“Would you prefer to stay here?” the little man asks gently. The car is weird, but the guy couldn’t be nicer. I trust him, I don’t know why.
“He did have our name. How else would he have our name if Uncle Red didn’t give it to him?” I offer.
Our suitcases are already loaded in the trunk. They fit perfectly too—as if the trunk was custom-made for three roller bags.
“Okay,” India says to the driver. “We’ll go with you.” She tosses her hair back over her shoulder and gets in.
Mouse’s bright blue eyes are half hidden by her red lashes in a strange un-Mouse-like way.
“You okay with this, Mouse?” I ask.
Mouse’s little chest heaves, like she’s hyperventilating. “Will Bing get to sit in the front?” she asks, digging Bing’s wallet out of her suitcase. She opens it and flashes her handmade ID.
The driver nods as if this makes perfect sense to him and opens the front passenger-side door, then closes it again, presumably after Bing is inside.
The car looks so comfortable I can hardly wait to climb in. I scoot into the backseat after India. Mouse follows me.
When we’re all buckled in—including Bing, Mouse insists on this—the feather taxi glides out of the dark airport parking lot, along the mostly deserted streets.
What I notice first is how comfortable the backseat is. It doesn’t even feel as if the tires are making contact with the road. It’s more like they’re hovering over rather than rolling on the street.
When we reach the open highway, there are mountains everywhere, beautiful mountains with snowcapped peaks. At the foot of the mountains is a bright, shiny lake glistening like a mirrored welcome mat. Through the skylight you can see how bright the stars are. The scenery is spectacular. My mom was right about that. Who knows . . . maybe she’ll be right about Uncle Red too.
On the dashboard is a brass plate engraved with Property of FB. FB must be Fort Baker. On the sun visor is the taxi driver’s name. Charles, it says. I can see India reading it too. “So.” India clears her throat. “Um, Charles. You know the address. Uncle Red already gave it to you, right?”
Charles takes the radio—it’s an old-fashioned kind that fits neatly in the palm of his hand, like the sort taxi driver dispatchers in movies have, except it’s attached by a pink curly cord to the dashboard. He mutters into the microphone, then he turns back to us. “You can call me Chuck,” he says in a high, sweet voice.
India and I look at each other. She seems to be thinking what I’m thinking. Inside the cab, we can hear Chuck much more clearly. His voice has brought him in focus. I lean forward to inspect his sideburns and mustache. They’re fake, glued right on. Chuck isn’t a short man, he’s a kid.
“Um, Chuck, we want a real taxi, okay?” My voice is pinched. “We need an adult driving.”
“Yes, well, driving is a kid’s job,” Chuck observes.
India snorts. “Is that so?” she asks.
“That’s the way it is here, yes,” Chuck answers politely.
I peer out the window, looking for a sign. “Where is here? Fort Baker or Denver?”
Chuck shakes his head. He seems genuinely apologetic. “Always happens. Can’t ever get the signage just right. People think this is Portland or Chicago. Dallas or New Orleans. We put up as many signs as we can, but . . .”
“What signs?”
“The ones I’ve been telling you about. The ones that said: Not Albuquerque. Not Las Vegas. Not Denver,” Mouse pipes up.
“Trouble is there’s so many places this isn’t, it’s hard to cover them all. Just yesterday we had someone from Duluth.” He sighs. “You know, there isn’t a single sign that says Not Duluth.”
“Why do you have signs that say what this isn’t?” India asks.
“It’s the first comment passengers always make.” Chuck lowers his voice in imitation of an older man. “‘Hey um, sir, this isn’t Cleveland?’ ”
“Okay,” I say. “But if it’s not any of those places, where is it?”
“We’re headed for Falling Bird. It’s beautiful, isn’t it? The sky is a color you don’t often see.” We look up at the luminous midnight blue sky, glistening with stars like a thousand glittering pencil points. “Sometimes there’s a little patch of day sky, then you know it’s a special night. I saw one earlier. It’s probably gone by now. You got to catch them quick,” Chuck explains.
