Edenville Owls by Robert B. Parker

us heard anything else.
    I put my mouth next to Joanie’s ear.
    “There’s boards on the floor,” I whispered. “To walk on. Be sure to stay on them.”
    “Can we see in there?” Joanie whispered.
    “There’s a window at the other end too,” I said. “Once we get in, we should stay still until our eyes adjust. Then I think we can see.”
    “Okay.”
    I still felt shaky inside. But there was something about being with Joanie that made me less scared. I wondered why. If we got caught, she couldn’t fight Reverend Weirdo any better than I could. But I realized suddenly that I couldn’t do this without her. Not with the reverend downstairs. I didn’t know why that was. And I couldn’t be thinking about that now.
    I’ll figure it out later.
    We stood quietly in the dark and waited until we could see. I was right. There was enough light coming in the front window from the streetlights, and enough light coming in the back window from the moon and stars and whatever, that we could see enough to move around.
    I knew there were four rooms below us. Kitchen and dining room in the back. Bedroom and living room in the front. I pointed toward the right front corner of the attic and we went along the boards to the space above the living room like we were walking on a bomb. We stopped above the living room. We could hear people talking. Both of us lay down carefully. There was insulation between the rafters. As carefully as I could, I picked some up and moved it until the back of the ceiling showed. We barely breathed as we lay there…and we could hear.
    “You have no right to keep a boy from his father,” Tupper said.
    “And you have no right to take him from his mother,” Miss Delaney said.
    “He belongs to me,” Tupper said. “He belongs moreover to the movement.”
    “Which is why I won’t share him with you,” Miss Delaney said. “He belongs to no movement.”
    “You will bring him up to be a whimpering one-world liberal fool,” Tupper said.
    “I will not permit him to be turned into one of those pathetic little Nazis in your youth group,” Miss Delaney said.
    I could hear footsteps. It sounded like Tupper was pacing.
    “I want my son,” Tupper said kind of thoughtfully.
    “We’ve had this conversation before, Richard…” Miss Delaney said.
    “Don’t call me Richard,” Tupper said.
    “I don’t care if you call yourself Batman,” Miss Delaney said. “I married Richard Krauss. How did you turn into Oswald Tupper?”
    “There was a war,” he said.
    “There was,” Miss Delaney said. “But it didn’t turn everyone into…whatever you are.”
    “There are ways to make you tell me,” Tupper said.
    “And there are police to be called,” Miss Delaney said.
    “And I tell them that you are a divorced woman with a child? How long do you keep your job when that gets out?”
    “You won’t do that,” she said. “You’re too afraid.”
    “What am I afraid of?” Tupper said.
    “I don’t know. But you don’t want the police involved any more than I do.”
    Nobody said anything for a moment. Then footsteps, and then it sounded like he slapped her.
    “I will do what I must to keep you from the boy,” Miss Delaney said. “You bastard.”
    We heard what sounded like another slap.
    Then Tupper said, “Put that down.”
    “No,” she said. “I will not let you hit me again.”
    “You haven’t the guts,” Tupper said, “to stab anyone with that.”
    “If you try to hit me again,” Miss Delaney warned, “I will use it.”
    “You bitch,” Tupper said. “You hid that in here before I came, didn’t you.”
    “You’ve hit me before,” Miss Delaney said.
    It was quiet below us for a bit.
    Then Tupper said, “Perhaps an anonymous letter to the school board…”
    “If I have any trouble with the school board or anyone else, I tell everyone about you.”
    Again it was quiet. Then there were footsteps and we heard her apartment front door open.
    Tupper said, “If you ever tell