He sounds so afraid.
Mrs Patterson and I stand up at the same time, she on one side of the bed and me on the other. She slides on a pair of slippers and leaves the room.
I follow.
She goes straight to the basement. I am right behind her. I can hear Max screaming on the not-a-phone but I can’t hear him screaming through the wall. It’s strange. He’s right behind that wall but I can’t hear a peep, even though I know he is screaming.
Mrs Patterson opens the secret door and steps inside. His screams fill the room.
I stand behind Mrs Patterson. I don’t want Max to see me and say my name. He is screaming my name, but that’s okay. I don’t want Max to see me and say, ‘Budo! You’re back! Where were you? Why were you with Mrs Patterson?’
If he does, then Mrs Patterson will know that I was outside of the secret room, spying on her.
I know this would not happen, because Mrs Patterson does not believe that I am real, but I forget this in the first few seconds that I am back inside the room. It’s easy to forget that people don’t believe you exist.
When I first step inside, I am afraid. Afraid of being caught by Mrs Patterson. Mrs Patterson is a bad person and I do not want her to be mad at me, even if she does not believe in me.
‘Max, it’s all right,’ Mrs Patterson says, moving toward his bed but stopping a few steps short of it, which is smart. Getting too close to Max when he is upset is the thing that most people want to do but should never do. Mrs Patterson is one smart cookie.
She really is the devil in the pale moonlight.
‘Budo!’ Max screams again.
It sounds one hundred times worse in real life. It is the worst thing I have ever heard. I feel like the worst friend in the world. As I step out from behind Mrs Patterson, I wonder how I am ever going to leave Max alone today.
‘I’m here, Max,’ I say.
‘I’m sure he’ll be back,’ Mrs Patterson says, speaking immediately after me and making me think for a second that she can hear me.
‘Budo!’ Max screams again, but this time it’s a happy scream. He sees me.
‘Good morning, Max,’ I say. ‘I’m sorry. I got stuck outside the room.’
‘Stuck?’ Max asks.
‘What’s stuck?’ Mrs Patterson asks.
‘Budo was stuck,’ Max says. ‘Right?’ He is looking at me when he asks this.
‘Yes,’ I say. ‘I can tell you about it when we are alone.’
One of the things that I have learned is that it is too confusing for Max to talk to me and human persons at the same time, so I try to avoid it whenever I can.
‘I’m sure that Budo can get himself unstuck,’ Mrs Patterson says. ‘Nothing to fear.’
‘He’s already unstuck,’ Max says.
‘Oh, good,’ Mrs Patterson says. She sounds like she just took a deep breath after being stuck underwater for a long time. ‘I’m so glad he’s back.’
‘Okay,’ Max says. It sounds like a strange answer, but Max never knows what to say when people tell him how they feel. Most of the time he doesn’t say anything. He just waits for the person to say something different. But okay is his safe answer.
‘Can you get yourself dressed?’ Mrs Patterson asks. ‘I haven’t even started your breakfast yet.’
‘Yes,’ Max says.
‘Okay,’ Mrs Patterson says.
She stands by the door again, waiting. I am not sure if she is waiting for Max to say something or trying to think of something else to say. She looks sad either way. Max does not even notice her. He already has an X-wing fighter in his hands. He is pressing the button that makes the wings spread.
Mrs Patterson sighs and then leaves.
When the door clicks shut, Max looks up from his toy. ‘Where were you?’ he asks.
I know that he is angry because he is looking at me when he asks this question, even though there is a Star Wars toy in his hand.
‘I left the room last night but I couldn’t get back in.’
‘Why not?’ Max says. His eyes have returned to the spaceship.
‘It’s a door on this side but it’s a wall on the other side,’ I say.
Max says nothing. This means he either understands what I said or stopped caring about my answer. Usually I can tell which, but this time I can’t.
He puts the X-wing fighter down on his pillow and steps out of bed. He walks over to the bathroom and opens the door. He turns and looks at me again.
‘Promise you’ll never leave me alone again,’ he says.
I promise even though I know I will be leaving him shortly.
CHAPTER 41
I think about not telling Max that I am leaving. I think that it will be easier for him if I just sneak out. Then I realize that sneaking out would be easier for me. Not Max.
But I’m worried that Max might get so angry at me that he’ll start unbelieving in me.
I wish I knew what to do.
I thought that Max would be trapped here for ever, and that I would have time to figure things out. Make a plan. But now I’m worried that Max might not be trapped here for ever, and that I am running out of time to help him before the time has even started.
Secretly I was hoping that Max would fall in love with this place and maybe we could stay here for ever. I know that it would be bad not to help Max, but I know that it would be bad to stop existing, too. Lions eat giraffes so they can survive even though the giraffes didn’t do anything to the lions, and nobody thinks that the lions are wrong. Because existing is so important. It’s the most important thing. So I know I should help Max and I want to help Max and I want to make the right decision, but I want to exist, too.
That’s a lot of stuff to think about, and now I am worried that I will not have any more time to think.
Max finished breakfast and he is playing with the PlayStation. He is driving a car around a racetrack. I watch him play because Max likes it when I watch him play his video games. He doesn’t talk to me or ask me any questions. He just needs me to watch.
