The Last Place on Earth

by Carol Snow

  As we approached the turn to the Fortress, I said, “Can we drive by Henry’s house?”

  Peter gave a single-shoulder shrug (when it comes to conserving energy, Peter is a master) and flicked on the blinker. We turned off the main road and wound around to Henry’s mean-looking house. Peter stopped the car.

  I was prepared for the two orange bundles still sitting in the driveway. Still, when I saw them, a fresh stab of disappointment hit me in the stomach.

  “You getting out?” Peter asked.

  I shook my head. “Let’s go home.”

  In my bedroom, I unloaded my books and notebooks. I booted up my laptop, an old model that my mother had bought for next to nothing when her office updated the equipment. I meant to research some stuff for English but wound up checking my messages instead (nothing from Henry). I stared at the wall. I stared at my laptop screen. Finally, I gave up. I had to go back to the Fortress. Maybe I’d missed something. Maybe there were clues to Henry’s whereabouts.

  I let myself out the back gate and hurried down the dusty horse and jogging path until I reached the pond. It was usually busy here during the day. Today, a mother walked near the edge, a toddler clutching her skirt. A bicyclist zipped past several old men in camp chairs, fishing rods in their hands, tackle boxes by their feet. Coots and mallards paddled across the green-black surface, while dragonflies hovered among the reeds like tiny helicopters.

  I would never again pass this pond without remembering that last night with Henry. He’d known something was up, I was sure of it. He’d known he was going away.

  But where? And why?

  Three

  IT WASN’T UNUSUAL for Henry to show up at my house on a school night, but he usually texted first, and he almost never came this late, just past ten thirty. He had been in school that day. In fact, he hadn’t staged an illness for over a week, which I might have found strange if I hadn’t been so glad to have him around to challenge me to “power pirouette” contests during dance class or to doodle stupid cartoons in my history notebook when I was supposed to be copying down disgusting facts about medieval Europe. (One word: leeches.)

  “You up for a walk?” he asked, hands in his jeans pockets, narrow shoulders angled forward.

  I almost said, No, let’s just hang in my living room. I was in my pajamas already (flowered boxers and a tank top; it was a warm night), and I still had a good half hour of math homework left. But there was something about Henry’s expression. His eyes, so dark brown they were almost black, were always sharp, but tonight they looked strained. His jaw muscles twitched.

  So I said, “Yeah, sure. Let me just tell my mom and put some clothes on.”

  Five minutes later, we were out the back gate and onto the trail. Something rustled in the bushes. My arm tickled; I swiped away a spiderweb that might have been imaginary but probably wasn’t. The path, so familiar during the day, was kind of creepy at night.

  “We going to your house?” I asked.

  “No.” (Had his voice really been that forceful? I couldn’t remember. Mostly, I was just relieved that I wouldn’t have to deal with his parents.)

  We said almost nothing until we reached the pond, which wasn’t as weird as you might think. Henry and I were not only close enough to tell each other everything (at least in my mind), we trusted each other with our silences.

  At the pond, Henry stopped as if entranced by the glassy surface. The night was clear. The moon cast a ribbon of light across the water. The air smelled of eucalyptus and wild sage.

  I studied his profile: the straight nose, the strong jaw. Henry was better looking from the side than he was full-on. His face was a touch too narrow, and his eyes, dark and deep-set, were a little too close together. But I liked his face from any angle—not in that way, not really, but because it was Henry’s face. It was so familiar, I knew just how to read it. At least, I had until this night.

  “If you knew you only had one day left on earth, what would you do?” Henry asked, his gaze still on the water.

  Coming from someone else, this question might have seemed odd, but all the time we launched conversations with things like, “Would you rather be a free-range chicken or a farmed salmon?” Or, “If you could only bring one book to a desert island, what would it be?” (My answers, in case you’re wondering, were farmed salmon and an e-reader. And I don’t care if that’s cheating.)

  “Depends what you mean by last day on earth,” I said. “Are we talking solar flare or alien abduction?”

