Because he got it. Even faster than Halli did. Which might not be a fair comparison, since the explanation I gave Daniel also incorporated the information Professor Whitfield and I have worked out together. String theory, three-branes, psychokinesis, the observer problem—Daniel seemed to understand all of it.
Not that it made it any easier to accept.
“So you’re here,” he said. “But only temporarily. You still always return to your own universe.”
“Yes.”
“Pity,” he said, with an easy kind of smile. “I was starting to enjoy this.”
I wasn’t totally sure, but I thought it was probably a compliment.
But then I went back to the subject at hand. “You know, you said you only know a little bit about science, but I think you know a lot.”
“Not this kind,” Daniel said. “I assure you.”
“But can I just say? You took this really well.”
Daniel smiled. “I’d rather know there’s an explanation behind someone disappearing in front my eyes. Even if the explanation is unfathomable. At least I know I haven’t lost my mind.”
“Well, thanks,” I said.
“For what?”
“I don’t know . . . being so nice about it.”
Daniel laughed. “As opposed to what?”
I shrugged. “I don’t know. Being . . . weird. Being angry. I thought maybe you were mad at me before.”
“No,” Daniel said, “I was alarmed. When Halli wouldn’t tell me what had happened, I spent the rest of the night imagining all sorts of scenarios.”
“Like what?”
“Most of them involved me having to turn myself over to the neurosurgeons for an adjustment. It wasn’t a pleasant night.”
I winced. “I’m really sorry.”
Daniel shrugged. “No harm done. You’re a visitor from another universe. Perfectly reasonable explanation—I wish I’d thought of it myself.”
I laughed. Daniel smiled and picked at the grass near our feet. He’s a pretty nice guy, I have to say. Smart, too. And pretty cute, if I have to tell the whole truth.
“Audie! Dan!” Sarah called. “I’m coming, so make yourselves decent!”
“My sister gets bored easily,” Daniel said.
“I like your sister.”
“I do, too,” he admitted.
I helped him to his feet. Then I suppose it was natural that he draped his arm over my shoulder, like he had with Martin when they hobbled toward me.
But I don’t think Daniel said anything like this to Martin: “I’ve never met anyone like you.”
I laughed. Because I was sure that was true. People probably didn’t pop in from other universes all that often in his world.
“Audie, I mean it. I feel very fortunate to have met you.”
“Oh. Okay.” I laughed a little again because I wasn’t sure what else to do.
“Finished, are you?” Sarah said to her brother. “Audie, I’ve come to rescue you. I can’t imagine what Daniel’s been saying to bore you all this time.”
“He hasn’t bored me.” In fact, the last thing he’d just said to me might have been the least boring thing I’d heard in a long time.
“Where did you go yesterday?” Sarah asked me. She transferred Daniel’s weight onto her shoulders, freeing me. I stepped a little away, and the three of us and the dog headed back.
“You weren’t there for the triumphant return of the mountain climbers,” Sarah said. “Did Halli tell you how she saved that handsome young pilot from certain death and now he’s obviously smitten with her?”
“What are you talking about?” I asked.
“Karl, the very muscular German pilot,” Sarah answered. “Every girl should have one—I certainly want one.”
“What about Martin?” Daniel asked.
“He should change his name, bulk up, and get a pilot’s license,” Sarah said. “Do you never listen to me?”
“Hardly ever,” Daniel confirmed.
Just then, Halli and her very handsome escort came into view.
“Here, take him,” Sarah told me, handing off her brother to me. “I want to go speak to Halli Markham.”
“She means speak to Karl the pilot,” Daniel said as she ran off. But he seemed good-natured about it.
I let him rest his weight against me again and he hobbled the rest of the way. I didn’t particularly mind it.
“When will you be disappearing again?” Daniel asked me.
“I honestly don’t know.”
“Shall we share some tea until you do?”
