“No, I didn’t.”
Score one for me over Princess Einstein. I nod. “I read about it on InsideHalton.com.”
“These are red.” She points. “Or do you consider that colour brown?”
“Maybe rust, I don’t know. But so are all of the ones he used in his own landscaping. There must be tons of red bricks around.”
“Um, Stephen, just to let you know, my brother has a bookshelf made of planks and bricks.”
“Red ones?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Did you check if any are missing?”
“No.” She sighs. “But if it makes you happy, I will.”
“We have to treat everyone as though they’re a suspect.”
“Sure we do.” She rolls her eyes at me.
“At the very least, we can stay a step ahead of the police about Attila.”
“True.” She brightens over that answer. “Ping’s walking a lot better now.”
“That may end when I run out of these.” I rattle the treat bag and pull back on Pong to try to get him to heel nicely, too. When he slows, I slip him a treat and Ping yaps his complaint to me.
“What happens when the dogs go back to their owners, Stephen? Will you tell the Bennetts about the threat?”
“No. If I tell any adults, the police will become involved immediately. You know that. I just hope this will all be over by then.” We turn onto the walkway to my house, and I open the door for Renée, who pushes her suitcase into the house. Dad’s not around to meet her. Probably a good thing.
On the rest of our walk, I show Renée Mrs. Watier’s house, complete with its toilet paper wedding veils. “Do you think someone is trying to sabotage her special day? First, there’s a bomb scare on the day of her dress fitting. Then someone puts something in her gas tank. A car crashes into the school in time for her rehearsal tea.”
“That’s brilliant reasoning, Stephen!” Renée says. “What do you have in mind for tonight’s midnight walk?”
Later, when Dad meets Renée, his eyebrows raise. “Stephen, you never told me Renée was a girl.”
“You knew that,” I answer. “Remember when I told you she helped with the dogs? You even said I should marry her.”
“Slipped my mind.”
“Do you not think boys and girls can be friends? Lots of people are like that,” Renée says to him.
“No. That’s not it. I haven’t spoken to your parents yet, and I need to know they’re all right with you staying over at a boy’s house. Especially when his mom’s not here. Would you like to get them for me?” Dad hands her the phone.
She dials. “Hi, Mom. I’m at Stephen’s. Yes, I want to have a sleepover at a boy’s house.” She pauses. “You don’t think boys and girls should have sleepovers? But you and Dad have them all the time.” Renée turns to Dad and hands him the phone. “She wants to speak to you.”
Dad listens for a while. “Yes, it’s all right with me. Stephen mentioned something about doing homework together, and we do have a spare room … Yes, it sounds like you’re going through a rough time … I hope things turn out well … Yes, I’ll make them both lunches … Thank you. I’m glad Stephen has made a new friend, too.”
When he hangs up, he sends me up to the guest bedroom with clean sheets. It’s not exactly like a sleepover with Jessie where we pile sleeping bags on the couches in the basement.
But we do end up playing Wii sports. We design a great avatar complete with glasses and a ponytail to represent Renée. I beat Renée at bowling, but she’s a whiz at golf and gives me some great pointers.
Before bed, we coordinate our phone alarms and set the volume on low.
“Goodnight,” I tell Renée and head for my own room. There I lie down and count Jack Russells and greyhounds jumping over fences till my eyes grow heavy.
day three
day three, mistake one
At midnight, my phone buzzes me awake and I hear the musical notes from the guest room. I dash to meet her in the hall, Ping and Pong crowding around my feet. “We better go quickly before the dogs wake Dad.”
“Wait,” she whispers. “Put something in your window so we can test out how much the criminal can see from the park.
“Good thinking,” I whisper back. We set up a stool in front of my bedroom window and plonk Peanut, my stuffed elephant, on it. Ping leaps up to sink his teeth into the stuffie and pulls him down. “Leave it!” I snap, and when Ping sits nicely, I give him one of the last liver bites. Dad better have more treats ready for tomorrow’s lunch-hour walk.
I set Peanut back on the stool. “Shh, shh,” I tell the dogs as we quietly head downstairs and out the door.
“Is the light from the moon about the same?” Renée asks.
“Maybe the moon’s a sliver bigger.” We head quickly for the walkway into the park. The dogs love the brisk pace, and we jog with them to the parking lot of the school. We stop and turn around. “Can you see Peanut?” I ask Renée.
“Perfectly,” she answers as we stare up at my bedroom window.
I look and can even make out his glossy black eyes. “So, you’re right about the criminal spotting me. I wonder which houses get a good view of the parking lot besides ours.”
We look around in the darkness. Over across the field, I see a small, red dot glowing. A cigarette? I point to it, and Renée and I drift silently closer to the chain-link fence along the edge of the park to investigate.
“How much farther can we go and not be spotted?” Renée asks.
“I don’t know.” The first mistake of a brand-new day (since it’s past midnight): we walk close enough for an old lady sitting in her backyard to see us. “What are you kids doing up at this hour? I’m gonna call the police on you.”
day three, mistake two
“She’s smoking a cigar!” Renée whispers at me.
“Not just any cigar. It’s a Habanos,” the lady growls. Her cheeks puff out, and a cloud of smoke rises from the end of the fat brown cigar. “I’m not deaf, ya know.”
I squint.
“Can’t a person enjoy a smoke on her birthday without a bunch of kids hanging around? What are you even doing out of bed?” She’s a pale-skinned lady dressed in a flowered muumuu. Her hair is frosty white. In one huge hand, she clutches a cellphone. Her thumb looks poised to key in a number. “Yup, yup, gonna call the police.”
“Sorry,” I say. “Please don’t. Our dogs needed to go out suddenly. Supper disagreed with them.”
She takes a puff and lays the phone down on the little table beside her.
“Are you Mr. Ron’s mom?”
She squints at me through the smoke. “How did you know that?”
“He takes me across the street a couple times a day. Has since I was little. I can see a strong family resemblance.” Her hands are as big as his, and she gestures and talks