"You were in there a while," Kevin commented when Megan caught up with him.
Megan held up a drawing of a crude map, "She helped me draw a map to the nearest police station. After that, we just had a chat."
"What about?" Kevin asked.
Megan was tempted to tell him to mind his own business but decided against it.
But she was still a bit guarded, as she didn't know for sure how her brother would respond to how she had just talked so freely about his past to a stranger, even if she was nice and helpful. "Well, I asked her for directions to the station, and then we talked about what happened at the Plaza, and what I wanted to do with my future, about how I'd like to go to college, and university at some point; how I would like to have the chance to travel about a bit, and have a couple of kids, but not too many."
Kevin blinked at her in surprise.
"Why would she be curious about that, Megan?" Kevin asked, more than a little curiously.
"Just curious; anyway, we'd better go," Megan answered while she took a moment to enjoy the silence and listen to the orchestra. Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed Kevin sending her more than a few suspicious looks, and she sighed wearily.
-8-
When they got to the streets, the map was brilliant; the pigeon lady not only had an amazing memory, she also added a few shortcuts and even street names, and landmarks in the guise of shops. But the McCallisters had chosen a route that took them past the Children's Hospital; the Pigeon lady had marked that down on the crude map, too, as a landmark, topped by a star-shaped light on the top, as it was the nearest shortest route to the station.
However, neither Megan nor her brother had expected its sheer size. The siblings spotted a young kid sitting by the window. He was….roughly around Kevin's age, as far as Megan could tell, and he had his left hand in a cast. She flinched when she saw his expression, seeing the pain in his eyes, but she thought she caught sight of…hope.
The boy waved to Kevin, and Kevin and Megan waved back.
Megan craned her neck high, remembering the bandit's promise of robbing Duncan's Toy Chest and taking the money Mr Duncan planned to use to help kids like that, but she was surprised when she heard something from Kevin she had not heard for a long time, and it took her a few minutes to work out what it was. Kevin was sniffling as he stared at the boy.
She looked down at him, "Kevin?" She asked in concern.
When he turned to her, Megan saw the sparkling tears in his eyes. "Oh, Kevin, what's wrong?" She asked in concern. It wasn't often he would cry like this, but recently her love for him had grown.
Kevin just stared back at her for a moment, his eyes darting to the boy in the window and then to her. "What are we doing, Meg?" He asked softly, his tone something she had never, ever, ever heard before from him, and it made her bemused.
"What?" Megan said eloquently, confused.
Kevin rolled his eyes before he made his point so his big sister could even see it.
"What are we doing with ourselves, Megan? I mean, when we came to this city, whenever we go travelling, we spend our time eating fine food, getting amazing presents, year after year….but all that time our money could have done some real good; say we donated the same amount of money we throw at those vacations, imagine how it could change somebody's life. Like that kid up there," Kevin gestured to the boy in the window, and Megan followed before turning back to her brother. "We're just wasting our money, and for what, for holidays spent with another bunch of McCallisters we cosy up to, but when they're gone and out of earshot we breathe a sigh of relief? How is that worth it, when we could be changing lives, giving options and possibilities to kids who wouldn't have had it before?
"What about those people we saw on the street before running into the park? Yeah, they were scary, but at the same time, some of them could be helped. And just how many kids are there in this hospital, and just how bad are they? On top of that, two guys want to take so much money out of their hands when they could be helped, who's to say what kind of damage they'd do?" Kevin finished with a shout.
Megan was left gaping at her brother; she had never heard Kevin speak like this before, like when they'd been with the pigeon lady, sounding so philosophical, but he was so eloquent and passionate about what he was saying. And he was telling the truth; their parents threw money away like it was going out of fashion, and they did have a nasty habit of wasting it. While she and Kevin and all the kids were aware of that, considering it was all they had ever really known, they knew how much more cash they spent simply because Uncle Frank refused to splurge, and considered it cheaper to just…leech off of his brother.
But the passionate way Kevin spoke told her how much this was affecting him, and Megan realised this was just another layer to her brother that she and all their other siblings just didn't see.
-8-
Kevin turned back to the kid sitting in the window. How long did he plan to sit there? How long had he been there already? Were his parents still alive, and did they plan to visit him in the morning, or was he alone? What happened to him? Was he suffering from much worse injuries - was he in a wheelchair?
Could he be helped with an influx of cash in an operation?
Money he might not even see, thanks to Marv and Harry, who were both so greedy and selfish it wasn't funny. Kevin was furious with the two men now. They'd sunk to a new low this time. He didn't care about the damage they'd caused to the houses in Chicago, that was nothing compared to this.
