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

It wasn’t just the heart, though. There were other oddities.

  The accumulated dust, for example. It seemed to be accompanied by little dust ghosts that puffed and coughed along the shelves and sat sneezing on the furniture.

  And the food! Something like a fire symbol blazed in the air over the red sauce.

  Maybe if she slept well, in her own bed, her brain or her imagination would calm down.

  It didn’t help that her toothbrush appeared to be dripping with minty little icicles.

  “It’s not imaginary,” said Parallel-Dimension Self in the bathroom mirror. “I’m imaginary; this other stuff is real. Deal with it.”

  Amy ignored her and went straight to bed (which was surrounded by warm, snoozy, half-visible clouds). She fell asleep with some difficulty, feeling a bit sorry for poor old Dad, alone out there in the field in his little tent. But her bed was soft and cloudy and familiar, and she did fall asleep at last.

  She dreamed, for some reason, about frogs.

  * * *

  —

  IN THE MORNING, AMY wanted to go to school.

  Mom wasn’t wild about the idea.

  “It’s been three days since the lightning,” Amy argued. “Can I just go, and if I don’t feel right, they can call you? I’m sure they know what happened, right, the school nurse and everything?”

  Mom liked arguments that made sense. So she thought about it while they ate their eggs, and finally said yes. They even drove out to the camp so Amy could tell Dad hello and pick up her bike.

  “Greetings!” said Dad, who was trying to make coffee over the fire. As Amy kissed him, the kettle boiled over. It always boiled over. Dad said, “Mrrzzl.” Then he said, “School, eh?”

  Amy said, “Yep.”

  “Well, good, I guess. They’ll call us, I suppose, if you start to explode or catch fire.”

  Mom kicked him, then kissed him, and they waved goodbye as Amy headed for school.

  AT SCHOOL AMY WAS a star.

  Her picture had been online and in the newspaper, because it wasn’t often someone got hit by lightning, let alone a kid.

  “They had your school picture on the internet,” said a boy named Thomas. “It was the picture from last year, where your teeth looked gross.”

  When everyone was in their seats, Mrs. Barch, the teacher, said, “So you got struck by lightning.” (Mrs. Barch was a thousand years old. She was going to retire at the end of the year.)

  “Yes,” said Amy.

  “Did it hurt? You missed a reading quiz.”

  “It DID hurt,” said Amy. “It was like…imagine if a bunch of hot needles went through you, going a hundred miles an hour.”

  Mrs. Barch had a way of staring when she talked to you. She had big, watery, ancient eyes that NEVER, EVER blinked. There was a school legend that Mrs. Barch had once hypnotized a kid and planted a command in his head that when he reached sixth grade, he would come to school in a dress, and he had done it.

  Mrs. Barch was staring at Amy now while they talked.

  Amy didn’t feel hypnotized. She was, in fact, making an effort not to see certain things. Like, Mrs. Barch had a heart over her head, but it looked fossilized and had a Band-Aid on it.

  Some of the kids in the class had little fires inside them. Others were surrounded by clouds of spirit-bubbles. All the kids had hearts over their heads. A couple of the hearts had Band-Aids like Mrs. Barch’s.

  “So,” said Mrs. Barch, “are you traumatized?”

  “Nope,” said Amy. “I can deal.”

  “Well, that’s fine,” said Mrs. Barch. “Let’s move on with our lives, then, shall we? Open your social studies books to page fifty-three. Claudette, would you mind reading?”

  A girl named Claudette started reading about a girl in Peru who raised llamas, and Amy’s stardom came to an end.

  She got over it. She moved on. She learned that llamas would spit in your face if you disrespected them.

  * * *

  —

  AT THE RED X camp that night, Amy and her parents had a special treat: real macaroni and cheese for dinner. Mom made the best macaroni and cheese in the history of life. It came to the table in a big casserole dish and had a skin of baked cheese on top. Little cheese volcanoes bubbled and oozed. Then you’d stick a spoon in it and dump some onto your plate, and you’d see little slices of hot dog sliding around. Tonight, Amy saw, the casserole dish was surrounded by a spirit-cloud of goodness.

