“Is it really necessary?” Mom asked, twisting her fingers fretfully. “Aren’t we bringing our own water into the shelter?”
“We’ll bring drinking water. But need water for many other things—washing, cooking, sanitation. And emergencies. It’s better to have too much water than not enough.” He turned to Jory. “I want you to come with me.”
“Are you sure you don’t want me to come?” Mom asked.
“It’s a man’s job,” Caleb said. “Plus, I need you here to watch Ansel. And to turn on the light.”
“Turn on the light?”
“When I cut into the pipe, it will be loud. As soon as you hear the sound, switch on the lamp. Two, three lamps. And open the blinds. That way, the neighbors think we’re all at home, startled awake by the sound.”
Mom nodded, her lips tight.
“Now, let’s—”
Then Caleb paused, seeming to notice Kit for the first time. She stood beside Ansel, holding his hand. His tawny head rested against her side, his free fingers in his mouth.
“What are you looking at?” Caleb asked her.
Kit blinked at him impassively, even a little defiantly.
“Run along to your room,” he said, waving a hand at her. “You’re not needed. Jory, let’s go.”
Before they hiked into the canyon, Caleb showed Jory the plans. “I’ll turn off the water main here.” He pointed. “It leads to all the pipes in this branch of the canyon.”
Jory chewed his lip. “You can just…turn it off?”
Caleb nodded. “With pliers. I’ve done it once before—just to check.”
A chaos of pipes covered the paper. Like the snarled roots their shovels uncovered. So many pipes. How could Caleb possibly know which water main led to which one?
“But what if the water doesn’t shut off?” Jory asked. “What would happen when you cut into the pipe?”
“Well, there would be a flood. It’d be a disaster. But I’ve studied these diagrams long and hard. You’ll have to trust me, son.”
Trust. Jory tried to hang on to it—trust in one hand, son in the other—even after he glimpsed the chain saw. Almost as tall as Kit, with black teeth as long as Jory’s fingers. Caleb leaned it against a scrub oak beside the uncovered length of pipe, right where he planned to cut. He left to turn off the water main. Jory waited, shivering, the night wind plucking at his jacket.
He realized he’d never been in the canyon alone.
It was spooky.
He couldn’t see the bunker from here. But it wasn’t far. He wondered what would happen to it if Caleb had chosen the wrong water main. If the canyon flooded. Sure, he’d studied the diagrams long and hard. But how could he know? And even if it all worked out, wasn’t this the sort of thing a person could get in major trouble for?
He was still feeling conflicted when Caleb reappeared, his massive form hulking through the dark. “There’s no way to do this quietly,” Caleb said, carrying the chain saw to the pipe. “We’ll have to settle for quickly. Are you ready?”
Jory bit his lip and nodded.
The chain saw roared on. Before Jory could even clap his hands over his ears, it met the pipe in a shower of sparks. And the sound! An ear-splitting, metallic screech. Like the scream of a dying robot, or a flock of banshees caught in a propeller. His heart jerked as water burst out—but just one burst. Then a trickle. It soaked into the canyon floor and disappeared.
Caleb sawed off a second slice with another metallic screech. And then it was over. He jammed a T-shaped piece of pipe into the gap, swiveled it off, and secured it. Together, they reburied the pipe, then headed down the canyon to turn the water main back on.
“Now we’ll have as much water as we need,” Caleb said, clapping Jory on the shoulder. “A limitless supply. We’ll be safe—no matter how long we need to stay down there.”
Jory swallowed. His ears still echoed with that metal-on-metal scream. “What if the neighbors call the police?”
“If they ask, we’ll tell them it was a mountain lion. But they won’t bother—the danger’s growing close. I can feel it. Officials have bigger things to worry about now.”
THINGS WERE DIFFERENT AT SCHOOL, TOO. Jory used to have to search for what ifs. Now they were everywhere. Battering his head like windblown branches. Swarming his skin like biting flies.
What if nobody else knows about the danger?
What if nobody else is preparing?
What if that’s only because nobody’s told them?
