Middle of Nowhere by Caroline Adderson Page A

started back across the street. She didn’t look up at the window, even though she knew we were watching.
    I went out the back again and waited. At last she limped around the side of the house. She was upset, I could tell, because when she gripped the stair railing and my arm, she held me as tight as that first day I found her stranded on her steps.
    â€œWhat did they say?” I asked. “Is it the rent? It’s the rent, isn’t it?”
    If Nelson had called the police because our check bounced, they would demand to see our mom. Then all the things I was afraid of would come true.
    â€œShh,” Mrs. Burt said. “I’m thinking.”
    We went inside again. Slowly, leaning heavily on the walker, Mrs. Burt made it to the living-room.
    â€œClose the drapes,” she said.
    I closed them and when I turned around, she had fallen into the big armchair, hands trembling on her knees, still breathing hard.
    Finally she lifted her face with the big glasses hanging on the end of her nose.
    â€œBoys?” she said. “This is what I’m thinking. I’m thinking it might be better if you moved in.”

    WE DECIDED TO wait until night for me to go over and get our things. We couldn’t take the chance that somebody would see me going over to Mrs. Burt’s.
    That’s what people in our building always did when they skipped out on the rent — waited for the cover of darkness. It happened a lot. Nelson would haul away anything left behind and stack it beside the dumpster in the underground parking garage for all the rent-paying tenants to pick through. Whatever was left got tossed in the dumpster the night before garbage day. We got a lamp and some dishes that way. Mom was always hoping for a proper bedside table.
    Now somebody would get our stuff.
    Mrs. Burt said the police would come back because nobody had let them in this time. She advised us not to use her front door anymore and not to walk on the street at all. Maybe we shouldn’t even go back to school, she said.
    â€œBut what about Mom?” I asked. “How will she know where we are?”
    â€œWe’ll keep an eye out for her,” Mrs. Burt said. “And whatever you do,
don’t
leave a note. It could fall into the wrong hands.”
    â€œThe landlord, you mean?”
    â€œOr the police. They’ll come over here and bust the door in!” She started thumping her chest, like they were already bursting in and giving her a heart attack.
    When it was Artie’s bedtime, Mrs. Burt showed us two bedrooms. Artie started to cry and I explained that we slept in the same bed, which made the choice easy because there was a double bed in one of the rooms and a twin in the other. Artie still wouldn’t stop. He was scared of all the commotion, of things changing so fast.
    I asked Mrs. Burt what kind of hand lotion she used, and after I explained she pointed to the bathroom and said to take what I needed.
    She kept saying, “You poor dear. Oh, you little darling. I’m so sorry. I really am.”
    After what had happened with the baby lotion at the Pit Stop Mart, I knew it was no use even trying with her cold cream.
    Mrs. Burt thought of the figurines. It took half an hour for Artie to transfer them all from the living-room to the bedroom and get them organized the way he wanted. Then there was cookies and milk and the fun of toothbrushing with his finger.
    As soon as we lay down in the strange bed, in the room that smelled like nobody had slept in it for a million years, he fell asleep. A thick curtain kept out most of the light, but around its edges I could tell it wasn’t dark yet. I didn’t feel like going out and sitting with Mrs. Burt when I was so upset. I was as upset as Artie, but too old to cry about it, though I felt like it.
    The police would come back to evict us. We’d seen it happen before. Except we wouldn’t be there. We would be hiding out at Mrs. Burt’s, so