by Marina Cohen
Kallie’s expression remained deadpan. She stood, lifted her bowl, and walked to the sink. Grandpa Jess wasn’t lying. Though, he wasn’t being entirely truthful, either. It made Kallie uneasy, but she didn’t want to get him in trouble.
“Can you please turn on the faucet, Grandpa? I don’t want to get it sticky.”
Grandpa Jess scrambled to his feet. “Of course.” His face was pale, as though he’d been caught doing something awful.
Kallie washed and dried her hands. When she was clean, her father gave her a gentle hug. “How was your day? Plenty of learning, I hope?”
Kallie smiled and nodded. She checked her watch. “Speaking of learning … It’s homework time,” she said cheerfully as she strolled past her grandfather and out of the kitchen. She picked up the satchel she’d left at the foot of the stairs and went straight to her room.
Mr. Bent had begun the term with a chapter on ordering and comparing large numbers. Even the word problems were simple for Kallie, who worked at them almost absentmindedly.
When she was finished, she picked up her text on quantum physics. She delved cheerfully into the world of subatomic particles, to which Pole had introduced her. Yet, as hard as she tried to stop her brain from wandering, it headed again and again down the dark path leading to The Writer.
Kallie put down the textbook. She stared at the faded photograph in the plain brass frame for a whole five minutes before she reached for it. She traced a finger around the blurry face. The woman wore an apron with something embroidered on the top. The child clutching the woman’s hand was little more than a jagged-haired blob in a pale-green jacket.
As far as Kallie was concerned, the woman might have been anyone. She couldn’t recall the sound of her voice, the smell of her skin, or the touch of her hand. She was a patchwork doll stitched together from the thread and fabric of other people’s memories.
The two stood outside a local store—the Dollar Basket. Kallie examined the logo—a brown basket with a handle made of dollar signs. It may have been the same image embroidered on the apron, though it was tough to tell.
Kallie was three years old when her mother drowned. The facts in the case were quite simple.
One summer day, just over nine years ago, Grandpa Jess was watching Kallie when her father and mother took the car ferry to Plattsburgh. It had been very windy, and the water had been quite choppy.
Despite the captain’s warnings, her mother had exited the car to gaze out at the stormy lake. Apparently, she loved writing poetry about dark, restless waters and wanted inspiration.
Kallie’s father had remained in the car with his seat belt fastened the entire trip. He said he found the ferry unnerving even when the lake was calm. He preferred to take the interstate around the lake, but it was her mother who had insisted they take the ferry that day. The last he saw of her, she was headed up the stairs to the bridge.
It was a short ride—only about fifteen minutes—but when the ferry docked on the other side of the lake and all the cars had rolled off, Kallie’s mother was nowhere to be found. After an extensive search- and-rescue operation, the police ruled the incident an accidental drowning.
Kallie didn’t miss her mother—not really—because, as she often said, you can’t miss something you don’t recall ever having. Still, she was curious. She had many unanswered questions.
Had her mother slipped? Had she been knocked over by a rogue wave? Why had they been going to Plattsburgh? But even at a very young age, she knew the subject was strictly off-limits.
Though her father never said it out loud, Kallie was sure he blamed her mother’s dreamy nature for her death. If she hadn’t gotten out of the car to study the water that day, she wouldn’t have drowned.
“Stories are ugly little lies wrapped in pretty packages,” her father said to her one day when she was four years old. She’d come home from preschool and told him her teacher had read the class the story of the three little pigs.
“They are full of promise, designed to draw you in.” He picked her up, sat her on his lap, and gazed at her with deep brown eyes. “But in the end, you discover they are nothing but empty words that will break your heart. Stick to facts, Kallie. Cold, hard facts never let you down.”
He set her on her feet, brushed something out of his eye, and went straight to the store. He came home with a book called Wolves: Behavior, Habitat, and Conservation, which he read to her in its entirety that evening.
“Wolves can’t speak,” Kallie told her teacher the very next day after the man began reading Little Red Riding Hood.
