I know, said LaRose. He opened her hand and put the rock back. It’s a watching rock. You give me the rock if I should watch her. I give you the rock if you should watch her.
She opened her hand. Now the stone was cool and took half the weight off her. Maggie was so tired of sobbing herself sick, and gorping until she could only puke yellow. It was the only way to keep her mother focused on her. Now LaRose seemed very sure. He seemed to know what to do.
But you’re just a kid, said Maggie. How can I trust you?
I’m not just any kid, LaRose said. He waited, thinking, then he trusted Maggie and whispered in her ear.
I got some spirit helpers.
Yeah, right. He made her laugh until she hiccuped. She put her head up and shook her hair out of her face. She was so pretty, with her neat little features, her teeth lined up straight.
You promise you can help?
It’s going to be okay, said LaRose. I know what to do.
He said this firmly, although he still didn’t know exactly what to do besides watch Nola. Sam Eagleboy had told him to sit still and open his mind if he had a problem. LaRose would come back to the grass nest that evening, after Maggie was gone. He would concentrate on the problem. Even if he couldn’t see them, he would ask those people he met in the woods. He would find out what the situation called for.
Two nights later, LaRose startled awake. He sneaked into the bathroom and switched on the light. He flushed the toilet. While the water was running, he eased open the medicine cabinet. There were all kinds of pills in there. Pills in amber plastic bottles. LaRose didn’t know which ones she might use, but tomorrow he’d write them down and get Maggie to find out which ones were poison. Peter usually shaved with his electric shaver, but for special occasions he had a double-edge safety razor. Two packets of Shark double-edge blades were stacked behind an underarm deodorant. LaRose took the razors. He brought them back to his room and hid them underneath his comics. The next day LaRose put the packets of razors in his pocket and went outside. He found an old coffee can and went out to the woods to bury the razors inside of it.
While Nola was outside, he went into the kitchen and removed the chef’s knife. The next night he went downstairs and cleaned out Peter’s tackle box, removing those skinny-bladed supersharp filet knives.
Where’s my chef’s knife? asked Nola the next day.
Nobody knew. But LaRose knew. He was allowing Nola only dull paring knives. He dug a hole with Nola’s small gardening spade and buried the knives, wrapped in a piece of canvas, alongside the coffee can. There was a list growing in his head.
When everyone was gone, LaRose carried an aluminum step-ladder into the house and opened it beside the gun case. He climbed the ladder, groped around the top of the case, found by touch where Peter had secured the key. He untaped the key from behind a decorative piece of molding, then climbed down, and opened the gun case doors. All the guns that Peter kept carefully loaded were fixed in notched stalls.
LaRose did exactly as Peter had taught him. He lifted out the .22 and held the barrel in his left hand, the stock in his right. He pulled the bolt back and down, curved his right hand to catch each bullet as it rolled out. There were three cartridges inside. Always three, Peter’s rule. If you can’t kill it with three bullets, you shouldn’t be shooting a gun. LaRose put each cartridge softly on a pillow. He worked the bolt back and forth a few times, peered into the chamber to make sure it was empty, then put the Remington back exactly as it had been before. LaRose repeated this action with each of the other guns—working most carefully with the one Peter favored. LaRose locked the case, climbed up the ladder to retape the key. He put the ammunition in a glass canning jar, watertight in case he ever had to dig shot, slugs, and bullets up for use. He checked to make sure he’d replaced the guns in exactly the same order, and that he’d left no fingerprints on the glass. He went out to bury the jar in one of his many digging places. He was satisfied.
He threw away pesticides, rat poison, replaced the pills that Maggie said Nola could overdose on with look-alike vitamins. He removed all rope. There was so much rope around—here and there, in Peter’s end-of-the-world stash. LaRose Hefty-bagged and dropped it into the back of the pickup when he knew Peter was getting ready to go to the dump. While he was at it, he tossed in a couple pairs of the sturdy bought-ahead shoes that Maggie hated.
A week after, he woke again thinking of the oven. Was it gas or electric? And how exactly did it work that putting your head inside could kill you? The danger there was maybe low, but then, bleach! Poison, right? Why hadn’t he thought of it?