The Unseen Read online

  For a minute or two they only glanced at each other and quickly turned away, but then, still looking in the other direction, Belinda whispered, “Where is it?”

  “Where is what?” Xandra began, and then answered her own question. “Oh, that. Here it is.” She began to pull up on the string. “Under my blouse.”

  “No. Don't take it out. Not here.” Belinda was looking at her now. “Just tell me again about how you found the bird. And what you did with it when you got home.”

  So Xandra went over the story again, and when she got to the part about the basement, she somehow started telling other things. Some very private things she'd never told anyone before. Right there on the noisy, bumpy bus, she began to tell Belinda about all the animals she'd raised and doctored in her basement hideout. Afterward she wasn't sure just how or why that had happened. Of course, Belinda had seemed very interested and asked a lot of questions. And, as Xandra told herself later, how much Belinda knew didn't really matter, because it wasn't as if she would have a chance to visit the basement, or to tell any of Xandra's friends or family about the private things she'd learned.

  In fact, Xandra did so much talking that first day, she didn't get around to finding out anything more about the feather. She'd just managed to ask Belinda to tell her more about Keys when the bus pulled into the terminal, where Xandra had to catch the Heritage Avenue/Downtown bus while Belinda ran to catch the one that went into the country toward the west.

  FROM THEN ON Xandra and Belinda met on the bus every day. The trip into the town center took only about twenty minutes, but as Xandra soon discovered, a lot of important things can be discussed in just twenty minutes.

  On the second day Xandra again did most of the talking, telling Belinda more about particular animals that had lived in the basement. About funny little Stinky, who had sometimes threatened by stomping his feet and lifting his tail, but who had never really let her have it. And about some of the kittens she had kept for a while before advertising them in the local humane society's newspaper and finding them good homes. And about Ratchet, the baby barn owl.

  On another bus ride a day or two later, Belinda asked, “Did you have to give away all the kittens? Didn't you ever get to keep one of them for your own?”

  “Well, not for very long.” Xandra shrugged as she said, “And certainly not to take into the house. My dad is allergic to animals—at least that's what he says. And my mother has a phobia about them because something bit her when she was a baby, or some such story, but I think it's mostly because they shed.”

  Belinda's smile looked sympathetic, but when Xandra asked her whether her parents let her have pets, her eyes narrowed and she looked away. “I don't have parents,” she said, “except for my grandfather. He likes animals and we used to have a dog and three cats before—before we had to move.”

  When Xandra asked, “But you don't have any pets now?” Belinda only shook her head.

  “No, except for a squirrel,” she said. “And a feral barn cat that I've started to tame. But I'll have a dog again someday. My grandfather thinks animals are very important. All kinds of animals. My grandfather says animals are like … messengers.”

  The animals-as-messengers concept caught Xandra's attention, because she'd had some ideas along those lines herself. And she was intrigued by the interesting fact that Belinda didn't have any family except a grandfather. But she soon discovered that Keys and what they were good for was a subject Belinda seemed more and more reluctant to discuss.

  On some days they discussed books, and the other kids who went to Carter Academy. When the subject was books, Belinda's eyes got their cat-at-midnight look and she would talk and talk, telling which were her favorites and why, and which ones she owned herself and had read over and over. Some of her favorites were Xandra's too, such as the books about the Borrowers, all the stories about Narnia, the Green Knowe books by Lucy Boston, and everything by J.R.R. Tolkien.

  But about people at school, like the Marcie Mob girls for instance, Belinda had little to say. When Xandra talked about how popular the Mob girls were, and how mean and snobbish they could be, Belinda would only say she hadn't noticed. But she always seemed interested in what Xandra had to say about almost any subject that happened to come up. As the days went by, it began to seem that the only things Belinda would not discuss were anything that had to do with her grandfather, and the Key.

  One day after Xandra had asked her for the umpteenth time what she had learned about the Key and Belinda had changed the subject, Xandra said, “Okay, Belinda. What's going on? You said you were going to find out more about my feather or Key or whatever it is and tell me all about it. And now you won't even talk about it.”

