Read Online The Secret of Rover by Rachel Wildavsky - Free Book Online Page B

bottle, and stumbling with fear and fatigue, the children followed Trixie across the basement and up the stairs, with the other Katkajanian silently following them. Lighting a path with her flashlight Trixie led them across the kitchen and out the back door.
    Their fear was intense but still, the fresh dark air was good after their night in the stuffy closet. At the first touch of it on their faces they were fully alert.
    They were led through the side yard and across the dewy grass to the front of the house. There a car idled in the driveway, with its headlights off despite the still-starry sky. The colorless, lank-haired American was behind the wheel. Trixie slipped into the front seat beside her while the crooked-nosed Katkajanian opened the back door and pointed the children in. They slid across the cold seat,the man slid in after them, and the door was slammed shut. The American woman put the car into gear and they rolled down the driveway with the lights still off.
    â€œWhere are we going?” David’s voice trembled audibly. Any attempt to pretend he was not petrified was hopeless.
    But there was no reply.
    They rolled through the familiar streets, away from their home, past the pool, and out of their new neighborhood. They rolled past their school.
    The driver switched on the headlights at last as they slipped onto the freeway. They continued to cruise in total silence. And soon after that—too soon—Trixie was gesturing and pointing and they were exiting on a familiar ramp.
    The ramp took them beneath a lonely overpass, and as they glided under it the lights once again went off. They emerged onto a bleak and well-known road.
    Gone were the leafy branches that spread like a canopy over the streets in their new neighborhood. Gone were the neat lawns and the well-tended houses. On either side of them were wrecks and hovels, rubble and dirt.
    Katie closed her eyes. It was their old neighborhood.
    The children could have made the rest of the trip on their own, and with their eyes closed. They knew it that well. And their hearts, which they had thought could sink no further, dropped down, down, down with every turn of the wheel.
    No Mom, thought Katie. No Dad, no Theo. No room, no house, no home.
    They were back to where they had started, with less than when they had begun.
    The car pulled to a stop in front of the old place and the driver cut the motor. The house had, if anything, sagged still further than when they had left it, hoping never to see it again. Vandals had punched holes in the front steps. They would have to pick their way to the door. Plywood had been nailed over the barred windows. Who had put that up, and when? Now there would be no light as well as no exit.
    â€œWe’re home!” Trixie sang with a sudden trill of a laugh. Her loudness jarred them in the silent car. She shoved open her door and leaped out, all but dancing around to open theirs. “Out!” she snapped, low-voiced now in the open air.
    It was funny how even the car, which had been a detestable prison moments before, felt like a refuge now. But they had no alternative. Reluctantly they slid from their seats and huddled together on the familiar pavement. Trixie tucked her flashlight beneath her arm and, from the capacious pockets of her camouflage suit, she withdrew a key. She began picking her way up the broken steps. The man with the crooked nose and the lank-haired woman emerged from the car. The woman carried a smallish brown paper bag bundled beneath herarm. Joining them, she gave David a shove to indicate he was to follow.
    A flicker of movement to his left drew David’s startled eye. A fat gray rat was slipping beneath the stairs. David shut his eyes and squeezed them tight.
    Trixie turned the key in the lock. Katie noticed with surprise that when she did so, a new and unfamiliar deadbolt slid open on the outside of the door. The door creaked open, dislodging a clod of dust and dirt that fell onto