by Keir Graff
“I’m sorry we interrupted you,” I said.
“No need to apologize,” she said, seeming so light and open and friendly that I wondered how she could possibly be related to Blake.
“Dagmar wanted to meet you,” he told her irritably.
“That’s so nice,” said Penelope. “But why?”
“She thinks our family is messed up and I should try to help you and Lyndon get along better with Dad,” said Blake.
“I never said that!” I protested.
I was feeling a little mixed up from the crystals, the wind chimes, the bellowing whales, and the pretzel-knotted yogi we’d just knocked over with a yell. But I was also starting to wonder if Blake said what he did because it was what he actually wanted.
“Well, what did you say?” asked Penelope.
And just then the recording started again.
AAAAAAAOOOOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUHHHHHH? queried a whale.
Let me turn off the recording, and we’ll talk, mouthed Penelope, or something like that.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Licking the Lawn
Penelope powered down her stereo, excused herself, and said she’d bring us something to drink while we talked. I didn’t know how she could meditate in that racket, but maybe the volume was so high it just blasted all the thoughts right out of her head. Though if I ever try it, I think I’ll use human-created music instead of whale sounds.
After she left, a cat hopped up on the windowsill and let itself in, purring loudly and seeming happy that things were finally quiet again. It had twigs and bark in its fur from playing outside, so I sat down on the couch and groomed it with my fingers. The room was full of natural things: more crystals, beautiful minerals, gnarled driftwood, and even a giant wasps’ nest I hoped was unoccupied.
Blake wandered around, inspecting candles, incense burners, and the drawings and paintings that covered nearly every inch of wall space, most of them depicting dramatic landscapes without people or buildings in them.
I heard nails clicking on the floor and thought it was Alpha and Beta, but Blake had left them outside. A dog I didn’t recognize came into the room, a brown-and-white mutt with a broad, scarred face and a missing ear. Then I heard tiny claws skitter across the top of a bookshelf and saw a squirrel racing along near the ceiling. As if that wasn’t enough, I realized that the fuzzy blanket in a nearby basket wasn’t a blanket at all but a sleeping raccoon.
No, not a raccoon. As it stood up and stretched, I saw its body was too lean and its face was too long to be a classic trash panda.
“Coatimundi,” explained Blake. “Aunt Penelope loves animals. If you go to the bathroom, watch out for snakes.”
“I can hold it,” I told him.
“I’m just joking,” he said. “Probably.”
I heard a high-powered whine coming from the back of the house, like a power saw, and wondered why Penelope would be cutting wood while she had visitors. But when she came back in with a tray and three glasses of bright green liquid, I realized she’d been using a juicer.
“Have some wheatgrass juice,” she said. “It’s very cleansing.”
Blake looked at the opaque green drinks and turned an analogous shade of green himself.
ANALOGOUS: similar or comparable to something else.
“Ugh,” he muttered.
I didn’t like wheatgrass juice, either, although Leya made it often enough that I was at least used to the taste, which was like licking a freshly mowed lawn. As I reached for my glass, my arm suddenly seemed longer than usual, and I knocked it right over, making a grassy green puddle on the tray.
“I’m sorry,” I told Penelope, wishing for the thousandth time I wasn’t so clumsy.
“That’s just fine, Dagmar,” she said, even though I could tell she was sad to see perfectly good wheatgrass juice go to waste.
“You can have mine!” blurted Blake, happy to have found the perfect excuse not to drink his.
I thanked him as politely as I could, thinking, You owe me one.
As Penelope sat down, I drank the juice quickly, which is the only way to do it. The longer you take, the longer your tongue is dragging across that lawn.
The animals crowded around, and you could tell they really loved Penelope. The coatimundi licked her fingers, the dog sat on her feet, and even the squirrel jumped from the top of the bookcase to the back of her chair and snuggled on her shoulder.
“Animals have pure spirits and love unconditionally,” she said. “It’s we humans who have bad motivations.”
“Do you hate Reynold as much as Lyndon does?” I asked. I couldn’t imagine this gentle lady being mad at anyone.
She shook her head. “I feel sorry for him. Money—and the lust for it—is the cause of so many of the world’s problems.”
I looked at Blake because, after all, she was talking about his dad and not some random billionaire. I could tell he didn’t exactly agree with her, even if he wasn’t going to argue about it.
“But I do want my share of the fortune,” she explained. “There are so many animal shelters in need of generous financial gifts.”
The cat’s fur was looking pretty good, but when I tried to put it down on the floor, it rolled over on its back, grabbed my hand with its front paws, and started licking my fingers. I guess it didn’t want me to stop grooming it.
“Dagmar’s right. It would be cool if you guys could all be friends again,” said Blake, once again giving me credit for something I hadn’t actually said.
“That would be nice,” agreed Penelope, “but I’m afraid it’s too late for that.”
“Maybe you just need something to help remind you that you’re all in this together,” I said.
“All in what together?” asked Blake.
“Everything,” I told him. “Everyone’s in everything together, especially families.”
