The First Ring Rainbow

by Brian Bakos

  Chapter 9: Amazing Gift

  Inside our house is dim, with drapes pulled and the window fan going full blast. Dad is napping in his easy chair. He wakes up and comes into the kitchen as I am grabbing a Coke from the fridge.

  “Hey kid!” He puts an arm over my shoulders and kisses my forehead. “What have you been up to?”

  “Uh ... nothing much,” I say. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Shopping,” Dad says. “She said for us to make TV dinners for ourselves.”

  I slug down the Coke in one gulp.

  “Make mine fried chicken, please,” I say.

  Dad yanks open the freezer and riffles among the frozen hamburgers and pork chops to get at his objective. He has this decisive way of doing things, even if it’s just searching for TV dinners.

  His voice emerges from the frozen depths. “You got a package from England, Amanda.”

  “Yes!” I cry.

  Excitement pushes aside my worries. I dash into the living room, seize the box covered with English stamps, and charge upstairs to my room. A note from my pen-pal, Betty, is inside the box. She is a very enthusiastic person and always uses lots of exclamation points.

  Amanda!

  I hope you get this in time for your birthday. It’s the latest thing! It’s a motion lamp. Just switch it on, and it makes the most amazing bubbly patterns! It’s wonderful! You’ll love it!

  Your British friend,

  Betty

  The lamp has three pieces: a metal light bulb base, a long bottle of clear liquid with a lump of red glop in it, and a plastic cap. I set the thing up on my desk. It reminds me of a rocket – one of those things with an atomic warhead on the tip.

  It also has an adapter plug thing because electricity doesn’t work the same way in England as it does here. I plug it in.

  “Well, here goes,” I say.

  I flick on the light bulb and wait anxiously. Nothing. Half an hour later, when Dad calls me for dinner, still nothing has happened. I switch off the lamp, disappointed. Maybe it doesn’t work outside England.

  Nothing seems to be working in my life. The world shouldn’t be like this; it just isn’t fair!

  For example, other kids I know have really cool grandparents that bring them stuff and take them on trips. How did I end up with such weird ones?

  Emily at school says that she can always get away with a lot more things when her grandma is around. I’ve always been terrified of my grandma. Who wouldn’t be in my place?

  I head back downstairs.

  10: Nightmare News Hour

  Me and Dad watch the news as we eat out TV dinners. The whole program seems to be about Russia, or the ‘Soviet Union’ as it is sometimes called:

  More trouble in Berlin – Soviet and American tanks are facing off against each other. The Russian tanks look twice as big as ours, and there are a lot more of them, too.

  The Soviets have exploded another monstrous atomic bomb, powerful enough to destroy a large American city.

  A new Russian satellite has blasted into outer space where it can spy on us.

  The Soviets are sending weapons to the Communists in a place called Vietnam. The situation is getting serious.

  The fried chicken turns cold in my mouth. From my place on the floor, I can see the left side of Dad’s face with the battle scar on it. The scar really isn’t too bad. Anyway, Dad is always smiling and joking so much that it partly blends in with his laugh lines.

  He isn’t smiling now, though.

  The TV is showing a military parade in Moscow. Khrushchev and the other Russian Communist big shots are standing on top of a horrible pyramid type building watching tanks rumble past. Then trucks drive by towing gigantic missiles – the sort that are aimed at us right this second with atomic warheads!

  “What’s that ugly building they’re standing on?” I ask.

  “It’s a tomb,” Dad says.

  “Gross! Who’s in it?”

  “The ‘Gruesome Twosome,’” Dad says. “Lenin and Stalin are both laid out in air-conditioned comfort.”

  “Creepy!”

  Ranks of stone-faced Russian soldiers come next in the parade, stomping along with vicious bayonets on their rifles. If somebody stumbled, the man behind him would stab him right through.

  Jet fighter planes roar overhead. Dad fought those Communist jets in Korea and had nearly gotten killed. I look up toward him.

  His chair is empty!

