David and Katie did stay all day at the pool. But the pool was not open all night. And when evening fell and the final whistle blew, they felt something they had never felt before, and had never in their lives expected to feel. They felt afraid to go home.
It was nearly dark by the time they cautiously entered the house. Inside, the familiar rooms and corridors were cloaked in shadow. No light shone from beneath the office door, no music trailed its wailing notes, and Trixie was nowhere to be found.
"We have to put away our stuff," whispered David. "Our water bottles and junk."
"Why are you whispering?" asked Katie at normal volume. Her voice sounded frighteningly loud and it trembled a bit, but she refused to lower it. Take charge, she thought. Take charge; you live here.
Katie marched smartly across the towering foyer and flicked on the light. Hesitating only briefly in the sudden brightness, she willed herself to march straight back to the kitchen without even looking to see if David would follow.
It was lucky that he did, for yet another shock awaited them.
The kitchen was a mess. Four empty pizza boxes were piled in the center of the table and greasy plates were strewn everywhere-eight plates, she counted quickly; no, nine. Chairs had been pushed roughly back from the table and left scattered about the floor. Boxes of crackers, empty bags of chips, and half-eaten tubs of dip overflowed the counters. Over by the refrigerator, a sticky, dark drink had been spilled on the floor and a puddle of it oozed, unwiped, toward the center of the room.
"She had a party?" David was sputtering with amazement and rage. "How many people were here?"
But Katie's mind had moved in a different direction. "I think," she said thoughtfully, "I think it's time to tell Mom and Dad."
"They just got the baby today!"
"OK, so not this minute. We don't have to call them tonight. But tomorrow I think we should. Enough already! They need to know this stuff, David."
"OK," he said. "OK." It was a relief, after all, to give in.
Tossing her backpack onto the counter, Katie marched to the refrigerator, removed the slip of paper with the number of her parents' hotel, and pushing past her brother in the doorway, headed for the stairs.
"I'm going to bed," she said over her shoulder. "I'll make the call myself, first thing in the morning. You don't even have to wake up."
···
But he did wake up. He awoke from a strange dream.
David was on a truck, rumbling down the highway. He was on the roof of the truck, then he was inside the back, and then he was outside of it, clinging to the door with the wind whipping through his hair. From somewhere he heard a radio playing. Bits and pieces of music and voices came to him through the roaring wind.
The radio was bothering him. Where was it coming from?
The driver of the truck must turn that music off, thought the dream David. From his perch on the truck door he pounded on the window, but he could not catch the driver's attention or even see who the driver was.
Bam! Bam! The wind whisked away the sounds of his fists on the thick glass. "Open up!" he cried. Bam! "Open the door!" Bam-bam-bam!
David's eyes flew open. He was in his room, and someone was pounding on his door.
"David-open up!"
It was Katie. Uncharacteristically, he had locked his door the night before and now she urgently wanted to come in. And there was a radio, and it was tuned to an unfamiliar station. He heard it in real life now, from very nearby.
"I'm coming!" David rolled out of bed and cracked open the door. Katie slid in and slammed it behind her, refastening the lock.
The music had been loud in the hallway in that instant when the door was opened. Where was it coming from?
"David." Katie's face was anguished. "She's in their room."
"What?" David rubbed his eyes. He had just woken up and none of this made sense.
"She's in their room! Trixie is. She's in Mom and Dad's room-she slept there!"
Now David was awake. "How do you know?"
"I saw her! I woke up and heard that music. Don't you hear it?" David nodded. "So I walked in to turn it off. I was mad 'cause I figured she'd been snooping there last night and turned it on. I didn't want it bothering me when I try to talk to Mom and Dad. So I just walked right in and she was still there! She's in their bed!"
"Did she see you?"
"She's awake! She looked right at me!"
"What did she say?"
"Nothing. She just kind of…" Katie searched for the right word. "She kind of smirked at me. Then she rolled over and shut her eyes. And I was so surprised, I just closed the door. Then I came here.
"But she's awake now. Don't you hear her moving around? She's getting up, and soon she'll be out. We have to call them right away-before she tries to stop us!"
"The phone's in your room," said David, reaching for the door and pulling it wide open.
But they were too late. Standing in the doorway-filling it; blocking their exit-was Trixie.
She was wearing their mother's bathrobe. And she was wearing the smile.
···
"Morning time!" Trixie sang.
