The Fortress of Clouds Read online

  TV applause crashed in waves from behind the apartment doors, which meant it was now almost six o’clock. Their mother would be waiting for them, asking them why their homework wasn’t finished, why the carpet wasn’t vacuumed, why the carrots weren’t peeled, why there was a new dent in the wall, why the place smelled like smoke.

  Every evening was the same. Their mother would slam the door, run her hands through her oil-black hair, and let out a long, exhausted sigh. Then came the usual stuff about the nastiness. It was a gritty and cruel world, and the children were so lucky to be high above it all, “safe from that sucking whirlpool of anarchy.” Groceries would be plopped on the kitchen counter and a frigid glass of white wine would be downed before the day’s stories were fleshed out of her sighs. She had been mugged again. A bomb had exploded in her office building. She had seen a gunfight on the other side of the street. Gangs were roaming the streets, abducting children to work in slave labor camps, and to do other disgusting atrocities she would spare them from knowing about.

  Once, she told them how she had been followed home by two men who obviously had her confused with someone else. “They trailed me for ten blocks, down alleys, in and out of buildings,” she said breathlessly before taking another slug of wine. “I waited in a restaurant washroom for twenty minutes--that’s why I’m so late--and they were still there when I came out. I finally lost them by jumping on a bus just as it was leaving.” The other three would listen with wide eyes to the nastiness stories. But something had recently changed in Ben. He couldn’t bring himself to believe her anymore. The stories were too much like movies to be true.

  Just before they reached the stairwell door, Hannah skipping and whistling in front of Ben and Alison, a deep voice bellowed at them from behind the door of apartment 1214.

  “You kids like giving old women heart attacks? Is that it, eh?” The door sprang open. Mrs. Brodsky reared up bear-like. She still clutched her intruder defense system: the hammer in one hand, the screwdriver in the other. “You listen here, you . . . you filthy parasites. I hear you laughing.” Bits of spit and food shot out of her mouth. “I’m going straight to Mr. Sanchez. You heard me, the landlord! And let me tell you little brats something. When he hears how you four little snots have been treating me, running around like this, giving me heart attacks, he’s going to throw the lot of you out onto the street. You’re not even supposed to be living here. This is a seniors building where civilized people can rest in peace.”

  Ben was just about to tell the old hag where to go when Alison spoke up.

  “Mrs. Brodsky,” said Alison, “we weren’t trying to frighten you. We’re sorry. We’ll try to be more quiet in the future.” Even though Alison was a year younger than Ben, she had always been calmer and more mature. Ben never saw her lose her temper like he did. There was never a molten aggression that overtook her. There were no dents in the walls put there by her fists.

  “Well I don’t think that’s quite good enough, you disgusting urchin,” spat the old woman. Her eyes were blazing. “You dirty pests have bothered me long enough. End of the line.”

  “Hey, don’t talk to her like that, you miserable cow,” yelled Ben. But Alison had him by the arm and was dragging him away down the hall.

  “Just let it go, Ben. It’s not worth getting into a fight over,” said Alison. “She’s just a crazy old woman. Besides, we need to find Thomas.”

  “Hey, little girl, I heard that!” yelled Mrs. Brodsky. “You’re just like your filthy mother, aren’t you? Well, let me tell you about your mother, little girl. I’m not done with you yet. You may think she’s all goodness and caring, but I’ve seen her. Dressing up in slimy outfits. I know what she’s up to. Filthy behavior. Maybe I should be calling the police instead of the landlord? What do you think about that? Maybe I should be telling them all about Nora Graham and how she has four kids crammed into a tiny apartment and how they never go to school?” Behind her, the TV spouted happy drivel, oblivious to the old woman’s spite.

  “We’re home schooled, Mrs. Brodksy,” explained Alison. She was biting her lip.

  “But your mother’s never home to teach you, so how can that be?” The old woman’s face blossomed into an evil smile.