“Like a shooting star?” Mouse asks, her voice sleepy.
“Exactly,” Chuck agrees.
“Falling Bird must be on the way to Fort Baker. You know Uncle Red’s address? Red Tompkins? He lives near the Horsehair reservoir. That’s where we’re going, right?” India is leaning forward, straining against her seat belt, which rubs the feathers off. They fall gently to the floor.
Chuck shrugs. “I never met Uncle Red,” he admits.
I shoot India a wary look.
“Uncle Red called the taxi. He wouldn’t have met him,” India whispers.
I know she’s right, but even so. This is all a little odd. “Maybe you should take us back to the airport,” I suggest.
“Okay, but I’m not sure you’re going to want to stay at the airport.”
“Why not?” I ask.
“No flights out from there.”
“But it’s an airport,” I insist.
“He means this late,” India says.
“Did you get our name from Uncle Red?” I ask.
“Sparky told me,” Chuck says. “He runs the information group and he teaches Century Awareness.”
“What’s Sensory Awareness?” I ask.
“Century, not sensory. We call it CA. It just means keeping up with things. If you have contact with passengers, you need to know what’s happening.”
Mouse’s head nestles against my arm. Poor kid is even more exhausted than I am. She’s already asleep. “So this Sparky guy radios you with names of passengers on the flight.”
“Yes, I believe you were on flight number two-eighty-eight.”
“That’s right,” India says.
This isn’t making much sense, but the logic seems less and less important “Where is everybody else?” I ask, sinking back into the soft seats, a warm contentment flowing over me.
“I only had room for you,” Chuck explains, his words as slow as syrup.
“Oh,” I say, comforted by this answer despite how puzzling it is. Of course he didn’t have room for the entire plane full of people in this one cab. What is he talking about?
“Then where are we going?” India asks as she too falls back into the weightless warmth of the seats.
“You’ll see. It’s pretty amazing. Like nothing you’ve ever experienced before.”
My mind is still firing questions, but the rest of me feels as if it’s been submerged in warm bathwater. “India, we need to go home.”
“Got to get you to your new home,” Chuck says as the feather taxi increases speed, gliding along in the dark valley with a new set of mountain peaks off in the distance.
I struggle to find my normal thoughts. It feels as if I’ve been wrapped in heated velvet. “Let’s call Mom again,” I suggest.
“You know, our technology has some gaps. We haven’t had anybody with a good grasp of cellophones arrive yet.”
“Cell phones,” I correct.
“Cell phones. Shoot. Don’t tell Sparky about that, okay?”
“Let’s try calling,” I insist, struggling to hold on to these words before they dissolve like sugar in the warm puddle of my mind.
India unzips her vest pocket slowly, as if each tooth of the zipper is a note she can’t wait to hear. She flips open her cell and stares at it, mesmerized. Her finger wavers above the icons before it finally makes contact with my mom’s red apple.
We wait, the car purring along the highway in the strange dark night.
“Dead?” Chuck asks after a time, though I don’t know how long. I had forgotten we were waiting.
India nods. “Maybe closer to the
city,” she suggests.
Chuck shakes his head. “Won’t help. Once you’re out of the area the calls get dropped.”
Won’t help . . . out of the area . . . his words echo through my head, through my sleep, through my dreams. The calls get dropped . . . dropped . . . dropped.
CHAPTER 8
TRAVELS WITH CHUCK
Bing says it’s time to wake up, but I fall asleep again. I can’t do everything Bing says, you know. India is bossy enough.
I think we’ve only been sleeping a few hours, but it’s late morning already and we are still in the car with feathers. When are we going to get to Uncle Red’s?
India and Finn are asleep. India has her head by the door, her hair stuck with spit to her mouth. Finn is curled up on the seat. He looks like a comma. I check to see if he has grown any pimples overnight. None. Good.
Bing is already up. That is the nice thing about an invisible friend, he is always up before me. I never have to be even one minute without him. I’m always his favorite person too. I’m no one else’s favorite person. Pluto probably wasn’t either, so they kicked him out of the solar system. I hope they don’t kick me out of the solar system. I watch for signs that say Not the Solar System, but I don’t see any.
