Hidey Hole

Esme practiced the police raid protocol every night, even if she didn’t feel like it. “A prepared person is a brave person,” Daddy always said.

The day the signal came, though, she didn’t feel prepared at all. She was playing ponies in her bedroom while Daddy visited a neighbor when the special light under her fingernail began flashing red.

It meant one thing: hide.

She swiped her favorite snuggly, a plush green-and-red-striped monkey named Slocum, off the floor and rushed downstairs. By the time she got to the pantry, the police were already busting through the front door. She scrambled over the onions to the secret hatch, squirmed inside, and pulled the lever, closing everything behind her.

Footsteps boomed into the kitchen almost right away.

She clapped her hands over the hot breath escaping her mouth.

Counting; that’s what Daddy said to do.

Count to calm yourself down.

She’d gotten to 256 before she realized how dark it was. She felt for the light switch as the stomps and shouts and clatter continued above. When her unicorn lamp flicked on, she felt herself relax. The place was small, but the stack of pillows, the neat row of books, the plastic snack containers, the thick carpet, Dad’s equipment, even the oniony smell, they were all familiar.

She had done the plan.

Esme crushed Slocum to her chest and kissed the matted fur atop his head. It’s going to be okay, Slocum, she wanted to say. But she’d practiced enough with Daddy to know she shouldn’t talk.

Above her, she could hear the police tromping and yelling their way through the house. If any were in the kitchen, they might be able to hear her too.

The boots of the policemen shook dust from the ceiling of her hidey hole whenever they passed and made the string of lights sway on its nails. Daddy had worked so hard to make this place cozy. But how could she be cozy when she didn’t know where he was?

A huge crash shook the whole house. “No matter what you hear, know this,” Daddy said. “You’re safe so long as you sit tight.”

That was easy to believe when he was down here with her, coloring with their crayons, packed shoulder to shoulder. But all alone was a different thing.

Still, she wasn’t some baby.

She sat Slocum on top of Daddy’s big, blinking computer thingies. Servers, that’s what they were called. A foil “Certified Observer” sticker gleamed right under Slocum’s legs, like he was an Observer himself. That would be funny, wouldn’t it? If the snugglies had Observers? And Slocum went around with Daddy’s app on his phone, filming the snuggly government guys, so when they tried to change things online, he could prove they were, as Daddy said, “up to shen-ag-inans.”

The snuggly police would probably be mad at Slocum then, just like the real police were mad at Daddy.

Was Daddy in jail right now?

Esme heard more voices then and remembered the headphones. The reason the computer thingies—the servers—were blinking was that they were recording everything that went on in the house. It’d be running Daddy’s app at the same time, so the special codes in the background could show where this was, when it was, and if someone ever tried to change it.

Esme plugged in the headphones and switched on the computer screen. A bunch of windows on the screen showed different videos of her house, but others were just black, so it looked sort of like hopscotch.

A video of the hallway by her bedroom showed some police clumped together. She poked the screen so she could listen to what they were saying. 

“. . . every outlet. Every light fixture,” said a short guy with a big old nose. “I want the whole house—”

“Sir,” someone else said, “there’s one here in the carbon monoxide detector.”

A hand reached straight up to the camera, and it sizzled in the headphones as it turned off.

Esme picked Slocum back up so he wouldn’t get scared, then clicked on a different video. It showed the same guys, but further down the hallway, so that everyone looked like they were at the end of a tunnel. One person was on a stool, messing with something on the ceiling.

“. . . went to a safehouse probably,” said a girl policeman. “The Observer network could have the kid halfway to the border by now.”

“Then this is simple,” said the short guy with that big nose. “We charge the Observers with child trafficking and burn the house down. If they produce her, it proves the abduction, and we arrest them. If they don’t, her father will think she died for his little socialist hobby. Maybe he’ll give us the app’s cypher then. Maybe it’ll just break him. Either way, it weakens the Observers.”

Esme gritted her teeth against the whimper that wanted to come out. They wouldn’t really burn down the house, would they? And how would Daddy react if he thought she’d died?

She reminded herself to count again.

It would be okay.

She was just beginning to feel like she could breathe when the fire alarm blared.

She jolted in surprise and dropped Slocum to the carpeted floor. His big marble eyes looked up at her, terrified. He couldn’t get out of here alone. He needed her. It was like she was the Daddy now, and he was the kid. “Don’t be scared, Slocum,” she said aloud. “A prepared monkey is a brave monkey.” 

It was time for Plan B: run and tell.

She unplugged the server like you’re supposed to, folded out the handle on top, and tied Slocum’s arms around it. Then she looked around at her cozy spot, the spot Daddy had made for her, splayed her fingers into the softness of the carpet one last time, and kicked open the emergency door.

Out the door was the underneath of the house, the crawling place, where it was dirty ground and spiders and rats and snakes and no light. Esme only paused for just a minute though, because she finally felt brave.

Brave for Slocum.

Brave for Daddy.

She jumped down into the underneath and pulled the server behind her, then dragged it on its wheels to the little door. When she shoved it open, she was behind the hedge in the backyard, which made a kind of secret passage between it and the wall. Up past the leaves, smoke was pillowing out.

They were burning down the house for real.

She sprinted down the hedge passage, Slocum bouncing along on top of the server. From there, it was the forest behind the neighborhood, and the creek where she had to clutch the heavy server to her chest and slosh through the water. Back up on the street, three turns (left–right–left) took her to the library.

By the time she got there, leaves clogged up the wheels on the server. She was sweaty too and felt like maybe her lungs were full of smoke because they burned so much. The librarian smiled at her, though, just like he always did. “Esme!” said Mr. Tran. “You okay?”

She managed to bob her head.

“I’ve got the next Equine Mysteries book on hold for you.”

“Actually,” Esme said, kind of gasping because of the smoke-in-her-lungs thing, “I need to use a computer. I need to put something on the internet.”

“No problem. Need help?”

When Daddy showed her what to do with the server, he always said not to let anyone else touch it until she was done. “No thanks,” said Esme. “I’m prepared.”

Mr. Tran gave her a little bow. “I would expect nothing less from a fine young lady like yourself.”

She bowed back, went to the computers, and signed her password into Observer Central to load up what all those police guys had said back at the house.

After she pressed the “notify news outlets” button, she logged off, let out a big breath of air, and sat back.

What did she do now?

She untied Slocum from the server handle and cuddled him, looking at the Observer Central website and wishing it would tell what was next.

She jumped when someone spoke behind her.

“Here’s your book, Ma’am,” said Mr. Tran. But instead of handing it to her when she turned around, he placed it in front of the computer keyboard and left his hand there long enough for her to see his fingernail.

It was blinking yellow.

Esme held up her own finger. It turned from red to yellow too, then flashed green right in time with his before the light went out.

She looked up at him.

He smiled through his grey beard and winked.

“Do you know,” he said, “that we have a special beanbag right behind the counter? You can read there and nobody can see you at all. Isn’t that silly?”

Esme grinned. “Slocum likes silly stuff.”

“All discerning people do.”

Esme followed Mr. Tran behind the counter, and it was just like he said: a faded red beanbag, tucked underneath with its own little table and lamp. The table even had a juice box on it, and a bag of chips. The server fit snuggly beside it all.

She didn’t know where Daddy was right now. She didn’t know what would happen next. But she did know this: She was prepared, she was brave, and there were other people just like her who were ready to help. More people than she even knew of.

She thanked Mr. Tran, wiggled down into the softness of the beanbag, and opened up her book.

Slocum nodded with approval.