“It wasn’t how we pray,” she explained to Owen and his family. “We say God-is-great-and-God-is-good-and-we-thank-him-for-this-food-Amen.”
Eleanor’s mother cleared her throat. “There are many ways to talk to God.”
“Maybe God likes hearing different prayers,” said Owen’s dad. “All the same would get boring.”
Eleanor nodded. That made sense.
“This pasta looks delicious!” said Dad.
It wasn’t pasta like Eleanor’s dad made. First of all, it wasn’t spaghetti. It was short noodles that looked like little fat straws. Also, it wasn’t covered in tomato sauce but instead was mixed with mushrooms and weird green stuff and little globs of white cheese. But the good part was that there was also macaroni and cheese made from a box, for people who didn’t want the gross white globby cheese and the giant slimy-looking mushrooms. Eleanor ate mac and cheese, and so did Michael.
Also, there was warm bread and a big bowl of grapes, and there was a green leafy salad. Eleanor did not eat the salad.
Owen ate the grown-up pasta and the salad. He did not even pick out the vegetables. Eleanor didn’t understand it. But he convinced her to try a mushroom by telling her that she was a spy in Jabba the Hutt’s domain, and if she didn’t eat the slug food, people would find out and she’d be caught. So she ate the slug food.
One bite.
And really? It wasn’t too bad.
And Owen wasn’t too bad either. In fact, he was awesome.
It was too bad that she couldn’t live downstairs from Owen and live at her old house.
But she had to pick one, and she had already picked her old house. Jedi queens did not go back on their decisions.
Eleanor swallowed the slug food and stuck out her tongue. “Yuck. Mushrooms are gross.”
Chapter 8
Owen
After dinner, everyone went to the backyard for the fish funeral. They brought folding chairs and put them in two nice rows so that Owen’s dad and Michael and Eleanor’s parents and her big sister and big brother could sit. “How long will this take?” asked Alicia. “I’m supposed to call Millie tonight. My best friend,” she added to Owen.
Eleanor said, “You call her every night.”
Alicia ignored Eleanor. She turned to Owen’s dad to explain. “She’s coming over on her bike tonight to say hi.”
Eleanor said, “But tonight is the funeral, and it will take a long time.”
“Girls,” said their mom in a warning voice—just like the warning voice Owen’s mom used on him and Michael. “Shall we begin? Where’s the fish?”
Eleanor jumped up. “In the freezer. I’ll get him.”
As she left, Eleanor’s mom said, “Rafael. . . .” She spoke in the same kind of voice Owen’s mom used when his dad one time used up all their butter to make muffins. And Eleanor’s dad said, “I triple-bagged him. What else could I do?” And then Eleanor’s mom shook her head and smiled, just like Owen’s mom did when she took a bite of a buttery muffin.
Eleanor came back with the fish in a shoe box (and in its baggies). The shoebox said COFFEN on the side. She said, “Dad, you should start with singing, like in church. And then poetry. And then Owen and I will fence.”
“Like in church,” murmured Alicia. Eleanor’s mom gave Alicia a Look.
“Sounds good,” said Eleanor’s dad. He sang something in Spanish. And even though Owen was learning Spanish and already knew ¿Cómo estás? And Me llamo Owen, he didn’t understand the words. But the music was nice, and all of Eleanor’s family joined in on the chorus. Owen nudged Eleanor and gave her a questioning look. She translated, “The chickens say pío pío pío.” He nodded, even though he didn’t know what that meant. Chickens said cluck cluck cluck—didn’t they?
Also, it wasn’t a song about a fish. But everyone seemed to like it, and by the end, Owen could sing pío pío pío too.
Then Owen’s dad read a very short and sad poem. It compared Scrumpy to a butterfly.
