Fuzzy-socked feet make no sound on the wooden floor. Sylvie’s cat grumbles at me as I shove him aside with my foot. I’ve decided to call him “Fat Cat,” since I can’t understand, much less say, the name Sylvie told me. Stepping over him, I open my bedroom door. My heart does a little cartwheel. I’m opening my door at night, leaving my room! There’s no lock on the other side.
The hallway is dark. Sylvie and émile must be asleep. émile’s thunder-rumble snores fill the air.
The front door opens with a soft squeak and the outer hall light automatically clicks on. I ease the apartment door closed and tiptoe down the hall and up the stairs, feeling my pulse quicken. I don’t know what I expect to find. Maybe a light behind one of the apartment doors upstairs? What would that tell me? I’m not sure, but I do know one thing, as I creep along in my worn-out pjs and green fuzzy socks at three in the morning, I am happy. I like my alone-ness. I like knowing that I can go wherever I choose. I don’t have to ask anyone. I take a deep breath. Even the air is different when you’re by yourself. No one else is there to steal your oxygen.
The old wooden stairs creak under my feet. I pause, trying to tread lightly. Is this nothing more than curiosity, or am I doing this simply because I can? Either way, I’m probably being stupid. All I can say in my defense is that I just want to know. I want to know what those sounds were that I heard coming from an apartment that’s supposed to have been empty for half a century.
As I get closer to the top of the stairs, I hunch over and creep upward, hugging the wall until I’m almost at the top step. I don’t want the automatic lights to turn on.
Skylights let in enough faint, watery moonlight for me to view my surroundings. To the right is the plastic palm tree, part of a fake jungle made of ugly pretend plants. To my left is apartment number 64, obviously the home of that old lady I saw earlier. The sounds are coming from behind that door. I stumble backward down several steps and crouch against the wall, holding my breath.
A door opens and light, shuffling footsteps creep across the hall in the darkness. The automatic light in the upper hallway clicks on. I move up a few steps but keep far enough away that I know I won’t be seen. I hear what sounds like something heavy being moved. A voice grunts with the effort. Finally, I hear the same slow footsteps cross the hall again. A door closes.
Hardly daring to breathe, I inch upward. The little jungle to my right looks different, like stuff has been rearranged, and then behind dusty palm fronds, I see it. A door. I should have known. There’s another apartment on this side of the building, behind the fake foliage, and it must connect to the so-called empty apartment below. Why did someone go inside? And why is the apartment door up here hidden behind a bunch of plastic plants?
I lower myself down to sit on the stairs. This shouldn’t matter to me. It’s none of my business. But, I think, picking lint from my socks, somebody is hiding a secret. I mean, who moves heavy things around like that in the middle of the night?
The automatic light from the hallway above clicks off and I’m left in the dark. It’s kind of creepy. I shiver as my curiosity drains away. Sometimes being alone is scary.
I shrug as I stand, ready to give up the quest. At that moment I discover my mistake. The automatic hall light above clicks back on and I freeze. Only a few feet above my head, I hear shuffling noises from behind the door on the left. Whoever is in there saw that the hall light went back on! Trembling, I watch as a shadow appears behind the frosted glass square in that apartment door. It looms up, distorted and strange, like something out of a horror movie.
So, for the second time today, I run for it. Halfway down the steps, my feet, encased in their slippery socks, fly out from under me and I fall, hard, right on my backside. I bounce down the last few steps on my tailbone. I can barely walk but make it back to Sylvie and émile’s apartment hunched over in a kind of half-crouch, rubbing my sore butt.
émile is still snoring. I quiver, hovering just inside the apartment with the door cracked open, holding my breath, listening for noise in the hall. After a few heartbeats, I hear it, shuffling footsteps that head down the stairs.
Stupid automatic lights.
The one above émile and Sylvie’s door flickered on when I hobbled back in here. That person will see the light and know that someone from this apartment was spying! What should I do? I listen, frozen in place, as the footsteps shuffle closer. I’m about to slam and lock Sylvie and émile’s door, but then I hear a woman’s voice speaking French.
“Occupe-toi de tes oignons,” the voice calls out in a gravelly half-whisper. Mind your own business.
Then shuffling footsteps go back up the steps. I hear a door thump closed from the floor above me.