“You could try.”
“’Cause my father’s just, you know, locked up. A temporary inconvenience. A little spot of bother.”
“I said it was awful.”
“You said it was ‘awful, but’…That’s like sort of awful. Kind of unpleasant. Not really all that bad…”
“Wow, I’m sorry, Kareem.”
“You don’t know anything about my father, or what he’s been through….”
“Stop it! I didn’t mean to upset you. I was trying to make you feel better.”
“No, you were trying to make yourself feel better. People do that all the time. They tell you everything’s going to be all right—only they don’t really think it is; they just don’t like to talk about the bad thing, because it makes them feel uncomfortable. But the bad things still happen, Sky. If you want to help, then tell the truth. Admit it really sucks.”
Sky sat nursing her tender feelings for a little while.
“I just want you to be happy,” she finally said. “That’s all.”
“But I can’t be happy. Don’t you get that? I can’t possibly be happy. My father’s in prison; and I can’t stop thinking about how scared he is, and how the walls are, like, closing in on him and driving him out of his mind. And I’m stuck out here with a bunch of strangers in some weird, nineteenth-century time warp; and I can’t even leave the property, let alone go to school. And I’ll be repeating seventh grade when I’m eighteen or something, and I’ll never get into college, and I don’t have a future….”
He trailed off.
“Go ahead,” Sky said, hurt to the core. “Knock yourself out. Don’t leave anything out.”
“All right,” Kareem said. His voice frightened Sky, it sounded so bitter and angry. “My cousin’s this sweet little nerdy guy who’s never done anything in his life but study, and make good grades, and be respectful to his parents. He’s about as big a threat to this country as Mouse is. But they come into his dorm in the middle of the night, and put him in handcuffs, and drag him away. And my aunt and uncle—they practically turned themselves in. Last we heard, they were driving up to that place, that deportation center, to try and get him released. They were going to talk to someone there, like they were reasonable people. And now I’m sure they’re locked up, too. And my uncle has a heart condition….”
Sky waited.
Kareem wiped his eyes.
“That sucks!” she said finally. “It sucks big time. It’s really, really, really crappy.”
Kareem started laughing then, almost hysterically, with tears still running down his cheeks, and strange sobs, and gulps, and moans coming out of him.
Sky reached over and squeezed his hand.
“It’s like they were just teleported off to some distant part of the universe, and I don’t have anything left, nothing at all to remember them by. Not even so much as a blurry old snapshot…”
“Do you kids know what time it is?” It was Ana, her small silhouette framed by the doorway.
“Kareem had a nightmare. I was keeping him awake till it went away.”
“Well, I bet the coast is clear by now.”
“Yeah. Sorry.”
“Oh, my,” Ana said, going over to the window. “Will you look at that moon?”
Sky got up off the floor and joined her mother there. Ana wrapped an arm around her and pulled her close.
“It’s blessing us, Mom,” Sky said. “Extra hard, because we really need it now.”
“We do, don’t we? Come here, Kareem. Grab a little moon-glow to sweeten your dreams.”
Sky was sure he would think it was totally stupid, but he climbed off the couch and came over to stand beside them at the window. Ana scooped him up with her other arm. Then they stood there, in the silence of the night, gazing out at the desert all bathed in blue light.
18
Real but Not Real
SKY SLIPPED THE KEY INTO the lock of the casita’s electric blue door. Then she turned the knob, set her shoulder to it, and pushed.
“It tends to stick,” she said. “The jamb’s a little off plumb.”
She gave it another good shove, and the door swung suddenly open, sending Sky stumbling into the room. Kareem stepped in behind her.
“Cool, huh? A hundred and fifty years old—or something like that anyway. It’s the only building on the property still left from the olden days.”
“What was it for? It’s so small.”
“It was a house. A little house. Probably some ranch hands lived here. It had been turned into a storage room when my grandpa bought this place. Then about ten years ago Daddy fixed it up to use as an art studio. He did all the stucco work and plastering himself, and laid the brick on the floor, and—”
“Your dad’s an artist?”
“Yes. He’s really good; you’ll see.”
“I thought he shoed horses for a living.”
“He’s a farrier, yes. But he’s also an artist. Come here. I’ll show you.”
She led him over to Luke’s desk, where a small panel rested on a desktop easel. It was a portrait of a man in work clothes, his face weathered by sun, and wind, and dry desert air. His brown hair was rumpled. His eyes were a strange, pale, washed-out blue that made him look a little demented.
“Your dad painted this?”
“Yeah. It’s part of his Soul series.”
“Is that why the man has a halo? Is he a saint or something?”
“No.” Sky giggled. “That’s Dermot Brody. He’s a pig farmer. But Daddy says we all have a divine spark within us. Actually, I think he just likes to work with gold leaf. Don’t tell him I said that.”
“I won’t.”
She pulled another panel out of the vertical storage unit. “This one’s Aunt Pat,” she said. Aunt Pat had a halo, too.
“Your news source from Albuquerque?”
“Yeah. And this is Ramón. Daddy shoes his horses. And this one—I don’t remember her name. She works at the Pecos Market.”