  For a terrible moment, I imagine that he really has been killed – that the wonderful day never happened when he came into our house wearing his blue uniform. The day Mom went wild with joy, crying and laughing at the same time ...

  On the TV screen, the Russian soldiers continue their brutal march – every face the same under its steel helmet, boots trampling anyone in the way. Fear shoots through me like a bolt of lightning.

  “Dad!”

  “Yes, Honey,” he says. “What’s wrong?”

  I twist around to see him standing by the sofa, a bottle of beer in his hand. My terror begins to retreat.

  “Didn’t you say a Russian shot down your fighter plane in Korea?” I blurt out.

  “That’s true,” Dad says. “There weren’t supposed to be any Soviet pilots out there, but we heard them talking Russian on their radios.”

  Then he changes all of a sudden. Standing in the dim TV screen light, he is no longer my familiar Dad but has switched back into a hard and daring fighter ace.

  “Besides, I knew right off that I wasn’t up against some inexperienced North Korean,” he says. “This Honcho was really good – probably one of their aces from World War 2.”

  Dad uses his hands to describe the air battle. The right hand with the beer bottle for himself, the left hand for the enemy plane.

  “He flew that MIG 15 like a real pro,” Dad says, “the best I’d ever seen. But I eventually took a piece out of him with my 50 calibers.”

  Dad’s eyes gleam in the shadows, he swings his hands around.

  “He was trailing smoke, but darned if he didn’t manage to slip away. Came back and let me have it with his heavy cannons – one lucky hit. Man, if I’d had guns like that, things would have turned out a lot different!”

  My lips feel dry. My hands have gone cold and wet.

  11: A Tense Wait

  Mom rushes in then, dragging some grocery bags, all frazzled and nervous. Dad abruptly returns to his old self and helps her with the load.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say.

  She gives me a distracted little peck on the cheek, as if the whole world is pressing in on her and she doesn’t have a second to waste. She doesn’t stay long before she’s off for the train station to pick up Grandma and Grandpa.

  “I can go,” Dad says. “Why don’t you stay here and relax?”

  “No,” Mom says. “It’s better if I go alone.”

  Then she leaves so fast that it’s almost like she’s never been here at all.

  An hour and a half drags by. Dad and I watch more TV – a quiz show, some comedy program that isn’t funny, and the usual bunch of stupid ads. One headache pill commercial shows a woman with a hammer beating inside her head. I know how she feels.

  Dad is on his third beer. This is unusual for him. He must be bracing himself for the visit.

  “What’s taking so long?” I say. “The train station is only a fifteen minute drive.”

  “Maybe they have things to talk about,” Dad says, “just among themselves.”

  Yeah, like what? Like maybe the whole trip is a mistake, and my grandparents should immediately get on another train to anyplace but here.

  The phone rings. I desperately hope it will be Mom saying:

  “Guess what, Amanda? They’re not coming after all! Let’s go to the movies.”

  But it’s only Quentin. I take the call on the dining room phone, bracing myself into the corner.

  “Is anything wrong, Amanda?” Quentin whispers.

  “Everything is just great,” I say.
“Why wouldn’t it be?”

  “Is the prisoner causing any trouble?”

  My mind goes blank. Prisoner?

  Oh ... that awful frog thing in the backyard! I’m so upset about Grandma and Grandpa Lenin that I completely forgot about him.

  “Thanks for reminding me, Quentin,” I say. “He’s fine, I guess.”

  “We shouldn’t have brought him to your place,” Quentin says. “Talk about a dumb idea! But like I told you, my brain was scrambled at the time.”

  He hangs up.

  Now my brain feels scrambled – like a hamster running on a little wheel. It goes round and round, getting more frightened every second. I glance about our house. It looks strange all of a sudden – dim and threatening. The TV throws weird shadows onto the walls . . .

  The front door suddenly opens. Mom walks in with a big frown on her face. Then, from out of the darkness, comes a rush of cold air.

  Three: Dreadful Visit

  12: Unwelcome Arrivals

  Grandma strides through the door next. Tall and severe – cold – as if she just stepped out of Lenin’s tomb. She wears a dark, spotted dress, and her gray hair is pulled back tight into a bun.

