Signal

by Cynthia DeFelice

  “It’s okay,” I say. “But, listen. I promised Dad I’d mow the lawn, so I’ve really got to go.” I make a face and add, “And I promised I’d help you. Do you believe me?”

  She smiles. “Yeah.”

  “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  “Okay.”

  “And I’ll bring the stuff to make the signal.”

  “Okay.”

  “And if I’m not here at the crack of dawn, it’s because it might take me a while to find some of the stuff. Okay, Campion?”

  She smiles again. “Okay, Nipplewort.”

  At home I start on the lawn, but the mower runs out of gas after a couple minutes. The five-gallon can in the garage is empty, so I put it in my old wagon and drag it down the highway to Mr. Powers’s gas pump to fill it up. Josie trots along beside me.

  To my dismay, Ray’s car—there’s no mistaking that hideous piece of junk—is pulling away from the parking lot as I near the store. Instinctively, I try to hide my face, but he doesn’t even look in my direction. I realize I’d been secretly hoping he’d given up on looking for Cam and gone far, far away.

  As I trudge across the parking lot to the gas pump, I see a leather work glove lying on the ground. It’s in pretty good shape, so I pick it up and put it in my pocket, pump gas into the red gas can, and go inside to pay.

  “Hello, Mr. Powers,” I say.

  Without a word, he gets a Slim Jim from the jar, peels it open, and feeds it to Josie. Then he takes a jawbreaker from the other jar. “You’re sure you want this now?”

  I nod, and he rolls it across the counter with a friendly smirk.

  I take the glove from my pocket and place it on the counter. “I found this outside,” I say. Then, thinking I might learn something about Ray, I add, “I thought that guy who just left might have dropped it.”

  Mr. Powers examines the glove and shakes his head. “Not his,” he says without hesitation.

  “How do you know?” I ask.

  “This here’s a work glove. Used.”

  I look at him questioningly.

  Mr. Powers snorts. “I’d lay odds that fella’s never done an honest day’s work in his life.”

  I laugh, then notice that Mr. Powers is scowling, probably at the thought of Ray. I wait, hoping he’ll have more to say on the subject, but he doesn’t. I don’t want to appear too interested, so I don’t ask if Ray mentioned the girl again. I hand over the money for the gas and Mr. Powers takes it.

  “No Tootsie Rolls today?”

  “Well, actually,” I say, “now that you mention it, I think I will buy some. I’ll take two bags.”

  He counts out my change, shaking his head and saying, “For a fella who doesn’t eat ’em, you sure buy a lot of these things.”

  I give a nervous laugh and get the heck out of there before I say something stupid. On the way home I remind myself to be careful. Mr. Powers is old, but he doesn’t miss much.

  By the time I’ve finished mowing the entire yard, it’s almost seven-thirty. Dad gets home as I’m putting the mower away. I worry that he’s going to ask why I’m finishing up so late, but he doesn’t. He just unpacks some ribs from a place called Sticky Fingers Bar-B-Q, and we get our plates and head for the living room.

  I expect Dad to turn on the TV, but he says, “How was your doctor’s appointment?”

  “Okay. I got approved for soccer tryouts.”

  He nods. “Good.”

  There’s a short silence, and Dad reaches for the remote.

  In the morning, I raid the kitchen again and gather the stuff Cam said we’d need. We don’t have any clothesline or rope, but I do have a hammer, nails, and a tape measure. I even find the wooden board she asked for.

  The first weekend after we moved here, Dad and I went to the home supply store to buy stuff to build a deck off the kitchen. He was pretty fired up about the idea then, but somehow the actual building of the deck kept getting postponed, along with the actual unpacking.

  The eight-foot-long boards we bought are still lying in a pile under a blue tarp in the yard, and I pull one out. I figure it’ll be a long time before Dad notices it’s missing, if ever.

  I take the brand-new circular saw out of the box, get an extension cord, and cut one of the boards in half, thinking how my old shop teacher, Mr. Weberly, would have a fit if he saw me doing this without safety glasses.

