The Tiny Mansion Page 6

  I was wearing my cleanest shorts and shirt, and in my pocket I had ten dollars Trent had given me, probably not even enough to buy lunch. I also had my phone, which was dead, and my charger, just in case I had a chance to use an outlet.

  Finally, we pulled up to the mall. Vladimir parked away from the rest of the cars, and as we headed for the sprawling building, I could see that he really was a bodyguard. He made sure we stayed close together, and his head rotated constantly so he could watch for danger from all sides.

  “Do you really need a bodyguard?” I asked Blake.

  “It makes my dad feel better,” he said with a shrug. “I think he’s really trying to protect me from myself.”

  Before I could ask what he meant by that odd statement, we pushed through the revolving doors and entered the mall. It was an old-fashioned mall, meaning it was all indoors, and after spending more than a week almost entirely outside, it was a shock. First of all, it was as cold as the Bertholds’ house. But there was also a creek that smelled like chlorine winding its way down the center of the concourse, and small trees looking sadly up at the skylights, and music coming from hidden speakers. Everybody I saw looked so nicely dressed and put-together that I felt ratty and gross.

  Blake held out his hand and said, “Money!”

  Vladimir unzipped one of his tracksuit pockets, removed a fat wallet, and counted out ten twenty-dollar bills.

  Blake left his palm open. Looking at me and Santi, he said, “What are they supposed to spend?”

  Vladimir didn’t sigh or scold him or close the wallet. He just counted out a lot more money and gave it to Blake, who gave Santi and me little stacks of our own.

  While Santi tried to fit all of his in one pocket, I tried to hand mine back to Blake.

  “Blake, I can’t take this,” I said. “I’d never be able to pay you back.”

  He just started walking into the mall. “You don’t have to. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

  When it was truly obvious he wasn’t going to accept it, I put the wad of money in my pocket and hurried after him, feeling a weird mix of things. It was nice of him to give us so much cash, but it also made me jealous, or maybe even mad, that he had so much to throw around. It might not mean anything to him, but what he’d just handed me could feed my family for more than a week.

  Shopping was weird. Santi wanted to buy everything he saw, and for a while he did, with Blake helping him figure out the amounts and cracking up at all the crap he was getting: a Hello Kitty key chain, a stuffed snail, a plastic grabber with jaws in the shape of a dinosaur head, candy jewelry, a Space Force T-shirt, and other junk. We went in and out of stores for clothes and electronics and knickknacks, and I felt dizzy just looking at it all. Every now and then, Blake would hand Vladimir a shirt or something, and Vladimir would pay for it with a credit card, so Blake didn’t even have to dip into the cash in his pocket. And, naturally, Vladimir carried the bags.

  “Come on, buy something,” said Blake to me.

  To make him happy, I bought a couple of paperbacks, even though they didn’t seem like books I really wanted to read. He just looked at them and shrugged.

  Then we arrived at the food court. The smells were mouthwatering because Trent and Leya never let us have junk food. At all. If you haven’t guessed already, Leya is whole-grain, organic, non-GMO, vegetarian, and no-added-sugar, and tries to make us eat the same way.

  Santi turned circles in the middle, like the choices were breaking his brain: burgers, pizza, hot dogs, noodles, sushi, ice cream, and more.

  “Are you guys hungry?” asked Blake.

  Were we hungry? We were always hungry—and now we had the opportunity to eat food loaded with salt, sugar, grease, fat, and other important food groups Leya didn’t allow.

  At first, I was just going to get a slice of pizza with sausage and pepperoni, but I was still hungry after eating that, so then I got an order of General Tso’s chicken and a Coke. I still had a little room in my stomach, so I topped it off with an Oreo milkshake.

  Santi, meanwhile, had accepted Blake’s challenge to go “around the world” and get something from every restaurant at the food court. With Blake and Vladimir helping, he covered two trays with cheeseburgers, pizza, noodles, sushi, tacos, gyros—and of course orange soda, donuts, churros, and baklava. Even though he’s a stocky little guy, he’s only five, so obviously he couldn’t come close to eating it all. By the time he took a couple bites of everything he’d ordered, he was completely stuffed.

  It made me sad to see all that food go to waste, but Blake thought it was hilarious.

  “Are you sure you don’t want something else, Santi?” he asked, even though the gnome was leaning back in his chair and trying not to move, like he was afraid his belly was about to pop like an overinflated balloon. “You didn’t get any ice cream.”

  Santi’s face was pale, and the words ice cream made him tremble, but still, he turned his head toward the ice cream place like a soldier accepting his mission.

  “You are not getting ice cream,” I told him. “Blake, he’s had enough.”

  Blake shrugged, his go-to gesture. I hadn’t known him long, but if I’d had to describe him to someone else, I probably would have given them a visual glossary of his nonverbal vocabulary—shrugs, squints, raised eyebrows, blank looks—plus a list of a few one- and two-syllable words. If any of the mall shops sold word-a-day calendars, I was definitely going to buy him the latest one so he could learn to express himself better.