  “I know.” Belinda sighed and shook her head. “It's just that …Well, I guess I decided I shouldn't say anything more about it until I find out …” She paused, looking at Xandra through narrowed eyes. “More about you, I guess, and how you happened to get it.”

  “More about me?” Xandra knew her voice sounded pretty frustrated. “You have to know more about me? I don't know what else I can tell you. I've told you more about me than I've ever told anybody. What else can I tell you?”

  Staring at Xandra, Belinda shook her head slowly but then suddenly her eyes widened. “I don't know really, but maybe if I could see the place where you found it, I would be able to tell if …”

  “Where I found the bird?” Xandra said. “But I don't know if I can. I told you I'm not supposed to go into the forest—”

  “No, no,” Belinda interrupted. “I don't mean where you found the bird. I mean the Key. Where you found the Key.”

  “You mean—you mean the basement?”

  Cat-eyed, and strangely intent, Belinda nodded.

  “But why? How would that help?”

  “I'm not sure, but my grandfather… I mean, some people think that where you find a Key is an important sign.”

  They were almost to the downtown station and Xandra had to think quickly. If they approached the house from the back, it wasn't likely that anyone would notice them, and Belinda probably wouldn't stay very long. “All right,” she said. “When we get to the terminal you can just get on the Heritage Avenue bus with me and—”

  “Oh, not today,” Belinda interrupted. “First I'll have to tell my grandfather that I'll be late.”

  That seemed like an easily solved problem. “Couldn't you call him from the station?” Xandra asked.

  Belinda shook her head. “No,” she said. “There's no phone where we live. Could we do it tomorrow?”

  Busy picturing what it would be like to live without a telephone, Xandra nodded. “All right,” she said. “Tomorrow will be all right.” But later that evening a problem arose that made her wonder if it would be possible.

  When Xandra arrived at the Hobson dinner table that night, almost on time for once, Clara was there, and all the siblings, but that was all. No parents. Nothing very unusual about that, of course. Most of the time one or both of the parents were away at dinnertime. But tonight the reason for Helen's, the mother's, absence was slightly out of the ordinary. That evening Helen Hobson, the famous trial lawyer, was going to be on television on the evening news. So everybody ate quickly and took their desserts into the family room, even Quincy, who, as a privileged eighteen-year-old, could have watched in his own room.

  And then there she was, Helen Hobson, talking about the important case she was working on and how obvious it was that her client was going to win. And then the reporters were asking her questions and she was joking with them and doing her famous arched eyebrow and dazzling smile, and Quincy and the other siblings were saying things like “Yeah, knock 'em dead, Mom.” And “That's telling them.”

  But then the rest of the news came on and Clara and her “baby” left and the rest of them sat around for a while listening to stuff about the weather and what was going on in Washington. Xandra was the next one to leave, and that was when the problem that could have fouled up Belinda's visit
began to happen.

  Xandra had closed the door firmly behind her and was headed for the window seat when she came to a sudden stop and whirled around to stare at the closet door. Someone or something was moving around inside her closet, thumping and shuffling and then bursting out through the door, as Xandra stood motionless, frozen in shocked surprise that quickly changed to anger. It was only Augusta, or Darling Little Gussie, as most people called the youngest of the Hobson siblings. As she stumbled out of the closet, Gussie's curly blond hair was a bushy tangle and her big baby-doll blue eyes were wide and unblinking.

  At first, while she was still recovering from the scare, Xandra could only stammer, “Wh-what are you doing in my closet?”

  Gussie was smiling now, a little shakily. “I was just …” She paused then before she went on in a questioning tone of voice, “I was … maybe I was … walking in my sleep?”

  “Sure you were,” Xandra snarled. “You think I'm going to believe that?” And then, noticing a suspicious bulge under Gussie's bathrobe, “What's that under your robe?”

