“Hey, look what I found.” Shimmy seems to have cheered up a little, and he’s exploring the closets. Inside one — not the one we hid in — there’s a mini fridge with lots of drinks and some fruit. There are also packages of food, most without a hechsher, but some that have a little kashrus symbol in the corner.

Okay, so we won’t starve then, although I’d rather not take any food from here. How would we even pay them back?

We continue searching for some kind of phone or computer, anything that could help us get in touch with the outside world, but there’s nothing to see. Nothing… except the file about my father, which I tuck carefully into my knapsack when Shimmy isn’t looking.

Night is falling now, and while I’ve been kind of ignoring Shimmy’s presence for the past hour or so, now, as the room turns dim, then dark, he starts talking.

“What do you think will happen?”

I shrug into the darkness. “I guess the men will come back sometime. The guy left his stuff here, clothes, papers, you know. He might even come back tonight. And then—”

“Then what? Will he be angry?”

I shrug again. Yes is probably the answer, but why get us both worried for nothing?

“Maybe we’ll hide and let ourselves out when he’s, like, in the bathroom or something,” I suggest. “Or maybe we’ll just run for it, and he’ll be too shocked to catch us.”

They’re both ridiculous plans without much chance of success, but Shimmy seems relieved by them. Good.  At least one of us will sleep well.

We find some spare pillows and blankets and huddle down on the floor to try to catch some sleep. The room is now too dark to see much, and without discussing it, I know we both don’t want to switch a light on if it might alert someone to our presence.

Lying there in the quiet darkness, I realize there’s something I should be saying. “Thanks for… giving me the heads-up, earlier,” I say, haltingly. “That the men were coming. At least we weren’t caught.”

Even in the darkness, I can see his megawatt, overeager smile. But as the night winds on, I have to admit… I’m glad I’m not stuck here alone.

***

I hadn’t imagined I’d sleep, not with the threat of the men returning any second, but then I wake up and it’s the morning.

We wash our hands in the bathroom and daven together. Shimmy roots around in his knapsack and pulls out an apple and a couple of granola bars. Breakfast. It’s not much for two starving boys, but at least it’s something.

“What should we do next?” Shimmy asks, crunching on the apple and looking at me expectantly, like I have all the answers.

I honestly don’t have a clue. “Maybe we can try to pick the lock again,” I say, half-heartedly. “I read about it once, we’d need a couple of tools… or even strong wires.”

We hunt around for something that could be used to pick the lock, but just as we’re about to admit defeat, a car pulls into the driveway.

The Tesla is back.

There’s noise. Footsteps. We huddle in the closet again, jammed in with our knapsacks, and I’m thinking thank goodness we cleaned up the blankets already.

Someone unlocks the door of the room.

Please, please, don’t open the closet…

“If he opens the door, we run and don’t look back,” I breathe to Shimmy, who squeezes my hand to show he heard me.

But the door doesn’t open.

I maneuver to the crack between the closet doors. See the man put some things down on the desk, stretch, look at his watch, and go downstairs. To fix a drink?

Now.

I grab Shimmy, hoist my knapsack— heavy with the file — over my shoulder, and we creep outside. From the kitchen, the ancient kettle whistles.

We tiptoe down the stairs. In the kitchen, I catch a glimpse of the man, his back to us. We make it all the way to the front door when he utters a loud exclamation. “Hey! Stop! Stop right where you are!”

He saw us.

We slam the front door behind us, not bothering with silence anymore. I run for the bushes, Shimmy rounds the path to his own bike, and a moment later we’re pedaling furiously away, as the man flings open the front door and shouts a string of angry words after us.

There’s no car. We’re biking too fast for him to catch us now. We made it. We got out.

We bike without stopping until we’re out of the area and in our own, familiar neighborhood. And then we collapse on the ground, giddy and lightheaded, and for a moment it doesn’t matter that we’re still in yesterday’s clothing and have some angry secret agent after us. I forget about the file and that strange picture of my father on the front, and just revel in the sunshine and the freedom and the heady thrill of the escape.

Then we sober up; where on earth do we go now? To school? Home? How are we going to explain our absence to our families? To the police, if they’ve been called?

“Home, I guess,” Shimmy says, uncertainly. Despite his muttered comment that no one would miss him, he looks a little nervous. “I hope my parents weren’t too worried.”

Parents. My stomach clenches at the word. What has my mother been thinking? Is she okay?

“Yeah, I guess I’ll see you,” I tell Shimmy. My mouth is suddenly very dry.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Treeo, Issue 1004)