by Will Taylor
She exhaled hard and sat back, slumping against the sofa with her arms crossed.
I couldn’t speak. I was having trouble breathing. I stared down at one of the pillowcases, my vision going blurry.
“Anyway,” I finally heard her say, “we’re wasting time. I’m going to the alley. I’m taking Noriko’s offer, and I could really use your help.”
I shook my head. I was not going to cry.
“Hey,” she said, scooching closer and bopping me on the knee. “Remember how freaked out you were about the link that led to Joe’s at first? And the one to Kelly’s? I had to push you there, and it all turned out fine. This is like that. It might sound scary or strange at first, but this is how we’re gonna make everything okay. Me and you. By our powers combined. Together.”
Every knot in my stomach clenched. She was trying to get me to rally, but she was only making it worse.
She was really saying she hadn’t needed me all those other times, and she hadn’t needed me when she went away to camp, and she didn’t need me now.
And maybe I didn’t need her, either.
I shook my head.
Abby watched me for a long moment, then reached out and pulled away the blue-striped pillow, revealing a torn and grimy sofa cushion leaning at an angle. Without a word, without even glancing back, she disappeared through the link and shoved it closed behind her.
Seventeen
There’s no sound in the world quite like the sound of your best friend walking out on you.
I’d imagined plenty of awful things in my eleven and a half years of life. Epic disasters, terrible accidents, collisions, storms, floods, and invasions. And I’d always known how to deal with them. I’d always planned, and prepared, and found a way to make them right. But never once in my entire life had I imagined Abby might leave me.
I had no plan for this.
Still, there I was, all alone again in my silent, overgrown, rat-people nest, the fight with Abby bouncing off the pillows and echoing around my brain.
I sat up to leave, steadying myself against the pillow Abby had been leaning on. It was still warm. I suddenly remembered how she hugged me the day she came home from camp, and my heart seized up.
I fled to the kitchen.
The clock ticked as I walked from one side of the floor to the other, smacking at the counters. I yanked open the fridge, making the juice carton and yogurts wobble. There was plenty of good food in there. Abby and I had cleaned out most of the vegetables making the salad for Uncle Joe, but—
I slammed the fridge shut. I didn’t want to think about food if that meant thinking about Abby. I glared around. There was the house phone. What if I called my mom at work? Maybe she could distract me. Except, no, I was grounded and in trouble, and that’s what she would want to talk about. Not that I could really tell her why my heart was in tatters.
I abandoned the kitchen and went up on the roof.
It was hot. The sun was beating down hard on the shingles. I wrapped my arms around my knees, tightened my jaw, took a deep, slow breath, and made a firm decision to stop feeling sad. Choices had been made, lines had been drawn, and there was no point wasting time thinking about it. I was going to sit there, rally, and be fine.
I tried thinking about nice things like Matt’s arms, Samson’s purr, and peach ice cream, then realized I was staring straight at the same pine tree I’d stared at every day when I was waiting for Abby to come home.
“Ugh!” I said to the tree, the roof, and the whole tangled, broken summer in general. Abby was everywhere around here, and the bright sun was making my eyes water. I needed the opposite of all this.
I climbed off the roof and tromped to Alaska.
There was a note on the floor outside Fort Orpheus. It was addressed to me. I opened it, wondering exactly when my life had become a nonstop parade of cards and notes and letters.
Dear Maggie,
If you’re reading this, it means you’re in my cabin and I’m not, which probably means you’re mad at me. I know I promised to stay off my foot, but my ankle felt 99% back to normal this morning, and I just couldn’t miss doing my field recordings two days in a row. Sorry!
Love, Uncle Joe
I rolled my eyes and went to the window. The sky was as heavy and gray as a humpback’s belly again, and there was Uncle Joe, stretched out on his back beside his boat with his listening equipment set up around him.
Well, at least he hadn’t tried to go out on the water. I decided to let him get on with it. I was feeling way too jangly to be good company right then, anyway.
