“Oh.” That “oh” meant trouble for Becky Wemyss, thought Jem, who knew a lot about mothers’ voices.
“I’m a bit of a scholar of the auld ways, see. I’m writing a wee book . . . Anyway, I wondered if I could maybe talk to you for a few minutes. Becky said ye’d know more about the stones and the dancing than anybody else.”
Jem’s breathing slowed down, once he realized that Mr. Cameron hadn’t come because Mr. Cameron knew Mandy and he were here. Or maybe he did and was trying it on with Mrs. Buchan ’til he could make an excuse to use the loo and come poke round in search of them? He looked apprehensively up the half flight of stairs that led from the landing, but the lounge door above was closed, and while he could hear Mandy’s giggling fine through it, probably Mr. Cameron couldn’t.
Mrs. Buchan was taking Mr. Cameron back to the kitchen. Her voice when she’d said, “Come ben. I’ll tell ye what I can,” hadn’t sounded at all friendly. Jem wondered whether she might be going to put rat poison in Mr. Cameron’s tea.
Maybe Mrs. Buchan didn’t have any rat poison, though. He took a step one way, then the other, then back. He really, really wanted to run down the stairs and out the door and keep going. But he couldn’t leave Mandy.
His havering stopped at once when the kitchen door opened, but he could hear it was Mrs. Buchan’s step, and just hers, coming fast and light.
She turned up the stairs but started back when she saw him on the landing, a hand to her chest. Then she ran up to him and hugged him tight, whispering in his ear.
“Bloody heck, lad. What’re you—well, never mind, I was coming to find you. Ye saw him?”
Jem nodded, wordless, and Mrs. Buchan’s mouth pressed flat.
“Aye. I’m going to take ye out the door. Go left out the gate. Two houses down is Mrs. Kelleher. Knock and tell her I sent ye to use the phone. Ye call the polis and tell them the man that kidnapped you is here—ye ken the address here?”
He nodded. He’d seen the number when he visited before with Mam and Dad and remembered it because it was 669; Dad had said it should by rights be 666, but that was the number of the beast. Jem had asked whether it was Mr. or Mrs. Buchan that was the beast, and Mam and Dad both laughed like loons.
“Good,” said Mrs. Buchan, letting go of him. “Come on, then.”
“Mandy—” he started, but she shushed him.
“I’ll mind her. Come!”
He ran down the stairs after her, trying not to make any noise, and, at the door, she stood on her toes and held the little bell so it wouldn’t ring.
“Run!” she whispered.
He ran.
MRS. KELLEHER WAS an old lady and kind of deaf. Jem was out of breath and so scared that he couldn’t put his words together right, so it was a long time before she took him to the telephone, and then the lady at the police station put the phone down on him twice, because she thought he was some bampot wean who’d got hold of the phone and was playing tricks.
“I’m Jeremiah MacKenzie!” he bellowed, next time she answered. “I was kidnapped!”
“Ye were?” said Mrs. Kelleher, very startled. She grabbed the phone away from him. “Who’s this?” she demanded of it. Faint squawking—at least the police lady hadn’t hung up again. Mrs. Kelleher turned and squinted through her spectacles at him.
“Who was it ye were wanting to call, lad? Ye’ve got the polis by mistake.”
He really wanted to hit something, but he couldn’t hit Mrs. Kelleher. He said something very bad in Gaelic, and her mouth fell open. She’d let the phone fall away from her ear, though, and he grabbed it.
“The man that kidnapped me is here,” he said, as slow as he could. “I need somebody to come! Before—” Inspiration struck. “Before he hurts my little sister! It’s 669 Glenurquhart Road. Come right away!” Then he put the phone down, before the lady could ask him questions.
Mrs. Kelleher had plenty of those, and he didn’t want to be rude, so he asked could he use the loo and locked the door against her, then hung out the upstairs window, watching for the police.
Nothing happened for what seemed forever. The raindrops started to drip off his hair and eyelashes, but he was afraid of missing anything. He was rubbing the water out of his eyes when all of a sudden the door of 669 flew open and Rob Cameron came running out, jumped in a car, and drove off with the tires squealing.
Jem almost fell out the window but then rushed back and barreled out of the bathroom, nearly knocking Mrs. Kelleher over.
“Thank you, Mrs. Kelleher!” he yelled over his shoulder, taking the stairs three at a time, and shot out the front door.
There was a lot of screaming and crying going on inside the Buchans’ house, and he felt his chest go so tight he couldn’t breathe.
“Mandy!” He tried to call, but her name came out in a whisper. The front door was hanging open. Inside, there were girls everywhere, but he picked Mandy out of the muddle in the lounge instantly and ran to grab her. She wasn’t crying, but she latched on to him like a leech, burying her black curly head in his stomach.
“It’s okay,” he told her, squeezing the stuffing out of her in relief. “It’s okay, Man. I gotcha. I gotcha.”
His heart started to slow down a little, and he saw that Mrs. Buchan was sitting on the sofa, holding a towel full of ice cubes to her face. Some of the ice had fallen out and was lying on the rug at her feet. Tisha and Sheena were holding on to their mother and crying, and Ginger was trying to pat her mam’s hair and comfort her sisters at the same time, but her face was dead white and tears were running silently down it.