“No, they can’t,” the teacher had tried to explain. “Not in real life, Kallie. But this is different. This is a story.”
“Daddy says if it’s not true, then it’s a lie.”
The teacher glanced at the rest of the children, who seemed to be eagerly awaiting his response. “Things aren’t always that simple…”
“Are you saying wolves can speak?” she asked.
He shook his head slowly.
“Then it’s not the truth,” she proclaimed proudly.
He leaned in close and spoke softly. “The truth is a slippery little worm. Be careful. It can wriggle away from you.”
“Actually, worms don’t wriggle,” said a small boy with flat brown hair. “They use bristles as anchors. They push themselves forward or backward by stretching and contracting.”
Kallie smiled at the boy. His name was Napoleon, but she decided Pole was much more efficient. From that day on, she and Pole were a team. They listened critically and with overenthusiastic skepticism to everything anyone—including teachers—told them.
Kallie placed the photograph back in its spot in the top corner of her shelf. The book on wolves her father had given her all those years ago was just below it. She had read it several times, memorizing every fact.
Everything she had learned about wolves said they were friendly, loyal, and highly intelligent creatures—just like their cuddly canine relatives. They rarely attacked humans.
Kallie thought about the creature that had glared at her the previous night. Whatever it was, it was smaller than a wolf, with a narrow, pointy muzzle and razor-sharp teeth. Its wiry coat was pearly white. And it had glowing eyes.
Except for its color, it could have been a fox. Or a jackal. And now that she thought of it, it looked similar to the sharp-eared animal carved onto the face of the first cube. She sighed. That picture must have fueled her imagination. Just as her father had said. The box was trouble.
Voices drifted into Kallie’s room through the door left slightly ajar. She could hear her father and grandfather talking in hushed whispers. Kallie closed her wolf book and crept to the door. She opened it farther and put her ear to the crack. She caught snippets of conversation.
“… not right…” said Grandpa Jess.
Mumble. Mumble. Mumble.
“… did it for Kallie’s sake…” said her father.
More muttering.
What wasn’t right? Kallie wondered. What had her father done? She strained her ears, but their voices were low and foggy, and all she could snatch from them were more garbled syllables. She was about to step into the hall when something in her room made a hollow thunk.
Kallie swung round, half expecting the pink-eyed creature to be leaping toward her. At first, she saw nothing out of place, but then her gaze settled on her desk and her vision narrowed to a fine point.
Sitting atop her math textbook was the box. It was turned so that the two stars were on top of the waning crescent moon, making it look like two eyes and a mouth. It was grinning at her.
7
A BEAUTIFUL SUN
“Welcome to Narnia!” announced a broad, hunched woman of gargantuan stature.
She had rust-colored hair; green eyes set so wide and low they nearly aligned with her ears; crooked, coffee-stained teeth; and a chin pointy enough to spear pineapple. Her billowing white dress was a sort of cross between a karate gi and a bathrobe.
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sp; Kallie peeked inside the third-floor classroom and sighed. It was worse than she’d expected. There wasn’t a single desk. Instead, the room was filled with truckloads of worn pillows most likely salvaged from a yard sale. Plush ones, floral ones, striped and polka dot. Cotton, chenille, and faux fur.
This wasn’t a classroom, Kallie decided. At best, it was a giant slumber party. At worst, a fire hazard. She made a mental list of all the building-code violations. She would notify Mr. McEwan just as soon as she saw him.
“In you go,” said Ms. Beausoleil. “Make yourselves comfortable.”
Kallie planted her feet, rooting them firmly to the old tiles. Everyone, including Anna, rushed past her on either side. They practically dove onto the pillows, stretching themselves out, shouting and laughing in a most unruly manner.
“Hello, Kaliope,” said Ms. Beausoleil.
“Kallie,” she replied softly. “Not Kaliope.”
The teacher tilted her head and smiled apologetically.
“Where are the desks?” asked Kallie. “How are we supposed to work?”
“Oh, we are going to work very hard, I can assure you,” said Ms. Beausoleil. “But you won’t need a desk. Not here.” She tilted her head side to side. “Well, not at the moment, anyway.”
