Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green

by Helen Phillips

  For some reason, the calm, logical way Dad is talking about this makes the danger feel far more real. And now I am scared, scared in a whole new way, scared as I’ve never been scared.

  “I won’t help you out of there until you promise to do as I say,” Dad says.

  I don’t even stop to think, Jeez, would our own father really leave us in this pit? before the words rush out of my mouth: “Okay, okay, yes, totally, of course, we promise! We’ll be out of the country by tonight at the latest, I swear!” I even start to imagine it all: running down to the Selva Lodge, faking a mysterious headache or an intense pain where my appendix is, calling Mom to come back early from Relaxation and Dumbation, begging her to take me to our pediatrician, lots of tears and gagging, two planes and three airports later arriving home.…

  “Do you promise?” Dad says firmly to Roo and Kyle, who nod at him, wide-eyed and serious. “You all promise, one hundred percent?”

  “We promise!” I say with great emotion.

  “Don’t cry,” Dad instructs me, noticing that I’m close.

  He throws a thick vine down to us. Roo shimmies up it first, then me, then Kyle. As soon as Dad gets all of us over the edge, Roo bumps up against him for a hug. Dad gives her the world’s shortest hug before letting go.

  “Go now!” he yells under his breath. “Fast! Go! Now!”

  I want to hug Dad too. I want to say goodbye. Who knows when we’ll see him again.

  But he wants us to go. So we go. Kyle leads the way, and next comes Roo, and then me. When I turn to get one last look at Dad, he’s already disappeared. And since he’s not around to see me do it, I decide I’m allowed to cry.

  For a while we bushwhack in silence, moving as quickly as possible given all of the jungle’s hurdles. Once we’re back on Invisible Path, Kyle slows the pace and I start to catch my breath. Then he turns around to look at me and gives me the biggest, brightest smile ever. I had no idea he could smile like that. Wow.

  “Great work back there, Mad,” he says. “You did a killer job.”

  I have no idea what he’s talking about.

  “Yeah,” Roo agrees. “You were awesome. Totally convincing. You almost convinced me!”

  “Totally convincing?” I echo, confused.

  “Your dad definitely believed you,” Kyle assures me.

  “I didn’t know you could lie that well!” Roo says. She gives an impressed whistle.

  Before I can say, “Um, hello, I wasn’t lying,” Kyle steps around Roo and reaches back to grab my hand. His hand may have felt cold and wet and limp before, but now it feels warm and energetic and gives me this strong, thrilling squeeze that leaves me speechless.

  “You’re the best, Mad, you know that?” he says.

  “Yeah!” Roo pipes in. “The very, very best!”

  And for a second it almost makes me forget that I really did want to go back to Denver and leave my dad at La Lava. Almost.

  CHAPTER 13

  When we step into the concrete courtyard of the Selva Lodge, it seems absolutely amazing to me that there are normal people here in the normal world, kids splashing in the pool and adults drinking colorful drinks with miniature umbrellas. But we don’t stick around to enjoy the vacationy feeling. We scoot across the courtyard to our room, rushing to get there before anyone notices that we’re covered in jungle slime. Roo has green and black smears of mud up and down her legs and a smudge across her forehead, and Kyle and I aren’t much better.

  “Do we just call over to La Lava and ask for Mom?” I say to Roo and Kyle once I’ve locked the door behind us. No matter what those two think, I’m going to take Dad’s instructions seriously. “I know she wrote the number down somewhere.”

  Roo giggles and plunks down on her bed. Kyle stares at me.

  “Is she serious?” he asks Roo, leaning back against the wall.

  “Yeah,” Roo says.

  “We promised Dad we’d find Mom right away!” I say. “I promised we’d be out of the country by tonight!” I don’t even care if Kyle hates me; I just want to do what Dad told us to do.

  “Yeah,” Roo says, “but you were just saying that so he’d help us get out of the pit.”

  “I was not!” I protest, furious. Roo knows I’m never dishonest like that.

  “Yes you were,” Roo replies.

  “No I wasn’t,” I say, realizing with a sinking feeling that there’s no way Roo and Kyle are going to follow my lead.

  “Madeline,” Kyle says. It feels strange and somehow special to hear Kyle using my full name. “Sit down,” he orders, and, suddenly exhausted, I join Roo on the lower bunk. “Of course what your dad asked you to do makes sense. He’s worried about protecting you. But there are other lives to worry about too.”