  Her sharp eyes scan the room, like a hawk looking for a mouse. The eyes fall on Dad. She gives him a quick nod.

  “Hello, Ma,” he says, forcing a smile onto his face. “Did you have a good trip?”

  “Yes, quite so, thank you,” Grandma replies in her clipped Russian accent.

  Dad has always seemed large and strong to me, but now he looks much smaller. Grandma seems to pull half the energy out of him, and from the rest of the house, too. I slip back into the dining room shadows, but the hawk eyes find me.

  “Katyusha!”

  Grandma’s face softens just the least bit, and she holds out her arms. I stand frozen, gripping a chair back. Mom gives me an angry little ‘get over here right now!’ wave.

  I start walking, robot-like, into the living room.

  Two strong hands grasp my shoulders, and Grandma’s face lowers toward me. I close my eyes and quickly kiss beside each leathery cheek as Mom has instructed me. The face withdraws back up to where it belongs.

  Grandpa comes in next. He wears a beat up tweed jacket and a flat, old-guy type cap over his bald head with its fringe of white hair. His nose pokes out from under the cap brim, large and red.

  “Hello Papa,” Dad says, shaking the old man’s hand.

  Mom holds up the car keys.

  “The luggage is in the trunk, Dear,” she says.

  Dad takes the keys and heads outside. He looks happy to go, like he isn’t planning to come back. I feel my usual little twinge of fear when I see Dad leave the house – as if he really might not return this time.

  Grandpa pinches my cheek. “How is my Katyusha?”

  He’s been drinking again, I can tell – a lot more than usual. His boozy breath nearly knocks me over.

  “I’m fine, Grandpa,” I say.

  Katyusha is their Russian nickname for me. It means ‘Little Kate,’ and there’s supposed to be a song about her.

  Well, okay, Ekaterina is my first name, very Russian style, but I’ve always preferred using my middle name – Amanda. Ekaterina sounds so ... foreign, like a person who should have a heavy, mysterious accent. And I’ve never really felt like an Americanized ‘Kathy’ or ‘Katie’ either.

  Grandpa told me once that the Russian soldiers in World War 2 named their rocket launchers ‘Katyusha.’ That must have been a joke, I think, like calling a big fat guy ‘Tiny.’ The soldiers loved their Katyushas, Grandpa said, although the German troops getting blasted by them must have felt quite different.

  Does this make me the rocket launcher kid?

  The phone rings again, rescuing me from the alcoholic haze around Grandpa. It’s Tommy. Again, I take it in the dining room.

  “I’m worried about you, Amanda,” Tommy says.

  “Yeah?” I say.

  He lowers his voice and speaks rapidly. “I think Quentin is right. That frog is a Communist spy! You never know what those Russians will pull next.”

  I peer at Grandma and Grandpa in the living room and try to withdraw farther into my corner.

  “Did you watch the news?” Tommy asks.

  “Yes,” I say, “pretty scary stuff.”

  “Do you want me and Quentin to come over and keep an eye on things?”

  “No!” I almost shout. “I mean ... everything’s okay.”

  “Are you sure?” Tommy says.

  “Yeah.”

  That’s a big lie.

  “I’ll call if anything happens,” I say.

  I hang up and glance warily toward Grandma and Grandpa. They look like they’ve dropped down from a another world. They seem unreal with their old-fashioned clothes and strange manners – their thick Russian accents, their deathly pale skin.

  Dad comes in with the suitcases and they all head for the back bedroom. Grandma walks grim and stately, like some terrible queen from a forgotten time. Grandpa shuffles after. He’s a lot older than Grandma. She isn’t even sixty yet, but she looks like she’s been born old.

  They changed their last name to ‘Mendez’ when they were hiding in Mexico. It was originally Matyushenko or something. They passed themselves off as Mexicans when they first came to the United States. How they managed that is anybody’s guess.

  The phone rings again. It’s Melissa this time.

  “How’s the old Jelly Bag doing?” she says.

