“Wait a second, here,” Drew said. “You warned them? About us?”
“And you referred to us as the Other Eights?” Roberto was even more outraged than Drew. “But they’ve always been the Other Eights!”
“Here’s what I don’t understand,” Zinnia said. “You sent the pigeons with the notes. I get that part. You talk to pigeons, so it makes perfect sense. And I know you wrote the other notes, because I guessed and because you admitted as much, but I don’t know how you sent them to us. We would have seen animals delivering them inside our home, and never mind the fact that some of those notes found us outside our home.”
“That’s true,” Jackie said. “One found us on a plane, flying over the ocean.”
“And the gifts,” Zinnia said, “always such nice gifts. How did you get those to us?”
“That was nothing,” Zinn said. “The gifts were just a few trinkets that were lying around the house I thought you might like.”
Zinnia took a deep breath. “You call a purple ring, green earrings, a gold compact, a red cape, a purple cloak, a silver charm bracelet, a locket, and a Christmas ornament in the shape of a snow globe ‘just a few trinkets’?”
Leave it to Zinnia to remember everyone’s present.
“I’ll admit,” Zinn said, “the Christmas ornament in the shape of a snow globe did present a bit of a problem.”
“But we’re in that snow globe right now!” Rebecca said.
“Well, yes,” Zinn said. “That’s true. But let me tell you, finding the last unicorn to carry it to your home this time of year was not easy.”
“You’re still not saying,” Zinnia said. “How did the other presents, the ones that were not carried by a unicorn, and the other notes, the ones that were not brought by pigeons—how did you get them to us?”
Zinn remained mum, so for the longest time we did too.
Finally, when the tension in the room could go on no longer, George stepped forward.
“The reason Zinn’s not answering,” George said, “is that he doesn’t want to rat me out. I was his accomplice. It was me who brought the presents that weren’t brought by the unicorn. It was me who delivered the notes behind the loose wall in the drawing room and in the plane.”
Who would have imagined that an Ocho counterpart of Georgia could be so nice?
“Why would you do that, George?” Andrew demanded.
“Because I could,” George said simply. “Because it was fun.”
“You really were at the beach with us for a while last week,” Georgia said.
“I didn’t mean to get caught like that,” George said, and then he winked. “But hey, at least it got me out of here.”
“But how did you get out of here?” Georgia said.
“By making myself invisible,” George said simply.
“I can make myself invisible too,” Georgia said, “but I can’t transport myself through space like that.”
“Sure you can,” George said. “Whenever I’m invisible, I can pop in and out of any place I want to.”
“No!” Georgia’s mouth dropped open.
“Yes!” George said, clearly excited for Georgia.
“You mean I could have done that when I got my power and I didn’t know it?” Georgia said, still gobsmacked at the very idea.
“There were certainly times that would have come in handy,” Rebecca said.
“Why don’t you try it now?” George suggested.
“Oh, I don’t know if I should,” Georgia demurred.
Georgia? Demurring?
“Go on,” George encouraged.
So Georgia twitched her nose twice and made herself disappear, and almost instantly we heard her voice out in the hall.
“I just thought myself here,” Georgia’s voice said excitedly, “and here I am!”
We’re sure we were all very happy for Georgia’s happiness over the new expansion of her powers, but there were still things we wanted to know and we were sure there were still things the Other Eights wanted to know too.
“How did you know we would each get a power at the rate of one per month?” Zinnia asked Zinn.
“Zinn,” Andrew said, “how could you and George have done all this? Weren’t you worried there would be consequences?”
The word consequences. As Zinn failed to answer and as the sound of silence began to grow, we all reflected on the ominous nature of that one word:
Consequences.
Which was exactly when the earthquake came.
Eleven
“Earthquake!” sixteen of us shouted.
The whole world shook back and forth; the floor kept slip-sliding beneath our feet as we tried to find solid things to hold on to to keep from falling.
“Quick!” Marcia shouted. “Everyone get to the doorway!”
“Beneath the arch of a doorway is one of the safest places to be in an earthquake,” Mark added. “There’s added support in that part of the structure.”
We held on to one another and dragged ourselves toward the doorway as the earth continued to quiver and quake. In the doorway, the sixteen of us huddled together, wondering when this horrible shaking would stop, or if it would ever stop.
“I knew it!” Petal said. “I knew it! I knew one day the whole world would come to an end.”
“I always thought the end would come with a great big flood,” Peter said, speaking for the first time. “But this is just as final.”
“I’m sure the world’s not ending,” Durinda said.
“It’s just shaking quite a bit right now,” Drew said through chattering teeth.
“I hope the cats back home aren’t scared,” Zinnia said.
“Or the dogs right here,” Zinn said. “I know the popular term is scaredy-cat, but dogs can be pretty scaredy too.”
“If this really is the end,” Rebecca said, “I hope it comes with a great big bang. I’d enjoy a great big bang.”
“Yes,” Roberto agreed. “It would be awful if it ended with a whimper.”
“A spear would come in handy right now,” Georgia said.
“I’m not sure what we’d use it for,” George said, “but a spear would be delightful.”
“Someone needs to take charge of this situation,” Annie said.
