Dylan is sitting morosely staring out the sitter’s living room window when he sees three girls coming up the street, Amber, Jessica, and Brooke.
Dylan isn’t all that interested in what they’re doing, but they are girls and he has nothing else to do, so he watches them. Amber is carrying a bundle.
“This is so boring,” he thinks. He’s always bored at the babysitter’s. “Mrs. Foster is nice enough, but she just doesn’t have anything to do. No video games or anything. She doesn’t have kids and has nothing in the house for them. All I can do is sit here waiting for one of my parents to pick me up. I wish they would hurry.”
Dylan watches the girls stop while Amber jams the bundle into a trashcan next to the garage across the street. From their nervous looks around, he has no doubt they are hiding something.
Curious about what they are hiding, he waits for them to move on.
“I’m going outside,” he calls out to Mrs. Foster. Shrugging on his coat and pulling on his boots, he goes out.
The chill air feels like it’s biting his lungs when he inhales. He hurriedly zips up his coat, wishing he had grabbed a hat to cover his already stinging ears.
Dylan checks up and down the street to make sure no one is watching and darts across the street to the trashcan. No one is home at the house, but someone might drive by and see him digging in the trash. He looks again before lifting the lid to look in. Pulling the bundle out, Dylan looks it over then unwraps it to reveal a coat wrapped around boots and a hat and mitts.
He studies them. They look familiar. He realizes they belong to Kylie.
“What are they doing with Kylie’s stuff?” His eyes narrow. “Those three are the nastiest girls in school and Kylie is Amber’s favorite victim.”
Dylan looks back at the babysitter’s house, debating what he should do. “Kylie just lives on the next street. If I run the stuff over there, the babysitter might notice me gone and I’d be in trouble. Besides, who knows why those girls have the stuff?”
He’s about to stuff the clothes back in the trash can but thinks better of it.
“They stole it from Kylie. There is no other reason they would have it.” He thinks it over, feeling guilty for his automatic response to shove it back in the trash. His conscience wins.
With a last glance back at Mrs. Foster’s house across the street, Dylan darts between the houses, cutting through the back yards to the next street.
Dylan doesn’t want Kylie to see him. He approaches her house from behind, sneaking as he cuts through the next-door neighbor’s backyard towards the front.
He is just about to break cover from the neighbor’s yard and sneak up to the front door when he spots a car parked in front of the house. He looks up and down the street. It’s mostly empty, so there is no reason for someone at another house to park in front of this one, and besides, the car is parked on the wrong side of the street. Street parking is on the other side.
“Her mom probably isn’t home yet, so who would be at her house?”
Dylan studies Kylie’s house and yard and spies a man skulking around the house, peeking in windows.
He ducks behind the bushes between the yards, hiding out of sight. He is still beside the house and he moves quietly and stealthily along the row of bushes, watching the guy from his hiding spot as he goes around to the back of the house. He watches the man try the back door. It’s locked.
“Is he a burglar? Who is this guy?” Dylan watches the man turn over things in the yard, tipping a large snow-filled flowerpot on its side and breaking the top off it. His feels like his veins are turning to ice.
“He’s looking for a key,” he thinks. “He is a burglar.”
Dylan’s mind races, remembering his own house getting broken into, how much that scared all of them, and the terror his dog still suffers every time someone comes to the house. That was the worst part, not knowing what they did to the dog.
“I have to get out of here.” He’s about to dart away and run back to the safety of the babysitter’s house, but he stops instead, spotting the frightened face of Kylie peeking out a window.
A cold chill fills Dylan. “She’s home alone and some guy is trying to break in.” He holds his breath, his mind reeling, trying to think what to do.
Dylan is frozen, unable to move or act, and can only watch helplessly while the burglar searches for a way in. His mind moves strangely, thinking, “He doesn’t look like what you’d think a burglar would look like.” He’s picturing the stereo-typical burglar hunched over and dressed all in black with gloves and a mask. This guy is dressed like any other man, kind of dorky looking even.
Finally the man gives up, gets in the car parked in front of the house, and drives away.
The extreme cold is seeping through his clothes, but Dylan still can’t make himself move. He is in shock and filled with a numbing dread. After what feels like forever, he manages to break his paralysis. Shivering with fear shock, he sneaks to the front door of the house, skulking low below the level of the windows so Kylie doesn’t see him, and leaves the bundle of clothes on the front step before sneaking away.
As soon as he’s far enough, Dylan sprints for the sitter’s house, his heart pounding and his chest tight with anxiety.
“Should I tell someone?” he thinks as he runs, uncertain. “The guy is gone, but what if he comes back? What can they do anyway, since he’s gone? Probably nothing.” By the time he reaches the sitter’s he has decided not to bother saying anything.
THE LATCHKEY KIDS IS AVAILABLE ON KINDLE AND IN PAPERBACK ON AMAZON
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