The door swings open. Mrs Patterson steps inside the room. She is wearing her school clothes and perfume. I can smell her before I can see her.
Not all imaginary friends can smell, but I can.
She smells like old flowers. She is wearing gray pants and a pink shirt and a jacket. She has a Transformers lunch-box in her hand.
‘Max,’ she says. ‘I have to go to work.’
She speaks like she is dipping her voice into water to see how cold it is. She is slow and careful.
Max doesn’t answer. It is hard for his mom and dad to get him to answer when he is playing a video game, so I am not sure if he is ignoring Mrs Patterson on purpose.
‘I have your lunch packed in your lunchbox,’ she says. ‘Soup in your thermos and yogurt and an orange. I know it mustn’t be fun eating the same thing every day, but I can’t give you anything that you might choke on when I’m not here.’
She waits for Max to say something but he just keeps steering his electronic car around the TV track.
‘But don’t worry,’ she says. ‘Pretty soon we’ll be together all day. Okay?’
Max is still silent. Still staring at the screen.
‘I’ll miss you today, Max,’ Mrs Patterson says, and it sounds like she is reaching to him with her voice now, like I sometimes do. She is throwing him a rope but I already know that he will not reach for it. He is playing video games. Nothing else matters.
‘I miss you every day, Max,’ she says. ‘And I want you to know that everything that I am doing is for you. Pretty soon things will be much better. Okay?’
Now I want Max to answer. I want him to ask Mrs Patterson what she is talking about. How are things going to change? When are they going to change? What is she planning?
Instead he stares at the screen as his car moves around a track.
‘Goodbye, Max. I’ll see you soon.’
She wants to say I love you. I know it. I can see those three words hanging on
her lips. And I believe that she loves Max. Loves him a lot. I feel bad for Mrs Patterson again. She has stolen Max, and even though she says that it is for his own good, I know that she wants to have a little boy again. And the little boy she stole talks only a little bit more than her dead little boy.
Mrs Patterson leaves the room and closes the door behind her. As the door clicks shut, Max looks up. He stares at the door for a moment, and then his eyes return to his game.
I wait by the door, watching Max play his game. I count to one hundred. I open my mouth to speak and then I count to one hundred again.
When I am done counting the second hundred, I finally speak.
‘I am leaving, too, Max,’ I say.
‘What?’ Max says. He looks up from his game.
This is not easy because I have to tell Max something important and make him understand, but I also have no time. I was afraid that if I left the room before Mrs Patterson was walking out the door, she might hear Max scream in her not-a-phone and come back to the room. Maybe stay home from work. I need her to be walking into the garage right now but I have no way of knowing if she is. I am just guessing. But I counted to one hundred twice, so she has had plenty of time to get to the car. Probably too much time. I might already be too late.
‘I am leaving, Max,’ I say. ‘But only for the day. I am going to school with Mrs Patterson so I can check on Mrs Gosk and see if your mom and dad are okay. Then I’ll be back with her after school.’
‘I want to go, too,’ Max says.
I didn’t expect this. I don’t know what to say. I stand with my mouth open until the words come back to me.
‘I know,’ I say. ‘But I can’t get you out of the room. You can’t pass through the door like I can.’
‘I want to go, too!’ Max shouts. ‘I want to see Mrs Gosk and Mommy and Daddy! I want to see Mommy and Daddy!’
Max never calls his mom and dad Mommy and Daddy. When I hear him say these words I think that I will never be able to leave this room. I will never be able to leave Max again because doing so would be too sad and too mean.
‘I’ll find a way to get you out of this room,’ I say to Max.
I say it to make him happy, but as the words come out of my mouth I realize that I did not need any time to decide what to do. I am not a lion and Max is not a giraffe. I am Budo and Max is my friend and there was only one right thing to do all along. It doesn’t mean that I have to stop existing, but it means that I have to stop thinking only about me existing.
That means I have to leave now.
‘Max, I am going. But I’ll be back. And I’ll make sure you see your mom and dad soon. I promise.’
This is the second promise I have made to Max this morning. I am about to break the first.
Max screams as I turn toward the door. ‘No, no, no, no!’ he shouts.
Max will get stuck if I leave.
If I pass through the door, I will not be able to get back into the room until Mrs Patterson opens the door again after school.
I step through the door anyway, knowing that the hard thing and the right thing are usually the same thing.
I ask someone who I know is not listening to forgive me for breaking my promise to Max and leaving my friend behind.
Sound returns as I step into the basement. Max’s silent room is behind me and the hum of the furnace and the swish and drip of water in the pipes fills this room. I know that Max is screaming. He is probably pounding on the door right behind me but I cannot hear him. I am glad. Imagining him getting stuck behind the wall fills me with sadness and guilt. Hearing the real thing would be worse.
A door slams upstairs. I suddenly remember what I need to do. I run across the room and up the stairs to the first floor. I turn in the hallway and look into the kitchen. The cardboard boxes that were stacked on the table last night are gone. I do not see Mrs Patterson.
Then I hear the sound of an engine starting, followed a second later by the clankity sound of the garage door opening.
