The Collectors #2 Read online

  The front door opened, letting in a burst of noise. Peter Grey and the nanny, Emma, stepped across the foyer to the doorway of the front room.

  The nanny gazed around, wide-eyed. “My gosh—what happened? Is everyone okay?”

  While Mr. Grey explained, and Emma rushed to give Van a hug, Peter stood with his tennis racket in the doorway, staring in at the rest of them with his chilly blue eyes.

  Finally Mr. Grey said, with a sharpness that even Van could catch, “Peter.”

  “Got your way,” mumbled Peter.

  Glad you’re okay, Van translated in his mind. That was probably what Peter had said. But Peter still didn’t move any closer.

  After the police officers had left, and after the delivery pizza had arrived, because no one could concentrate on cooking, they all gathered around the dining table. Peter was quieter than usual. Mr. Grey talked even more than usual. Van’s mother laughed a lot less than usual. But Van only half noticed these things. His attention was fixed on the windows that gazed out over the walled backyard.

  The summer evening had grown red and dim. Thickening shadows pooled behind every tree. Van was sure that if he just watched patiently enough, somewhere in those shadows, he would spot the flash of a tufty silver tail.

  But there was no flash.

  Peter finished eating quickly and stalked away.

  After another bite, Van asked to be excused too.

  His mother held out her arms. “Come here, caro mio.” Van let her wrap him up in a lily-scented hug. “Nothing matters more to me than you do. You know that,” she said, her face close to his. “I will find a way to keep you safe. I promise.”

  Van nodded, aiming his eyes at the floor.

  His mother hadn’t brought the disasters upon them. He had. It was his fault that they weren’t safe right now. It was his fault that his mother was still walking with a crutch. It was his fault that they were stuck in this stuffy house. It was even his fault, in a way, that a garbage truck had barreled through the neighbor’s front windows.

  Van let his mother give him one more squeeze. Then he trailed up the winding stairs and along the hall to his borrowed bedroom. After closing the door and changing into his pajamas, Van pulled a large, sturdy box out from under the bed.

  Van had been building his collection for years. Everywhere his mother’s singing took them, he found treasures to add to it: foreign coins and skeleton keys, model cars and dinosaurs, broken jewelry, interesting buttons, the tiny toys that tumbled out of vending machines. All the things that other people lost or dropped or didn’t notice in the first place.

  But Van noticed.

  He dragged the collection box close to his model stage. Van’s father, a set designer who now lived somewhere in Europe, had built the stage years and years ago. It was a perfect replica of a real stage, complete with working velvet curtains and a proscenium arch. Van couldn’t quite remember his father, and you can’t really miss something that you don’t remember. But the model stage had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember anything at all.

  With careful hands, Van dug through his collection. He pulled out a small china squirrel—a squirrel that he had stolen from Peter’s bedroom months ago—and set it in the center of the stage. Van wasn’t in the habit of stealing his treasures. The stolen squirrel still gave him a twinge of guilt, but it was so faint that he could barely feel it at all, like the yellowish splotch a bruise leaves just before it disappears for good. Next to the squirrel, he placed an action figure with a long black cape.

  SuperVan.

  “Barnavelt!” Van imagined SuperVan saying, in his booming voice. “It’s good to see you again!”

  “SuperVan! We’ve all missed you so much!” squeaked the squirrel. “I have an important message for you. It’s about Pebble. Of course she hasn’t forgotten about you. She needs you. She—EEEEEEEEE!” The squirrel’s squeak turned to a scream.

  Stomping onto the stage was the one-armed model robot Van had found in an Austrian airport bathroom.

  Barnavelt let out a last squeak. “Look out, SuperVan!” The squirrel dove to safety behind the rear curtains.

  SuperVan whirled to face the newcomer.

  “MESSAGE REJECTED,” announced the robot. “SUPERVAN: PREPARE TO FACE MY BEE-BEE GUN.”