What if Caleb—
At that, Jory snapped off his thoughts.
He had trouble looking at Mr. Bradley. He had trouble talking to Erik, even when Erik showed him a comic book about a man with a trout for a head. He had the most trouble talking to Alice, especially when she asked about Kit. “How’re her knees doing?”
“They’re both great,” Jory replied.
“So she’s okay?”
“She’s fine.”
Which wasn’t really true. But he couldn’t talk about how the endless canyon-bottom nights seemed to wear on Kit, about how a kid like her needed the sun. And the sky, any sky—not a roof of stones and dirt. And the stars. If anybody was more than 93 percent stardust, it was Kit.
He couldn’t tell Alice that. Or anything on his mind.
So he avoided his friends as much as possible. Sometimes he invented excuses. Mr. Bradley was keeping him after class. He had to stop by the library—no, that’s okay, I study better alone. At lunch, a series of too-real stomachaches supposedly prevented him from talking.
“You should probably get that checked out,” Alice said. “I watched this show on TV about a man who got these terrible stomachaches, and they got worse and worse, and finally he went to the hospital, and it turned out he had a twin inside his stomach.”
“He ate his twin?” Erik asked incredulously.
Alice nodded. “In the womb.”
As Jory crossed the bridge that afternoon, the black-and-white dog bounded up to him, just like he’d hoped. Jory knelt and opened his arms. The dog almost knocked him over backward, even though it weighed thirty pounds, tops. Jory laughed and scratched the dog’s ears.
“Panda!”
Jory blinked.
“Panda! Where’d you run off to?”
The dog ducked under Jory’s arm and darted away—toward one of the neighbor ladies, who was standing at the end of the bridge. She wore a yellow blouse and cutoff shorts, despite the chill in the air. Her eyes crinkled when she smiled.
“You little rascal,” she said, clipping a leash onto the dog’s collar.
“He’s yours?” Jory asked, even though it was obvious.
“As much as a dog can be anybody’s.” She walked the dog over to Jory. “He keeps getting out. I mend the fence, he digs right under it. Smartest dog I’ve ever had.”
Jory tried to smile. In his heart of hearts, he’d known the dog wasn’t a sign—it was just somebody’s dog, like all dogs were. But still, he felt profoundly disappointed. He wouldn’t have named the dog Panda, that’s for sure. No wonder it kept escaping.
He glanced down. Panda had placed his front paws on Jory’s leg.
“He likes you,” the neighbor lady said.
“I guess so.” Jory knelt to pet him.
“You’re Joey, right?”
He nodded.
“Can I ask you a question, Joey? What were you doing in the canyon last night?”
Jory stiffened, his hand freezing in Panda’s fur. Had she seen them climb down? Or back up? Did Mom forget to turn on the lamps? He thought quickly. “Hiking,” he said.
“At night?”
“My parents like to take us on nature walks,” he said. “To see…crickets.”
“Crickets?”
“And…opossums. And spiders that come out at night—orb weavers.” Jory tried to look dangerous. “Huge ones. But it’s all very educational. We look at the stars, too. My sister Kit, she’s a genius when it comes to astronomy. Point out any star, s
he can name it. Along with all the constellations, galaxies, supernovas…” The ease of his storytelling astounded him.
“Kit,” the neighbor lady said. “That’s your sister’s name?”
Oh no. Jory couldn’t believe he’d mentioned Kit again! At least in this case, he consoled himself, the neighbor ladies already knew about her. They’d waved. So he hadn’t really done anything wrong. Right?
“Um,” he replied noncommittally.
“My name’s Bonnie. You and your sister should stop by sometime for some scones. I make them with frozen blueberries, so I can whip them up on short notice. You can invite your whole family, if you like.”
Jory wasn’t sure what a scone was, but his mouth seemed to know. It watered. “Maybe sometime,” he said, another lie. He gave Panda one final pat, then turned and trudged away.
Day and night and sleeping and waking had gone totally topsy-turvy. Sometimes when Jory zipped on his boots and crept downstairs for a drink of water, he felt startled by the light. Other times he felt like night had taken over entirely. That his hours at school were just a dream, and real life was the bunker in the canyon bottom.
