Chapter 11
Meeting the Neighbor
=================
Abby was glad that Dad was in the Bonebreaker Race, of course, but it was nice to get away from it, too. Tom and Luke especially talked of little else.
One afternoon during their vacation, Sara and Abby were playing in the empty lot adjacent to the Ellsworths' house. Luke and his parents lived on one side, and there was a kind of shallow ravine running behind the house; sometimes the kids would ride their bikes down the ravine when it was dry enough, but this happened seldom during the spring. The empty lot had been taken over by native shrubbery, a couple of scraggly trees and overgrowth. On the far side of the empty lot was a quiet, dark gray house with a white front door; here lived the neighbor that Abby had seen at the fireworks show.
The Ellsworths had seen the man come and go and saw lights on in his house, but overall, the man with eccentric taste in clothing was a quiet neighbor.
This afternoon on a warm spring day, Abby and Sara had set up a house under the largest shrub in the vacant lot. Its heavy branches arched up and out then swept down to touch the ground, forming a dome protected by thorny arms. The bush had leafed out enough to make the interior private; once past the outer defenses, the center was a secret cave, dappled in filtered sunlight. Both Abby and Sara had contributed to their private house: Sara had brought some chipped dishware from the restaurant, and Abby had rolled in a couple of stumps for seats and hung an old picture from her room on the bush's trunk.
It was a cozy house, and only Abby and Sara knew about it. Or so they thought. Luis had followed Sara one day and had seen her disappear into the interior of the bush. Later, after the girls had left, he took a peek inside their secret fort. How boring! They didn't have anything worthwhile: no firecrackers or chewing tobacco, just stupid girl stuff. Sometimes girls weren't worth the effort of spying.
Sara and Abby were drinking cola out of their chipped mugs.
"I think we should be detectives," Abby announced.
"You mean when we grow up?"
"No. Now." Abby burped gently.
"Umm. Okay." Sara was agreeable. "What do you want to investigate?"
"My neighbor. I think he’s up to things.”
"What things?” Sara asked. There was a little cola left in the bottle, and she split the remainder between them.
"I saw him at the fireworks show." Abby proceeded to tell Sara what she saw at the Blue Pearl Sea on the evening of the American Independence Day celebration.
"I remember you being surprised at something when we were there. But you think there is something sinister about catching a bunny?" questioned Sara.
"I told you I don’t think it was a bunny; it shot back at him.” Abby waved her arms in some agitation.
“He could be dangerous,” Abby added.
Sara was logical. "But if he's dangerous, we could be in danger if he knows we know."
"But he won't know that we know he knows."
"What?" Sara hadn't followed that one at all.
"I mean we won't let him know that we're watching him," Abby said.
Sara wasn't quite sure about Abby's logic but was willing to go along. They would observe the bunny hunter. "Okay. So what do we do?"
"Let's look in his windows."
"Now?"
"Now."
================
Several of the skinny trees bordered the neighbor's property. They were beginning to leaf out in delicate shades of green. The leaves made them look sturdier than they really were.
"If we climb those two," Abby gestured to the two stoutest of the trees, "we'll be able to get a good look." She strode to a tree and began to climb. It swayed but held. Sara sighed and began to climb, too. This made her think of something Luis would do.
====================
If the trees had been just a bit stronger, disaster would have been avoided.
Abby reached a sufficient height on her tree to look in the windows. She was standing on a branch that was considerably thinner than her wrist but was holding.
"What do you see?" Sara called.
"Nothing," Abby replied in a disgusted voice. "There's too much reflected sunlight on the window. I'm going a little higher; I think the roof overhang might help me look in if I can just go up more."
Abby climbed cautiously, but all the caution in the world couldn't help the tree to hold the girl’s weight. It began to lean over, tiring of its burden. Abby lost her balance and grabbed desperately at a branch. It came off in her hand with a loud crack and Abby dropped to the ground.
Sara shrieked.
Abby contemplated the clouds for a moment. One of the worst things about falling, she reflected, was that moment just before hitting the ground. She moved her arms and legs. Nothing seemed to be broken, but she did have a long, painful scrape on her left leg. It was bleeding.
"Abby, Abby, are you all right?" Sara scrambled down the tree and ran to her friend. She knelt on the ground beside Abby.
Abby bit her lip and showed the scrape to Sara who made the appropriate noises of sympathy. "Does it hurt very bad?"
Abby nodded her head. Somehow the sympathy made it hurt more, not less. She wondered if other detectives ever had to deal with the indignity of falling out of a tree.
They heard a door close nearby, and a figure appeared around the corner of the adjacent house.