  Reaching under her bathrobe, Gussie pulled out an alligator, one of Xandra's favorite animals, and held it out toward Xandra's bed. “I know I promised I wouldn't play with your animals again and I wasn't playing with it, not really. I was just …I was just looking at it a little. I was just getting ready to put it back on your bed.”

  “Yeah, I'll bet you were,” Xandra said. “I guess that's why you were hiding in my closet with my alligator hidden under your robe?”

  Gussie tried for the cutesy dimpling smile that got her out of trouble with most people. But it wasn't going to work with Xandra. Particularly not this time, when she'd been up to something she'd done before and had promised she was going to stop doing.

  “I didn't hide,” she whimpered. “I didn't hide until you were coming and I was scared. And I didn't hide the alligator. It hid under my robe 'cause it was scared too.”

  Before she could go on, Xandra had her by the shoulders and was shaking her so hard that her curly hair flipped and flopped like a shaken dust mop.

  “I've told you and told you to stay out of my things, Gussie Hobson,” Xandra said through clenched teeth. “Do you hear me, you little brat?”

  “Okay. Okay. Don't hurt me.” Gussie looked terrified. “Here, take it back. Take back your old alligator.” Pulling away from Xandra's grasp, Gussie almost, but not quite, ducked the slap Xandra aimed at her as she threw the alligator on the floor and ran from the room.

  As Xandra watched her go, she knew she was in trouble. The little creep would tell on her for sure and probably lie about it too. She'd probably say that Xandra hit her, which wasn't true—at least not exactly. Maybe she had more or less tried to hit the little troublemaker, but she was pretty sure she had mostly missed. But if Gussie said she'd been hit, there was going to be trouble. People tended to believe the worst about Xandra, and the best about their Darling Little Gussie. Even their mother, who, as a lawyer, wasn't supposed to make up her mind about who was guilty without hearing all the evidence. The chances were Xandra would be grounded, which meant Clara would pick her up after school and she'd have to go straight to her room and stay there all evening. So there would be no way she could smuggle Belinda into the basement.

  She went back to the window seat and threw herself onto it, thinking about how unfair it was going to be. Gussie would tell her side of the story, and the whole family, all the siblings as well as the parents, would be mad at Xandra and she'd probably get some horrible punishment, like having her allowance cut in half, besides being grounded for a whole week.

  XANDRA WENT DOWNSTAIRS the next morning expecting the worst, but to her surprise nothing was said about what she'd done, or hadn't done, to Gussie. Nothing at all. Of course they were all in their usual rush to get to work and to school, but that didn't really explain it. The only explanation, Xandra decided, was that Gussie just hadn't gotten around to telling yet. Of course, that didn't mean she wouldn't as soon as she had a good chance. But then again, maybe nothing more would be said about it. Xandra didn't mention the Gussie problem the next morning when Belinda whispered that, yes, she could go home with Xandra after school.

  That afternoon the bus ride was strangely quiet. Two bus rides, actually—downtown as usual and then the transfer. “No. I can't,” Xandra had said when Belinda had asked if they would be taking the 3:15 bus that went directly to Heritage Avenue. “I have a bunch of stuff to do after class, so I'll probably be too late. Let's take the downtown bus, like always. Okay?”

  Belinda said okay, and later on the bus she didn't ask any questions about the time-consuming things Xandra had supposedly been doing. She didn't, in fact, say much of anything and neither did Xandra. Xandra was busy thinking about things she didn't feel like mentioning, like for instance the real reason she hadn't wanted to take the Heritage Avenue bus, where she would probably have seen other kids she knew. The time passed slowly until the second bus came to a stop and there they were, standing on the Heritage Avenue sidewalk only about three short blocks from the Hobsons' house.

  Glancing around quickly to see if anyone was watching, and then feeling embarrassed about doing it, Xandra said, “So, what you want to see is just the place where I found the feather? Right?”

  “Oh yes.” Belinda's eyes widened. “Can we go there right now? Right away?”

  Xandra nodded. “Sure we can.” She paused, looking around as if trying to make up her mind. “Well, there are a couple of ways to get there from here. We could go right on up Heritage Avenue, or we could take this shortcut. Well, actually it's more of a long-cut, but it's a lot more interesting. It goes down Wildwood for a block or two and then through the edge of the forest. Which way would you like to go?”

