The Gray House

Stinker giggled. The wheeler girls and juniors began loading. They were rolled up the ramp, unloaded inside, and then their bags were brought in and the wheelchairs folded up and stowed in the luggage compartment.

This took so much time that Grasshopper got bored watching. Humpback went to say good-bye to Stinker, whose turn finally came. Siamese furtively picked up the cigarette butts tossed away by the seniors. Then the second bus arrived, and the third right behind it, and it was pandemonium. The juniors with their bags darted between the seniors’ legs and tried to squeeze into every available opening. Moor’s people and Skull’s people chose one bus each. The fourth bus, which stopped halfway inside the gates, ended up mixed, and nobody wanted to ride in that one. Counselors reasoned and harangued. The principal shuttled between the two buses, imploring the seniors to stop this silliness. Grasshopper climbed into the Moorists’ bus, took pains to stake out a place, and went back down, only to go into the mixed one. Then he switched to the Skullers’ bus and left his bag there. He insinuated himself into the throng of Stuffagers, brushed by Singings and Curseds, loudly called out to Poxy Sissies, changed seats. Finally satisfied that no one would be able to tell with any certainty which of the buses he boarded, he went around the one standing closest to the trees and squatted down beside it.

He was trembling, expecting that any moment now someone would call his name. Someone who was paying attention to his meanderings. But the bustle of the loading continued and no one went around the buses looking for this one Poxy Sissy. Grasshopper, still in a crouch, scrambled under the nearest tree. It turned out to be a bad hiding spot. He did not linger there and went straight behind the doghouse. Now this was the safest place in the whole yard. The dog, otherwise busy barking at the departing students, jumped back to sniff at him, but soon got distracted again by the buses. Grasshopper exhaled. He sat on the ground, free from the dog’s probing attention. He couldn’t help himself and sneaked a look out.

The pile of bags was no more. No juniors could be seen either. The counselors all milled by the steps of the mixed bus. Grasshopper pulled his head back and never peeked again, afraid that someone would spot him out of the bus window. He heard the door close behind the counselors, then a bus revving up and trundling out, followed by the other three, then the gates slamming shut, the sound of the engines fading and finally gone. The dog barked through all of it.

When silence returned, Grasshopper remained in his hideout for a while more, taking stock. He’d pulled it off. There was no way to undo what he’d done. The last bus had left, carrying Poxy Sissies, and with them went away the ocean and the myriad great games that they’d been inventing all spring. It was not easy to let go of all that, but he couldn’t allow himself to even dream of staying back until the very last moment. He just knew that when that moment came, he was going to try.

A doggy nose buried itself in his hair, paws pushing against his shoulders. He shoved the dog, jumped up, and ran out from behind the shed. The yard, free of the clutter and commotion that had reigned all morning, was now even more thoroughly empty. The spots where the buses stood could still be drawn up precisely, as the cigarette butts, matches, candy wrappers, and other litter marked the boundaries of the three enormous rectangles. Grasshopper threaded his way through, avoiding stepping inside them for some reason, and entered the House. This is where he met the silence.

The rich, sultry, velvety silence he’d forgotten all about since the last summer. It enveloped and dominated. The few minutes that had passed were enough for the silence to flood the entire House, from the roof down to the cellars. The House felt bigger.

Grasshopper ran ahead, suddenly afraid that he might be completely alone. He knew it not to be so, but could not overcome the silly, childish dread of stillness and emptiness. The hallway still smelled of seniors, of their anxiety and impatience.

This scent would soon be gone, the cleaners were going to sweep it out with the trash and cover it with floor polish, the rooms becoming bare and featureless, like when he first saw them. He sped up and burst into the Poxy room at a run. It was empty. Wolf’s bed was made up. Grasshopper sat on it, shook out the sand from his sneakers, and told himself there was no reason to panic. Wolf wasn’t in the room, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t somewhere else. And Blind, he must have been somewhere too. Grasshopper remembered the last summer and realized that he was looking in the wrong place. He needed to find Elk. Elk had spent the previous summer in the principal’s office.