by Jane Kelley
“You do?” Val said.
“He lives in the store. With all the other things that have been shipwrecked by time. That’s why he doesn’t go to school. Or even to get a haircut. Because time washed him ashore in a place he didn’t mean to be. But that was okay. Except it messed up his clothes.”
Val watched her parents both wipe the smiles off their faces with their napkins.
“I bet he has superpowers,” Dad said.
“Yes. He has the power to make people change their minds,” Drew said.
“I wish I had that power. Then maybe I could get an appointment to see the mayor,” Mom said.
“Why do you want to see the mayor?” Val was eager to change the subject.
“Remember I told you how the people at the soup kitchen are losing their permit to prepare food?” Mom explained about her most recent effort to fight City Hall.
After dinner, Val went into Drew’s room to deliver what she hoped was an adequate payoff. She opened the map of the United States and dumped her entire collection of state quarters on his bed.
He lifted handfuls of silver. The coins clinked satisfyingly as they dribbled through his fingers. He smiled. “I accept this ransom. But only because I realize how difficult it is to get diamonds these days.”
“Oh, thank you, wise lord.” Val bowed to him.
Drew sadly shook his head. “You just don’t know how to play, do you?”
“What was wrong with that?”
Drew patted her on the shoulder. “That’s okay. You have other uses. And you have an interesting friend.”
She didn’t want to discuss Tasman with Drew. “Good night, Pest.”
“Good night, Bossy Pants.”
She was at his door when he said, “Do you think the ankle wings broke the spell? Is Lanora saved now?”
“Maybe.”
“What do you mean, maybe?” Drew jumped on his bed so he could be as tall as Val. He glared at her.
She was afraid to tell him she had two more things to get. The gift from the Star Tamer. And the gift from her own heart. She hadn’t even figured out what those things were. Or what she should do with them when she had all three. What if they weren’t enough? What if she also needed the incantation bowl? How could she get something that might not exist?
“I don’t want to trade my ankle wings for a maybe!” Drew hissed at her.
“The maybe is … I don’t know if it happened yet. That’s all. Now I have to do my homework.”
“That’s what you always say.”
“Because I always do.”
She went back to her room and got out her homework. The books surrounded her on her bed. She opened her history book. She found a map of the world. What country had The Book of Dares come from? Did that place even still exist?
She took the scroll of parchment from its hiding place under the mattress. She unrolled it and looked at what she had written. The handwriting was unrecognizable, even though she knew she had been the one to hold the pen.
Second, I bring to you a gift from the Star Tamer, who from his great heights has given proof of his devotion to our cause.
Who was the Star Tamer?
She looked out the window at the night sky. The bright light she thought was a star turned out to belong to a jet. But she could see the moon.
Several blocks of buildings separated her apartment from Lanora’s. Val remembered when Lanora had decided that if they both looked at the moon at the same time, their lines of sight would meet on its surface in the Mare Nubium—the Sea of Clouds. Everyone knew the moon reflected the sun’s light. But if the moon reflected other things, as well, Lanora and Val could send each other messages—allowing, of course, for the time it took to travel 500,000 miles there and back. This had been an exciting discovery—when they were nine. Val doubted that Lanora was looking at the moon and sending her thought waves now.
It seemed much more possible that Tasman was.
Twenty-six
Each morning, Emma tried different ways to make Lanora get out of bed. She played soothing music. She played military marches. She cooked bacon. She burned the toast. She said, “Rise and shine, sweetheart.” But Lanora didn’t rise and she certainly didn’t shine. She ignored her mom’s efforts. She buried under her blankets until she heard her mom screech, “You have to go to school!” Then the door slammed as Emma left for work.
This morning was like every other except for one thing. Lanora had seen the boy with the amazing eyes. The one with Val. Lanora wouldn’t refer to him as Val’s boyfriend. Even if he was, which Lanora doubted, she didn’t have to call him that. His name was Tasman.
