Unexpected Visitors

"Hello, anyone?" called a small, choked voice from the other side of the glass. "Please, are you there?" the voice quavered, followed by another burst of urgent knocking.

A plain navy blue curtain hung between the window and the sheet of particle board, blocking our view of whoever was on the other side. Without thinking I reached out a hand that felt weighted in concrete to brush the fabric aside. Brian gripped my forearm, perhaps more firmly than he had intended, and pulled me back.

I could tell by the fevered look in his eyes that he was about to admonish me for my haste when another voice howled from somewhere even further beyond the glass, “Thomas! Thomas, please come back!”

Before I knew it I was at the window again, looking out over the particle board at our pale-faced young neighbor perched out on the shingled ledge, his small, dirty hands gripping the window frame. “What are you doing out there?” I called to him with my forehead pressed against the glass.

“Please let us in!” he cried, his wide, watery eyes like those of some poor caged animal. “We can’t go downstairs and…” he broke off with a whimper.

As I began to reassure him, Brian appeared next to me, his baseball bat now replaced with a hammer, and he began clawing the nails from the wood. “Don’t worry Thomas,” I said lamely. “Everything is going to be okay.” Deep down I knew it was a lie, but I honestly didn’t know what else to say.

While Brian worked on freeing the particle board, Thomas started crawling along the ledge back toward the other side of the house. “Wait! Where are you going?” I cried, suddenly very afraid for the boy as i watched him crawl from view.

Once the board was finally pried loose, I leaned my head outside and watched as Thomas reemerged from a window next door. He inched along with the balance and confidence of a child, followed awkwardly by his obviously terrified mother. Although the ledge is nearly three feet wide, it must have seemed much smaller to the woman crawling across it.

From behind me I heard Brian say, “I know we couldn’t have just left him out there, but we’re inviting a whole bunch of trouble here.”

“Yeah,” I said, not turning around, “I get that feeling too.”