The waiting area might easily hold a hundred people, and on a normal day, people waited patiently for the docking. This time, panic drove them, and they packed closer and closer.
Someone shoved hard from behind, and like dominoes in a row, people floundered. The small woman stumbled. Her daughter slipped out of her mother’s hands and fell, her pigtails flying. She wailed, “Mom!”
Jake’s heart went cold.
The crowd tried again to surge forward, and the girl wailed again, “Mom!”
Franticly, Jake wiggled past a fat man and scooped up the girl. He braced his legs wide trying to create a small space for the woman. She looked up, panic in her eyes. She wore a perfume so strong that even out here in the open, it made Jake cough.
She hissed a warning: “When the gate opens, they’ll stampede.”
“This way.” Jake sidestepped, trying to reach the edge of the mass of people, while making sure the woman could move, too. The girl clung to him, eyes wide, her hands pinching his ears; he barely noticed.
Bump. The ferry barely touched the dock with a gentle touch.
Looking down at the girl, her dark eyes were filled with tears, and she was shivering. Awkwardly, with one hand, Jake buttoned her coat and tried to reassure her. “It’s okay.” Her mother’s scent clung to the child, but at least on the girl, the smell was a muted floral.
The officials had barely opened the gate when the mob surged. Jake clung to the rail for support and fought to stand upright. The child gripped his shirt collar and moaned. Somehow, he managed to keep their eddy calm, to keep the woman protected, standing upright. Ten feet in front of them, the fat man—the one he’d pushed past earlier—swayed, and then toppled, falling slowly. Immediately, the man roared like a mad bull and swept his arms and elbows around like a longhorn steer to clear a space, standing clumsily—but standing—before the hoard of frightened people swept him to the gangplank and down to shore. If it had been the child who fell—Jake couldn’t think of it.
Only when the crowd had thinned did Jake hand the girl to her mother. She stroked the child’s dark head. Jake realized he’d buttoned the jacket wrong, putting the second button through the first buttonhole, making it lopsided. Face somber, the mother looked up quickly and mumbled, “Thank you.” Turning, she scurried off the boat and rushed up the hill without looking back.
Everything now seemed lopsided. Jake had hoped that Mt. Rainier would stay dormant, that the Brown Matter would have no effect. Instead, the laws of physics were universal, operating the same for Earth and Risonian volcanoes. It was probably time to talk to Mom and Dad. But Jake quaked at the thought. They were going to be furious.
Smoking Volcano
When he arrived at Sir’s dental office, Jake rapped on the reception window and waved at the receptionist, Marisa. She was in her mid-twenties, freckle-faced, and had—of course—a perfect smile. When Jake had first met her, he was surprised that she worked all day in an office because she seemed so athletic. But she’d explained, “I always knew what I wanted to do: give people a smile.”
She meant it literally; as in give them a mouth of perfect looking teeth. “I wish I could do stand-up comedy,” she said. “I really don’t have much of a sense of humor, though. So maybe I can make sure that when something strikes them as funny, they aren’t ashamed to open their mouths.”
Jake pulled open the reception window.
“You’re here again?” Marisa’s forehead wrinkled in confusion. She often looked this way because she was curious about everything, and she often asked about things she didn’t understand.
Jake said, “Just my molars again. They’re aching, and Sir said he’d just take a look.”
“He’s with a patient,” Marisa answered his unspoken question. “About 30 minutes.”
Jake turned away, but Marisa called, “Hey! I hear you’ve been talking to Em a lot. I kinda look out for her since Mom and Dad are traveling, and I don’t like her going home to an empty house. I’m glad she has swim team till late. But then, I’m always a little scared about her safety walking home alone. She says you’ve stayed and walked with her this week. Thanks.”
Jake blushed. He wasn’t thinking about Em’s safety when he walked her home! “Yeah, no problem.”
Marisa smiled and said, “Hope that tooth isn’t too bad.” And then she turned back to her computer.
