Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green

by Helen Phillips

“Gosh, she sure is a firecracker, isn’t she?” Ken/Neth says as Roo cannonballs into the pool, scaring all the other kids.

  At least I can agree with him there—within five minutes, Roo has every kid in the pool involved in a huge round of Vol-Cano, a game she’s made up that’s exactly like Marco Polo except that instead of saying Marco Polo you say Vol-Cano. It’s easy to play no matter what language you speak. All I see of her now is a flash of wet arm or leg here and there as she somersaults and doggy paddles across the pool with her seven-minute best friends. The kids bounce around, screaming and laughing, Roo screaming and laughing the loudest. Everyone looks like they’re having such a great time that I decide to jump in and join the game, even though I’m way too old for this kind of thing. The water feels nicely cool and it’s fun to be weightless and to not be worrying about anything except Vol-Cano. I’m screaming and laughing just like the little kids when I happen to glance at the fence and see Kyle standing there staring at me in this very serious, calm, adult way, mouthing my name and gesturing for me to come over, and my heart does a jumping jack. Man, why did he have to catch me acting like a baby?

  I climb out of the pool, straighten my spine—thank goodness I’m wearing the new two-piece—and walk toward Kyle with beautiful adult posture, preparing to say something like, Whew, it’s so tiring to keep little kids entertained, you know? But when I get closer I realize Kyle couldn’t care less about my posture and my two-piece, about the pool and whatever it is I’m doing in it. He’s got something else on his mind, his eyes glistening strangely, looking over and through me but not at me. And you know what I realize right at that instant? Kyle thinks of me as a sidekick, nothing less but also nothing more, and my heart does this painful little twist inside me.

  “What’s up?” I say, trying and failing to sound casual.

  Before he can reply, Roo paddles over and pushes a huge spray of water onto me and Kyle. It’s amazing that such a small person can create such a big splash.

  “¿Dónde está mi pájaro?” Roo demands, lifting herself out of the pool on her strong, skinny arms and scurrying up to us, dripping water everywhere. Her little friends immediately start to look lost and bored without her. “Did you leave her alone?” She sounds outraged.

  “No te preocupes,” Kyle says, wiping pool water off his forehead. “Está con mi abuela.”

  Oh my gosh. I understood that! I understood that whole thing! It just somehow clicked in my brain. Roo said “Where’s my bird?” and Kyle said “Don’t worry, she’s with my grandmother.”

  “Hey!” I tell them. “I understood that!”

  But Kyle has already moved on: “If your mom asks why I asked you to come over here, tell her I finally figured out how to explain the difference between the verbs ser and estar.”

  “Huh?” I say. I’m proud of myself for knowing those two verbs exist—it’s never even crossed my mind to wonder about the difference between them.

  “But,” he continues, glancing nervously at me, and in the pause between his words I get terrified that he’s about to tell us La Lava is coming for us and we need to run for it right this second, “the real reason is because I can’t find Mad’s letter anywhere.”

  I laugh with relief. Kyle! More nervous than I’ve ever seen him, all because he thinks he lost my letter! Boy, he must think my letter is super-fantastic.

  “It’s in my pocket, back in our room,” I tell him, blushing.

  “Oh,” he says, “okay, great.”

  But he still doesn’t sound right. Is it just me, or does he sound almost disappointed, as though he wanted me to have to follow him back up to his room and write the letter all over again?

  Maybe, maybe not. I’ll never know, because before I can say anything, Kyle turns sharply away and marches across the concrete courtyard toward the kitchen.

  I’m feeling a bit breathless and strange from our little chat with Kyle as Roo and I stroll back over to Mom. Ken/Neth has vanished. I notice a couple of sunbathing girls around my age looking at us with envy. I guess it does make us seem pretty cool to know an older guy like that. An older guy with golden eyes.

  “Gosh,” Mom says, “what was that all about?”

  “Verbs,” I say quickly. Hey, maybe I’m not so bad at lying when I have a little help.

  “Verbs?” Mom echoes nosily.

  “Kyle finally figured out how to explain the difference between the verbs ser and estar,” Roo says. It’s a good thing I have Roo around to remember the specifics.

  “My goodness!” Mom says. “I’m impressed. What is the difference?”