  “Oh yeah?” I say. “Last I checked you hadn’t received any freaky threats from anyone.”

  “Not me,” Kyle says. “At least, probably not. But a species is in danger. And your dad is in danger.”

  “See?” Roo yells in my ear. “We! Have! To! Do! Something!” She raises her hands high above her head and shakes them with every word.

  Well, I’m sorry, I can’t really worry about birds—even almost-extinct birds—over my sister and my mom and myself.

  But Dad. If Dad is in danger …

  “How do you know Dad’s in danger?” I ask, though the second the words leave my mouth I realize it’s a dumb question.

  Kyle doesn’t reply and Roo rolls her eyes.

  “Okay,” I say. “Okay, so, La Lava is dangerous and Dad’s in danger. And we have no idea how long they’ll keep him or what they might do to him. Okay. So we can’t abandon him. But what can we do?”

  Roo and Kyle look at each other.

  “There is only one way to get the attention of an evil corporation,” Kyle says, and I think he’s trying to sound like a voice-over in a movie preview. “We must publicly out La Lava. We have to prove that while La Lava has been claiming to be the World’s Greenest Spa, it has in fact been hunting the World’s Rarest Bird.” Roo nods along, her eyes glowing.

  “O-kay,” I say very slowly. “And we’ll do this how?”

  “At the Gold Circle Investors’ Gala, of course!” Roo announces. The gala—man, I’ve been so distracted by everything else that I’d sort of forgotten about the gala. “We just have to capture it and bring it to the gala and prove to everyone that it’s not extinct and explain that they’ve been using its bones for their make-your-face-young creams!”

  “Thus revealing to the world that La Lava has been keeping the Bird Guy hostage for his tracking skills by threatening his family,” Kyle says, his usually calm, cool face now intense with urgency. (Wow, I think, he’s even using the word thus.) “At which point La Lava will be forced by the international community to release your father and stop hunting the birds!”

  “The international community?” I parrot, somewhat rudely, but I can’t help it—I’m nervous. I mean, sure, it all sounds great, but it also sounds impossible.

  “Yep!” Roo answers for him.

  “And we’re going to get this bird where?” I ask, annoyed by her perkiness. She acts like it’s the easiest thing in the world to locate a bird that’s practically extinct.

  “No prob,” Roo chirps.

  I really want to tell Roo to shut up, but in honor of Dad, instead I go: “So, Ruby Flynn Wade, you’re telling me you want to capture a pretty-much-impossible-to-find-bird and smuggle it into La Lava’s gala, thus”—take that, Kyle!—“saving not only ourselves and our parents but the entire species as well?”

  “That’s right!” Roo beams at me, reclining on her pillow.

  “Actually,” I inform her, “that’s impossible. And insane.”

  Kyle crouches down in front of us and puts his hand on my knee, maybe as a comforting gesture or maybe just for balance. But before he can say whatever it is he’s about to say, La Lluvia begins with its enormous whoosh and thump, as though responding to me.

  Agreeing or disagreeing? Who know
s.

  “IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE,” Kyle shouts over the racket of the rain. “HARD, YES, BUT NOT IMPOSSIBLE. TOGETHER ROO AND I CAN TRACK BETTER THAN THE BIRD GUY.”

  Okay, thanks so much, good for you, Mr. Egotistical, I think.

  Kyle reaches into his back pocket and pulls something out. A beat-up Polaroid. He holds it up in front of us.

  “OOOO!” Roo gasps loudly, and I gasp too.

  The bird gleams, shimmers, there on its vine. Bright golden feathers on its neck and chest, a glowing blue coat, a long black tail feather with a bluish glint, a short red beak. It looks like it could spread its wings and take flight straight out of the photograph. Spectacular is the word Mom would use. Or, maybe, nowadays, inspirational.

  “WHERE DID YOU GET THIS?” I yell at Kyle.

  “I TOOK IT IN JUNE,” he shouts back. “ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS FIND ONE JUST LIKE THIS. LOOK HOW CLOSE IT LET ME GET!”

  “All we have to do,” I mutter cynically under my breath, but of course no one can hear me with the sound of La Lluvia filling our ears.