  After clearing our table—that is, after Vladimir and I cleared our table while Blake walked away and Santi followed him—we wandered around some more. Santi walked like he’d swallowed a watermelon and was afraid it was going to fall out at any moment. I couldn’t find the word-a-day calendar, or anything else I really had to have, and I was starting to feel cold.

  “Blake, are we going back soon?” I asked.

  He looked over his shoulder at Vladimir, who had fallen behind and was checking out a tracksuit on a mannequin in a store window.

  A grin spread slowly across Blake’s face—I couldn’t decide if it made him look mischievous or evil.

  “Nope,” he said, pushing me and Santi into the nearest store.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Mall Runners

  “Follow me,” said Blake, not giving us much choice because he was pulling our arms. We were in a store selling nutritional supplements, with plastic tubs and jars and pouches of powders and pills and other astronaut food piled everywhere.

  I shook him off. “Blake, what are you doing?”

  “Just trust me—and hurry.”

  Even though I had absolutely zero reasons to trust Blake, something about the weirdness of the day—and the fact that we had a bodyguard, and had been spending cash like it was Monopoly money—made my brain go blank. I followed him and Santi did, too.

  We ran to the back of the store, past the counter, and into an area that was obviously for employees only. A guy who was as big as Vladimir and wore a muscle shirt so you could see his bulging, veiny arms looked up from his phone and said, “Excuse me, little dudes, but what—”

  “We’re leaving,” said Blake without slowing down.

  We went into a stockroom and then pushed through a door I thought might lead outside but instead opened onto a long gray hallway. We piled into the hall, and the door slammed shut behind us.

  “Um, Blake, what is going on?” I asked.

  His eyes were sparkling. It was the first time I’d seen him look happy or excited.

  “We’re playing a game,” he said. “It’s a way to test Vladimir and keep his skills sharp.”

  “And he knows we’re doing this?” I asked.

  Blake nodded. “Totally.”

  Before I could ask any more questions, he started running.

  I went after him, but right away had to slow d
own so Santi could keep up. He had never been fast, and his trip around the world in the food court hadn’t added any miles per hour, so he waddled along as best he could, holding his belly like a bowl of soup he was trying not to spill.

  We were obviously in a service hallway. Each door we passed was labeled with the name of a different store, and signs and arrows showed the way to garbage dumpsters, loading docks, and the mall security office. I was tempted to run off to security and report my crazy friend.

  Wait—was he a friend? There was no point jumping to conclusions.

  After we passed a half dozen doors, Blake stopped in front of one labeled SALLY SWEET’S SUGAR CELLAR and pulled the door handle. It was locked, and there was a keypad next to it.

  While a wheezing Santi started pushing buttons as though he could guess the right combination, Blake pounded on the door and yelled, “I forgot the code!”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Vladimir will be right behind us,” he said. “We can’t stay here.”

  The door cracked open, and a surprised-looking teenage girl peeked out. “Who are you guys?” she asked, tucking her blond hair into her pink visor.

  “We got stuck out here by accident,” lied Blake. “We just need to get back into the mall.”

  “Okay, I guess,” said the girl, opening the door wide and letting us in.

  We walked through the store, with the girl trailing behind us to make sure we didn’t cause any trouble. Normally, the sight of wall-to-wall rainbow-colored candy assortments would have made Santi freak out with excitement, but this time he kept his eyes straight ahead like he was trying to walk through a forest without getting eaten by wolves.

  When we got to the front, Blake looked left and right before starting across the concourse. “Vladimir’s back in that hallway, with no idea where we—”

  And then he froze. Because Vladimir was not back in the service hallway. He was stepping out from behind an artificial waterfall and heading toward us. His expression was a mix of smug satisfaction and weary resignation.

  “Run!” yelled Blake.

  “But he caught us,” I said.

  “Not yet, he hasn’t!” said Blake, taking off. When we didn’t follow right away, he turned back and said, “Come on, he wants us to make it hard for him.”

  Santi trotted after Blake. Either he was getting over his stomach bloat or Vladimir was big and scary enough to make him buy into the game.

  Was it a game? All I knew was that there was no way I was going to stand there and let Vladimir catch me if Blake and Santi were getting away.

  Shoppers stood and stared as we weaved through the crowd, crossed the concourse, and went into a store selling picture frames. Once again, we ran into the back—ignoring the salesperson shouting, “Hey, you can’t go in there!”—and went out into a service hallway. Staring at the long row of electronically locked doors, I wondered if Blake’s trick would work again.

  But this time, he didn’t knock on a door.

  Because a small electric cart was sitting right in front of us. It had two seats up front and cleaning supplies in the back; mall staff must have used it to get around.

  “Get in!” yelled Blake as he climbed behind the wheel.

  Santi pulled himself into the passenger seat while I jumped in back with the mops, rags, and bottles of cleaning fluid.

  Vladimir threw open the back door of the picture-frame shop just as Blake stepped on the accelerator and we shot forward. The manny was faster than he looked—he may have been a man-mountain, but he had long legs—and he pounded after us, his outstretched hands inches away from the back of the cart. If he grabbed on, I was sure he would dig in his heels and drag us to a halt.

