Page 28 of The Intruder

“Yeah, yeah. I’m not planning to move in or anything.”

Anton walks next to me as we travel the remaining few blocks to my house. The whole time, I can’t shake the awful feeling in my stomach. What is he going to say when he sees my house? It’s bad enough that he already tells everyone at school that I smell. What is he going to say to the other kids when he sees what the inside of my house looks like? Everyone will know.

Maybe if I can get him in and out really quick, he won’t notice.

Oh, who am I kidding? He’d have to be blind and stupid not to notice. I should have just let him get stabbed.

When we finally get to my block, my palms are slick with sweat at the thought of Anton coming into my house. But what can I do? He’s still oozing blood out of his nose and lip, and there’s no way he’s going to walk all the way home like that when I live right here.

We pass Mrs. Fleming’s house first. It’s dark inside. A few days after I took out her trash, she slipped and fell during the night, and she hit her head really badly. She’s in the hospital now, and they’re not sure she’s going to get better. In other news, I’ve had money for lunch for the entire week.

“This is me,” I say when I get to our house. It is the tiniest one on the block, built specially to rent to a low-income family—us. It looks fine on the outside though. My mom is careful about stuff like that, because she doesn’t want to attract attention. But people aren’t completely stupid. They know about us.

Anton follows me up the steps. I almost want to tell him to close his eyes, but he’s not going to do that. Better to stick to my plan and just get him in and out.

My mom shouldn’t be home now, although I almost wish she were, because that would be an excuse not to let Anton inside. Instead, I stick my key into the lock and ease the door open. All those plastic bottles are still in the garbage bag behind the door, so I can’t get it open all the way but enough for us to slip through.

As soon as Anton steps into my foyer, he stops short. His eyes widen for a moment as he takes it all in. Our couch made of mattresses and also the other mattress propped up on the wall next to the “couch.” The papers stacked in piles on the floor and even going up the entire length of the stairs. The rolls of toilet paper stacked next to the bathroom. The twenty or so pencil holders on the coffee table, each one packed with pens and pencils. Eight ashtrays. Four boxes of never-opened Tupperware.

I’m dying inside. This is so embarrassing.

“Bathroom is over there,” I mumble, pointing in the general direction. I’m sure he’ll find it.

“You got soap in there?”

I almost laugh at the question. We have so much in our bathroom we could theoretically never buy soap again for the rest of our lives, although I’m sure in a week or two, my mom will come home with a few more bars. The entire cabinet under the sink is stuffed with soap in every single form. I just give him a tight nod.

Anton picks his way to the bathroom. It takes him a few seconds to find the little trail we use to get from the front door to the bathroom, through the papers and my mother’s other junk. We have a lot of little trails like that, or else we wouldn’t be able to get anywhere. He nearly trips on a clothing rack near the wall, but he makes it. When the door shuts behind him, I let out a breath.

I hover at the bathroom door, listening to the water running inside. Anton is probably cleaning his face, but he’s still got blood all over his shirt that won’t wash off. He’ll probably want a fresh T-shirt that isn’t covered in blood, except anything that belongs to me or my mom would be too small for him. But I’m pretty sure my mom never threw out any of the clothing Chip left behind, and if I had to guess, I’d say it’s probably in the basement.

But that would mean I have to go down to the basement—my least favorite place in the whole house.

The water is still running in the bathroom, and I figure it’s better to grab the shirt now so I can get Anton out of here as quick as possible. With some effort, because the floor is such a disaster, I locate the trail that leads to the basement door. I haven’t been down in the basement in a long time—not since the washer broke.

I crack open the basement door. It’s just as bad as I feared. Maybe even worse. Now that the washer is broken, my mom has been dumping all the clothing down here to wash at some future date that will never come. As a result, every inch of the floor is covered in clothing; it’s even on the stairs.

I don’t know how I’m going to find a T-shirt in this mess. But I’ve got to try.

I wade through the sea of clothes, which mostly belong to my mom, although some of it is mine. Some of it isn’t the right size for either of us or anyone who has ever lived in this house, and I’m not sure why we have it. My mom keeps insisting we’re going to get the washer fixed “any day now,” and then it’ll be convenient to have all the clothes down here. She’s optimistic like that. Except how can we possibly wash everything? It would take us a million years.

Sometimes I have nightmares about our basement. I dream that I’m down here, and the clothes are pulling me under. I’m trying to keep my head above them, but I keep sinking, fabric twisting between my ankles, making it impossible to move. Finally, my head goes under—I’m suffocated by the ocean of dirty laundry.

Like I said, the basement is my least favorite room in the house.

I’m about to give up when I find something that looks like it’s an undershirt. I’m not sure who it belongs to, but it looks big enough for Anton, and also it doesn’t smell too bad when I sniff it. I manage to wade back up the stairs to the first floor just as Anton is coming out of the bathroom.

“Hey,” he says. “How bad do I look?”

He’s managed to wash all the blood off his face and neck. His eye and nose aren’t as swollen as I thought they were, although his lip definitely looks like somebody punched him in the face. Compared to other kids in our grade, Anton’s skin is pretty clear of acne, and the truth, which I hate to admit, is that he is not bad looking at all. Even his green hair is kind of cute. Too bad he’s such a jerk and is probably going to ruin my life tomorrow.

Instead of answering his question, I thrust the shirt at him. “Here.”

He holds it up for inspection, then nods his approval. “This is your dad’s?”

I consider telling him that yes, it is. But he’s already seen my house. He knows my worst secret. “No. I don’t know my dad.”

I’m not sure if he heard me, because he’s busy pulling off his bloody T-shirt. With his shirt off, I notice he’s just as skinny as I am. I can count all his ribs. He pulls on the clean undershirt, and then his eyes meet mine. “That’s okay,” he says casually. “I’d rather have no dad than my dad.”