  It aimed its metal hand. Before it could fire a swarm of robot bees, SuperVan launched into the air. The figurine dove close to the collection box, cape billowing heroically. It hooked its plastic arm through the coils of a miniature Slinky. Then SuperVan soared back over the stage, aimed carefully, and dropped the Slinky. Its coils fell neatly around the robot, holding it like a caterpillar in a cocoon.

  “MISSION FAILED,” announced the robot. “BUT SUPERVAN WILL NOT WIN AGAIN.”

  “We’ll see about that,” said SuperVan. With a quick kick, the figurine sent the robot and its metal cocoon rolling over the lip of the stage.

  “AAAAAAHHH,” screamed the robot.

  “Hooray!” cheered the squirrel, hopping out of its hiding place. “You did it, SuperVan! You survived the robot bee attack!” It scampered adoringly around SuperVan’s black plastic boots. “Now, for that message from Pebble . . .”

  Van trailed off.

  He set the squirrel down on the stage’s black boards.

  He couldn’t imagine a message from Pebble. He couldn’t imagine where she had gone. And he couldn’t imagine what she hoped Van would do—if she still had any hope in him at all.

  Van shoved his collection back into its place. Then he switched off the light, pulled back the covers, and climbed up onto the big guest room bed.

  But he wasn’t going to stay there.

  4

  Voices in the Dark

  Van lay on his side, watching the gap below his bedroom door.

  His mother and Mr. Grey often stayed up late together, an occasional note of his mother’s laughter floating up from the living room below. But tonight, much earlier than usual, a shadow flickered past his doorway—the shadow of Mr. Grey heading along the hall and up to his own bedroom on the third floor. Apparently they hadn’t found much to laugh about tonight.

  The hallway light winked out. Everything went still.

  Van waited for as long as he could stand it, watching the digits on the bedside clock tick upward. Five minutes. Ten. Twelve. Finally, when he couldn’t keep still for another second, he swung his legs out from under the blankets.

  He couldn’t keep waiting for the Collectors to come to him. Not when his life was obviously in danger. He needed to talk to Barnavelt or, better yet, to someone who could concentrate for more than five seconds. He needed to do something.

  He needed to get to the Collection.

  Van fit his hearing aids into place. He listened for a moment, holding his breath. The house was quiet. He grabbed the glass marble and his emergency house key from the bedside table and dropped them into the pocket of his pajama pants. After slipping on his shoes, he inched open the guest room door.

  A night-light in the guest bathroom gave off a comforting glow. Emma, the nanny, must have left it on for him. It wasn’t the kind of thing Mr. Grey would think of. Peter might think of it, and then switch it off on purpose.

  Gratefully, Van ventured out into the light.

  He didn’t like the dark.

  It wasn’t darkness itself that bothered him. It was the things that darkness stole from him. The dark stripped away his sharpest sense, leaving him to tiptoe into danger like a hand groping around in a drawer full of knives.

  Van padded down the hallway, past the bathroom and its rosy night-light, past Peter’s closed bedroom door, to the top of the stairs.

  No lights shone from below. The gap below the office door was dark. To keep Van’s mother from having to limp up and down the long staircase, Mr. Grey had made her a temporary bedroom in the first-floor office. She wasn’t a very sound sleeper, as Van knew from experience. He hoped that the size of the Greys’ house and the exhaustion of the day would keep
any stray sound from waking her.

  Van tiptoed down the winding steps. Below him, the foyer’s dark wooden floor gleamed like a pool of oil. Van half expected it to seep up the cuffs of his pajama pants as he skidded across it toward the heavy front door.

  The knob turned easily in his hand. That was odd. Maybe Emma had forgotten to lock the door when she’d left for the night. Keeping one eye over his shoulder, Van inched the door open, slipped out onto the broad stone stoop, and pulled the door shut behind him.

  Someone was sitting on the steps.

  Van sucked in a gasp.

  The seated figure turned. By the light of the streetlamps, Van could make out its shape, its short brownish hair, its familiar face. He saw surprise and hope flare on its features for a split second before burning out.

  “Oh,” said Peter. “It’s you.” In the street’s nighttime hush, Van could catch each chilly word.

