Hide and Seek

Once there had been a barn. But that had burned down some years ago.

I remembered where it was located. The grass grew somewhat longer

there.

There were four steps up to the porch. The wood was old, spongy and

gave underfoot. So did the porch beams.

The doorway was crude. Strictly post and lintel. It was made of heavy

oak, like the door itself. Tacked to the crossbeam of the lintel was a

faded blue ribbon, and dangling from the ribbon, facing dead ahead like

some bizarre knocker, was a fish head mouth agape. The flesh had long

since rotted away leaving only three square inches of clean white bone,

empty eyed and hollow.

Steve flicked it with his finger. "You put out the welcome mat for us,

Case?"

It rattled lightweight against the oak then was still again. Casey

shook her head.

"Nope. Wish I'd thought of it. But it's kids, I guess."

"Kids, yeah."

We stood there a moment, feeling awkward, silly. Well, here we were.

Kids. Casey gave me a grin.

"Who's going to open it?"

I turned the rusted doorknob and gave it a push.

"Locked."

I looked around. I kept having this feeling that somebody had to be

watching. We were about to break into a house. So somebody had to

know. It was obvious we were going to get caught. I hadn't the luck

for anything better.

"There's a window broken over here. One of us can probably slip

through and unlock it from the inside."

I looked at Steven.

"Not me." He gestured toward the linen pants. "Whites."

So that was the reason for the beach-party outfit. I took his

flashlight from him and walked over to the window. I flicked on the

light. I had plenty of room to get through. The window was at chest

level. I could hop in easily. But damned if I wanted to.

There was one big spike of glass pointing upward from the bottom pane.

I lifted it out of the window and tossed it into the tall grass. There

was no sound of breakage.