saw no figure of ghostly light. Instead, a figure of darkness appeared within the depths of the ruined tenement’s third floor. It was black and bent, a giant bug with massive feelers stretched out in all directions. Mom had once been to Puerto Rico and she told me that she had seen cockroaches the size of kittens. They had nothing on this thing. It shuffled along, disappearing behind the exposed beams, keeping in the shadows, plinking as it moved.
I couldn’t run now even if I wanted to. I was paralyzed with terror.
Then I saw the others.
There were two more of these bug things, creeping along in the shadows, their feelers extended. It was too much for me. I couldn’t hunker any more. I bolted back to my knapsack, snatched it up, and ran, not caring that my backpack was plinking like mad.
Oh. My knapsack was plinking.
Much like the giant cockroaches. Which meant they were probably hauling scavenged items, same as I was.
I was at the fence when I realized this. I stopped and turned around, looking up at the tenement’s third floor. From my present angle, I couldn’t see very well into the interior, but it didn’t matter. One of the giant cockroaches was standing a few yards away from me, having just emerged from the bottom floor of the tenement. He was staring at me with an alarmed look on his face. He did have a face. It was filthy and bearded. He shifted his weight, and his feelers plink-plinked. They were made of old metal pipes that were sticking out of a sack strapped to his back. Most were lead, but some were copper, which fetched a tidy sum at the scrap-metal dealers.
Just as I remembered the words of that young, nicely dressed guy at the Ninety-third Street demo site—how the metal scavengers weren’t beyond using violence to protect their territory—the figure held something up for me to see. He had been holding it in his hands the whole time, but I had been so focused on his face and feelers that I hadn’t noticed it. It was a large bronze-colored sheet of metal with tiny white rectangles all over it. I stared at the thing. It was so oddly familiar. Then I realized what it was. The cover of the building’s mailboxes. The metal scavenger had ripped it off the wall. I could see the names on those little rectangular pieces of paper: Tess Bailhouse, J. Rodriguez, R. S. Anderson, Robert/Shelly Weinstein . . . I might have some of their stuff in my backpack. Bits and scraps of their lives. It made me feel ooky. It made me feel like one of those grave robbers who dig up caskets and slip the wedding rings off dead people’s fingers.
The scrap metal scavenger glanced at my backpack, sagging and lumpy with my loot. He smiled at me with brown teeth, and he raised his eyebrows.
“We done all right,” he said, giving the mailbox cover a proud shake. He wasn’t alarmed anymore. He had taken my measure and had decided I was on his team.
That made me feel even ookier.
I squeezed through the opening in the fence and climbed the garden fence in about two minutes, no wiggling, no stumbling. I don’t know how I did it.
By the time I got home, Jeremy was already there with her friend Arthur.
“Hey, where were you?” Jeremy said. “We waited outside the school
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