Loah was not used to feeling like a colander. She was more pot-like. She dragged herself from bed. She did her ocular exercises, which were as tedious as they sound. She pulled on shorts and a T-shirt. She dreaded going downstairs. She didn’t want to tell Miss Rinker that she’d obstructed justice. She was afraid the fish actually might have died. She hated the thought of another day of endlessly waiting for Mama to call.
Down the stairs, beneath the stag-head chandelier, and into the kitchen, where, to her shock, Theo still lay in his E-Z Boy lounger. His wild-ponies blanket was still tucked over him, and he still wore yesterday’s clothes. His soft milkweed hair was sweaty and matted against his skull.
Miss Rinker, busy at the stove, put a finger to her lips.
“You slept late,” she accused.
She still wore yesterday’s clothes, too. Her cactus sweater was buttoned wrong, and her cheeks had extra wrinkles. She must have slept down here last night, as well. She set a bowl of unsweetened oatmeal in front of Loah.
“Eat your breakfast, then off you go to the library. Your books are due.”
“Miss Rinker,” Loah began, but the old woman put her finger to her lips again.
As Loah obediently swallowed the awful oatmeal, Miss Rinker held up one of the blindingly yellow squares she’d bought at the Bargain Blaster. When she gave it a shake, it turned into a thin poncho with the word CREW stamped in giant letters on the back.
“I got five of them for two dollars,” she said in a low, pleased voice. “There’s a fifty percent chance of rain. This will keep you dry and make you visible to traffic.”
She’d be visible to astronauts on the space station. Arguing with Miss Rinker was always a lost cause, though, and this morning, tired as she was, Loah didn’t even try. She slipped the poncho over her head. She flapped her arms, certain she looked like a large, radioactive duck.
“Very nice,” said Theo from his chair. Loah rushed to him.
“How do you feel?”
“Never better.” He levered his lounger upright. But when he tried to stand, his head trembled like a flower on a fragile stem. Running his tongue over his lips, he sank back. “Maybe… maybe a bit more rest.”
This was not right. Morning was Theo’s favorite time. He was usually up with the birds, whistling his own tune.
“How is your fish?” he whispered.
Loah checked. The fish was still alive, though it didn’t look very happy about it. She fed it then turned to Miss Rinker.
“I should stay home,” Loah told her. “In case you need me.”
“Need you?” Miss Rinker’s eyes blazed. “My brother needs to rest, and I need to do my housework, and you need to return your library books before you get a fine. That’s all the needing there will be, thank you.”
“But—”
“You do remember who you’re talking to, don’t you, Loah Londonderry?”
Loah gathered up her library books. When she came back to the kitchen, she found Miss Rinker, hands clasped beneath her chin, hovering over her brother. Old was the first word that sprang to mind when you saw the Rinkers. But this morning, they looked beyond old. They looked as brittle as the pages of an ancient manuscript. Was it possible to age so much overnight? Some birds reach full maturity within two weeks of hatching. So maybe.
Loah took her snowy owl backpack from its hook. She put her books in and zipped it shut. Once again she remembered the inspector, but once again it was the wrong time for bad news.
“Goodbye,” she said.
Neither of them seemed to hear.
She rode to town in slow motion, the poncho rippling around her. A passing car honked and a teenage boy yelled, “Hey, Crew! You forgot your boat!”
Her favorite librarian, the one with sparkly purple glasses, was at the desk. She admired Loah’s poncho, then noticed Ferdinand Magellan: Circumnavigator of the Globe among the books she held.
“You’re interested in explorers? Hang on!” She dashed off and returned holding a fat volume. “We just got this in.”
Women Spacefarers, said the cover.
“I’m absolutely petrified of heights. I get terrible motion sickness. No way I could be an astronaut. I am to these women as a mouse is to a lion.” The librarian’s glasses twinkled like wishing stars. “But that’s why we read, isn’t it? To have the most hair-raising adventures while curled up on our own cozy couches. Or in my case, my dilapidated futon. So many things to discover! Infinite possibilities! A world of jaw-dropping wonders!” She blushed and gave an embarrassed laugh. “My boyfriend’s always telling me I get too carried away.”