Even granted that Trixie had said very little to them in the three days that they had spent together, they could not help but notice the change in her voice. Always before she had been either syrupy or furious. Today she was ebullient. Today she was triumphant.
But Katie was beside herself. She had been outraged when she saw this woman in their parents' bed. But that was nothing compared to what she felt at seeing her in their mother's robe. She leaped to her feet and shouted, "You take that off!"
Trixie's eyebrows arched upward in mock surprise. "Oh?" she asked. "Are we cranky today? Did we get up on the wrong side of the bed?" And she laughed out loud.
"Please move," said David tightly. "I need to leave." They must get to the phone!
"Go ahead!" said Trixie, stepping ostentatiously out of his way and gesturing him out the door. "You go on and call them. You'll see!"
See what?
Phone, phone, to the phone. Both kids dashed beneath Trixie's outstretched arm and across the hall to Katie's room. As soon as they were in, they slammed the door behind them, but it would not shut. Trixie had stuck her foot in it. Now she elbowed it open and poked her grinning head into the room.
"'You Are My Sunshine!'" she called. "It's not quite so sunny anymore, I think!"
In a rage, Katie stomped on Trixie's foot. Trixie withdrew it, laughing, and the door slammed.
"It's getting a little cloudy!" she called through the door. "I'm thinking it looks like rain!"
Katie turned the lock and through the walls they heard Trixie's heavy, stomping feet and her snorts of laughter in the hallway.
David, frantic, was scrambling on the floor for the phone.
"David, how does she know that? How does she know their ringtone?"
"He told her. Dad told her at dinner, that first night."
"No, he didn't. He never named the song! I remember he didn't-I was relieved! But how does she-"
"Shhh! I'm trying to dial!"
David peered intently at the phone and punched in the familiar series of numbers. Then he clutched it to his ear with both hands.
Somewhere on the other side of the world, a piano plinked and two children sang a tender, sentimental song.
And sang, and sang. There was no answer.
"Let me try!" Katie snatched the phone from her brother and redialed with urgent fingers. Again the phone simply rang.
"They're napping or something, and they've turned it off," she said. "Where's the hotel number?"
She had stuck it on the wall by her bed, and now David read out the series of digits as she punched them into the phone.
"Anybody home?" Trixie called merrily from the hallway.
Katie's fingers shook at the sound of that voice and she messed up the long international number.
"Give it-I'll do it."
Katie thrust the phone at David, who began the number again.
"It's ringing!" he said to Katie, then returned to the phone.
"Hello? Hello. I'm calling from America." David spoke loudly, remembering the expanses of land and ocean that lay between himself and his listener. "I want to talk to Alan and Sandra Bowden."
There was a brief silence.
"Bowden, please. Sandra and Alan-they're staying there. They're guests."
Another silence. Now David was frowning.
"You do-they are. They have a baby. They're the ones who just adopted!"
"David, ask to speak to the manager." Hadn't their father said everybody there knew them?
"May I speak to the manager?" said David. "Hello…hello, I want to speak to someone in charge-is that you?"
For a moment David was silent, with the phone still clutched to his ear. Then the blood drained from his face, and slowly, without saying another word, he hung it up.
"They have never heard of Mr. and Mrs. Bowden," he said woodenly. "There are no such people at their hotel."
"Did you speak to the manager?" It simply could not be. "Give me that!" demanded Katie. "I'm trying their cell again!"
"Is it raining yet?" called Trixie from the hallway.
"Oh!" cried Katie, and her fingers once again stumbled.
"Thunder and lightning!" added Trixie.
Now the trembling in Katie's fingers was so wild that she almost could not dial at all. With an enormous effort she mastered herself and again she heard her parents' number ringing. And this time-on the third ring-someone picked up.
"They're there!" she cried. "Mom? Mom? Trixie, she's-"
But Katie broke off. As David watched her face, a pit seemed to open in his stomach.
"What?" she gasped. "Where? Where are-" Katie gave a short shriek and dropped the phone. David lunged for it, but he was too late-he could already hear the tone that said it had been hung up.
"They're gone," said Katie desperately.
"What are you talking about?"
"A man answered. A foreign man. He told me he and some other guys have them-the baby, too. He said to stop calling. He said to tell no one or we'll never see them again. He said they'd kill them if we do-oh, David! He just said that and then he hung up! He sounded awful-David, they're gone!"
"You mean like kidnapping?" said David. "They're kidnapped-Mom and Dad and Theo?"