  “Did you . . .” Van faltered. “Did you think I was somebody else?”

  Peter shrugged. “. . . Didn’t expect you to come looking for me.”

  “I wasn’t looking for you,” said Van, realizing just a second too late what a nice excuse this could have been.

  Peter’s face sharpened into a frown. “Then what are you doing out here?”

  “I was . . .” Van sorted through a dozen possible lies. He studied Peter, slumped on the steps, and moved closer until he could look directly down at Peter’s face. “What are you doing out here?”

  Peter kicked an acorn off the stoop and didn’t answer.

  Van’s eyes moved from Peter’s face to his clothes. Peter wore a button-up shirt and jeans, even though it was very late at night not to be wearing pajamas. And there were expensive sneakers on his feet. You didn’t come outside in the middle of the night, fully clothed, with your shoes on, unless—

  “Are you running away?” Van asked.

  “No,” said Peter. Or it might have been I don’t know. He shrugged again. “Maybe. Kind of.” He looked at Van from the corner of his eye. “Is that what you’re doing?”

  “Maybe. Kind of.” Van echoed Peter’s words. “But I was going to come back.”

  Peter muttered something that Van couldn’t catch.

  “What did you say?” Van asked.

  Peter frowned up at him. “Can’t you hear me, even when you’re standing right next to me?”

  “Sometimes. It helps if I can see your face.”

  “Oh.” Peter angled his body very slightly toward Van. In the streetlights, his pale blue eyes looked even icier than usual. “I said, why would you run away? You’re the good one. The one everybody feels sorry for. Oh, poor little Van, he almost got hurt.” He shook his head. “They don’t even notice when I leave the room. They wouldn’t notice if I left the whole house.”

  Van tugged at the cuff of his pajama sleeve. Peter’s words were angry, but his voice was weaker than usual. Too weak for any of the words to sting.

  “I just wanted to get out for a while,” Van answered. “It feels weird, living in somebody else’s house. Especially if you know you really shouldn’t be there.”

  Peter didn’t meet Van’s eyes. “Where were you going to go?”

  Van knew exactly where he was going to go. He was going to race down to the end of this street, zigzag twice, and then run for blocks and blocks until the buildings became bigger and darker, and then . . .

  Van swallowed. The Collection was his secret, and he would keep it as safe and secure as the treasures in his box. He shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe back to our old apartment. Where were you going to go?”

  There was a long pause. Van was starting to think that Peter must have mumbled an answer and he’d missed it, but then Peter kicked another acorn and said, “I don’t know.”

  “To your mom’s?” offered Van.

  “My mom’s gone,” said Peter.

  The way he said it told Van that she wasn’t gone to another house, or another city, or even another country.

  “Oh,” said Van. “I’m sorry.” He sat down on the step next to Peter. “How about your grandparents?”

  “They live in England,” said Peter. “And I don’t really like them.”

  The words were so flat and factual, Van couldn’t help letting out a laugh.

  Peter glanced into Van’s eyes for a moment. A smile pulled at one side of his mouth.

  “They eat beans for breakfast,” Peter went on. “Beans and stewed tomatoes. And they always send me a jar of marmalade for Christmas. That’s it. Even though they’re superrich. And I’ve never seen either of them laugh, ever. Not even this one time when my grandfather let out a huge fart right at the table. I laughed, and they sent me to my room.”

  Van giggled. “I suppose that’s what happens when you eat beans for breakfast.”

  Now Peter laughed too. This made Van laugh harder. The two of them sat for a minute, their shoulders shaking, their hands clamped over their mouths.

  “I don’t think you should run away,” said Van, when they had finally stopped giggling. “I mean—this is your house. My mom and I will be gone soon. I hope.”

  Peter shot him a look. “What if you’re not?”

  Van pictured this. He and his mother and Peter and Mr. Grey all stuck in the same house for weeks to come. His mother and Mr. Grey sharing more meals, laughing and murmuring, staying up together after Van and Peter had already slunk or stomped upstairs to bed.

  “Maybe we should come up with a plan.” Van locked his arms around his knees. “Something that would make our parents want to be apart. Or make them want us to be apart.”

