by Barbara Dee
She couldn’t swim. She didn’t care. All she wanted to do was splash around in the shallow end with Dara. They’d invented a fascinating game about two sisters named Aurora (Zoe) and Arabella (Dara) who’d escaped from their evil uncle and were hiding out on a tropical island. For some unknowable reason Jake and Mackenzie began hanging around in the shallow end too, every once in a while splashing them or diving underwater to grab their feet. Zoe was annoyed, but Dara started splashing them back and laughing, and pretty soon they had key roles in the story: Mackenzie as the underwater goddess Hydranna (which sounded to Zoe ridiculously like hydrant, but she didn’t say anything), and Jake as the cunning and powerful supervillain Tidal Wave.
For the rest of third grade, and then for about the first half of fourth, the four kids continued the game, “enjoying” Hubbard’s wonderful pool exactly as they’d been invited. Even Zoe had to admit to herself that the game was just as fun with more characters (although Jake kept showing off his underwater technique, and occasionally, as Tidal Wave, splashed them in their eyes).
But then one day Donovan blew his whistle and called Jake and Mackenzie over for a friendly conversation. He’d been watching them play, he told them, and he thought they had “real potential” as “serious swimmers.” Would they be interested in a few casual, no-big-deal swimming lessons? Yes, of course they would. This meant abandoning Zoe and Dara to play the game by themselves, but that was just fine with Zoe anyway.
So they played it for a couple of weeks, just the two of them: Aurora and Arabella, who by now had each assumed a few of the abandoned superpowers. And then one afternoon, just as they were preparing a tidal wave defense against the recently-returned-from-the-dead evil uncle, Donovan blew his whistle. “Dara,” he called, “can I see you for a minute?”
“Be right back,” called Dara as she swam over to Donovan’s lifeguard chair and pulled herself out of the water.
From the shallow end Zoe could lip-read the conversation. Donovan was telling Dara that she, too, had “real potential” as a “serious swimmer,” and was offering her the chance for some casual, no-big-deal swimming lessons. Dara had her back turned, so her response was harder to read, but she appeared to be nodding as if she were saying yes. And really, thought Zoe, why wouldn’t she? Everybody else seemed to jump at the chance to swim with Donovan, who not so very long ago had actually qualified for the U.S. Olympic team.
Zoe closed her eyes. She floated on her back a little, one of the few pool maneuvers she could sort of do.
Sooner or later, everyone goes off and seriously swims, she told herself. Except for me. I’m the only one left in the shallow end. And I don’t even care one subatomic bit!
There was a splash. Zoe opened her eyes. Dara was back, grinning.
“Where were we?” she was asking. “In the game, I mean.”
“I don’t remember,” Zoe lied. “Anyway, so what did Donovan say?”
“Nothing important. Just if I wanted some boring swimming lessons.” She dove underwater and gracefully circled Zoe’s legs. Zoe watched her, astonished. Somehow, until that very moment, she had never realized how well Dara could swim.
Finally Dara resurfaced. “Well?” Zoe asked quickly, before Dara could pop underwater again. “What did you tell him? Do you?”
“Oh, yawn,” said Dara, who was just starting to talk that smiley-face way. “Of course I don’t, Zoe. Why would I? Let’s just play the game.”
Now Zoe shivered slightly inside her hoodie.
Could it be, she asked herself, that Dara has gone off to seriously swim? Leaving me behind in the shallow water?
She wouldn’t just do that.
I’m sure she wouldn’t.
Finally Zoe arrived at Isaac’s brownstone. And when she let herself into his house with her special key, she sighed deeply, the first calm breaths she’d taken all day.
First she fed everybody. Isaac had supplied her with a few days’ worth of crickets, leaving her some money for the pet store when she ran out. He’d also left three big plastic bags in the refrigerator, one with escarole and collard greens; the second with apple, banana, and mango slices; and the third with chunks of butternut squash and carrots. He hadn’t given her a phone number for his mother’s house in Arizona, but he had given her an e-mail address if she needed to contact him. She was supposed to use Dad’s computer and his e-mail account, Dad had said. But Isaac wanted to hear from her only in an emergency. “I don’t want to be bothered with trivialities,” he’d warned her.