  “Mrs. Brodsky, our mother works very hard to be able to afford a place for us to live, and--”

  “Yes, that’s all well and good, little girl. If you only knew what kind of person your mother really is, I see her--”

  “Listen, old woman,” said Ben, “why don’t you just mind your own goddamned business, okay?” Ben couldn’t contain himself. His heart was burning. “Our mother can raise us however the hell she wants. So just stay out of it, you fat cow.” Ben stood there breathing hard, feeling his lungs rise and fall. His sisters looked at him as if he had just sprouted a second head.

  “Ben, don’t . . .” squeaked Alison.

  “What?” Ben stood defiant. Despite hating all the things their mother made them do each day--the chores, the cleaning, the cooking, the school work--he couldn’t listen to Mrs. Brodsky insult her.

  Mrs. Brodsky was silent for a few seconds, but then a small smile curled the edge of her mouth. She walked over to the phone a few feet inside her apartment, picked it up, and dialed. She watched the children as she waited for an answer. The TV continued its laughtrack in the background.

  “Yes, I would like to report a case of child neglect. Yes, that’s right. Four children being kept inside a small apartment like animals. And their mother hasn’t registered them with the Children’s Facilities. Her name? Nora Graham. About five foot eight. Black hair, glasses. It’s the Del Amo apartment building on Vistarosa, apartment number 1003. Yes, that’s right. No, thank you very much. I hope they manage to start again in one of those Pre-employment Centers.” She hung up the phone with precision.

  Hannah broke free from Alison’s clutches, walked up to Mrs. Brodsky, and, without saying a word, squirted her right in the eye with the water gun.

  “Eh! Get back here!” yelled Mrs. Brodsky. But the three of them were already galloping away down the hall. “You just wait!”

  “Hannah, you shouldn’t have done that,” said Alison. “She can get us in a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t care,” said Hannah. “She deserved it.”

  Ben saw Alison try to hide a small, impressed smile.

  As they descended back down the stairs to their own floor where their mother would be angrily waiting, Ben let his sisters go on ahead. They hadn’t done their chores. Their homework had been left in a car crash on the kitchen table. And now there was the possibility of a police visit. Ben told himself he didn’t care. He tried not to think about it, tried to force it out of his brain.

  He listened as the girls, now two flights below him, sang in unison as they skipped down the stairs.

  Ya think ya got me,

  But wait till ya see,

  Ya ‘aint gonna win this girl,

  She gonna take YOU for the whirl!

  At the last rhyme they both shrieked in unison. Ben smiled to himself. He was proud his two sisters got along so well, in spite of their age difference: Alison was thirteen, and Hannah, along with her twin, Thomas, was eleven. Why did Thomas get on Ben’s nerves so easily? Maybe it was because Ben was an old fourteen and Thomas was a young eleven. Besides, Thomas was annoying to everyone. Their mother even had to calm the little turd down when he got going about some new piece of fascinating information he’d found in a book.

  Ben lingered at the landing in the stairwell, scuffing his feet in the grime. He wasn’t ready to go back just yet. The window above him was high and he had to stand on his toes to see out. He squinted his eyes tightly, trying to make out someone, anyone, in the nearby apartment buildings. There had to be other kids out there.

  Every year or two the family moved to a new apartment building, but they were all pretty much the same. Clotheslines hanging from balconies, stained walls, hallways that smelled like boiled fish. Each year their mother lost her job or f
ound a better one in another town. She explained that there was no use in enrolling them in school, that they’d only have to move again.

  Down on the street a line of scraggly palm trees poked picket fence-like into the distance. A sporadic flow of cars disappeared behind the nearby buildings like bugs scurrying through the bleached skeleton of a long dead beast. Overhead, a plane arced a dusty chalkline across the evening sky. The city moved like a clock’s gears. But no guns, no gangs, no boogeymen.

  Ben couldn’t say what had planted the seed of doubt, but he now knew with certainty that their mother’s stories were one giant fib. The nastiness didn’t exist. When he was younger, he had always pictured it like smoke swirling around their building, some sort of scaly green monster that could seep in through the windows.

