The Most Perfect Thing in the Universe

by Tricia Springstubb

  “It was my idea to go, PopPop. And my idea to come back. Her mother—”

  “Get in the house and tell your mother you’re sorry.” Mr. Smith set his face inches from Loah’s. “Off. My. Property. Now.”

  Somehow Ellis squeezed back between the two of them. Her face wore its man-eating scowl, and at last, to her astonishment, Loah realized where Ellis had learned it. Her face was a mirror of her grandfather’s.

  “You’re always telling us the number one rule is think for ourselves—well, I am. I don’t care how you punish me later, but you have to listen to me now.” Ellis grabbed his big hand with both of hers. “Loah’s mother is in serious trouble. We need to get to the university and find help.”

  “University?” He laughed. Not a nice laugh. “People with their fat heads up their fat butts. I needed help, last place I’d go was—”

  “She’s on an expedition to save an endangered bird.” Loah found her voice at last. Aquaman was nibbling her shorts, and she rested a hand on his head to steady herself. “My mother is.”

  Mr. Smith continued to scowl, but it became a scowl of confusion. He was used to being in charge. He was like Miss Rinker, if Miss Rinker had biceps and talon toenails.

  “Bird?” He shoved his hands in his pockets. “What kind of bird?”

  “The loah bird.”

  “Never heard of it.”

  “She loves all kinds of birds.” Loah pointed at the nearest birdhouse. “She would love these communal martin houses. Purple martins are such skilled fliers they can eat, drink, and even bathe on the wing. But pesticides are a serious threat. Their population is declining.”

  A purple martin poked its sleek head out of the house, chirped once, and hid back inside.

  “I made all those birdhouses,” said Mr. Smith.

  “They’re really nice.” Loah nodded. “Thank you for helping protect the environment.”

  “You’re welcome. Now, like I said.” He pointed at the driveway. “And don’t come back.”

  “PopPop, her mother had an accident,” said Ellis. “In the Arctic.”

  “Ha! Right! Now I’m the Queen of England.”

  “It’s true, PopPop!”

  “Daddy.” A voice from inside made them all turn. Behind the front window, Loah glimpsed a face pale and narrow as Ellis’s. “Daddy, could you come here? I want to speak to you.”

  “In a minute.”

  “No. Now.”

  Mr. Smith rocked forward, flattening his feet on the ground. His scowl turned sulky. (Who knew scowls came in so many varieties?) He stomped up the wooden wheelchair ramp. Whoever had built it had done a good job, because it held firm and steady beneath his massive, stomping self.

  “Is that your mother?” whispered Loah.

  “Uh-huh. I still can’t believe Zeke covered for me. I guess he knew I’d be safe with you.”

  Ellis slid her eyes toward the house, where her grandfather had left the front door standing open. Inside, Ellis’s mother’s voice rose.

  “Squirrel says she’s her friend. That means we help her.”

  “She’s no—” tried PopPop.

  “Besides, it’s that child’s mama. I don’t care who she is or what she did, her mama’s in trouble.” When PopPop didn’t answer, she said, “Daddy. Why are you still standing there? Get going!”

  Mr. Smith appeared in the doorway. Filled the doorway, was more accurate. Overflowed it. He came back down the ramp, pulling a bandanna from his pocket and wiping his brow.

  “You got dirt on your face,” he said, holding it out to Loah.

  Loah wiped her face and handed it back. “Thank you,” she said.

  He stuffed it back in his pocket and hurled a look at the house.

  “The university.” He spat on the ground, then trundled toward the truck.

  “He’s going to take us! He always does what Mama tells him to!” Ellis hugged Loah. “I’ll be right back—I need to tell her thank you.”

  Ellis vaulted onto the porch and into the house. Through the window, Loah watched her bend over her mother. So much love shone in her face, Loah’s eyes filled with tears. When her mother reached up to pull Ellis close, Loah felt a deep, deep ache for someone to hug her, hug her hard and close. But there was nobody to do that, so she threw her arms around Aquaman, who butted her and bounded away.

  The pickup gave a roar. Evil-looking exhaust shot out the rear.