================
Abby's neighbor looked like a nice man, Sara thought. He certainly didn't look dangerous. In fact, Sara was reminded a bit of Uncle Al back on Earth. He was dressed in a gray pinstripe suit, quite normal looking. The blue beanie hat was kind of strange, though.
"Good day. Is there anything wrong?" He had a nice voice, Abby thought. He didn't seem to be mad at them for breaking a tree.
"We were, um, climbing trees, and a limb broke," Abby explained. "I fell."
"She hurt her leg," Sara added. She didn't think they were in trouble, but it still could be a good idea to play for a little sympathy.
"Let me see." He knelt beside Abby's leg, and put a hand on her foot, rotating it gently. "Does this cause a pain response at all?"
Abby shook her head. Mr. Neudel took a deep breath, held it for a moment, then blew out. His nose twitched. It was almost as if he was the one feeling pain.
"Good. It doesn't appear you damaged your skeletal structure nor the fascia," he said. Abby thought his language was kind of odd, like maybe he learned it late in life. And what, exactly, was fascia? Abby didn't even know she had any.
"We should clean this dermal damage to make sure there is no door for opportunistic bacteria. Can you walk?" he asked. Abby's neighbor stood up and offered a hand.
She got to her feet, and Sara also stepped in to steady her.
"Good. I have a kit for aid first, excuse me, first aid in my house.
"My name is Neudel, Nicholas Neudel. You are I believe Abigail Elaine Ellsworth?"
Abby nodded and said, "Except my name is Abby. Everyone calls me Abby."
"Abby. And you are Sara Vivian Vargas?"
"Just Sara," she replied. "How do you know our names?"
"I have been involved in immigration," Nicholas Neudel said. This wasn't much of an explanation, but it seemed to satisfy the girls.
"So, Sara and Abby, let us tend to the leg."
Nicholas Neudel led the way around the side of his house.
Abby and Sara looked at each other. The neighbor certainly didn’t seem to be dangerous at all, and he didn't seem to be angry, even though they'd almost been trespassing. They decided to follow Mr. Neudel.
================
"He seems nice," Sara whispered in Abby's ear. She was supporting Abby as they walked to Mr. Neudel's front door. Abby didn't really need help to walk-- her leg wasn't that bad-- but it gave them an excuse to have their heads together.
"I know," Abby whispered back. "But watch out for
anything suspicious."
================
Sara wasn't sure what would qualify as suspicious. Mr. Neudel's taste in furnishings was eccentric, though. To begin with, he had a Snoopy throw rug in his entryway, and his living room wall was adorned with a giant painting of Elvis ascending to heaven. There was a green velvet beanbag chair as well as a good-quality leather sofa with the nice effect only slightly spoiled by the 'I Love New York' pillow upon it. The mantelpiece had a nicely arranged pyramid of Campbell's Tomato Soup cans upon it, each one precisely balanced. The pyramid was flanked by stuffed lions.
The whole living room teetered between good taste and kitschy Americana. Sara decided she liked it. The large windows looking out into the central courtyard revealed a fountain that had a spouting Statue of Liberty replica fountain in the middle; an inscription at the statue’s base read, ‘De Oppresso Liber’, and water was cascading out of Lady Liberty's upheld torch.
Abby sat cautiously on the edge of the couch. She didn't want to get any blood on the nice leather. Now that the initial shock of falling out of the tree was over, the wound was starting to throb.
Mr. Neudel came back into the room bearing a white plastic box that was stamped 'First Aid' on its cover in big red letters. It looked as if it had never been used. He opened it up and took out a tube of antibiotic cream and a handful of bandages.
"Let's see now," Mr. Neudel said. He thoughtfully read the instructions on the tube, then squeezed out a quantity of cream directly onto Abby's wound.
"I think you're supposed to spread it around," Abby said. "Here, I'll do it." She reached down gingerly and dabbed the cream the length of the wound.
"Very good. Now bandages." Nicholas Neudel seemed to have a bit of difficulty separating the two pieces of paper enclosing the bandage. Sara helped.
"There." He applied it over Abby's wound. "Looks like we'll need a few more, though," Mr. Neudel commented as he regarded his handiwork. He rubbed behind one of his ears with a hand. The bandage looked comic, like a little bridge across the river that was her wound. They eventually used five of the bandages. This wasn't the way Sara's Mom would have done it, nor Abby's Dad, but it worked.
========
After the dressing of the injury, Sara, Abby and Mr. Neudel trouped into the kitchen for a snack. "Sugar has regenerative properties in the event of trauma," Mr. Neudel said. Abby wished that her Dad knew about this.
Mr. Neudel served them all cola and Oreos and told them a little about himself.
