Listening as if transfixed
Chapter Six
IN WHICH Laurie Reconsiders Things
Nicholas and Laurie didn’t speak as they ran home, saving every bit of energy for going faster. In all that time, Nick had pictured so many horrible possibilities that he was stunned to find the giant sitting beside the lake, picking at the dirt and listening to the nixie’s song as if transfixed. Its features were relaxed, its black eyes fixed on Taloa with calm adoration.
“He’s not doing anything,” Nick whispered. Laurie smoothed back her ragged hair. Her skirt was so torn that part of it followed her on the ground like the train on a wedding dress. “Maybe if you don’t step on him again he won’t go crazy.”
“He looked like a hill!” Nick said. “If it wasn’t for me—” He broke off as Taloa scrambled onto the bank. The giant’s large eyes followed her every move.
“La-lo-le,” she sang, between notes of the other tune. She bared her teeth. “You led him here, lo-le.”
“He heard you singing!” said Nick. “This is your fault, not mine!”
She brought her face close enough that he could smell the pond mud on her skin. The long, drooping weeds of her hair stuck to her neck. “Lo-le, where are my sisters, Nicholas?”
The giant swung its massive head in their direction, grunting. The ground shook as it rose.
“Sing, Taloa!” Laurie said. “I don’t think it likes it when you stop singing!”
“We grew tired,” said Taloa, and although she sang the words, they didn’t seem to calm the giant. It wasn’t the right tune. The massive nostrils flared. “Our throats were hoarse lo-le-lo. That’s when he began lo-le to blow fire.”
“Taloa, please,” Nick said. “Please sing.”
“Where are my sisters, Nicho-le-lo-las?”
“Burned,” he said, not meaning for it to sound so blunt and sad. He didn’t know how to cushion it better, didn’t have time to think with the giant looming over them.
Taloa shuffled back, crouching, the webbing of her fingers pulled tight between spread fingers. A low sound came from the back of her throat.
“Only three of them,” Laurie said. “We don’t know where the others are. They might be fine!”
“She’s right. There were only three bodies. You have to sing! We saved you, remember? We even looked for your sisters . . .” Nick tried to keep his voice level but couldn’t. The shadow of the giant fell over them as it stepped one foot into the pond. Waves splashed along the shore.
“I repaid my lo-le-la debt when I gave la-le-la you the Sight. But le-lo, I will sing if you will repay lo-le me by finding all my le-la sisters.”
“Of course we will,” Nick said, looking at the giant. “We will. We promise!”
She did sing, then, the haunting music spilling out of her throat, her head thrown back. The giant settled down again, trailing its fingers in the water. It blinked sleepily, burrowing down a little in the mud.
Nick let out all his breath in a rush.
“I have an idea,” said Laurie, pulling on Nick’s sleeve. “Back at the house.”
“Be lo-lee-le swift. I don’t know how long I can keep singing. My voice will tire.”
“Just try, Taloa,” Nick said, looking into her golden eyes for any sign that she would. But all he saw was his own face reflected in the liquid depths.
Laurie led him to the house, through the garage, inside and up the stairs. Nick expected Laurie to pick up one of the books off her shelves, but she went to the computer instead.
“The signing I was telling you about. With the people who made the field guide.” She clicked through the pages until she found what she was looking for. “See? Tomorrow night they have a signing at Robot Books. We can ask them what to do.”
He looked at her incredulously. “We’re going to just leave that thing out there? For a whole day? What if Taloa can’t keep singing?”
“Well, the Spiderwick people are on tour, right? Maybe there’s another event tonight.” She scrolled up. “Orlando. It’s not that far. Do you think your dad would drive us?”
Nick shook his head. There was no way. “What about your mom?”
Laurie shook her head. “She’d tell me that I have to be patient, since I already told her about the Robot’s signing a million times. Also, she’ll be mad I broke my glasses.”
“Give them to me,” Nick said.
She handed over the pieces, and Nick took them to Jules’s room.