And his dreams. Night infested his dreams, too. Snaky roots and barbed-wire vines. Things he felt but couldn’t see in the darkness.
One evening, Jory found Mom sitting at the kitchen table, staring at an untouched plate of toast. It was dark out, but not yet time to dig. Caleb was still at the factory.
“Trouble sleeping?” she asked.
Jory sat across from her. “As usual.”
“Me too. I thought I’d have a snack, but…I’m just not hungry.” She slid the plate a few inches toward Jory. “Do you want some?”
“I’ll take half,” he said, tearing the bread down the middle. “Any butter?”
“No more butter. We used it up.” She picked up her half, then set it down again and sighed. “You’d think I’d have a big appetite, working so hard.”
Maybe if Caleb let them buy more butter, Jory thought but didn’t say. More butter, or fresh meat, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables. Fresh anything. Caleb thought they should get used to their underground menu, like his soldier MREs, but Jory felt different. Shouldn’t they enjoy fresh food while they still had access to it?
“We could go to a restaurant,” Jory said. “Next time we run errands…”
“Jory,” Mom said, a warning.
“I was only joking.” He stuffed his mouth with bread.
“I do miss them though.” She brushed the crumbs from her fingers. “Restaurants. Not working in them, but eating in them. The way we sometimes used to, before money got so tight.”
“Me too.”
They sat there quietly, lost in their memories. Mom looking at her hands. Jory looking at Mom. Just the two of them, the way it was before.
Before Ansel. Before Kit.
Before Caleb.
Jory thought about how timid Mom used to be, and how she’d worked in that crummy coffee shop anyway. For them. For Jory—who was her entire family, back then. Which wasn’t so timid, was it? Really, it was the opposite. It was brave. A whole lot braver than hiding, no matter what Caleb believed. “I wish you’d told me the truth,” Jory said.
Mom looked at him. Solemn, tired-eyed, still pretty. “The truth? You mean…”
He nodded. “As soon as you found out.”
“I wish I could have,” she said. “It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. Keeping it from you. But Caleb said the fewer of us who knew, the better.”
“How soon is it going to happen?”
“I don’t know. Very soon.”
“There hasn’t been another sign, has there?”
Mom shook her head. “Caleb would have told us.”
“Does he tell us about all the signs he sees?”
“Of course. At least the signs he’s certain about. The significant ones. Like the newspaper, or the shooting stars, or the birds, or…”
“Or anything,” Jory finished. “Because a sign can be anything.”
Which also meant anything could be a sign.
Once the thought had occurred to Jory, he couldn’t get it out of his head. How did you know a sign was a sign? How did you really know? For sure? If a person wanted to convince somebody something was a sign…it might not be that hard.
Depending on how trusting the somebody was.
“Why do you believe him?” Jory blurted.
He braced himself for the inevitable scolding. But Mom didn’t seem upset with Jory. She sat there in silence for a long, long while. For even longer than last time.
“I don’t mean, why do you believe that he wants to take care of us,” Jory rushed to explain. “That he cares about us. That he believes we’re in danger. I just mean—what he says. About the danger. That if we don’t seal ourselves up underground…”
“I don’t know what will happen,” Mom said finally.
“You don’t?”
“I don’t think anybody does,” she said. “Not for sure. But I believe Caleb because he believes, with a knowledge and conviction more powerful than any I’ve ever known. I believe him because he’s brilliant, and strong, and I love him, and trust him. Because he’s always taken care of us, ever since he saved us—”
“Saved us from what?” Jory interrupted.
Mom looked surprised. “What do you mean?”
“I know you hated working at the coffee shop. But weren’t we doing okay? Just the two of us?”
“Oh, Jory,” Mom said. Her voice grew softer, sadder. “I was barely making enough for us to live on—not even enough. I was two months late on rent for our apartment. We had nobody to help us. No friends, no family. I didn’t know any of our neighbors. When I lost my job, if Caleb hadn’t been there…” Tears shone in her eyes. “I don’t think I’d have been able to take care of you anymore.”
