The last thing Amos wanted to do was talk to Mr. Phil. What he really wanted to do was to hit him with something big and heavy, but he did not have a weapon and even if he did, Mr. Phil was a large, brute of a man and he would probably take whatever Amos had and just beat him with it.

  If he stayed here to speak with the grouchy landlord, then he would most likely just end up getting robbed of what little he had left. Amos decided that he would be better off leaving now. As he turned to leave the tall thin man who had been bagging the items that had been thrown from the window called out to him “hey, dontcha want yer things?”

  Amos turned and looked at the man. He was in his late thirties and he had a lazy eye on his right side. The eye did not focus in the same direction as his other eye which gave this man a rather surprised and confused look. The man held out the two garbage bags that he had just packed to Amos and said “here, take em.”

  As Amos stepped forward to grab the bags he couldn’t help himself as surprised as he was with this unexpected kindness and said “thank you” but this moment was short-lived. The tall man jerked the bags back and up with his hand outstretched and laughed at Amos while screeching in a high-pitched mocking voice “not so fast, not till you pays your rent.” Amos saw red and his body tensed with anger and adrenaline.

  Over the years, many sudden scraps and attacks on the streets by other boys had taught Amos how to get out of a sticky situation quickly. With both hands full and raised up to his head, Mr. Phil’s friend had made himself a vulnerable and easy target.

  Amos stepped ahead and kicked the man as hard as he could on the shin bone just below the knee. He drew back his foot to kick again as the man cried out but it was not necessary as the tall man dropped both bags and fell backward clutching his leg and howling in pain. Amos leaned in, grabbed the bags and took off in a trot down the street. As he neared the small laneway, he looked over his shoulder.

  Mr. Phil had not yet come out and the other man was lying on his back looking up at the sky, probably pretending to look more hurt than he really was thought Amos. Since they were not watching him he ducked down the laneway and came to the drainpipe. After another quick check he tried tossing the two bags onto the roof. A few failed attempts he managed to land them atop the roof and he then rapidly climbed up the pipe hand over hand while using the brick corner behind the pipe for his footholds.

  Once on top of the roof he caught his breath and tried to collect his thoughts. He had expected this outcome sooner or later but just not this soon. Mr. Phil must have had some contacts in the hospital that told him about his mother’s death and he acted as quickly as possible after that to get rid of the orphan.

  What a horrible jerk thought Amos, how can anyone be so mean like this man? No matter what he thought of Mr. Phil, the end result was the same. Now you are homeless Amos realized and now this has suddenly become the first problem he needed to solve.

  The biggest obstacle for Amos was that he had nowhere to go and in this beleaguered run-down city, everyone was afraid of strangers and not many people were willing to take any chances. There would not be anywhere safe where he would be welcome. For as much as Amos now hated Mr. Phil he still was attached to his old apartment, and he did not want to leave the building.

  There would be no use in trying to use his key Amos thought, the landlord would have swapped the locks by now. Was there anywhere else in the building he could go?

  The building, based on all of the dusty and barren mail cubbies he saw downstairs in the mailroom was at least half empty so there were lots of available apartments, but Amos did not want any old apartment. He wanted his home back with its last few memories of happier times with his mom and dad when they were all together.

  After a quick meal of bread and cheese on the rooftop Amos thought he might peek inside his building to see if he could find any decent hiding spots or places to stay. Once he had arranged his packing crates in position he stepped up onto them and began to climb through the window.

  When he was halfway through, he paused, he was staring at the far wall, lost in thought as he was slowly pulling his other leg in. The object of this attention was the large metal grille on the far wall in the landing.

  He knew that this covered the air supply vent that pushed the heat into his apartment during the colder months. His father had shown him this while he was explaining to Amos why this large system of air shafts was the reason why they could always smell some of the cooking smells from the other apartments down the hall.

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  Amos stared up at this vent and wondered what it looked like behind the grille and where exactly did it lead? He used his pocketknife to slowly unscrew the large screws that held the vent cover in place. This was slow, tedious work as they had never been touched in years and had been painted over many times almost locking the screw heads solidly into place.