  I keep staring at Kyle’s photograph. Feathers as blue as dusk, throat as golden as lava. Somehow I’d forgotten it until this very second, but now it comes rushing back up at me: ANYONE WHO TRIES TO CAPTURE THE VOLCANO BIRD WILL BE DRIVEN INSANE. Probably—maybe—just an old witch’s tale, but still I have this urge to ask Kyle, what about the curse? On top of every other problem with this whole plan, what about the curse?

  “Anyone who tries to capture the volcano bird will be driven insane,” I say out loud, though neither of them is paying attention to me, because now Roo is screeching at the top of her lungs, over the noise of La Lluvia, “LET THE MISSION BEGIN! LET THE MISSION BEGIN!”

  Then again, maybe Roo’s already insane.

  “The mission?” I repeat weakly, to myself.

  “But only if you’re trying to harm the bird. That’s the other part, the part my abuela didn’t mention,” Kyle says, coming close to my ear so he doesn’t have to scream. “Anyone who tries to capture the volcano bird will be driven insane, but only if they’re trying to harm the bird.” So he was paying attention to me! And his breath smells like the jungle!

  “Really?” I say. Surprised, and relieved, and wondering if this is why Dad didn’t actually go crazy—because he didn’t want to harm the bird, only La Lava did.

  Kyle hands me the photograph.

  “WE HAVE TO DO THIS!” Roo shrieks at me. “IT’S IN OUR BLOOD!”

  In our blood? I get an image of a flock of miniature birds flying through my veins.

  “IN OUR BLOOD?” I echo, gazing at the Lava Throat.

  And right then, before I’ve even finished saying blood, something happens inside me. Something changes, something clicks, and suddenly I’m not doubtful anymore. I don’t know exactly what’s going on, but I know it’s somehow coming from seeing the photo of the bird. I feel strong. Like Kyle. Like Roo. The strength rushes through me, pounding in my head and feet. Yes. We have our Mission. Dad always said everyone needs a mission in life. And he’s right. It’s good to know what you need to do and then to go and do it. And yes, I’ll admit it: I’ve always dreamed of being the heroine of a story like this one.

  It’s me who opens the door of our room, me who runs out into La Lluvia while Roo and Kyle hang back, watching. Doesn’t this seem like the kind of thing Roo would love to do that I’d never be wild enough to do? But here I am, letting La Lluvia wash over me. I gesture to them, try to get them to join me, and after pointing at me and laughing for a moment they do, they come join me, my two best friends in the whole wide world—yes, I’m not embarrassed to say it—and we’re all three prancing around getting blasted by the rain, feeling very clean and very hopeful, enjoying it like a ride at an amusement park, when it stops.

  Just like that.

  La Lluvia has transformed the concrete courtyard into a shallow pool, and the swimming pool itself is overflowing with water. We wade around the courtyard while the sun comes out brilliant again, making the jungle sparkle and wink.

  Then I notice lots of little rainbows popping up from the tops of the palm trees, and all these orange flowers by the gate open their petals and blossom right before our eyes. Everything looks totally magical, and I wonder why I never noticed until now how amazing the moments after La Lluvia are. Even Kyle gets this silly smile on his face. Roo skips around, splashing through the courtyard to pick one of the big orange flowers and shove it behind her ear.

  “Oh pretty!” Roo yells. Then, “¡Hola, señora!” she cries across the courtyard, and I turn to see the witch standing in the kitchen doorway, staring at us from behind her black lace veil. I’m so filled with excitement that the veil doesn’t even creep me out right now. “Es muy bonito después de La Lluvia, ¿verdad?” Roo calls to Señora V, and I’m going, Seriously, where the heck did she learn all that Spanish?

  I look over at Kyle to ask him what Roo said and when he taught her that and why he didn’t teach me, but he’s standing there looking at me and I forget what I was going to say.

  “You believe we can do this,” he says. I’m not sure whether it’s a question or a statement.

  “I do,” I say, believing it completely at this particular radiant moment, the image of the Lava Throat still vivid in my mind. And then I get this funny little feeling, remembering that I do is exactly what people say at weddings.

  By the time I look back over to where Roo is prancing around in front of the witch, the orange flower already looks wilty, like a dirty dishrag flopping over her head.