  Henry chewed his lower lip. “More like aliens.”

  “I’d hide,” I said.

  He shook his head. “No, no, no. One day left and there’s no escape. They’ve got you, I don’t know, microchipped or something. And they’ve got a Daisy-finding task force. And if the aliens don’t get you, they’ll take out your entire family.”

  “They could have Peter.”

  “You can’t sacrifice your brother! Peter is my role model.” Henry laughed but in a sad way, which I hadn’t even known was possible. And then he did this weird whimper-hiccup thing. I let it pass.

  “Fine,” I said. “If I knew it was my last day on earth, I’d shut myself in my room with a box of cookies. And I’d cry.”

  “Would you come see me to say good-bye?”

  “Sure. Maybe. I don’t know. I wouldn’t want to make you sad. And besides, I hate good-byes.”

  There was a long pause. Finally, he spoke. “What kind of cookies?”

  “Girl Scout. Thin mints. And those coconut thingies that are like a thousand calories each, but if I’m going to die tomorrow, who cares?”

  “That’s two boxes. And I didn’t say you were going to die tomorrow, I just said…” He sighed.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked. “You seem weird.”

  “I’m always weird. It’s my natural state.”

  He held my eyes for a moment. Henry’s taller than I am, I thought with surprise. When did that happen? We’d been more or less the same height since I’d known him. And then, before I could ask how he’d snuck a growth spurt past me, he did something that was undeniably weird, even for him. He yanked off his sneakers and ran into the pond.

  “Henry! Are you crazy? It’s gross in there!”

  But he didn’t answer, just waded through the muck until the water got to waist level and dove under. He remained submerged just long enough to make me worry that he’d gotten caught on something or that his waterlogged jeans had dragged him down, and then he burst through the slimy surface.

  “Join me for a swim?” he called.

  I stared at him in horror. “That water is disgusting. There is duck crap and fish crap and algae and probably a million kinds of bacteria.”

  “So that’s a no?”

  “I think you’re going to need antibiotics. I’m serious, Henry.”

  “Fine,” he said. But instead of slogging back through the muck, he turned and dove under the scum again. With choppy strokes, he splashed his way to the center of the pond, where he floated on his back and gazed up at the moon.

  If it were anyone else, I would have walked away. But I stayed, of course. I would never desert Henry.

  Finally, he backstroked to the shallows, where he stood up and made his way to shore, his feet making sucking sounds in the muck.

  “I’ve always wanted to do that,” he said when he got to me. His breathing was heavy. Henry was not one for physical exertion.

  “How was it?” My voice was flat.

  “Not as fun as I expected. Plus I think I stepped on a turtle.” A cloud drifted in front of the moon.

  I hugged myself, even though it wasn’t cold. “I should get home. Do my math homework.”

  “I’ll walk you.”

  “No, I’m fine. You should go shower.”

  “Do I smell that bad?” He tried to smile.

  I tried to smile back. And then I gave up and let my gaze fall to the ground. “I’ll see you at school. Don’t forget that chemistry thing is due tomorrow.”r />
  “There’s something else I always wanted to do,” he said.

  I looked up just in time to see his face closing in on mine. “Henry, no!” I took a step backward and stumbled on a tree root, just managing to steady myself before falling.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “I never should have—”

  “It’s okay,” I said, though of course it was anything but. “I’m just tired. And you’re wet. And a little…” I caught myself before I said stinky.

  His eyes glistened. “You mean so much to me. I didn’t mean to make things weird.”

  “You didn’t,” I lied. “Everything’s the same as it always was. Let’s just blame tonight on the full moon.” (The moon wasn’t full.)

  “Deal,” Henry said. “Things will never be weird between us. I promise.” He held my gaze for about two seconds more than was comfortable under the circumstances. “You sure you don’t want me to walk you home?”

  “Positive.” I forced a smile and gave him a quick wave. Then I made my way around the pond, to the trail, past the spiderwebs, through the gate, and into the safety of my house.

  I never looked back. Not once.

