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Dad took a deep breath and blew it out slowly.  I don t know,
buddy. I sure hope not. He paused, listening to the low rumble
of thunder. Sàen he said,  No, I don t think he s dead. I think he
might be in trouble because of his money problems. But I don t
think he s dead.
When they got home Dad took only one thing out of the truck:
the nightstand Uncle Gary had made. He carried it, with much
grunting, straining, and a little cursing, up the stairs to Billy s
room where he placed it next to the bed.
For a long time that night, Billy lay in bed staring at the wood
of the nightstand, his eyes following the lines of the grain across
its surface, exploring the many curves and swirls and oblong cir-
cles, the knots where branches had once been. He imagined the
lines to be the walls of little hallways running back and forth and
the circles to be little irregularly shaped rooms. He pictured him-
self walking around in those little hallways, trying to find a way
into the rooms, trying to find Uncle Gary, wherever he might be.
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About two weeks later, on the second day of October, Billy was
awakened in the middle of the night by a sound. Something went
THUMP. Or maybe it was more like a CLUNK.
He opened his eyes and looked around the dark room. His door
was still closed. Sàe house seemed quiet. Something must have
fallen somewhere. Sàat s what it sounded like something falling.
Holding his breath, he strained his ears to listen. He heard a
few clicks and ticks the noises of the house settling, his dad al-
ways said. He heard the furnace coming on. A car drove by out-
side on the street. Sàen he heard a creak.
Billy sat up. Sàe sound came from somewhere inside his bed-
room. It sounded like it came from right next to his bed. He looked
at the nightstand. In the darkness, he could just make out the two
drawers, the lamp and a book sitting on its polished top. He could al-
most see the swirl of the wood grain that stretched across its surface.
Sàere came another creak. It was definitely coming from the
nightstand. Billy stared at it, eyes straining to see in the darkness,
heart pounding. He wanted to jump out of bed and run for the door,
but he was afraid to move. He watched and waited. And waited.
Minutes passed with no other sound: fifteen, twenty, maybe
Escape from Zobadak
more. After a while Billy s eyelids began to grow heavy and he lay
back down, pulling the blanket over his head so that just a small
opening was left for him to breathe and see out of. He told himself
that he would stay awake and listen carefully, with his eyes closed.
But after a minute and a half, he was asleep again.
When he opened his eyes, the sunlight was streaming in his win-
dow and he felt a little silly for being so scared the night before.
It was Saturday morning. No school. Billy relaxed into his pillow.
Looking at the side of the nightstand, he studied the grain pattern
again. In the daytime, the pattern looked different. It almost
looked like a face sort of a long, stretched out face, with one
dark eye and one light eye. Sàe mouth was open.
Billy reached up and pulled open the bottom drawer. Look-
ing at it from the side, he could see where the front of the drawer
was attached to the board on the side, with a back and forth pat-
tern that looked like puzzle pieces fitting together. Sàat was join-
ery, he was pretty sure. What Uncle Gary always used to talk about.
 Sàere s magic in joinery, he used to say, but he never ex-
plained exactly what he meant by that. Looking at it now, Billy
still didn t understand, but in a strange way he believed. He
pushed the drawer closed, then reached up and opened the top
drawer. Something was written in pencil on the side of the drawer.
Billy sat up and leaned in close to read it. It looked like a
child s writing, crooked and a little shaky.
It said,  THE Bigy Bigy BugLu dror.
What did that mean? Billy frowned, reading the words again
and trying to decipher what the writer meant by them. Maybe
they were misspelled words.  Dror seemed to mean  drawer, but
what about the others? Billy climbed out of bed and stood up. He
pulled the drawer all the way out of the nightstand and set it on
his bed, turning it around to study the other three sides. Sàere
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Brad Gallagher
were no other words. Sàere were a few papers inside, drawings
Billy had made and put into the drawer. He pushed these around
but found nothing unusual about the inside of the drawer.
 Hmm, he said.
Turning back to the nightstand, he pulled out the bottom
drawer, setting it next to the top one, and looked at all three sides.
Sàere were no words written on this one.
 Strange, he muttered aloud.
Out of curiosity he got down on his hands and knees and
looked inside the nightstand. Sàere was no bottom, so when he
looked through the drawer openings, he could see down to the
floor. On each side ran two sets of small ledges for the drawers to
slide in and out on.
Something shiny caught Billy s eye, on the left. It was a small
metal hook, toward the front of the nightstand, a few inches above
the lower drawer ledge. It looked like something was meant to
hang from it. To the right of the hook a small number was writ-
ten  2,317.
Sàe number seemed familiar, but he had no idea why. It
seemed like he had just seen that number somewhere. . . .
 Billy! Are you awake? called Mom from downstairs.
He jumped, his heart suddenly racing. He had been so lost in
thought, the sound of her voice startled him.
 Yeah! he called back.
 Come on down and have something to eat! Mom s voice
floated toward him.  We have to go out and run some errands
this morning, so get dressed before you come down. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]