by P. D. Kalnay
“That was wonderful too, Jack! Thank you.”
“No problem.” It wasn’t as if I’d made the movies myself.
“We’d better go to dinner now,” Ivy said.
She gave the laptop a regretful glance before leaving. A fairly impressive rendition of Do You Want to Build a Snowman? moved off down the third floor hallway.
***
In the middle of a morning practice I remembered something Mr. Ryan had said during our first exploration of Gran’s basement.
“Did you ever check out the pool again?” I asked.
“Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. I spoke to your grandmother, and I spent one of the rainy afternoons last week messing around in there.”
Mr. Ryan snapped a lighting fast kick at my leg. I barely blocked it, dancing back. He went easy on me, but it still stung. There’d be a bruise later.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“The good news is the motors and pumps and everything are still functional. I put in enough water to test them and looked over the wiring.”
“Are you an electrician too?”
“No, but I understand basic electricity and wiring. I’ve had to learn about electronics for work over the years. A couple of gaskets were rotten and leaky, but there were spares on a shelf, all brand new in the packages, and I replaced them. The whole thing is old, but it still works.”
“What did Gran say?”
“It’s like the gym. She doesn’t care one way or the other. The pool never got used (or by the looks of it) cleaned, and sometime forty years back it got mothballed.”
“So is it usable or not?”
Mr. Ryan stepped back and bowed. That meant we were taking a break. It was too early for us to be finished for the morning. I reflexively bowed back.
“It is and it isn’t,” he said. “You could use it now, but I wouldn’t. Easiest to show you.”
Mr. Ryan led the way across the hallway to the pool room. The first big changes were the lights. Before, only a couple of bulbs had worked. Mr. Ryan had replaced the burnt-out bulbs, and the pool room was almost as bright as the gymnasium. The additional illumination wasn’t flattering. I read in a book that some women looked better by candlelight; Gran’s pool room was like that. In the harsh glow of the incandescent bulbs the place was disgusting. The little tiles were so filthy you couldn’t tell what colour half of them were and mold (or something) grew everywhere. The pool was the worst part. A couple of inches of water now sat at the bottom, presumably left over from Mr. Ryan’s testing of the system. I assumed it was water, but the liquid in the pool was black. If Mr. Ryan had told me it was used motor oil—I’d have believed him. The scum growing in the pool didn’t appear bothered by the dirty water, and a new ring of green/grey ran all the way around the sides, just above the water line.
“I enjoy swimming,” Mr. Ryan said. “And I’ve never been one to shy away from hard work, but I don’t like to swim this much. Your grandmother said you’d have to clean it yourself if you want to use it. Apparently, Ms. Mopat won’t even come in here… not that you can blame her.”
I couldn’t imagine how long cleaning that pool and the rest of the room would take. Having a pool in your house is super cool, but this was more like having a toxic waste dump in your house.
“I’m already pretty busy with our practices and Ivy and everything.”
“Yeah, I figured.” Mr. Ryan headed back into the hallway. “If you change your mind later, make sure you wear a mask and rubber gloves.”
I closed the door behind me, unsure if I would ever open it again.
***
I asked Ivy to come watch a movie in my room after evening practice. She accepted my invitation with none of the reluctance she’d shown before. Part of me wanted to believe she was coming to like and trust me, but most of me suspected she just wanted to see more movies. The end result was the same, so I didn’t worry about which it was. Gran’s big black cat was curled up in my lap, purring and nuzzling me when Ivy came in. Ivy looked at the cat, then up at my face, and then back down at the cat again.
“What do you think you’re playing at?” Ivy asked.
She looked angry, and I had no idea what I’d done. I replayed the day in my mind, struggling to come up with an offence worthy of Ivy’s anger. Then she stormed across the room. Only when she grabbed the cat by the scruff of its neck—and yanked it out of my lap—did I realise she wasn’t talking to me at all. Ivy held the cat up in front of her. She was none too gentle with it.
“You don’t belong in here,” she said.
Ivy said it as though she thought the cat understood English. She carried it to the doorway, and then to my utter amazement, she flung the cat down the hallway. For the first time I heard Gran’s silent cat make a sound. That sound was it hitting hardwood ten feet down the hall, before tearing away. Ivy turned back to me.
“You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said. “Consorting with such a creature.”
Consorting?
“With a cat?”
Sometimes, I forgot Ivy was nuts. Then she’d remind me again. I was more shocked than anything.
“A cat?” Ivy looked startled, followed by embarrassed, which was followed by… something else.
“You do know what cats are, don’t you?” I asked. Maybe cats were like computers.
Ivy hesitated before answering. She looked unsure of herself.
“That is a… naughty cat,” she finally said. “How long have you been doing… what you were doing with it?”
Did I now regret my movie invitation? Oh yeah.
“If you mean petting it,” I said slowly. “Since I got here. That’s what you do with pets.”
“And that’s all?”
This, from a girl who’d thrown a cat down the hall?
“Sometimes it sleeps with me.” I shrugged.
Ivy’s eyes went wide.
“You sleep with that thing?”
“It sleeps on my bed sometimes. What’s the big deal? Have you got allergies or something?”
