by Heidi Lang
Claire yanked her hand away and stomped inside the house without another word. She’d have to call Ronnie, and tell her she’d been all wrong.
Everything was wrong.
CHAPTER 6
Tap-tap-tap. Tap-tap-tap.
Claire woke up slowly.
Tap-tap.
Her heart froze, all the blood pooling into one giant icy lump in her chest. She remembered her dad’s stories about how, instead of fingernails, trolls had an extra finger bone sharpened to a fine point. How King Mossofras wanted revenge after her dad had stolen her mom out from under those pointed fingers of his years ago. And how Claire, young, innocent, would be easy prey if she wasn’t careful.
“If you hear something scraping, scraping at your window in the dead of night, it’s probably King Mossofras, searching for a weakness in my troll-repelling glass, so don’t look. Never look. Because if he catches your gaze with his own, he’ll be able to pull you to him and drag you belowground where you’ll never see sunlight again . . .”
Claire squeezed her eyes shut. Just a story her dad had told her when she was little. She’d woken up crying every night for a week afterward, and her dad had never told that particular story again. But it still hovered there in her memory, and all it took was the smallest noise at night to send it careening back, the words as fresh as if her dad were sitting there next to her now.
She knew there wasn’t a troll king. Just like she knew there weren’t any ghosts in their basement or spaceships in their yard.
Tap-tap-tap.
But she also knew that something was definitely at her window. Claire swallowed down a whimper and slid out of bed, then crept toward the window. Holding her breath, she yanked up the shade before she could chicken out.
A pale face loomed in the darkness.
“Yah!” Claire fell backward, images of the underground kingdom flooding her mind—lanterns made of frozen dewdrops, twisty mazes with no exits, and trolls riding giant toads and keeping children as pets.
“Claire,” the specter said. And she recognized the voice, and the face, even with its nose all smushed.
“M-Mike?” She got to her feet and switched on her bedside lamp, then opened her window, her heart still beating way too fast. “What are you doing here?”
“Ronnie said you’re leaving in the morning. I wanted to say good-bye.”
“Um, oh. Uh, okay.” Claire took a step back. “Er, come in. But quietly, ’cause my dad . . .” Actually, she wasn’t sure what her dad would do. A normal dad would not be okay with a boy sneaking into his twelve-year-old daughter’s bedroom at night, but Claire knew her dad was anything but normal. Plus, it was Mike. “He’d probably want to hang out with us,” she finished.
He slid through her window and dropped to the floor, then stood there awkwardly, his arms too straight at his sides. After a few seconds, he shoved his hands into his jeans pockets. “So.”
“Yeah,” Claire agreed. She was sure her face was flushed, and she could still feel her pulse jumping. And when had Mike gotten so tall? He was actually a few inches taller than her, now. And he was standing way, way too close. Should she take a step back? But then that might make things weird. Or, weirder. “Good-bye, I guess?”
“Before you leave,” Mike said, not taking the hint, “I had to tell you that . . .” His voice trailed off, and he mumbled something so quietly that even standing literally inches from him, Claire couldn’t understand.
“What was that?” she asked.
His face went beet red. “I said, Ronnie wasn’t lying.” He looked away, and now Claire could see how the red had crept out to the tips of his ears. “I do like you,” he mumbled, but clearer this time.
Now Claire found she couldn’t look at him, either. “Oh.” She felt her face grow hotter and hoped it wasn’t as red as his. “Um, thank you?”
Mike flinched as if she’d just smacked him in the face with one of Wrong Way’s breadsticks, and Claire knew that whatever the right thing to say was, she’d just said the opposite.
“You don’t like me back, do you?” he said.
“I . . . I do like you.” She could stop there. She was leaving tomorrow, after all, and for the first time, that didn’t seem like the worst thing ever. But as she looked up into Mike’s hopeful, scrunched-up face, she knew she really couldn’t.
He was her friend. He deserved honesty.