Not that I was being very good company for myself. I was totally restless. I stalked around the cabin, opening cupboards, kicking random bits of furniture, and fiddling with the equipment piled on the desk. A switch hooked up to an old speaker was too tempting not to flick, and as it clicked on a strange, watery, gloop-glooping noise filled the room. I frowned, then realized it must be the underwater microphones out in the bay, the same ones Uncle Joe was listening to. The noise felt thick in the air, heavy and heaving through the crackly old equipment. I listened, staring into space. It was seriously hypnotic.
I shook myself, switched off the machine, and looked around for something better to distract me.
And there was Fort Orpheus, filling the room. I glared at it, and an interesting new idea crept into my brain: What if I just tore it down? What if I yanked off the sheet, scattered the pillows, and drowned the postcard token out in the bay? What would happen then?
I’d be stuck, that’s what would happen. I’d be trapped in Alaska with Uncle Joe, and right then that didn’t sound bad at all. We could hang out together for the rest of the summer, just the two of us, and I could learn about whales and help Uncle Joe with his research. We would make double-strength cocoa every night after dinner and have huge bonfires on the beach, and when Orpheus showed up we would publish our findings and the two of us would become famous.
And as for Abby? She could keep Camp Pillow Fort, keep NAFAFA and the links and all the rest of it. She could clean up that alley and take my spot on the Council and go around in fancy silver sunglasses, making her own banner and linking in all her Camp Cantaloupe friends and bossing around every west coast kid unlucky enough to discover a magical pillow fort from then on.
Uncle Joe and I would be famous and happy and better off without her.
Only, of course, that’s not how things would really go. If I did get trapped in Alaska, then Uncle Joe would have to tell my mom I was there, and she would have to buy an expensive ticket to get me home. And Orpheus would probably turn up while Uncle Joe was driving me to the airport, then disappear forever. And Kelly would probably take a turn for the worse while my mom was coming to pick me up. And Abby would never forgive me and would convince her dad to move and I’d never see her again, and no one would ever speak to me in middle school, and . . .
I blinked, pulling myself out of the tragedy running in my head. Whoa. I was doing exactly what Abby had said. And if she’d been right about that . . .
Okay, fine, I was doing the thing, but that was just me being me, right? It’s not like I was acting on it. I was just planning what I’d do if it did happen. Getting prepared. Trying it on for size.
My stomach gave a rumble, and I turned my back on the fort and went to root around in the kitchen. It was all too much to deal with right then. At least making lunch would keep me busy for a bit.
There wasn’t much to see in the cupboards, just canned soup, plain crackers, and some mismatched dishes. The fridge was worse, with only a carton of coffee creamer, half a jar of applesauce, and a lonely bottle of mustard wobbling all by itself in the door.
“Hey there,” I said, waving at the mustard. “I know how you feel.”
My heart twinged as I eyed the uninspiring collection of food. Poor Uncle Joe. Imagine coming in out of the cold and facing this. He’d been really nice about Abby and me hanging around and tearing up his living room, and he’d made us lunch on our first sur
prise visit. It was time I actually did something nice for him. Luckily the thing to do was obvious.
“Begin Operation Fridge Fix,” I announced to the empty kitchen.
Five minutes and one first-class raid on my own fridge later I was back with a block of Cheddar, a loaf of bread, a jar of pickles, a half-full bottle of ranch dressing, a package of bacon, six cups of blueberry yogurt, seven apples, and a box of cherry Popsicles.
I was heading back for another round of kitchen pillaging when I bumped into Samson in my fort, nosing around near the link that led to Kelly’s.
“Oh, no, not you,” I said. Samson was my favorite cat in the world, but I was still angry and hurt over his owner. “You need to get back home now, buddy.”
Samson and his snagglepaw took some convincing, and in the struggle I squashed an elbow into one of the unlinked wall pillows. It toppled, and I suddenly found myself face-to-face with a green, cracked, leathery-looking pillow that definitely wasn’t one of mine.