Laurie followed him. He grabbed a tube of glue and carefully squeezed a dollop onto the broken plastic. Then he put the two pieces into jeweler’s clamps and pressed them together. “It should hold for a while. It’s probably better than tape.”
“Thanks,” she said, although she didn’t sound that thankful. The tone of her voice was odd. Then he placed it: She sounded defeated.
Nick bit the inside of his lip, considering. “Maybe you should tell your mom the truth. If you think she’d believe you. We still have the clover, right?”
Her neck was bare.
Laurie scrabbled at her chest for the locket, but it was gone. “I lost it! I lost the picture of my father and I don’t have another one.”
Nick didn’t understand the big deal. Her father wasn’t dead; couldn’t she just get another photo? But all he knew about Laurie’s father was that he had a motorcycle.
Laurie shook her head. “You were right before. Mom would just tell me that I had a good imagination. She’d think it was cute.”
Nick couldn’t even imagine what his own father would say.
Laurie took an unsteady breath. “I didn’t think it would be like this. I mean, I read the field guide. I knew there were monsters. I just didn’t think we’d find any. I thought we’d see sprites or something pretty.” She paused. “I guess I didn’t think we’d see anything at all.”
“But you said that all that stuff was real.”
“I wanted it to be real,” she said. “I thought that if I acted like it was true, then it would be almost like it was. Just like I thought it would be so cool to have a brother and we’re almost the exact same age, so I thought it was going to be great. I hate it. I hate you, and I really hate faeries.” Walking over to her bed, she flopped down on it, hiding her head in her arms.
Nick wanted not to care. He told himself that he already had a family. He didn’t need an annoying sister. He didn’t even want a sister. He couldn’t remember ever wanting a sister. He opened his mouth to tell her so, when he remembered what he did have. An annoying brother.
“Jules, “ he said. “Maybe Jules would drive us.”
Jules was on his phone.
Jules was on his cell phone when they found him, talking to his girlfriend as he killed zombies on the downstairs TV screen.
“I could ride any wave on this beach,” he said. “I don’t care what Doug said. You know what a dirtbag he is.”
“Jules,” Nick said.
Jules looked over at them and made swatting motions toward the door.
“Jules!” Nick yelled.
“Hold on,” Jules said into the phone. “My little brother has a bug up his butt.” Then he laughed. Finally, he held the phone away from his ear. On the television, a zombie dressed like a fireman was eating his character’s head.
“We need you to drive us to Orlando. To a book signing.”
“Um, lemme think,” Jules said, tapping the phone to his chin. “Negatory. Never. No way. Get out of here.”
There was no point to even trying to explain the truth to Jules. It would take way too long and seem way too easy to dismiss as some pretend game. “What if I said I had a video of you lifting weights and talking to yourself in the mirror?” Nick made his voice deep. “ ‘Looking good. Yeah. How do you like that, ladies?’ “
“Shut up, dillweed.” Jules got up, clicking his phone closed and jumping over the couch in a single motion.
“You just hung up on . . . ,” Laurie started. Nick backed into the wall, raising his hands in surrender. “Look, I’
ll delete it off the camera. As soon as we get back from Orlando.”
Jules towered over him. The cell started to buzz. “You’re talking about an hour-plus drive each way. How about you just delete it now and never mention it again?”
“Please,” Laurie said, making her eyes huge and putting one hand on his arm. “It’s just that they’re my favorite authors and they were going to come here, but now they’re not. This is the only way I’ll get to see them and I’ve been waiting forever.” She paused. “And Nick really likes them too.”
“Why can’t your mom take you? Or Dad?”
“They’re busy,” Laurie said. “They were going to take me—us—to the signing here, but it got canceled.”
Nick’s mouth opened and closed. He was stunned by the audacity of her lie.
Jules blinked at her, like he had no idea what to do. “Okay, okay,” he said finally, deflated. “Why didn’t you say so in the first place?” He flipped open his phone. “I’ll ask Cindy if she wants to come.”