  Four

  I KNEW THE house was empty, but I rang the doorbell just in case. At this point, I’d even be happy to see Henry’s parents. Well, relieved, anyway.

  Ding-DONG. Ding-dong-DING. Nothing.

  I raised my eyes to the video camera painted the same ice white as the house. It stared back at me, unblinking. I stuck out my tongue. It did not react.

  I rang the bell again because I didn’t know what else to do. Finally I gave up and trudged back down the front walkway. Peeking through the narrow slot of the locked metal mailbox, I spied a pile of envelopes and circulars.

  Justin Kim. Just like that, I remembered the name of the boy who took in the mail and paper. Henry and I had run into him once while walking around the pond. Later, Henry had pointed out his house, three doors down.

  As I hurried away from the Fortress, I prayed that Justin Kim had messed up. That the Hawkings had called him. That he just hadn’t showed.

  The Kim house also had a sign from A-1 Security planted in the front yard. Perhaps there was some kind of neighborhood discount. No video camera, though—at least that I could see—and unlike Henry’s mother, who refused to open the door to strangers (UPS drivers were forced to show credentials beyond their big brown trucks), a petite Asian woman with perfect makeup answered my knocks. She wore a silk tunic, gray leggings, and terry-cloth flip-flops.

  “I’m Daisy Cruz,” I said. “A friend of Henry’s?”

  “Henry. Yes. Nice boy.” She smiled. Piano notes drifted from farther back in the house.

  I tried to keep my tone casual. “Henry and his parents have been gone a couple of days, but their newspapers and mail are still out there.” Saying it like that, it didn’t seem so ominous. “Do you know if Justin was supposed to get them?”

  In a flash, Mrs. Kim’s smile transformed into a scowl. “Justin!” The piano music stopped. “Justin!”

  Justin Kim, a lanky eleven-year-old with a sharp gaze and black hair that stood up like feathers, padded into the front hall.

  His mother glared at him. “You forgot to do your job for the Hawkings!”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “You go over this morning?”

  “No, but—”

  “Then you forgot!”

  “They may not have called him,” I said.

  “They didn’t call me!” Justin’s voice cracked. He turned from his mother to look at me with something stronger than dislike.

  Disappointment clenched my stomach. “Sorry, I was just checking. Mr. and Mrs. Hawking must have forgotten to tell Justin they were going away.” My words sounded less than convincing, and not just to me.

  Mrs. Kim raised her eyebrows. “Mr. and Mrs. Hawking forget nothing.”

  I left the Kims’ house feeling even more panicked than before, and not just because Justin looked like he might hunt me down and strangle me in my sleep. Even if the Hawkings had neglected to call Justin before they left town—something they would never do—they could have called him from their car on their way to … wherever they were.

  Unless they didn’t drive away at all? Maybe they’d been kidnapped. Or murdered in their sleep (though probably not by Justin Kim; he was saving his strength for me). There was one way to find out.

  On the right side of the Hawkings’ garage, a keypad glowed like a telephone handset that had lost its way.

  “My parents made me promise I’d never tell anyone our security codes,” Henry had said one day after school, when we were standing right here, about to go inside. “Yeah? So what are they?” I’d asked.

  “What do you want to know—the garage code or the alarm system?”

  “Both,” I’d said. “I want you to tell me both.”

  My hands shook as I punched in the numbers. A green light flashed twice. The door lurched and lifted. The family had two cars: a Mini Cooper for Mr. Hawking, who, since he worked on the far side of Los Angeles, needed something with good gas mileage, and a giant black SUV with tinted windows for Mrs. Hawking. The SUV was roomy enough for camping gear. Also intimidating enough for doing drug deals, though Henry’s mom didn’t seem the type.

  I didn’t even realize I’d been holding my breath until I saw the Mini, alone in the vast garage, and let out a huge sigh of relief. They had taken Henry’s mom’s car, that big, bad wilderness machine. Up in the mountains or down in a valley, cell phone reception would be so sketchy, they wouldn’t even know that Henry’s phone wasn’t working. And they couldn’t call to check on whoever they had hired to take in their mail and paper. Justin Kim had obviously been fired without notice.

