Taylor scooted over, making room.
“Come and see this, Jim,” her mother called.
Taylor’s mother reached across her, turning pages. Taylor felt her mother’s breath on her neck. “I thought my dad was the handsomest, most magical person who had ever lived. Of course I never even met him. Still…” She paged back to a newspaper clipping that showed Ryan Murphy in front of a microphone, cradling a small, sleek guitar, his head thrown back as he sang. “Wasn’t he something?”
Before Taylor knew it, the book was on her mom’s lap and she was paging ahead.
“This is where I met your dad,” she said, pointing to a newspaper story about a reunion of rock-and-roll bands. “Mom took me when I was seventeen. Right here, in this hotel, in the ballroom when they were playing ‘Lollipop.’”
“Who said lollipop?” Taylor’s dad demanded from the doorway.
“I was just showing Taylor the place where we met. I didn’t know Eve had kept all this old stuff. Remember the first time we danced?”
Her dad started to hum and sort of rock around. Her mom got off the bed and they touched fingertips, their arms bent, smiling at each other, and then her mother sang some silly words.
Taylor put her pillow over her face. She couldn’t stand it. Had her parents been taken over by alien beings? How would she ever survive a whole week in Reno with them?
Chapter 17
FROM A DEEP SHADOW inside the stinky thing’s turtle shell, Tad watched humans tromp back and forth carrying things that smelled like home. The fragrance of carrots, potatoes, thyme, and damp earth made him so homesick he shriveled up to almost nothing. As the humans went in and out of the giant turtle shell, they made noises to each other. Their noise wasn’t as pretty as birdsong, but better than squirrel jabber or dog talk.
Before long, the turtle shell went dark—so dark he could not see his own hands. Then something rumbled beneath his belly. The stinky thing was waking up and starting to move. Tad crouched, still as stone.
Where was the roaring stinky thing going?
After a while, Tad crept over the trembling bottom. Through a crack in the shell, he saw great snakes of light, the white snakes chasing him, the red snakes racing away from him. Shapes flashed by in the rain. Everything was covered.
He was getting farther and farther from the reno shape, where he had seen the queen. And he was getting deeper into the covering.
He thought about leaping out of the giant shell. The crack was big enough. But he was very high up, plus he would leap into the snakes of fast light.
Tad backed away from the crack.
It was so cold that his warts hurt and his rear diggers started to go numb. He hopped around, trying to keep warm.
The song from his dreams, the one that had made Buuurk roll in the peas laughing so long ago, popped into his head. He swayed back and forth on his diggers, belting out a few words. But without Buuurk, it wasn’t fun. Tad just felt even sadder than before. His voice trailed off until it was a whisper, and he stood silently, shivering.
Behind a box, he found a sluggish grasshopper and a cold fly. He stared out the crack again, feeling the chill of the air.
He had to find a place to burrow before he froze to death.
The stinky thing jolted, flinging Tad into the air. When he landed, he was among carrots, their tops tickling his back. And the carrots were buried in something like dirt. It didn’t smell exactly like dirt, but his diggers could make a little tunnel that he could back into.
He stayed among the carrots, half frozen, for what seemed like forever. Sometimes, to prove to himself that he could still move, he left his burrow to peer out of the crack in the turtle shell. When it was light, he saw a wide golden body of water sparkling in the sun. He watched as the stinky thing followed along its edge for a very long time. Finally, heavy with cold and loneliness, Tad went back to his burrow and slept again.
The next time he awoke, he wondered where Buuurk was. And then he remembered. Trembling, he crossed the turtle-shell bottom to peer through the crack again. To his amazement, he saw mulch piles so tall they reached into the clouds, and big animals with horns eating grass.
Over and over, he dozed among the carrots and returned to peek at creation. In places, Mother Earth’s body was full of painful-looking cracks. In other places, she was all sand piles. Once, far off, Tad saw giant twisted rocks, like fantastical beasts, rising into the sky. He saw strange squirrel-like animals popping in and out of holes in the ground.