Well, sure. She wasn’t here to waste her time on “trivialities,” anyway. Her job was to mist and water the non-desert-dwellers, distribute fresh leaves and food, maybe take a few notes. And watch: spot the baby golden gecko hiding in the leaves, connect the dots on the backs of the salamanders. At one point she thought she might have heard somebody chirp, but no, she’d probably just imagined it. Because lizards didn’t have their own private language, did they? Just observe, she urged herself, imagining Isaac’s disapproval.
But of course it was almost impossible to shut off her imagination completely, and as she walked from tank to tank, she found herself wondering: Did lizards have feelings? Did the brown basilisk ever feel jealous because the black-spotted newt was hanging out with the iguanas? Did the green anole ever threaten to kick the brown anole out of the tank? Or did they just stare at each other all day and bob their heads and eat bugs?
Maybe it would be better to be a lizard. Or to be like Isaac, whose whole life was just wire and reptiles.
She stayed with the lizards for almost an hour. Finally she came downstairs, just as a child’s voice was talking on Isaac’s message machine: “Hi, Daddy? It’s Willie. I miss you. Here’s Mommy.” And then, “Where’s that check, Isaac? If I don’t get it by tomorrow, I’m calling my lawyer!”
It sounded like Deb. Well, it was a good thing Zoe hadn’t heard the phone ringing this time, because Deb sure didn’t sound happy. She wondered what Isaac had done to make Deb so mad at him. Maybe she didn’t like reptiles.
Zoe locked Isaac’s front door with her key. For a moment she stood on the landing, taking another deep breath of the damp, refreshing September air. And then she nearly jumped.
Because there was Lucas, sitting on the bottom front step of the brownstone.
He was wearing that awful brown tweed coat again. And again he was hunched over gargoyle-style, reading something that looked like a field guide. As soon as he saw her, he sprang up.
“Oh, hi, Zoe,” he said eagerly. “So I was thinking: You want me to teach you some cipher languages? Or coding? Which is a completely different thing, actually.”
“What? No, thanks. And what are you doing here, Lucas? Are you following me?”
“Well, I just wanted to talk to you, so I waited for you to come out.”
“You mean you’ve been sitting here a whole hour?”
“That’s okay. I was reading.” He looked at his sneakers, which were some unrecognizable brand and extremely filthy. “You live here?”
“No.”
“Visiting?”
“Sort of. Pet-sitting.”
“For what?”
“This guy. A kind of friend of my dad’s.”
“No,” said Lucas, grinning. “I mean, what kind of animal?”
Zoe sighed. “None of your business, okay? Lizards.”
“I hate lizards,” Lucas said cheerfully. “There were tons of them in Guatemala, and they crawled all over the place. While you were sleeping, even. Disgusting. But I always kind of liked geckoes, even though it’s weird how they never blink. You know anything about ancient military codes?”
“What? Of course I don’t.” For the first time, Zoe studied Lucas’s face. With his upturned nose, freckled cheeks, and long, sun-bleached hair, he looked almost a full year younger than everyone else in the sixth grade. She didn’t want to be mean to him, she really didn’t. But still.
“Listen, Lucas,” she said evenly, as she started down the steps. �
�I know you’re just trying to be friendly, but why don’t you talk to Ezra or Jake Greiner or somebody like that?”
“Because you deciphered your name, Zoe! That’s incredibly unusual! Don’t you even care?”
She stopped on the sidewalk. “It was just a coincidence. Maybe I wanted to read my name. Or maybe I imagined it. I don’t know. But I’m sure it doesn’t mean anything, and I think you’re kind of overreacting.” She glanced down the street and added, “And anyway, I’m not some baby secret agent with a decoder ring.”
“Yeah, well, neither am I!” He tilted his pointy chin at her.
“Okay, sorry,” she said quickly. “Look, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings. I’m just really, really busy right now.” When he didn’t respond, she added, “Actually, I’m going to meet my best friend, Dara.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re not going to meet Dara. She’s off with that horrible Leg person, and that other girl, the super-nasty one.”