"I immigrated from a small Eastern European country to America and then to Gracchia," he said. Abby thought this was a rather odd way of putting it. Why didn't he just name the European country, she wondered. Still, it accounted for some of the odd mannerisms, and Abby knew that Eastern Europe had been left relatively unscathed by the Blood War that had ravaged so much of Western Europe.
Dad always said that customs were not a rule of nature, even though many people seemed to believe they were. She supposed this was what he'd meant. There were a lot of different ways of doing things even among Humans, let alone aliens.
Mostly though, Mr. Neudel was interested in hearing Sara and Abby talk about themselves and what they thought of Aurelia. He was a good listener, which in turn made Abby and Sara feel interesting. He asked them about school, their friends and people they had met in Aurelia. They told him about their excursion to Ajincore Park for the art exhibition.
"Ah, yes. I understand it was not a success."
"I guess not. It was interesting though," Sara said. She took another Oreo.
Abby craftily brought up the Independence Day fireworks they'd seen a week or so ago. "How did you like them, Mr. Neudel?" she asked. Abby half expected him to deny he'd been there.
"Beautiful, just beautiful," he said.
He didn't seem to show any signs of guilt, Abby thought. She wondered what Nancy Drew would do. Abby decided that a detective would make up some reason to see the rest of the house.
"Can I use your restroom?" Abby asked. Sara gave her a thoughtful look.
"But of course. It is just off the corridor over there."
Abby hobbled off to the bathroom. There wasn't anything suspicious in here. Mr. Neudel had towels with yellow ducks on them. That seemed kind of odd for a man. Maybe they came with the house. Abby washed her hands and left the bathroom.
She risked a look into a bedroom. Nothing suspicious there, except it was kind of weird that apparently Mr. Neudel slept in a large hammock. Oh well. Abby wasn't sure what there would be to find. Somewhere at the back of her mind she'd thought that maybe there'd one of those weird blue ropes laying about or maybe some dead rabbits hidden in the bathroom, but Mr. Neudel seemed to be a nice man. If he was running around capturing bunnies, he hid it well.
==============
Walking back to Abby's house, Sara asked Abby if she was going to tell her Dad about today.
"I'll tell him I fell out of a tree and the neighbor helped us. It's true, after all."
"Do you still think he's some kind of, um, rabbit poacher? Mr. Neudel, I mean."
Abby looked thoughtful. "Not really. Still, there's something going on."
"Like what?"
"I don't know, exactly," Abby said. "Doesn't he seem kind of odd, though?"
"Everyone's weird, if you think about it. It's just more obvious with some people. Maybe it's because he's from Eastern Europe."
"There's more to it than that." Abby frowned in concentration. A detail was tugging at the edges of her consciousness, but the more she tried to see it, the more it slid away.
"Well, let me know when you find out."
=================
When Dad got home from work that day, he noticed her leg with the three bandages plastered inexpertly on it. He was surprised to hear that their neighbor had cleaned out the wound and applied the bandages. It looked as if a child had done it.
"I hope you thanked Mr. Neudel properly," Dad commented. "He seems like a nice man."
"You've met him?" Abby was surprised. This was the first she'd heard of it.
"Of course. After we'd moved in, I introduced myself one morning. I think you and Tom were already in school."
"Oh. What did you think of him?"
"As I said, a nice man. He's from Eastern Europe originally, I understand."
"Did you see the fountain in the middle of his courtyard?" Abby asked.
Dad smiled. "The Statue of Liberty. It's a powerful image particularly for immigrants."
So Dad didn't find anything odd about Mr. Nicholas Neudel. Abby would have to keep an eye on her neighbor. Just in case.
==================
The rest of the vacation period passed uneventfully.
During the next week, Tom noticed that Abby was frequently studying the neighborhood with binoculars.
"Who are you spying on?" he asked her one afternoon. Tom had followed Abby out to the vacant lot to find her lurking behind a bush, binoculars trained on the neighbor's house. He wondered why she was using binoculars; it wasn't like the house was far away.
"No one. I'm birdwatching," Abby replied, lowering the glasses.
"Still want to be a detective?" Tom said.
"What does that have to do with anything?" Abby said in an annoyed voice.
"Just asking." Tom went back inside the house.
In fact, Abby saw nothing of significance. Mr. Neudel did seem to have a lot of Gracchus friends, but there was nothing suspicious about that; this was their planet, after all. Then one morning she saw their neighbor leave his house with a lumpy duffel bag, and he was gone.
The only other item of note during the last week of vacation was another missive from Prospero. He and several of his Gracchus compatriots on Earth were going to take a trip to see the Grand Canyon. Tom and Abby pictured Prospero riding a mule down the steep trail and hoped that he would be okay.
===============
>