Loah thought that if she ever had to get glasses, they would definitely be purple and sparkly.
“I’ll take the book,” she said. “Thank you.”
Next she pedaled to the store, where she bought Theo a bag of gummy worms, the deluxe kind dusted with sugar. Back outside, the sky was heavy with gathering clouds. The poncho stuck to her skin. She was thirsty, but (as you know) she had no water bottle. Women Spacefarers hung like a rock between her shoulders. Why hadn’t she gotten a book on goldfish care, or one with photos of kittens? (She’d read dozens already, but there can be no such thing as too many kitten books.)
Loah put on her helmet. Her pile of worries kept growing. Mama, Theo, Inspector Kipper, and she wasn’t even going to think about the turret. Pile might not be the right word. Mound. Hill. Great Pyramid.
Not to mention. Not to mention the girl running away from home.
Home. For the first time in her life, Loah was not ready to go there. Not yet. Instead she turned her bike off the main road onto the smaller one that wound up and down and between green-gold fields. When the bike reached the fork in the road, it stopped.
Actually, it was Loah who stopped. Her hands squeezed the brakes, and her foot touched the ground, and her eyes (the obedient one and the wandering one together) gazed down the road that forked left. She imagined the girl standing at the foot of her driveway, quiet and watchful among the angry signs. Thumbs hooked under the straps of her bulging backpack, she peered patiently down the road, waiting for Loah to come back.
This was so silly! The girl—what was her name?—didn’t expect Loah to return. She’d probably forgotten all about Loah. That thought might have made Loah turn around, but instead she told herself it gave her all the more reason to ride on and see for herself that the girl wasn’t expecting her. Because once Loah knew that for sure, she could stop feeling bad, couldn’t she? It would be a relief, wouldn’t it? The sad, thin girl and her thieving little brother would be one less thing to fret about.
Loah pedaled down the road. Out here, the world had no lid. Unlike at home, there were almost no trees, only field and sky. Speaking of outer space—at night a person could probably see millions of stars out here. Maybe even a planet. Mars, the red planet; Saturn with its rings; or Jupiter and its many moons. At Loah’s house, Earth’s moon got snagged in tree branches, but here it would float straight up, like a helium balloon.
As she got closer to the bend, her heart rose as if it were a balloon. Around the curve, and there were the signs. You could almost hear them shouting.
KEEP OUT
Keep in, you weirdos
TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED OR WORSE
The driveway was empty. Dust swirled in the gathering breeze.
Loah’s body suddenly remembered how tired it was. Her legs filled with sand. Her head became a baked ham. She read and re-read the signs. The O in PROSECUTED was a jagged, empty hole. Loah waited a long time, just in case. To be sure. Beyond a doubt.
The breeze stiffened. It rippled and ruffled the meadow grass. Miss Rinker was right—it was going to rain. Loah slowly turned her bike around, just as a fluffy cloud with four legs sprang out of the tall grass and into the road. Its nose was the color of bubble gum. A wildflower dangled from its mouth.
“Baa!” It bounded toward her.
Loah dropped her bike. She threw out her arms and to her own amazement, t
he little creature ran straight to her. It was a goat, she realized, even more amazed. She circled it with her arms as the meadow grass parted again and out stumbled the girl. Who froze, equally amazed.
An amazement of girls.
“You came back,” she said. “I knew you would.”
“You did?” Loah rocked on her heels, and the baby goat took the chance to plant its hooves on her chest, do a reverse somersault, and escape back into the meadow.
“Aquaman!” cried the girl—or at least it sounded as if that was what she said. She raced after it.
Baby goats are nimble. Loah could almost hear it giggling as it pogo-sticked over rocks and thistle thickets. Its ears flew out like velvet wings as the two girls chased it. By the time Loah wrapped her arms around it again, she was a mess of sweat and scratches. When she collapsed in the sweet-smelling grass, it grinned at her from her arms. Its nose was shaped like a heart. If she’d ever seen anything more adorable, she couldn’t remember.
The girl sank down next to Loah.
“It’s… so… bouncy!” Loah gasped. “And so fluffy!”