  “Yeah,” Peter said slowly. His eyebrows rose. “Maybe if we’re so awful together—like, really loud and rude, or we mess up the whole house—maybe they’ll think we’re bad influences on each other, and they’ll hurry and separate us.”

  “That’s good,” said Van. “What are some of the worst things we could do?”

  “We could be really rude at the table,” suggested Peter. “Eating with our fingers, grabbing stuff. Chewing with our mouths open. Or— Can you make yourself burp really loud? Like this?” he added, in a resonant burp.

  “Wow,” said Van. “No. I wish.”

  Peter gave a pleased smile.

  Van thought for a second. “What’s your dad’s least favorite kind of music?”

  “Death metal,” said Peter instantly. “The kind where all the singers sound like Cookie Monster.”

  “That’s perfect.” Van sat up straighter. “We should pretend we’re really into death metal. We should blast it all day long.”

  “Yeah.” Peter sat up straighter too. “We could get metal band T-shirts with really creepy pictures on them. We could decorate our rooms with metal posters. We could dye our hair black!”

  “Mine’s already black,” Van pointed out.

  “Then we could bleach yours white,” Peter hurried on. “And we could get those magnetic things that make it look like you pierced your nose!”

  Van rocked forward onto his knees. “We could give each other fake tattoos!”

  Peter was grinning so hard now that Van could see the streetlight glinting on his teeth. “This is a great plan.”

  Van grinned back. “I’ve never gotten to be a bad influence before.”

  “Really?” Peter’s eyebrows went up. “I get called a bad influence all the time.”

  For a minute, they kept quiet, smiling out into the darkness together.

  Then Peter said, “I guess we should get back inside.”

  Van’s heart plummeted down to the bottom of his ribs.

  Making plans with Peter had derailed his other plan—the one that took him straight to the Collection. And now with Peter waiting for him to step through the heavy front door, Van had no chance of getting that plan back on track.

  “Yeah,” he said slowly. “I guess.”

  Peter let Van pass through the door first. After locking it carefully behind them, he followed Van across the foyer and up the staircase.
/>   “All right,” whispered Peter as they reached his own bedroom door. “When should we put our plan into action?”

  Van thought for a moment. “Let’s say if my mom and I don’t have plans to move out within the next week, we get our first death metal album.”

  “Sounds good.” Peter flashed him a last quick grin. “Good night.”

  Then Peter’s bedroom door swung shut, and Van was left alone in the empty hallway.

  He wavered on the carpet.

  Now what?

  Maybe he should sneak back downstairs. But Peter was sharp-eared and currently awake; he might hear the creak of Van’s footsteps. And there was the risk of waking his mother with another trip back across the first floor. Maybe there was another way out: a big drainpipe to climb, or a balcony. . . .

  He was still standing in the glow of the bathroom night-light, trying to make up his mind, when he heard it.

  “Van.”

  Van froze.

  It was a soft voice, almost a whisper. Soft voices didn’t always reach Van’s ears, even with his hearing aids in place. But this one struck him like the needle of a dart.

  Because this voice wasn’t speaking to his ears at all. It was speaking straight to his mind. Had Barnavelt come back? No, he answered himself. The voice definitely wasn’t the squirrel’s. This voice had an odd quality, something that made it less like a voice and more like a sound—like a piece of rusty metal scraping against stone.

  But it had said his name.

  “Van,” it said again.

  The glow of the night-light revealed nothing but bare carpet and gray walls. So the voice had to be coming from one of the bedrooms.

  From his bedroom.

  “Van,” it called. “Van.”

  With a tremor in his stomach, Van stepped closer.

  The voice intensified. By the time he opened the door, it seemed to echo inside his head, as though several voices were calling him at once.

  He squinted into the dimness.

  The room was empty. The miniature stage sat just as he’d left it. The spot where he’d lain still rumpled the bedspread. But the voices kept calling.

  “Van.” More echoes joined in now, filling Van’s head with layers of creaking sound. “Van. Van. Van.”