Bing is chatty this morning. Usually he doesn’t notice other people that much, but he says Mr. Chuck is a good guy and we should trust him. I spy on Mr. Chuck, but he doesn’t do anything interesting. He just drives. That’s all.
“How come you get to drive?” I ask.
I see Chuck’s dimples in the rearview mirror. He’s taken off his jacket, which says Travels with Charles in thread above the pocket. “Good morning, Mouse. I was just about to wake you up.”
“How come you don’t need a driver’s license?”
“I have one,” Chuck says.
“Does it have a picture on it?”
“Yes.”
“How old are you?”
“Twelve.”
“You can’t get a driver’s license when you’re twelve, otherwise Finn and India would have them.”
“Things are different here.”
“Yeah, I know. My mom doesn’t have the right teaching credenza,” I say.
“That’s too bad. I would have liked to have met her,” Chuck says, and then points up through the windshield. “Mouse, look up in the sky. Over on the left there.”
In the bright blue sky there are no clouds, but in big white writing it says: Welcome, Mouse. I can read it even though it’s cursive. I don’t like to read cursive as much, though. They never put cursive in books, and I’m glad about that.
“How’d they know I was coming?” I ask.
“Everybody knows you’re coming.”
“Does the president know?”
“Of course. Now wake your sister and brother. They won’t want to miss this.”
“India! In-deee-aaa! !” I jiggle the leather fringe on her vest, which she tells me never to pull on or she will hang me upside down out the window when we are driving on the freeway after she gets her license and she can finally drive. “My name is in the sky! The president knows!”
She jerks upright and scrunches her face like she can’t pull her eyes out of her dreams. “Huh?”
I point to the sky outside the window.
Finn is awake now too. He’s not a comma anymore. He’s back to being straight like an exclamation point. “What the heck? India! Your name’s in the sky!”
“My name?” India is really interested now.
“There.” Finn points and India and I scootch over until we see Welcome, India.
“Me too! Me too!” I tell Finn, pointing to my name. “Uh-oh.” I lean forward to whisper to Chuck. “What about Finn? You forgot about him.”
“He’s up ahead,” Chuck says, and then a minute later we see Welcome, Finn Tompkins out the front window just as the W in Welcome, Mouse is beginning to droop.
“How come Finn gets his last name too?” I ask.
“Because people need to know Finn’s last name,” Chuck answers.
Finn makes a funny gulp. Finn likes to write his whole name on things. I don’t know why.
“How’d it get up there? Is there some computer program that does that?” I ask.
“No, we just have planes,” Mr. Chuck explains. “We’ve got every kind of pilot here, lots of skywriters. Look what we’re passing now.”
A big shiny truck and a giant trailer are up ahead. Painted on the side of the trailer is a huge heart. Chuck pushes the feather taxi faster, and we practically fly by. The side of the truck says: We love India, Finn, and Mouse.
“The truck loves us?” I ask.
Chuck smiles. “Everybody loves you today. This is the best part of my job.”
“How could the trucking company know in time to get the trucks painted?” Finn wants to know.
“Sparky is in charge of information. And then Francine and Mary Carol are good at coordinating. Together the three of them can do anything. Sparky and Francine don’t get along that well, though,” Chuck says.
We’re approaching a city now—a beautiful city that’s all sparkly white and silver with color streaming out of it like the prism in my classroom.
“Is that Denver?” India asks.
“No, it’s Not Denver, remember?” I say.
“That’s Falling Bird,” Chuck says.
“FB is for Fort Baker, isn’t it Mr. Chuck? Isn’t it?” I say.
“FB stands for Fort Baker but in this case it means Falling Bird,” Chuck tells me.
“How far is it from Falling Bird to Fort Baker?” Finn asks.
“It’s a bit of a detour I’m afraid,” Chuck says.
“Wait, does Uncle Red know about the detour?” India asks.
“Yes,” Mr. Chuck says.