“You mean Paloma?”
“Right, Paloma. I saw them all leave school together. They were laughing really hard. And I don’t think Dara is your best friend, frankly.”
“Oh, yeah? Well, who cares what you think.” Her dark eyes flashed. “You know what, Lucas? Maybe you know a ton about hieroglyphics, but you don’t know anything about Dara. Or anything about me, either.”
“Actually, Zoe, that’s wrong. Well, half-wrong; I think I know you fairly well.” Suddenly Lucas reached into his pocket and pulled out his red mechanical pencil and his little spiral notebook. Then he wrote something, tore out the page, and handed it to her.
“What’s this?” she asked, frowning.
“You tell me.”
She squinted at the tiny paper.
EEEHEIEE EEZEEEOEEE EIE
EEBEEETE EYEEOEEU ECEEEAEENEE
EEREEAEEDEEE EEEETEEHEIEESEEE
“It says ‘Hi Zoe I bet you can read this,’” Zoe muttered. “You just take out the extra E’s.”
“The extra letters are called nulls,” he said, writing something else. “Try this.”
OSA YCANY OUSE EBYT HEDA WNSEA
RLYLI GHTW HATSOP—
“‘The Star Spangled Banner.’ With spaces messed up.”
“Very good. And this?”
SBSSMASL ELSTTSSIL SA SSDASH
YSRASMS
“Mary had a little lamb. Backward with S’s. Why are you bothering me with this stupid garbage?”
“Why?” He was beaming at her now. “Because this proves it, Zoe. I knew it: You’re just like me.”
“I’m not,” she snapped. “You’re demented. And you know what else, Lucas? Don’t follow me, don’t write about me in your crazy languages, and don’t even talk to me. Just totally stay away from now on, okay?”
Then she turned and fled.
10
About a block from her apartment Zoe slowed way down.
Because who really cared about that weirdo Lucas, or his stupid hallucinations. Or what he thought about Dara, either. She had more important things to worry about.
What if, by the time she got home, Owen had called her parents? What if they were so upset they left work early to come home and have phase two of the “little chat”? Maybe they’d be sitting on the living room sofa when she walked in the door: Mom in her white orthodontist jacket, Dad in his paint-spattered jeans. Maybe, as she tried to slip down the hallway to her bedroom, they’d call out something casual like, Zoe? May we please see you for a minute?
She had to face them sometime, of course. But after that psychotic conversation with Lucas just now, all she really wanted to do was call Dara. And if that was impossible—if Dara really was with horrible Leg—then she didn’t feel like talking to anybody. Especially her parents, who were definitely not going to be thrilled with what Owen had to say.
She opened her apartment door, hoping to hear hip-hop music, signifying no adults. But the apartment was strangely quiet. She walked into the living room. There was Isadora, sitting on the sofa with a funny, almost frozen, look on her face. Zoe’s heart leapt.
She tried to steel herself. “Are Mom and Dad here?”
“No, but they’re on their way,” Isadora said. Then she burst into tears.
Immediately Zoe ran to the sofa and threw her arms around her sister. Was Isadora getting kicked out of Hubbard too? Don’t be stupid, Zoe scolded herself. Then what could it possibly mean? She’d never seen Isadora like this before. Ever.
Finally she said, “You want me to get you a tissue, Izzy?”
Isadora nodded. Her face looked pink and puffy, like a partially inflated balloon.
Zoe got up and returned with a nearly empty box of Kleenex and a roll of paper towels. “What happened?” she asked softly.
“It’s just too awful to talk about.”
“What is? Tell me.”
Isadora grabbed a tissue from the box. “It doesn’t matter!” she wailed. “I don’t even care!”
Then she honked her nose and threw the wadded-up tissue onto the sofa. “Palmer stole my part,” she finally blurted out. “The one I absolutely had.”
“Who’s Palmer?”
“You don’t remember? She was sitting right here in this living room just yesterday. Skinny, dyed blond hair, two faces…”
“Oh, right.” Who’d said “telepathic.” When she’d really meant “clairvoyant.”
