The House That Wasn't There

by Elana K. Arnold

  “I almost killed the fern,” Alder admitted, hesitant to remind his mom of that fact in case she changed her mind, but compelled to be truthful anyway.

  “Oh, that,” she said. “Plants are hard to keep alive. They don’t meow at you when they’re thirsty.”

  That was an excellent point.

  “Also,” Alder said, “I’m older now.” And he headed to the kitten adoption area.

  “Much older,” Mom agreed, following behind.

  The kittens were together in a hexagon-shaped enclosure, an olive-skinned young woman standing nearby. She wore her dark hair in a long braid, and she had two badges affixed to her yellow blouse, one that read “Volunteer” and another that read “Rosa.” When Alder leaned into the enclosure to get a closer look at the kittens, she said in a friendly voice, “Hi! Are you thinking about adopting today?”

  “Yes,” Mom said, and that made it seem 100 percent real. Alder grinned up at the young woman, and she grinned back.

  “They’re all sweethearts,” she told him. “Would you like to go inside with them?”

  “Can I?” Alder asked, and the young woman answered by unlatching the small gate and pulling it open.

  He walked through quickly so none of the kittens—there were five of them—could escape, and then he folded his legs and sat down on the ground.

  Three of the kittens came over to him right away: a black kitten with a thick black tail held up proudly like a paintbrush and two orange-and-white-striped kittens that looked like they could be twins.

  The other two kittens, a gray one and a calico, didn’t look all that interested in meeting Alder; one was asleep on a cushion, and the other was seriously concentrated on a dish of kibble.

  The two orange kittens and the black one clambered up on his legs, mewing and purring and butting his hands with their heads. Alder laughed at how cute they were.

  “They sure like you,” the young woman said, and Alder looked up to see Mom smiling down at him.

  He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could ask, Mom said, “Only one, Alder,” and she sounded like she meant it.

  In the end, Alder chose the smaller of the two orange kittens. Of the three that had approached him, this one, he figured, was the one who most needed a home. Maybe she was small because the other kittens pushed her out of the way and took most of the kibble; maybe, back home, she’d get nice and fat if she didn’t have to compete for food.

  The young woman put the small orange kitten in a cardboard carrier; it had air holes poked in it, so Alder knew his kitten was fine, but even so, he wished he could just take her out and carry her in his arms.

  He held the box while his mom shopped for the essentials—food and a litter box and litter—and he filled out as much information as he could on the adoption paperwork. His name, Alder Madigan, their address, 15 Rollingwood Drive, his mom’s phone number.

  There was a line near the top that read “Name of Pet.” Thinking of the plant back home, Alder wrote, in firm, clear letters, “Fern.”

  “That’s a great name,” the young woman said. “I’m sure you’ll give Fern a very good home.”

  Mom returned from shopping for kitten supplies and signed the adoption paperwork, smiling when she saw what Alder had named the kitten. “And don’t worry,” the lady said. “I’ll bet someone will be in any day now to adopt her brother.”

  “Her brother? The other orange one?”

  She nodded. “They were found together, in a dumpster. Littermates.”

  “Oh,” Alder said, and his joy felt punctured now, at the thought of separating Fern from her brother. He looked up to his mom, wondering if this news—that the two orange kittens were siblings—might sway her decision to take home just a single kitten.

  But no. “I’m sure he’ll find a wonderful home,” Mom said. “I’m sure they all will.”

  And so Alder had no choice but to pick up the cardboard carrier with Fern inside and follow Mom back toward the car.

  Fern’s brother, he told himself, buckling into the back seat and cradling the box on his lap, holding it carefully as his mom turned on the headlights and backed out of the parking space, would be just fine.

  Chapter 6

  The next morning, Oak walked up the street to the corner where her mom had told her the bus would come to collect her. She left a little bit early, just to be safe, and there was a touch of something that felt like fall in the air. Back home in San Francisco, the days would be cool already, and feeling this colder air made Oak especially homesick.