Jory had no idea things had gotten that bad. Mom must have been so lonely, with nobody to turn to. She must have been so scared.
“So I believe Caleb because I love him,” Mom said again. “I do. And because…”
She looked at her hands.
“Because…what if I don’t believe him—and I’m wrong?”
JORY WALKED HOME THE SHORT WAY THAT TUESDAY, his head down, hands in his pockets. He remembered how old he’d felt that first week in the canyon. It made him want to laugh. If he’d felt seventy then, he felt one hundred now. Maybe older.
He didn’t see Panda as he walked across the bridge, even after he whistled softly. The neighbor ladies must have repaired their fence.
He’d only just reached the fields when he heard a voice.
“Wow, nice place!”
Jory’s stomach sank into his ankles. Make it a neighbor, make it a Boy Scout, make it anybody but them. He scrunched up his face, then turned.
Erik Dixon strolled toward him, waving emphatically. Sam Kapur and Randall Loomis walked on either side of him.
A couple of yards back, Alice Brooks-Diaz plodded along with her plaid arms crossed. “I told them,” she said. “I told them it was a jerk move, showing up unannounced, but they wouldn’t listen. We were chatting about how it’s been ages since we hung out, and Erik got this snail-brained idea to come see you, and I’m sorry Jory, really I am—”
Jory sprinted over to join them. “It’s okay,” he said, although it wasn’t. Even if Jory trusted them, Caleb wouldn’t. If he saw them on the family’s property? He’d be furious. Good thing he wasn’t home yet. “Just…keep your voices down.”
“Why?” Sam looked around. “There’s nobody out here.”
“My family’s sleeping.”
Randall scoffed, adjusting his baseball cap. “But it’s, like, four in the afternoon.”
“His stepdad works nights,” Alice whispered.
“Uh, right,” said Jory.
“So let’s not piss him off, guys. I know how my dad gets when he gets woken up. He’s like a bear with a hive on his head. All growly and stuff.”
&
nbsp; Jory couldn’t imagine Mr. Diaz getting all growly and stuff. “Also, my brother’s little, and—”
“I didn’t know you had a brother!” Alice exclaimed, then covered her mouth.
He tried not to groan. At least Ansel wasn’t supposed to be a secret.
“What about Kit?” she asked. “Is she here? I was hoping to see her—”
“She’s busy right now. She’s sleeping.”
“Which is it?”
“Both. I mean, she’s busy sleeping. She’s sick. She had a long night—a long day.” Jory rubbed his brow. He was letting stuff slip all over the place. “She’s very, very sick.”
“Oh, jeez! Have you taken her to a doctor?”
“Oh, no—she’s not that sick. She’ll be fine.”
Alice looked at him funny. “Well…tell her I said to get well soon.”
Erik was swiveling his head from left to right, taking in the family’s property. “So are you going to take us on a farm tour, or what?”
“It’s not a real farm,” Jory said. “I’ve told you a thousand times. It’s not like we’ve got geese and goats and baby lambs.”
“Baby lambs!” Alice squealed.
Jory rolled his eyes. “We don’t have any animals. Except this dumb dog that comes around—but only sometimes. We did grow things, but they’re all gone now.”
“What kind of things?”
“Squash. Whatever. Nothing special…Come with me and I’ll show you.” The farther from the house, the better, Jory supposed.
He led them to the fields. The ground was mostly barren. Brittle vines curled over the dirt, and a few withered pumpkins danced with tiny flies. A rusty rake lay on its side in a garden of rocks.
“Man,” Erik said wistfully. “This is all yours? My yard’s the size of a postcard. This place is a hundred thousand times bigger than my whole house.”
Jory felt proud and embarrassed at the same time. “We’ve got something even better. Follow me.”
The other kids followed, picking their way through the vines. Jory was careful to lead them nowhere near the family’s footpath down. He swept one hand across the expanse of open space, as Caleb had. “This is our canyon.”
Watch the Sky Page 12