“Of course, darling Palmer claimed she wasn’t even planning to try out. But then somehow she managed to read for the lead. And this afternoon, when the cast list was up, there she was, in big letters, right at the very top. Oh, and by the way, Zoe, your friend got a really great part.”
“You mean Dara?”
“Of course Dara. Who else?” asked Isadora irritably. “Wake up, Zoe.” She leaned back into the sofa and closed her eyes. Her nose was starting to run, Zoe saw.
“You want some paper towel?” Zoe asked, offering the roll. “It’s not great, but I think we’re out of tissue.”
Isadora wiped her nose with her hand. “I know you’re not an actor, Zoe, so let me tell you something major: No part in a play is ever worth betraying a friend. I don’t care if it’s a lead, you just don’t do it. Hubbard is full of übertalented people who get this, but not, apparently, darling Palmer.”
She wiped her hand off on her track pants. Then she wiped her nose with her other hand. “You’re so lucky to be friends with someone like Dara. She’d never act like this.”
Zoe nodded. “You want some water? Or some Diet Coke, maybe? I think there’s an open bottle in the fridge.”
“No. Stop fetching things, Zoe! Just sit with me, okay?” Then Isadora started crying again, and Zoe began to despair. She wished there were something she could think of to say, something wise and comforting. But she was hopeless with words; she’d always been. And now it seemed Isadora didn’t feel like talking, anyway.
So Zoe just sat with her on the sofa. A few minutes later Dad was home. He’d brought Isadora a bunch of yellow roses, which actually made her smile a little. But then Mom walked in the door, and Isadora burst into tears all over again.
“I hate that Palmer,” she wailed. “She stole my part!”
“Maybe she didn’t steal it from you, baby,” Mom said soothingly. She hadn’t even taken off her orthodontist jacket yet, as she stood in the living room stroking Isadora’s matted hair. “Maybe she just wanted her own chance to shine.”
“She didn’t! She’s just a snake! I hate her!”
“Palmer’s really horrible, Mom,” Zoe explained. “She sat here yesterday on the sofa and didn’t even tell Izzy she was trying out.”
Mom smiled at Zoe. “Thanks, sweetheart. I’m sure Izzy will tell me all about it herself, when she’s ready. But right now I think she needs some private time, okay?” She put her arm around Isadora’s shoulders and led her into the grown-up bedroom, closing the door behind them as if Zoe were some kind of babyish distraction.
&nbs
p; Then Malcolm showed up from his Math Olympiad practice, and Zoe had to answer a thousand penetrating questions about Isadora. (“What did Izzy mean, it was her part? Did the director say it was her part?”) And then ten minutes later Spencer raced into the living room shouting “NO, I WON’T,” followed frantically by his after-preschool babysitter Bella, who’d graduated from Hubbard five years ago and was now, except for what she stole from the Bennetts’ refrigerator, a starving artist.
“DON’T HUG SPENCER,” Bella was calling ahead of her. “HE’S ALL STICKY.”
“I’M NOT ALL STICKY,” Spencer shouted. He raced over and gave Dad a big hug. “Bella’s all sticky. Not me.”
Dad looked down at his shirt. “Ahem,” he said.
“I’m really sorry,” Bella apologized breathlessly, plopping into a chair. “The other kid—Cameron—was holding this enormous container of Elmer’s glue, and then Spencer—I mean out of nowhere—just grabbed it out of his hands, and then it went flying all over the place, not just on Spencer, but I mean all over their rug—”
“Yikes,” said Dad. “How bad was the damage?”
“Pret-ty bad,” said Bella, patting her chest a couple of times to catch her breath. “It was an antique. Turkish, I think.”
“Was?” demanded Malcolm.
“Is,” Bella corrected herself. “It’s not destroyed, or anything. Just all gummy.”
“Oh, boy,” said Dad. “Well, I guess I’d better call them and offer to pay for something. Do you have their phone number, Bella?”
“Not on me. But they’re probably in the Hubbard directory.”
Dad went off to fetch the directory. Zoe turned to her little brother, who all this time had been calmly reassembling his wooden train set. “Spencer, why do you do things like that?”