The road is full of cars now and each has a sign in the window. Welcome, India. You are so beautiful. Sing for us, one says. Mouse is our favorite, another says. Finn rules. And then Ask Mouse. She knows everything. So does Bing.
“But, Mr. Chuck, how do they know Bing? He didn’t have a real seat on the plane. And I’ve never told Uncle Red about him.”
“Like I said, Sparky doesn’t miss a thing,” Mr. Chuck says.
I wish he would slow down. I want to say hello to the people who think I know everything. Bing does too. He thinks I know everything—except what he knows. We are side-by-side refrigerators full of knowing, Bing and me.
We are driving under a big Welcome to Falling Bird arch now. It is made of prisms and light. Welcome to Falling Bird is written in pink light on the road. On the sidewalks are people waving to us. When we drive up, they all cheer.
“How could Sparky have told all these people?” I ask India.
“Did you post this online?” Finn wants to know.
“Uncle Red must have arranged this,” India offers.
“Is Uncle Red rich?” Finn asks.
“He must be,” India says.
“He sure knows a lot of people,” I say, reading all the signs. We love Mouse. Yay for India. Some have mouse noses and ears. Some are dressed as basketball players. MVP Finn Tompkins, one guy’s basketball shirt says. Every guy has the number 48. Finn’s basketball number.
“Why are they carrying pictures of Henry?” Finn asks.
“She’s your dog,” Chuck says.
“How’d they know her name and what she looks like?” Finn again.
“Henry is important to you, so of course we’d know about her.”
“How far are we from Uncle Red’s?” Finn asks.
“That I don’t know,” Chuck answers.
“You need to take us back to the airport,” Finn insists.
“If Uncle Red arranged all this, then it must be okay,” India says.
Each light post is a bird nest with bulbs that are eggs. Feathers fall out of the sky. Pictures of a dark blue night sky with one piece of day sky are all around and movies are everywhere . . . on the roofs, on the sidewalks, on the tree tops, and even
in some windows. People in Falling Bird must really like movies. And guess what? We’re in them!
There’s India doing cartwheels with Maddy, India singing in the choir, Finn shooting baskets with our cousins watching, Finn and Henry on Finn’s bed, me explaining decimals to fifth graders, me riding horses with Mommy.
“Our life is up there,” I say.
Chuck smiles. “We know how to make you feel welcome.”
So many people are watching—too many to count, even the fast way where you multiply one side by the other. People don’t stand in rows unless they are in a marching band or the army.
Chuck parks the feather cab under a shady tree full of pink flowers. Everybody watches the sky boards. We hear them oohh and ahhh and clap. It’s like when I was student of the week . . . only better.
After a few minutes, the same movies begin again and Chuck drives back onto the driving part of the road. The cars and buses and carts all honk and flash their lights like we are famous. Chuck turns on to a street with big homes, and parks in the front yard of one. People on both sides shout our names. He takes off his cap and his mustache and puts them in his hat.
“Are they itchy?” I ask.
He shrugs. “I just wear them because they make my passengers feel more comfortable when I pick them up,” Chuck says. “Now.” He leans over the seat. “I need to tell you a few things. This is important, okay?” Chuck has messy hair that looks like he needs his mommy to cut it for him. He is nice. Bing is right about that.
“When you’re done, I’m available to take you wherever you want to go as long as it’s within your time, unless, of course, another flight comes in. And then I have to meet that one.”
“Couldn’t you take us to Uncle Red’s now?” Finn asks as the crowd outside sings “Tomp-kins! Tomp-kins!”
“But if Uncle Red arranged all this, we can’t refuse to do it. It will hurt his feelings,” India insists.
“Tomp-kins! Tomp-kins!” People keep saying our name!
“You won’t want to miss this, trust me. It’s the most incredible experience of your life. Just keep your eye on the time, because it will be different for each of you. That’s the first thing to remember.”
“Excuse me, Mr. Chuck, the time is the same for everybody. Three o’clock for me is three o’clock for you.” Kids get confused sometimes, so I have to explain things to them.
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