  She sighed deeply and stopped on the corner. There was no one else there, and after a few minutes, Oak wondered if maybe she’d misunderstood her mother, or if perhaps her mother had been wrong. But then she saw someone else walking up Rollingwood Drive toward her: her next-door neighbor and classmate. Alder, his name tag had read. She was relieved to see him, even though she didn’t like him, because his presence meant that she was in the right place after all.

  He didn’t look thrilled to see her, and other than lifting his chin a tiny bit in acknowledgment of her presence, he didn’t say hello, and his hands stayed where they were, firmly holding on to the straps of his backpack.

  They stood there, side by side, waiting for the bus without talking. Finally, though, Oak thought, This is ridiculous, and said, “So, do you think Mr. Rivera will bring us doughnuts today?”

  For a second, it seemed like Alder was going to ignore her, but he must have decided that was too rude, because he answered. “Why would he? He learned all our names by the end of the day.”

  Oak shrugged. “I dunno, but I’ll bet he does. He just seems like the kind of guy who would.”

  “Whatever,” Alder said. “I’ll bet he doesn’t.”

  “Then it’s a bet,” Oak challenged, annoyed by what a jerk Alder was being. What did he have against her, anyway? He was the weird window creeper, not her!

  “Whatever,” Alder said again.

  Just then, the bus arrived.

  “Five dollars,” Oak threw over her shoulder as the bus doors opened and she mounted the first step.

  Alder didn’t reply.

  “Well, you’re new,” said the driver. She was a pale, youngish woman with short brown hair that lay in a wave across her forehead. Her ears were each pierced three times, and she wore a black T-shirt with white block letters that read “THE TRUTH IS OUT THERE” and jeans with holes in the knees and black lace-up boots. Oak immediately decided she liked her.

  “I’m Faith,” the bus driver said. “What’s your name?”

  “Oak,” said Oak.

  Faith’s eyebrows shot up in surprise. “No kidding,” she said. “How about that? Two tree kids on one street.”

  Oak felt offended to have been lumped in with Alder, but she decided to forgive Faith this one time.

  But as she walked down the aisle, Faith called after her, “Two tree kids! On one street called Rollingwood!”

  She would have to forgive Faith twice.

  Mr. Rivera greeted the class with not one, not two, but three boxes of doughnuts.

  “Regular, gluten free, and vegan,” he said proudly. “Everyone, take one to start.”

  The line for the regular box was longest, so Oak decided to try a vegan doughnut. Cynthia was in that line ahead of her.

  “Oh!” said Cynthia. “Are you vegan, too?”

  “No,” Oak said, “but I don’t mind eating like one.”

  “Meat is murder,” Cynthia said wisely.

  “I guess,” Oak said, though she thought “murder” was maybe taking it a bit far. “Are you a vegan?”

  “Most of the time,” Cynthia said. She selected a maple bar and placed it on a napkin. Oak took a round glazed.

  It felt weird to sit back down in rows to eat the doughnuts; it seemed like everyone felt like doughnuts turned the classroom into a semi-party, and people clumped together in groups of threes and fours, turning toward each other so their backs were out to the rest of the room.

&
nbsp; Oak clustered up with Cynthia and Miriam. Miriam had taken one of the gluten-free doughnuts, chocolate with chocolate frosting. It was smaller than the regular doughnuts and it looked denser.

  Oak glanced around at the other clusters as she bit into her doughnut; there was a really tall, athletic-looking boy with floppy blond hair and a sunburn, laughing with a group of boys around him. It was the biggest group, six boys all together. There was a clutch of four girls over by the window at the front of the classroom, laughing conspiratorially about something. There were a few boys and one girl over by the door, talking about a game, it sounded like, from the scrap of conversation Oak overheard.

  “That game really plays best if you have a couple of icosa-hedrons,” one of the boys said.

  The girl who was with them, who wore her straight black hair in a ponytail laced through the hole in the back of her baseball cap, rolled her eyes behind thick purple frames and said, “Just call it a d-twenty, Dorian—no one is impressed.” Her name was Darla; Oak remembered from her name tag the day before.