  “How was school?” Mom asked.

  “It was school,” said Amy.

  “Did Mrs. Barch ask if you were traumatized? She used to always ask if we were traumatized, if we had anything wrong, like a cold or a cut finger, or if you banged your head. Anything.”

  Mrs. Barch had been a teacher when Amy’s parents were in school. That’s how ancient she was. At parent-teacher conferences, she asked Dad if he still had trouble remembering to zip up his pants (he did).

  “Yes,” said Amy. “She asked if I was traumatized.”

  She took a bite out of her apple.

  While she was chewing, a silence happened, and Mom and Dad exchanged a peculiar look. The kind of look grown-ups sometimes exchange when they think their kids aren’t watching.

  Mom fidgeted with her Marie Curie ring. Something was on her mind. The ring, Amy noticed, had a faint green glow about it. She tried to ignore this.

  “What am I missing?” she asked Mom, talking around her apple.

  “Nothing,” said Mom.

  Her parents exchanged another not-so-secret look.

  “You guys are very much not sly,” Amy told them.

  “Fine,” said Dad. “It’s not nothing. It’s something.”

  Her parents still had hearts over their heads, but they had rain clouds over them. Tiny, boiling rain clouds.

  The fire came to life, crackling and smoking. Dad stood up.

  “We’re going home, after dinner,” said Mom. “We’re not going to wait for the Big Duke to get here.”

  Dad nodded.

  Amy frowned.

  “It’s because of me,” she said. “Isn’t it? Because of the whole lightning thing. You don’t think we ought to be camping out in the field here when I just got out of the hospital.”

  “Smart kid,” said Dad. “Let’s keep her.”

  “I don’t know,” said Mom. “She’s getting awfully expensive. Even before the lightning—”

  “It’s not funny!” Amy shouted. “I’m fine! Besides, you’re out here for a reason, and if you quit now—”

  “It’s important,” Dad said. “I agree. We have to keep people from poisoning the planet just to make more money. But nothing’s as important as you. You’re our first responsibility. Then, maybe, saving the world.”

  Amy’s throat tightened. Her eyes stung. She couldn’t tell if she was mad or sad or grateful.

  When had it become so important to her, this thing they were doing? It wasn’t just an adventure, she realized. She really, really didn’t want the stupid machine to tear up the ground with its stupid claw.

  “Maybe,” said someone, “I can be of some assistance here. Or at least make things more complicated.”

  A man’s voice. A stranger’s voice, behind them.

  Amy and her parents turned to discover a man in a suit. Youngish, as grown-ups went, and sort of gawky. He wore a very neat, dark suit, with a smooth, glossy tie. In fact, he radiated neatness like a kind of sunlight. The only exception to this was his hair, which had fallen victim to the wind. It had fallen victim to something. His eyes, too, had something messy and unusual about them, as if they were laughing and pretending to be flashlights.

  Behind the man, Amy noticed a slender black sports car parked at the roadside.

  The stranger raised one gloved hand, tipped an imaginary hat, and said, “M
s. Wood, Mr. Wood, Amy Wood…a pleasure.”

  “Well—” Dad began.

  “Well,” interrupted the man, in the most polite way, “you were thinking of pulling up stakes. Breaking camp. Giving up the cause, et cetera, all for the good of the child. Very responsible. Very! It’s what I would do, myself, as a parent.”

  “You have children?” asked Mom. “Mr….?”

  “Not at all,” answered the man. “Not ever. Who knows? But the clock is ticking, Mr. Wood, Amy Wood, Ms. Wood, as fine a family as ever there was. And I have come—at the behest of certain most excellent parties—to ask that you consider staying for one more day. Possibly two. Possibly not. It’s hard to say. What do you say?”

  “I’m afraid—” Dad began.

  “Who isn’t,” interrupted the man, “at least some of the time? I know I am. Tell me you’ll stay. One more day. Yes?”

  “You say you represent someone,” said Mom. “Who?”