Nick looked at Laurie in astonishment. He had no idea where she’d learned it, but she sure knew how to get people to do what she wanted.
Jules dropped them off.
Chapter Seven
IN WHICH We Nearly Break the Fourth Wall
The giant squatted beside the lake and turned black eyes toward them as they hopped in Jules’s car. The hot seat burned the small strip of Nick’s thighs not covered by his shorts. He kicked aside fast-food wrappers and shoved a damp beach towel under his legs.
“Okay,” Laurie said. “I printed out directions. It should take us approximately an hour and fifteen minutes if there’s no traffic. Also, I printed alternative directions in case we need them.”
“Uh, okay.” Jules took the directions from her. “You ready, Nick?”
“Sure,” Nick said, never taking his eyes off the giant.
Beside him, Laurie fidgeted with her books and did the same.
A few minutes later, they pulled into Cindy’s driveway. She hopped into the front seat, puka shells swinging from her braids.
“Hey,” she said, sitting backward so she could look at them. “How are you guys?”
“Okay,” said Laurie.
“Fine,” Nick said, tight lipped. What he really wanted to do was yell, There’s a giant on our lawn and we’re all going to die. How do you think we are?
Cindy leaned over and gave him a squeeze on the shoulder that made him smile despite himself.
She and Jules spent the whole drive talking about the different beaches near the bookstore and different surf shops and whether they might have the kind of wax that Cindy liked. Out the window, Nick watched as they sped by roadkill being chewed on by a cougarlike creature that had a barbed tail. He gasped, and Cindy looked back at him. He just shook his head. For a moment, he wanted to tell her everything, but then she turned to the front seat and his brother said something, and it was too late.
By the time Jules dropped them off at the bookstore, Nick was vibrating with anxiety. The event had already started.
“Here’s my cell,” Jules said, handing over the phone. “We’re going to check out the surf shops—buzz us on Cindy’s line when you’re done.”
“Okay,” Nick said. Laurie was already inside the bookstore doors.
“Don’t talk to strangers!” Cindy called as the car started to roll away.
The icy air-conditioning and the scent of coffee washed over Nick as he entered. He walked to the edge of the crowd, watching a plump woman dressed entirely in black and a spiky-haired man in a bright blazer. The man had a pad of paper set up on an easel and was drawing a dragon.
“Is that them?” Nick whispered to Laurie.
She nodded, not even looking at him. Her fingers gripped the edge of her books tightly. “What if they don’t believe these are from home?”
“What?”
“The books. What if someone thinks I stole them?”
“Calm down,” said Nick.
“I don’t even have a receipt! What if they take my books? I don’t have any way to prove that they’re mine. Maybe I should write my name in them. But what if they see me writing?”
“Shut up!” Nick said, and Laurie bit her lip, like her teeth were actually forcing her mouth closed.
After the man demonstrated various hand-raising techniques, he offered the drawing to anyone who could answer a trivia question. Nick raised his hand.
“You haven’t read the books!” hissed Laurie, her arm waving frantically.
It didn’t matter, since the woman picked a girl near the front. The girl answered correctly some question about a pig squealing.
Then, finally, they were taking questions from the audience. Nick’s hand shot up so fast that the woman pointed to him.
“What’s your question?” she asked. Her eyes were outlined in black, like a cartoon character’s.
“I have a problem with a giant,” said Nick.
Some of the audience, including a few parents, laughed.
“I am not some stupid kid,” he said, his face going hot with embarrassment and anger. “I’m being serious. It got one of those salamander things and it burned up a pond full of nixies. It followed the singing of the only one that escaped to my dad’s development and the singing is keeping it happy for right now, but I don’t know what it’s going to do next. How can I stop it?”
The plump woman looked over at the guy. He raised his eyebrows like he was glad he wasn’t the one fielding that question.
“Well,” she said, “wearing red might help protect you . . . and, um, iron.”