“But,” she continued, and the hope in his eyes withered and died. Ugh. This was horrible. “I’ve just never really thought of you like, like that,” she finished. She realized she was waving her hands around and tried shoving them into her pockets. Then she realized she was wearing her pajamas, the ones with owls and hearts all over them, and suddenly everything was So. Much. Worse.
Leaving tomorrow was sounding better and better by the second.
Mike nodded. “I understand.” His voice was so sad she wanted to take it all back. Because really, she wasn’t sure she didn’t not like him, either. She didn’t really know how she felt.
Instead, she just looked at the carpet, studying the worn spot by the corner of her bed. She hated how her dad never gave a straight answer, how he danced around everything he didn’t want to talk about. But right now, she wished she knew how to change the subject as smoothly as he did. And then, suddenly, she did know. “What happened?” she blurted.
Mike blinked. “What?”
“This year. What happened to you? You got . . . quieter.” Sadder, she almost said. But that wasn’t quite right, either. She remembered how he’d hugged the walls at school like a ghost and barely even nodded at her when she passed, like he was hoping to disappear.
“Do you really want to know?” he asked.
“I do.”
Mike let out a breath. “Nothing.”
Claire frowned. “Mike—”
“It wasn’t anything. Not really. Some of the other boys just said . . . a few things to me one day. They made me realize that . . .” He shrugged. “I just don’t fit in there.” He finally looked at her again. “I don’t fit in anywhere.”
Claire curled her hands into fists. “Who said something to you?” She wanted to hit them, every last one of them.
“No one important.”
“Who, Mike?”
“Does it matter? They all think the same things. Even the ones who aren’t saying it out loud.” He sighed. “I wish I was going in that van with you.”
“I wish you were, too.”
He managed a smile. “Thank you.” Then his face scrunched again, his eyes glistening. He turned away and ran the back of one hand across his face. “So embarrassing.”
Claire’s heart hurt. “It’s not. It’s normal.”
“It’s just, I’m really going to miss you, and—”
“Ha! Caught you,” Ronnie hissed, sticking her head through the open window.
Mike jumped, then tripped over Claire’s bed and ended up sprawled on the floor.
Ronnie laughed evilly.
“Shh,” Claire hissed.
“Oh yeah, your dad might hear.” She climbed inside and shut the window. “And then we’d never get rid of him.” She leaned back against the wall. “I really am going to miss that guy.”
“Um, excuse me?” Claire said.
“Oh, and you, too.” Ronnie managed to hold her grin for another second before it slid off her face, and she rushed forward, hugging Claire, a classic awkward Ronnie hug, and Claire didn’t want to cry. She wasn’t going to cry. But she couldn’t help remembering a thousand sleepovers and camping trips and whispered secrets. Visits to waterparks and huddling in Ronnie’s room, doing homework, or binge watching about ten hours of cartoons at a time until they both felt disgusted and swore they’d never watch television again, and . . .
And she was going to miss her. She’d miss this life.
“You’re going to have such a good time,” Ronnie sobbed. “I’m so jealous.”
That stopped Claire’s tears immediately. Everyone always thought her li
fe was more fun than it was, that her dad was more fun than he was. That everything was a Grand Adventure.
But it was a lie.
Claire pulled back. “It’s not just some fun summer vacation,” she said bitterly. “This is my life now.”
“Just for now,” Ronnie said.
“I told you, Dad sold the house.”
“I still can’t believe it.” Ronnie shook her head. “Still. Eventually, you’ll move . . .”
“Move where?” Claire demanded. “Because wherever it is, it won’t be back here.”
Ronnie’s shoulders slumped. “I know,” she said quietly. She pulled a manila envelope out from her jacket pocket and handed it to Claire, her hands trembling. “I didn’t have time to wrap it properly. Sorry.”
Claire opened the envelope and pulled out a stack of what looked like postcards. They were all pre-addressed to Ronnie and stamped, but there were no pictures on the front.
