by Ginger Rue
Ewww! Now aren’t you glad I made sure you were sitting down?
“Aunt Zephyr! Get your foot out of the toilet!” I said. At least she was wearing comfortable shoes now. But I hoped they weren’t her favorites, because if it were me, I’d probably have to burn them after this.
“Hmm. Get my foot out. What an intelligent idea,” Aunt Zephyr said. She stared at me with a blank face. “And to think that all this time I’ve just been standing here enjoying myself.”
That was when I realized that Aunt Zephyr was being sarcastic. Because no way would she have enjoyed having her foot in there. “I guess you’re stuck,” I said.
“Brilliant deduction,” she replied.
“Well, why did you put your foot in there in the first place?” I asked.
“Obviously it wasn’t my intent,” she said. “When I tried to teleport back after changing my shoes, I didn’t quite hit my mark.”
“On the upside, at least you landed at my school.”
“Yes,” Aunt Zephyr said. “Eventually.”
“Eventually?”
“There were a few . . . unexpected detours along the way.”
“Where?” I asked.
“Well, first I landed with the Emberá tribe in Panama. I got a little distracted there because they were carving tagua nuts, and well, that’s just something I hate to miss. Here. I made you a frog.” She handed me a little carving of a frog sitting on a rock. It was pretty cool-looking and very slick and colorful. “I wasn’t going to take the time to paint it, but I couldn’t seem to think myself out of there, so I figured, why not paint while I waited?”
“And after that you ended up here?”
“Not exactly,” Aunt Zephyr said. “There was also a brief stop in Las Vegas.”
“Las Vegas!”
“It was most unfortunate,” she explained. “I landed right onstage in the middle of a group of showgirls. I tried to join in with the high kicks—you know, just to keep from calling attention to myself—but I wasn’t wearing the right outfit and the giant headdress, so I stood out.”
I thought that was probably not the only reason she’d stood out, but I kept that thought to myself.
“And then you landed here?”
“Yes,” she replied. “I’m sure those security guards who hauled me offstage in Vegas are still wondering how I managed to give them the slip.”
“But now your foot is stuck, and you can’t get it out?”
“Precisely. A little help here?”
I grabbed hold of Aunt Zephyr’s hands and tugged as hard as I could. She would not budge. I tried a few more times, but nothing. Then I heard another voice. But it wasn’t a fungus monster. It was Mr. Vine.
“Aleca Zamm, you’ve been in there a mighty long time, young lady!” he shouted from outside the bathroom. “Is everything all right?”
“Yes, sir,” I called.
“Then it’s time you got back to class,” he replied.
Aunt Zephyr looked at me and nodded. “I’ll be right out!” I hollered. “Or my name isn’t . . . ALECA ZAMM!”
The bathroom lights stopped flickering, and the school became quiet. The distant singing from the music room and the yelling from the gym ceased immediately. I turned to Aunt Zephyr. “Now that time stopped, I’ll go find Ford and see if he can help us get you unstuck. Just wait here.”
Aunt Zephyr cut her eyes at me and added, “Very funny.”
Oh yeah. It wasn’t like she was going anywhere.
4
More Majestic than a Toilet
If you’ve ever wondered what the greatest feeling in the world is, I can tell you. It’s stopping time and then messing with your principal just because you can.
When I turned the corner out of the bathroom, Mr. Vine had his right hand stuck out against the wall, leaning all his weight on it.
“How’s it going, Ricky?” I gave him a couple of pats on the face like mob bosses do on TV shows. I said the “Ricky” part because Mr. Vine’s first name was Richard, which sounded distinguished, but Ricky sounded like a kid, and it was fun to talk to Mr. Vine like he was a kid instead of having to be all respectful of his elder-ness. “You know, sometimes you just make this a little too easy.” And even though I knew I should hurry up and go find Ford, I couldn’t resist scooting Mr. Vine back from the wall just enough to make things interesting when time started again.
“That’s actually pretty dangerous.” It was Ford. He had already come looking for us.