  I put the other stuff in my backpack and use a couple of bungee cords to fasten the piece of wood onto the rack over my rear fender. Then I grab more of my allowance money, in case Mr. Powers has any clothesline for sale. My back tire looks low, and I know he has an air machine.

  “Well, well, you and the hound are turning into my best customers.” He gives Josie her Slim Jim, then asks, “What can I do for you?”

  “Do you have any clothesline?”

  “Nope,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  “Doing the laundry, are you?” he asks with a sly little smile.

  I can’t very well tell him I’m helping the girl I haven’t seen build a signal for space aliens, so I just stand there like a dope while he looks at me curiously from under those eyebrows.

  “Son?” he prompts.

  “Well, if you don’t have any …” I say, edging away from the counter.

  “It’d help to know what you need it for.”

  My mind goes blank. I’m lousy at this.

  Mr. Powers sighs, then points to the wall near the door. “A lot of folks use that rope over there to tie up their boats. Will that do for you?”

  I walk over and examine the spools of line. The thinnest one looks like it might be okay. Again, I wish I’d asked Cam more questions. I hold it up. “How much does it cost?”

  “I’ll give you what’s left on the spool for ten dollars,” he says.

  “Do you think there’s fifty yards?” I ask.

  He nods. “I’m giving you a bargain, by the way.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  After I pay and he gives me my change, I ask, “Is it okay if I fill up my bike tire?”

  He rolls a jawbreaker across the counter to me, winks, and says, “Air’s still free, last I heard.”

  “Thanks.”

  He says, “Building something?”

  “No,” I answer, puzzled at the question. But then I realize he’s looking at my bike with the board sticking out past my fender. I shrug and say, “No, it’s just a board,” which is right up there with the dumbest statements ever made.

  Mr. Powers doesn’t comment on this. He just nods thoughtfully and looks at me with those droopy eyes. Josie and I make our escape and go around to the back of the store where the air pump is.

  9

  RIDING DOWN THE TRAIL, CAREFULLY BALANCING my load, I sigh when I see that the Dog People are here again. And—I can’t believe it—I think I see a new dog. Josie scoots right up to sit at the Dog Woman’s feet and waits patiently for the treat she knows will come. Sure enough, it does.

  “You are so polite and ladylike,” the woman says to Josie. “Not like this bunch of hooligans we’ve got.”

  “Is that a new one?” I ask, pointing to a cute, medium-size brown mutt with floppy ears. All the other dogs are tearing around, having a wonderful time, but this one is standing close to the van and shivering. His tail is between his legs and he looks totally pathetic.

  “Yes,” says the woman. She makes a sad face. “That’s Sidney. He’s having a rough time. He must have been horribly mistreated. It’s going to take a while, I think, before he trusts us.”

  “Where’d you get him?” I ask.

  “Same place we get ’em all. The shelter called to say they had another dog nobody wanted.”

  The man joins us. “He’d have been put down if we hadn’t taken him.” To Sidney, he says, “We couldn’t let that happen, could we, boy?”

  Sidney’s tail moves in a tentative wag, then tucks back between his legs.

  “He’ll come around once he settles in with us,” the man says confi
dently. “We’ve had worse cases, haven’t we, hon?”

  The Dog Woman nods. “Lord, yes. Why, Simone over there was too terrified to leave her crate when we got her. It took us three days to coax her out. Now look at her.”

  She points to a big black dog leading a string of followers over to the stream, where they begin to splash and play.

  I watch. My opinion of the Dog People is beginning to change. I ask, “Do you ever say no when the shelter calls? I mean, is there a limit to how many dogs you’ll take?”

  The Dog People look at each other and burst out laughing. The man says, “We’ve given up on setting limits. Every time we do, a dog comes along who really needs a home.”

  “How many do you have?” I can’t help asking.

  “Nineteen,” the woman says. “We wanted kids, but that wasn’t meant to be. So we figure this is what we were put on earth to do instead.”

  “Lucky for them,” I say, pointing to the pack.