Tasman didn’t go to school, either. Lanora instinctively knew this by the way his mind traveled way beyond the limitations of a classroom. She wondered what he had done. Had he been suspended? Or bullied? Was he scared? Or was he brave? Why hadn’t he gone back? More importantly, where did he go all day? If she met him, would he say, “Are you taking a gap year, too? Are you trying to find yourself?”
Then she would shake her head. “No, I want to lose myself.”
And he would get it.
She shut her eyes for a moment. Being understood had seemed an impossible dream—until she had seen Tasman.
She quickly got out of bed and put on her typical disguise of jeans and a gray hoodie. Then she returned to her closet. She needed to wear something else if she wanted him to recognize her as a kindred spirit. Most boys didn’t pay attention to clothes. But he would appreciate the sea green gauze shirt her mom had bought for that costume party. Its sleeves ended in triangle points, just below her knees. It had meanings she couldn’t begin to guess.
She left the apartment and ran down the three flights of stairs. The sun was shining. The sky was blue. New York City brimmed with possibilities again.
At the Museum of Natural History, gigantic orbs floated inside a great glass building. They were so large and yet they were mere models of the planets. She wished she could hear what he had to say about that. But he wasn’t there. Instead, a yellow school bus disgorged a swarm of small children, so she moved on.
Would he go to the park? Would he go back to the Bower? For some reason, he had seemed nervous there. And so she walked in the opposite direction.
Coffee shops? Could he afford to buy something? Maybe not. He had been wearing such awful old slippers.
Where could he go to delight his extraordinary mind? The public library, of course.
She climbed the steps and pushed through the old wooden doors. What would he want to learn about? She avoided the kids’ section and walked among the shelves with more challenging books. Science? Philosophy? History? She paused by a row of encyclopedias. She took the volume with the T. She wanted to learn why his name sounded familiar even though no one she knew had been called that.
She sat at a table and opened the book. There was a famous Tasman in the 17th century. Abel Tasman was an explorer. Many places had been named after him, including the large island off the coast of Australia. The encyclopedia had a picture of a cartoon monster called the Tasmanian Devil. But it didn’t tell her what she wanted to know. How had Abel Tasman found the courage to venture into the unknown? How could he stand on the deck of a small ship and sail on toward an empty sea? Battered by storms, blown off course, confronted by hostile Maoris in New Zealand, he survived it all and made his way back to his world. But he had not been welcomed as a hero. Since he hadn’t found anything useful, the Dutch East India Company decided to use a more “persistent explorer” for future expeditions.
In other words, everybody thought he had failed.
That wasn’t at all what she hoped to find out.
She pushed away from the book on the table and left the library.
The sidewalks were as crowded as usual. People walked past her. They were in a hurry. They knew where they were going. They were eager to reach their destinations. Nothing was blowing them off course.
Then someone stopped directly in front of her. Lanora’s he
ad was down, but she recognized the muddy sneakers.
It was Val.
Lanora looked up, but only briefly. She didn’t want to see pity in Val’s eyes.
Neither one spoke. Neither one knew what to say. There was too much to say.
Lanora tried the smile, the one she was practicing for when she returned to M.S. 10. But her mouth trembled like a weight lifter whose muscles quavered with exertion. She couldn’t hold the pose. The barbells crashed to the floor.
* * *
Val decided not to run after Lanora. Sometimes you just had to let your teammate take a time-out on the sidelines. You had to focus on your own playing, if the game was still in progress. Val needed to find the gift from the Star Tamer, whoever he or she was. Second, I bring to you a gift from the Star Tamer, who from his great heights has given proof of his devotion to our cause.
Which “heights”? What was “devotion”? What kind of “star”? What kind of “gift”? Val felt like she didn’t know anything anymore. She had to be pretty ignorant, really, if she didn’t know how to talk to her friend.
Lunchtime was almost over. The members of the Poetry Club had uncharacteristically been outside and were now heading back to school. Helena was leading the way, as usual. Tina was looking at the world from the corner of her eye. Gillian was clomping along in her big boots. Olivia greeted Val first with her beautiful smile. “Look, it’s Val.”