  “Just great, Melissa, thanks for asking.”

  She talks on about this and that, but I’m not really listening. I pull aside the window curtain and peer out. Our yard is ghostly silver under a blazing moon. Then, a large, dark cloud appears. It floats over the moon and blots it out.

  13: Another Amazing Gift

  An hour later, we are all at the dining room table having a tea party – Russian style. Plates heaped with strudel, cookies, and sandwiches; bowls of jam and honey. It sure beats my lousy little TV dinner.

  Mom is using her gorgeous blue and gold Russian tea pot, and we drink from little glasses in fancy silver holders. Dad doesn’t care for tea, and I think he is going to ask for coffee. But Mom gives him a stern ‘drink tea and like it’ glance, so he doesn’t say anything.

  She sure is getting bossy now that Grandma Lenin is here, and she seems oddly foreign, somehow.

  Mom doesn’t speak with an accent or anything, but her view on life sometimes seems ... not American. For example, she never smiles when we get pictures taken. She smiles at home, of course, but out in public she seems guarded, suspicious of everybody. Dad’s sunny good humor hasn’t rubbed off on her, it seems.

  And then there are Grandma and Grandpa – talk about a pair of stone faces! You can’t help but grim up around them.

  “Your birthday is soon, eh Katya?” Grandma says.

  “Yes, Grandma, next Tuesday,” I say.

  She nods, and a slight smile creases her face. She pushes a little red box across the table toward me. I study it cautiously.

  “Open it, child,” she says.

  I draw open the hinged top to the most amazing gift I’d ever received. It is a gold star, about as big across as a fifty cent piece. I lift it out on its chain, surprised at how heavy it is.

  “Th-thanks,” I say.

  “You are welcome,” Grandma says. “It is Hero of Soviet Union gold star. Take excellent care of it.”

  “No kidding?” Dad says. “Let me see it, Honey.”

  I hand everything over. Inside the box is a stick pin type mount covered with red ribbon. The star must have hung from it before it was put on the chain.

  “Wow!” Dad says.

  He turns the star over in his hand. Overhead light glistens on the yellow metal. It seems to glow from inside, too.

  “My precious little sister won that in the Great Patriotic War,” Grandma says. “She sent it to me before she died. It was her fond wish that the women of our family should ke
ep it as ... how do you say? Heirloom.”

  Dad returns it to me with great respect, as if he’s handling some holy relic. The front of the star raises to a point in the center, the back is flat and has Russian letters. It is the most frighteningly beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

  “How did your sister earn that, Ma?” Dad asks.

  “Ah, little Tania was brave and noble sniper!” Grandma says. “She killed 200 Nazi invaders. Wounded twice in battle – imagine how many more she would have killed otherwise.”

  I gulp.

  Grandma takes a long swig of tea and dabs her eye with a napkin. “Such a beautiful little girl when last I saw her. Who would have thought she’d become a death angel for our enemies?”

  “We used to call her ‘the Ballerina,’” Grandpa says, “she was so graceful.”

  Grandma fastens the chain around my neck. The star rests high, right below my throat. It seems to weigh far more than just the gold.

  14: War Breaks Out

  The tea party moves on. My amazing gift shuts me up very effectively, choking off anything I might want to say.

  Grandpa seems to be dozing off. Mom and Dad are thoughtful and quiet. No matter. Nobody can say much once Grandma gets going, and it doesn’t take her long to start her ‘bash America’ routine.

  Why can’t she lay off for a change?

  “My poor Anita,” Grandma says between bites of strudel, “I’m so sorry you never learned our beautiful language. It seemed unwise to teach you, but you have missed so much.”

  “Well,” Mom says, “I’m afraid I wouldn’t have the opportunity to speak Russian now, anyway.”

  Grandma nods sadly. “Yes, and you also lost our high culture. All you have from the Great Socialist Motherland is that tea pot.”

  ‘Russia,’ the ‘Soviet Union,’ and now the ‘Great Socialist Motherland.’ The place sure has a lot of names! Well, it’s big enough for that. It covers half the globe like a giant, stretched-out bear ready to pounce on us.

