Cobwebs by Karen Romano Young Page A

asked.
    “No. George wasn’t allowed to talk,” said Josie. “Papa said if George yanked his neck, he’d make him chop every tree he hit.”
    What a family,
thought Nancy.
How could he not hit trees?
    “How many did he hit?” I asked drily.
    Josie put up her thumb and finger and made an O.
    “Josephine. What actually did Papa tell George to do?”
    Josie’s eyes were big and dark. “To tell Papa what to do just by using his hands.”
    “Did he?”
    “That’s how it looked to me,” said Josie.
    That’s how it had looked to me, too, watching George drive Bump that morning. He was a natural.
    Granny stopped talking. Nancy thought,
The End.
    “What about you?” Nancy asked Granny. “Didn’t you drive?”
    “Papa’d have let me drive earlier than sixteen if I could talk with my hands like George,” Granny said.
    “And did he?”
    She looked down at her hands, and closed them into soft fists. “I was gone by sixteen, came here to New York.”
    The sky behind the house had faded, and the front of the house stayed shadowed.
    “Granny?” Nancy asked. “Why’d you tell me that?”
    “To get you thinking, girl,” said Granny.
    “Thinking about what?”
    “Anything!” Granny sounded bleary again, as if she’d already forgotten the story, as if it had gone right out of her mind.
    Well, it has,
thought Nancy.
Now it’s in my mind, whether I like it or not: people running around blindfolded in the woods behind horses!
She asked, “You don’t think I think?”
    “Don’t talk nonsense!” Granny sputtered.
    This was the night when Nancy started to feel as if Granny’s stories were unraveling and then raveling again, knitting themselves into a new shape, and that she, Nancy, was getting knitted right in. It was unsatisfying: she wanted to know why that man wanted the doctor, and instead she got driving lessons in the woods.
Don’t talk nonsense.
    “What’s keeping Giacomo?” Granny asked indignantly. “I’ve been sitting too long. Go on up and tell him I’m ready.”
    Nancy and Granny usually waited in the car until Grandpa Joke came, but Nancy’s itchiness now increased so that she jumped out of her seat and through the car door, trailing knitting yarn. Why had the man turned the light off? Or had Grandpa done it? She wanted to get everything moving. She felt furious with Grandpa Joke for owing anyone enough money to get into this mess, but she was curious about him, too. What had Granny come to New York for? Just tomarry Grandpa Joke? Nancy didn’t even think Granny had known Grandpa when she came to New York.
    She rolled her knitting around itself like a meatball and threw it through the open door onto the car seat. As if she were the grandmother and Granny were the grandchild, she said, “When you’re finished visiting, we’ll go get ice cream.” Granny didn’t say a word when Nancy slammed the door and walked to the house.
    Dion hid on the roof of his own house. His father, Niko, didn’t know he was up there, and his sister, Mina, didn’t know, and his mother, Rose, didn’t know, so they didn’t try to make him come inside. He slipped down the fire escape, though, got as near as he could to Rose’s window. There were people around his mother’s bed: his father’s back, broad shoulders in a blue shirt; the doctor’s back, his suit jacket over the chair nearby; and Mina’s eyes, at the window.
    He snapped back against the wall. Had Mina seen him? Someone was buzzing at the apartment door.
    Nancy hit the buzzer again. She stood in the dark and waited. When no one came, she tried knocking.After about twenty-five knocks the door opened a crack. No light came on.
    “Yes?” asked a polite voice, a man’s voice. Nancy saw no one in the darkness, but she recognized the voice—or the hair on the back of her neck did.
    She made her own voice strong and sure. “I need to talk to the doctor. Please tell him it’s Nancy.”
    The door banged shut. There were voices inside, whispering.