48
“You’re sure you don’t mind me leaving again so soon?” my mother asked me four days ago, on Monday. Her bag was already packed. It’s not like she was going to change her mind.
“Mom, I’m glad you’re going. Really. It’s so good for the business.”
Not to mention for me.
She pulled me over and kissed my head. “I’ll make it up to you. We’ll spend a lot of time together when I get back next week. Maybe go to a few movies?”
“Sounds great.”
Monday to Monday. Eight days of solitude. Perfect. And it couldn’t have been better timing, because as of Monday, Halli changed her hours on me.
It was supposed to be just a weekend thing, me staying up late instead of going to bed and waking up later, but Halli decided she liked me coming over at 6:00 AM her time, which is 10:00 PM mine.
I’ve been doing it that way all week. Going over for a few hours, coming back and grabbing a little sleep before school, and then relying a lot on that yoga pose Lydia taught me. I’m not sure if twenty minutes in it really does equal a two-hour nap, but so far I’m holding up pretty well. I haven’t fallen asleep in class once. Except that one time in Algebra Support, which doesn’t really count.
So why did Halli ask me to change our meeting time? Five words: Karl the muscular German pilot. Sarah was right—he’s hot. Twenty years old, dark hair, blue eyes, obviously wild about Halli—
Plus he’s a much better outdoor companion for her, so I don’t mind at all the fact that she keeps ditching me to go off on various adventures with him.
Plus it gives me more time with Daniel. Shut up.
“What is it today?” I asked Halli as she and I sat behind the hermit’s hut while I put on all my clothes.
“Rock climbing and rappelling,” Halli said, a smile lighting her face. “Yesterday we hiked up to that peak and back.” She pointed to it in the distance. “Took us about nine hours.”
“Sounds fun,” I said, my tone suggesting I thought the exact opposite.
“It was,” Halli said with a sigh. “I haven’t hiked that hard in a year.”
Her cheeks had a ruddy glow in the early morning breeze, and her eyes looked bright and lively. I realized the only other time I’d seen her so invigorated was when she was bouncing around her house showing me the map and talking about our trip to the Alps.
I don’t think it’s just because of Karl, although she clearly seems to like him. I think it’s because Halli is finally back to doing what she does best and what she obviously really loves. After all this time spent grieving for Ginny, Halli is finally coming back to life.
“I hate to rush off—” Halli said.
“Why?” I answered. “Go. You guys have fun. You, too, Red.” I flapped up his ears as I scratched underneath them. “Oh, just one thing—” I added as she helped me to my feet. “Remember I go to Colorado this afternoon. I don’t get in till kind of late, so we’ll probably have to skip tonight. But I’m sure Professor Whitfield will want me to come here tomorrow morning. I mean your, you know, night.”
“That’s great,” Halli said. “You can finally come for dinner and spend some time with us in the evening. I’m sure Daniel will love that.”
“Shut up . . .” I mumbled.
The two of us rounded the front of the hermit’s hut and headed across the grass.
“He likes you, you know.”
“No,
he doesn’t,” I said.
“Audie, you know he does!” she said with a laugh, and bumped me with her shoulder.
“Seriously, I don’t want to talk about it,” I said. “You’re making me shy.”
Halli shook her head. “You’re a funny girl . . .”
“So anyway,” I said, drawing her back to the subject, “let’s plan on meeting around . . . 5:00 your time? That will be 9:00 in the morning on Saturday. I’m sure we’ll have gotten started with the testing by then.”
“Are you nervous?” Halli asked.
“Not really,” I said. “At least, not about the testing. About everything else? Yeah.”
Everything else being the lying, the traveling by myself, the more lying—I was going to have a weekend full of it.
I have traveled alone before. My mom has stuck me on a plane at least once a year to go visit my dad in California. But I’ve never had to figure out any of the logistics before. For a while I was young enough that some flight attendant would escort me to my next gate when I switched planes, and once I got older I could handle that much on my own, but somehow this feels different.
It probably is the lying.
