Skeleton Tree

by Kim Ventrella

  “Hey, what are you hiding?” said Jaxon.

  “I’ve got a secret, I guess. You wouldn’t be interested. Anyway, let’s get a snack.”

  “Whoa. Hold up. Why wouldn’t I want to know your secret?”

  “Because you hate everything that is awesome,” Stanly said. “And you only love boring things like giant blocks of cheese.”

  “You have to tell me your secret,” Jaxon said, turning on Stanly. “Remember last week, how I saved you from that horde of zombie cheerleaders?”

  “True.” Stanly rubbed his chin. “Okay, I guess I could tell you. On one condition.”

  “What?” Jaxon sank to the floor, groaning. “You are twenty-five kinds of impossible.”

  “Why twenty-five?”

  “Just tell me!”

  “Promise you won’t blab?” Not that Jaxon would. He was an expert at keeping secrets, even about that time Stanly accidentally put a worm in Miren’s chicken noodle soup.

  “Gah, I promise already! Spill it!”

  “Okay.” Stanly told Jaxon about the bone growing in his yard, and how he was going to win the contest and bring his dad on the best trip ever. Only he didn’t actually say that last part. Jaxon always got really quiet whenever Stanly brought up his dad, like he was afraid he’d say something that would hurt Stanly’s feelings.

  “You realize bones don’t grow in gardens, right?”

  “Time for snacks, Bunny-Bean. Cheese and crackers and sweet tea,” Jaxon’s mom trilled from the kitchen.

  “But you know what does end up in gardens?” Jaxon said. “Dead bodies.”

  “Dead dinosaur bodies,” Stanly corrected.

  Jaxon shook his head. “No, for real. This is just like the Darby Brothers’ Mystery #148, The Case of the Missing Cat.”

  “This has nothing to do with cats,” Stanly said. “Gah, why do you have to ruin my dreams?”

  “Bunny-Bean, tell Stanly we’ve got cookies. Snickerdoodle or chocolate chip.”

  “Ugh, we’ll be there in a minute!” Jaxon said. “Yes, it does. In #148, James Darby finds a bone in his backyard. He thinks it’s a dead body or something, but it ends up being his mom’s cat.”

  “She murdered her own cat?”

  “No, it died when she was a kid and she buried it.” Jaxon stood up and brushed the wrinkles from his PixelBlock T-shirt. “Not everything’s a big mystery, you know?” Jaxon fixed Stanly with his grown-up stare.

  “Whatever, I guess I’ll dig it up myself.” Stanly stomped out of the room, like he was really angry. “Oh, and I guess you won’t want to see this.” He waved the photo inside the doorway and then sprinted down the hall.

  Jaxon tackled him just feet from the backyard, his elbow digging into Stanly’s rib cage. “Show me!”

  “Okay, okay, geez.”

  Jaxon’s forehead scrunched up like a raisin. “That … ” His breath got all scratchy in his throat. “… is a finger bone.”

  “Right! And see how it’s pointing? The weird part is—”

  “Pointing?” Jaxon said, turning the photo so Stanly could see it. “It’s more like a big question mark. Look how it’s all curvy on the end … Stanly?”

  Stanly didn’t answer. The inside of his mouth had gone dry, like he’d eaten a hundred blocks of salty cheese without a single drop of water. The first time the picture had moved, he thought he’d just imagined it, but now, if Jaxon could see it, too …

  “Hey, what’s wrong?” Jaxon knocked on Stanly’s forehead. “Did a zombie eat your brain or something?”

  “Yeah,” Stanly managed. “Or something.”

  Stanly’s mom picked him up at eight, and they got McDonald’s milkshakes and French fries for dinner. Then she drove them out to the lake so they could eat their food in the station wagon, looking up at the stars. You could see a lot more stars by the lake than in the city, but not half as many as when he and Dad went digging for fossils at Merrell State Park. Out there, the sky looked like a velvet blanket sprinkled with gold and white and blue-green glass.

  “That one’s called Priscilla.” Miren pointed at a glowing orange star. “Or maybe Tiffany.”

  “Tiffany?” Stanly said, choking on a French fry. “That’s Mars. You know, the planet? That’s why it’s bigger than all the other ones. Don’t they teach you anything in second grade?”