  “Would anybody like more tea?” Mom says, trying to change the subject.

  Grandma is just warming up, though.

  “Ahhhhh,” she sighs, “so many great Russian poets and writers ... scientists. The men who made the Socialist Revolution. Giants, all of them!”

  “Giants!” Grandpa stirs awake, raising his tea glass.

  “But in America, what is there?” Grandma shrugs. “Capitalism, roll and rock music. No discipline!”

  Dad is doing a slow burn. He grips his tea glass so hard that I think it will shatter any moment. Mom looks over at him, alarmed.

  “Would you like to have some coffee, Dear?” she asks quickly.

  “Yes,” Dad says.

  “Could you make it yourself?” Mom says.

  “Yeah, I’ll do that,” Dad says.

  He lumbers off to the kitchen. Grandma rattles on as if nothing has happened.

  I’ve heard it all before: everything Russian is absolutely fantastic, while everything American is crummy and cheap. People here only think about making money, there is too much crime, too many poor people, and blah, blah, blah.

  I try to tune her out, but the droning, alien voice opens my mind to an invasion of frightful ideas.

  I think about the awful creature sprawled in the back yard – plotting and waiting for the right moment to strike. I think about the tanks and the giant missiles rumbling past the men on the Moscow tomb. I think about a country standing against us that is so powerful and tough that even the girls shoot down enemies by the hundreds.

  The ceiling seems to press down from the weight of Russian satellites flying overhead, spying on us. Somewhere in that vast nation a nuclear missile is aimed right at our house. A shadowy person with an icy finger is just itching to press the button that will send the rocket blasting our way!

  The hammer from the TV ad starts pounding in my head; the room begins spinning. The piled-up stress of this bizarre day erupts all at once.

  “What if there’s a war?” I blurt out. “What if Russia attacks us with atomic bombs?”

  Silence fills the dining room. Mom looks stunned, as if she’s just found a toad in the teapot. Grandpa sits up in his chair, suddenly alert and sober. Then Grandma’s voice starts again, cold and angry.

  “Child,” she says, “who has told you such lies? The Great Socialist Motherland would never attack America first!”

  Grandpa says something in Russian, but Grandma snaps back at him, shutting him up.

  “Tell me this, child,” she continues in English, “who was it that smashed Hitler – Mr. John Wayne and the Hollywood boys? Were it not for the Soviet Union and her glorious armed forces, you’d be speaking German and giving Nazi salutes. How would you like that?”

  “Not very much,” I squeak.

  Grandma jabs a long, scolding finger into the air. “Or else you’d be stuck in a concentration camp where the Nazis wanted to put all us Russians. You’re half Russian, also, don’t forget!”

  “Mother, please!” Mom tries to interrupt, but there is no stopping the old lady.

  “Atomic bombs, indeed!” Grandma says. “Who invented them? America. Then Mother Russia had to build them, too, so that nobody would dare attack her.”

  Suddenly I am on my feet.

  “To heck with Mother Russia already!” I almost shout. “If it’s so wonderful there, why don’t you go back?”

  “Amanda!” Mom cries.

  Dad thrusts his head in from the kitchen.

  “Well, why not?” I’m too furious to stop. “Stalin won’t bother you. He’s dead, isn’t he? I saw his meat locker on TV.”

  Dad is in the dining room now, reaching for me, but I twist away and dash upstairs to my room.

  15: Message in a Bottle

  I flick the overhead light switch, and pop! the bulb burns out.

  Of course, why not?

  Groping through the darkness, almost tripping over some stray books, I reach my desk and turn on the motion lamp. Dim, reddish light fills my room. I flop into the desk chair and cover my face with both hands. Hot tears leak through my fingers.

  Several minutes pass. Finally, I bring my hands down and stare into the motion lamp bottle. The waxy red stuff at the bottom is starting to melt and bubble. I look closer, until my eyes are only a few inches away.

