The Wall

49

The white man’s boots could be heard for a few seconds. Moses then crawled slowly around the house. He had briefly considered thanking the nanny. With a wave. A nod. But he didn’t want to put her in any danger. She understood as it was. Behind the house, he crept along another wall whose height decreased in steps down to the hedge. He was peeking through the hedge into the next yard when it occurred to him that he hadn’t had the time to verify that he wasn’t being watched from the house he’d just crawled by.

Moses raised his head and realized this wasn’t enough for him to get a good sightline. He moved back a short way and sat up with his back against the wall. Breathed slower. Deeper. And sensed how tired he actually was. And how hungry. Coffee and bread for breakfast, that was it. And the moving for Prof. Brinsley. And then here.

No idea where he was inside The Pines. The last escape from the referee, the guards, the security vehicle, and the white guy… Shit, he thought. Whoever had been sitting in the security car… That had been an attempt to kill him.

Why?

He needed a few moments to remember. Rape. That word had tumbled out when someone in that vehicle had chatted with the white guy. Was that the same car that had tried to run him down?

And the rape? Someone else had to be on foot in here. They couldn’t mean him.

The movement at the upper edge of his vision was barely noticeable. Moses looked up and met the curious eyes of a little girl. She was three or four years old with blonde braids dangling on each side of her face. In the glow of the sunshine from where she was standing behind the window, she looked like a character in a children’s book. She waved at him. He waved back.

If she caught sight of a black man creeping around her yard, she wasn’t thinking, “Mommy, a black man is crawling around our yard.” But what was she thinking? He had to get out of here. Wherever a small child happened to be, an adult wasn’t far behind. And they would definitely ask, “Why the hell is a black man crawling around our yard?”

If only he could figure out where he was. And where was Sandi?