“Aww, what’s it going to hurt?” I replied. “It will be funny. When time starts again, he’ll lean all his weight into the air and fall down.”
“And probably fracture his wrist when he does,” Ford said. “His trajectory, combined with the force of his weight—”
“Are you saying I have to move him back?”
“At least give him something soft to break his fall.”
I snapped my fingers. “Dog poop! Dog poop is soft!”
“Aleca . . . ,” Ford said, sounding like a grown-up, as usual.
“Fine.” I scooted Mr. Vine back so that he wouldn’t fall down when I started time back up. “But don’t think I’m finished with you, Ricky,” I said.
“Where’s Ms. Zephyr?” Ford asked.
“Right in here,” I said, pointing at the girls’ bathroom. Ford looked scared. “Nobody else is in there,” I promised him. “Not even a fungus monster.” He didn’t ask what a fungus monster was, because obviously he had thought about them before too.
When we reached Aunt Zephyr, she said, “Thank goodness.”
Then Ford said, “Why is there a tree in the girls’ restroom?”
“A what?” Aunt Zephyr and I asked.
“I suppose I’m seeing something from the past or future again,” Ford explained.
“Oh!” I replied. “I guess that back before they built the school, a tree was right there.”
“A big one,” Ford said. “It’s . . . majestic!”
I hated to break it to him that the majestic tree had been cut down and that in its place was a very un-majestic toilet bowl, but somebody had to. “Ford, there’s no tree. Not in our time period, anyway. There’s a toilet there. And Aunt Zephyr’s foot is stuck in it.”
We explained how Aunt Zephyr had gotten into such a mess. Then, since Ford had known so much about the way Mr. Vine would fall and break his wrist, I asked him, “Is there a mathematical formula or something for unsticking her foot?”
Even though he couldn’t see the toilet bowl, Ford pulled at Aunt Zephyr’s leg and said, “Haven’t you thought of the most obvious solution?”
“Sawing off her foot?” I asked.
“Aleca!” Aunt Zephyr shrieked.
“Of course not,” Ford said. “She should teleport somewhere else.”
“Weren’t you listening when we told you how I ended up here?” Aunt Zephyr asked. “My teleporting is out of whack! I can’t do it!”
“Sure you can,” Ford said. “You’re probably just nervous. Your confidence has been shaken. Take some deep breaths and try again.”
While we waited, Ford and I played a game of tic-tac-actual-toe in the floor dirt with the toes of our shoes, but Aunt Zephyr stayed put.
“Let’s both give her a big tug and see if that helps,” I offered.
“I can’t see the angle of how her foot is caught, though,” Ford said. “We might fracture a bone.”
I sighed. I thought Ford should be a bone doctor when he grew up. He sure thought about fractures a lot. “Just tug,” I said.
Ford grabbed one of Aunt Zephyr’s hands, and I grabbed the other. Just as we were about to tug, though, something strange happened—stranger than stopping time and teleporting, even. For a moment the toilet disappeared. In its place was a tree.
I was so shocked that I let go of Aunt Zephyr’s hand, and the tree vanished. “I just saw the tree!” I said.
“You saw it too?” Aunt Zephyr gasped.
“You see it too? A sycamore tree?” Ford said. “At least a hun
dred feet high!”
We all looked at one another.
“Take my hands again, both of you,” Aunt Zephyr ordered. “And no matter what happens, don’t let go until I tell you.”
We grabbed her hands. The toilet disappeared again. The tree was in its place.
Aunt Zephyr spoke calmly. “Now back away slowly.” We did. Aunt Zephyr backed away with us, because there was no toilet there anymore for her foot to be stuck in. Her foot was simply on top of a tree root.
“Now let go of my hands,” Aunt Zephyr said.
Ford and I let go. As soon as we did, the tree was gone and the toilet returned.
Aunt Zephyr shivered and started kicking her foot wildly. “Get. This. Thing. Off. Of. Me!” She kicked so hard that her wet toilet-y shoe flew through the air and hit the wall before falling to the ground. Then Aunt Zephyr stuck her foot in the sink and started squirting pink soap all over it and scrubbing like crazy.