  After some effort he unscrewed the last of the screws at the bottom of the grille and managed to pry the bottom half away from the wall. It was a tight fit but he thought that he would be able to squeeze through. He crouched down, popped off his backpack and while holding it in one hand he pried back the vent cover further back with the other and carefully wriggled his way inside the vent.

  Now he was leaning through the opening in the wall with his lower legs and feet still planted on the stairwell floor with the vent cover resting on the back of his legs. The rest of his body was inside the air shaft cavity looking up at the dark rectangle just above him. Amos figured if he stood on the edge of the opening then he could reach up and pull himself into the horizontal duct above. After a few missteps and some tentative reaching and feeling for handholds, Amos was finally able to pull himself up and into the supply vent. This has to be it thought Amos excitedly and he began slowly crawling down the dark tunnel towards what he hoped was his apartment.

  Once he had passed two intersections where smaller vents ran off perpendicular to this larger vent Amos realized that he was passing individual apartments. He stopped to think, how many apartments were there from his old apartment to the stairwell?

  He really had to think it over and count on his hands as he whispered the family names that he had known from previous years out loud. After doing this two times Amos was certain that there were just two more apartments to pass by before he found the intersection that had the venting that led into his living room.

  This venting was smaller, but Amos was still able to manage to move through it at a steady, methodical pace through the short distance to what he hoped was his living room wall. At the end of his airborne tunnel there was a dusty grille. He tilted his head down as he lifted his shoulders up and he was able to peer through the narrow metal slits into his living room.

  It was a disaster, papers and clothes tossed onto the ground and the old couch was overturned with the cushions slashed open and spilling their stuffing all over the floor. Despite the mess he still felt considerable joy at seeing his apartment once again.

  It took him a few minutes to work the grille cover out of the vent opening and then he had to figure out how to lean out of the opening and hold on with one arm while the rest of his body slowly tumbled out along the wall and to the floor below.

  The relief Amos felt at being back in his apartment slowly turned into anger as he walked through the remains of his home. Filthy Phil had been looking for anything of value thought Amos as he walked from one room to another. Every possible hiding spot had been checked, every cupboard, cushion and drawer had obviously been opened or pulled aside and rummaged through.

  It occurred to Amos that Filthy Phil must be very experienced at going through apartments and he wondered just how often he had done this to his apartment and the others in the building. When he looked into the front hall he noticed the old deadbolt discarded on the floor beside the door.

  Amos picked it up and looked it over, it seemed like a simple mechanism, so he decided to swap it with the one Mr. Phil had just installed. After listening carefully at the door and after checking the peephole he carefully undid the latch and opened the door just enough to swap the new deadbolt with his old one.

  “Fantastic” Amos said quietly as he closed and locked the door. He did not expect the landlord to return anytime soon so now he could use his key again and come and go as he liked using the hallway.

  For the next couple of days Amos was as quiet as a mouse moving slowly and carefully through his apartment and not leaving at all. He tidied up the mess made by the landlord and tried his best to put his home back to rights.

  He noticed that any of the decent furniture and kitchenware they had owned had been stolen but at least the family photographs and some of his favorite books had been left strewn across the floor.

  The small TV and radio were gone along with some of his mother’s better clothing and jackets. For a good period of time, Amos quietly seethed with rage, he was determined to get his revenge on Mr. Phil but he knew he would have to be careful and look for his opportunities to get even.

  By the end of the second day back in his apartment Amos had completely run out of food. At what should have been lunchtime on the third day, if he had had any food that is, he was also feeling quite cooped up. As he sat at the kitchen table trying to read an old novel to distract himself from his hunger pangs, he heard the sounds of Ms. Murphy unlocking her fortress of an apartment door.

  Out of boredom he crept silently on bare feet to the spyhole in the front door to watch her leave. As she completed her locking routine and swished away moving down the hall in her long coat Amos dreamt about all of the food and provisions she must have locked away in her apartment.

  As he turned away from the door dreaming about finding an axe and chopping through her door to plunder her apartment he noticed the open vent in the living room. An idea suddenly came to him, an idea so bold and so simple it took him a few seconds to really process the possibility.

  Why not? thought Amos, it was certainly easier and more elegant than chopping his way through the door and it would definitely be a lot quieter. A moment later Amos had pulled himself up and into the vent and he started crawling through the ceiling and across the hall towards Ms. Murphy’s apartment.