“I think I’ve got a quarter in my pocket,” Andrew said. “Flip you for it?”
“Look!” Jack said, pointing toward the window. “It’s snowing outside!”
We looked.
It was.
Snow in August. What a curious thing.
“Wait a second,” Jackie said. “I know what’s going on. Pete is no doubt very worried that we haven’t come back yet. He’s probably lifted up the snow globe to see if he can see us in any of the windows.”
“Who is Pete?” Mark asked.
But we never answered because just then, as abruptly as it started, the earth stopped quaking.
“Pete must have given up,” Marcia said. “He’s probably set us on the table again.”
“Poor Pete,” Durinda said. “He must be so worried. Carl’s probably worried too.”
“Who is Carl?” Mark asked.
“Do you think Betty’s worried?” Zinnia asked.
“Not Betty,” Georgia said. “I doubt she’s even noticed we’re gone.”
“Of course,” Zinnia said, “maybe it wasn’t Pete at all doing that. Perhaps it was the cats playing soccer or thinking we were a multicolored ball of yarn.”
“If the world’s not going to end right now,” Petal said, “do you think we might all move? It is very cramped here for me, being at the bottom of the heap.”
“What is the meaning of this?” an adult female voice boomed at us. The voice sounded familiar and yet not.
We looked up from our huddled position and then quickly scrambled to our feet. The woman was beautiful, with dark hair and dark eyes, and the sleeveless green dress she wore looked spiffy.
“Oh, this is the best birthday present ever!” Zinnia cried, rushing forwa
rd, arms outstretched. “Mommy!”
The woman reeled back in horror.
“Do I look like your mother?” she said as Zinnia froze, puzzled.
“Actually,” Marcia said, considering, “you look just like her. But you don’t sound like her.”
“You sound British,” Annie said.
“And those long fingernails, painted red,” Georgia said.
“Mommy always keeps her nails trimmed neat and clean,” Durinda said.
“That’s because Mommy’s a great inventor- scientist,” Jackie said.
“About those nails,” Rebecca said. “Are they really yours or are they those fake press-on thingies?”
Since arriving here, we’d made a ton of noise and commotion, and yet this woman hadn’t come to investigate once. Even if our mommy was working on top-secret stuff in her private office or on a new invention down in her basement lab, she would have come to investigate. Why, this woman was not only not Mommy but also a very poor in loco parentis.
“Oh no!” Petal cried. “If this isn’t Mommy, it must be Queen!”
Petal nearly fainted at the horror of it all, but we had to give her credit for keeping it to nearly. Apparently, even Petal could see this was no time for fainting.
“That’s Aunt Queen to you,” the woman said sternly.
Aunt Queen? Oh dear. Thinking about her that way, let alone calling her that, would take some getting used to.
“I’d like to say I’m pleased to finally make your acquaintance after all these years,” the woman said, “but I’m afraid I can’t do that. Now, what I want to know is, how did you find this snow globe and how did you get in here?”
We kept our mouths shut tight, refusing to answer the latter because that would be giving away secret information and refusing to answer the former because that would mean ratting out Zinn. And we couldn’t do that. Why, if not for Zinn, we’d never have had even a chance of finding our parents.
“It figures,” the woman said, “that Lucy’s children would be close-mouthed about things.”
“Don’t you dare talk about our mother that way,” Annie said, growing bold as only Annie could. “I’m not even sure what you mean by that, but I’m sure it can’t be anything good. And tell me, why have you taken our parents? We know you have Daddy here—we have seen him—and now I’m certain Mommy must be here too.”
“It’s Lucy’s own fault,” the woman said. “If she wasn’t always trying to one-up me on everything just like when we were children, she’d have never gotten herself into this situation in the first place.”
“One-up you?” Annie echoed.
“One-up you?” Rebecca shrilled. “Are you seriously going to stand there and tell me this all has to do with some stupid sibling rivalry?”
Of all of us, Rebecca would know about stupid sibling rivalry. But then, in some ways, we all did.
“I don’t have to stand here and tell you anything,” the woman, our aunt, said with a harrumph. “But I will stand here and tell you this: Now that you’ve all found your way in here, I’m not going to let you leave.”
“Oh no,” a man’s voice said, a voice that had a distinctly Spanish accent, not at all Oklahoman.
We studied the man who’d appeared by Queen’s side. He was tall, too thin, with curly black hair and a very tired look about him.
“Meet your uncle Joe,” Andrew said to us, “the man we call Duddy.”
“Oh no, Queen,” Uncle Joe went on. “I will not let you do this. It’s been hard enough having your sister and your brother-in-law here for all these months. That man may be a model, but he eats like a horse. And now you expect me to provide for eight more? This I cannot do.”
“But Joe,” Queen wheedled, placing her hands on his shoulders. “We can’t let them go. It’s bad enough that I know Lucy has one-upped me yet again. I simply can’t let the rest of the world find out.”
“What’s the big deal?” Annie demanded. “What is it that you think our mother has one-upped you on?”
But Queen never answered because just then we heard the sound of a shout—it was Mommy!—followed by a small cry.