  Such birthday presents! While other girls are getting record albums and nice clothes, I have a sniper medal and the world’s strangest lamp. I try to take off the gold star but can’t undo the clasp.

  Then the red glop suddenly erupts, shooting to the top of the lamp bottle and spreading out like an atomic mushroom cloud.

  “Ah!”

  I jerk back in my chair.

  Somebody comes in. I squint up toward the dark figure framed in the doorway and hold my breath . . .

  “That was a pretty bad performance down there, Amanda.”

  My pent-up breath gasps out. It’s only Dad – but he sounds upset. Well, I’m upset, too.

  “She asked for it,” I say. “Why does she have to be so mean?”

  Dad shuts the door and moves out of the shadows. I expect him to look angry. Instead, his face is very sad.

  “Your grandmother must love you in her own way,” he says, “even if she can’t show it very well.”

  “Well, I hate her!” I snap. “I hate all Russians.”

  Dad pulls up my extra chair and sits down.

  “Really?” he says.

  “Yes. They’re nasty and evil ... like that fighter pilot in Korea.” I feel the tears coming again. “I’d just like to kill him!”

  “Why?” Dad says. “The war’s over.”

  “Yeah, but if he walked in right now, wouldn’t you want to smash him?”

  “Heck no.” Dad throws up his hands. “I’d give him a beer. Hey, he could have my tea!”

  I can’t help laughing a little. Some of my anger and fear starts draining away.

  “I hope he made it back to his family, too ...” Dad says.


  His voice sounds far away, even though we are here, together. We sit quietly for a few minutes, studying the atomic mushroom cloud in my lamp. For the first time in many hours, I relax a little.

  Then Dad stands up. I know the ‘kind and understanding’ part is over. He’s getting ready to lay down the law.

  “Everybody is upset now,” he says, “so just stay here. But first thing tomorrow morning, I want you to make it up with Grandma.”

  “Oh, all right,” I say. “Why did they have to come here, anyway?”

  The sad look comes over his face again.

  “They must have wanted to see you and Mom while they still can.”

  “Couldn’t we have gone to their house, as usual?” I say.

  Dad shakes his head.

  “Time is running out fast,” he says. “It looks like they’re going to be deported.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “Kicked out,” Dad says, “sent back to Russia as ‘undesirable aliens.’”

  I am too shocked to reply.

  “The government thinks they’re a threat to our national security,” Dad says. “I’m sorry, Amanda, we should have told you earlier, but we didn’t know how.”

  “B-but they’re just a couple of old people,” I say. “How can they be a threat?”

  Dad shrugs, he looks real tired all of a sudden.

  “Don’t ask me, Honey,” he says. “Sometimes I think the whole world’s gone haywire. Sure, she’s an obnoxious, domineering old –”

  He sits down again.

  “Forget I said that, okay?”

  “Sure, Dad.”

  The full ugliness of the situation is sinking in on me. I feel like the absolute lowest of the low. What was the last thing I shouted at Grandma?

  “Why don’t you go back!”

  How could I have known?

  “It’s true they were Communist revolutionaries a long time ago in Russia,” Dad says. “Heck, things were so messed up that I might have been one myself.”

  “You?”

  “Sure,” Dad says. “If I was poor and beaten down and my country was being run by a bunch of rich idiots, I’d revolt, too.”

  I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Isn’t anything impossible on this bizarre day? I shift in my chair, wishing that I could escape to another day – like maybe ten years from now.

  “They must have wised up, though,” Dad says, “when they decided to leave.”

  “Stalin was out to get them,” I say.

  “That, too,” Dad says, “but communism is the wrong answer, no matter who’s in charge. It boils down to one guy, or a tiny group, running your whole life. And if you don’t like it ...”

  He makes a throat-slitting gesture with his finger.

  “Why didn’t she shut up, then?” I say. “Always rattling on – and that dumb picture hanging in their house. No wonder the government is after them.”

  “I guess people don’t like to admit anything bad,” he says, “so they invent myths to make things seem better than they actually were.”

  I nod. “Yeah ... right.”

