Page 17

Five

There was some settling in to do.

Despite being told that the kitchen was well stocked, Annie had brought a few things, including Charlie’s favorite cereal, the chocolate chip cookies he liked, a dozen authentic New York bagels that she put into the freezer to get them through the first week until she found something nearby that might fill the void. She got her clothes and Charlie’s unpacked and put away in their respective bedrooms and set up their toiletry items. There was a bathroom attached to the larger bedroom, which Annie took, and a smaller one in the hall that would be for Charlie.

It was late afternoon by the time she had all that done. She was going to propose heading into nearby Fenelon, the closest town, to see what it had to offer, but an exploratory trip like that could go on indefinitely and turn into a dinner out, and they’d already had a fast-food feast at lunch, so Annie decided that could wait a day. Whoever’d stocked the place to Finnegan’s specifications had loaded the freezer with several prepared entrées. Annie found a meat lasagna in there, and a bag of salad in the fridge that would serve nicely for a first meal in their new digs.

Charlie, having given up trying to find his favorite channels on the living room TV, had resumed his exploration of the property. He checked out the books in his room, which included several DogMan and Wimpy Kid adventures. While they would have been perfect for any other kid his age, Charlie had already moved on to what was known in the business as middle grade and young adult books. Few, if any, pictures, and multi-chaptered. His teachers had said his reading skills were well ahead of any of the other kids in his class. The room had also been stocked with an assortment of plastic dinosaurs, several toy cars and trucks, and a couple of Lego sets, still in the original packaging. There was an Arctic explorer ship and a car wash that was part of the City series.

Nice.

As much as he was tempted to rip both boxes open now, he decided to wait. Maybe tomorrow, or maybe some rainy day.

He wandered into the room that the previous residents had used for a studio, all set up if his mother wanted to get back to work. He hoped she would. She seemed happier when she was working. He was tired of her being sad. He was tired of being sad himself.

Charlie found a door that led to the basement. He brushed away some cobwebs as he descended a set of wooden open-backed steps. They led to an unfinished room with cinder-block walls and a beam ceiling that allowed a view of the underside of the floor above. There was a furnace, a hot water tank, a circuit breaker box, and lots of tubes and ducts and wires going here and there and everywhere, and up against one wall, an empty pegboard and a big wooden table that probably served as a workbench at one time. There were four shallow drawers built into the table, and Charlie inspected each of them. One was empty, a second contained a few sheets of glossy paper with black-and-white pictures of people on it, and the last two were filled with odd screws and nails and pipe clamps and other junk.

Curiosity satisfied, Charlie decided to head back upstairs and go outside.

The outside was sobig.

Not Central Park big. That was, as its name kind of suggested, apark. It was supposed to be big. It was supposed to have lots of trees and shrubs and rocks and stuff. You could run flat-out for ages and not run into anything if you watched where you were going. You could fly a kite in the park. You could play Frisbee in a park. But this was a private yard that went with the house. You didn’t have to share it with other people. Charlie had heard his mother say it was four acres of property, and a lot of that was just woods. Charlie didn’t know what an acre was, but he figured it had to be huge.

Charlie was right to have raised the issue of getting a bike. Heneededa bike here. If he had wheels he could ride it around and around the house and down to the road and back again.

There was one item of interest in the backyard.

It was a small building tucked almost out of sight behind a couple of trees, about ten-by-ten-feet in size, with a wide door at one end and a small window on the left and right sides. It would, Charlie thought, make a neat fort. A place just for him. He could read comics back here, play video games, set up a table and chair and build his Lego sets. It could be like his own office. If his mom could have her own studio, shouldn’t he have a place, too, to do what he wanted to do? Of course, much would depend on what was in there to begin with and if he could make some space for himself.

He wasn’t going to find out by opening the door. It was secured with a padlock, which he pulled in the unlikely event it hadn’t been snapped into place, but it held firm. He went around to a side window, where a pile of firewood leaned against the shed, for a peek inside. Climbing on top of the woodpile, he used his hand as a visor and put his nose up to the glass to peer inside. There was stuff in there, that was for sure, although the glass was so dirty—on both sides—that it was hard to make anything out very clearly. Hethought he saw a wheelbarrow, maybe a lawn mower, some lawn chairs that had been folded up, and several boxes.

He hopped off the woodpile, tried the lock once again without success, then wandered off into the trees. He was hoping he might see a bear, or a fox, or maybe even a kangaroo, although he had heard those lived in Austria or someplace like that.

The lasagna and salad hit the spot. Annie also found two cartons of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream—Salted Caramel Almond and Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough.

“I gotta hand it to Fin,” she said as they ate their dessert. “He did think of everything.”

“What’s in the backyard?” Charlie asked.

“I don’t know. Trees and stuff. I haven’t been out there.”

“There’s a little building. It could be a fort.”

“Probably a garden shed. Did you look inside?”

“It’s locked.”

“Then I guess we’re not meant to go in there.”

Charlie looked disappointed. “I was going to make it my headquarters.”

“I see. Military, or have you set up a corporation?”

“What?”

They watched some TV after dinner, but not for long. Annie found herself ready to pack it in at half-past eight, which was Charlie’s normal bedtime.

“I’m done like dinner, pal,” she said, hitting theoffbutton on the remote.