Chapter 6: The Camp Bed

Cal slept across my doorway on an army cot, with the stair chart under his pillow.

Dad found him there at six in the morning and stood in the hall holding his coffee.

"He's sleeping across my daughter's door," he told Finn at the breakfast table.

"He's very committed," Finn said, and took out his phone. "Fifty bucks says he lasts till Thursday."

"Five days?" Dad said. "I say he lasts to Sunday."

"I say," I said, "that I'm a person in the room."

Dad gave the Short Sigh and pushed his bacon toward me, and the bet went on without me.

I went down to the Cellar twice that week, and I only had to get past Cal once.

That was the Friday.

Cal's cot was across my door by ten, with Cal on it, on his back with his boots beside him and his eyes shut.

I stood by my bed in the dark in my wraps and my hood and looked at the door.

I'm not going to step over a sleeping man. It's a matter of principle.

So I went to the window.

It had been painted shut in 1998.

In the daytime I would have asked Finn to open it, and Finn would have hurt his back.

I put two fingers on the frame and pushed up, slowly and quietly.

The paint seal cracked with a small, sharp pop.