“But how do I get rid of it?”
She frowned. “You might want to look at fairy tales—’Jack the Giant Killer,’ ‘The Giant and the Tailor,’ ‘The Young Giant.’ Those are all about someone small outwitting someone large. I don’t have any more specific suggestion than that, but since you’re the hero of your own story, I know you’ll come up with a good ending.” She smiled, but Nick was pretty sure she was smiling more at her own ability to make up something that sounded like an answer than at him.
“We have to take another question,” the guy said. “Good luck with that giant.”
The audience laughed again. Nick’s face went hot. Beside him, Laurie looked stricken.
“They didn’t believe you,” she said.
“Come on,” Nick said. He steered her over to the store’s café and sat down backward in one of the chairs. “Whatever with them. They’re nothing but fakes.”
Laurie clutched her field guide to her chest. She looked like she was going to cry.
Nick thumbed open his brother’s cell. “I’ll call Jules. We’ve got to get back. We just wasted a lot of time.” For a moment, he thought about calling home—checking to make sure the house was still there, that they weren’t already too late.
Laurie wasn’t listening to him, anyway. She was staring at a black-haired boy about their age. The boy waved to someone standing off the stage—a woman with red hair standing near a table covered with props supposedly from Arthur Spiderwick.
“Do you know that kid?” Nick asked.
Laurie stood up. “He looks familiar,” she said.
The boy walked back into the aisles of books, and Laurie followed him. Nick followed Laurie, tucking Jules’s cell back in his pocket.
“I know you’re upset about the Spiderwick people not turning out like you hoped, but I don’t think stalking some—”
“Shhhh,” she said.
The boy had walked up to another black-haired kid standing in front of the natural history section. For a moment, Nick blinked in confusion. They were mirror images of each other. Then he realized: twins.
“Jared and Simon Grace,” Laurie whispered. “They look just like their pictures.”
They were mirror images of each other.
Nick was puzzled. “What pictures?”
“It says in all the Spiderwick books that the information came from real kids. Jared, Simon, and Mallory Grace.”
“I don’t know—,” Nick started, but Laurie was already heading toward the boys. There was nothing to do but follow her.
“Excuse me,” she said. “Are you Jared?”
They laughed. One of the boys shifted a stack of bird guides to his other arm. “Who wants to know?”
“Laurie,” Nick cautioned.
“What are you doing here?” Laurie asked, clearly taking the boy’s question as confirmation she was right. “Are you part of the book tour?”
“Nah. Our dad’s shooting a TV pilot,” Jared said. “Wanted us to come stay with him for the summer. I think he figured we’d spend the whole time riding roller coasters. Anyway, we thought we’d come to the signing. See what one was like.”
“I think Arthur would have liked it,” Simon said. “Pretty convincing.”
“So you admit it!” Laurie said. “You really are them!”
“Did you hear our question?” Nick asked.
“Sure,” Jared said. “A giant, right? That was pretty funny.”
“The giant’s real,” said Laurie said. “We have the Sight. I’ve read the whole field guide a dozen times at least.”
“Too bad there’s nothing really useful in it,” Nick said.
“Nick!” Laurie’s eyes went wide with horror.
“You’re serious about the giant?” Simon said.
“Stick-a-needle-in-my-eye serious,” said Nick.
“Faeries can be pretty big on putting out the eyes of people who can see them,” said Jared.
Nick put his hand automatically to his face.
“We really need your help,” Laurie said.
“Prove it,” Jared said. “Prove that you really saw something.”
Laurie looked at Nick. He wanted to wipe the smug expression off Jared’s face. “How?”
Jared shrugged. “Not my problem.”
Nick thought about all the weird stuff in the field guide—the way that brownies could turn into boggarts if you made them mad enough or how tiny stone mice were evidence of a basilisk in the area. But remembering any of those bits of trivia only proved that Nick had read parts of their book.
The Nixie’s Song Page 4
