"Home" Part 1

Home

1     September was just settling in as the mood of school filled newspapers and commercials.  Kids prepared for their next year; some moving on from elementary school, to middle; middle to high; and for Evlan, high school to college.  It was her last year Overlea High, and what she continued to protest as her last year in Baltimore too.  Her eyes opened while the sky was still asleep and several minutes before her alarm clock was to go off.  A small tingling in her stomach grew as the thought of school played its tune in her mind.  She sat up and hung her feet off of her bed with her toes just touching the ground.  No one else was awake in the house yet, nor were they expected to be for another half hour or so.  Evlan looked at her pillow, expecting for her body to naturally slump back onto it, but it did not.  The blankets fell to the floor as she slumped out of the bed.  Her legs lazily inched to the bathroom as her eyes attempted to open without the necessity to squint.  
    Her bare feet pressed the bathroom floor momentarily before elevating to her toes.  Evlan turned the handles on the sink; a little hot and a little cold as she splashed the water onto her face.  She looked back at her clock; it read “5:58”.
    “Why did I get up so early?”   
    She took a second look into her room and glanced at her bed.  The thought of the warm sheets wrapped around her enticed deeply.  Considering that school was to start in more than an hour, she decided to at least lay down and wait until her parents woke up.  Her legs, with more enthusiasm, slid across the tiled floor of her bathroom and onto the carpet in her bedroom.  The window beside her beauty product filled dresser poured air into the room.  She slid her hands up and down her arms as she went to close it.  The sun’s head was popping up just over a few houses with its light travelling throughout backyards.  Her backyard was still dark, but from her window the grass was visible along with her dog’s dog house.  A white, house shaped wooden shelter with a red roof in which he slept in during the day.  The morning was cold, and on cold mornings, Rosco would be let out, then brought back in.  After his morning ritual, he’d run back into the house and straight up to Evlan’s room.  When she forced the window down to the sill, a movement caught the corner of her eye.  At first, she thought nothing of it.  At second glance of the dog house, she saw Rosco’s pillow move.  The distance between her room and the dog house was substantial; surely far enough to cause some visual misconception.  But it kept moving.  As if someone were adjusting it to lay on.  If another animal lay in there, it would be a problem.  But not an unsolvable one.  She thought of waking her Dad up and telling him to go check it out, but she remembered how red his eyes were last night after coming home from work.  Evlan took off the tank top she had slept with and put on a new one over a sports bra.  She grabbed a pink robe that rested on the floor and wrapped it around her body.  Rosco, who was sound asleep with an empty bladder, lifted his head as he heard the door open.  He stood on his hind legs and barked.
    “Shh, you stay here.  I don’t want it being another dog or something,” she ordered.
    Rosco tilted his head and walked over to the edge of the bed.
    “Rosco lay down I said,” she loudly whispered, “go, lay down.”
    He saw her snapping fingers and immediately obeyed.  He put his head on her pillow and watched as the bright pink of her robe got darker and darker until it was no longer visible.   
    Evlan’s eyes were now receptive and aware.  Her legs also sped up from the curiosity of the moving pillow.  She moved throughout the black house; some rooms only being lit by the various digital clocks throughout them.  Her hand searched the wall in the kitchen and found the switch from familiarity.  The kitchen brightened, her eyes squinted once more, but she continued to walk toward the back door.  The back door was a thin screen rectangle that had a few dents at the bottom of it from Rosco’s attempts to get into the house before it was his time to.  Evlan stood before it; her toes curled from the cold that slipped beneath it, but her eyes stayed focused on the dog house.  She slid her feet into a pair of thin slippers that rested beside her and opened the screen door.  Within seconds, her her lips, nose, and ears went numb.  Her slippers inched across the wet grass on her way to the dog house.  She hadn’t seen the pillow move since the view in her bedroom window.  The trees rustled and a few cars passed in front of her house, so she relied on her eyes solely.  The peak of the dog house was at her breasts, which made it difficult to see what was inside.  She folded in half so that the peak was at her forehead, and her eyes leveled with the dark space that was Rosco’s dog house.  
    She scanned the area around her and picked up a dark brown stick that was almost the length of her arm.  The damp branch poked the pillow several times.  No movement.  Her heart beat irregularly, but not in a harmful manner.  Her lips poked out as her neck extended to get a better look.  The stick fell to the pillow as Evlan lost her balance.  Her ankles gave up, forcing her butt to fall to the wet grass.  Did her eyes attempt to fool her?  Did she see something move?  She angled her neck again, making it so that the inside of the dog house could be seen again.  The back of it was barely visible, but she could still see movement.  The cars outside dispersed, as did the howling wind that sounded earlier.  She aimed her ear at the dog house and waited.  At first, she heard nothing; a few seconds passed, and still nothing.  But after about a minute or so, she heard shivering, then a muffled cough.  Rosco’s dog house was small; no one over ten years old could imagine to fit into there.
    “Hello?”
    No answer.
    “Hey, is---is someone in there?”
    No answer.
    “Is someone in there?”
    Still no answer.
    “I’m gonna go get my parents to see if they want to call the police to get you some help.”
    “No, don’t.”  She heard.  
    The voice was tiny and weak as it emptied from the wooden shelter.  Evlan crouched back down and looked at the darkness.
    “How old are you?” She asked as she leaned a little closer.  “It’s cold out here, let me help you.”
    The wind picked up again, but she could still hear the child.
    “You though.”
    “Me what?”
    “You help me.  No one else.”
    “I will, I promise,” her words were sincere, but also rushed by the cold, “it’s freezing out here.  We can go in my house.  Come on, you’ll get sick.”
    The pillow moved forward, flipped over, then pulled into where it was no longer visible.  The child’s feet scraped against the floor as he hugged the pillow underneath his arm.  Evlan’s shadow stood up and uncovered the dog house as she waited.  Out of the opening, a dirty brown face, with smudges of dirt and dried blood was introduced to the sun.
    “Oh my God.  Hurry, hurry.  Oh my God,” she kept repeating.
    She unwrapped her robe, and placed it over the boy’s body.
   