They were going to take money that could help so many children for years to come, all because of their greed.
In later years, Kevin would look back on this moment.
And he would realise there was more to it than operations; there were so many other things that the kids would be able to receive with the kind of money raised by Mr Duncan; the money could change lives for good, yes, but it could also go a longer way in providing the kids with better facilities.
Unbidden, Kevin heard Mr Duncan's voice in his mind, loud and clear, his voice a clear and pleasant sounding lilt, "All the money in the registers, Mr. Duncan is gonna donate to the Children 's Hospital."
Duncan's accented and pleasant voice changed to Marv's younger, whinier voice, "At midnight tonight, we're hitting Duncan's Toy Chest."
Kevin clenched his fists as he remembered hearing what the planned to do, and what it would mean for these kids in this hospital. They had likely been in this place for…he didn't know; weeks, months, days, maybe, waiting for operations, or treatments so expensive it would cost hundreds of dollars to pay for.
But the two didn't care. To them, this was a score, nothing more, and nothing less. And he hated them for it. Kevin didn't think he could ever hate them more after what happened last year and how they forced him to do the job the police did, and how he had been so scared and the police had been worthless that he had lost all faith in them in the whole, he had been forced to booby-trap his home, but now he hated them more.
Without taking his eyes off of the kid in the window, Kevin seemed to be addressing him more than Megan, "You can mess with a lot of things," he said so quietly that Megan had trouble hearing him, while a plan was forming in his mind, "but you can't mess with kids on Christmas."
"What?" Megan blinked in surprise.
But Kevin didn't reply, he took off in a run.
"Hey, Kevin!" Megan called. "Where are you going?" She cursed as she raced after him, cursing even more; Kevin had the advantage of being a kid, who seemed to have perpetual, inexhaustible energy reserves to call upon. The good news was something in Kevin's mind made him stop and wait for her to catch up, so she didn't lose him.
It went on like that until Megan began to recognise the streets. 'Hold it, why is he going back to Uncle Rob's place?' She asked herself before they finally arrived; Kevin glanced at her before he stared up at the house.
"Kevin, what are we doing back here?" Megan panted.
But Kevin wasn't listening; before she even had a chance to get some of her breath back, he was moving again, much to her irritation. "Kevin!" She called, eyes wide as she saw him duck down underneath the builder's chute that had been attached to a window on a higher floor, held into position by cables stuck to the wall. "Kevin, what are you doing?"
"Going inside, come with me, we've got a lot to do!" Kevin called back just as he vanished inside the chute; it started wriggling like a worm fixed to a fish hook as he climbed up into the house.
"What do you mean, we've got a lot to do?" Megan called, already moving towards the chute after her brother; after all the adventures they'd had in the city so far, she wasn't going to lose him after swearing to look after him…even if he was fucking irritating at times. "Kevin, I don't think that chute will hold my weight!" She called, before huffing and she pulled her luggage along with her when she realised he couldn't hear her, or he could but decided to say nothing. She ducked down under the chute, grumbling with irritation, nose wrinkling at the stench.
To her relief, the chute didn't collapse under her weight; she guessed that made sense, with the heavy materials they'd been chucking down, it made sense for the builders to make the chute as strong as possible. The biggest problem for Megan was, as she climbed up, her bags slowed her down, but she soon compensated by slinging the bags upwards, finding some purchase and balance, while she climbed higher once she found a decent foothold. Once she was at the top, Megan squeezed her way through the hole, and she was inside Uncle Rob's house.
The place really had been deserted for a long time, and it looked like an army of builders had been hacking into the place before they gave up, the work not finished. Megan had only dim memories of her father taking her on a visit to this place, but as she looked around this incarnation of the house it was nothing like the warm, cosy home her uncle and aunt had loved.
Kevin came rushing towards her. "C'mon, Megan, we need to look over this house," he said.
"No, not until you tell me what you're up to," Megan snapped, tired of the runaround.
Kevin stopped and levelled a serious look at her. "I want to make Marv and Harry pay for what they're planning to do," he told her.
Megan blinked at surprise. "You…what?" She gasped. "Kevin, you can't be serious. You want to go after two burglars, one of whom has a gun, for god's sake! Why don't we call the cops? They can stop the robbery at the toy chest, if that's what you're suggesting?" She finished hopefully.
"The cops won't do anything, Megan, and besides, even if we could tell them, they might be too late. Look, I'm doing this, with or without your help," Kevin said. "I've done this before. Please, just trust me."