  “Oh, for us, too,” the woman assures me. “They bring us a lot of joy. I can’t imagine the two of us rattling around alone in our big, old house. We live just a quarter mile down the road. We have a small yard, so it’s nice to have this trail nearby. These guys love to run.”

  I try to picture their house, and I imagine it looks like them, sort of shabby and messy and comfortable.

  “Do you ever give any back?” I ask. “Like if they turn out to be troublemakers or something?”

  The man and woman look at each other. “No,” they say together, shaking their heads.

  “We get attached,” the woman adds. “And they get attached to us.”

  “Nineteen dogs,” I murmur with wonder.

  “Of course, there are the cats …” the man says.

  “Cats?” I repeat.

  The woman lets out a loud hoot. “Only seventeen of them!”

  I’m revising my opinion again. These two are nutcases, the kind of people you see on the news with the police raiding their filthy house, which is filled with animals and animal poop.

  “Wow,” is all I can think of to say.

  “When the city started tearing down the old foundry building, they discovered fifteen cats living there. We already had two cats, but if we didn’t take them … well, I don’t have to tell you what would have happened to ’em.”

  “Wow,” I say again. “Do they get along okay with the dogs?”

  “For the most part,” says the woman. “They seem to work it out.”

  “At least cats don’t need to be walked,” I say.

  “Good thing for us.”

  “Well, we’d better get moving,” says the woman. “These rascals need to work off some energy. We’ll see you soon, Josie, and you, too …”

  “Owen,” I say.

  “Hi, Owen. Glad to meet you. I’m Charlene.”

  “And I’m Ernie,” the man says, holding out his hand.

  We shake, and Charlene says, “Might as well be on a first-name basis, since we all seem to be regulars here.”

  As Josie and I head off I smile, thinking that it’s nice to know Charlene and Ernie’s names. It’s better than thinking of them as the Dog People. Or the Dog-and-Cat People. Also, it’s good to know they have all those critters because they’re softhearted, not soft in the head.

  Well, okay, maybe a little bit of both.

  It takes two trips up the hill to carry all the stuff. Cam oohs and aahs and declares that everything is perfect, which makes me feel better about spending more of my allowance on her, and getting grilled by Mr. Powers.

  We take a bag of Tootsie Rolls outside and sit on the edge of the porch, our legs dangling. Josie chases a squirrel up into a big sycamore tree, then comes back and curls up beside me, looking proud of a job well done.

  “Good girl,” I tell her. We watch as a breeze rises, making the leaves shudder. Clouds gather and soon block out the sun. After a while I ask Cam, “So now you’ve got to tell me. How is that stuff”—I gesture toward the pile of building materials—“going to make a signal to outer space?”

  She laughs. “You’ve heard of crop circles, haven’t you?”

  “Of course,” I say. Anybody interested in aliens and interplanetary travel has read about them. They’re designs that mysteriously show up in fields of wheat or barley or oats. The crop is flattened out to make a pattern, which can only be seen from the air.

  They’re called crop circles even if they aren’t circular. Some of them are made by hoaxers who want to trick people into thinking the circles were made by UFO’s. But there are a lot of people who think that some of the circles really were made by spaceships landing and taking off. Others say the designs contain messages left by the alien visitors.

  “Wow! Is that what we’re going to make?”

  Cam nods.

  “How?”

  She smiles. “You’ll soon see.”

  “This is so cool!” I exclaim.

  “I just worry about my parents. I wish they never had to set foot on Earth again.”

  This takes me by surprise. And I know it’s dumb, but I feel personally insulted somehow. “Why? What’s the matter with Earth?” I ask.

  “Well, for starters, you know what happened when my parents’ ship was spotted.”

  “You mean the jeeps and soldiers and guns?”

  “The reception wasn’t exactly what you’d call friendly.”

  “That’s true,” I admit.

  “And just look around you,” Cam says. “Earth has wars, hatred, pollution, greed, cruelty … all sorts of terrible things.”

  I frown. “You mean there’s nothing like that on your planet?”