  After a half second of silence, I start with, “It’s hard to explai—”

  “Feminine/masculine,” Roo, brilliantly, jumps in.

  “My goodness,” Mom repeats, eyebrows raised. “Boy, you three sure are good friends. Aren’t we lucky that you get along so well with Kyle?”

  Roo and I nod dutifully. I resist the urge to wink at Roo, who dives backward into the pool and within seconds has started another screeching round of Vol-Cano.

  Mom is telling me that Ken/Neth will take us to La Lava in the golf cart and it’s probably time to start thinking about showers when she’s interrupted by the appearance of Kyle, who’s walking straight toward me across the concrete courtyard and through the pool gate. My eyes are stuck on him as he comes, right at me, me, me! Mom watches me watching Kyle.

  “Hey again,” Kyle says when he reaches us.

  “Hello there, Kyle,” Mom says.

  I don’t say anything. I feel all warm and splendid. Kyle just used his muscles to walk toward me! He wasn’t walking toward anyone else … only me. I stand up.

  “Something to show you,” Kyle explains.

  “Okay,” Mom says with an amused grin, “you can borrow my daughter for a moment, but she better be in the shower fifteen minutes from now.”

  Kyle nods solemnly.

  “Bye,” I whisper to Mom as Kyle grabs my hand (!) and leads me back across the pool area. Holding my hand! In public! My heart is beating so fast that it feels like it’s tripping over itself.

  We pass through the concrete courtyard and out the back gate, onto the jungle path. If it were anyone else I’d probably say, “Hey, can we maybe not go on a hike right now, considering all I’m wearing is a two-piece bathing suit and flip-flops?” But because it’s Kyle I don’t say anything. Kyle must have a plan—he always does.

  About twenty yards up the trail, he stops in front of a tree trunk.

  “What?” I say.

  “Just look,” he whispers.

  So I stare at the tree trunk. I squint and stare and look and gaze and stare some more. And I don’t see anything except just a regular old dark brown tree trunk.

  “What?” I repeat.

  “Use your eyes,” he commands softly.

  I look and look and look.

  Then! I see it. A creature so perfectly matched to the tree that it doesn’t look like a creature. I squeeze Kyle’s hand which, miraculously, is still holding mine.

  “A good omen,” Kyle murmurs. “It’s rare to see this. My grandparents will be glad.”

  We stand there together staring at the chameleon.

  “Don’t be scared,” he says.

  “I’m not,” I lie.

  “If we’re brave the plan will work.”

  “I know,” I whisper, even though I don’t know.

  I take a really deep breath and for a second stop feeling nervous about everything. Kyle tugs my hand and we turn back. At the gate he lets go of me.

  “Roo already believes. She doesn’t need good omens,” he says. “I had to show you.”

  “Thanks,” I whisper. But there’s something else I want to add, something I can’t find the words for. Instead, I just say “Thanks” again.

  Kyle flashes me a brief smile, then turns and heads for the kitchen. I watch him as he goes, his straight posture and thin arms, and I have this weird little feeling like there’s something I know about him that no one else knows.
I’m wondering what exactly it is, this thing I know about him, when suddenly Roo comes pelting across the concrete courtyard toward me, a trail of wet footprints behind her, her body slamming hard against mine. “I missed you I missed you I missed you where were you?”

  “Jeez, Roo, relax,” I tell her, opening my arms to hug her. “I was just checking to see if they sell hair bands in the Selva Shop.” I can’t remember the last time I lied to Roo. Maybe never.

  “They don’t,” Roo says cheerfully. “You shoulda just asked me. I looked for hair bands there days ago.”

  “Oh yeah, Miss Know-It-All?” I give her a squeeze and together we hurry to our room, where I send her into the shower first. Roo may boss me when it comes to the jungle, but I boss her when it comes to hygiene.

  “Did you wash between your toes?” I ask her as we swap places, me in the shower and her out.

  “I can’t wash my toes too well right now!” she exclaims, as though I’m being ridiculous. “My toes are serving a purpose.”

  I spend my whole shower grinning about that sentence. My toes are serving a purpose.

  “Roo,” I say when I step out of the shower, “are you scared?”

  “Scared of what?” she says.

  “Things not working out tonight.” I stop myself from adding obviously.