  Miren shook her head. “Nope, it’s definitely Tiffany.”

  Stanly stuffed a French fry in his mouth to keep from laughing. Miren said so many funny things that if he laughed at all of them, he’d never finish eating. Also, she’d probably get mad and tell Mom he was making fun of her.

  “Did you have a good time at day care today?” Stanly said. He scooped a glob of milkshake onto the end of his fry and gobbled down the salty-sweet mixture.

  Miren shrugged. “It’s not day care, that’s for babies. It’s PlayHouse. And not really. Samson pooped his pants … again. And it got on the slide, and so Mrs. Schwartz made everyone go inside and do dumb dot paintings after that.”

  “Yuck, poop slide.” Stanly could still remember when one of the kids at his day care had done something like that, only in the water fountain.

  Stanly was glad he wasn’t a little kid anymore.

  He looked up at the stars while his mom sat in the front seat, reading her dog grooming textbook with a flashlight.

  “How was work?” Stanly said.

  She didn’t answer. Stanly peeked around the seat and saw white earbuds dangling from her ears. He thought about tapping her shoulder, but he knew how much being a dog groomer meant to her. And she almost never got time to study.

  “She can’t hear you,” Miren said, holding her milkshake in front of her face like a shield. “You can tell me your secret now.”

  “What?” Stanly nearly choked on another fry.

  “About the thing you found in the backyard.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He checked to make sure Mom’s face was still buried in her book.

  Miren coughed so hard it sounded like she’d swallowed a rusty engine. “I promise I won’t tell.” She slid down in the seat until her cheek smooshed against the seat belt. “It’ll be our secret, pleeeeease.”

  As she said it, she coughed again, and her body shook so much the lid popped off her milkshake and a white blob oozed down the front of her shirt. She froze, her cheeks burned red, and then her forehead crumpled. Three sure signs she was about to burst into tears if he didn’t do something fast.

  He wanted the bone to be something for him and Dad alone, but he knew he’d have to tell Miren sooner or later. Probably sooner. That was her little sister superpower at work again.

  Her bottom lip quivered. That meant the volcano was about to explode. Tears and screaming and Mom would have to give up studying and drive home in three … two …

  “Fine.” Stanly slumped down in the seat beside Miren, defeated. He got a napkin and wiped the milkshake from her T-shirt. “But you have to promise on Baby Ashleigh and Stripy Pony and all of your toys that you won’t tell Mom … not ever. Promise?”

  Miren stuck out a milkshake-covered pinky. “I swear.”

  “You don’t need to swear, just promise.”

  “Okay, I promise.”

  So Stanly told Miren about archaeologists and old bones and how maybe the thing in the garden was an undiscovered dinosaur. He didn’t tell her about the Young Discoverer’s Prize, or how he planned to take Dad along on the expedition. If he did, Miren would want to come, too, and then Dad would spend the whole time entertaining her instead of hanging out with him. Just like when they were little kids.

  “I wanna help with the digging,” Miren said. “Mrs. Nelson at PlayHouse said I’m a really good helper, because the first time someone pooped on the slide, I ran and got the wet wipes and—”

  “You can be my assistant,” Stanly said, deciding he’d heard enough poop-slide stories for one night. “But you have to do exactly what I say and promise not to mess anything up.” />
  “I already said I promise.”

  “That was about the secret. This is about the bone. There’s a special way you have to dig up old bones.”

  “I know, Stanly, I don’t have mashed potatoes for brains.”

  “Okay, if you say so. Can you find that gardening set Uncle Morris gave you for your birthday? We might be able to use it.”

  “Yeah, I keep it under my bed next to Stripy Pony and Baby Ashleigh and—”

  “Perfect. Meet me in the backyard after breakfast and bring the gardening set with you.” Inside, he cringed at the idea of digging with Miren around, but at least that way he’d be able to keep an eye on her.

  “Okay,” Miren said. “Stanly?”

  “Yeah?”

  “What if it’s not a dinosaur, but an alien or a dead vampire or something scary?”

  “Vampires can’t die, dummy.”

  “I know, but what if it’s an alien? With laser eyes, like in that stupid video game you’re always playing?”

  Stanly squeezed Miren’s shoulder. “Don’t worry. It’s not an alien, and if it is it’ll be a nice one.”

