Sam Weller - Shadow Show

At first they didn’t move. They watched the TV screen, their chins still perched in their palms. Then each girl’s eyes slid over to meet her friend’s eyes. They heard the truck starting up in the driveway, the dull, dusty roar. The roar slacked off as Hayleigh’s dad backed his truck out of the driveway.

The noise diminished again and then disappeared completely.

They were alone. Unsupervised.

They didn’t say a word, but each girl knew exactly what the other one was going to do, as surely as if it had been planned, plotted, carefully choreographed days ago.

It was a race to see which girl could scramble to her feet faster—although it really wasn’t much of a race at all, because Sharon was slow and clumsy on account of her weight, so Hayleigh won easily—and then to see who could be the first to make it to the kitchen in order to lunge for the black knob on the white basement door.

Hayleigh got there first, but before she could turn the knob, Sharon had arrived, too, right beside her, and she put her hand on top of Hayleigh’s hand. So, in effect, they opened it together.

And likewise, once they’d opened the door and bolted across the threshold, and even though Sharon was large, they were able to head down the stairs side by side, breaking the rule at exactly the same moment, so that it could never be said that one girl was more responsible, that one girl was more to blame for what happened than the other girl. You could not say that.

Which one of them turned on the light over the basement stairs?

Sharon couldn’t remember whose fingers had actually scrabbled at the wall switch just inside the basement door, dousing the staircase with light. It didn’t matter. All she knew was that they were hurrying down those stairs, elbows bumping, feet shuffling in that tumbling rhythm induced by a succession of downward steps, and there was an overhead light to show them the way, to keep them from tripping. They were giggling, too, but the giggles popped up in between their panting breaths, so the giggles sounded like hiccoughs. The steps creaked a little bit, especially right at the top.

Why were they rushing? Sharon wasn’t sure. Hayleigh’s dad would be gone for at least an hour. It took about twenty minutes to drive out to the mall; it might take even longer on a Saturday, when the traffic stacked up because everybody was crazy to get to The Limited and Forever 21 and Sears. Even if Hayleigh’s dad finished his job right away, which wasn’t likely, given the seriousness of his voice when he talked to his boss—it seemed, Sharon thought, like a big, complex task, a real mess—they’d still have way over an hour to explore.

So why did they fly down the basement stairs, bumping and laughing?

She didn’t know. Hayleigh probably didn’t know either, Sharon guessed. Hayleigh had only been down here a few times herself, she’d told Sharon, even though she lived here; this was her dad’s special place.

It just seemed natural for them to go down the steps quickly, headlong, not tentatively. Maybe it was because, if they chickened out on the way, their scrambling momentum would carry them forward. Somehow they both had known, without talking about it, that the moment Hayleigh’s dad told them not to go down into the basement—“Never, never, never ”—they’d come here. Right away. When you’re best friends with someone, Sharon reflected, that’s what happens: You start to know what the other person is thinking. It’s automatic.

They reached the bottom of the staircase. And then Sharon understood. She immediately realized why Hayleigh’s dad had declared the basement off-limits. This was Ed Westin’s workshop, and it was gorgeous. The kind of space you don’t want a couple of kids messing up.

It was the coolest workshop Sharon had ever seen. Everything gleamed. There were high wooden workbenches along three walls. Rising from the backs of the benches were square sheets of dark brown particleboard perforated by dozens of small, elegant holes. Tiny silver hooks jutted from the holes. From the hooks dangled a stunning variety of tools—hammers, chisels, drills, clamps, levels—in graduated sizes. It was all neatly organized.

Sharon didn’t know the names of a lot of the tools. She knew hammers, of course, and screwdrivers and drills, things like that, but some of the more specialized tools looked complicated. They looked densely compacted with a single-minded purpose. You could, Sharon thought with deep satisfaction, build anything down here. Anything you wanted to build.

A cabinet, a bookcase, a table, a boat. Anything.

Even a rocket.

“It’s the tools,” Hayleigh said. “That’s why he doesn’t like us coming down here. Messing with his stuff.”

Sharon did not require the explanation. She’d never have even touched anything in this room. It was all too beautiful. Too perfect. She wouldn’t consider putting a finger on one of the workbenches, because the wood had been stained a deep honey color, shiny and rich, a color that looked as if a dozen years of sunlight had been trapped in the lacquer. She’d never pick up one of the drills. She had too much respect for Hayleigh’s dad to do that.

“It’s amazing ,” Sharon said.

“Yeah.”

They were still standing at the bottom of the stairs. They hadn’t moved forward since arriving there, arms hanging at their sides, heads turning.

Sharon wasn’t sure how she knew, but she did: Hayleigh’s dad was building something very special in this basement. That was why he didn’t want people coming down here. Sure, he was worried about them possibly bothering his tools—but there was more to it than that.

A lot more.

The realization gave Sharon a tingling sensation in the tips of her fingers and her toes. She knew what Hayleigh’s dad was building down here.

She couldn’t tell Hayleigh that she’d figured it out. Because the thing was, Hayleigh might not know herself yet, and it would be embarrassing for Hayleigh if Sharon—who wasn’t even related—knew before his own daughter knew. Sharon loved puzzles; she loved thinking hard about something until the answer came to her, clearly and vividly. She was good at doing that. Good at crossword puzzles, and sudoku and Scrabble and chess. Anything that required furious concentration, with some imagination sprinkled in, too. Hayleigh seemed to appreciate Sharon’s mind—she didn’t resent it, she wasn’t the least bit jealous of it—which made Sharon wonder why Hayleigh had wasted all that time with Samantha Bollinger, who, after all, wasn’t very bright. Borderline stupid.

“Your dad worked for the space shuttle, right?” Sharon said. She knew the answer, of course, because they’d discussed it many times, but she wanted to lead Hayleigh toward the truth about her dad’s project. Hayleigh would think she’d gotten there all by herself, and would be proud and pleased with herself. Sharon would never reveal that she’d helped her solve it, helped her with a series of hints. It would be enough for Sharon to know, deep in her heart, that she had made her friend feel smart.

“Yeah,” Hayleigh said. She shrugged. “When he was in the navy.”

“So he likes space stuff, right?”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“I bet he could build anything.” Sharon swept her chubby arm around the room, indicating the vast bounty of tools. “With all this stuff, I mean. I bet he could build whatever he wanted to.”

“Yeah. So.” Another shrug.

Hayleigh started to walk toward one of the benches. Sharon pinched a piece of Hayleigh’s T-shirt when her friend went by; the fabric stretched out behind her as she kept on going.

“Wait,” Sharon said. “You can’t touch anything. Your dad’ll know we were here.”