  “No,” she says matter-of-factly.

  “Why not?”

  “We have Miss Perfect,” she says.

  “But what about Vivi? What if we can’t find her to give her the letter? What if she doesn’t want to help? What about La Lava and the way they’ve told Dad they’ll, you know …?”

  Roo shrugs. Jeez. I will never understand her. She’s so much braver than I’ll ever be.

  “The volcano goddess is on our side,” she says simply.

  I roll my eyes at her, but she’s drying her hair beneath a towel and doesn’t see.

  “Besides, Kyle’s the one who has to give the speech,” Roo continues. “If I had to give a speech then I might be scared. I hate giving speeches.”

  I’m so focused on Roo that I startle when Mom bursts through the door of our room carrying the dresses we got for the gala back in Denver.

  “An official delivery for my beautiful girls! Beautiful dresses for beautiful girls. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful girls!” I’ve never heard Mom say beautiful so many times in a row.

  Roo goes first. Mom unzips the red taffeta dress and slips it over Roo’s shoulders, and I zip it up and tie the sash. With her messy hair and bare feet and cherry-red dress, she looks like a naughty little princess. There’ll be more than enough room for Miss Perfect under all that pouf.

  “I love my red dress!” Roo chants, hopping around the room, so cute I want to grab her. I’m amazed that she can act this lighthearted right now—but I guess she’s not acting. She doesn’t feel the same heavy weight of fear that I do. She starts jumping around on her bed and then bangs her head on the bottom of my bunk, but she gets over it after moaning for just a few seconds.

  “Your turn, Mad,” Mom says, holding my dress open. I step into it and she zips it. It’s a grassy-green color, with slender shoulder straps and a green satin sash. A grown-up dress, no poufs or frills.

  “Wow,” Roo says breathlessly, “you look like a tree!” Which I know is a compliment, coming from her.

  “Very Audrey Hepburn,” Mom says to me as she gathers Roo’s hair into a high ponytail.

  “Way pretty!” Roo adds, grinning at me.

  And I can’t stop myself from grinning back at both of them like a fool.

  After we put on our patent leather shoes, mine white slip-ons and Roo’s black with straps and buckles, Mom whips out a tube of light-pink lipstick (we never get to wear lipstick) and instructs us to pout our mouths. It sends a pleasant quiver down my spine, the feeling of Mom applying the pinkness to my lips. Then she cups our shoulders and steers us over to the somewhat foggy bathroom mirror. The phrase “a lovely young maiden” pops into my head as my eyes meet my mirror-eyes. Embarrassing, I know, but those are the words that come to me.

  “Wow!” Roo gasps, gazing at our reflections.

  If it weren’t for everything else, I’d be wildly excited about wearing the most beautiful dress I’ve ever owned, plus lipstick. Once upon a time, putting these dresses on would have been the highlight of our day. But now I have so much on my mind that the second Mom leaves I forget all about the dress and instead start worrying about the gala as I fold the letter for Vivi again, into ninths, and tuck it into what I guess you would call the bodice of my dress. Then I look at Roo, and Roo looks at me, and Roo nods at me, and I nod back at her, because I guess we’re pretty much as ready as we’ll ever be.

  Roo flings the door open, scattering neon lizards. Glancing over at the pool area as we rush across to Kyle’s room, I think, Gosh, wouldn’t it be nice if we could just play at the pool, drink licuados, read fantasy novels, and then put on our party dresses and go to the gala and dance and stroll among the pools and eat lots of dessert? What if we were just regular girls, not girls on a Mission? What if we still didn’t know anything about La Lava being evil and Dad being a prisoner and the LTVT not being extinct? What if I didn’t have to be worried? That would be great, wouldn’t it?

  But then my heart of hearts responds: No. That wouldn’t be great. That wouldn’t be great at all. And I realize that something’s changed far inside me, that I’m not exactly the same girl I was when we first showed up here.

  “By the way,” I say to Roo as we head up the spiral staircase to Kyle’s room, “I’m not scared anymore.” And at that moment it’s one hundred percent true.

  “Big whoop, Mad,” she says. “I’ve never been scared.”