  “Promise?”

  “Definitely.” Stanly smoothed down Miren’s wispy brown hair. “Hey, why didn’t you eat any of your food?”

  “Not hungry,” Miren said. She closed her eyes and coughed into what was left of her milkshake.

  “You feel okay?”

  Miren shook her head. Stanly hugged her to his chest, and they watched the stars wink at them through the dirty station wagon window.

  Stanly woke to the smell of boiling cabbage.

  “Good morning, little Stanly. Momma had to go to work early, too bad for her, just look at all this rain.” Ms. Francine swatted a wrinkled hand toward the dining room window. She wore a sweater that looked like a woolly mammoth hide, with a fuzzy purple scarf wrapped around her head. “I’m making borsch for dinner. Good for the digestion.”

  Great. “What about for breakfast?” Stanly said, watching rain splash the windows. When Dad had lived at home, they always had eggs and bacon in the morning, or at least cereal.

  “Cinnamon toast with raisins. You like this.”

  Stanly sat at the dining room table, picking the raisins out of his cinnamon toast. Dad would have never fixed something like that for breakfast; he knew how much Stanly hated raisins.

  Ms. Francine clucked her tongue. “How will you grow big and strong if you never eat? In Kyrgyzstan, we ate tea for breakfast and lunch, and maybe we got borsch for dinner. If we were lucky.”

  “You can’t eat tea,” Stanly said. He took a bite of toast. Despite the gooey raisins, it tasted sweet and crunchy and delicious.

  “If you’re hungry, you can eat what you want,” said Ms. Francine.

  Stanly ate more toast, and Ms. Francine stirred the cabbage and told him about life in Kyrgyzstan. He only half listened. How was he going to dig up a dinosaur skeleton in all this rain?

  “We walked seven miles each way, with snow up to our waists,” Ms. Francine was saying. “Never would we frown over this little bit of rain.” She waved a wooden spoon at him. “Why so sad today? You won’t melt.”

  “I don’t know … nothing,” Stanly said. No way he was going to tell Ms. Francine about the bone.

  “I see. This nothing wouldn’t happen to be in the back garden, would it?” Ms. Francine flashed a crooked smile. “Don’t be so surprised. I see you looking out there. You know,” she said, “there is such a thing as a raincoat.”

  “You mean I can go outside?” Stanly said, suspicious.

  “Go, play. If you wash away, I’ll tell Momma it was my fault. Go, wake your sister. Tell her to eat breakfast first. And make sure she wears a scarf!”

  Stanly had already tossed his plate in the sink and rushed off down the hall.

  “Miren, get up. We have to go outside. Ms. Francine is here, but she said it’s okay.” He lowered his voice. “And I don’t think she’s seen the you-know-what yet, at least not up close, so come on before she—”

  Stanly stopped. He checked under the sheets and inside the closet. No use. Miren wasn’t there.

  “Where’s this sister of yours?” Ms. Francine said when Stanly came back into the kitchen.

  “She’s not in her bed.”

  “Invisible? Ah, I had this happen once.” Ms. Francine ran a finger over her bristly chin. “With my goat. We looked for him in the pasture and on the mountain. Nowhere. Then, one day, I walk by the shop, and there is Bakyt, my goat, munching all the clothes in the shop window. He had his own secret,” Ms. Francine said, winking and tapping the side of her nose.

  “This is important,” Stanly said. “Miren’s lost, and she’s not a goat. She could run into the street and get squashed like Jaxon’s cousin’s brother’s ferret.”

  “Come,” said Ms. Francine. “Let’s go look at your secret, and maybe Miren won’t be so invisible anymore.”

  Stanly ran outside without his coat. Plump raindrops pelted his face. He wasn’t even worried that Ms. Francine would see the bone; he just wanted to find Miren.

  “Miren!” he called through a wave of rain. Mud sucked at his socks as he ran, and then he saw her. She was crouched in the grass, staring at something white and knobby curving up out of the earth. It wasn’t just the tip of a finger anymore.

  “What are you doing? You’re going to freeze to death!” he shouted, even as relief warmed his soggy toes.

  “It grew.” Her voice was quiet as an icy wind. “And it’s not a dino.”