He had no idea Mother Earth was so big and had such amazing animals wandering over her. If Buuurk were here beside him, they could marvel at these strange things together. If Buuurk were here beside him, Tad would feel brave.
Chapter 18
“SAY HELLO TO RENO!” her dad said as their car passed under the sign that arched over the street.
“Hello, Reno!” her mother sang.
“Hello, Reno,” Taylor mumbled, feeling a little weird talking to a town.
“Such a friendly sign,” her dad sad. “Friendly town too.”
“Look, Taylor. There’s our hotel.” Her mother pointed ahead where two tall towers and a connecting crosswalk made a giant white H against the blue sky.
“It’s so big.” She thought of things that began with H. Horoscope. Hiccup. Hack. Hop. Homesick.
As she followed her parents into the vast glass-and-marble lobby, she looked up at the colorful silk banners that moved like clouds on a breezy day.
“Over here,” her dad said, herding Taylor and her mother toward a large sign that said WELCOME 30TH ANNUAL ROCK AND ROLL EXTRAVAGANZA.
Her mother saw somebody she knew, and picked up the pace, waving.
“Wally,” her dad called, pumping a man’s hand and slapping him on the back.
And before Taylor knew it, they were in a crowd of people. As the grown-ups jabbered, Taylor looked at the posters of bands. They were mainly older people wearing clothes from a long time ago. One guy had on tight jeans and a black leather jacket with the collar turned up. He was playing drums just like her dad’s.
Taylor blinked. It was her dad.
And was the woman with the microphone to her mouth…the woman wearing a red-and-white polka-dot skirt belted in really tight at the waist…her mother?
Taylor practically pressed her nose to the glass. It was her mother.
“And this must be your daughter,” a woman was saying, handing Taylor’s mother some papers to sign.
Taylor’s mom nodded.
The woman grappled a purple hoop big enough for a dog to jump through out of a stack of other hoops and handed it to Taylor.
“Watch this!” said a girl a few feet away. She hung her red hoop around her waist and begin to gyrate like crazy. Taylor could see her moving her lips as she counted. Seventeen, so far.
“You do it too!” she commanded Taylor, not losing count.
Taylor tried, but on the fifth spin, the hoop wobbled down her legs and bounced on the floor.
The girl let hers fall, hooked it with her foot, and flipped it into her hand.
“You’re really good,” Taylor said. The girl was wearing a crown. A very sparkly diamond crown—though the diamonds probably weren’t real. “Are you like the queen of hula hooping or something?”
“Nope.” The girl smiled, showing dimples. “I’m the Queen of the Hop.”
What was that?
“Come on, Diana,” a man called. “We need to get unpacked and settled in.”
“See you,” the girl called over her shoulder as her family headed across the lobby to the elevators.
The woman behind the registration desk was still handing out folders and plastic bags full of stuff. “You’ll need your name tag too,” she told Taylor. “It’ll get you into all the events. And I see you’re one of our rock-and-roll babies!” She handed Taylor a big glitter pink star with Peggy Sue written in gold. “We have two Dianas, a Donna, and a Susie coming this year.”
Taylor looked at her dad. He
winked.
Surely he knew her real name, didn’t he? But she didn’t want to make a fuss, so she put on the gaudy name tag.
On the way up in the elevator, Taylor watched as downtown Reno and then the desert and mountains fell away below her, until her stomach nearly came out her mouth. She turned around, pretending to read the bulletin board. Right in front of her face was the schedule of youth events. At four o’clock, there would be a hula hoop contest.
Her mother put her hand on Taylor’s shoulder. “I don’t like these elevators either,” she said.
They got off on the thirty-eighth floor. Taylor’s head felt tight, like it might pop. Isn’t that what happened to balloons when they drifted up too high? They popped?