Ivy stared at me for a good minute—the same way I stared at jigsaw puzzles and complex models. Then I saw her anger slip away.
“I’m sorry for yelling at you, Jack.” She looked somewhat apologetic.
“What about for throwing Gran’s cat?”
“That’s between the cat and me.”
She said it like she planned to make the cat an offer it couldn’t refuse—like a pint-sized feline godfather. Wow, she’s crazy, I thought. And not for the first time. With Ivy I’d found it was best to ignore the crazy, and when possible, change the topic.
“So do you want to watch a movie?” I asked.
“Yes, please.” Ivy sat and looked at the laptop expectantly.
The rest of the evening went smoothly, but Gran’s cat never visited my room again.
Chapter 11 – Bows and Arrows
Gran’s vegetable garden thrived. I was continually amazed by the rapid growth. Ivy showed me how to thin the good plants and cut them back to encourage fewer, but larger fruits and vegetables. Even so, the garden only required a couple days attention each week and most of our afternoons were spent on computer ‘lessons’. What my parents lacked in love and affection, they’d made up for with material crap. I’d been getting substantial allowances from both for years. Not needing much of anything, and never having friends to go places with, my bank account was sizable for a boy my age. I didn’t know how many other kids got their allowance by direct deposit. I guessed not many.
I ordered a sixty-inch flat panel TV/monitor and a surround-sound system online to allow us to watch movies in style. Showing Ivy TV and movies was like taking an alien on a tour of Earth. I’d be staying at Gran’s for all of high school. I thought it made sense to make improvements. Mr. Ryan helped me borrow two overstuffed chairs from other empty bedrooms on the third floor, and I set up a modest theatre in my bedroom. All that was missing was a concession stand.
I hadn’t told Ivy about th
e modifications, and the next time she came for a lesson her eyes were as big as saucers. She examined the new equipment, settled herself into one chair, and stared up at the screen.
“Is that a computer too?” she asked.
“No, just a second screen attached to the laptop. It has a small computer of its own inside that lets you surf the internet and stream stuff, but that’s all it can do.”
“And these boxes?” She pointed to the speakers.
“They produce better sound than the speakers on the laptop. This will give you something closer to a proper movie theatre experience.”
“Did you get this for me?”
“For both of us. Watching on the laptop is crappy.”
“It’s been wonderful!” Ivy said.
At first, I was taken aback by her intensity. Then I couldn’t help laughing.
“Why don’t you give this a try and see what you think?” I said.
“What are we going to watch?”
“The Fellowship of the Ring movie. It seemed wrong to show you on the laptop.”
“What’s that?” Ivy asked, pointing at the other new addition to my room.
I’d had pieces of my model airplane out on my desk before, but that was the first time she’d seen the whole thing together. She inspected my plane carefully from props to tail.
“Is this a mechanical bird?” she asked.
Really, airplanes too? I thought. She must have driven to Gran’s house.
“It’s a model airplane,” I said. “I’m ready to try flying it.”
Ivy was fascinated by the paper and balsa WWII bomber I’d built. It was the only project I’d brought with me to Glastonbury Manor. I’d barely started the model when I found out about the move, and the pieces had packed easily enough. The finished plane had a four foot wingspan, all the flight controls worked, and I’d painted it to look like the real thing. My plane was pretty awesome looking. One thing Gran’s house had in spades was level lawn. I had my pick of one-tenth-scale landing strips.
“How long did this take you to build?” Ivy asked.
“Since I got here, plus a few more weeks. I’d already bought all the parts and supplies. Most people buy the pre-built ones these days. You basically just have to snap on the wings and you’re ready to fly.”
“Why did you build this then? It looked very complicated.”
Maybe she had noticed the plane, in progress.
“No fun in that,” I said. “I was more interested in building it than flying it.”
“But you do intend to fly it?”
“I won’t know if I built it right otherwise.”
Ivy gave me a funny look, but it made perfect sense to me.
I booted up the laptop and inserted a Blu-ray disc from my small collection. From the first preview to the closing credits, Ivy was glued to the screen. Mostly, I watched Ivy as she immersed herself in the story and moved from one emotion to another. She enjoyed that movie more than I’d ever enjoyed anything. She gradually moved forward until she sat on the edge of her seat. Not just an expression, I thought. When I flipped the lights back on, Ivy grinned from ear to ear.
“That was amazing,” she said. “You were right, it’s much better this way!”
Her smile slipped.
“What?” I asked.
“It was a strange ending. Don’t you wish to know if the quest will succeed?”
Classic Ivy. I laughed.
“What did I say to make you laugh?” She looked less happy.
“It’s a trilogy,” I said. “That was the first of three parts, not the ending.”
“Do you have the other parts?”
I was relieved I did; Ivy looked like she might kill the guy who told her no.
“I do,” I said, “and the Hobbit movies too. They aren’t as good.”
“Put in the second part!”
“We don’t have time. It’s only thirty minutes till dinner.”
“It can’t be. We always watch two movies.”
“That was almost four hours long.”
Ivy checked my clock radio.
