Cave Under the City by Harry; Mazer Page A

Meanwhile, I want you to be good and don’t aggravate Buba. She’s not used to young children.”
    I read the letter over again. She didn’t say anything about coming home. She didn’t know Buba was sick and we were alone.
    The bell rang, someone kicked the door. It was Bubber. I let him in. He kicked at me, then ran and hid in the closet.
    â€œWhat’s the matter?”
    â€œYou left me downstairs. You forgot me.”
    â€œI just came up for a second.” I put the letter in my back pocket. Bubber was hiding in Momma’s bathrobe. “Okay,” I said, “okay.” I patted him on the back.
    After a while he quieted down. “Did a letter come?” he said.
    I showed him Momma’s letter. “Daddy’s coming. She wrote him.” But if my mother wrote him the day she got sick, why wasn’t he here already?
    I went and looked out the window. Should we wait here for him? What if he didn’t come today? Should we go back to my grandmother’s? What if he was coming off the train right now? What if Grandma was still sick and didn’t want us? Should I tell her Momma was sick, too, and in the hospital and we didn’t have anyplace else to go? That might make her feel worse. And what if my father came and we weren’t here? But he’d know we were at my grandmother’s. I could leave him a note.
    There was a knock on the door, a loud knock. Someone was really banging on the door. “I know you boys are in there. Open up!” It was the man in the plaid jacket again.

16
    We went out the window and over the roof. It was still raining. We went back to the burned-out restaurant. I didn’t know where else to go. I wanted to stay near our house in case my father came. Later, maybe, if we had to, we’d go to my grandmother’s. I went down into the cellar on the dumbwaiter, then rode Bubber down. He didn’t like the dark, but he liked the room I’d found.
    He sat on the springs. “Are we going to sleep here?”
    I looked at the stove. I looked at the little window. I looked at the dirty walls. I thought about my parents. Maybe a letter had come. Yeah, and maybe McKenzie’s man was sitting right by the mailbox. Or was he on the stairs by our apartment? Or on the next landing, where he could watch and not be seen? Or did he have a skeleton key, and was he inside our house right now, waiting for us?
    â€œThis will be our cave,” Bubber said. He held his hands over the stove like there was heat in it. “This is where we’ll cook.” He bounced on the springs. “And we’ll sleep on this good bed.” Then he got up and “poured” himself a cup of cocoa, sipped it, then blew on it. “It’s too hot. You want a marshmallow in yours, Tolley?”
    That’s one thing about my brother, he has a terrific imagination. I get caught up in the worry of things. But not Bubber. He can be a baby sometimes, but he makes himself at home wherever he is.
    Stay here? It was just a dirty storage room in a cellar. How were we going to stay here? What if we made a fire and somebody saw our smoke? What if they saw us going in and out? But then I shut up my dumb, practical mind. If Bubber said it was a cave, then let it be a cave. Our cave. A cave under the city.
    We could stay here tonight, maybe even for a couple of nights, just till my father came home.

17
    We slept together on the bare springs that night. Every time Bubber moved I woke up. I heard the trains going by and thought about my mother and my father. Was she better? Was my father closer? Was he home yet? What if he was home and we weren’t there? He’d think we were with my grandmother, but I hadn’t left him a note. McKenzie’s man had come too fast.
    In the morning, Bubber found a piece of a Tootsie Roll in his pocket, covered with lint. We sat on the springs, taking turns sucking it. Bubber made loud smacking sucks.