Mike reacted just like her brother would have, groveling and begging and promising anything if she'd refrain from getting him in trouble. It was a lesson Debbie would remember. Up to that point the only male she had any real sway over was her brother, at least in terms of using extortion and blackmail to control a boy. But she took it easy on him. All she really wanted right then was for him to go home so she could talk to Robby about the manor. So she told him to go home and think about what he'd done, about how he'd hurt her feelings. She even worked up a tear and managed to look sad and confused about how a friend could sink so low.
Mike escaped while the escaping was good.
Once he was gone Debbie's demeanor changed instantly from a weepy teenage girl to a young woman deadly serious about attacking a real problem.
"What are we gonna do Robby?" she asked him worriedly.
"I don't know," he said, just as worriedly.
"We could call the police," she suggested.
"If he hired somebody to take a big machine like that in there he's not trying to hide anything," reasoned Robby. "I mean he's not trespassing or anything."
"What's he doing there?!" cried Debbie. "That's our place Robby! He can't just take it away from us! That's not fair!"
"What about our stuff?" asked Robby.
Over the years they'd taken small personal items to the house. The nest that had been in the root cellar had been moved to one of the bedrooms that they adopted as their own. There wasn't a lot other than a few smuggled pillows and one blanket.
What Robby was talking about, however, was their treasure trove. An old hand-made wooden jewelry box had been found and, while it contained nothing of real value that they could see, they had made it into the place they put all the treasures they did find in their explorations. The two coins were there, along with a heavy salt shaker that they thought was made of silver. There was a polished comb of bone, intricately carved, that Debbie used to pin up her hair when they played dress-up in the past. And, their prize possession, a gold pocket watch they'd found stuffed into a hole in the mattress of what appeared to have been a woman's bedroom. The watch still worked and it was beautiful.
"We have to go get it!" whispered Debbie, even though they were the only two people in the house.
"We can't do that. He'll catch us," whispered back Robby.
"We'll wait ‘til he leaves and then get it," reasoned Debbie.
"He locked that gate from the inside. What if he's not leaving?" reasoned Robby.
"He has to leave sometime," said Debbie firmly.
In the end, they couldn't think of anything to do, and each subsided to think while they waited for their mother to get home. Both instinctively believed that she would somehow know something that would somehow make everything okay again.
Indecision reigned for half an hour as Debbie and Robby tried to divine something to do. Debbie was probably more upset about the changes in their world than Robby, until she pointed out that they no longer had a place to go to ... play. As that sunk in Robby got more and more upset until he was as frantic as Debbie.
"I'll go down to the bank and talk to Mom," he suggested. "You stay here and watch the house." They both knew he meant the mansion, and not their own house.
For lack of a better plan, Debbie agreed and, after Robby pounded out of the front door, she stood in her window and stared at the dunce cap roof of the tower next door.
Perhaps it was because Debbie had always been self confident, afraid of very little, that she decided she needed to watch the new goings-on from closer. It wasn't a conscious decision that led her back to the fence and their "private entrance", and through the woods to the rear of the carriage house. But that's where she found herself, peering through a tangle of brush at the back of the mansion. There wasn't, of course, much to see. The house sat there, like it always had, lonely looking, run down and forlorn.
She had settled into a comfortable squat, holding on to a branch to keep her balance, when sudden movement at the back door of the house caught her eye. She was suddenly struck by the fact that the boards that had kept that entrance from being used were gone, and the door had opened.
But the man who came out of that door and began walking directly toward her was not the hermit she had seen before. This man was younger, slimmer, without the trench coat. And his face was smooth shaven, with a thatch of brown hair above it ... not the dark and ominous beard and black hair of the hermit. He was wearing shorts and a T shirt that was dark with sweat around the neck and armpits. The man looked gray and she realized he was covered with dust.
About the same time it registered in her brain that he was walking toward her hiding place.
TBC