  Mr. Rivera stood, leaning on his desk, ankles crossed, smiling as he chewed. His mustache, Oak noticed, was dusted with powdered sugar. When he’d popped the last piece into his mouth, he wiped the sugar from his face, balled up the napkin, and threw it overhand toward the trash can. It missed by at least a foot, landing soundlessly on the floor.

  Mr. Rivera looked up and saw that Oak had seen his bad shot. He smiled and shrugged, like What can you do? and then retrieved the napkin and tossed it in the can.

  She liked him, Oak decided. Doughnuts, and a sense of humor, and plus he’d earned her five dollars. Oak looked around the room, wondering where Alder was; maybe she could collect her winnings now and rub it in a little.

  But then she saw him—he was sitting alone at his desk and picking forlornly at a doughnut. Oak suddenly didn’t feel like being pushy or making fun.

  “Okay, kiddos, finish up your doughnuts,” Mr. Rivera said. “It’s time to get to work!”

  The class broke into a collective groan, but Alder, Oak noticed, looked relieved. He folded a napkin around his doughnut and tucked it into his desk, then reached around into his backpack to get out his school stuff.

  The other kids filed toward the trash can to throw away their napkins; the sunburned kid, Oak noticed, and another boy, who seemed to be his friend—Marcus, she thought his name was—both successfully tossed in their balled-up napkins from a pretty impressive distance, causing Mr. Rivera to whistle in appreciation. Within a few minutes, everyone was seated at their desks, and they had to pull out their science books, and the school day began.

  “I want to try something a little different this year,” Mr. Rivera said. “Something exciting.”

  Oak didn’t know how exciting anything he had planned could be, if it had to do with the heavy brick of a textbook on her desk, but she was willing to listen.

  “Each of us is made of many pieces,” Mr. Rivera began, snapping off the cap from a green marker and turning to the whiteboard. “Let’s make a list.”

  He wrote in big block letters, all capitals:

  PIECES OF A PERSON

  “Arms!” shouted out Marcus, and the class erupted into laughter.

  Mr. Rivera laughed too. “Sure,” he said, “arms.” And he wrote it on the board, followed by another word—BODIES.

  “Okay,” he continued, “so we don’t have to list all the parts of the human body one by one, because that could take all day, let’s just leave it at BODIES. And, yes! We are made of our bodies. But what else?”

  There was a moment when no one said anything, and Mr. Rivera stood patiently waiting, twirling the green marker around his fingers in a smooth and practiced motion.

  Then Cynthia said, “Memories?”

  “Yes!” said Mr. Rivera. “Definitely.”

  MEMORIES went on the board underneath ARMS—BODIES.

  “Family,” someone yelled from the back.

  Mr. Rivera nodded and added FAMILY to the list.

  The class seemed to loosen up, and kids called out words almost as fast as Mr. Rivera could write.

  “DNA!”

  “Water!”

  “Blood!”

  “Traditions!”

  “Love.”

  “Electricity.”

  “Teeth!”

  “Toenails!”

  “Bacteria! We’re made of millions of them!”

  Mr. Rivera wrote down each contribution, including the body parts, even though he’d said they’d lump those together. Soon the board was covered in an assortment of words that looked pretty strange together.

  “Okay,” Mr. Rivera said at last, capping his marker and setting it aside. “Now, I want you all to copy down this list, and I want you to circle three of these things, whichever seem the most interesting to you.”

  Oak used capital block letters to write her list, like Mr. Rivera had. Then she sat back and stared at the words. Which ones intrigued her the most?

  Slowly, she circled ELECTRICITY.

  Then, MEMORIES.

  And finally, FAMILY.

  Chapter 7

  TOENAILS

  WATER

  FAMILY

  Those were the three words that Alder circled from his list. Water, because he knew how important it was for life—the fern’s near-death experience had made sure he’d never forget that; family, because Alder barely had any—it was just him and his mom, the smallest size a family could be; and toenails, because that was the most ridiculous thing on the list, and Alder couldn’t help himself.

