Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House Read online

  “ ’Kay,” said Amy.

  Dad’s voice didn’t sound like he was kidding around.

  And that’s because he wasn’t.

  AMY PAUSED, ON HER way across the field, to pick up a rock. A nice rock, with some shiny bits in it.

  The hoodie had big pockets in the front, the way most hoodies do. She stashed the rock in the left pocket and gave it a pat. Amy liked picking up rocks that seemed unique or pretty or weird. She did it a lot. It made her feel scientific, in a geology kind of way.

  Upon reaching the road, she zipped off at top speed, antennae jiggling and wings flapping.

  She had a nervous feeling in her stomach, because going to Moo’s house was another kind of experiment. An adventure, in a way.

  In order to get there, see, you had to get past the woods.

  The woods where the witch lived. The witch who ate kids.

  Seriously.

  I know what you’re thinking. Oh, that’s what kids always say, anyplace around the world. The woods are always haunted. It’s how kids are, Amy knew. Ghosts and witches everywhere. But this was different. Here’s why:

  The kids didn’t start the rumors about a witch. They heard it from their parents.

  “You need to stay out of the woods,” Mom and Dad had warned Amy when she grew old enough to leave home on her bike.

  “I know,” she had answered. “You could get lost or fall in a hole.”

  “True,” said Dad. “But there’s also the witch.”

  Weird. Usually grown-ups said that there were no such things as witches.

  “There are no such things as witches,” said Amy experimentally, using reverse psychology.

  “That’s true,” said Dad. “Except when it isn’t.”

  Amy knew he was serious, because he didn’t sound distracted or fuzzy headed for once.

  “When I was a kid,” he said, “there really was an old woman who lived there, in an old shack, and she took some kids and ate them.”

  “It’s not for sure that she ate them,” said Mom.

  “She disappeared with them,” said Dad. “That’s an actual fact, like the speed of light.”

  “How do you know they disappeared?” Amy asked.

  Dad started to say something, but Mom quietly said, “We just know.”

  Which was not like her mother, and not very scientific, but Amy was old enough to sense when grown-ups didn’t want to talk about a thing anymore.

  Other parents told their kids about the witch, too. It was like an official town secret, except everyone knew. Sometimes they talked about it at school. Kids dared each other to go into the woods, but no one ever did.

  And so (you will recall that we were discussing Amy’s bike ride out to Moo’s house) the part of the trip that took Amy alongside the woods was something she did not look forward to.

  On this particular evening, though, Amy felt protected by the butterfly hoodie. It was such a happy piece of clothing! Still, when she approached the trees, she held her breath just like when she passed a cemetery…held it, held it…and just as her lungs caught fire, the trees thinned out and fell away behind her.

  Safe. Again.

  She looked in her rearview mirror, where Parallel-Dimension Self was shaking her head.

  “One of these days,” warned Self, “your luck is gonna run out.”

  THE WOODS GAVE WAY to a cow pasture, and across from the pasture sat Moo’s house.

  Like an old man, the house leaned forward a little, as if using the front porch as a cane.

  Sitting on the front-porch steps, facing the road and the open pasture, was a small girl.

  She had dark hair, cut short, and humongous brown eyes. Intelligent eyes, but with a faraway look, as if she might be dreaming. Like Amy, the girl wore a hoodie, and, like Amy’s hoodie, it was made to look like an animal. It was a cow hoodie, with big black spots. The hood had cow ears that stuck out and two plastic eyes that peered over the girl’s head.

  This was Moo.

  “Hey,” said Amy.

  Moo didn’t say anything back.

  Moo never said anything at all.

  Amy leaned her bike against the porch and sat down beside her.

  Moo gave no indication she even knew Amy was there.

  Sometimes this silence was one of the main things Amy liked about Moo. Other times, naturally, she wished Moo would at least say “Hello” or that it was a nice day.

  But no. She might have been asleep, if it hadn’t been for one thing: every once in a while, she did say something.

  There were cows in the pasture, and now and then one of them would say, “MOOooooOOOOoooo.”

  And Moo would say it back: “Mooooooo!”

  This, obviously, was why Amy called her Moo. (Presumably, Moo had a regular human name, but Amy didn’t know what it was.)

  Amy didn’t really know very much about her friend at all, in fact. There were a million things she would have liked to know but didn’t.

  Here is a list of ten things Amy had asked Moo in the two years they’d been friends:

  “How come you wear that cow hoodie all the time?”

  “Do you have some kind of huge, multicolored, explosive wart on your head, under the hood?”

  “Can I see it?”

  “Would you rather eat a big plate of poop just once, or have to eat the same thing, every meal, for the rest of your life?”

  “What’s your favorite season? Mine’s summer. No, wait…spring! No…fall.”

  “Do you even know I’m here?”

  “Aren’t you glad sharks swim instead of fly?”

  “Is something wrong with your mom?” (Moo’s mom lived in the leaning house, too. She was almost as quiet as Moo.)

  “How come you never talk?”

  “Do you remember how we met?”

  Amy thought that this last question, more than any other, might inspire Moo to think, and remember, and speak up. So far, nada.

