Sam raised his wrists to his mouth and started chewing.

“Damned friggin’ rain!”

Sam froze. It was Fatso’s voice, loud and angry. Sam was so scared he started shaking, and it wasn’t just the damp chill air in this busted-down old room that caused it. He had to keep chewing, had to get his hands free. He had to keep moving and not freeze. He couldn’t die, not like Mama had. His father would hate that almost as much as Sam would.

Sam chewed.

There weren’t any more loud voices from the other room, but he could still hear the TV announcer, talking more about really bad weather coming, and then he heard the two men arguing about something. Was it about him?

Sam pulled his hands up, looked closely, and then began working the knotted rope, sliding his hands first this way, then that. The rope felt looser.

Oh boy, his hands did feel looser, he knew it. Sam chewed until his jaws ached. He felt a give in the rope, then more give, and then the knot just came loose. He couldn’t believe it. He twisted his wrists and the rope fell off.

Unbelievable. He was free.

He sat up and rubbed his hands. They were pretty numb, and he felt pins and needles running through them, but at least they didn’t hurt.

He stood up beside the mangy bed with its awful smells, wondering how long it had been since anyone had slept in that bed before him. It was then he saw a high, narrow, dirty window on the other side of the room.

He could fit through that window. He could.

How would he get up there?

If he tried to pull the bed to the window they were sure to hear him. And then they’d come in and tie him even tighter.

Or they’d kill him.

Sam knew he’d been taken right out of his own bed, right out of his own house, his father sleeping not thirty feet away. He knew, too, that anything those men had in mind to do to him wasn’t any good.

The window . . . how could he get up to that window?

And then Sam saw an old, deep-drawered dresser in the corner. He pulled out the first drawer, nearly choking on fear when the drawer creaked and groaned.

He got it out. It was heavy, but he managed to pull it onto his back. He staggered over to the wall and, as quietly as he could, laid the drawer down, toeing it against the damp wall. He stacked another drawer on top of that first one, then another, carefully, one upside down on top of another.

He had to lift the sixth drawer really high to fit it on top of the others. He knew he had to do it and so he did.

Hurry, Sam, hurry.

He was hurrying. He didn’t want to die even though he knew he’d probably be able to speak to his mama again all the time. No, she didn’t want him to die, she didn’t want him to leave his father.

When he got the last drawer balanced on the very top, he stood back, and saw that he had done a good job putting them on top of each other. Now he just had to climb up on top and reach the window.

He eyed the drawers, and shoved the third one over just a bit to create a toehold. He did the same with the fourth.

He knew if he fell it would be all over. He couldn’t fall. He heard Fatso scream, “No matter what you say, we can’t stay here, Beau. It’s going to start raining any minute now. You saw that creek out back. A thunderstorm’ll make it rise fast as bat shit in a witch’s brew!”

Drown? The thunderstorms he’d heard on the Weather Channel, that must be what Fatso was yelling about. He didn’t want to drown either.

Sam was finally on the top. He pulled himself upright very slowly, feeling the drawer wobbling and unable to do anything about it. He froze, his hands flat against the damp wall, then his fingers crept up and he touched the bottom of the windowsill.

Things were unsteady beneath his feet, but that was okay. It felt just like the bridge in the park when he walked across it, just like that. He could work with a swing, even a wobble, he just couldn’t fall.

He pushed at the window but it didn’t budge. Then he saw the latch, so covered with dirt that it was hard to make out. He grabbed it and pulled upward.

He heard Fatso yell, “Beau, listen to me, we gotta take the kid somewhere else. That rain’s going to start any minute.”

So that was his name, Beau. Beau said something back, but Sam couldn’t make out what it was. He wasn’t a screamer like Fatso.

Sam had the latch pushed up as far as it would go. Slowly, so slowly he nearly stopped breathing, he pushed at the window.

It creaked, loud.

Sam jerked around and the drawers teetered, swaying more than ever. He knew he was going to fall. The drawers were sliding apart like earth plates before an earthquake. He remembered Mrs. Mildrake crunching together real dinner plates to show the class how earthquakes happened.