“Obviously we are going to have to find a teacher in this school with a size nine foot so I can borrow her shoes beforehand.”
“Beforehand what?” I asked.
Aunt Zephyr grinned. “I think we just figured out how we’re going to see Ford’s bridge together.”
5
Mystical Three
I loved a lot of things, but the sparkle in Aunt Zephyr’s eyes when she got excited had to be in my top ten. And, boy, were her eyes sparkling now!
“I don’t understand,” I said. “What just happened?”
“You . . . the two of you!” Ford said. “You just—you just participated in my Wonder ability!”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But how’d we do it?”
“By holding hands,” Aunt Zephyr said. “Didn’t you notice that the tree appeared for us only when we held hands? It disappeared as soon as we let go.”
I thought about this for a minute. “That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “I held Ford’s hand when he saw the bridge, but I still couldn’t see it.”
“Or touch it,” Aunt Zephyr said. “But this time you saw the tree with your own eyes. And not only that. Couldn’t you smell it? I felt the root under my foot. It was there, Aleca. If we’d held hands longer, we probably could’ve heard the chirp of birds nesting in its branches.”
“I still don’t see why holding hands made it happen today,” I said.
“Three,” Ford said. “It’s a mystical number.”
“Perhaps,” said Aunt Zephyr. “Or it could be more than that.”
Ford started sort of hopping up and down. “A conduit! You’re a conduit!”
I didn’t know what a conduit was, but I didn’t want a seven-year-old to show me up. “Yeah,” I agreed. “I’m probably a condo—a can-do-it—a . . . that thing you just said.”
“Not you,” Ford said, shaking his head. “Ms. Zephyr.”
“A conduit, Aleca, is something that allows for a transfer. Like a pipe in a plumbing system, or an electrical wire,” explained Aunt Zephyr. “Ford is suggesting that somehow his power ran through me to you.”
“And also to you,” I said. “So maybe you’re just extra Wonder-ous.”
“That’s a good point,” Aunt Zephyr said. She stood up a little straighter and smoothed her hair with her hand like we were about to give her a Wonder award.
“Let’s test that theory,” said Ford. “Aleca, stand back, please.” He put his hand out for Aunt Zephyr to take. I scooted away.
Aunt Zephyr took his hand. They stood there a minute. Nobody said anything.
“Are you speechless because you are both seeing something awesome?” I finally asked.
“No,” said Aunt Zephyr. “We are speechless because absolutely nothing is happening.”
“Except that my hand is getting a bit sweaty,” Ford added.
“Aleca.” Aunt Zephyr offered me her hand. I took it.
The tree appeared again.
“Now, Ford, you let go,” Aunt Zephyr instructed.
Ford let go. The tree went away. Then Aunt Zephyr and I let go too.
“Mystical number three,” Ford said.
“Let’s try some different combinations to be sure,” offered Aunt Zephyr.
So I got in the middle and we joined hands to see what would happen. Nothing. We put Ford in the middle. Nothing.
“Well, what do you know?” Aunt Zephyr smiled. “I’m a conduit!”
6
The Coolest Bridge Ever
Ford did not want to give up on his mystical three. “It takes all three of us. However,” he said, “beyond the mystical nature of three, there is a certain logic to it.”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“You stop time,” he explained. “I see things outside of time. Or I guess you could say outside of the time that exists at the present moment. But only your aunt has the ability to travel. Maybe that is why she is the conduit.”
“But you were going to keep walking on the bridge last time,” I reminded him. “Except I stopped you. So you were traveling all by yourself.”
“Aleca, I ‘traveled’ only a few feet. Who knows what would’ve happened if I’d kept going?”
“We have to find out,” said Aunt Zephyr. “Let’s get me some dry shoes and head for Ford’s bridge!”
After visiting four separate classrooms looking for the right size shoes for Aunt Zephyr’s feet—and then one extra stop to Mrs. Swan’s class because Mrs. Lang’s shoes were too grandmaish even though they were size nines—Ford and I bolted out of the bathroom and out the school doors. Aunt Zephyr could hardly keep up, even in Mrs. Swan’s comfort-cushioned slides.