  Stanly leaned closer. Sure enough, the finger was at least an inch longer than it had been the day before, and Miren was right. It didn’t look like a dinosaur bone anymore.

  Ms. Francine put her hairy sweater around Miren and Stanly. It smelled like dust and cabbage, but it soaked up all the rain.

  “They do that,” she said. “Grow, I mean.”

  Stanly turned to look at Ms. Francine. Rain trickled down her wrinkled face and pooled in the hollows of her shoulders.

  She shrugged. “We have a tree like this in Kyrgyzstan. It happens.”

  “It’s not a tree,” Stanly said, but it had grown. Four white knuckles peeked through the mud, along with the tip of a thumb. He stared at it, hypnotized by that bone hand, not noticing the rain beating against his cheek. He could have stayed out there all day, looking at it, but then he felt Miren shiver against his skin.

  “Maybe we should go inside, just for a little bit,” he said. He didn’t want to leave the bone, but he also didn’t want to end up with a popsicle for a little sister.

  “Good idea,” Ms. Francine said. “We eat hot tea and cookies.”

  “Come on, Mir-Bear. We’ll dig later. Time to warm up.”

  “Okay,” Miren said through chattering teeth.

  They went inside. Stanly only stopped once to look back at the bones. Maybe it was his imagination, but he could have sworn the finger twitched. Like it wanted him to come closer.

  “Hurry up, my little fish. What will I say to Momma if you drown in your own backyard?”

  Ms. Francine boiled tea and baked cookies from a tube. Stanly’s favorite. Miren and Stanly changed into dry clothes, and Ms. Francine made a walkway with newspapers so she wouldn’t drip on the carpet.

  “You’re not going to tell anyone about the bone, are you?” said Stanly, already dreading the answer.

  “Who is this anyone?” said Ms. Francine. “Why shouldn’t they know about your discovery?”

  “Please,” Stanly said. “I promise to do the dishes for a week.”

  Ms. Francine wiggled her eyebrows but didn’t say anything.

  “Fine, two weeks.”

  “Deal, but remember, little Stanly, some secrets don’t like to be kept. They grow feet and tiptoe away in the night.”

  “That’s not how secrets work.”

  “If you say so.” Ms. Francine picked up cookie crumbs on the tip of her thumb and flicked them into the trash can. “Maybe, after tea, we can go to the museum,�
� she said. “Then you can look at bones without getting all wet.”

  “No thanks,” said Stanly. He didn’t care about bones someone else had already dug up. He wanted to discover something new. Something he could use to win the Young Discoverer’s Prize.

  “I see,” Ms. Francine said. “Then you two can help me make borsch until the rain stops.”

  Miren coughed into her napkin. It sounded like her lungs were filled with a giant, sticky slimeball.

  “I don’t like borsch,” Miren said.

  “I know, little one. But borsch likes you.”

  The rain didn’t stop that night, or the next morning. If anything, it got worse. Water slid under the garage and pooled behind the boxes of Christmas ornaments. If Dad were there, he would know how to fix the leak, but Mom just ignored it.

  “Make sure Miren brushes her teeth,” Mom said, buzzing the hair dryer over her dripping curls.

  “She can do it herself,” Stanly said, but not loud enough for anyone to hear.

  “I don’t want to you can’t make me!” Miren blurted out the words all at once and then clamped her jaw shut.

  Stanly squirted toothpaste onto her brush. Inside, Slurpy the zombie reared his ugly head. Stanly wasn’t even supposed to be inside, playing babysitter; he was supposed to be outside, digging. “Here, I’m not gonna brush them for you. Just do what Mom says.”

  “No way!” She shook her head. “I wanna go see the bone. You said I could be your assistant, remember?”

  “Shhh,” Stanly said. “Don’t let Mom hear.” It was bad enough that Ms. Francine knew about his secret. He didn’t need Mom to find out, too. “Besides, we both have to go to school, whether you like it or not.”

  “I’m not going to school until I see the bone.” Miren drew in a deep sigh, like she was swallowing the problems of the whole world.

  “Can you please just brush your teeth?”

  “Leave me alone!” Miren dropped the toothbrush and glittery pink toothpaste splattered all over Stanly’s new shoes, the ones he’d bought with the last of his lawn-mowing money.