Jake sat and flipped uneasily through magazines. Marisa clearly suspected something because Jake was showing up here too often. He’d only lived with Sir for six weeks and this was his third time in. Yet, when he smiled, no teeth problems were evident. They’d have to do this at home, he realized. He couldn’t keep coming here even if it was easier for Sir. He yawned, leaned back, stretched out his legs, and tried to nap. The TV in the reception room, though, suddenly flashed a picture of Mt. Rainier smoking. He leaned forward to catch what it said, but the volume was low.
He tapped on the window. “Can you turn the TV up?”
Marisa came out to the waiting room with a remote control and turned up the volume. Together, they stared at the footage of the smoking Mt. Rainier.
Marisa nodded at the TV. “You just came over on the ferry. Did you see it?”
“It was eerie.” Jake shivered at the memory of the mob stampeding. “And people on the ferry went crazy.”
Marisa sat down and leaned forward to watch the TV. “I would hate to be trapped on a ferry when the volcano blew. I bet they were frantic to get off.”
“It was dangerous.” Jake shuddered at the memory of the mob stampeding. “They almost trampled a little girl.” He felt his earlobes, still sore from the girl grabbing them. “I held her until the crowd passed.” He was babbling. Until this moment, he hadn’t realized how scared he’d been.
“Ma’am?”
That was the last patient of the day, and Marisa went around the door to her desk to check out the patient.
Moments later, Marisa led Jake back to Sir’s examining room.
“Did you hear about Mt. Rainier? It’s smoking,” Jake asked his grandfather.
Sir patted his dental chair. “No. But you can’t talk right now. You can tell me about it on the way home.”
Marisa was finishing up the accounting so she could drop checks off at the bank. Because she lived on the island, she’d take the ferry back with them. She had a tiny efficiency apartment, but when her parents were gone on business, she stayed at the family house with Em.
Sir’s assistant was already gone for the day, so they were alone in the exam room with no one to see what Sir was doing in Jake’s mouth.
“Open wide,” Sir said.
Risonian teeth grew in a very different manner than humans. Like a lemon shark on Earth, a Risonian’s teeth grew in a circular fashion, and grew so fast that they lost two or three teeth a month. It happened naturally, and strictly speaking, they didn’t need a dentist; however, Mom and Dad both thought it better if Sir pulled Jake’s teeth regularly.
He had two teeth to be pulled, very loose, side-by-side; in 10 minutes flat, Sir was finished and packed up to catch the ferry back to Bainbridge.
Locking the door to the dentist office, Sir asked, “Now, what’s this about Mt. Rainier?”
Marisa chimed in, “It’s all over the TV and radio. Do you think it will really explode, and the city will be covered in ash like Pompeii?”
Jake knew that Pompeii was a famous Earth volcano that erupted somewhere over in the Mediterranean Sea, in Italy or someplace like that. It was famous because centuries later, scientists excavated the site and found people who had little or no warning about the volcano; they had been buried in ash where they had been cooking supper or walking through a street, like Jake and Sir and Marisa were walking now through the streets of Seattle.
“You worry too much,” Sir said. “We’ve talked about this before. The biggest danger in Seattle is from lahars, or mudflows.”
“My parents have a cabin near Mt. Rainier. They’ve gone to Japan for ten days of meet
ings about imports and just emailed me that they had seen the reports of the mountain smoking. They want me to go and get any valuables from the cabin that I can carry from there. They’ve got some expensive paintings and works of art they brought back from different travels.”
Sir frowned. “When will you do that?”
“Will you go with me?” Marisa asked hopefully. “I don’t want to go alone.”
Sir winced, but said, “Of course. We’ll go tomorrow, Saturday. Easter will want to help, too.”
“I’ll come, too,” Jake said.
“Sure,” Marisa answered. “And my sister will come.”
Surprisingly, the ferry ride was pretty normal except for a few rows of people standing quietly on the south side of the ferry, staring at the smoking mountain. At least there wasn’t panic like earlier.
Later, at home, Sir, Easter and Jake talked about Mt. Rainier again.
“I wonder,” Jake said, “if Risonian scientists would be able to stop Mt. Rainier from exploding.”