  “Imagine a world where people are never cruel to children or”—she stops to kiss Josie’s nose—“animals, or anyone.”

  “It sounds great,” I say. “It’s nice to think there’s a place like that. I can see why you want to go back.”

  “I want so much for everything to go smoothly,” Cam says, hugging her arms to her chest. “With luck, nobody but my parents will see our crop circle until after we’re gone.”

  “What’s it going to look like, anyhow?”

  Cam goes inside and comes out with a scrap of paper and a pencil stub. When she’s finished drawing, she passes the picture to me, and to tell the truth, I’m disappointed.

  I’d been expecting something intricate and, well, alien-looking. This drawing shows a series of circles inside each other, like an archery target. Any little kid could draw it.

  “What?” she says, examining my face, where I suppose my feelings must show.

  “It’s fine,” I answer quickly. “It’s just not what I imagined.”

  “It’s pretty simple,” she says. “But that’s the whole idea. We have to make it in one afternoon, to lessen the chances of it being discovered.”

  “Do we just walk around in the field knocking down the wheat stalks in circles?” I ask. “We’re not going to be able to see what we’re doing. How will we know if we’re getting way off course? We could end up sending the wrong signal, like ATTACK EARTH NOW!”

  Josie jumps up and barks in alarm when I yell this. I laugh and pat her head.

  Cam smiles and says, “It’s okay, Josie. They would never do that, even if we did mess up and tell them to.”

  “The heck they wouldn’t!” I exclaim. “That’s what I’ve seen in movies anyway.”

  She shakes her head. “You have got a lot to learn about my planet.”

  “So tell me more,” I challenge.

  “Okay.” She pauses for a second, like she’s getting her thoughts together.

  Suddenly I hear a car. “Listen!”

  Cam freezes, a look of fear in her eyes. “Please,” she whispers. “Don’t let it be Ray.”

  “Come on!” I say. “Quick!” I grab the paper and pencil and Josie’s collar and run toward the cornfield. I glance back and see that Cam is following. We duck into the field as a large white SUV with the words LAKELAND REALTY on the side comes up the driveway and sto
ps in front of the house. A woman gets out, wearing a gray suit and high heels.

  Cam and I exchange a glance of relief. It’s not Ray. But, still, this is not good.

  I hang on to Josie, who is trying to wriggle out of my grasp. “Shhh,” I whisper, and clamp my free hand around her muzzle to keep her from barking.

  The woman takes small, careful steps across the uneven gravel drive, climbs the stairs onto the porch, and stands for a minute looking at the door, which is wide open. She peers inside, but stays on the porch.

  I picture the kitchen as we left it: food strewn across the table, the sweatshirt I’d brought Cam hung over the back of a chair, and the rope, hammer, nails, measuring tape, and board.

  “Hello?” The woman’s voice, sounding hesitant, carries across to where Cam, Josie, and I are hiding behind the first row of corn. “Is anybody there?”

  She stands on the porch, looking frightened, then closes the door and glances around before heading quickly to her SUV. She gets in, and the instant the door is shut, I hear the sound of the automatic door locks clicking into place. The wheels send up a spray of small stones as the lady backs up and drives away, her cell phone already in her hand.

  “I bet she’s calling the county sheriff’s office to tell them someone’s been trespassing out here,” I say. “From the way she ran off, she might even think somebody’s in there now. The cops are going to be here soon, for sure.”

  Cam has dropped her face into her hands. At first I think she’s crying, but then I see she’s rubbing her eyes in an effort to concentrate. After a couple seconds, she looks up at me and says, “It would be best to leave everything in the kitchen just the way it is. So if that lady comes back with the sheriff, they’ll think whoever was in the house is long gone, not still hanging around.”

  This makes sense, and I nod.

  Then Cam looks up with a stricken expression. “But I’ve got to go back in and get the things for making the signal.” She looks up at the sky. Dark clouds are moving in quickly. “Where can I go?” She thinks for a second, then asks, “What about that big abandoned building by the stream, near where I got cleaned up?”