Stealing Silence(13)
The girls looked at each other and then to Mitch, who leaned out the window and yelled “Peet, it’s Mitch! Put the fool gun away, you dolt.”
Peet scratched at his beard and squinted across the bright space. “Is ‘dat you, Mitch? Seems to me that this be a workday and you should be at work. You got kids with you?”
Mitch opened the car door and stood up, grinning. “Yup, I have kids with me.”
“Well that is fine with me! I love kids!” Peet propped the shotgun against the porch railing and walked down to greet the girls as they climbed out of the car. “I bet you are glad this isn’t a squad car,” he chuckled. “Mitch took me for a ride in his police car once, I wasn’t happy about there being no handles inside.” He caught Avalon laughing at him and winked. “Mind you, it was for my own safety. Not everyone is as friendly as Peet, not anymore.”
Mitch grunted and introduced the girls. “Avalon is on a special mission that should interest you.”
“Oh? How so?” He led them back up the steps and into the dim interior, grabbing the shotgun as he passed, and stashing it behind the door.
Polished pine walls and ceilings greeted their eyes, decorated with the carcasses of a variety of wildlife, a few of which were now extinct. A rare striped black bear pelt hung beside the head of a curly horned elk, shaggy chin hair falling to the floor like a curtain. A stuffed Dodo bird perched on a piece of driftwood, head tilted skyward and beak open in a silent cry. Avalon and Alexa peered at the museum of fauna, awe struck.
Peet grabbed a kettle and filled it with water before setting it on to boil, then gestured for them to sit. He upended a box of crackers into a wicker basket then pulled a block of cheese from the fridge and hacked off a plate of cubes. By this time the kettle was whistling. He poured it into a chipped blue teapot, added a couple tea bags and grabbed four mugs, placing them on the table before lowering himself to the empty chair.
“Now, why are you here?”
Mitch took them all in at a glance. “We need your help to break into the warehouse.”
Peet studied him over the brim of his cup, and then his eyes flicked to the two girls. “You want some fertilizer? You know that stuff is guarded, right? Not just electronic security but armed security, like me.” Mitch nodded. “You would never get in, Mitch. You would be picked up by every camera and sensor in the place, and that is just the outer security. There are places there I have never been allowed to go.”
Mitch nodded again. “I can’t get past the security, but she can.” He nodded to Avalon, who stuffed a chunk of cheese into her mouth then waved with the same hand.
“You want to send her in? Are you mad?”
“No, just desperate.” He filled Peet in on the recent events, the problems at the greenhouse and the collapse of the town should they not find a way to feed the remaining population. “The land is dying. Our way of life is dying. We need that fertilizer.”
Peet listened intently then frowned and looked at the two girls. “She may be a thief, and a good one, but you are sending her into harm’s way. She is only a child.”
“Hey, I am sixteen! I can choose for myself you know.” Avalon’s back stiffened in response to Peet’s words. “I could steal your shorts while you were wearing them, if I wanted to.”
Peet grinned at that and sat back. “Alright, I will help you. But it will not be easy... and I want something in return.”
“What?” asked Mitch.
“A piece of the action.” He grinned, his smile gaping and displaying a missing front tooth. “I want some of that fertilizer.”
Mitch nodded. “Fair enough. Let’s plan our assault.”
Peet grabbed a notebook and a pen and they all bent their heads over the sketch of the factory grounds. They planned for hours, and well into the night, examining and discarding plans, fine-tuning their approach. A plate of sandwiches appeared and disappeared as they munched on egg salad and homemade sourdough. Finally, just before midnight, he closed the binder with a snap. “We have a plan! Now, everyone off to rest.”
As Avalon’s eyes drifted closed on the narrow cot she shared with Alexa, her last thought was it would be a miracle if I survive! Somehow it did not scare her, rather she felt strangely excited about the raiding of the facility, as though she was finally doing something important. That night she dreamed about her parents, and this time they were alive, unlike her dreams of old.
Chapter 9
For Mom & Dad
MITCH HANDED THE BINOCULARS to Avalon, who grunted her thanks. A rock was digging into her side, and she shifted slightly, but did not sit up. They had crawled up the rise of the scree-filled hillside to the ridge, hidden by the shadow of a great boulder. It was tilted at such an awkward angle, it looked ready to fall on top of them at any moment, but it had probably sat that way for a thousand years, forever poised on the brink. The shade was cool and the shadowy environs kept the eyes of the binoculars from flashing with reflected sunlight. Even so, they flattened themselves into the dirt and counted.
“Ten. There are ten patrols, and they repeat their pattern every ten minutes,” said Avalon.
“Eleven,” corrected Peet. See the guard there? ”He pointed to a wooden guard booth. “You cannot dismiss him because he sits in the gate hut. He sits on the alarm button and is only a radio shout away. In fact, he is the first one to fool.”