  What she didn't mention was that the first way would lead past the homes of several people she knew, and then right down the Hobsons' driveway, where, at this time of day, someone would be sure to see them. She didn't mention it, but she somehow had an uncomfortable feeling that she might as well have. Belinda's level gaze lasted a moment too long before she said, “You choose. You must know the best way to get there.”

  So that was why they started off down Wildwood, where, after the first house or two, there were mostly vacant lots before the road ended in a graveled path that led into the forest. Into an acre or two of young second-growth trees, where the road dwindled away just before it reached the edge of the deep forest.

  They didn't talk much at first; in fact Belinda tended to hang back, walking a few steps behind Xandra, but as they reached the trees, she caught up and said, “I thought you said the reason you couldn't take me to where you found the bird was because you weren't supposed to go into the forest.”

  Xandra nodded. “That's what I said, but I meant I wasn't supposed to go very far into it, and this way we don't have to. We're just going to go up here along the edge of the trees and then we'll cut back toward the houses. We're almost there now.” And then to change the subject she stopped to point out a dangerous hornets' nest, and a little farther along, the remains of a mockingbird's nest. And that led to telling about the baby mockingbird.

  When she told about rescuing and raising a baby mockingbird that had fallen out of the nest, Belinda's cool disinterest faded away. “We do that sometimes,” she said eagerly. “We rescue baby birds.”

  “We?” Xandra asked. “You and your grandfather?”

  Belinda nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Me and my grandfather. He's very good at finding baby birds and raising them.”

  Xandra waited, hoping to hear more about what the grandfather was good at, but Belinda only turned away and went on walking. They were almost through the grove of small trees when Belinda asked, “Do any of your brothers and sisters”—she paused long enough to let her smile say she remembered what Xandra called them—“I mean your siblings, like the forest? I mean, do they go there with you?”

  “No,” Xandra said quickly and firmly. “Not with me anyway. Two of them, the
two that are twins, go exploring in the forest sometimes, just because they aren't supposed to. And just so they can try to scare me by pretending to be experts about all sorts of dangerous things that might live there. Things like snakes and mountain lions.”

  Belinda nodded. “Oh yes,” she said. “I think I heard about your twin brothers. I heard some girls talking about them in the cafeteria.”

  Xandra wasn't surprised. She was used to hearing girls rave about what great jocks and how cute her twin brothers were. She shrugged and sighed. “Yeah,” she said. “All the girls are crazy about them, but all I can say is, they can have them.”

  She might have had more sarcastic things to say about her “gorgeous” twin brothers, but just about then they reached the place where the path led out of the forest and right up to the Hobsons' back gate. Up to the gate, then, after a careful check to be sure no one was in the yard—no Hobson siblings and not even Otto, the gardener—Xandra quickly led the way across the lawn, around flower and herb beds, and then they were there. Right there in the basement, where the white bird had disappeared, leaving behind the enchanted feather.

  Nothing had changed since the miraculous disappearance of the bird. Once inside the door, they had to make their way through the huge storage room among the boxes and trunks and all kinds of sports and household equipment, including every kind of vacuum cleaner that had ever been invented. As Xandra led the way through the piles of junk, Belinda hung back, looking from side to side. She seemed interested in all of it, particularly the vacuum cleaners. “Broken?” she asked. “Are they all broken?”

  “Some of them might be.” Xandra shrugged. “My mother kept getting different kinds, hoping somebody in the family would get interested in using them. But finally she just gave up and hired a cleaning service.” She shrugged again. “Come on. What we came to see is back here.”

  It was then, while Belinda was hanging back to inspect the vacuum cleaners, that Xandra began to have some serious second thoughts. Here she was letting an almost perfect stranger in on one of the most important secrets of her whole life. A stranger who at the moment seemed more interested in boring housecleaning stuff than in secret hideouts and enchanted creatures.