“With furrowed brow.” Today Helena had added one bit of color to her black ensemble. The pop tab had been joined by a red button.
“Expressions should have an expiration date. Nobody furrows anymore.” Tina smoothed her bangs to cover up her own forehead.
“Would you accept a corduroy brow?” Gillian said.
“What’s a Star Tamer?” Val interrupted their game.
The poets pondered this for only the briefest of seconds.
“An astronomer.” As usual, Helena was first with a response.
“A circus performer.” Olivia clapped her hands with delight.
“A gossip columnist,” Tina said.
Val shook her head. “It must be something else.”
“Why do you want to know?” Helena said.
“Context is crucial,” Gillian said.
“He lives up in the heights,” Val said.
“Washington Heights?” Olivia said.
“Wuthering Heights?” Helena said.
“Please, no more Brontë sisters,” Tina said.
“Am I allowed to mention their evil father, who paid hardly any attention to his brilliant daughters?” Helena said.
“No!” the other poets shouted.
But Val said, “Yes,” and pumped her fist.
“You figured out who the Star Tamer is?” Helena said.
“Is the answer symbolic?” Gillian said.
“Metaphoric?” Olivia said.
“Acronymic?” Tina said.
Val couldn’t tell them it was Lanora’s father.
* * *
But how would Val find him? She had only met Mr. Nuland three times—four, if you counted the day she and Lanora had seen him steering a woman in high heels to a fancy brunch spot on Columbus Avenue.
“Well, well,” Lanora had said, “my father’s got an antidote to my mom.”
“What’s that?” Val had asked.
“A cure.”
Val hadn’t understood how one person could be a cure for another. She suspected Lanora had gotten the word wrong. Lanora sometimes did. She claimed that was the price you paid for using power words. But now Val knew what Lanora meant. Probably Lanora had hoped the A Team would be an antidote for Val.
After the divorce, Mr. Nuland rarely came to the Upper West Side. He usually sent a car to whisk Lanora across town to what she called an “edifying event.”
Val hoped her parents knew where he worked.
After dinner that night, Drew asked her several times if anybody at her school had been saved from a wicked spell that day. When she said there weren’t any superheroes at M.S. 10, he threatened to go to her school to get the job done.
He raced around the apartment, collecting the shower curtain, the dustpan, Mom’s hairbrush, a spray bottle of window cleaner, a copper colander, and Val’s shin guards.
“That’s enough. If you really have superpowers, you shouldn’t need any more stuff,” Mom said.
“Yes, I do. I still need the you-know-what that you-know-who has,” Drew hissed at Val.
The clock cuckooed. Luckily it was Drew’s bedtime.
“Good night, little brother,” Val said.
Drew growled as their parents escorted him into his bedroom.
While they were saying good night to him, Val sat on the sofa with her homework notebook on her lap. She tried to plan what she was going to say. It was hard. She wished she had a soccer ball. Talking to people was easier when she kicked something at them. Could she throw a pillow at her dad and say, “Think fast, where’s Mr. Nuland’s office?”
Val heard the little tinkle of chimes that somehow had come to represent rain falling on the ground to help dreams blossom.
Dad said, “Good night, Drew.”
The door shut and her parents came into the living room.
“Look!” Dad did a double take. “A sixth grade girl is sitting in our living room. Doesn’t she realize she should choose to be anyplace in the world where her parents won’t be?”
Mom smiled at Val. “Care for a sandwich, sweetie?”
“Yes, please,” Val said.
“Ham on rye?” Dad said.
“Then you’d be in the middle,” Mom said.
“Ha ha,” Dad said.
Her parents sat on either side of her. Val leaned her head back. Not so very long ago, her head used to sink into the soft cushions. But she had grown. Now her head clunked against the hard wall.
“Panini?” Mom said.
Val nodded.
Her parents pressed in tighter. They were warm and solid against her.
“Did you say what kind of sandwich you were?” Dad said.