“That’s Angoras for you.”
The goat was trying to squirm free, but the girl leaned over and knuckled its head till it surrendered and abruptly fell asleep in Loah’s lap. Loah remembered how she’d tamed Bully. An animal wizard, that’s what she was.
“All goats are escape artists,” the girl said, “but Aquaman should really be named Houdini. He gets out of the pen all the time.”
“Aquaman?”
“We’re not supposed to name them.” She appeared to be wearing the very same clothes as last time. “We milk the goats, shear them, and breed them. Some of them get butchered. My grandfather calls them our means of production.”
Butchered? Loah felt woozy.
“Zeke names them, though. Usually after superheroes.” She rolled her eyes.
“Zeke’s your little brother?”
“Yup. I’m sorry he stole your water bottle.”
A purple butterfly floated down to land on Loah’s knee. Its wings opened and closed like the covers of a magical book. She stroked Aquaman’s knobby little head. They wouldn’t butcher him, would they?
“He’s cute now,” said the girl, wrinkling her nose. “But wait. Billy goats pee on themselves to attract the nannies.”
“What?”
“You never smelled a worse stink in your entire life.”
“Birds have strange mating rituals, too. The greater roadrunner dances around with a dead lizard to attract the female.”
The girl laughed. Loah didn’t often make people laugh, at least not in a nice way, and this girl’s laugh was very nice. Like an underground stream bubbling up. She leaned back on her hands and looked at Loah the way she had the first time they met—expectantly, as if Loah had a secret talent. A trick up her sleeve. The breeze blew across Loah’s sweaty arms and she shivered.
“What’s your name?”
“Loah Londonderry. What’s yours?”
The girl hesitated. Her fingers were long and thin, like twigs with the bark peeled off. Her face, which Loah had thought was tan, was actually covered in freckles. Hundreds. Maybe thousands. The butterfly lifted into the sky, and the girl watched it go before answering.
“Ellis Smith.”
“That’s nice. Ellis is… sophisticated.”
“I like Loah, too. It’s different, like you.” Ellis’s big toe, poking out of her sneaker, wiggled. “Different in a good way, I mean.”
Loah smiled. The grass made a sort of nest around them.
“Did you just move here?” she asked. “I never saw you at school.”
“I was born in the hollow.” Ellis jutted her chin toward the hidden side of the hill. “I mean, literally. In the parlor. We don’t go to school. We’re self-educated.” Her lips pressed together in a thin line. “We’re self-everything. My grandfather doesn’t trust institutions.”
“Is that who you live with?”
“And my mother and Zeke. My grandmother died, and let’s not even talk about my father.”
Loah wanted to ask if it was her grandfather who’d been hollering at a squirrel the other day. She wanted to ask if Ellis had been planning to run away. Most of all, she wanted to ask how Ellis had known she’d come back here. But Ellis directed her dark eyes to a spot in the distance. Enough questions, said her expression.
The breeze made the meadow grass do the hula. The gray clouds bunched together into one rumbly mass. Loah had a long ride home, yet still she sat there, stroking Aquaman’s curly coat. Often when she was with other people, Loah felt more lonesome than when she was alone. This didn’t make sense, but she couldn’t help it. Being with Ellis was different. Different in a good way.
Ellis’s eyebrows knitted together. She pinched her bare leg.
“Tick,” she said, holding it up with pincer-fingers.
It was pinhead-sized, but Loah saw a drop of blood on it. She gasped. Ellis looked puzzled.
“It’s off. Don’t worry.”
“I know. I mean… Blood makes me woozy.”
“Wuss,” said Ellis, then immediately looked sorry.
“It’s okay. I am a wuss about a lot of stuff.”
Ellis squinched the bug between her fingers and tossed it away. Thunder rolled in the distance. Aquaman woke up and bleated a baaa that said he, at least, knew an open meadow was nowhere to be during an electrical storm. On the other side of the hill, out of sight, Bully began to bark.
“I better go.” Loah reluctantly stood up. Aquaman bleated again, but she hated to put him down.
“Crew?” Ellis stood up, too. “What crew are you on?”