Sir bit into a pizza slice and mumbled, “No. That’s how Rison got into so much trouble.”
Jake eyed the sausage and green peppers pizza. He and Dad preferred pepperoni and pineapple, but Easter said, “Gross.” So, they got this instead.
“We’ve learned so much about volcanoes,” Jake said “We know more about planetary cores than anyone. We might be able to help.”
“Or you might make it worse than ever,” Easter said.
“Is Earth my home now?” Jake asked. “If so, shouldn’t I try to protect it?”
Sir and Easter looked at each other, and Jake cringed at the flash of sympathy they exchanged. Easter reached a hand over to cover his hand. “You know that Earth is your home now. You’ll never go back to Rison.”
He looked at her hand freckled with age spots. If he lived long enough to be considered old, it would be on Earth. Easter thought she understood what he was going through, the anguish of losing his planet. But there was no way she could understand. He couldn’t even explain a simple thing like a fruit to her. How did you describe that in English? Impossible. He withdrew his hand and pushed back his plate. Homesickness overwhelmed him: he longed to go fishing with Swann, to swim with his friends, to hug his pet kriga, Bell. Instead, he got sausage and green pepper pizza.
“May I be excused?” he said formally.
Easter came around to his chair and enveloped him in her strong arms. She said nothing, for there was nothing to be said. But Jake was grateful for this old lady who somehow knew that sometimes grandsons just needed a hug from their grandmother.
Along the Cowlitz River
Sir, Easter, and Jake picked up Marisa and Em early that morning. Jake supposed that he knew Marisa and Em were sisters, but he hadn’t really remembered that they were both adopted until Em climbed into the van and sat in the back seat beside Easter, who had insisted Jake take the front seat. The Tullis sisters looked nothing alike. Marisa was short, freckled and athletic while Em had a darker complexion and long, straight hair. After studying the internment of Japanese-Americans, Jake had paid attention to how Americans described the different races on Earth: Asian, African American or black, and so on. He realized now that Em was Asian American, but couldn’t say from what Asian country her ancestors had come.
Three hours later, stepping out of Sir’s van, Jake was struck by the beauty of the Tullis’s A-frame cabin and the surrounding area. Below them lay the wide Cowlitz River, flanked by tall evergreens. Large, smooth stones littered the streambed, but of course, it was the hulking volcanic peak to the north that dominated the landscape. Jake knew that to the southwest lay Mt. St. Helens, even if they couldn’t see it from here. They were surrounded by active volcanoes, and he suddenly realized that he could hear them. Risonians could hear lower frequency sounds than humans. For example, in the ocean, he could easily hear the songs of whales, while humans needed special microphones to translate those sounds into frequency ranges they could hear.
The volcanoes were singing: magma vibrated - whine, hiss, whoosh and chug-chug. Here, the sounds were faint, inconstant, but it still felt oddly comforting, like being home on Rison. The song of the volcanoes was the background noise of his home planet.
The Tullis cabin was about ten miles south of the Paradise Visitor’s Center, where Jake’s class had been last week, just outside Packwood, Washington. Lovely, quiet, and spacious—the cabin would be utterly destroyed in any explosion of Mt. Rainier because the lahars would follow the Cowlitz River bed. Volcanologists predicted the cabin could be hit by a 20-600 foot high wall of mud traveling up to 60 mph, a massive lahar. That’s why Em and Marisa’s parents were so worried. They had to clear out everything valuable.
“Yes, 600 feet tall is possible,” Sir explained, “depending on how Mt. Rainier blows.”
Jake thought it was crazy to build in such a place; but then, Killia, the capital of Tizzalura, was built on a plateau of volcanic rock and would eventually be destroyed when their volcano erupted. So far, the volcanic activity had been south of the city, but it was just a matter of time. He supposed that no matter where you built a house, some natural disaster was possible, from tornadoes to earthquakes to floods to volcanic eruptions. You just learned to deal with the dangers in your area of your planet.
“How long have you had this cabin?” Easter asked. “It’s beautiful.”