  Nothing to worry about.

  I was still worried. The Hawking family did not take off in the middle of the week on a whim. The Hawking family did not do anything on a whim.

  The garage was huge, with enough space for three large vehicles if not for the deep floor-to-ceiling cabinets that lined the walls. Around here, pretty much everyone used the garage for storage. My mother’s and brother’s cars hadn’t seen the inside of our garage since … ever. But these cabinets were enormous. How could they need to store that much stuff, especially when their house was already too big for three people?

  My eyes flicked around the space: no video cameras. Behind me, the garage door remained open like a giant, screaming mouth. I peered around the corner; the street was empty. I pushed the garage door button, and the door lurched back down, sealing me in with the car.

  It was hot in here. Blood rushed in my ears. I grabbed the nearest cabinet handle, took a deep breath, and pulled, half expecting to find a weapons arsenal or a body stashed inside.

  Toilet paper. I couldn’t believe it. The rolls were jammed into the cabinets four deep and six across, stacked all the way to the top. The next cabinet was the same. The Hawkings, family of three, had several hundred rolls of toilet paper sitting in their garage, while in my house we couldn’t even keep a spare in the bathroom. I broke into laughter, the sounds echoing around me.

  “My parents are gearing up for the Big One,” Henry had said whenever the topic of earthquakes came up. I’d assumed he meant stocking jugs of water and some granola bars—enough to get through a few days without power. But this! This was bizarre.

  I pulled open the next cabinet, expecting to find yet more toilet paper, but no. This space was jammed with cleaning supplies: dish soap, sponges, window cleaner. The next cabinet was filled with bleach. Just bleach.

  I worked my way around the walls, uncovering sacks of rice, bags of beans, canned vegetables, canned meat, canned fish, bouillon cubes, salt, pepper, sugar, more salt. There were flashlights and flares, no-drip candles, and an entire cabinet of batteries, in every imaginable size.

  Clearly, the Hawkings expected the Big One to be very big indeed. Of course, if an earthquake was severe enough to merit all these emergency supplies, the odds o
f the family surviving it were pretty slim.

  Unless the universe looked after them. That could happen.

  I’d seen enough. I opened the garage and slipped back out into the dazzling sunshine. Hands trembling, I keyed in the code, and the door slid back into place. I took a deep breath and exhaled with a sigh of something approaching relief.

  I had just reached the street when a huge white pickup truck pulled up to the curb. The back door opened, and Gwendolyn climbed out. “Did you see Henry? Is he here?”

  A minute earlier, and they would have caught me coming out of the garage. Yikes.

  I shook my head and tried not to look freaked out. “I just stopped by to give him his homework, but no one answered the door.”

  Gwendolyn’s gaze flicked down to my hands, which were not holding homework. Before she could interrogate me further, her parents got out of the car. Both of them were fair skinned and light eyed, like Gwendolyn, but Mrs. Waxweiler was short and plump, while her husband was a great big bear of a man. And not a cute bear, like a panda. More like a big scary one that comes out during the spring thaw to maul hikers nibbling sunflower seeds. He had brown hair and bushy red eyebrows that looked so much like caterpillars, I half expected them to crawl across his face.

  Mrs. Waxweiler, on the other hand, was a blond bubble: one of those moms who look so stereotypically mom-ish that she could be on a commercial for laundry detergent. She wore a pink T-shirt and flowered capris and a superfake smile.

  “You are Daisy Cruz,” Mr. Waxweiler said, which would have been helpful had I forgotten my name. His voice was surprisingly high for such a large man.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “And you are unaware of Henry’s whereabouts.”

  “Yes.”

  He appraised the cherry-red ends of my hair, the four earrings, the T-shirt I’d hand-decorated with Sharpies. Though we’d only been acquainted for thirty seconds, I instinctively knew that Mr. Waxweiler was not the kind of man to appreciate a custom T-shirt.

  And then, suddenly, it was like I wasn’t even there.