“It felt shorter,” she said. “I suppose, I should go back to my room until dinner.”
“You can stay and talk… if you want to,” I said.
“What would we talk about?”
Ivy looked ready to make a run for it.
“How about the movie? Who’s your favourite character?”
“Legolas,” Ivy said without hesitation. She sat back in her chair.
They all like Orlando, I thought. How predictable.
“Yeah, he’s good looking, I guess.”
“That’s not why I like him. You can be incredibly stupid sometimes, Jack.”
She didn’t say it with any of the meanness the summer had started with, and I let it slide. She had added the sometimes.
“Why do you like him then?”
“He’s an amazing archer. I’ve never seen such speed or skill.”
“You know it’s not real, right?”
“I understand he’s an actor, but his skill with a bow is unprecedented.”
“I’m pretty sure Orlando Bloom, the guy who played Legolas, is no Robin Hood in real life.”
“Who’s Robin Hood?”
“A famous outlaw hero and a legendary archer. He’s fictional too.”
Like an alien from another planet. I was tempted to check her room for the pod she’d hatched from.
“Do you have his movies?”
“I’m sure I can find them. You really like archery, don’t you?”
“Of course. All of my… family are great archers. We’re known for it.”
You don’t hear people say that very often. I should tell you that although we were getting along, polite Ivy was in no way less weird than rude Ivy had been.
“There’s old archery equipment in the storage room off of the gym,” I said.
“Truly?” Excited Ivy was back.
“Yeah, a few old bows and a bunch of arrows. Many of the arrows are damaged, and probably junk, but there are lots. I’m sure some of them are usable.”
I hadn’t been tempted to take out the archery equipment myself. A few weeks at a summer camp had taught me that archery wasn’t something I had an aptitude for. Ivy looked more excited with every word, and seeing her happy made me happy.
“Why don’t we go down before dinner to take a proper look?”
And that’s what we did.
Ivy insisted I pull out all the equipment and lay it on the gymnasium floor for her to inspect. She was so excited that I did it without complaint. The storage room contained two wooden longbows (that looked quite old) and a slightly more modern looking fibreglass recurve. There were also almost two hundred arrows fletched and crested in a wide range of colours. Ivy sorted them into two piles. The good pile was significantly smaller than the bad, but it still had over fifty arrows in it. Ivy grinned up from the pile like she’d discovered treasure. Then she inspected the bows.
“This one is sound,” she said setting down one of the longbows. “This one is cracked and will break on the first draw.”
Ivy set the second longbow on the pile of broken arrows. She picked up the shorter recurve and tapped along its length with one finger. Then she sniffed it. I didn’t know what she hoped to smell.
“What type of wood is this?” she asked.
“It’s fibreglass,” I said. “Not wood.”
Her expression told me that fibreglass was another thing that hadn’t made it to her home world. I have an endless fascination with how things are made, and I knew about fibreglass.
“It’s long strands of spun glass glued together. It’s easier to mass-produce bows like that, and they’re more durable.”
“Interesting,” Ivy said. “I’d like to try it. There are no strings. I’ll ask the mistress of the house if she has sinew or flax I can use to make new ones.”
Sinew?
“I can order you bowstrings online,” I said. “Or if you want to m
ake them, I’m sure I can get you the raw materials. I think there’s special string for bows.”
“I’d like to make them myself. Please order me the special string, and if possible, beeswax.”
“OK, we’d better go up to dinner before we get in trouble with Gran.”
***
After some Googling, later that night, followed by a half hour on eBay, and I had a roll of Dacron bowstring and a small block of beeswax ordered. I paid extra for fast delivery since Ivy was excited to get started. At dinner she’d talked more than at any meal to date. Mr. Ryan (unsurprisingly) knew a lot about archery, and Gran said there was an old target in the carriage house. She voluntold me to find it and set it up for Ivy out back, but I didn’t make a fuss; I’d have done it anyway.
Overnight shipping brought the bowstring-making supplies the next day. Ivy was remarkably grateful, like Christmas had come early. I suspected few girls would get so excited over string and beeswax. The target stood behind the cars in the carriage house. It was the round woven kind on a tripod. Picture every Robin Hood movie, and you get the idea. A cardboard tube full of gold, blue, and red paper targets sat on a shelf above it. Half of them had survived the mice. Like most of Gran’s house, the target was old and dusty, but serviceable. I dragged it to the back of the yard and faced it away from the forest. Since the night of the eyes, it was hard not to imagine being watched from the darkness under the trees. The forest around Gran’s yard is so thick you can only see in for a few feet in most places. Even if I’d had the time (which I didn’t) exploring had less appeal than before.
The following morning was sunny and beautiful. I was excited because the promised sparring with Mr. Ryan was set to begin. He showed me how to put on the kendo armour, and we went out back armed with the bamboo swords. He said it was too fine a day to be inside. I couldn’t have agreed more. After our usual warm up, we got right to the sparring. Mr. Ryan put no stock in unnecessary formality. He believed in what worked. We squared off for the first time under the bright morning sunshine with birdsong in our ears. It was glorious… for three seconds. Then I saw the blue sky through the grill of my helmet.