I don’t know how criminals can stand the stress. You have to think of so many details: forwarding the phone to your cell; making up an excuse to tell your friends so they won’t stop by or expect to see you (not that Lydia would stop by, probably, but she might call to invite me over for dinner); telling your boss (Elena) why you won’t be there on Friday (after school project), and hope she doesn’t do anything to check up on it; forging a note from your mother to the school principal to miss half a day of school; asking your neighbor to pick up the mail and newspaper (“Going out of town with my mom. Be back Sunday night.”); printing out the boarding passes, even though you know one of them won’t be used; deciding whether to drive your car to the airport and leave it there, or take a shuttle (shuttle); and last, forging your mother’s name to a special note for the professor. I felt particularly guilty about that.
But at least I could cheer myself up with the packing.
I decided for this trip, I’m going to try to be like Halli. Throw just a few items of clothing in a small bag, and not make a big deal out of it. Usually when I go to my dad’s I bring at least two pieces of luggage—one of them mostly for books. But if Halli can get by for a few weeks in the Alps with just a backpack, and if half the clothes in there are the ones she’s been carrying around for me, then I should be able to go to Bear Creek, Colorado for a couple of days and not have to bring a lot of stuff.
Halli and I could see Karl waiting off in the distance.
“You’d better go,” I said.
Halli gave me a big hug. “I think it’s wonderful, what you’re doing with the professor. Very brave.”
I had to laugh. “What’s brave about letting someone hook a few sensors to my head? You’re the one who’s out there climbing cliffs.”
“That feels normal to me,” Halli said. “Being tested in a laboratory doesn’t. Don’t let them ruin anything about you. I don’t want you to come back any different.”
I almost got a little choked up at that. “Thanks,” I told her. “I’ll try.”
She gave me another quick hug, then jogged off to meet Karl. He’d already packed their lunches for the day and was waiting near the base of one of the trails. Red ran after his girl. I watched the three of them head toward another mountain, and kept watching until I couldn’t see them anymore.
And something just felt . . . off. I couldn’t figure out what. Maybe I was just feeling sentimental because of what she said. Or maybe it was watching her go off with a guy she liked, and thinking about what she’d told me about Daniel. Or maybe it really was the nerves, and I was thinking that the next time I saw her I’d be in some strange place where someone was watching me and monitoring my brain while I tried to relax and go see Halli.
But somehow I didn’t think it was any of that. I just felt strangely uneasy. I couldn’t put my finger on it.
I snapped myself out of it and headed toward the outdoor tables. Where a certain Englishman waited for me.
49
“Hi,” I said, taking a seat next to Daniel on the bench. He passed me a steaming cup of coffee. It’s become our habit.
“What’s wrong?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Just a feeling. I guess I’m kind of nervous about tomorrow.”
The morning was colder than it has been. I wrapped my fingers around the mug to warm them, but I still couldn’t stop a little shiver.
“Cold?” Daniel asked. He took one of my hands off the mug and stuck it into the pocket of his coat. He kept his own hand inside there on top of it.
It may have seemed casual to anyone watching—it may have even seemed casual to Daniel—but it wasn’t to me. That was the first time he’d ever done something like that. I’d had his arm wrapped around my shoulder before while I helped him hobble, but this was different. This was personal.
I tried to be cool about it. Even though inside I was all Yesssss.
I took another sip of my coffee, but I still felt cold. I scooted closer to Daniel. You know, for warmth.
He did what I secretly hoped he would. He took his hand out of the pocket and wrapped that arm around my shoulders. I leaned into him and rested my head against him.
“About time,” said a voice from behind us. “Glaciers move more expeditiously than you two.”
I sat up straight, embarrassed. But Daniel kept his arm where it was. Sarah planted herself on the other side of me and squished me even closer to her brother. She took a sip from her own cup of hot tea. “Brrrr—why is it so cold?”