  “You coming?” hollered Mr. Smith.

  The truck’s floor had a rusted-out hole wide enough to swallow a baby. Loah hunted for a seat belt. In vain. As Bully scrabbled into the rear seat, Ellis came running, but when she tried to climb in, Mr. Smith reached over Loah and slammed the door shut.

  “Step away from the vehicle.”

  “PopPop! Please!”

  “You heard me.” He shifted gears, and the truck lurched forward.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Mr. Smith was so big, his head grazed the truck ceiling. He looked at Loah only once, a look that made her shrink against the door. She dug her fingers into a slit in the seat cushion as the truck shimmied and shook over the hill and onto the road.

  The phrase speed limit wasn’t part of Mr. Smith’s vocabulary. When Loah looked down, she was horrified to see the road spinning just beneath her feet. She jerked her chin up in time to watch a woodchuck waddle into the road. She clapped her hands over her eyes and heard Mr. Smith swear as the truck swerved.

  Bully rested his head on her shoulder and breathed swampy dog-breath on her cheek. The truck jolted and jounced, and she could feel her vital organs being shaken loose. She wasn’t at all sure they were headed the right direction but was too afraid to speak.

  “My daughter loves birds,” Mr. Smith said, startling her. “Since she had the accident, she spends a lot of time watching them.”

  “I… I know. Ell… Little Squirrel told me.”

  “What else she tell you?”

  “Oh. Umm. Not too much.”

  Mr. Smith nodded as if that was the right answer.

  The sign for the university miraculously appeared. Mr. Smith asked what building it was and pulled into the nearest parking lot. Loah jumped out.

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. I really appreciate it.” She wanted to ask him to tell Ellis she’d come by as soon as she could, but that would be pushing her luck. She shut the truck door and, with a small wave, started across the parking lot. Who knew how she’d get back? She couldn’t worry about that now.

  The campus had the feel of an abandoned city. The walkways were deserted. Faded flyers fluttered in the breeze. Through the windows she could see empty desks and blank whiteboards. From the distance came the faint sound of cheering: You can do it, You can do it, You can do it, Yay! Loah wondered if she was hallucinating. By now it seemed entirely possible.

  Mama’s building had bulletin boards with notices for fellowships and trips to exotic places Loah would never dream of going. The hall was lined with specimen cases displaying the bleached skeletons of birds and mammals. Loah’s shoes squeaked on the linoleum floor. A workman stood on a ladder, installing a new light, but otherwise the building appeared empty. Riding with Mr. Smith had been so distracting, Loah’s panic about her mother had quieted down, but now it surged back. What if she couldn’t find anyone to help? She didn’t have a Plan B.

  The door to the Department of Mammalogy and Ornithology stood open. Across the empty reception area, through the door to an inner office, she spied Dr. Whitaker at a desk as messy as Dr. Londonderry’s. Possibly messier. He was a handsome, dark-skinned man with a clean-shaven head and round glasses. When she stood in his doorway, he pushed those glasses up his nose with one finger, then folded his hands atop a teetering stack of papers.

  “Good afternoon. Are you here to enroll?”

  Though Loah had met him once or twice, she could tell he didn’t remember her. (Not many people did.) He smiled pleasantly, if a little impatiently. The wall behind him was covered with framed certificates and photo
s of beautiful birds.

  “I’m afraid you’ll need to come back in a few years,” he said.

  “That’s not why I’m here.”

  “That was supposed to be a joke. Are you looking for the cheerleading camp? It’s in the fitness center, I think. Now you need to excuse me. This is my first day at my desk after being out of the country, and I have a lot to do.”

  He turned back to his work. Loah was dismissed.

  “Actually…,” she said. He didn’t look up, but she blundered on. “I’m here about Dr. Anastasia Londonderry.”

  “Ana? Not here, I’m afraid.”

  “I know.” Loah began to feel a little dizzy. “That’s what I want to tell you. Unless you already know. But I’m guessing you don’t, since you’ve been away and since she didn’t exactly want you to know what she was doing.”

  Dr. Whitaker possessed what people call presence. Never for a minute did you doubt who was in command of the conversation. When he looked up now, Loah had to steady herself against the doorframe.