“But that’s exactly the problem,” said Penelope, scratching the ruff of the coatimundi’s neck and stroking its long, elegant snout. “We were in everything together until Reynold decided he wanted it all for himself. Sometimes too much togetherness has a way of making us not like our loved ones.”
“I don’t know what either of you are talking about,” said Blake, standing up and heading toward the rear of the house. “Do you have anything with sugar in it, Aunt Penelope?”
“You’re welcome to look,” she told him, grinning at me behind his back. She definitely seemed to be on Team Leya when it came to making sure food wasn’t any fun.
After he left the room, Penelope and I petted the animals in silence until she said, “Both Lyndon and I sacrificed our own careers to help Reynold on his way. We assumed we would be made partners in his company and allowed to help steer it in a positive direction. But he never let us in—never even gave us credit for our contributions—and once he takes the company public, we’ll be cut out forever.”
“What if you just got together and talked and tried to start over?” I suggested as the cat climbed off my lap and jumped out the window.
“The last time we did that, we had a big argument, and Reynold accused us of only wanting his money,” said Penelope sadly. “I can’t imagine Reynold and Lyndon ever seeing eye to eye.”
Blake came back from the kitchen, scowling. “There’s no soda, and there’s no sparkling water. You don’t have chips, candy, sugar, or even honey. What is there to eat in this house?”
“Would you like a rice cake?” asked Penelope.
“I’d rather chew Styrofoam,” said Blake. “Come on, Dagmar, let’s go.”
Penelope walked us to the door and watched us go, lifting one leg above her head as she did.
“Come back anytime!” she called.
“Do you think your dad and your aunt and uncle will ever get along?” I asked Blake.
“I doubt it,” he said. “I me
an, what’s in it for my dad?”
“There’s nothing wrong with being nice,” I said.
“I don’t think he has time for that,” said Blake.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
Busted
Leya caught me that afternoon.
I was in the bushes behind the compound, feeding the forest. That’s how I had come to think of it, anyway. At least once a day, I would fill a bag with seeds, beans, rice, and grain—all of Leya’s favorite food groups—and wander away from Helen Wheels, scattering handfuls for rodents, birds, and bugs to find. I hadn’t seen any mice, but a few birds had started expecting me, and would hop and peck at a distance while I gave them a free meal. Once I saw a line of big black ants carrying away crumbs of some zucchini bread I had left the day before. It was crazy how they could move something so much bigger than they were—it would be like me lifting Helen Wheels over my head in two hands and carrying it through the trees.
The reason I wasted the food, of course, was to discourage Trent and Leya. And so far it had been working. Leya was already puzzled by her garden’s refusal to flourish.
“This is California, Trent,” she would say. “Everything grows here. You have to work hard to kill plants!”
Of course, she had no idea how much effort I’d been putting into doing just that.
And when she checked the tubs of dry goods she’d thought would last all summer, she noticed they were emptying out faster than she expected.
“It’s like our food is just disappearing!” she lamented.
Sometimes, she gave me accusing looks—not because she knew I was literally throwing it away, but because she thought I was eating more than my share. But even though I truly was hungry all the time, I never wanted seconds of the tempeh, tabbouleh, and tamari-flavored foods she preferred to meat.
If we’d had any meat, I would only have gotten rid of it by eating it—even though I’m sure there were four-legged carnivores who would have appreciated it, too.
Anyway, I was a couple hundred yards away from the compound, scattering handfuls of stolen food, wondering how much longer it would take for Trent and Leya to decide the experiment wasn’t working, when I heard a twig snap.
I froze.
“What are you doing?” Leya asked behind me.
It was pretty obvious what I was doing. Caught red-handed, I turned around slowly. One glance at the fire and fury in Leya’s eyes was enough to make me look away.
“Feeding mice and stuff?” I said lamely.
She stared at me disconsolately but didn’t say anything. She just turned and walked away.
DISCONSOLATE: without consolation or solace; hopelessly unhappy; inconsolable.
“Leya, wait,” I said, but she was already too far away to hear me.
I stared at the small mound of makeshift granola mix in my hand, then carefully poured it back in the bag. Rolling the top of the bag to close it, I hurried back to the compound, breathing hard, wanting to catch her before she talked to Trent.
But I wasn’t watching where I was going. I put my foot down hard on a rock, half on and half off, and twisted my ankle. Yelping in pain, I fell down, landing on my hip and losing my grip on the bag of stolen food. The bag ripped open, most of the food pouring out as if to prove that even when I was trying to do something right, I couldn’t help doing everything wrong.
Blinking back tears, I sat up and tried to pick the seeds and grain out of the grass, but it was hopeless. I folded the torn bag around the little bit that was left and, cradling it like a wounded bird, climbed to my feet. My ankle was sore, and I couldn’t put much weight on it, so I limped onward, favoring my good leg and dragging the hurt one behind.
By the time I got back to the compound, Leya and Trent were huddled together by the wall. Leya saw me first. Looking me up and down, she said one last thing to Trent and then angrily stalked away.