Then it was time to fence. Owen was a little nervous because he didn’t think he liked doing shows. Also, when Eleanor got excited, she didn’t always remember the routine. But they made it through with only one mistake, where she twirled instead of blocking and Owen accidentally stabbed her. She fell to the ground and pretended to die, and she was really good at dying, so it was all okay. She even said, “Scrumpy . . . I . . . am . . . your . . . father” at the very end, before she rolled her eyes back in her head and clunked her sword to the ground.
Everyone clapped. Owen was glad it was done.
Eleanor gave a speech. It was hard to follow, but mostly she said there were four Scrumpies, and she didn’t know if there would ever be another one like the ones who had already lived. And she said this was a memorial funeral with no burying and not a funeral funeral with burying. And all the Scrumpies needed to be buried together so that they could go to heaven together. When she said that, her parents did not look super happy. And then she said that Scrumpy died of sadness because he had to move. That also did not make her parents look happy. And she said that Scrumpy was a good fish—a golden fish—who God loved.
“The End,” said Eleanor. “The funeral is over. You can go now.”
Alicia jumped up.
“Maybe we could sing again?” said Eleanor’s dad. “One last song.”
Alicia sat back down. Slowly.
Eleanor’s dad said, “In memory of Scrumpy.” He strummed again, and it was a tune that Owen knew, and this time they all sang in English, as much of the words as they could remember: “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God loves them all.”
Then the funeral was really over. Owen realized that from now on, if anyone ever asked him if he’d gone to a funeral, he could say he’d been to two of them. And he could say that he remembered one of them very well. And it was a good one.
As they put the chairs away, Eleanor whispered in his ear, “The Plan. Tomorrow.”
Suddenly Owen was sorry the memorial funeral was over so soon.
Chapter 9
Eleanor
After the funeral it was time for bed. Eleanor lay in her old bed in the strange new room. Alicia had to read in the living room so Eleanor could sleep, and Alicia was grumpy about it. Eleanor thought about how happy her sister would be when she had a room all to herself again.
Eleanor’s mom read to her from the second Narnia book, which is about two kids who run away from home and live on a ship and sail around the world. Eleanor lay back on her pillow and listened.
Eleanor’s mom closed the book at the end of the chapter. “You know, what you said in your funeral talk . . . ?”
“My sermon?” Eleanor waited for a compliment. It was a great sermon. She would definitely become a preacher when she grew up. A preacher part time and Darth Vader full time. Or the other way around. Good Vader, she reminded herself, thinking of what Owen had said.
“What you said in your sermon,” her mother said, “wasn’t quite right. Not all the way. Scrumpy doesn’t need to be with his family in order to go to heaven. In fact, lots of people are buried far away from their families.”
“Like soldiers?”
“Sure. And other people too. Immigrants. Refugees. Or just people who’ve moved far away from where they were born. God knows where they are, even if they’re a long way away from home.”
Eleanor nodded. That meant God knew where she was too. She thought of God maybe having a phone with a Google map and she was a blue dot moving from the old house to the duplex. God knew where she was, even at the new house. She was always the blue dot, and God could always find her.
But that didn’t mean she should stay at the new house.
Her mom brushed back her curls and kissed her forehead. “Good night, sweetie.”
“Good night, Mom.” Eleanor fell asleep
imagining herself as a blue dot looking for a path back to her old home.
The next day Eleanor’s mom stayed home from work again, so they unpacked and put things away all day long. There was no way to run off and start a new life. Eleanor sent a note up to Owen on the pulley: NO HUNGRY FISH TODAY.
All the unpacking made Eleanor think of something she hadn’t thought of before. It was this: She couldn’t take all her clothes and toys to the tree house. She would have to leave a lot of things behind. She made a list of all the things she wouldn’t need:
Studying the list, she saw a problem. She didn’t want to leave very many things behind. And even more important, she didn’t want to leave any people behind. She didn’t want to move away from her family—not even Alicia.