Her mother put the key card in the door. When it opened, Taylor saw a big room with a couch and chairs, and even a table for eating. There was a tiny kitchen. They were so high up, she thought she might be able to see home from the floor-to-ceiling windows.
“Look, Taylor,” her mother said, leading the way. “You’ve got your own bedroom and closet and bathroom and everything.”
Her bedroom had floor-to-ceiling windows too, and mirrors on the opposite wall that reflected nothing but the cloudless sky. It was like floating in space.
Taylor flopped onto her bed, burying her face in the pillows.
“You okay?” her mom asked.
Taylor nodded.
“Alrighty then. I’m going to change my shirt and get back down to rehearsal. You’ll probably want to eat before your dad and I are back.”
She gave Taylor a quick lesson in ordering room service. “We’ll be in the Painted Desert Room, and I’ll have my cell phone on.” She got it out of her purse and turned it on. Taylor noticed she didn’t check voice mail—just slid the phone in her jeans pocket.
“Is yours on?”
Taylor took it out of her backpack and looked. It felt weird to have her own phone. She didn’t even know her phone number.
“So we’re connected at all times,” her mother said.
She went into her bedroom and shortly came out wearing a different shirt and a fresh coat of lipstick. “See you in a couple of hours. Call me if you get scared or worried. Watch a movie. When your dad and I get back we’ll make microwave popcorn, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Make sure the door is double locked after I leave.” She showed Taylor how to do that. “Don’t let anybody in except room service. And look through the peephole first.”
Taylor listened to her mother’s footsteps fade into silence. As she turned to look out across the desert, she felt the tower sway. Suddenly she longed for the feel of grass beneath her feet, and earth that seemed to give a little when you curled your toes against it.
Chapter 19
TAD WOKE UP IN A PANIC. His diggers scrabbled against something slick and hard. Rain much colder than any he’d ever felt before was thundering down on his back. Human hands tossed and tumbled him with the carrots. He felt the dirt he’d slept in being rinsed away from soft parts between his legs and belly, from the cracks between his diggers, from the crevices around his eyes.
As he was lifted, dripping, with a batch of carrots and lettuce, shaken three times, and put down on a board, Tad stared up at an enormous sky of many glaring white suns.
The board began to jiggle as a sharp thing came flying down. Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop! Chop!
Bits of carrots exploded around Tad like the end of the world. Chop! Chop! Chop!
He leaped under the ruffle of a large leaf of lettuce. And there, like a gift, was a little gray slug. Even in his terror, Tad’s tongue snapped out. It was a one-blink bite.
He backed farther into the lettuce as human voices called to one another and the sharp thing sliced and diced all around him.
A hand plopped down on a cucumber that was twice as big as Tad and, right in front of his eyes, hacked it into slices. Tad nearly fainted.
Then radishes were diced with dazzling speed, always the sharp thing going, going, going.
Tad tried to stay still, to be as small and lettucey-looking as he could possibly be. His terror wouldn’t let him think.
Everything moved so fast. Some pieces of fruit fell on his head. Fingers tossed them all together, Tad being tumbled with everything else, upside down and right side up, until he thought he was going to be sick. Then he was scooped up with lettuce, carrots, cucumber, radishes, and fruit, and dropped in a bowl. He took cover again under a crispy leaf.
Peeking out, Tad saw a few acornlike things rain down from above, and then everything went dark.
Chapter 20
TAYLOR PUT DOWN THE PHONE after talking to room service. She’d ordered a pepperoni pizza and a garden salad to be sent to room 3810. She’d never talked to room service before. She’d tried to make her voice sound grown-up and not shake even a little bit.
She sat on her bed hugging her knees, wishing she could talk to her grandmother. But her grandmother was in the hospital trying to get her strength back, and Taylor didn’t want to bother her. She imagined Eve’s house growing dark as the sun went down. Empty and quiet. If Taylor could magically transport herself home, what would she see? Had the awful thing already happened?