Trent turned and looked at me as I hobbled toward him. Now my hip was throbbing, too, but if he even noticed that I was hurt and dirty and starting to cry, he didn’t show it. When I got close, he turned back to his wall and lifted a new stone from the pile.
I plopped down in the dirt next to him, groaning with pain. I think my hip almost hurt more than my ankle.
He still hadn’t spoken, and his silence was worse than anything he could have said. I wished he would raise his voice and yell at me, just so I could yell back. Not that he’d ever yelled at me—but couldn’t he try it now?
Instead, he just concentrated on his rocks and his wall. I could hear tapping and grinding sounds as he tried one rock and then another, and then finally found one that fit the way he wanted.
The longer he was silent, the harder it was for me to say something. Words were welling up, but none came out—they all felt stuck in my throat, and I couldn’t find the way to unstick them.
Finally, Trent said, “You know our family needs that food, right?” and that did it.
Only instead of talking, I started bawling. I’m not the kind of girl who cries a lot. I mean, I understand it’s a natural reaction to pain, sadness, and all that stuff, but I’m also proud of the fact that if I hit my thumb with a hammer, I’m more likely to curse like a grown-up than cry like a little kid. So I’ve never had much practice. When I started crying, it was a whole-body thing that started in my stomach, whooshed through my lungs, and then spurted out my face in the form of snot and tears and hiccups so hard I almost burped. I’m glad Trent was the only one around, because I’m pretty sure I was doing what people call ugly crying.
“I’m s-s-SORRY,” I gushed. “I know we need the food, but—but—”
I was going to launch into a whole explanation about my plan, and how I was trying to make them want to go home, but with Trent looking at me—and he has this way of looking so calm even when he should be mad—it all just sounded stupid, and I couldn’t say it. I could tell Trent was feeling bad about me feeling bad, because his eyes were twitching and getting wet, which only made everything worse. So even though I wanted to defend myself and explain why I had to resort to sabotage, all I could do was what Leya did—turn and walk away.
Well, because of my hip and my ankle, it was more like limping than walking, but I went as quickly as I could. Over my snorts and sniffles, I heard him slide another rock into place on his wall.
Climbing the steps into Helen Wheels, I emptied my torn bag of stolen food onto the kitchen counter and started separating the rice from the beans and the grains from the seeds and all of it from the twigs and pebbles I’d accidentally picked up. When I was done, I scraped each little pile off the counter into my hand and dumped it into the container where it belonged.
Then I went outside and got the watering can and the bucket and carried them to the pump, trying not to put weight on my ankle and my hip, which was impossible. I filled them both to the top and carried them back to Leya’s garden, grinding my teeth with every step. The few seedlings that had sprouted were brown and frail and not very healthy-looking. Carefully, I sprinkled them with the watering can until the dirt around them was nice and moist. Then I refilled the can from the bucket and went back and forth over the whole garden until it was wet and brown and damp-smelling.
“Please grow,” I said. “Please.”
I heard rustling in the bushes and turned around, wiping my nose with the back of my hand and expecting to see Blake with Alpha and Beta and probably Vladimir, too, just to add to my humiliation.
But it was only Santi, standing there staring at me with big, wide eyes. I didn’t know if he understood what was happening, but after a moment he started crying, too.
* * *
■ ■ ■
THE WEATHER DIDN’T cool off that evening like it usually did. In fact, with a warm, dry wind coming in from the east, it felt like it got even hotter when the sun went down. After a quiet evening where hardly anyone talked—and nobody talked
to me—I turned on the star lantern and lay down on top of my sleeping bag because it was too hot to crawl inside. I hoped the spiders would take the night off from web building so I wouldn’t wake up inside a sticky cocoon.
The lights stayed on in Helen Wheels for a long time, so I guessed Trent and Leya were having a hard time sleeping, too. Finally, Trent came out to turn off the generator. After he did, I heard his flip-flops smacking his heels as he made his way over to me.
There was a creak of aluminum tubes and nylon webbing as he sat down in one of the ancient lawn chairs. All around us, the wind rattled the dry leaves of bushes and trees, giving me a kind of restless feeling.
“You know what you did was wrong, right?” he finally said.
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure if he could see me. I thought if I said anything I was going to start blubbering all over again. But then I surprised myself, because the feelings I had weren’t about being wrong and sorry. I was just mad.
“Well, what you did was wrong, too, Trent—taking me away from my friends and making me live in the middle of nowhere!” I said. “And all because you made bad decisions and you’re bad at business, so you can’t afford to pay the rent!”
“What are you talking about, Dagmar?” he asked.
“I saw the papers,” I told him. “When you guys were punishing me for trapping Santi, I found the folders for our bills and your business.”
I had to give him credit: he actually started to sound mad, too. “You shouldn’t have been looking there. Those papers are for me and Leya, not for kids.”
“Well, why can’t I see them?” I asked, sitting up. “If it affects the whole family, why would you keep any of it secret? Santi should know, too, even if he doesn’t understand it.”
“Because I don’t think you understand, either, Dagmar,” he said, standing up and moving over to the lantern like it was a campfire. “These are adult matters.”