Kareem went back to look at the pig farmer.
“It looks real, but not real. You know what I mean?”
“Not exactly.”
“Well, he’s working from a photograph”—this was obvious because it was taped to the easel, right beside the panel—“but he didn’t actually copy it. He used the same pose and all; but the light’s completely different, and there aren’t as many details.”
“Oh. I gotcha. Daddy never copies the light. He makes it up by understanding the form, then figuring out where the highlights and shadows would fall if the light came from a certain angle. Usually the upper left.”
Kareem stared at her. “How do you know all that stuff?”
“Daddy told me. We work in here all the time, Mouse and me. He teaches us stuff. He went to art school and everything.”
Kareem looked at the picture again. “It’s better than the photograph.”
“That’s because the accidents of light are distracting. He takes all that out and focuses on the figure.”
“He taught you that, too.”
“Yup.”
“He’s really good.”
“I told you.”
“It’s true; you did. Does he sell his stuff, like in art galleries?”
“He used to. But they’re mostly all closed now, since the tourists stopped coming. Gas rationing and all.”
“Right.”
“So he shoes horses.”
Sky crossed the room—it only took a few steps, the casita was so small—to a pair of desks that Luke had built, one for Sky and one for Mouse. Between them was a cabinet on wheels, with drawers to hold art supplies.
“So, Kareem,” she said.
“What?”
“The painting of Aunt Pat?”
He nodded.
“Daddy did that one from memory. She doesn’t get up here from Albuquerque much, so he didn’t have a picture to work from. Or not a posed one anyway, the kind he likes to use.”
Kareem waited.
“So, I was th
inking. Come here a minute. This is what I wanted to show you.”
Sky started opening drawers one by one. Brushes, paper, crayons, colored pencils, oil pastels, watercolors.
“We have everything you need. You can work here during the day, while I’m at school.”
He squinted his eyes and cocked his head, trying to make sense of this.
“I asked Daddy. He said he’d help. Give you lessons and all, like he does with us.”
“I don’t have a clue what you’re talking about.”
Sky crossed the little room again and picked up the picture of Aunt Pat and laid it down on the desk.
“Remember last night when you said you didn’t have any pictures of your family?”
“Yes.”
“Well, you can paint them, like my dad did with Aunt Pat—from memory. Your mom, your dad, your cousin—whoever you want. And then you’ll have them to look at, see? So you can remember.”
He just stood there for the longest time staring at her, doing something nervous with his hands. Then he turned his face away, his eyes straying up to the vigas on the ceiling, then down again to the floor, with its weathered brick set in sand. Finally he took a deep breath and let it out.
“You just never give up, do you?”
19
The Big Finish
MRS. CUNNINGHAM WAS UP AT the whiteboard, demonstrating the mysteries of two-point perspective, when the electricity went off. Power outages weren’t uncommon in Santa Fe, though they were usually due to extreme weather: strong winds or heavy snow. You didn’t expect them on a bright, clear day like this one, with sunshine streaming in through the windows.
The teacher glanced up at the light fixture, said “Huh,” then went on explaining about vanishing points.
About twenty minutes later, while the class was busy making perspective drawings—skyscrapers with windows, but not too many because that would take all day—they started hearing voices, and footsteps, and people slamming their lockers shut. “I guess there won’t be a bell,” Mrs. Cunningham said. “Time to change classes.”
It was eerily dark in the hallway. The only daylight came from the open classroom doors, and even that was partially blocked by the students as they passed in and out. There was a lot of squealing and nervous giggles as the kids made their way from one pool of light to the next, bumping into each other, hopelessly feeling around in their lockers for books they couldn’t see. It was kind of exciting, and kind of scary, like a fun house on Halloween.
Suddenly Sky felt a hand on her shoulder. She actually went Eeeek! “Travis!” she said when she turned around and saw him. “You scared the poo out of me.”
“Sorry. I didn’t mean to.”
“Yeah, right.” She scrunched her nose at him—undoubtedly a wasted effort, as dark as it was—and kept walking.
She didn’t actively dislike Travis. She just avoided him on principle since he hung around with Gerald.
“Wait,” he called, trotting along behind her. She sped up, pretty sure she could shake him. After all, how fast could a guy go in those baggy, gangbanger pants he wore?
Fast enough, it turned out. The trick, apparently, was getting a good grip on the waistband as he ran. “I need to ask you something,” he said. “About that hamster thing.”
“No way!” Sky said. “Absolutely not.”
“Oh, come on!” He was bouncing along beside her, one hand still clutching his pants to keep them from sliding down. “Why not?”
“’Cause it’s none of your business.”
“Please?”
“No! Just forget it, Travis! I’m never going to tell you.”
“Aww.”
“Never-ever-ever!”
“Okay, then just tell me this.” He dodged in front of her now. “You met Gerald at Alta Vista, right?”
“I met him in kindergarten.”
“At Alta Vista.”
“Why do you care what school it was, Travis? Leave me alone. I’m really, really sorry I ever brought it up.”