“But how are we supposed to write about our studies?” Kallie protested.
“Write about our studies?” Ms. Beausoleil seemed genuinely confused. “We aren’t going to merely write about the stories we study. We are going to live them. Breathe them. Let them take hold of our very souls and spirit us away.” She appeared to clutch at something in the air and then cast it off toward a distant horizon. She grinned and winked.
Kallie narrowed her eyes and clenched her jaw as the teacher gently guided her inside. She reluctantly crossed the threshold.
“This is an affront to education,” she muttered under her breath. “It’s anarchy.”
“Not to mention unhygienic,” whispered Pole, who came marching in behind.
“Now, now,” said Ms. Beausoleil. “Speak up. No whisperings or mutterings necessary here. I encourage free conversation, differing opinions, and debate in my classroom.”
Kallie made a pinched face while Pole carefully cleared a spot on the dusty, tiled floor. He sat cross-legged. Kallie remained standing. The very idea of working in such close proximity to other people’s messy thoughts upset her. They’d be like sticky fingers reaching over and messing with her mind.
Once everyone had settled, Ms. Beausoleil reached behind her, grabbed a worn book from one of the numerous dusty stacks piled high at the front of the class, and held it up for all to see. Its cover was wrinkled and cracked, its pages yellow, and the corners dog-eared.
“The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,” she said. “A hero’s journey. A tale of courage and sacrifice. Betrayal and redemption. Fraught with consequence and award-winning pain. Filled with magic.” She smiled. “Ah, yes … magic.”
Anna sat up straighter. Her face beamed like a lighthouse. Kallie sighed. Just what she needed. More magic.
“Written first, this novel is actually the second book in the series. The sixth book is the first, the fifth is the third, the second the fourth, and—”
Kallie shook her head. Any writer who couldn’t decide on the sequence of events was simply not to be trusted.
“Today, you are no longer students.” Ms. Beausoleil eyed half the room. “You are dryads and nymphs.” She nodded at the other half and smiled. “Red dwarfs and fauns.”
Kallie observed her classmates. Their eyes widened with curiosity. Even the cool kids who worked very hard at appearing perpetually bored seemed a little intrigued.
Then Ms. Beausoleil’s gaze settled on Kallie. “Have a seat, dear.” She motioned to a large, lumpy pillow with a paisley pattern.
“I prefer to stand,” said Kallie, unable to mask the disdain in her voice.
“Wonderful!” said Ms. Beausoleil. “We shall need a lamp-post as well!”
Kallie could feel steam rising from her skull as the teacher settled onto her own pillow the size of a truck tire. And with a great sigh blowing through the class like dry wind across the desert, she began to read:
“Once there were four children whose names were Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy.”
Kallie stared at the clock above the door. She watched the second hand tick, tick, tick as the wasted period dwindled. All the while, she tried desperately to tune out the story. It wormed its way into her head all the same.
It made no sense. A world through a wardrobe? Ridiculous—not to mention scientifically impossible.
At long last, a bell sounded, putting Kallie out of her misery. Ms. Beausoleil had managed to read five chapters. All four children had now entered the wardrobe and were left shut in the dark.
“That’s it for today,” said Ms. Beausoleil, closing the book.
“No!” shouted Alex.
“You can’t leave us hanging!” squeaked Grace.
Ms. Beausoleil sat grinning as the class moaned, groaned, and begged her to continue. “Tomorrow you must come prepared—for the road ahead is perilous. And I will call upon each of you to take a turn reading.”
Accepting the period was over, everyone gathered their belongings, chatting happily about the story as they left the class.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” whispered Anna as she passed Kallie.
“I suppose … if you like gerenuks.” Kallie sighed. How would she ever survive the year? If only she could have had Mr. Bent. She’d heard the previous sixth graders had spent the entire year diagramming sentences. Kallie was an expert in pronouns, verbs, articles, and adjectives. She knew her subjective completions and subordinate clauses like the back of her hand. She eyed Pole, and a silent message passed between them.
“Lunchtime,” he said.