She wandered through the silent suite. It was so strange being all alone. She wasn’t exactly scared. She knew she could call her mom.
The sun was starting to go down, and the desert sky was pretty shades of purple, pink, and blue. Although it was still plenty light, Taylor turned on the lamps.
She drifted into her parents’ bedroom. Her mother had laid out their rock-and-roll clothes. Taylor stepped into the black flats, the ones her mom was wearing in the picture on the poster. She did a few steps of the rocking kind of dance her mom had done with her dad, then she put the shoes back where she’d found them.
She cinched a wide belt over her jeans and shirt. It was too big on her.
When a knock sounded on the door and a voice called, “Room service!” Taylor whisked off the belt.
The room service person put a tray on the table between the couch and the TV. Taylor picked off a crispy curl of pepperoni and sucked on it, then poked around in her salad looking for things she liked. She’d ordered the salad mainly because the description on the menu made her think of all the things she and her grandmother had planted.
Taylor saw it a split second before it moved.
She screamed, leaping back, banging her leg on the coffee table. The toad bounced right into the middle of her pizza, then hopped again, brushing the can of a soft drink. It scrabbled against the damp napkin, trying to get off the tray.
What was a toad doing in her salad?
Man, it had scared her.
“It’s okay,” she said, her voice shaking. “It’s okay, little guy.”
It froze, its mouth pressed to the edge of the tray. Taylor could see its heartbeat through the thin papery-looking skin.
Her heart was pounding too. What should she do?
Should she call room service? But what would they do? You never knew about people. Sometimes they were mean to small animals.
Should she call her mother? But her parents were in the middle of a rehearsal. They wouldn’t want to deal with a toad crisis.
She didn’t want it hopping around getting stepped on or lost under the furniture. It could get hurt wandering around a hotel.
She’d seen a little park with a fountain a couple of blocks away as they drove in. She could take him there. He would have water and could catch bugs.
But should she leave the hotel by herself?
Her mother had said not to let anybody in but room service. But she hadn’t actually said not to leave the room. And it would just take her a minute. She’d be back before her parents even knew she was gone.
Taylor went into the bathroom and got a washcloth and dampened it, hoping she was doing the right thing. When she came back, the toad had turned around the other way. “Now, it’s going to be all right,” she said. “Don’t you worry.�
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When her shaking hand clamped around him, she felt him scrambling, his feet in the air, struggling so much she almost dropped him.
“Not to worry,” she crooned, shaking almost as much as he was. She wrapped him in the moist cloth, trying not to squish him, and gently deposited him in her backpack.
“We’ll just take a little walk,” she said, making sure she had her key card before she left the room.
It was spooky in the vast corridor of the hotel all alone, waiting forever for the elevator, staring out at the dusk, and watching the city of Reno rise up to meet her. The elevator stopped with a bounce that made her stomach bounce too.
In the enormous lobby, there were doors on all four sides. From far away, Taylor thought she could hear the music from her parents’ rehearsal. She stood in the middle of the lobby, turning around to study each door. Which one had they come in earlier? That would be the way to the park.
“Oooops,” somebody said, crashing into her. “Sorry.”
“That’s okay,” she said, but the woman was already gone.
Although the lobby was jam-packed, Taylor had never felt so alone.
Chapter 21
TAD CROUCHED IN TERRIFIED STILLNESS. He had been picked up by a human and put in some kind of dark nest! And now he was swaying along bumpity-bump. He rose up on his diggers and peered out of an opening. The music he’d heard in his winter dreams thudded somewhere far away, and he felt a wisp of hope. Was it possible, in spite of everything that had gone wrong, that he had somehow gotten to the right place?
He saw humans, more humans than he had ever imagined. And, most amazing, he saw a flat toad drifting in the air, only this toad was as big as a human. He saw another one! And another one! They were flying through the air everywhere.
Then he got turned a different way and he saw…could it be? Only a few hops away. The queen!
The Hop Page 7
