Leaving Atlanta Read Online Free PDF Page B

that had
     escaped her barrettes. “Nobody is going to take you out of this house. Nobody is going to hurt my family as long as I’m around.”
    “And anyway,” said Tasha, “we have burglar bars.”
    But burglar bars were not enough to convince Mama and Daddy that the house was safe. When the number of faces on the news
     increased to an even dozen, they told the girls that their routine had to change. After school they were to go to Mrs. Mahmud’s
     house, next door, like they had when they were little kids, and stay there until Mama got off work at five. Under no circumstances
     were they to go into the house alone. Tasha was relieved. Although she had once been especially proud of the silver key, she
     had begun to dread turning it in the door and entering the empty house with DeShaun. After school Tasha, in charge, would
     turn up the thermostat, get their snack from the counter and put it in their room (although they knew better than to eat in
     there). Then, the girls would go to the bathroom, each one sitting on the side of the bathtub keeping watch while the other
     was vulnerable. This completed, they would go to their room, shut the door and put a chair in front of it as an obstacle for
     child murderers who might be lurking in the house waiting for sisters coming home alone.
    When Mrs. Mahmud opened the door for Tasha and DeShaun, the girls looked at each other quizzically. The lime-colored living
     room had been transformed. Before, Mrs. Mahmud’s house had been full of knickknacks that children were forbidden to touch.
     The girls had sat on the living-room couch, still as mummies, until their parents came to retrieve them. Now, however, the
     fragile glass rocking horses had been removed and the carpet covered with a plastic sheath. Children were all over the place
     engaged in rainy-day activities. A group of four or so seventh-graders were playing Monopoly. Roy from across the street was
     in the kitchen frosting brownies with an unsteady hand. His brother, David, read quietly in the corner.
    “Everybody is over here!” DeShaun said, wriggling out of her coat. She was right. They had spent so many afternoons locked
     in their room they hadn’t noticed that none of the neighborhood kids played outside anymore.
    “Let me hang up your coat,” Mrs. Mahmud said, picking DeShaun’s green plaid jacket up from the floor. Tasha was reluctant
     to remove hers. It was a pretty pink one with genuine rabbit fur around the hood and sleeves. Daddy had brought it home one
     day hanging from a little hook above the window of the passenger seat of his car. Tasha had thought that it was dry cleaning
     but the package was opaque. And something about the way he handled it made it clear that this was more than just his gray
     suit. He’d held the garment with its hanger hooked over his index finger, gone into his bedroom and shut the door.
    Tasha had stood in front of the shut door and listened. Mama was in the kitchen banging pots and pans, making all sorts of
     distracting noise. But Tasha knew how to concentrate on what she was listening for. There was the sound of rustling plastic.
     He was unwrapping the thing. She wished that the door had a big keyhole like doors in stories. But real-life doors locked
     with a little round button in the center of doorknobs, and kids’ rooms had no locks at all.
    “Tash,” Daddy called from inside the room.
    How did he know she was out there? She had pretty much accepted that Mama had eyes in the back of her head and even X-ray
     vision sometimes. But not Daddy.
    “Tasha!” he said louder, and she realized that he was just calling her in the regular way. She scampered back to her room
     to answer.
    “Sir?”
    “Come here for a minute.”
    “Okay, let me put my spelling words up.”
    The door was still closed when she reached her parents’ room. Should she knock on it or barge right in like she usually did?
     She tapped lightly on the door frame and went