  “Who—? Hold on.” He peered over the top of his glasses. “You’re her daughter, aren’t you?” When Loah nodded, he gestured at the chairs in front of the desk. “Sit down. You look like you need to sit down.”

  Loah slid into a chair so deep, her feet didn’t touch the floor. Dr. Whitaker steepled his hands.

  “Remind me of your name, please.” His look was the kind that can make a person forget her own name. She gripped the arms of the chair.

  “Loah.”

  “Loah. Yes. Of course.” He smiled, leaning forward. “And you’re here without your mother because…?”

  “Because she’s still in the field.”

  Dr. Whitaker cupped his ear as if certain he’d heard wrong. His glasses slid back down his nose.

  “She was due back over a week ago.”

  “I know. She’s been gone sixty-eight days now.”

  He sat back. He blinked as if he still didn’t comprehend, then began to tap on his laptop.

  “I’ve received notes from the team, but I haven’t had the chance yet to read them. Let me understand this. You’re saying Dr. Londonderry continued the expedition without authorization?”

  Did he have to make it sound so terrible?

  “She’s still there.”

  “There? Where is there?”

  How did her mother have the courage to argue with him? Somehow, Loah managed to recite the GPS coordinates she’d memorized.

  “That’s the last place I know she was for sure. She’s moved closer to the western coast since then. She heard a loah bird and so of course she—”

  “She’s gone rogue.” He threw up his hands, sending a snowdrift of papers onto the floor. “Of all the pig-headed, unprofessional—”

  “Dr. Whitaker, my mother is in trouble!”

  He stood, got a cup of water from the cooler in the outer office, handed it to her, and sat back down.

  “Tell me everything from the very beginning,” he said.

  The last thing Loah wanted to do was to recite the whole story all over again, but Dr. Whitaker was the sort of person who demanded an orderly, logical sequence. Usually, Loah was that sort of person, too, but now she wanted action. Still, she obediently drank some water, set the cup down, and did her best, beginning with the first call from her mother up until the one she’d received a few hours before. Dr. Whitaker pushed at his glasses. Shouldn’t a man so important own glasses that fit? He squinted as if Loah were a rare species he was having trouble identifying. When she was finished, he leaned forward again, sending more papers sliding off the desk. Something about that desk gave Loah hope. For all their differences, her mother and Dr. Whitaker were both messy. Maybe they had more in common than she thought.

  “Loah.” Dr. Whitaker chose his next words carefully. “Loah Londonderry, your mother is a fine scientist. One of the best I’ve ever known. We definitely have our differences, but I respect and admire her. She is passionate. Most of us begin our careers brimming with passion, but the work can take it out of you. We’re up against great odds these days. Some of us are running low on hope for the planet, but not Ana.”

  Loah’s own hopes rose higher yet. Dr. Whitaker’s gaze was intense as high-powered binoculars, but she did her best to look straight back.

  “Furthermore…” His glasses were in danger of slipping off his nose, yet he didn’t seem to notice. “She knows the ins and outs of the tundra as well as anyone possibly can.”

  It was all true. Under Dr. Whitaker’s steely stare, Loah began to crumple. What if she was making a huge mistake? What if her mother had been in trouble but already gotten out of it, the way she always did? And if she really was in serious trouble, why would she call Loah? Why wouldn’t she have called an expert, a team member, someone who’d know exactly what to do and how to do it, instead of Loah, who was as powerless as a small, wheezy, possibly extinct bird?

  “I’m going to call her myself,” Dr. Whitaker said.

  Loah listened as her mother’s phone rang once, then went dead.

  Dr. Whitaker stared at the ceiling for a long moment, then once again tapped the keys of his laptop. Behind his glasses, his eyes grew troubled.

  “I don’t like these weather reports.” He sat back. “All right, Loah. Now you’ve got me worried, too.” He pressed his palms together and touched his fingertips to his nose.

  Moments passed. Loah stared at the photos on the wall behind him. They showed beautiful, brilliantly colored birds, the kinds of birds that inspire people to write poetry and songs, not humble ones like the loah. At last Dr. Whitaker spoke.