  “As I said,” said the man, “it’s hard to say.”

  “It’s a secret,” said Amy.

  “We have a winner,” said the man, tipping his imaginary hat a second time.

  “You could be from the mining company, for all we know,” said Mom.

  The man rubbed his hands together as if an exciting game were being played.

  “I am NOT,” he said emphatically, “from, as you say, the mining company. That’s not a secret at all. I am also not from the grocery store, the sky, Philadelphia, or the planet Mars. Beyond that, I am very much not at liberty to say, you see. So…?”

  He seemed to be expecting a reply.

  If that was what he expected, Mom and Dad disappointed him.

  Mom and Dad could be quite determined. They got a certain look in their eyes (which they now had) and crossed their arms over their chests (which they now did).

  “Specifics,” said Dad.

  “If you please,” said Mom, twisting her pinkie ring so fiercely that Amy worried she’d snap her finger.

  The stranger’s eyes got a busy, thoughtful look. His jaw worked back and forth, as if he were almost but not quite talking to himself.

  “Very well,” he said after a moment. “I am authorized to say this: my employers suspect the Big Duke might get here faster than everyone thinks. These huge companies don’t always tell the whole truth about their plans, you know. It may well be here tomorrow at this time! If you intend to be here to carry out your protest—and I certainly hope you do!—then you mustn’t retreat. You mustn’t budge an inch.”

  “Tomorrow?” exclaimed Mom and Dad together.

  “That’s too soon,” said Mom.

  “We were hoping to have a few more days to maybe get on TV again,” said Dad. “Maybe change a mind or two.”

  “Stay here until the machine arrives,” said the stranger, “and it’s quite likely you’ll get on TV.”

  Mom and Dad still had their arms crossed. Still had that look in their eyes. They did glance at each other, though, in a surprised and worried way.

  “Authorized by whom?” asked Mom.

  The stranger looked puzzled.

  “You said you were authorized to tell us things,” said Mom. “Who authorized you? Who do you work for?”

  “That,” said the stranger, “must remain a secret until such and such a time.”

  “Tell us,” insisted Dad, “or we’re packing up and leaving.”

  The stranger, appearing resolute, said, “My deepest, most eviscerating apologies, Ms. Wood, Mr. Wood, but I can’t say. I really can’t. You could tie me up and threaten to lower me into a vat of hot lava, and I still couldn’t tell you. I do hope you’ll reconsider.”

  More staring. More arm crossing.

  A long, not-very-friendly silence.

  The man, Amy began to notice, had a peculiar haze around him. To Amy, it looked like a million Christmas lights had exploded into dust, and the dust had formed a cloud. Not unlike the Oort cloud, out in space, where comets came from. Amy liked the cloud and had a strong feeling that she should trust the man. Mr….what had he said his name was?

  “I think we should stay,” Amy said, looking up at her mother and then her father.

  And then her mother again. They weren’t saying anything; she hated when they did that. It gave her the fidgets. They did that thing grown-ups do when they’re fighting to make a tough decision, where they make a knot with their mouth and stare at something invisible in the middle of the air.

  Say something! Amy screamed in her head.

  But then she noticed, when the silence had gone on for three billion years, that although her parents weren’t giving her any clues, the hearts over their heads kind of were. Both hearts kept changing shape and color, as if they were brave hearts one second and then love hearts. Blue worry hearts and thundery frustrated hearts.

  It occurred to Amy that parents—even when they were totally paying attention—simply didn’t know for sure what to do. And this frightened them, and they tried to hide it.

  Mom’s and Dad’s hearts seemed to have settled on looking confused, as if her parents needed a hug.

  So Amy hugged them. First Mom, then Dad.

  There’s something about a hug that says, Things are going to be okay, isn’t there? That’s how Amy thought of it. And maybe some of the okay feeling got through, because Dad looked at Mom and Amy and the stranger and said, “We’ll stay.”

  And Mom added, “As long as she seems all right,” in a nonnegotiable kind of voice.