At this, a triumphant voice floated through the door from the hallway. "How are Mom and Dad?" sang Trixie. "How're they doing?"
"Trixie," said David, as the terrible realization washed over him. "They're kidnapped, and she knew. She's probably in on the whole thing! That's probably why she's here! She's not a nanny! She's-she's a-"
"David, who cares about her now?"
"Because she's one of them, Kat! Mom and Dad are kidnapped, and one of the kidnappers is here and she's in charge! And-" The many pieces of this nightmare now flooded into David's understanding; everything suddenly made sense. "And she's spent hours on their computer. She knows everything about them now. She knows all about Rover-Rover!"
David grabbed Katie's arm and his words tumbled out. "That's what this is about. It's a political thing in Katkajan; they're insurgents or something and they want Rover! They-"
"Rover? David, what if they kill our parents? What if Mom and Dad never come home?"
"They will come home. We'll get them home."
"How?" Now Katie, too, began to understand. "David, think! It's not just Trixie and the guys in Katkajan. It's got to be all those people who were here last night-they're all part of this!" Yet another dreadful truth occurred to Katie. "And they were celebrating! They all did this, and then they had a party! That's what that was!"
"And the agency's in on it too-the agency that sent Trixie. And the people at that hotel," said David. "They all knew. No wonder Mom and Dad were the only guests! We're going to fix this," he continued wildly. "We're going to save them. We're going to bring them home!"
"David, how?"
"We'll get help. We need to call the police."
"David, that man said they'd kill Mom and Dad! Mom and Dad and Theo, too! We can't tell anyone!"
"That's right!" called Trixie from the hallway. "You want your mom and dad to live? You don't-tell-anyone!"
"Oh!" cried Katie in fear and distress. "She's listening to every word!"
"True that! And now she's opening the door!" retorted Trixie. As she spoke they heard a pin twist in the keyhole and indeed, the door burst open.
Trixie's squat frame filled the doorway. The weird, slippery grin was stretched across her face, but now, for the first time, it betrayed a maniacal trace of actual pleasure. And while the phony Trixie had been awful, the happy Trixie was infinitely worse.
She put her fists on her hips and the grin faded as slowly, appraisingly, she looked around Katie's room. Her eyes came to rest on the phone, which lay on the floor where Katie had dropped it. She held out one hand.
"I'll take that," she announced. "Since you don't really need it anymore." Her grin returned as she expanded on this apparently comical idea. "You don't need that phone," she amplified, "'cause you're not calling anybody. Seeing as how there's no one to call. Since there's nobody there." And she laughed.
Her laugh sounded like splintering glass. So this is humor Trixie-style, thought David, appalled.
"Phone!" Trixie commanded, as they had not yet complied. Slowly, eyes down, Katie handed it over.
"Now, just you listen," said Trixie, pocketing the phone in Mrs. Bowden's robe. "You listen to my rules. You're all done with that pool. Today you're staying home. Tomorrow, too. It's time you did a little work around here. That way you won't be in my hair."
This was too much for David. "Like we've been bothering you!"
"We've barely seen you!" cried Katie.
The black brows rose. "Oh, are you talking back?" asked Trixie. "Let me see…where exactly are your mother and your father? Who has them, anyway?"
It worked. Katie shot an anguished gaze at her brother and both children fell silent.
Trixie observed their cooperation with satisfaction. "Now," she said, "you mosey on down and fix up that kitchen. It's just a mess!" And laughing her brittle laugh, she turned to waddle from the room.
But their mother's robe was too long for Trixie's short body and the fabric tangled about her legs as she did so. At the very moment when she reached down to jerk it into place, the familiar black shape slithered silently between her ankle and the doorframe and the soft fur brushed her hand.
Trixie shrieked in terror and withdrew her hand as if it had been burnt. Leaping aside, she drew back her leg and dealt Slank a swift and vicious kick.
He yelped and fled under Katie's bed.
"Oh!" Katie's hands balled into fists and, enraged, she turned on Trixie to deliver a piece of her mind. But she stopped short with her mouth open as she remembered Trixie's threat: Don't talk back. Remember who has your mother and your father.
Katie turned her burning gaze to the ground, breathing deeply.
It was not even possible to find and comfort Slank. Instead she and David slowly followed Trixie from the room and downstairs to the filthy kitchen.
They would not talk back-not yet. But they would get rid of her. They would send her packing, they would free their parents and their sister and they would get even.
They would find a way.