  “You need to understand, initiating a search mission in the Arctic is highly expensive and possibly dangerous. It’s the absolute last thing your mother would want us to undertake on her account, unless it was absolutely necessary. It’d be irresponsible of me to set this in motion unless I’m one hundred percent sure of what you’re telling me.” His voice softened. “Loah, I know how worried you are. But I want you to think a moment longer.”

  Think. Loah tried. One of the photos showed a clutch of speckled eggs. They were tucked into a nest woven of grasses and moss. The egg—it was so sturdy and so fragile at the same time. The perfect construction, Loah heard her mother say. She felt her mother’s finger stroke her curls as she added, And it’s made to be broken.

  Were those speckled eggs about to hatch? Had the chicks inside grown so big their egg teeth touched the shell? Did they understand they no longer fit in their small, familiar world and the time had come to crack it open?

  She stood up so quickly, she sent more papers flying off the desk.

  “I’m sure. You have to look for her. Right away. Please.”

  He held her eyes another moment, then waved at the outer office. “Have a seat there.”

  Loah didn’t move. “You’ll search for her?”

  “If it’s warranted, we—”

  “You’ll do everything possible?”

  “Yes, Loah.”

  “You’ll make sure they keep looking till they find her? They can find her, can’t they?”

  Dr. Whitaker stood up. “You’re her daughter all right,” he said, and it almost sounded like a compliment. He ushered her to his door. “Go have a seat.”

  In the outer office, Loah bit the insides of her cheeks. She tugged on her earlobes. She clasped and unclasped her hands. She strained to hear his deep voice, the rapid clicks of his keyboard. Dr. Anastasia Londonderry had registered her trip with the search-and-rescue team in Talaallit, she heard. They reported that she had not activated her personal locator beacon.

  “It’s possible she couldn’t,” Loah heard him say.

  The window was open. From the distance came the cheers of the cheerleading camp, and there, just outside the window, the echoing cheer cheer of a northern cardinal. Somewhere a dog began to bark.

  And bark. And bark.

  Dr. Whitaker came out of his office. His glasses were on top of his head. In spite of everyt
hing her mother had said about him, and everything he had said about her mother, Loah trusted him.

  “Things are under way,” he said.

  He didn’t say, Don’t worry or Everything will be fine. Which made her trust him even more.

  “Thank you,” she said.

  “Question: What are you doing here by yourself? Who’s taking care of you?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  Mr. Smith loomed in the doorway. He was as sweaty as if he’d crossed a vast desert or plain and wasn’t sure where he’d ended up. I am in unexplored territory, said his scowl.

  “You find her mama yet?”

  Dr. Whitaker cleared his throat. He resettled his glasses on his nose.

  “Dr. Whitaker, this is Mr. Smith,” said Loah. “Mr. Smith, this is Dr. Whitaker.”

  Dr. Whitaker held out his hand, which Mr. Smith ignored. “You find her?” he repeated.

  “We’re working on it.” Dr. Whitaker said. “The tundra is vast and not exactly hospitable to humans.” Dr. Whitaker’s phone began to ring, and he retreated to his office.

  Mr. Smith pulled out his bandanna and mopped his brow. Here in the office, Loah was aware of his sharp, not to say stinky, odor.

  “Loah,” called Dr. Whitaker. “Could you come here?” When she stepped inside his office, he closed the door, looking concerned. “Who is this fellow? He doesn’t exactly seem like… If you’re even the slightest bit afraid of him, tell me right now.”

  “He’s my best friend’s grandfather.”

  “He’s trustworthy? I don’t need to worry about him? You’re sure?”

  Loah (still) never lied unless she had to. She hesitated. Mr. Smith could have driven off and left her here—in fact, she’d been sure he would. Instead, he’d waited for her. Not only that, he’d come to make sure that she was all right and that these useless, fat-headed university people were helping her find her mother.

  “I’m sure,” she told Dr. Whitaker for the second time.

  Dr. Whitaker waited another beat, then nodded. “I’m coming to trust your judgment.” He exhaled. “Will he drive you home?”