Megan was unsure if this was a good idea. She had been scared out of her mind when she'd found out Harry was armed with a gun, and she was scared of them pushing the man too far. If this robbery was supposed to help them, the last thing they should do was to mess it up. That was why she was desperate for the cops to be involved; the police had the law on their side, and they were armed, too.
If Harry shot or even accidentally injured, or heaven forbid, murdered one of them, he would be lucky not to get the death penalty. But the police would be involved; it should not involve either her or her little brother.
"Kevin, why are you doing this?" Megan asked. "If you're trying to prove a point-!"
"I'm not, Megan," Kevin snapped back, angry while he stomped his feet childishly; they were wasting too much time. "I want them to pay for robbing those kids at the hospital; all those kids, they'd have so much going for them if they had money for toys, treatments, and other opportunities, but those two don't care. They just want the money to get away. That's why I'm doing this. Like I said, you don't have to help."
Megan bit her lip, pondering the pros and cons of helping her brother before she nodded. "Okay, I'll help, but we're gonna try and get help quickly, okay?"
"Deal."
"Okay, what's the plan?"
There was a small lectern covered in architects' plans of the house; with those plans, the siblings explored the house. A lot of it was an utter mess, in fact, all of it was. There were several ways of getting inside the basement and to the upper floors of the brownstone. There was a small stairway that had been hidden away - not deliberately - by the builders leading into the basement, and they found the others.
Once they were finished exploring the house, that was when they got to work.
-8-
Megan was wondering if her brother had secretly been watching too many serial killer horror movies, because many of the traps were utterly insane and lethal, in her mind. When Kevin was finished with the felt tip pens he usually always carried with him in his backpack before he unveiled the rolled-up copy of the architect's plans, Megan saw the opening 'OPERATION HO-HO-HO!' And wondered if it was Kevin's sense of humour coming through, or something more dangerous.
Kevin unloaded the tool chest, taking out the staple gun and a blow torch before he attached the gun to the front door - Megan had to be careful there, as there were floorboards covering a massive hole leading into the basement - and he tied a long length of string to the door knob, so if anybody would pull it, they would pull the trigger on the gun, firing a staple. Ouch! Megan did not want to think of the injuries that would cause.
Next, Kevin poured a liberal amount of the bubble bath he'd bought from Duncan's toy chest earlier in the day on the floor in the basement, right in front of a large shelf loaded with paint cans and other supplies.
She had shivered when she had caught sight of the smile on Kevin's face as he tapped two leads together before hooking them up to an old sink, not too far from the shelf of paint cans, and hooked the leads to an old electric arc welder. While she was helping to set up the traps, taking extreme care not to go near any of them, and watching all of her brother's moves, Megan had no idea what he planned to do, but she found herself pitying the poor bastard who touched it.
Using the bubble bath mixture again, Kevin poured it liberally on an old paint roller outside and rolled the roller on the lower rung of a ladder that would lead inside the house, but it was so high up you would need to jump quite high just to grab hold, but neither sibling was concerned about that. Harry was short and dumpy, but even he could jump that high if he had the right height, but even he could jump high…but even Marv, who was taller, couldn't hope to climb to the upper rungs.
Kevin then tied a rope to a large bag of plaster, or cement - she would never know - which would then fall once tugged down hard enough, dropping it down into the basement. That was bad enough since Megan worried they would be facing murder charges at the impact if it fell on someone's head and spine. But Kevin didn't seem to mind, and was upping the ante; he had placed a couple of tins of paint and varnish on top of each other, along with a small assortment of chemicals like bleach, and vinegar that had likely been in the basement since the stone age, and put them in front of the bag, so when pulled they would fall into the basement.
Wouldn't those chemicals irritate the eyes and nose?
The vinegar might, yeah, but the bleach? That stuff was so old, she was not sure how potent it was, or if it would burn the eyes out, leaving either Marv or Harry permanently blinded.
Megan…wasn't surprised Kevin had planned to take some of the tins to the upper floor and tie strings to their handles to throw them downwards so they'd hit Harry and Marv when they reached that level, but she was stunned when she saw the massive pipe he had found somewhere and tied a strong rope to both ends. It took all of their strength to move it, but they managed it.
Red flags rose in her head as she saw him pouring a large canister of kerosene into a toilet pan before rigging up a bag of tools above the backdoor outside, Megan was starting to wish her siblings and cousins were here so they got the message she was starting to get.
Beware Kevin McCallister; he was fucking lethal and dangerous!