The next couple of days were pretty boring. I tried to avoid Grandpa and Great Grandma as much as possible, staying mostly in my and Penny's bedroom or wandering around outside. I actually thought Jay might show up again, but he didn't. Even though I hadn't wanted to see him outside the store, I was pretty bored at Great Grandma's and would have welcomed his company. I had had a little bit of fun exploring with him the day after I got there. But he didn't come back, and I didn't want to ask Penny to explore with me, because she'd just nag me about snakes and stuff. So that pretty much left me to wander the patio. Lucky for me, Great Grandma dug up some old books she had, so I spent some hours reading dusty, falling-apart copies of The Swiss Family Robinson and Tom Sawyer.

I kept wondering when the hoax would be over. I never really believed I'd be starting up school or staying here for good. The whole time I sat out on the patio reading, I was waiting for a cab to drive up and take us home, or for some stranger in a black car to come and tell me and Penny the secret that my parents were really alive and well and had just had to pretend to be gone for some reason, like a witness protection program or something. Each day that went by, I believed even more—not less—that it was all a colossal joke.

One late afternoon, about two weeks after we'd first arrived, it rained really hard. I couldn't go outside, and Penny had sort of taken over the entire bedroom to make it into a huge house for her paper dolls. The fancy room was too creepy for me to be in by myself, so that left the front room, where I'd played Battleship with Grandpa several days before. I'd scrounged up an old coloring book and some markers, and even though I wouldn't be caught dead coloring in front of my friends back home, I was bored enough to do it in front of nobody.

So there I was, sitting at the coffee table, coloring a picture of a dinosaur or two, when I heard Great Grandma's raised voice coming from the direction of her bedroom. I don't know if it was because I'd never heard her voice raised at someone besides me or because I was just so incredibly bored, but I was curious to know what she was saying. So I slid off the couch and inched quietly through the kitchen and toward the wing where her room was. It didn't take me long to figure out she was talking to my Grandpa.

"Knock off that nonsense, Thomas! You are not allowed out of this house—not after you and the Franklin boy tore up the school track in his father's truck. I have told you a hundred times that you're grounded. So I don't want to see you packing up a bag to run off with. There will be no sneaking out. Not tonight. Now you stay here in this room or there will be no supper for you, understand?"

My mouth must have been hanging wide open, because all of a sudden it felt dried out and I shut it to get my spit moving again. Why was she talking to him like he was a teenager? I felt embarrassed.

Some shuffling noises told me Great Grandma was on the move, and just in time I scooted around the refrigerator and hid as she sauntered in. She was a big woman, and I watched her hulking shadow move away from me into the front room before I would even breathe again. I didn't know why I was afraid of her right then; I just was.

"Penny! Robbie?" she called from the front room. "I'm going out to the grocery store! You want to come with me?"

How could I answer her? Any response would give my location away. Fortunately, Penny popped out of our bedroom and said, "Sure, Great Grandma, I'll go!"

"All right. Go ahead and get your rain jacket and boots. It's pouring out there."

"Ok."

Great Grandma stopped her. "Does your brother want to go?"

"Nah, probably not," Penny replied, much to my relief. "He's being a crab-apple."

Normally, I would've been peeved to have my little sister speaking for me, but right then, I was grateful. The two of them bustled about for a few minutes, putting on their rain gear, I assumed, and then I heard the front door open and close and the screen door squeal shut. I waited a couple of minutes, just to make sure they hadn't forgotten anything and weren't going to come back in, but after I was certain they had gone, I stepped out from behind the refrigerator and ran smack into my Grandpa. I jumped about a foot in the air, he startled me so much.

"Shh!" he hissed, putting a finger to his lips. "I don't want mom finding me out!"

I just stared at him in confusion. It took me a minute to figure out that "mom" meant Great Grandma. (It was hard for me to think of her as being anyone's mother.)

Grandpa opened the refrigerator and started rummaging through it. I noticed he had a pack slung over his shoulder and Great Grandma's words hit me: There will be no sneaking out. Grandpa was trying to run away! I was scared. "Where—where are you going?"