“See,” Daniel said, “the earth turns on its axis, and there are these phenomena called seasons—”
“Git,” she said. To me she said, “Where’s Halli Markham off to today?”
“Rock climbing. Can I ask you something?” I said. “Why do you always call her by her full name?”
“I don’t know,” Sarah answered, “suppose it’s habit. It’s how you always hear of her, isn’t it? ‘Halli Markham crosses the Gobi.’ ‘Halli Markham in the fight of her life.’”
“Which one was that?” I asked, mildly alarmed.
“Piranhas in the Amazon—very exciting to a young girl.”
“I’m sure that was exciting for her.”
“No,” Sarah said, “I meant me! I used to write school reports about her as I was growing up—well, we all did, didn’t we?”
“You did?”
Daniel shifted his arm off my shoulder and instead went back to holding my hand. I think he sensed there might be a problem coming up. He wanted to have a subtle way to signal me.
“Well, of course!” Sarah said. “She’s the most famous young explorer in the world. And even more exciting, she’s always been my same age. I used to think how unjust it was that Halli Markham was off having adventures while I was stuck reading about them in class. I think my first report about her was when I was seven. That was when Halli Markham and her grandmother first trekked to the North Pole.”
“When she was seven? Wow.”
Sarah gave me a funny look. “But you must know that.”
Daniel squeezed my hand.
“Oh, well . . . see, I didn’t really follow . . . our parents didn’t get along—” I tried to think of the story Halli had told Sarah and Daniel when we first met. “We never really saw each other after we were babies—not until now.”
“But you must have learned about her in school,” Sarah persisted. “We all did.”
“Yeah, um . . . my parents home schooled me—you know, taught me at home themselves. They never really talked about Halli.”
“But surely you’ve come across her in the histories?” Sarah asked.
Obviously she wasn’t going to let it go.
“No, not really,” I said.
“Hmp!” Sarah said with obvious disapproval. “I’d say your parents kept you quite in the dark.”
“Dan, hand me your tab.” Sarah reached behind me and poked her brother and waited while he pulled his portable screen from a pocket inside his jacket.
“It might not have enough power,” Daniel told her. “Yesterday was cloudy.”
Sarah looked at the sky. “Today, too. We’ll see what we can do.”
She swept her finger over the screen several times and then pressed in a few places. Soon lights started swirling above the surface. Sarah set the tablet on the table. “Here,” she said to me. “Watch.”
It was a mini-movie. In 3D. A sort of holographic highlight film, chronicling Halli’s life.
The figures were about six inches tall—a comfortable size to watch from close up. Much smaller than the nearly life-size head of Halli’s mom when she called her on the comm.
“Oh, I love this one!” Sarah was saying as the figures began to move.
There we were, a very young version of me, riding what looked like a Mongolian pony with my grandmother. Although I’m pretty sure my Grandma Marion would have been screaming her head off, and I doubt I would have had the coordination back then—was Halli only four or five? Looked like it—to sit astride a galloping horse and stay on, even with a burly old woman perched behind me.
Cut to the next scene. Halli a little bit older, bravely leaning into a howling wind while she and Ginny trekked across snow and ice, both of them pulling sleds behind them loaded with supplies.
“So that’s the North Pole?” I asked.
“Yes!” Sarah answered. She looked as delighted as she must have been when she first saw it as a child.
Scene after scene: Halli in the desert. Halli in the jungle. Halli rafting down crazy-scary rivers and yes, rowing across the ocean. Always with Ginny at her side, the old woman with either a grim, determined look on her face or laughing like she couldn’t imagine doing anything more fun.
I got it, finally. No wonder strangers shouted out Halli’s name whenever they recognized her—this footage was amazing. She must have inspired a whole generation of children and even adults. She would have inspired me.
And then, I don’t know what it was, but this horrible feeling started descending on me. This heaviness, this sort of self-loathing—the kind of thing you wish you could scrape off yourself like sludge.
Parallelogram Omnibus Edition Page 18