  That night at dinner, Mom tells us that Kyle and Señor and Señora Villalobos will be sharing our table at the Gold Circle Investors’ Gala on Saturday. Patricia Chevalier asked Mom where we’d like to be seated and Mom thought it would be more fun to be with people we know, even though otherwise we might have lucked out and been seated with actual famous people. I shoot Roo an Oh-My-Gosh-Are-We-Really-Going-to-Try-to-Mess-Up-the-Gold-Circle-Investors’-Gala glance but she’s so good at keeping secrets that she doesn’t react at all, not even to sneak a look back at me.

  “Oh yay!” Roo says. “Everyone together! I can’t wait to have a fancy dinner with Dad plus all of us!”

  “Daddy,” Mom says with a gigantic smile, “will not be sitting with us. He has other obligations at the gala.”

  “What?” Roo pouts. “That’s dumb.”

  Mom just shrugs gently. And I have to say I’m pretty freaked out by that gigantic smile on her face. It’s a huge, blank smile. A Yoga Smile. Her eyes seem focused inward, like she’s radiating all that empty bliss outward with her mouth but not with her mind. Plus: It’s weird to hear her refer to Dad as Daddy. She never does that. She’ll say Dad, or your father, or James, or Jimbo, or my beloved birdbrain. But never Daddy, which is too babyish, she always said. And why does she have to smile like that when delivering the bummer news that we don’t get to sit with Dad? A cold, clamping sensation seizes my stomach. Am I just paranoid from all the crazy stuff that’s been going on lately, or is Mom truly under some kind of yoga enchantment that’s totally draining her brain?

  Anyway, I do a little experiment: I inform Mom that Roo and I are going back into the jungle before dawn tomorrow because we had such a great time watching the sunrise with Kyle this morning. If Mom were her normal self, she’d ask a bunch of questions about that—what was it like, and what animals did we see, and do we really have to wake up before dawn again, and aren’t we tired. But instead, she just nods and says, “Lovely, lovely.”

  Surprisingly enough, it’s Ken/Neth who distracts me from Mom’s freakiness, by asking how our Spanish is coming and clapping when Roo, and then even I, say a few little things in Spanish. The truth is: Ken/Neth is nice. I never said Ken/Neth wasn’t nice! Maybe he’s an amazing actor and it’s a big show he’s putting on. I try once again to be scared of him, really I do. I try to imagine that he’s dangerous. I remind myself that he could very well be a spy from La Lava. I make an effort to feel creeped out by hi
s stupid, innocent-seeming jokes. But it’s just so obvious to me that he’s a genuine goofball who doesn’t know anything about anything. And frankly, right now it’s kind of comforting to have an adult around who’s actually paying attention to us and asking us questions and at least trying to make us laugh, while Mom on the other hand just keeps making occasional meaningless comments about Relaxation and Dumbation, saying things like, “I did Downward Dog for five minutes today—do you understand how hard that is?” And inside I’m going, No, I have no idea how hard that is, nor do I ever want to know.

  As we’re strolling across the concrete courtyard back to our rooms after dinner, the night all velvety except for the fluorescent-pink SELV L DGE sign, Ken/Neth stops us.

  “Ruby. Madeline. Sylvia,” he says, turning to face us.

  “Yeah?” Roo says.

  “I just want you to know that you are three of the strongest, most amazing women I’ve ever come across.” He says it in this super-sincere, intense way. “You’ve been through so much this year, and you are all so … strong and amazing. You amaze me.”

  “Thanks,” we all sort of whisper. I feel myself blushing in the darkness, and at the same time I wonder why he can’t seem to think of any words besides strong and amazing.

  Then he starts walking again and we start walking again.

  “Sorry if that was weird,” he says, more to Mom than to us, “but I really mean it. You guys are just amazing.”

  “Thanks,” Mom says, “for those uplifting words, Ken. We appreciate it.”

  He did mean it, I know he did, and you know what? He’s totally right. It’s about time someone came out and said that to us.

  “What’s that?” Mom says a little later, when she comes to tuck in Roo.

  “Nothing,” Roo says, shoving the glowing golden feather under her pillow. She’s been lying on her bunk, holding the feather up to the light and squinting at it in preparation for The Big Search tomorrow.

  “Seriously, what is it?” Mom says. She walks over and reaches under the pillow.

  “No, no, no!” Roo practically screeches. But the feather is already in Mom’s hand.