Marisa stretched after the long car ride, pulled a rubber band from her hair, and shook it out. “My parents bought it about fifteen years ago. We love it because our nearest neighbor is half a mile away. We played in that river growing up, right Em?”
Em flashed a glare at Marisa, and then waved at the river. “Sometimes, we see elk crossing the river.”
But when they looked toward the river now, the sight of the smoking mountain was impossible to avoid; on the light breeze came the faint smell of sulfur. This wasn’t a day for play, but for caution. They should work fast and get out of there.
A man was working his way along the riverbank toward them. He looked up and waved.
Marisa broke into a smile and jogged down to the river to meet him.
“Who is it?” Jake asked Em.
She frowned. “Cyrus Hill. He’s been calling Marisa all week, and she told him that we’d be here. His family has a cabin half a mile upstream. This is where they met.”
Grimly, Jake watched Captain Hill climb up the riverbank. Captain Hill stopped to give Marisa a hand up a steep part, and then kept hold of her hand; their arms swung in unison. Marisa glowed under his attention.
When Captain Hill and Marisa came up, Captain Hill stopped short. “You didn’t tell me the Roses were coming.”
Marisa looked slightly embarrassed. “Oh, Sir and Easter were glad to come and help, and I felt safer with them along. I think you’ve met their grandson? This is Jake.”
“We’ve met,” Hill and Jake said in unison.
Jake remembered the insane dash around Bench Lake and the struggle for the drone’s controls. But no one else knew about all of that except Em. Sir didn’t know that Captain Hill was the soldier who came to their beach house in Gulf Shores. If Dad had known that Captain Hill had a Bainbridge Island connection, he might’ve given Sir his name. But as far as Sir knew, the soldier in Alabama was just an anti-Shark extremist.
Em stepped forward and said, “Marisa, there’s something you should know about Cy.”
Marisa gave a short laugh, waving her hand dismissively. “Cy’s already told me about it. He said you two went off at the freshman trip to Mt. Rainier. And you two were roughhousing and fell into Bench Lake. And he’s the one who caught you and got you in trouble.”
“That’s not how it happened,” Jake said.
Em glared at her sister, but was silent.
Now, Easter turned from the van and said, “Then what did happen?”
Jake was caught in the middle of the truth and the lies he’d told. He couldn’t explain everything to Easter and Sir. But Marisa had the story wron
g, too, from Captain Hill’s lies. Anger tore at him, and he hesitated, not sure what to say. In this anyway, Captain Hill was right: who would take the word of a 9th grader over the word of an ELLIS Forces officer?
“Jake?” Easter said quietly. “What happened on the field trip?”
“Nothing.” Jake looked down and shook his head. “I told you about it. Just messing around.”
“Good,” Marisa said. “Because I don’t care if you two get along or not. Today, all I care about it getting Mom and Dad’s art work out of danger. We can all work together, right?”
“Don’t worry,” Em said. “We’ll do our part.” She was still in a glaring contest with Marisa. The sisters were mad, and Jake thought it went a lot deeper than today’s problems.
Meanwhile, Jake glared at Hill, who calmly stared back. A truce, then, thought Jake grimly. That was fine with him. With a shrug, he turned to the van and helped pull out huge rolls of bubble packing material.
Marisa ordered everyone around for the rest of the morning: she walked through each room and stuck a piece of blue painter’s tape on items that she wanted to remove—and there were a lot. The Tullis family ran an Asian import company. For the tourist trade, they brought back trinkets such as Chinese yo-yos, cheap chopsticks, and inexpensive replicas of the Great Wall. But they also had a quirky sense of color and art and bought quality for their personal collection: jade statues, carved teak platters, delicate watercolors, and much more. Everything had to be bubble-wrapped and stacked near the kitchen door.
Easter said, “Don’t start packing it in the car until it’s all wrapped. That way, we’ll put the heavy stuff on the bottom and lightweight on top.”
What with Marisa and Easter’s organization skills, the small crew divided up the task of packing efficiently. Jake and Em were assigned the task of wrapping things in the living room, which suited Jake just fine. Marisa and Captain Hill took the loft, while Easter and Sir took the bedrooms.
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