  CHAPTER 17

  The late afternoon is at its most golden when Roo and I approach the golf cart. Roo’s red taffeta shines in the gushing sunlight, Miss Perfect silent and invisible beneath the puff of her skirt. My dress casts a delicate shadow across the gravel of the parking lot. I gaze down at myself, at the sheer green fabric of the first layer of my skirt, and feel light and lovely, as though I might rise up off the ground. We look like we should be getting into a horse-drawn carriage rather than a golf cart. But that’s life.

  Ken/Neth is there with his camera, waiting, and as we walk across the parking lot he pretends we’re famous, taking pictures and calling out things like “Can I get a smile over here?” and “One, two, three, GLAMOUR!” For some reason he seems more charming than irritating to me right now. He’s wearing a black tuxedo with a bright orange tie. It’s a little dramatic, but no more dramatic I guess than the moments after La Lluvia, when all those plants release those crazily orange blossoms.

  “Boy, is your mom ever going to love this shot!” he calls out as Roo twirls around me.

  Speak of the devil, just then Mom comes rushing across the parking lot toward us. She’s wearing the most gorgeous dress. How is it possibly possible that Roo and I didn’t know about this dress of hers? It’s white, or I guess champagne, satin, long and slim, and Mom looks like a billion dollars, her hair swept up in a bun and her neck so long. Her skin like the moon, if I were writing a poem. Like she ate the moon and now it’s glowing inside her.

  “Gosh, I guess we’re all set to go, right, kiddos?” she exclaims. Her words contrast so much with her goddesslike appearance that part of me wishes she wouldn’t say anything.

  Wow, I’m so mean sometimes.

  Ken/Neth seems as shocked by Mom’s appearance as I am. He stares at her in this stunned way, as though he doesn’t believe she’s actually there. As though she’s a woman stepping out of his dreams. I groan inside. We need Dad back, fast.

  “Get a grip, Ken,” Roo commands under her breath.

  But luckily Ken/Neth doesn’t hear. He just murmurs, “All set to go except for Kyle.”

  “Wait, what?” I say, my stomach fluttering. “I thought he was going with his grandparents.” That’s what Kyle told us less than fifteen minutes ago, crouching still unshowered in
his room, sliding Miss Perfect into the pouch hanging from Roo’s waist.

  “I promised them we’d give him a ride. They headed over already,” Ken/Neth explains. “Kyle was taking too long to get ready.”

  I’m trying to control the wild little moths playing around in my stomach when Roo yelps, “I’ll go get him!” Then she’s dashing off across the parking lot, her shiny black shoes sending pebbles flying. I hope Miss Perfect isn’t getting motion sickness.

  Soon enough, Roo returns, leading Kyle into the parking lot.

  And here’s what’s really crazy: For the first time ever, Kyle looks ridiculous.

  “I don’t own a tuxedo,” he says to us before they’re halfway across the parking lot, “so I had to wear this.” I can’t believe it, but Kyle actually seems to be blushing about his appearance!

  “Hey, man,” Ken/Neth says, “you look groovy.”

  “It’s my grandfather’s wedding tuxedo,” Kyle mutters, avoiding eye contact.

  It’s a three-piece thing, very old-fashioned, and baggy on Kyle (Señor V must’ve been a lot bigger and stronger back when he married Señora V), so he just sort of looks like a pile of brownish tuxedo. I’ve never seen Kyle not looking amazing. Even in the silly outfit, though, his eyes are as golden as ever and his face is sharp and smart.

  Annoyed, he fiddles with the bow tie, his quick fingers turned sloppy on the silky maroon fabric. Ken/Neth comes over and works on it like an expert, and soon there’s a solid bow under Kyle’s chin. I look at Kyle, wanting him to look back at me, because he hasn’t yet gotten the chance to really see me in my dress. First he was busy with Miss Perfect, then with being embarrassed, then with the bow tie. But his eyes refuse to meet mine, and the moths in my stomach heave a little sigh of disappointment.

  “Milady?” Ken/Neth says to Mom, gesturing to the front of the golf cart. It’s unpleasant to watch the way he helps her get settled into her seat before going around to take his place behind the wheel.

  Meanwhile, Kyle and Roo hop up onto the backseat. It’s pretty tight, but there’s nothing for me to do but squeeze myself between them, so I do. Roo sits with her right leg extended to try to make it more comfortable for Miss Perfect.