“Ugh, really?” I groaned to the empty fort. “Again?”
Eighteen
So there had been a second secret link all along? That would explain another of the mysterious lumps on NAFAFA’s map of Camp Pillow Fort. I stared at it.
The new pillow was sitting one to the left of Kelly’s. If Abby had started her search the other day going the opposite direction, we would have found this one first. And then where would we be? Maybe Abby and I wouldn’t be fighting. Maybe I wouldn’t feel so bad right now. Maybe I wouldn’t be alone.
It was too late for maybes, though. Abby had gone the other way, charging off on her own like always, and here I was, and— Hey, you know what? She wasn’t the only one who could go charging into things. Maybe it was my turn.
I shoved the pillow, hard, sending it flying into the mystery fort. Bright light and bouncy electronic music streamed into Fort McForterson. I had a split second of triumph before the yell hit me.
“What the—!”
Oh, good. Someone was home.
Feeling gloriously reckless, I pushed my head and shoulders through the gap and looked around.
I was in a bedroom. A teenager’s bedroom, judging by the band posters and the clothes on the floor. Oh, and Caitlin my across-the-street-neighbor jumping up from a desk right in front of me.
I froze, assessing the situation. My lower half was still back in Fort McForterson, and my upper half was sticking out of a green fake-leather love seat with laundry piled on it. The pillow I’d punched was standing on one side, holding a sheet like a roof over my head. I didn’t see any sign of an organized pillow fort. This must have been one of those accidental forts, like Noriko had talked about in her letter.
I looked at Caitlin. She looked at me. The bouncy electronic music thumped along on its own. And then . . .
“Ha! I knew it!” Caitlin slapped the desk. “I freaking knew it!”
“Hi,” I said. What was she talking about? How was that a proper reply to someone bursting out of your sofa? “You’re, uh, probably surprised to see me.”
“Nope.”
“Nope?”
Caitlin shook her head. “I knew you were having awesome adventures this summer, Maggie. I told you so, remember?”
My brain felt just like the rest of me: only halfway there. “Kind of,” I said, thinking back to when I rescued Samson from the banner on her ice cream truck. It felt like years ago.
Caitlin came over and plopped down on the floor. “So, someone finally started a west coast network, then?” she said.
The world as I knew it went up, down, inside out, and sideways. Caitlin knew about the pillow fort networks? Caitlin? Then again, why not? In a world where Abby could walk out on me, anything was possible.
“Yeah,” I said, scraping together my remaining bits of reality. “I did. We did. But how do you know about that?”
“I moved here from Wisconsin when I was ten,” said Caitlin. “Before the move I was in the Great Plains Sofa Circle.” Holy pickle jar, she really did know about NAFAFA. “But when my network found out where I was going, they made me leave my token behind. I was cut off.”
“Why didn’t they let you just link back there from here?” Look at me, casually talking pillow fort theory with a high schooler.
“Oh, I argued for that, but my network head said it was against the rules to build a satellite fort in unclaimed territory, and if I tried to smuggle in a token and link in, they would shut me down anyway.”
“Huh. Seems like they’re always doing that.”
“Right? But now tell me everything. You really started your own homegrown network out here?”
“Yup. Noriko—she’s head of the Council right now—told us we’re the only kids on the west coast to ever have a network.” I couldn’t keep a curl of pride out of my voice. “It’s pretty cool being first. I just can’t believe other kids never found scraps of the First Sofa and built pillow forts before us.”
Caitlin quirked an eyebrow. “Oh, they totally did.”
“What?”
“I don’t know what this Noriko person told you, but my old network head told me all about it while I was trying to convince her to let me stay linked in. She said linkable forts have been popping up here and there on the west coast ever since the gold rush.”
“The gold rush? Seriously?”
“Sure,” said Caitlin. “It makes sense. A whole bunch of people moved west for that, bringing their pillows and blankets and things along. Their kids either came with them or showed up later, and ever since then some random kid on the west coast occasionally builds a fort that can be linked.”