  “Okay,” Mr. Rivera said after everyone had circled their three words. “Now, who remembers what subject we’re supposed to be working on right now?”

  “Science?” said Oak. She had her heavy textbook out on her desk.

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Rivera. “So—who here knows the meaning of the word interdisciplinary? Yes? Marcus?”

  “Is that when a student gets in trouble for lots of things at the same time?”

  Mr. Rivera laughed, but not in a mean way. “That’s a great guess, Marcus, but no. Anyone else? Beck?”

  “Doesn’t it mean, like, trying to look at a problem from lots of different angles?”

  “Exactly, right,” said Mr. Rivera, and his smile was so bright and proud of Beck that all the other kids—Alder included—sat up a little straighter, warmed too by that look.

  “So, in school, we do math, right? And science and language arts and current events and history.”

  “And art!” called Cynthia.

  “Art!” barked Mr. Rivera, so loud and quick that Alder was a little bit startled. “Yes! Art.”

  “And PE,” said Oak from behind him.

  “Indeed,” Mr. Rivera said, nodding. “Where would we be without physical education?”

  It was a rhetorical question. Alder was mostly sure.

  “Okay,” said Mr. Rivera. “But even though we think of all those as different subjects, they aren’t all that disconnected, really. Things don’t fit into neat compartments. Take, for example . . .” And here he turned around to the whiteboard, scanning the list of words. “Well, take any of them. Arms! Why not? Take arms. Which subject, would you say, does arms fit into?

  “PE?” Miriam said. “Like, push-ups and stuff.”

  “Yes.” Mr. Rivera nodded so vigorously that his hair flopped on his forehead. “But just PE?”

  The class was quiet for a moment, thinking. Then Oak offered, “Well, weapons are sometimes called arms, so I guess, history and current events?”

  Mr. Rivera’s eyes glistened with excitement. “Perfect,” he said. “And, anyone ever heard of an armistice?”

  No one answered.

  “Look it up!” he said. “Who’s got the dictionary?”

  No one had the dictionary. It was sitting on a pedestal near the window, closest to Cynthia’s desk, so she got up and flipped through the thin pages, tracing her finger down entries until at last she said, “Armistice! Here it is. Noun.
It means peace treaty.”

  “Exactly,” said Mr. Rivera. “It means a laying down of arms—of weapons.”

  “Isn’t there a book about war with arms in the title?” asked Darla. “My older brother read it last year in high school.”

  “Indeed,” Mr. Rivera said. “A Farewell to Arms, by Ernest Hemingway, most likely. So literature too then—so far we have literature, and history, and current events, and physical education.”

  “The arms of a triangle!” Alder burst out, suddenly and loudly. “Math!”

  “Outstanding!” said Mr. Rivera. “Good work, Alder. So what about art? And science?”

  “There are lots of paintings of arms,” Cynthia offered. “And sculptures.”

  “Like on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel,” said Miriam. “We went to Italy last summer and saw it, that painting of God and Adam touching fingertips.”

  “And isn’t there a whole part of science all about the human body?” Marcus asked. “What’s that called?”

  “Physiology,” said Mr. Rivera. “Or anatomy. Excellent. So there you go.” He circled ARMS an extra time for good measure. “One little word, one part of a person, and look where it has taken us. All through our classroom day, through each subject.”

  Alder was impressed. The whole time they’d been talking, he’d totally forgotten that they were in school and that Mr. Rivera was giving them an assignment. It had just been fun.

  “Okay,” said Mr. Rivera, “what I want you all to do is put together an interdisciplinary study of the three words you’ve circled. For example, let’s see . . .” He walked over to Alder and looked at his paper. “So Alder here has circled toenails, and water, and family.”

  Everyone laughed at toenails.

  “Who else chose toenails?” Mr. Rivera asked. A bunch of hands went up, more than Alder would have expected. “Okay . . . Marcus!” Mr. Rivera said, pointing. “You’re Alder’s TOENAIL partner. The two of you can work together to research TOENAILS—figure out a way it connects with each of our classroom subjects and report back.”

  For a moment, Alder’s heart soared.