Mack spotted the knot of kids waiting for the bus just a few feet ahead: Ellen and Karl from his grade, some younger kids, and one older kid named Gene or John or something.
Mack did the nod-of-acknowledgment thing and got the same in return from Karl.
“Tsup?”
“Enh.”
“Tsup?”
“You know.”
Mack saw the bus coming down the side street. It would be here in three minutes. He had timed it before.
Something was wrong. Mack felt it before he knew what it was. But it took only a few seconds to decide what the problem was: the old man in green. He’d been walking this direction. He should still be in view.
But he wasn’t. Which meant he had turned off at one of four possible homes on this side of the street. The Reynoldses never answered their door, no matter what; the Applegates were out of town; the Tegens were already at work, and their daughter was standing right here at the bus stop.
Which left the MacAvoy household.
The old man in green was not a yard worker or a plumber or a carpenter or anyone else of the workman breed. So what was he doing? Where did he go?
Mack wanted to go back to check. If he did, he would miss the bus. If he missed the bus, he would miss the bell, even if he ran all the way to school.
That would mean walking into homeroom late. People would stare at him and laugh, and it would be marked on his attendance record.
But he had no choice. His curiosity was piqued, and he had to go see.
“I forgot something,” he said to the other kids, none of whom cared. He began trotting back down the street.
He glanced at the Reynoldses’ home. Nothing. The Applegates’ home. Nothing. Likewise the Tegens’.
He reached his own home. No green man.
Mack frowned. So he’d been wrong. But then he noticed the fact that the gate to the backyard was slightly ajar. With his heart in his throat, he pushed through the gate.
There was nothing unusual in the yard: the same unused swing set, a basketball rocking slightly in the breeze. Except that there was no breeze.
His father’s grill was close at hand. He reached up under the plastic cover, felt around for a moment, and pulled out the big long barbecue fork.
Armed and dangerous with his fork, Mack proceeded.
The back door was shut. But there! The window. The kitchen window. Had it been open before? No. No, he didn’t think so. But now it was clearly open a crack.
Mack debated for a second. No way the green man could have slid through the window.
He pulled out his key and unlocked the back door.
“Anybody home?”
No answer.
He considered swapping the fork for a kitchen knife but decided the fork had the added advantage of being so weird no burglar would know quite how to react.
He passed through the kitchen. Now he heard the sound of the TV in the family room. It wasn’t loud, and it sounded like a commercial was playing.
Closer and closer Mack crept.
Someone was sitting on the couch, its back turned to Mack.