“But—but Noriko and Murray both specifically said we were a special case. They told us we were the first functioning network on the west coast, ever.”
“Okay, then that’s the key right there,” said Caitlin, pointing. “The first functioning network. None of the forts I’m talking about ever actually got linked to others. My old head said accidentally getting the right pieces in place in one fort is hard enough. But having other forts close enough for that fort to start linking and form a network is almost impossible.”
“Wow,” I said. “So Abby and I did the impossible.”
“Looks like,” said Caitlin, smiling. “Good for you. But speaking of your amazing bestie, where is she? Why are you here all on your own?”
Oh, that.
Discovering the secret link to Caitlin had almost driven my other problems out of my mind. Now it all came flooding back and then some, along with the ache in my chest.
Caitlin leaned against the sofa as I explained the situation. “Ouch, that sounds really hard,” she said when I finished. “I hope you two can patch it up soon.”
I nodded. “Me too.” And I meant it. I hated being mad at Abby. And I really hated knowing she was mad at me.
“Would a Mega Ultra Caramel Swizzle Cone help?” Caitlin asked. “I can run out to the truck.”
“No!” called a voice from Fort McForterson, and I jumped as well as I could as someone behind me whapped me on the leg.
“Let me in,” said the voice. It was a girl, but it definitely didn’t sound like Abby. I scooched over, and first a baseball cap, then a bunch of curly black hair appeared.
“Carolina?”
“Oof.” Carolina squeezed in beside me and looked around grumpily. “Hello, Maggie Hetzger,” she said. “And hello person named Caitlin who shouldn’t be linked in.”
“Hi!” said Caitlin. “Nice to meet you. What network are you with? Do you want some ice cream?”
“I’m not here to make friends,” said Carolina.
“She’s with the Forts of the Eastern Seaboard,” I told Caitlin.
“Ooo!” Caitlin smiled. “Fancy!”
“Stop it, stop it, stop it,” said Carolina, waving her hands. “There’s no time. You need to get back to your own network, Maggie Hetzger. This fort was accidental and it’s not approved, and my surveillance shift is almost up. If the next kid catches you in here with a te
enager, you’ll be cut off permanently, and then some.”
“Aw, that’s what happened to me, sort of,” said Caitlin. “It’s not fun. You should get going.”
“I guess so.” It had been nice getting to talk things over with someone who mostly understood. “Can I come by again sometime?”
“No!” cut in Carolina. “This link shouldn’t even be here. Caitlin’s not allowed to be connected to any fort networks at all.”
“That’s true,” said Caitlin. “We can hang out the normal way though, Maggie.”
“Really? Thanks!”
Carolina was digging furiously through the jeans and skirts and shirts covering the floor around us.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Looking for the token.”
Caitlin raised her eyebrows. “I didn’t even ask how we got linked up! What do you think it was, Maggie? I mean, I gave you the ice cream, and your mail you dropped, but none of that would do it.”
“Got it!” cried Carolina, emerging from the clothes pile with a cheap plastic pen in her hand.
“Ha!” I said. It was my old hypno-ray gun. “I forgot I even gave that to you.”
“Same,” said Caitlin. “And look how far you’ve come since then.” We high-fived.
“Time to go, Maggie Hetzger,” said Carolina.
“Bye, Caitlin,” I said, scooching back to my own fort. “Thanks for everything.”
“Go get ’em, tiger!” she called, waving.
I waited in Fort McForterson as Carolina pulled the link shut behind her.
“That was close,” she said, tossing the pen back in my arts-and-crafts corner. She turned to me. “I know things are weird between you and Abby Hernandez right now, and that you’re attempting a good deed on your own, but please, Maggie Hetzger, try and stay out of trouble.”
Huh. So she knew about the fight. “You don’t miss anything, do you?” I said.
Carolina shook her head. “It’s my job.” A smile snuck into the corners of her mouth. “Plus I’m training to be the world’s greatest secret agent someday.”