The bridge right in the middle of the soccer field. When we got to it, Ford said, “Isn’t it magnificent?” He’d forgotten that Aunt Zephyr and I couldn’t see anything except the field and the Dumpster over to the side. “Oh yeah,” he said, remembering. He went to the other side of Aunt Zephyr, and we each took one of her hands.
As soon as we did, there it was: the most beautiful bridge I’d ever seen.
But there was more than just a bridge. There was a concrete guard rail on either side, leading up to the covered part of the bridge. The covered part was made of steel and was pretty far in the distance. There were zigzagging steel beams running along both sides of the covering, making it look like triangles were holding up the curved arch on top. Big cement columns supported the bridge where it stretched over brownish-green water.
Aunt Zephyr had a faraway look in her eyes, like maybe she was seeing something that Ford and I didn’t. “I can’t believe it,” she said. “I simply cannot believe it.”
“Let’s go!” I said, pulling on her hand. “I can’t wait to see what’s on the other side!”
“Wait,” said Aunt Zephyr. “Let’s just take a moment. Something incredible is happening here, Aleca. This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this bridge.”
7
Crossing into Whenever
“How could you have seen this bridge before?” I asked. “This is the first time all three of us have seen it together!”
Aunt Zephyr smiled a strange smile and shook her head. “Aleca, I’ve seen a lot of things before. Not through any special power but just by being alive.”
I didn’t know what she was talking about. And I guess she could tell, because she explained it: “This bridge is a part of history, Aleca, and so am I.”
“That’s right!” Ford said. “You grew up in Prophet’s Porch, didn’t you?”
“Yes,” she replied. “And this used to be the main bridge into and out of town. I’ve crossed this bridge many a time!”
“You mean they had concrete back when you were born?” I asked.
Aunt Zephyr rolled her eyes. “Yes, the dinosaurs mixed it up for us,” she said sarcastically.
“What do you think all those structures from ancient Rome are made of ? And modern concrete has been around since the late 1800s,” Ford explained. “They started building bridges out of reinforced concrete in 1889.”
I looked at
Ford, amazed.
“I did some research,” he said, “after I saw the bridge for the first time. I was trying to figure out how old it might be.”
“If memory serves, this bridge was built not long after Texas became a state,” said Aunt Zephyr.
I couldn’t remember when that had actually happened—I think that was one of those things Mrs. Floberg had lectured about when I wasn’t really listening. “Were you alive when Texas became a state?” I asked. She didn’t answer, but from the look on her face, I was guessing it was a big no.
“They tore this bridge down after I moved away,” she continued. “I remember coming home to visit and being so sad that it was gone. I didn’t realize your school was right next to where the bridge had been.”
“Well, it sure is a fine one,” I said. “Can we cross it now?”
“I suppose I’ve squeezed about as much reverence as possible out of you youngsters,” Aunt Zephyr said. She gripped our hands, and slowly we began walking on the concrete that led to the steel bridge.
I looked down at our feet and noticed that there were little clovers popping up through the concrete’s cracks. “They needed some of that spray stuff Dad uses on weeds,” I remarked.
“Good observation,” said Aunt Zephyr. “This road wasn’t paved until many years after the bridge was built. So the concrete is older than the bridge, and the cracks indicate even a few more years added to that, so that would put it . . . Oh, I just don’t know! I didn’t pay any attention to when they paved the streets when I was a child.”
“But at least we can assume that we are in Prophet’s Porch sometime during your childhood,” Ford said.
“Hey, maybe we’ll run into young you when we get there!” I joked.
Aunt Zephyr stopped us in our tracks. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said. “Oh, Aleca! What if you’re right?”
8
Spry and Resolute Aunt Zephyr
I kind of wished I had kept that joke to myself. Because just when we’d finally started getting somewhere, Aunt Zephyr stopped walking.
I tugged at her hand gently. “This way,” I reminded her.
