UNDERCOVER on the TITANIC (book 1)

Part 4 - Holey Socks

The next day, I hurried warily to and from school but I saw no sign of my kidnappers. There were no Canada geese and Triple Oh and the Charlie Chaplin man were also absent. Toronto had returned to what passed for normal. 

It was late afternoon when I got back to the apartment building. Our neighbour, Mrs Kozlovski, was sitting in her motorized wheelchair in front of the elevators admiring her immaculate copper coloured wig in the wall mirror. The wig was new but she was ancient . . . probably older than an Egyptian mummy. A genuine twig broomstick stuck upright in a holster behind her and a sleek black cat was curled up on her lap next to a paper sack. 

'Hi Jeff. Am I ever glad to see you,' she chuckled? 'I've been waiting a coon's age for an elevator. I'm sure our dreadful building manager has shut half of them off. Push the button again, will you, please, sweetheart?' 

'My name is Ziff, Mrs Kozlovski.'

'I'm sorry.  Didn't I say . . . Jeff?'

The elevator car arrived a few seconds later and she expertly backed her chair through the doors. 'Would you push thirteen, for me, sweetheart?' She lived, on the same floor as us, in the next-door apartment.

I grinned at her. 'There's no number thirteen button, Mrs Kozlovski. We live on the fourteenth floor.'

'Yes, I know, I know, it's right between the twelfth and fifteenth but it's still the thirteenth floor. We witches have to keep up appearances you know.'

On the way up, she chattered about boiling up a cauldron of crab apple jelly. 'I stole these apples from the neighbour's tree,' she confessed. 'The sugar is going to take a chunk out of my pension this month but is it ever yummy. I'll give you a portion when it's ready.' 

Inside our apartment, Pacman was trotting around sniffing at a roomful of green garbage bags and Grandma was reading a small book. That was odd. I'd never seen her reading before. 'You're late!' she snapped irritably. 'I got tired of waiting for you to throw the junk out, so I started excavating your bedroom. You really are the laziest boy! We've got to be out of here at the end of the month, not next year!'

I ran to my bedroom. My careful collection of early-reader books was gone! I ran back to the living room. 'You can't throw out my books!' I shouted. 'Dad used to read them to me when I was little. They're not junk!'

'The Monster at the End of this Book,' Grandma snorted as she threw the book at my head. 'I'm not renting a sixteen-wheeler to haul this junk to Ottawa. Get rid of it! It's about time you stopped day dreaming and started getting some exercise. When I was your age, I was out playing street hockey.'

It was unpatriotic to admit I did not like playing hockey. I hated being whacked on the shins with hockey sticks. Instead, I groaned. 'Grandma, do I have to go? Ottawa's on the edge of the habitable universe!'

She scowled unsympathetically. 'Ottawa is Canada's capital, the city of federal bureaucrats and hi-tech billionaires. You'll survive.' 

'But, it's just not fair,' I groaned desperately. 'All my friends are here. I don't know anyone in Ottawa.'

'Life's not fair!' she barked. 'It's about time you got used to it.' She pursed her lips grimly.

It took me an hour to reclaim a few of my most precious memories from the garbage bags and then Grandma announced supper was ready, a piece of dried toast and half a raw carrot. I was nibbling on the carrot when the phone rang. 

Grandma got to it first. She listened for a moment. 

'No,' she snapped, 'he's in Patagonia.' She slammed the phone down. 'Underduck keeps calling for you. I can't stand junk calls. Especially from people who don't speak English.' 

'But who is he?' I asked.

'Ask your father,' she snapped.

I felt a surge of anger mixed with sadness. Dad was never home. He had been in and out of my life for as long as I could recall. He was always looking for oil somewhere. I had to look at a photograph to remember what he looked like. I was in the bathroom when the phone rang again. 

Grandma picked it up. 'Get lost creep,' I heard her say. 'If you don't quit bothering us, I'll call the police.' She banged the phone down as I stuck my head out of the bathroom wondering why she wouldn't let me talk to him. 

'Junk call,' she snapped, challenging me to think otherwise.

'I thought it might be Mom,' I lied.

I pretended to do homework until Grandma ordered me to take out the garbage bags and wash my dirty clothes. 'Don't forget your socks and afterwards you can darn the holes.' 

I blinked. 'Darn? I thought that was a swear word.' She rolled her eyes and her face softened for a millisecond. She almost cracked a smile. 'Darning is repairing a hole by weaving with a needle and yarn.'

'But I like holey socks.'

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