Chapter 22 #2
As I reach the landing, I hear the voices of Theo and his dad drifting out of the nearest bedroom.
“Son, I appreciate that you want to build the business, but where I need you right now is on the crew, getting things done. We lost Manny and Rick last month, and I’m still trying to fill those spots.
Your videos are a great hobby, but bringing in new customers isn’t going to help us if we don’t have the manpower to complete jobs in a timely fashion. ”
“But, Dad—”
“It’s already going to be a strain on us to have you going part-time for school. I can’t afford to lose more time to these other extra things.”
Theo mumbles something I can’t hear.
“Understood?” his dad asks.
I back my way down the stairs before either of them spots me.
My heart is pounding and part of me wants to burst in there and tell Mr. Hargrave why he’s wrong.
Theo’s videos are great, and they are worth spending time on.
Can’t he see that his son still wants to support him and the business, he just has his own way in?
I can hear my mom browsing the cabinets in the kitchen, so I slip out the front door. I was supposed to grab measurements of the walls up there so Arden and I can go thrifting for craft shelves, but the last thing I want to do is interrupt Theo’s talk with his dad.
Outside, I see Matt standing beside his mail truck, staring down an animal in the yard.
“Are you all right?” I call out.
He points at the creature. “This rat won’t move and I am not walking by him. They bite without warning.”
One glance at it, and I recognize Dale. “He’s a squirrel, not a rat. And as far as I know, he’s not prone to biting.” Just squatting in homes that do not belong to him.
“I so deeply do not care about miscategorizing him.” Matt’s expression is full-blown panic. “Rodents of all persuasions think I’m a block of cheese. Make him go or I’m pepper-spraying his furry ass.”
I jog down the steps and approach Dale. He’s standing in the middle of the front lawn, his tail curled high behind him. The sun highlights all the browns in his coat.
I get within a few feet of him, but he still doesn’t move.
“He’s a little territorial,” I concede. “Maybe go around?” I gesture to the side of the house.
Matt’s eyes widen. His pale skin is bright red under his freckles. “Are you kidding? Do you know how fast these things can move? He could gnaw half my face off before I reach the driveway.” He glances around. “Where’s Theo?”
“Inside.” I frown. I probably shouldn’t say anything, but when has that stopped me in my time in Harlow’s Rest? And Matt’s involved, anyway. “His dad wants him to stop the Mr. FixIt videos.”
Matt sighs. “Mr. Hargrave is a good guy, but he tries too hard to be a dad. If that makes sense? Like Theo’s his kid and he’s going to treat him like one whether he’s five or fifty.”
“His videos are so good. That’s what he should be doing.”
Matt eyes Dale warily. “Theo’s never going to push back, though. He wants everyone to be happy.” He moans a little in distress when the squirrel plops down and rolls onto his back like he’s sunning his belly.
The front door of the house creaks open, and Matt and I spin around to spot Theo stepping outside. He has a sandwich in his hand and takes a big bite.
“Perfect,” I declare. I hurry up to him and, grabbing him by the arm, guide him toward the lawn. “We need your sandwich. I bet Dale is food motivated.”
“Wait. The Dale?”
I relieve him of his lunch. “Yes. As I promised, he exists. And he has taken Matt hostage.”
Theo laughs when he sees his friend’s battle stance in front of the mail truck. “Dude, you really are the freaking Pied Piper.”
After tearing a few pieces of crust from the bread, I toss them on the ground closer to the house.
Then I aim one at Dale to get his attention.
As I hoped, the squirrel immediately takes the bait and pounces on the crumbs.
Matt seizes this opportunity to set the mail on the grass and drives off, leaving a cloud of dust in his wake.
Theo accepts a few crumbs from me and lobs one on the ground. “Why Dale?” he asks.
“You know, from Chip ’n Dale: Rescue Rangers.”
Theo’s small smile widens. “You do know that they’re chipmunks.”
“They’re basically the same.”
Theo’s moss-colored eyes go wide like balloons. “Are you kidding me? The queen of logistics and semantics is now telling me that two different species of rodents are basically the same.”
“I’m unpredictable, remember?” Again, the word sends a satisfied fizz through me, like a newly opened soda bottle. My whole face flushes when Theo shoots me a mischievous grin.
We take turns feeding Dale. I don’t realize we’re leading him back to the porch until Theo tosses a piece of bread at the bird feeder hanging off the side.
Dale grabs it, then scurries up the cylindrical feeder until he’s balancing on the umbrella-like piece at the top.
“This is not going to discourage him from coming in the house,” I note.
“First we need him to leave the mailman alone. Then we’ll work on the house.”
I lean against the railing. “Matt’s like nine hundred feet tall. What’s his deal with tiny little rodents?”
Theo chuckles. He angles his shoulder against one of the large posts that secure the porch to the overhang.
“When we were sixteen we went to Ohio for six weeks to stay with his aunt and uncle. They had us bunking in the basement, which was mostly unfinished. One night, Matt woke up with a mouse walking across his chest. He flipped out and ended up trapping the mouse in his blanket. He must have terrified the thing, because as he was trying to shake it out of the comforter, the mouse bit his hand.” Theo shakes his head at my grimace.
“He was fine. It didn’t even break skin.
But ever since, rodents seem to gravitate toward him. He’s been nibbled on more than once.”
“Poor Matt.”
“People look at his size and assume he’s a tough guy or something, but he’s really the gentlest dude.
It’s how we ended up friends. He’d get shit at recess for not wanting to wrestle and roughhouse and whatever.
One day in first grade, he found me sitting on the steps with one of my Goosebumps books.
He’d already read them all too, so he started asking me about my favorites, and we just sort of drifted to that same spot every day. ”
I can’t help but take a step closer to him as he talks.
The more tiny slips of stories I get about Theo’s life, the more I wonder if we might actually share more in common than we don’t.
It sounds like maybe he was one of the weird kids too.
The difference is, he didn’t care. All he could be was himself.
Theo suddenly startles, then rubs at the back of his head. “What the…” He glances behind him.
Another sunflower seed bounces off his forehead as we both look up at Dale. The squirrel is gripping the wire that connects the feeder to the porch with one claw and has another seed in the other.
Theo swears under his breath. I burst out laughing.
When the third seed hits him, I stumble and brace myself against the railing. I’m cackling so hard that I don’t notice until I’m pitching forward that it has given way.
I scramble for something to support myself, but the entire railing on this side of the porch has broken and tumbled into the bushes below.
Strong arms encircle my waist, and Theo pulls me back against him before I can face-plant into the shrubbery and the jagged pieces of wood.
My heart thrashes against my rib cage, and I can feel the thud of Theo’s heart against my back. “We reinforced that,” he mutters into my ear. Angling myself to peer at him, I see he’s staring at the spot where the railing should be.
Just beyond his head, something shifts in the living room window. I spin, trying to catch a solid look at it, but there’s no longer anything there.
A chill dances up my spine.
Theo hugs me to him. “You’re okay.” As reassuring as his words are, his voice is a little too hesitant. Mine cracks when I try to thank him.
This is the second time this week that someone has almost been hurt at the house. Jesse’s an expert. He knows how to use a saw. And I watched Theo and his dad fix this porch the first week they were here.
And then there are the shadows.
Not even I have a good answer for those.
Stepping away from Theo, I pull the folded papers I printed at the library out of my pocket.
“I found this today.” I blow out a breath. “We need to talk.”