  The stranger gave a pleased little hop.

  “You have made me, and certain interested parties, very happy!” he said, offering his gloved hand to be shaken. “Wheels are in motion, Ms. Wood, Mr. Wood, Amy Wood! Wheels are turning, and possibilities are brewing. I have to go tend these turnings and possibilities, and I wish you a grateful farewell.”

  As the odd stranger began picking his way toward the road, toward the little black sports car, Dad’s face lit up with a smile.

  “I get the feeling somehow,” he called after the man, “that everything might turn out for the best after all.”

  “Possibly!” the stranger answered, hopping over an enormous clump of dried mud. “And quite possibly not! No harm in trying. Well, actually, perhaps a great deal of harm, but never mind. What else would I do with my time? Fix pinball machines? Have a lot of girlfriends? Knit sweaters for dogs?” And he was still talking and saying things when he passed out of earshot, reached the sports car, and sped away.

  Leaving a trail of Oort cloud dust hanging over the road.

  “That was strange,” said Dad, squinting after the car. “And it happened very quickly.”

  Mom didn’t say anything. She just stood there thinking things.

  “I’m almost sure,” said Dad, “he’s from the county engineer’s office. Or the university. A lot of very neat people work at the university. Have you ever noticed that?”

  “Very neat,” said Mom, “and in some cases very strange.”

  Amy, like most young people, moved on quickly.

  “As long as we’re staying,” she said, “may I go to Moo’s?”

  Mom gave Amy a narrow look.

  “How about we take one step at a time,” she said. “You went to school, after all.”

  Amy started to protest but forced herself to calm down. An emotional appeal wouldn’t fly too far with her parents. They were great admirers of logic and reason. So she took a few seconds to organize her thoughts and then calmly said, “I would like to present a list of raw facts.”

  Instantly their eyes focused and lit up.

  “Say on,” said Dad.

  “Okay! One: you have been told by the hospital people that I’m okay, and they’re the experts. Two: if I suddenly became not okay—if I started to fizz like a Pepsi or develop spots like a cheetah—Moo’s mom
has a car, just like you do.” (Amy did not actually know this for a fact, but it MUST be true?…) “And three: you have your smartphones, and Moo’s mom has a smartphone.” (Didn’t she?…) “Plus, I did fine at school all day long and had a healthy appetite for dinner. A healthy appetite is an excellent sign that things are working well anatomically.”

  Mom and Dad looked impressed.

  “So, please,” Amy added. “Double please.”

  Mom and Dad traded a look.

  “You’re sure you feel up to it?” asked Mom.

  “Uh-huh.” She tried to emanate invisible waves of sureness.

  “Maybe I should drive you.”

  Amy shook her head and said, “I really reallyreallyreally want to ride my bike, and get back to normal.”

  Mom was thinking it over. She was making her thinking-it-over face. The heart over her head became two hearts, and they pushed each other around.

  Dad crossed his arms over his chest and said, “Maybe going to Moo’s is the best possible idea.”

  “It’s what?” Mom’s thinking-it-over face switched to her Are you kidding me? face.

  “In fact,” Dad continued, “I’d like you to do something, if you’re comfortable with it.”

  “ ’Kay,” said Amy.

  “Ask Moo’s mom if you can stay the night.”

  “Really?” Amy didn’t want to stay at Moo’s. She wanted to come back here, to be here if anything happened with the Big Duke.

  “Really?” asked Mom. She clearly wasn’t on the same page as Dad. “Do you really think it’s safe for your daughter-who-was-just-struck-by-lightning to spend the night away from her parents?”

  “What do you suppose the chances are,” said Dad, “that staying at a friend’s house is more dangerous than that giant machine?”

  Mom paused. The heart over her head looked like it was talking to itself for a moment. Then: “Fair enough,” she said.

  “Great!” said Dad. “So what do you say, Offspring? Sleepover with Moo sound good?”

  “I’ll see,” Amy answered. “Maybe.”

  “I’ll take it,” said Dad.

  “So…I can ride my bike there?” Amy asked.