  But as he watched the street below, the warnings returned. You cannot ever leave the building. Ben tried to make them stop, tried to tell himself he didn’t believe her anymore. You’ll be eaten up in seconds. He was too old for that stuff now. That kind of talk was for Thomas and Hannah. The nastiness is everywhere out there. Did she think she could just keep the four of them inside forever?

  Her voice kept echoing in his head. There’s danger lurking on every street corner. I have to protect you the best I can. That’s what I was put on this planet to do. The four of you are all I’ve got. It was all made up. Ben knew she was lying to them. And it was time to find out for himself, to prove that she was tricking them. Tomorrow he would--

  Alison’s voice shot up the stairwell in an insistent, shouted whisper. “Ben! Ben, get down here.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m coming.” Ben tore his gaze away from the scene outside and jogged down the stairs to where Alison was waiting. “Well, what’s the matter? Mom mad about our crappy homework again?”

  “No, it’s Thomas--he’s gone!”

  Chapter Three: One of These Days I’m Just Gonna Go

  Alison’s eyes glowed with worry. There was no use asking her if she’d checked the whole apartment. It was so small a mouse couldn’t hide for more than a few seconds.

  “Where was the last place you saw him, Ben?”

  “He was in the lobby with us when we started the game, then, I, uh . . .”

  “You mean you never saw him after the start of the game? You just left him behind?”

  “Oh, come on, Al, it’s not that big of a--”

  “Ben, you know you were supposed to keep an eye on him!”

  One day, Ben was going to tie Thomas to the living room couch. How could he be responsible for that wandering fool? Their mother had once said with a laugh and a shake of her head that Thomas would follow a trail of crumbs to the very gates of hell.

  “So I lost him. Who cares?” Ben said, and then immediately regretted his bravado. “Is Mom home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Does she know he’s gone?”

  “I don’t think she’s noticed. Look, you go find him and I’ll keep her distracted.”

  “Right, I’ll retrace my steps and--” But Alison was already back inside the apartment.

  “Ben and Thomas are just helping Mr. Sanchez fix his vacuum, Mom,” announced Alison. “They’ll be back in a sec.”

  Ben ran back up to the twelfth floor where the game had ended. There was no one there, not even a peep from Mrs. Brodsky, who was probably back soaking up the cheap glamour of her TV. The eleventh. Nothing. Back to their own floor, the tenth. Nothing. Down through the floors: the ninth, the eighth, the abandoned seventh, the sixth, the fifth, all the way down to the lobby where the four of them had gathered at the start of the game, everyone in silly costumes except for Thomas, who, despite being Hannah’s eleven-year-old twin and the one who thought up all the games, refused to dress up in such a juvenile manner.

  The lobby was as lifeless and dusty as all the other floors. The once-white floor was crisscrossed with scrapes and scratches brought into relief by the light of the setting sun. Del Amo Apartments 3876 Vistarosa Blvd was projected down on the floor in two-foot reversed shadow letters. Ben passed the bronze plaque that greeted everyone who entered the building. Built with Pride by the 15th Brigade of the National Restructuring Campaign of 2026. Putting America Back on its Feet. The hot emptiness pressed against him and made it almost difficult to breathe.

  Thomas wasn’t there.

  Ben put his hand against the glass and smeared an oily mess down the door, adding to their collection of greasy x-ray hand prints. Ben and Alison’s at the four foot level, Thomas and Hannah’s about eight inches further down. Outside, a man in shiny red pants pivoted down the sidewalk, his head submerged under giant webglasses. An old woman pushed a shopping cart brimming with empty bottles. Clumps of plastic garbage skipped by in the hot wind.

  But no Thomas.

  Had he left? Had Thomas seen something outside, and then . . . Maybe this was it. Maybe Thomas’s curiosity had at last got the better of him. Ben stood there and let it sink in. How would he explain this to their mother? Incomplete chores were one thing. Losing Thomas was a little different.

  As Ben turned to leave, his eye was caught by a ring of darkness around the basement door. The door was ajar. And lying in the tiny splinter of light let in by the open door was Thomas’s green water gun. Ben stepped into the void and instinctively started waving his hands in front of him to bat away the cobwebs. Teetering piles of sagging boxes were piled to the roof, towering over him in the darkness.