  Sometimes Amy played a little mind movie in her head where Moo turned to her and said, “Why, yes, Amy, I remember. One day a couple of years ago, my mom brought me to your school, and the teacher assigned you to be my Welcome Buddy, to help me find the lunchroom and learn the rules at recess. And you were very nice, even if you felt sort of freaked out when I never moved or said anything. You were SO smart….You figured out that if you took me by the hand, I would follow you places. I would even carry my lunch tray and eat. But at the end of the day, my mom came back and talked with the teacher and the school nurse, and all three of them seemed pretty disappointed. They had been hoping that all the activity at school would be contagious and I’d start talking. The next day, Mom didn’t bring me back. Or the next, or the next.

  “A couple of weeks later, you went speeding by my house on your bike. Then you came speeding back, and stopped, and came up on the porch and talked to me. And that’s how we met and started being friends.”

  It was a great mind movie, but it hadn’t come true so far. Moo simply wasn’t one of those friends that you sing songs with, or dare to do things, or have long secret talks with. She was the kind of friend you had to use your imagination with. Here is a list of ways Amy had found to spend time with Moo:

  Help Moo stare out over the pasture and the road.

  Help Moo moo back at the cows.

  Perform a news show about whatever was going on in Amy World. School stuff. Her experiments. All about the Big Duke and how her parents were playing chicken with the mining company.

  Read aloud.

  Fall asleep sitting in the glider.

  Today Amy had brought a book and planned to read aloud. First, though, she hopped down one step, facing Moo, to show off the stolen hoodie.

&nb
sp; “Isn’t this the happiest hoodie you’ve ever seen?” she said, twirling. “If I were to decide to keep it, I’d only wear it on days when I got elected president or on Saturdays or if there was a field trip or if you were to say something. I can’t keep it, though. It’s not really mine.”

  And she told Moo about the experiment, just as she had told her parents.

  “Oh!” she said suddenly. “I almost forgot. I brought you something!” And she reached into her pocket and took out the nice rock from the field. Sometimes she kept the rocks she found, and sometimes she felt like giving them to Moo.

  “Sparkly, huh?” she said, holding the rock up where Moo could see it. Then she darted down to the end of the porch and set it atop a small pile of other rocks, from other evenings.

  Sitting down again beside her friend, Amy opened the book she had brought. It was more of a notebook, actually. It was, in fact, a book of her own poems and drawings.

  The first poem she read aloud was about the seasons. It went like this:

  “What if everything changed color

  in fall, instead of just leaves?

  What if your house turned yellow like a big maple leaf and came swishing down through the air and landed in a pile of other houses?

  What if all the books in the school turned red (like BLOOD!!!!)

  and a huge gust of wind came along and blew them away like a cloud (of BLOOD!!!!)???

  And what if I turned yellow and red mixed together

  and flew away, too,

  and never ever ever came down?”

  Moo seemed to appreciate the poem. Don’t ask me how Amy knew this. It was something Amy thought she could sense now and then.

  “Wanna go see the cows?” Amy asked.

  And Moo said, “Moo.” Amy made an assumption that this stood for yes.

  If you took Moo’s hand and gave it a gentle tug, Amy had learned through experiment, she would get up and follow you across the street and stand by the fence with you.

  You had to get Moo’s mom’s permission for that, naturally.

  Amy skipped up onto the porch and knocked at the screen door.

  Knock, knock, knock!

  Something shadowy and sad appeared on the other side of the screen.

  “Hi, Moo’s mom,” said Amy.

  “Hi,” said Moo’s mom, sounding tired. Through the screen, she always sort of looked and sounded like a candle that had gone out.

  “Can I take Moo across the street to look at the cows?” Amy asked.

  “Okay,” said Moo’s mom. “Watch the traffic.”

  Amy said, “We will,” skipped back down, and took Moo by the hand. Moo rose to her feet like a mechanical toy set in motion and followed Amy across the yard.

  Across the street, to the old wooden fence that formed the border between the People World and the Cow World. A couple of cows, some ways off, raised their heads thoughtfully and began wandering in the girls’ direction.

  The cows weren’t marked in any way, and they didn’t wear cowbells. They didn’t belong to anyone, according to Amy’s parents.

  “They’re wild cows,” Mom had declared.

  “Cows can be wild?” Amy had asked.

  “A big ol’ cow truck crashed,” Dad had explained, “back when your mom and I were teenagers. These cows are the descendants of the cows from the crash. Their grandcows and great-grandcows.”

  “MooOOoo,” said one of the cows, approaching close enough to have her nose rubbed.

  “Moo,” answered Moo.

  Amy caressed the cow’s nose (so soft—like a cupcake!). Moo raised her hand and copied.

  A breeze kicked up, and Moo swayed with it, just a little. Sometimes her head moved as if she were listening to something only she could hear, looking at something only she could see.

  After a while, Amy took Moo’s hand again and led her friend back to the house. She retrieved her bike, told Moo, “Bye! See you when I see you!” and raced homeward.

  She almost made it, too.

