We hold hands.
* * * *
Mr. Gray must be in a coma when a trespasser enters Putnam’s house because he doesn’t bark. I finish the last word of POP! and hear a door open and close downstairs, footsteps somewhere in the house, and the common, “Hello?” I’m not sure if the noise is coming from the first floor or the second floor, but I flick off the sounds in the jungle/turtle room, exit the area, and walk down the twenty-one steps to the second floor.
To my surprise, a shadow lurks in the twilight’s purple-blue illumination that seeps into the hallway on the second floor, through the windows at either ends: tall, muscularly shapely, hulking, jockish, mannish. I freeze next to the doorway to the upstairs turtle room, shaking. My legs feel like rubber and my heart tumbles within my chest. Wher