She crumpled up the paper. So what if she couldn’t decide what stuff to leave behind right now? There were still a lot of plans to make. She could decide what to take and what to leave behind later. Maybe—oh! maybe she could come back to visit after she moved to the tree house? Sure, she could do that. And she could change her clothes here when the clothes she was wearing got dirty. Maybe every two weeks or so. And she could pick up a toy or book if she needed it. So really, she didn’t need to pack hardly anything.
She hummed. Problem solved.
That night just before supper, Owen thumped on the ceiling three times, and she ran upstairs. “I made an improvement to the pulley!” he said.
Michael was bouncing on his bottom bunk. “I thought of it,” he said. “Owen, tell her I thought of it.”
Owen said, “Michael thought of it. But I made it.”
Eleanor looked at the pulley. The spaceship was still there. Now, under the spaceship hung a string, and clipped to the string was a little basket with a lid. “In case we want to send anything bigger than a note,” said Owen.
Eleanor frowned. “The Millennium Falcon can’t jump into hyperspace with a basket.”
“True,” said Owen. “So when they jump, we’ll need to take the basket off. It’ll be part of the orders to the crew. Eject storage unit. Execute jump!”
Eleanor considered. That sounded like something Han Solo might really say. Eject storage unit. Execute jump! “Okay,” she said. But then she thought, okay wasn’t enough. A basket was a big deal. They could send anything back and forth now—anything small enough to fit in a basket, anyway. She could think of so many things—books and toys and art projects and so many other little things that she could send Owen and he could send her. At least until she moved back to her real home. “This is great!” she said.
Owen grinned.
That night after supper, Owen sent down five brownies that his dad had made. They were wrapped in a cloth napkin and were still warm. There was a note that said, Enjoy, everyone! so Eleanor had to share them.
Eleanor sent the napkin back. She also sent a friendship bracelet for Owen. She had braided it months ago, but she didn’t have anyone to give it to then. And now she did. She wrote, “Enjoy, Owen!” on the note she taped to the bracelet. And she also wrote Friendship brasslet with an arrow, in case he didn’t know what it was.
Then Owen sent a note that said Thank you and good night, and Eleanor sent a note that said Thank you too and good night too because she had forgotten to say thank you for the brownies before.
Eleanor went to bed, thinking how much fun it was to live underneath someone who had a pulley attached to their curtain rod.
And feeling a little sad that she would be moving away.
Chapter 10
Owen
Owen, meanwhile, had a good day. Eleanor had sent a note postponing the plan (NO HUNGRY FISH TODAY), and he and Dad and Michael went swimming, even though Lake Harriet was still cold. And then he and Michael improved the pulley (he did the work, even though Michael had the idea), and they saw Eleanor again. And there were brownies.
But Eleanor was still planning to leave.
The next morning when Owen woke up, he heard Michael eating breakfast with Dad. He stretched his toes and arms as far as they would go and listened to all the morning sounds. The side window—the one with the screen—let him hear the birds singing and the squirrels chattering. The leaves rustled. In the kitchen, Michael was telling Dad about a big ferocious monster at the zoo, and Dad was saying it sounded like maybe a sea otter and they could look it up after breakfast.
Owen got up. Dad said, “Good morning. Quiet morning.” Which meant that Mom had just gotten home from work and needed to sleep. Dad said, “We’ll have reading time right after breakfast.”
Dad poured Owen’s cereal, and Owen said a silent prayer. (Thank you for Eleanor because she is fun! And please make Michael stop kicking me.) As he was eating, Owen said, “Can I play with Eleanor today?”
“Me too!” said Michael.
“She’s my friend, not yours,” said Owen.
Owen’s dad took a sip of coffee and ran his fingers through his hair. He looked tired. “Friends,” he said, “are for sharing. I believe you can all play together.” Then before Owen could argue, he added, “She seems nice.”
“She is,” said Owen. “And she knows how to make pulleys, but she doesn’t know how to fence, so we’re going to teach each other lots of stuff.”