  * * *

  —

  IT WASN’T THE WITCH that got Amy. Just the weather.

  It grew windy in a big hurry as she was passing through the woods, and that wasn’t a problem. Amy loved storms; she left her hood down so her hair would wave like a flag.

  “It’s like flying,” remarked Self in the rearview mirror.

  But the wind got even stronger. Amy’s wings made buzzing, snapping noises, and the bike wobbled. Rain peppered her cheeks and the backs of her hands. Suddenly it seemed like a long way to the red X. She pedaled harder. Almost out of the woods now.

  “It’s a time experiment,” she told Self, gritting her teeth and squinting. “Can the young scientist reach home in less time than it takes the storm to really, really get nasty?”

  POW! She hit a dip in the pavement, wobbled, and almost crashed. Amy put her feet down and brought herself to a stop.

  Staying dry wasn’t worth a broken neck, she thought.

  The sky had gotten darker in a way Amy didn’t like. She pulled her hood up and yanked the drawstrings tight.

  Suddenly she felt tingly all over. Felt all funny and electrical and bad. Her hair tried to stand up; it swelled inside her hood and came frizzing out around her face.

  The witch! Oh my God!

  Except it wasn’t a witch, and she knew it. Any scientist would know.

  She was about to get struck by lightning.

  “Mrrzzl,” she said.

  And then everything went very BRIGHT and it was like being stomped on by the sun.

  EVERYTHING WAS FUZZY.

  First, there was some feeling in Amy’s fingertips, and they felt like fuzzballs. As if her nerves were vibrating. Then there was some light, and that was fuzzy, too.

  “Amy?”

  Her mom’s voice.

  “Everything’s fuzzy,” Amy tried to say, but it came out “Obevizzzzizzizee” because her tongue and brain were fuzzy, too.

  “What was that, sweetie? Try again.”

  Amy felt Mom take her hand. Felt someone else take her other hand. Dad?

  “Maybe the speech part of her brain has been scrambled,” Dad said.

  “No big deal,” Mom replied. “She can learn how to talk by tapping on things.”

  “I can hear you,” Amy managed to say. “You guys suck.”

  She tried to get her eyes to focus. Her brain filled with warm, bright fuzz. Her ears and nose picked up what might be the noises and smells of a hospital.

  “What happened?” she asked.

  They patted her hands (fuzzily), and Dad said, “Lightning.”

  Wow! Seriously? A sudden panic grabbed her and squeezed.

  “Oh God,” she said, sitting upright. “Am I melted? Am I paralyzed?” She poked herself all over the place. “Did I partially explode? Is my brain exposed?”

  “Yes,” said Dad.

  Amy heard Mom hit Dad and say, “ZACH-ary!”

  “No,” said Dad. “You’re fine. They say your butterfly costume thing might have shielded you. The antennae conducted most of the voltage away from your head and shot it into the ground. Lightning is mysterious stuff.”

  “Is it burned up?” Amy asked.

  “Baked,” said Mom, “ever so slightly, on top. Surprisingly okay otherwise. It’s in the little closet in the corner. You can wear it home if you want.”

  “So I’m fine?” she said. “Really, totally fine?”

  And they answered her, told her yes, she was fine, but Amy tuned her parents out just then. She wasn’t being rude. She was just distracted (and disturbed) by something.

  Little glowing lights floated in the air over her parents’ heads. Little lights in the shape of hearts.

  Interesting. But Amy had a feeling it was not something she sho
uld mention to her parents, or doctors. Not if she wanted to go home, which she did.

  “I’m going back to sleep for a while,” she said, and lay down and closed her eyes.

  “A fine and worthy idea,” said Dad, blowing her a kiss.

  Sleep rolled in like a high tide, carrying strange and curious dreams.

  * * *

  —

  THE DOCTORS KEPT AMY in the hospital another day, testing her coordination, testing heart and organ function. Then they let Mom take her home.

  They went back to their actual home, their actual house, instead of the camp.

  “It’s not necessary!” Amy protested. “I’m fine. I got As on all the tests.”

  “I want you to get one more really good night’s rest,” said Mom, “before taking on the world again. My decision is firm and unchangeable, like the gravitational constant of the universe.”

  “But Dad—”

  “Dad will be just fine by himself for one night, probably. Now hush.”

  It turned out to be a wonderful idea. Amy hadn’t realized how much she missed her real bed, and a real bathroom, and carpeting. There was more dust than usual, which was saying something; her parents were indifferent housekeepers. And there was a partly empty feeling, since Dad wasn’t there. But other than that, it was nice and familiar and warm and…home.

  Mom went out and brought back Mexican food, and they had a contest to see which of them could use the spiciest of the sauce packets without making a face. (Amy won.)

  One thing, though, kept it from being a 100 percent comfort-fest.

  The heart over her mom’s head was still there, pulsing and pink. Amy liked this little vision, but it bothered her, too. That was the kind of thing people saw when their brains were mixed up, right? Except she didn’t feel mixed up. She felt pretty sharp, actually, almost as if she’d been turned up a notch or two.