It took Loah a second to understand Ellis was reading the back of the poncho.
“Miss Rinker can’t resist bargains.”
“Miss Rinker?”
“She takes care of me. She and her brother, Theo.”
“Are you an orphan?”
“No! Well, half.” To her surprise, Loah’s voice caught. On the other side of the hill, Bully stopped barking as abruptly as if he’d fallen over dead. By now the sky was the color of iron. “I have a mother, but she’s away.” Loah’s voice quivered. “I haven’t seen her in sixty-four days.”
Ellis considered this. She was not a hasty person. She reminded Loah of Theo, except that she was a girl and he was an old man, and she had a deep-down restlessness the opposite of his deep-down contentedness.
“When’s she coming back?” she asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Why?”
“Why don’t I know? Or why is she gone so long?”
“Both.”
“She went on an expedition in the Arctic tundra and… things got complicated.”
“The Arctic!” Ellis’s eyes grew wide. Her big toe wiggled. “Isn’t that kind of dangerous?”
It was Loah’s turn not to answer right away, and in the meantime the rain began. It was the kind of rain that sees no point in fooling around. All business, it bucketed down. Taking Aquaman from Loah’s arms, Ellis had to raise her voice over the sudden gush and rush.
“Angoras can’t take rain. I have to help get them all in the barn. Sorry you can’t come, but you can’t. I hope that poncho works.”
Loah climbed on her bike. The rain was coming down so hard she could barely see two feet ahead. This was exactly the kind of weather that convinced a homebody never to leave home again.
As she pushed off, Ellis, still holding Aquaman, followed for a few steps.
“Where do you live? Is it far?”
“On the edge of town. The house with the turret.”
“Oh.” Ellis stopped in her tracks. “That place.”
Loah flapped a goodbye and turned her bike toward home. The poncho fought to keep her dry, but the rain slapped her face and soaked her sneakers. The uneven country road filled with puddles, and the ditch alongside overflowed with muddy water.
I’d be better off with a boat, she thought, which made
her think of Ferdinand Magellan sailing the unknown seas. When he found a new ocean, he named it Pacific, meaning peaceful and serene. Poor Magellan. Little did he know he was on his way to an agonizing death.
Today, the ride back was much longer than the ride there. At last the gleaming slates of the turret roof came into view. The car was gone, which Loah took as a good sign. Theo must be feeling better, just as Miss Rinker had predicted. Though Loah wished he hadn’t gone out in this awful storm.
She put her bike in the garage, then stood in its doorway, preparing to make a dash through the rain to the house. Thunder boomed. Lightning forked.
Up in the turret windows, she saw a flash of red. Red the color of raw meat.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Don’t be silly, she told herself as she huddled in the garage doorway. It was… it was a reflection of the branches waving in the wind.
Branches are not red, herself argued back.
Lightning then. My bad eye playing a trick.
Your eye does not play tricks.
If you’ve ever argued with yourself, you know how confusing it can be.
She pulled up the hood of her poncho, ran across the yard, up the back steps (careful on the rotten bottom one), and into the kitchen. The radio was tuned to the afternoon opera.
“Miss Rinker? I’m back.”
She hung up her backpack and dripping poncho. The opera singers were engaged in a tortured duet. One of them was obviously going to die any minute. Loah went to the kitchen doorway and called again, louder this time.
“Miss Rinker?”
Had she gone with Theo? But why would Miss Rinker leave the radio on? She never wasted electricity. Theo’s wild-ponies blanket lay in a heap on the floor. Loah folded it up, but instead of putting it on his chair, she held it close. In its bowl, her fish floated slant-wise, as if trying to lie down. Oh no! But when Loah leaned to look, it flicked its translucent golden tail. Still alive.
“Good fish,” she said. “Where is everyone?”
Fish are condemned to silence. Imagine how painful that must be.
The only sounds were the rain on the roof and the doomed opera singers. Because of the trees, the house was always dim in summer, but this afternoon it was so murky Loah had to switch on the lights. When she did, she was startled to see bright red drops on the black-and-white tiles. The same red as that flash in the turret window. Woozy, she leaned against the table.
The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe Page 5