  “Thomas! Where are you? I know you’re in here somewhere.” Ben didn’t know for sure, but he didn’t want to deal with the thought of Thomas wandering out into the streets. “You’d better come out right now ‘cause you’re in big trouble!” No answer. Ben continued forward, just waiting to be enveloped in a big, sticky spider web. Further ahead, peeking out from behind a haphazard pile of moldy lumber, Ben glimpsed a mop of brown hair. A round face looked back at Ben.

  “Shhhhh.” Thomas put his finger to his lips and motioned Ben over to where he had his head pressed against the wall. “Here, Ben, just be quiet. Listen to this.” Thomas pointed at the pipe in front of him. It was gray, ten inches in diameter, and stained with years of mineralization.

  “My god, Thomas, you are in so much trouble. Do you know what I’m going to--”

  “Shhh. Just listen.”

  “Thomas, get back upstairs right now. Mom is going to murder you.”

  But Thomas put his hand over his Ben’s mouth and pressed his head to the cool pipe. “Listen, Ben.”

  “What? What is it?”

  “God, just be quiet for one minute. Close your eyes. Listen.”

  “I don’t hear anything, Thomas. Come on, we don’t have time for this.” Ben grabbed his brother by the shirt collar and tried to wrench him away.

  “Shhh. Just wait, Ben,” Thomas pleaded in a whiny voice as he swatted Ben’s hand away. “There are voices down there.”

  “No, I don’t hear anything, Thomas, and if you don’t come with me right now, I’m going to go get Mom myself and bring her down here to get you.”

  Thomas stared at Ben and shook his head. “Ohmigod, Ben, you’re such a tool, why can’t you just listen and--” But Ben was already dragging Thomas back through the piles of boxes and garbage.

  Minutes later, as they huffed their way back up the stairs, Thomas had already forgotten their argument, which was typical Thomas. The energy of the quest, the experiment, and the mystery overruled him.

  “What do you think is down there, Ben? I think that big pipe carries water, coming up from the water mains to all the apartments.”

  “Thomas, could you just shut up for one--”

  “There has to be an access point somewhere. We should be able to find a way down somehow. And here’s the best part--you know how Mom tells us we can never leave the building when she’s not here? Well, she never said anything about going under it, did she, huh? Huh?”

  Two more floors to go. The sky pulsed pink through the high window at the landing. Silver fingers of cloud wafted
like tendrils of algae in a river.

  “Sure, Thomas, whatever you want.” The last thing Ben needed was Thomas wound up on some sort of discovery mission. They had already found themselves enough trouble for one day. At the final landing before their floor, Ben watched the galaxy-like brown swirl of hair on the top of Thomas’s head as he sauntered uncaring up the final steps. Ben stopped. He needed a minute to himself to sort things out. Thomas was still blabbering, unaware Ben had let him go on ahead. For some reason, and he never really knew when these things happened--maybe it was an annoying brother, an insulting old woman, or the deep, empty pull of the evening sky out the window--a wall of fury rose in Ben. He kicked the wall as hard as he could. When he withdrew his foot, the wall bore the fruit of an orange-sized hole. He felt his chest heave in and out. Whatever it was he was feeling was better now.

  As they hurried through the apartment door, they were immersed in an ocean of smells. There was the dusty whiff of old books read so many times that the words were at risk of coming unglued from the pages and flying out the window. There was the must of clothes continually being passed down, and some that seemed to fit them all simultaneously. There was a cabbagey odor of simple foods used in endless permutations, stretched and coaxed into culinary acrobatics. And slicing through everything was the acrid thread of foreignness their mother brought home with her each evening. Something like a mix of hairspray and car exhaust.

  She didn’t even look up at them over her work papers. Walking behind her, Ben took quick notice of the black hair curling around her ears. Mrs. Brodsky’s phone call to the police came thundering back. Nora Graham. About five foot eight, black hair, glasses, four kids. His stomach sank. Should he just tell her right away they should be expecting a visit from the police?