2    Rosco heard the commotion from upstairs as Evlan rushed the boy into the house and sat him on the couch.  She saw him wagging his tail on the steps; ready to bark and wake her parents.  His eyes met hers, and the familiar look kept him silent.  The boy sat on the couch, encompassed by a fluffy pink robe.  His eyes straightforward, and his body still.  Evlan, who stood in a tank top and shorts, shivered as the cold from outside clung to her body like water after a shower.  
    “I’m gonna go get a sweater and some pants.  Stay here, okay?”
    His eyes stayed in place; like he was unable to move them.
    Evlan shuffled up the stairs, calling Rosco to come along with her.  In her room, she quickly threw on a heavy purple sweater with a red lightning bolt on it and a pair of grey sweats.  She saw him still sitting on the couch.  She made sure that she was quiet while running down the stairs.  Rosco remained in the room as Evlan walked into the living room and sat on the couch.  Her body imposed directly where the boy was staring; still, he did not blink.
    “So, um---” she cleared her throat, “I’m Evlan.”
    He rubbed his nose with his wrist, then pulled the robe back over him.
    “What’s your name?”
    “Ricardo.”
    “Hi Ric---”
    “But everybody calls me Rico.  Call me Rico.”
    “Ok Rico, I’ll call you that.”  She placed her hands between her legs to keep them warm.  “How about I get you some hot chocolate and we can talk about why you were in my dog’s house.  Sound good?”
    He turned his head and looked at a painting on the wall.  It was a portrait of Evlan and her little brother Danny.
    “I’ll be right back,” Evlan said quietly, almost to herself.
    In the kitchen, she looked at the clock.  6:13.  Mom and Dad usually woke up at 6:30.  She poured milk into a cup, then looked at Rico; she took a pack of powdered chocolate and poured it into the cup, then looked at Rico.  She put the cup into the microwave and set it for two minutes, then looked at Rico.  All in that time, he did not move.  He did not react to the sound of the microwave.  His eyes remained amused by the portrait.  Evlan wrapped the cup with a paper towel and placed it on the coffee table in front of Rico.  
    “There you go.  It’ll warm you up.”
    He looked at it, a look so foreign and confused.  He gazed with eyes low at the steam as it left the cup and went to his nose.  His eyes widened and his lips became moist for the first time since she’d seen him.
    “Be careful when you grab it though.  It’s hot.”
    Rico used the paper towel as Evlan did so that he could tolerate the heat.  The chocolate liquid burned his tongue as it entered his mouth.  He jolted back, looked at the liquid as if it was alive, then sipped it again.
    “You like it?”
    “I never tasted this before.”
    “Hot cocoa?” She giggled.  “You’re supposed to drink it every Winter silly.”
    Her smile faded; his never appeared.
    “So can I ask why you were in there?  In the dog house.”
    He burned his tongue again, but ignored it this time.
    “I could hide in there.  It was a good hiding place.”
    “Hiding from what?”
    A door upstairs squeaked as it opened with a lazy voice short after.
    “Evlan?”
    “Yeah I’m down here.  I had to let Rosco out,” she spoke loudly.
    Rico looked at her; she placed her index finger vertically over her lips and smiled.
    “Oh okay.  We’ll be down in a couple of minutes.”
    “Ok Mom.”
    Evlan ran to the stairs and made sure that the light from her parents room was off.