  But gradually, we pulled away. Just before we turned a corner, I saw him stop with his hands on his hips and a thoughtful look on his face. I guessed he was already trying to predict our next move.

  I wished him luck, because I certainly had no idea what we were doing.

  “Whee!” said Santi as Blake wrenched the wheel to take us around the corner, making the cart go up on two wheels and almost throwing me out of the back.

  Then, as Blake slammed the brakes to avoid a head-on collision with a parked, tank-like floor polisher, Santi changed his mind and said, “I’m scared.”

  A man wearing a uniform and a name badge did a double take as we pulled out to pass the floor polisher. “Hey! Stop!”

  But Blake accelerated again, racing the next hundred yards to a large elevator. He drove inside, then leaned out of the cart and pushed the button for the second floor. As the doors closed, I saw the mall worker take a radio off his belt and talk into it, staring at us the whole time.

  “He’s prob’ly calling the police,” said Santi.

  “We should let Vladimir catch us and get out of here,” I told Blake, thinking this whole thing had gone too far.

  “The more complications, the better,” said Blake. “We can’t make this too easy. He wants us to try to escape. Otherwise his job would be boring. Remember, he’s trained as a bodyguard, not a babysitter.”

  “I thought you said your parents hired him to protect you from yourself,” I said, remembering what he’d told me earlier.

  “But how can he do that, if he doesn’t know what I’m capable of?” asked Blake.

  Now I was really confused.

  The doors opened on a second-floor hallway that looked almost identical to the first-floor hallway. Blake drove out and parked the cart.

  “We’d better ditch this, because they’ll be looking for it,” he said.

  The door nearest us was unlabeled and didn’t have a keypad. Blake was ready to push through, but when he saw we weren’t following him, he stopped and turned around.

  “You’re not quitting, are you?” he asked accusingly.

  “I’m just not totally clear on what we’re doing, Blake,” I said. “It doesn’t feel like you’re helping Vladimir protect you—it feels like you’re messing with him.”

  “How could I mess with him? He’s a mixed martial arts champion and a war hero in his native Exurbistan. He appreciates a challenge.”

  “I think he’s probably just annoyed.”

  While Blake and I were arguing, Santi was looking around like he expected Vladimir to smash through the wall and tackle all three of us.

  “Come on, Dagmar,” he whined. “Let’s go before Vladimir gets here.”

  “Maybe you’re just not very good at this,” said Blake with a sigh.

  Suddenly, my blood felt like lava, and my head felt like it was going to pop off and explode.

  Not very good? Not very GOOD?!? How dare this rich kid tell me I wasn’t good at running away and hiding—me, Dagmar, who’d sneaked away from dozens of watchmen and guard dogs with Trent.

  Fortunately, my head didn’t pop off.

  “Fine,” I said through gritted teeth. “We’ll just see who he catches first.”

  And then I pushed through the door and started sprinting, leaving both of them behind.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Mall Rollers

  I didn’t get off to the best start: as soon as the door closed behind me, my feet got tangled and I fell, sliding a good two yards along the highly polished floor. Discombobulated (upset or confused) but still aggravated (angry or displeased), I scrambled to my feet and kept going.

  I was in a hallway that led past the restrooms and a drinking fountain to the upper level of the mall. On this floor, stores lined a balcony that looked down on the shoppers below, and in the distance I could see escalators in a large central atrium. I turned right, mainly because there were fewer shoppers and stores that way. Up here, not all the storefronts had stores inside. Some of them were covered by big wrappers with messages like DREAM RETAIL LOCATION—1,800 SF and FUTURE BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY!

  Which gave me an ide
a: Instead of running around the crowded parts of the mall, why not just hole up somewhere no one ever went? It would be like the time I won a game of hide-and-seek by wedging myself inside the cabinet under the sink until all my friends went home. Although that was kind of a Pyrrhic victory.

  PYRRHIC VICTORY: a battle won at too great a cost to the victor.

  While I considered my options, Blake and Santi came out of the hallway. I pressed myself against the wall until they headed off in the opposite direction. Once they were out of sight, I started checking the empty stores.

  The first one was closed off by plate-glass windows and a locked glass door, so it was out of the question. The second had a steel mesh gate going from ceiling to floor—it was locked, too.

  But the third one, for some reason, was just closed off by the vinyl banners themselves. Slipping behind them, I found myself in a completely empty store. The counters, cash registers, and shelving had all been removed. I would have thought an abandoned shop would be a great source of unobtanium, but there wasn’t even a chair to sit on.

  I looked it over in the dim light filtering in from the mall, wondering if I really wanted to hide out until Blake and Santi got caught—it would have been a lot more fun to run around outside. Then I saw an electrical outlet.

  I sat down on the floor, took my phone and charger out of my pocket, and plugged in. I didn’t even know if the electricity would be turned on, because in most abandoned places the power gets turned off when the bills stop getting paid.

  My phone battery was completely drained, so it took a couple minutes, but eventually it started to charge. A few minutes later, I turned it on, and the phone started working.

  It completely blew up with notifications. For the first few days after we’d left, Imani, Olivia, and our friends Hailey and Nevaeh had spammed me with a zillion questions: Are you there yet? Are you there yet?