"Anywhere but here," he grumbled below his breath. "Sick of mom telling me what to do. Sick of it. She doesn't know what it's like. Kids at school always making fun of me. Always saying I'm crazy." He stuffed a couple of tupperwares of leftovers into his bag and slammed the refrigerator door, rattling everything on and in it and making me jump again. Looking straight at me with crazy eyes, he yelled, "I know what I saw!"

I had never seen him like this before. He was insane. He was wearing the body of an old man but speaking like a fifteen-year-old with an attitude. I wanted to cry—out of fear, or out of sadness, or out of shock—I don't know why. But a sob started coming up in my throat like throw-up, and I had to make myself swallow it back down.

"Wh-what did you see?"

His face softened a little, like he was remembering something. "Nobody believed me, but I know what happened."

"What, Grandpa?"

"I saw it get Jimmy," he whispered, stooping toward me so I would hear him better.

I felt prickles on my skin and up my neck. "What got him?"

But he was not going to be much clearer. "Got him from behind. Then he was gone. Just like that. S'how it happens. And nobody believes me, but I know what I saw. If I stick around here, I'll go crazy from what I saw. I can't stay here, where it all feels so bad." He pushed past me and grabbed a half-loaf of bread out of the breadbasket. "I'm going out into those woods, and mom can't stop me. Safer out there than in here."

The prickles went all down my arms, but I didn't have time to get too shivery. Grandpa stuffed the bread in his pack, then headed toward the door. I had to think fast or he would try to leave the house, and then who knew what would happen to him?

"Wait!" I cried, jogging after him. "Before you go, let's see what you've packed!"

I didn't know if it would stop him, but I was glad when it did. He paused, then turned to look at me skeptically. "Why?"

My brain scrambled. "Well . . . it's raining. And it's . . . a long way. Let's see if you've got what you need."

For whatever reason, Grandpa trusted me. Without a word, he slung the pack off his shoulder and laid it on the floor, splaying out its contents. It was then that I realized how crazy he actually was. Besides the loaf of bread and few tupperwares of leftovers, he had packed a deck of playing cards, three rocks, a hand-held mirror, a broken fork, and a beat-up camera. Certainly not the survival kit one would need for an approaching stormy night. I suppressed a laugh and decided to talk to him like he was the teenager his mind thought it was.

"Now look here. It's getting dark. Won't you at least need a flashlight?"

"No use," he sighed. "Hides in the light."

I ignored his comment and tried again. "Fine. What about some rain gear? It's storming out there, and it'll be raining all night. You'll have to go somewhere for shelter, but wherever you go, they'll be sure to call Great—your mom. And then it'd be over."

He frowned like a little kid who'd just been told "no." "Don't got any rain gear. Not since I tried swimming in the pond with it. Got all messed up and mom tossed it."

A-ha! I'd hit the mark. "Then you'd better wait until tomorrow night to leave. It's supposed to be better weather . . . I think. If you go out tonight, you'll probably catch pneumonia and die. Then what would be the point of going to all this trouble? So just wait another night, ok?"

"But . . . what'll I do? It'll find me."

His voice was so small and pathetic I almost felt really sorry for him. Then I recalled that he was crazy. "I'll be here, ok? I won't go anywhere. We'll stick it out together. It'll be fine."

It took him a minute, but then he nodded in compliance. I felt a huge wave of relief, and once I was no longer worried about Grandpa running off, I was able to actually feel a little excited. Grandpa was acting like a kid, and I kind of liked it. The two of us hiding out from some-whatever-it-was-he-was-afraid-of could be fun! It'd be like playing a game with a friend.

"Maybe we need a fort or something," I said, getting to my feet. I was all ready to go play this new game with my unexpected friend. "And when you talk to your friend Jimmy, you can tell him all about it."

Saying that was a mistake. Grandpa blinked real quick a few times, and then it was like he was waking up from a dream. He sighed and said, "Jimmy. He's been gone for years." Then he turned to look at me. "What makes you mention him, son?"

I just stood there, crestfallen. Grandpa was regular Grandpa again. He didn't wait for an answer from me. He just stood up and walked back toward his bedroom, leaving me to pick up his bag of junk.