Aside from math and science, it was Pole’s favorite time of day. Kallie sanitized her hands three times, retrieved her lunch bag from her locker, and followed Pole into the cafeteria.
By the time they arrived, many of the long tables were occupied. They found an empty end and sat opposite each other.
Pole got out his thermos filled with a thick, lentilish mush. He was a strict vegetarian. Kallie sanitized her hands one more time for good measure and then began to munch on a cucumber and salmon sandwich. She had sliced the cucumbers extrathin and cut the bread diagonally, just the way she liked it.
“How could they all fit in the wardrobe?” said Pole. “It’s not physically possible.”
“It’s magic, remember,” said Kallie, sarcasm distorting her expression.
“Magic! I know everything there is to know about magic!” trilled the now-familiar and all-too-enthusiastic voice. Anna hovered over them, her backpack slung over her shoulder, a chipped ceramic cup dangling between her fingers. “Didn’t I tell you?”
“Tell us what?” asked Pole.
Kallie fired him an angry look. Pole should know better than to encourage the girl. She was one of those people with permanently rosy cheeks. It made her look excessively cheerful all the time. Of course, cheerfulness had its place, thought Kallie. But it was a small space, a neat and tidy compartment between joy and contentment. Anna’s cheerfulness was sloppy. It spilled all over the place, dripping onto the floor, leaving a trail of smiles wherever she went. Disgusting.
Anna slipped onto the bench beside Kallie. “My parents are world-famous magicians. They’ve traveled the globe with the Curious Carnival of Kickapoo Kansas, performing for all sorts of nobility. Kings … queens … basketball stars … Perhaps you’ve heard of them? The Amazing Alonzo and his Alluring Assistant, Ava.”
Pole shook his head while Kallie sat blinking.
“Well, no matter. Maybe someday you’ll come see their show. When they’re back, that is.”
“Listen,” said Pole, changing topics. “I’ve been thinking. I’m tired of all the silly celebrations we are forced to endure. Halloween, Valentine’s Day, Groundhog Day…”
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bsp; “The worst, because it pretends to be scientific.” Kallie nodded.
“So,” he continued, “this year, I think our school should celebrate something truly meaningful.”
Kallie could see the glint in Pole’s eyes. He rarely got this excited about anything. She knew something great was coming.
“National Periodic Table Day.” He raised his chin in triumph.
Kallie beamed. Anna looked confused. “National what day?”
“Periodic table,” said Kallie. “Pay attention.”
“National Periodic Table Day,” said Pole, “occurs every February seventh to promote the challenges overcome by individuals in order to create the modern periodic table.”
“I love the idea! It’s cooler than absolute zero,” said Kallie.
Pole grinned.
“How are we supposed to celebrate that?” said Anna.
“Well,” said Pole, “I was thinking we could begin by playing the periodic table song, then cycle through various chemistry challenges and…”
“Hey—why did the scientist dip his shoes in silicone rubber?” said Kallie.
“To reduce his carbon footprint,” said Pole. They giggled.
“I’ve got an idea!” announced Anna. “We can all come dressed as our favorite element.”
Kallie stopped laughing and stared.
“Well,” said Pole, “how about we put that in the maybe box.”
“I’m going to come as Kryptonite,” she said with a smugness Kallie felt was utterly unearned.
“It’s krypton,” said Kallie. “There’s no such thing as Kryptonite.”
“Not on this planet,” said Anna. “Why should I limit myself to earthly elements?”
“There’s no Kryptonite on any planet,” said Kallie, increasingly annoyed.
“How do you know?” said Anna. “Have you mapped the entire universe?”
“She has a point, Kallie.” Pole smiled at Anna, then ate a big spoonful of mush.
Kallie gritted her teeth. She didn’t know what galled her more—Anna’s ridiculousness or Pole’s defense of it. She took a bite of her sandwich, all the while eyeing the girl’s backpack and her ceramic cup. It looked hand-painted, with splotches of purple and green covering the inside and out. On the front was a single, lopsided pink heart. “Where’s your lunch?”