I think about running to the garage but decide that it is too late. I turn right and head to the front door. I pass through it and step outside, falling off the stoop that I did not know existed. I tumble to the ground, bouncing off a stone walkway that wraps around the house and leads to the driveway. I pull myself up, running before I am even standing upright. My knuckles drag on the ground for my first few steps. I run around the bend to the front of the house and see the driveway that stretches down to the road. Mrs Patterson’s car is already halfway down the driveway. Her car is facing toward the road so she is not driving slowly like people who are backing up do.
I will not make it to the car in time. It is already too far away. Max never imagined that I could run that fast. He never imagined that I would need to run that fast.
But I run anyway. I cannot imagine spending the day in Mrs Patterson’s house knowing that Max is trapped behind a wall and I cannot reach him. I run as fast as I can down the hill, meeting the driveway halfway down. I am running so fast that I am on the edge of falling, half running and half tumbling, and, even so, I will not catch Mrs Patterson.
Then I see it. A car coming down the road. A green car that will pass by Mrs Patterson’s driveway. Mrs Patterson will need to slow down and maybe even stop to let the car pass.
I have a chance.
And just as I begin to think that I can make it, I cross over the edge from running into tumbling and I am rolling on the pavement, end over end. I hold my arms against my ears to protect my head, and then somehow I roll over and push up, and a second later I am running again, still out of control but in the right direction, toward the bottom of the driveway and Mrs Patterson’s car. My feet are flailing and my arms are outstretched, trying to help me keep my balance, but I am on my feet and moving.
Her car has stopped at the end of the driveway and the green car is passing by. I veer left off the driveway and onto the grass. I will not reach the bottom of the driveway in time but maybe I can meet the car as it turns onto the street. I point my body at the far corner of the front lawn, where the grass meets a stone wall and a line of trees. I run as fast as I can to that corner as Mrs Patterson’s car turns and accelerates. I will not make it unless I jump. As I reach the edge of the lawn, where the grass meets the pavement, I jump and close my eyes, expecting to bounce off the fender or the wheel of Mrs Patterson’s car.
Instead, I feel the almost silent whoosh that accompanies every passing through a door, and a second later I am lying in the back seat of the car, crumpled on the floor, trying to catch my breath.
I can hear Mrs Patterson. She is singing.
It’s a song about hammering in the morning and hammering in the evening.
It sounds like it should be a happy song, but somehow it sounds scary coming from Mrs Patterson.
CHAPTER 42
Mrs Patterson sings the hammer song twice and then turns on the radio. She is listening to the news. I listen to hear if there is news about Max. There is not.
I wonder if she is listening for news about Max, too.
We have been driving on a highway for a long time, which is strange since Mrs Patterson lives so close to the school. Our ride from the school to her house last night took less than fifteen minutes, and I don’t remember driving on a highway to get there.
The clock on the dashboard says 7.36. The first bell rings at 8.30 so we still have lots of time to get there, but this highway driving is making me nervous.
Where are we going?
I try not to think about Max. I try to stop imagining Max trapped behind that wall, all alone. I try not to hear his voice crying for me. I tell myself to pay attention to the road and try to read the green signs and watch Mrs Patterson for clues but my imagination keeps imagining Max, screaming and crying and pounding on the walls for help.
‘I am helping,’ I want to tell Max, but even if I could, I know he wouldn’t believe me. It’s hard to help when you have to break promises and leave your friend alone behind a wall.<
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I hear a roar over my head and know that it is an airplane. I have never heard a plane flying so low but I have seen and heard them on television and know that this is a big plane somewhere over our heads. A jumbo jet.
I look out the window. I look up. I want to see the plane but I do not. A green sign above the road reads Welcome to Bradley International Airport. There are other words on the sign but I do not read fast enough to read them all. I am happy that I was able to read the word international, because that is not an easy word. I look ahead and see low buildings and tall parking garages and buses and cars and lots of signs everywhere. I have never been to the airport before but I expected to see airplanes. I see none. I can hear them but cannot see a single one.
Mrs Patterson turns off the main road and drives down and around to a gate. She stops the car in front of a machine, rolls down her window and reaches out to press a button. There is a sign on the machine that says Long Term Parking. I do not know what Long Term Parking means, but I am starting to wonder if I have made another mistake. Is Mrs Patterson flying away somewhere? Is she worried that the police are about to find Max?
I have seen people arrested in airports on television before. They are always bad guys trying to leave the country. I don’t know why the police don’t just leave the country, too, and arrest the bad guys in the new country, but maybe this is what Mrs Patterson is doing. Maybe she knows that Mrs Gosk or the police chief have solved the mystery and know who took Max and now she has to escape or end up in jail.
The machine makes a humming sound and then spits out a ticket. Mrs Patterson drives into a parking lot that is full of cars. There must be hundreds of cars and there is a parking garage right next to the parking lot that is full of cars, too.
We drive up and down the rows. We drive past empty spots but Mrs Patterson does not park in any of them. She is driving like she has a place to go instead of a place to find.
Finally she slows down and parks the car in an empty spot. She gets out. I get out, too. I am too far from home to get lost now. Wherever Mrs Patterson goes, I go.