“You’re supposed to draw your own pictures,” Ronnie explained. “I got you colored pencils, see?” Claire found them in the bottom of the envelope. “I thought you could illustrate the things you see. So it would be like I’m seeing them, too, but through your eyes.”
Claire hesitated, the stack of pencils heavy in her hand. Then she dropped them back into the envelope and closed it. “Thank you. But you know I don’t draw anymore.”
“Not since you found the divorce papers,” Ronnie pointed out.
Claire flinched.
“You found what?” Mike asked.
“Not your business, Mike.” Ronnie held out her hand, palm toward him, her eyes never leaving Claire’s face. “It’s still okay to have fun sometimes, Claire. I promise. It’s okay.”
Claire had the strangest urge to fling the postcards in Ronnie’s face. She wasn’t afraid to have fun. “It has nothing to do with my mom. I just stopped because I realized I’m not that good.”
“You’re really good,” Mike said. “You drew me that picture of a horse dancing on the moon, remember? I still have it.”
“Yeah, but Mike, you’re in love with her. Of course you think she’s good.”
Mike spluttered, and Claire felt her face going red all over again. “Ronnie!” she managed.
“What? I figured he was in here earlier professing his feelings. Right?” Neither of them would look at her, and she grinned wickedly. “Am I sorry I missed that!” She shook her head. “My point is that I also think you’re good, Claire. And even if you were terrible, which you’re not, you loved drawing. You shouldn’t give it up just because it’s not ‘practical.’” She patted Claire on the shoulder. “And sorry, I know you hate air quotes.”
Claire looked at her postcards, then stuffed them back in the envelope with the pencils. “Thanks,” she said stiffly. She was so never using them.
“Just think about what I said, will you?”
Claire nodded.
“Well.” Ronnie glanced around the empty room, her shoulders slumping. “I guess this is good-bye.”
“I guess so,” Claire said. She sniffed, then sniffed again.
“Keep in touch. Visit when you can. Tell me everything.” Ronnie hugged her hard one more time, then hoisted herself out the window.
Mike hesitated. “She’s never been good at good-byes,” he said. “She cried all night, though.”
“Ronnie did?” Claire couldn’t picture it, but Mike never lied.
He gave her a quick hug that was somehow even more awkward than Ronnie’s. “I’ll miss you,” he said into her hair, and then he was gone, too.
Claire stood at the open window for a long time.
CHAPTER 7
Claire’s dad rolled his window down, then cranked the volume on the radio up until Claire couldn’t think, her head filling with music and wind and the realization that this was happening, this was it. She was in a van.
She was living the hashtag vanlife.
Patrick had claimed the copilot seat for the first leg of their trip, which meant Claire was sitting on top of the cooler, the buckle of her dad’s homemade seatbelt digging uncomfortably into her side. And did he even know how to make a seatbelt? Or how to fasten one properly? She tried not to imagine the seatbelt ripping free, sending her flying right through that giant windshield. Instead, she rested her forehead against the window and watched the edges of night curl away from the sky, leaving behind the soft blue glow of a perfect morning. It would be so much better if it were raining. Or thundering. Something to match the way she felt inside. Maybe a giant tornado would swoop down the road toward them, dark and swirling with menace.
“Chomps!” Patrick shrieked abruptly, so loud their dad swerved the van a little in surprise. “I forgot Chomps!”
Their dad actually turned down the volume on the radio. “You’re sure?” he asked.
Patrick nodded, his forehead creased.
“Absolutely positively sure?”
Patrick nodded again.
Claire tensed. Chomps was Patrick’s favorite toy, a dinosaur stuffed animal that their mom had bought for him before she left. The only toy she’d bought him before she left. But their dad had warned them when they headed out that anything left behind was left behind for good, so Claire waited for him to spin some tale about Chomps living a new life in the wilds of Michigan. Instead, he took the next exit and flipped around. “We can’t exactly adventure without him, can we?” he said, his tone super reasonable, like obviously they needed a stuffed dinosaur along on this road trip.