Twelve
We raced toward the sound of the shout and the cry, which had come from higher up in the house. We pushed past Queen, heedless of what she might try to do. If the dogs had been in our path, we’d have been heedless of any danger from them too. If all our enemies had been in our path—and we did have enemies—they couldn’t have stopped us. All we knew was that Mommy was in trouble. We had to get to her.
We pounded up the staircase toward the tower, and as we pounded, we were filled with both excitement and fear: excitement at the prospect of finally seeing Mommy again—Mommy!—and fear because of that shout and that small cry.
The door to the tower room was shut but that presented no barrier to us. We flung it open, unsure what we would find on the other side, and then quickly ran in and shut the door behind us.
What we found was Mommy in a bed, a bundle of something in her arms, with Daddy standing over Mommy and the bundle, a great smile on his face.
“Girls!” Mommy and Daddy shouted when they saw us.
We rushed to the side of the bed, and Daddy threw open his arms and hugged us all tightly. We would have loved to hug Mommy right away, but we were worried she was sick because she was in bed and there was that bundle in her arms between us.
“How did you ever find us and get in here?” Daddy said.
We didn’t like to ignore Daddy but that question just seemed too big and long to answer at the moment.
“Mommy, are you sick?” Durinda asked.
“Of course not,” Mommy said.
“Then why are you in bed?” Georgia said.
“Because of this,” Mommy said, indicating the bundle in her arms. “I just had a baby.”
A baby?
“But how?” Annie said.
“Where’s the doctor?” Marcia said, looking all around the tower as though she expected to find a doctor hiding somewhere.
“Your father delivered it,” Mommy said proudly.
“Oh, it was nothing,” Daddy said. “It’s amazing what you learn how to do when you’re a model.”
“Happy birthday, girls,” Mommy said. “You didn’t think I’d forget, did you?”
“Is that baby our present?” Georgia said.
“Well, it’s the only thing I’ve got at the moment,” Mommy said.
“I think I’d rather have a bike,” Rebecca said.
“Is it a he baby or a she baby?” Jackie asked.
“A she baby,” Daddy said.
“Oh,” Jackie said. “Cute baby.”
“Wait a second,” Annie said. “Your sister”—and here Annie paused, as though mustering the strength to say something—“Aunt Queen said she took you because you were trying to one-up her on something yet again. Is this baby that one-up?”
“Yes,” Mommy said.
“Oh dear,” Petal said. “I think I’m feeling a case of stupid sibling rivalry coming on.”
“Ever since we were born,” Mommy went on, “Queen has been intensely jealous of me because I was born a minute earlier than she was. She was intensely jealous even though she got the better first name.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Durinda said. “I think Lucy has its merits as a name too.”
“Be that as it may,” Mommy said, “Queen has always been intensely jealous. So when we turned eight and we got our powers—”
“Hang on,” Georgia said. “You and Aunt Queen have powers too?”
“Of course,” Mommy said. “All the people in my family who are going to get powers get them sometime in their eighth year. I assume you’ve all got yours now, don’t you?”
Eight heads nodded.
“Daddy,” Zinnia said, “did you know about Mommy’s family and this power thing when you married her?”
Daddy nodded.
Zinnia stood on tiptoes so she could place her hand on his shoulder. “You are
a brave man,” she said.
“But what are your powers?” Georgia wanted to know.
“Well, Queen can obviously make people and objects smaller,” Mommy said, “which is what she did to me starting when we turned eight. She’d make me smaller and then she’d shut me in her dollhouse. Do you realize that those dolls in dollhouses aren’t the greatest conversationalists?”
We just looked at her.
“Anyway,” Mommy went on, “all that sitting alone in the dollhouse just gave me more time to hone my own power, which only served to make Queen that much more jealous.”
“But what is your power?” Marcia asked. “We’ve never seen you do anything magical.”
“Why, my scientific mind and my inventions are my power,” Mommy said, as if we should have known this all along.
Now we just looked at her some more.
“I hate to say this, Mommy, on our first day back together,” Rebecca said, “but your inventions tend to stink.”
“Excuse me?” Mommy said.
“What Rebecca means to say,” Jackie said diplomatically, “is that they never quite work as one would think they might.”
“Oh, really?” Mommy said. She cocked an eyebrow at us and we got the feeling that if she hadn’t been holding that bundle of baby, she’d have folded her arms firmly in front of her chest. “For instance?”
“For instance,” Rebecca said, “that flying watering can. It’s supposed to water the plants, but it never really does it properly, so then we have to do it, and one time when I got mad about something it watered me.”
“And that’s a problem because . . . ?” Mommy said.
“Okay, then.” Rebecca tried once more. “Maybe I deserved that. But what about robot Betty? She’s supposed to be our housekeeper but she never does anything the way we ask her to. If we ask her to dust, she sits down at the desk.”
“So who dusts?” Mommy said.
“We do,” Rebecca said.
“And who does all the other chores when Betty fails to listen properly?”
“We do,” Rebecca said.
We thought about that.
Oh.
Oh!
“I’d say my inventions are working out pretty well so far,” Mommy said, looking rather pleased with herself.
The Sisters Eight Book 9 Page 8
