in addition to the finished basement. Most of the rooms were given over to sleeping quarters for the innumerable students. Either Mr. Rodriguez was a man of surprising discrimination and taste, or whoever had lived here before him had left some stuff behind. The crumbling bookshelves held three nonconsecutive volumes of Macaulay’s Critical and Historical Essays, and several Kafka paperbacks. On one wall, in the stairwell, hung a dusty old picture Myron recognized, by Degas. His parents had owned a poster reproduction of the painting; it was a famous painting, Myron knew, and he wondered if Mr. Rodriguez knew how much this picture was worth, and what a fortune he had here.
“Fortune!” Myron shouted, and ran down two flights to the basement. He dug under the couch. Here he found half a dozen cigarette fragments and a crumpled piece of paper, which held forth the promise of riches to a certain:
Andre Rodriguez
17 Lightning Hill Rd.
Picthatch, PA
Myron knew where Picthatch was! Not fifteen miles from Westfield. He thought for a while about clever ways to sneak out of the house, and he even tried to go up the chimney. Finally he threw a chair through a second-story window (the latch had rusted shut). He looked down a dizzying height.
“What you doing there?” shouted up John, who was wandering by outside. In his hand he had a noose he had braided out of floss, with which he hoped to catch chipmunks for dinner.
“If I am truly immortal, I could just jump,” Myron whispered. But instead, he dragged a bedroll to the window and, after a great deal of straining, managed to wedge it through. Once free, it unfurled and fell to the grass below.
“Hey!” John shouted. “Not use mine!”
One by one, five more bedrolls tumbled through, followed by some couch cushions, until they made a nice pile. Myron carefully checked the window frame for broken glass, stuck his feet through, and—he held his breath but did not close his eyes—slithered through into the air. When he landed on the soft pile, a great cloud of dust erupted, hiding him from sight. By the time it cleared, he was already running across the trash-strewn lawn.
“I’m escaping!” he shouted. “Anyone who wants to can come with me.”
The boys whistled and whooped, but they did not follow him. He passed a copse of birch trees, a collection of rusting fragmented automobiles, etc. Clouds rushed by overhead. The air felt heavy. It was the first time he’d been outside since he he’d arrived here. He was still wearing the same muddy clothes, and his underwear had grown strange and crispy. How many weeks had it been? In the distance, he could hear, and then see, the passing train. The air was cold enough to show his breath, like a smokestack.
A deep, wide ditch separated the tracks from the field, and Myron, out of breath, walked along the outside rim of the ditch, following the tracks. When he finally came to a place where the tracks crossed a road, he thought he recognized where he had fallen from our pickup. Myron followed the road a ways until he came to a small collection of stores. In front of a laundromat, a bald, tired man was sitting on a milk crate.
“Is there a phone around here?” Myron asked.
“Inside, costs a dime.”
Myron had prepared for this as he walked along the tracks. He presented to the man two beer bottles he had picked up on the way. “Can I trade you?” he asked.
With his newly acquired dime, he called his parents. “I’m in Picthatch, you won’t believe it, come get me,” he couldn’t help crowing. Things had gotten exciting, and it really felt, now, like an adventure.
The voice on the other end was muffled. “Where in Picthatch are you exactly?” It was a strange voice.
“Who is this?” Myron asked.
“This is Mrs. Wangenstein, your guidance counselor. Am I remembered by you, Myron?”
“What are you doing there?”
“I was asked by your parents to look after the house while they were gone. They and I have been very worried about you.”
“What’s my father’s first name?” Myron asked.
“Irving.”
“What’s my mother’s maiden name?”
“I don’t know; she hasn’t been known to I for that long. Look, Myron—”
“Which phone are you on?”
“Er. The one in the kitchen.”
“Okay. What color is the refrigerator?”
“Myron, there’s no time for questions. I can come get you.”
“Look at the refrigerator, Mrs. Wangenstein. Tell me what color it is.”
“White.”
“Wrong answer.”
“Myron, I’m colorbli—” But he had already hung up.
He stood at the phone