  It’s starting to make sense. A lot of people are putting on acts, when you think about it. Regular guys on TV pretending to be cowboy heroes; the Atomic Kids on make-believe patrol; our teacher with her big, phony smile whenever the principal walks into our class.

  Dad gets up to leave. He turns at the door and speaks in his military voice:

  “Remember, Amanda, first thing tomorrow. Front and center.”

  “Yes, sir,” I say.

  16: Night Horrors

  I look out my window to the backyard below. All is inky black. Even the light that Mrs. Kraft usually keeps burning by her side door is out. Maybe it has popped, too, or maybe the frog shut it down like he did our other neighbors’ dog.

  “Thank heaven, today is finally over!” I say aloud.

  Why can’t the night be better? A huge rain storm would be just the thing. A downpour so powerful that it will wash that awful frog back to Secret Pond – or at least into Mrs. Kraft’s yard. Then, tomorrow, I could try to do something about Grandma.

  All my life I’ve been afraid of her. I’m still afraid. The thought of having to speak to her tomorrow fills me with dread. How will she react – will she take a swing at me, choke me? She’s plenty strong, but how could she be a threat to our whole country?

  Just this morning I’d have been overjoyed if I didn’t have to see her. But now that she’s going away, a terrible sadness comes over me. She’s the only grandmother I’ve ever known. My other one died when I was a baby. And poor Grandpa, too – all broken down and old – being tossed away like a worn out shoe!

  How could I have been so stupid and cruel?

  The atomic mushroom cloud melts, and my lamp finally starts its amazing bubbly patterns. Hot red globs rise in the liquid, then tumble back down as they cool. The reddish light playing along the ceiling is eerie, but I’m too scared of the dark tonight to switch off the lamp.

  I still can’t work the chain clasp, so I just keep wearing my medal when I crawl into bed. I’m starting to get used to its weight, and it feels almost comforting. The moment I fall asleep, though, I begin starring in my own horror movie.

  Scene 1: The Tank

  I am trying to run from a huge, clanking, roaring tank. Its cannon barrel throws a cold shadow, freezing me to the bone. I can scarcely move as the monster thunders up, ready to grind me under its steel treads.

  Shadowy men watch from the roof a tomb ...

  I jerk awake, my heart pounding so fast I think it will explode. After staring at the almost hypnotic motion lamp for a long time, I drop off again.

  Scene 2: The Concentration Camp

  I am stuck inside a barbed wire enclosure with thousands of other prisoners. We are all starving and wear ragged, striped clothes. Men in black Nazi uniforms walk among us with clubs and whips, hitting anybody they want. One stops next to me and raises his whip.

  “You lousy Russian!” he shouts.

  Wake up, watch the lamp, drop off again.

  Scene 3: The Deportation Man

  A ghastly figure – who looks a lot like Mr. Floot – stretches out his long arms from the ceiling right above me.

  “Let’ssss goooo, Amanda!” he says in a high, whistling voice.

  “W-where?” I ask through my horror.

  “Back to Russssshia!” the Deportation Man says.

  Icy fingers scratch along my arm –

  I jerk back awake.

  “Enough already!” I cry.

  All around, the house is deadly silent. Nobody has heard me cry out. Maybe I’d only shouted inside my head. I switch off the lamp. The darned thing seems to be directing my nightmare movie, somehow. I pull up the covers in the darkness.

  Then the Frog takes over, hovering in my dreams like a haunted mist, daring me to unravel his mysteries. I can’t see or hear him, but I know he’s there. As I thrash the rest of the night away, the mystery Frog is a constant presence. He tries to enter my mind and unravel such mysteries as I might have, but I fight him as best I can.

  It’s scary, but very exciting, too.

  At long last, the first rays of daylight poke into my room. I practically fall out of bed and stumble toward the window.

  “Finally!” I say. “Today simply can’t be as strange as yesterday.”

  I look outside and quickly realize just how wrong I am. The ruin goes on as far as I can see in the dim light. Even Mrs. Kraft’s yard is a wasteland.

  Four: Mysteries Unraveled