They had reached the classroom by then. Sky darted past him and slipped into her seat. Travis sat two rows over, on her right, in the “Gerald section.” She turned her whole body to the left and sat gazing out the window till everyone had arrived and the class got started. Only then did she swivel around to face the front. She could still see Travis out of the corner of her eye, making funny, pleading faces at her. It was really hard not to laugh.
Mr. Bunsen seemed a little frazzled that day. He’d planned a PowerPoint presentation, but the projector wouldn’t work without power. So now he was having to improvise, and it wasn’t going well. Not that he was all that funny at the best of times, but at least he usually had something to say.
This raised a mildly interesting question. Did Mr. Bunsen actually plan his routines? Practice the story of Professor Frybrain in front of a mirror? Memorize his lines? Do sketches of the Smell-o-Meter at home? She profoundly hoped not. It would just be too sad.
He was standing up front, giving a disjointed description of the diagrams they would have seen if the PowerPoint had been working, when Ms. Golly opened the door and put him out of his misery.
She looked a little frazzled, too.
“Everybody needs to go down to the safe room,” she said. “But relax—we’re in absolutely no danger. We’re only going down there because it’s school district policy.”
Samantha raised her hand but didn’t wait to be called on. “Has there been another attack, Ms. Golly?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ll give you the details downstairs. I have to notify all the classes in person, with the PA system down. But everything’s fine; just head on down there, and I’ll see you in a little bit.”
They all grabbed their cell phones but left their backpacks behind, as they’d been instructed during practice drills. Then they formed an orderly line and proceeded along the hallway, and down the stairs, to the safe room.
In its previous incarnation, this had been a basement storage area. Now it was fully equipped, according to district code, with everything the students might possibly need to be safe and comfortable during a national emergency. The walls were reinforced, the door was blast-proof, and the temperature-controlled circulating air was filtered. There was plush carpeting for the kids to sit on, plus blankets, food, and water in case they had to be there for a while. A generator kept the lights running and powered the TV. Over in the corner was a communication hub with a landline phone and a fancy ham radio.
Despite the bright lights and the cheerful colors of the carpeting and walls, Sky found the room unnerving. It had a stark, empty feel about it. And there was no forgetting the reason they were there: to be safe. Because maybe, just maybe, the bottom was about to fall out of the world.
Sky found her assigned place, sat cross-legged on the floor, and pulled out her phone. More than anything in the world she wanted to hear her mother’s voice.
“I’m not getting a connection,” Graciela said. She leaned over and peered at the screen on Sky’s phone. “Crap. You don’t have any bars either,” she said.
“Don’t cell phone towers have battery backup?” This from Toby, who was sitting behind them.
“I have no idea,” Sky said, slipping the phone into her pocket and staring sullenly at the wall. She knew the principal had said they were safe, but not being able to make a call—somehow that was more than she could bear. She had to work hard just to hold back the tears.
Ms. Golly came in with the last group. She shut the door behind her with a heavy, metallic thump.
“Finish your calls, everybody,” she said. “Quick-fast. I need your attention.”
“The phones aren’t working, Ms. Golly.”
“Then you might as well put them away. We’ll use the landline in a little bit to try and get through to your parents.”
She waited as phones were flipped shut and the hubbub died down.
“First, I want to say this one more time: the attacks were not local. We’r
e in absolutely no danger. We could just as easily—and a lot more comfortably—have held this meeting in the gym. But we have to follow district protocol, so here we are.”
They understood.
“It took me a while to find out what’s going on, but here’s the story, so far as I know it. The terrorists took out some critical high-voltage electrical-transmission towers. So the power grid is down over most of the country right now. They say it’s going to take a while to get things up and running again—weeks, maybe months.”
There was a lot of murmuring. Hands went up.
“Hold on a minute. Let me finish. There’s more, I’m afraid. They also destroyed some natural gas pipelines. Again, the big, important ones.”
“With bombs?”
“Yes, they blew them up. So the bottom line is, natural gas will be very scarce for a while; and that’s on top of the oil shortage.”
The anxiety level was rising dramatically in the room. Everybody started shouting questions now.
Ms. Golly held up her hands until the kids quieted down.
“Look, I have to be honest with you. This is a big deal. It’s going to change our everyday lives. If natural gas isn’t available, and the power stays off, we won’t be able to heat our homes—or the school, for that matter.”
“What about hot water?”
She shook her head. “Sorry,” she said. “Same thing. I’m afraid there are a lot of conveniences we’ll all have to learn to live without. But—”
“How are we going to cook our food?”
“I don’t know. Over a grill in the backyard. Listen, do you want to hear the rest of this or not?”
She waited until the talking stopped.
“Okay. Now here’s the other thing about natural gas. We use it to run many of our power plants, which brings us back to electricity again. They’ve hit us with a triple whammy here—with oil and gas in short supply, and the transmission lines down. It’ll take a lot to get up from a blow like that. I’m told that even when the towers are repaired, the electricity won’t stay on all the time. It’s called rolling blackouts: periods when the power is off, and periods when it’s on.”
“For how long?” someone shouted.
Saving Sky Page 7