“Jam,” Val said.
“Ah. And why would that be?” Dad said.
Val remembered again how painful it was to be face-to-face with Lanora and have nothing to say. And if Lanora went away, Val would never have the chance to make things right.
“Do people really go to reform school?” Val said.
“You can’t send me. I refuse to go,” Dad said.
Val sighed.
Mom sighed, too. “Are you worrying about Lanora?”
“Oh, gosh, I’m an idiot,” Dad said.
Mom leaned over to pat his knee. Then she squeezed Val’s shoulders.
“Adjusting to middle school isn’t easy. Lanora will be okay. She just needs the support of a little counseling. Emma’s having trouble with the insurance, but I know that Tom will pay out of pocket.”
“He can afford it,” Dad said.
“What does he do?” Val tried to sound casual, even though this was exactly what she needed to know.
“He picks up piles of money and moves them to a new place where they can become bigger piles of money.” Mom demonstrated with the magazines on the coffee table.
“It’s more complicated than that,” Dad said.
“Oh, right. I forgot the part where he takes some off the pile each time he moves it.” She took one of the magazines and stuck it under her arm.
“But where?” Val said.
“The piles are in things called derivatives. Don’t ask me to explain because I can’t.” Mom raised her hands helplessly.
“No, I mean, where does Mr. Nuland work?”
Twenty-seven
The Internet told Val that Geld Inc. had its offices at 500 Park Avenue. The Internet showed Val which block the building was on, which subway to use to get there, with two alternate routes, and how long it would take. The Internet even warned her that there was a seventy percent chance of an afternoon shower. Yes, the Internet had told Val everything she n
eeded to know except the most important thing. How was she going to get the chance to speak to Mr. Nuland?
When Val came up from the subway tunnel, the streets of Midtown Manhattan glistened with moisture. The top of the building was hidden by the cloud that had so recently shed its rain. The building’s glass walls had no cracks or chinks. The only opening was on the ground level. A revolving door was spitting out whatever people had dared to enter.
In this world Mr. Nuland wasn’t Lanora’s father, he was chief executive officer. And even if she did get in to see him, what would she say? That Lanora had buried her lilac butterfly at the Bower. That Mau had taken the butterfly to an antiquities shop. That Val had met a strange kid there who read from The Book of Dares. And because that passage mentioned a Star Tamer’s gift, Val had come to collect it.
Yeah, right.
Tasman might have known something better to say, but he wasn’t there. Val was supposed to meet him later on the steps of the Natural History Museum—after she had gotten the gift from the Star Tamer.
Val watched three more people get spit out of the revolving door. She clenched and unclenched her fists. There was always a moment before each soccer game when time stopped. The players were lined up across the field. They stared at their opponents. Bigger. Older. Meaner. The goal itself seemed such a long way away. They waited to be hurled into the frenzy of action that would decide their fate. Then the whistle blew. The ball was kicked. There was no more time to question or prepare. The game had begun. Val ran across the street and stepped into the open segment of the revolving door.
The door moved without any help from her. Trying to walk at its pace made her stumble as she entered the lobby. If she had been at school or at home, someone would have laughed. Here, no one did. Two men wearing black uniforms flicked their eyes at her. That quick glance was all they needed to see that she didn’t belong.
Well, she didn’t.
The lobby itself was three stories tall. A grand fireball was suspended from the ceiling.
“Star Tamer,” she whispered. She couldn’t wait to tell Tasman that she had guessed right.
Two walls of elevators were at the rear of the lobby, behind a barricade guarded by more men in green uniforms. Val watched a woman show a card to one of them. The man did something hidden behind a gleaming black counter. Magically the arms of the barricade parted and the woman passed through. Val considered the cards she had. Her school ID, her subway card, her library card, and the jack of diamonds. She doubted that any of them would work, even though Drew promised her the jack’s magic powers would help her find money on the sidewalk. Still, she was digging through her backpack, looking for her cards, when one of the uniformed men stood over her. “Can I help you?”
