v.
Nothing. First, he was there, plain to see, but then he became part of nothing. Through the window, the boys watched Mr. Keenan climb over the rocks chasing shadows that were not there. His coat blowing in the wind like a loose sail, he stopped to scan the landscape, study the ocean, the rocks, and then launch himself, tacking to the northeast and falling off the edge of the visible world. The glass shielded them from the outside, but Nick could see in the noonday light the waves rolling in, crashing silently against the rocks, the clouds banked in the sky, and the bareness of December. He shivered where he stood, but his friend was placid as a statue. In a few moments, Jack Peter stopped staring and walked across the kitchen to his papers scattered on the table. The chill in the room gave way to enveloping warmth as the furnace kicked in, and when the air blew through the vents, the smell of the balsam Christmas greens perfumed the whole house. Shortly after Mr. Keenan had disappeared from view, Nick asked if they should go look for him.
“He’ll be back, don’t worry.”
“But we’re all alone,” Nick said.
Jack Peter looked up from his work. “I said don’t worry. I know what’s going on. He’s just out on a hunt, but he’ll never catch it. He’s not smart enough.”
They passed an innocent hour talking about monsters. For each of his drawings, Nick had a story—the first time he had seen Frankenstein on the late late show, the mummy from a comic book, Harry Potter facing down the Dementors.
“Those were scary,” said Jack Peter. “But I know how to make a real monster.”
Nick laughed at his assertion. “Okay, big shot, how do you make a monster?”
“I can’t show you,” he said with a laugh. “You can’t do it.”
The big clock on the kitchen wall scraped away the time, and Nick grew more concerned by Mr. Keenan’s absence each time he stared at its face. He had not realized just how much he depended on having an adult in the house when he was alone with Jack Peter. That boy was unpredictable and possibly dangerous. Wary as a hare, Nick twitched and watched for signs.
Early in the afternoon, Jack Peter moved without a word to the refrigerator and took out the milk and cocoa syrup. With mechanical precision, he poured the milk into a pot and set it atop the gas burner on the stove, which flamed to life with a few clicks. He watched and waited, his face as expressionless as a stone, and Nick joined him, the lads hovering above the hot pot like a pair of witches at a steaming cauldron. The scalded milk hissed when he poured it into the mugs, and the aroma of chocolate bloomed and made them hungry. They raided the refrigerator and the pantry for their lunch. Jack Peter popped frozen mini pizzas in the toaster oven and Nick cracked open a fresh bucket of pretzels. While they were waiting for the pizzas to cook, they layered saltines with peanut butter into towers as tall as their mouths would stretch, laughing as they ate them, spraying crumbs across the room. For their second lunch, Nick peeled himself an orange and Jack Peter munched on a leg of leftover roast chicken.
After their meal, the stuffed boys waddled into the living room and nested like a couple of pashas. Jack Peter flung his legs across the arm of his father’s easy chair and stared at the blank ceiling, moving his finger from time to time as though drawing. Perched next to the Christmas tree, Nick watched the glass ornaments catch the slant light and sparkle on their hooks. Silence settled inside the house, broken only by the occasional bark from the border collie across the way in the Quigleys’ backyard. They had fallen into inertia, the heaviness in their small stomachs weighing them to their spots. Nick patted his stomach and burped, and they giggled at how it interrupted the silence. Jack Peter tried to copy his friend but his belch was loud as a grown man’s. He fell into a fit of laughter that was too loud and went on too long.
“Are you sure your father is coming back?”
“He’ll return.”
“And your mother’s just out shopping? When will she come home?”
“She’ll be back. You worry too much.”
“What are we going to do? We ought to do something.”
“Nothing to be done.” Jack Peter pulled a magazine from the rack by the chair and flipped through it, pausing only when a photograph caught his eye.
“Shouldn’t we go look for your father?”
He did not glance at Nick but kept thumbing the pages. “I’m not going out there with you.”