“But we’ve already been driving for, like, an hour,” Claire whined. She wasn’t sure why she was arguing; she knew Patrick would feel terrible if they didn’t go back for Chomps. And it wasn’t like she was in a hurry to leave forever.
“We’ve got time,” her dad said. “We’ve got nothing but time.”
“Then why did we leave so early in the first place?”
“Because we’re setting out on a Grand Adventure. Which means . . . what, Patrick?”
“It means we ride out with the sun,” Patrick said promptly, giving a smile full of adoration, like his dad was some sort of superhero. And that, Claire realized, was why she’d been arguing. Part of her wanted Patrick to feel as miserable as she did, to see their dad the way she saw their dad. Immediately, guilt swirled around her, thicker and blacker than any tornado, and she kept quiet the rest of the drive to the house.
An hour later they were back on the road again, Chomps tucked securely under Patrick’s arm. This time their dad left the radio off, the windows up, silence filling their van. “I promised you both a story for the road,” he said.
“Can you tell us the one about Mom and King Mossofras?” Patrick asked, squeezing Chomps.
Somehow the silence got louder. Their dad hadn’t told any stories about their mom in over a year, ever since Claire discovered the divorce papers.
“How about instead I tell you what happened when my grandfather made a deal with King Mossofras and—”
“Nope,” Patrick said. “I want the one about Mom.” He crossed his arms, getting that stubborn look he wore whenever Claire tried to get him to eat anything vegetable-related. One time, she’d gotten him to eat a spoonful of peas, and he sat there for over thirty-five minutes with them in his mouth. He had that look now, like he wasn’t swallowing anything, especially his dad’s excuses.
Their dad sighed. “It’s an interesting story,” he said resignedly. “Your, uh . . . your mother. And the king.” He shifted his hands on the steering wheel. “I’ve told you how right after we met, I had to rescue her from His High—”
“His Mossiness,” Patrick corrected.
“Sorry. Yes. From his hidden underground kingdom.”
“By telling two truths and a lie, right?” Patrick leaned forward.
“By guessing two truths and a lie, actually. But the thing is . . . I guessed wrong.”
“What?” Claire said, forgetting herself. This was a different spin on the old tale.
“The lie I guessed was really
a truth. And one of the truths . . . was a lie.” His knuckles whitened over the rim of the steering wheel. “Took me years to figure that out,” he added quietly.
And Claire remembered his face that morning when she discovered those papers. He’d found her crouched over them and gently took them away, then folded them, again and again and again until his fingers shook with the effort of pressing the paper smaller, smaller. He hadn’t said a word about them, though. Not then, and not in the year since.
“What were they?” Patrick asked. “The truths and the lie?”
Claire watched her dad’s profile intently. Maybe today was the day he finally told them everything.
But he just shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. Not today.”
“Why not?” Patrick whined.
“Because once I do, I’ll have only three days to live. So unless you want to be rid of your old man, you’ll have to wait until you’re older for the rest of that tale.”
Patrick sighed and slumped against the door. “Is that why he came back for her, though? For Mom? Because you guessed wrong?”
“Something like that.” Their dad glanced in his rearview mirror and changed lanes. “Anyone need to stop at the rest area? Two miles.”
“No, Dad,” Patrick said. “I want to hear the rest of the story. You can skip the truths and lie, so you don’t die on us. Just tell us what happens after.”
“That’s very compassionate of you, Patrick. Very kindhearted. I sure do feel loved and appreciated and adored.”
He was looking for a way out, Claire realized. For once, her dad had talked himself into a corner, and he was looking for a story to save him. One that didn’t involve their mom.
“What about Wrong Way Jacobus?” Claire blurted, hating herself for playing her dad’s game. But even though Patrick was old enough to know their mom hadn’t really been taken by trolls, or mimes, or lions, Claire didn’t know what he actually believed . . . and she wasn’t ready to find out. Better to let her be another story from their past, and keep her there. “You promised you’d tell us the rest of the story,” she added.