“I bet she doesn’t know how to spit with aiming,” said Michael. “I bet I could teach her.”
“Nope,” said Dad. “Nope nope nope. Think of something else.”
Michael thought, mouth full of cereal.
“Owen,” Dad said, “do you and Eleanor have any plans for that pulley? Something top secret?” He grinned.
“Um . . . just notes,” said Owen. “Maybe in code, if we figure out a code we like.” He wanted to say, “The goldfish is hungry means she’s planning to run away.” But he didn’t say it. He looked down at his cereal bowl. The little O’s stared back at him. He knew he should tell Dad about Eleanor’s Plan. But he had promised Eleanor not to tell. And now she wanted him to help her run away. The little O’s glared at him.
He dunked them with his spoon.
“Dad,” he said, “Eleanor used to live on the corner of Central Avenue and 31st Street. She told me. Where is that?”
“Let’s see,” said Dad. He brought his phone to the table and typed into the map app. “Right here.” The blue dot flashed on the spot.
Owen pushed the directions button, like he did whenever they went places.
“How would you get there?” asked Dad. “See if you can figure it out.”
This was too easy. Owen clicked on the bus icon and read the directions. “The 67 bus south. Then the 34 east. Then walk two blocks south.”
Dad checked. “Good job.” He pocketed the phone. “Now, finish your breakfast.”
“Pillbugs!” said Michael. “I could teach Eleanor. I bet she doesn’t know where to find the best pillbugs.”
“I bet she doesn’t want to know,” said Owen.
Reading time was nice. Dad read four stories that Michael picked—books with pictures on every page—and then he read a chapter from Narnia. That book actually had a longer name, but Owen and Michael both called it the Narnia book. A couple of weeks earlier, Owen had noticed a collection of small paperbacks on the shelf. The covers had monsters and swords and lions and things like that, but when he opened the books, they had lots of words and looked very grown up, with hardly any pictures. He took the first book off the shelf and asked his dad to read it to him. And to his surprise, Dad said yes.
While Dad read Narnia, Owen and Michael lay on their bellies on the floor and colored. Owen colored a picture of Aslan the lion right as they were reading about him. It was the best thing ever.
But when he went back into his and Michael’s room, the spaceship dangled outside the window.
Inside the Falcon was a note. It said,
THE GOLDFISH IS HUNGRY!!!!
(After lunch)
(from Eleanor)
Chapter 11
Eleanor
Eleanor had been up for hours. Hours. Her mom had sent her back to bed twice because it was too early to get up, and then after her mom left for work, her dad sent her back to bed one more time. Finally she was allowed to get up because Alicia was mad at all the noise Eleanor was making getting in and out of bed. But she had to sit quietly in the living room and read a book without talking until at least seven a.m.
Seven a.m. is a long time away when it is only 6:27 and you have already been up forever, waiting for morning to come.
Eleanor tried to read, but she needed to do things. She got out her markers and drew a big drawing of her tree house, the one behind her old home, with lots of details, like the rope ladder and the two windows and the red roof. She even added some details that weren’t in the real tree house, like a pulley for carrying snacks up and down, and flowerpots in the window, and a red chimney in the roof with little friendly curls of smoke coming out. Last of all, she wrote MY HOME! under the tree house, in bright pink letters, because pink was her favorite. Then it was seven a.m.
Dad got up and made some breakfast for Alicia and Eleanor. (Aaron was still sleeping. In his own room. By himself.)
After breakfast, Dad had work to do in his office (in a corner of Mom and Dad’s bedroom), because even though he didn’t teach in the summer, he still had reading and writing to do. Being a college professor used up a lot of thinking time. He asked Eleanor to give him one hour to work, and then they could explore the new neighborhood.
Eleanor shook her head. “I don’t want to explore the new neighborhood.”
“Hmm,” said Dad. “Well, maybe after lunch then.”
“Can I play with Owen?”
Owen and Eleanor Move In Page 3
