The Secret of Zoom

by Lynne Jonell

  In fact, she hated to admit it, but it was actually fun to get the right answer time after time. She had a feeling of accomplishment that had nothing to do with overly enthusiastic chickens.

  “Done!” Christina checked her last problem, smiled broadly—she’d gotten it right again!—and slammed the book shut. “Now we can make plans for this afternoon.”

  Taft shook his head. “I’m not waiting until then. I’m going”—he glanced at the clock and pushed back his chair—“right now.”

  “But we can’t leave until Nanny takes her nap. They’ll come looking for me if I don’t go downstairs for lunch.”

  Taft headed for the closet. “They won’t come looking for me. I’m taking off.”

  “By yourself?” Christina’s voice rose. “That’s no fair. I rescued you, remember? I found the tunnel, and I brought you here, and I even fed you pie—”

  Taft pulled down the trapdoor ladder and grinned. “It was good, too. Got any more?”

  Christina glared at him. “If you’re going to go off by yourself and have all kinds of fun without me, then you can forget about any more pie. You’re going to miss lunch, too, and supper if you’re not back in time—”

  “I’m used to it.” Taft shrugged. “I had to miss meals at the orphanage if I talked back.”

  “I bet you missed them all the time, then,” Christina countered, but suddenly she noticed the thinness of Taft’s neck and the way his shoulder bones showed through his shirt. What had they done at that orphanage—starved him?

  “Listen,” Taft said. “I can come back for you if you want. But I want to go check on Danny.”

  “Oh.” Christina looked up, her irritation fading.

  “I can’t stay here forever, anyway—I’ve got to figure out a place where he can live with me.” Taft disappeared up through the trapdoor.

  “Wait!” Christina hopped up the ladder and poked her head into the attic. “I’ve got an idea! Just give me ten minutes, okay?”

  Taft turned with his hand on the service door’s latch, his head cocked to one side. “Okay. But I’m leaving then, whether you’re coming or not.”

  “You can watch the orphanage through the telescope while you wait,” said Christina, pointing past the sheet-draped furniture to the broken chair beneath the air vent. “Stay inside, though. Someone might see you on the roof.”

  Christina skidded down the stairs and into the kitchen, where Nanny and Cook were having a final cup of coffee. “I need to pack a lunch. A big one. I’m going on an adventure.”

  “Eh?” said Cook, staring.

  “To a desert island,” said Christina, inventing on the spot. “I’m going to sail away.”

  Nanny and Cook did not seem able to comprehend this.

  Christina tried again. “If I can’t go outside,” she explained patiently, “I’m just going to have to pretend, aren’t I?”

  “Ah!” said Nanny.

  “Oh!” said Cook.

  “I’ll go up to my room,” Christina said, “and set sail. I’ll be gone all day, and if I take a lunch, you won’t even see me until suppertime.”

  “I’ll make you one this minute,” said Cook, getting up.

  “Make enough for two,” said Christina with sudden inspiration. “I’m taking a friend with me.”

  “An imaginary friend,” Nanny explained to Cook in an elaborate whisper.

  “Poor little tyke,” mumbled Cook in return. “Trying to make the best of it. I’ll make her a lunch big enough for three, so I will.”

  Christina heaved the lunch sack through the trapdoor, climbed into the attic, and pulled the ladder up behind her with a click.

  The morning light shone in hazy stripes through the slats of the air vent and outlined the cracks in the small door to the roof. Taft was still there, hunched over the telescope, but he had discarded the broken-backed chair and was standing on a child’s dresser instead. Skid marks showed where he had dragged it across the floor, and a pile of sheets lay crumpled where he had tossed them in search of a sturdy piece of furniture.

  Christina hadn’t bothered to look under the dust covers before. She had assumed it was just old furniture under the sheets—and it was. But it was her old furniture. The child’s dresser that Taft stood on was painted with a row of yellow ducks that she had seen before. Over against the wall was a crib, and next to the crib was a rocking chair.

  Christina trailed her fingers across its carved wooden back and down curved spindles to the sturdy arms of the rocker. This must have been in her nursery once. Her mother had sat in this chair, rocking—

  “Hey!” Taft jumped down from the dresser and crossed to the service door in three leaping strides. “The kids are out in the orphanage yard. Come on!”

  TAFT clambered across the slanted roof to the gargoyle that stood twisted open, the door behind it a dark rectangle in the morning light. He plunged down the gloomy stair and was lost to view.

  Christina followed more carefully, annoyed that he had forgotten to duck as he crossed the rooftop. What if someone on the ground had been looking up? He could have ruined everything.

  She wasn’t any happier when she reached the bottom and heard his footsteps echoing far ahead in the dimly lit tunnel. She took off at her fastest pace, the lunch sack banging her leg at every step, but she couldn’t catch up. She didn’t even have time to rattle the latch of the big square wooden door as she passed. Of course it must still be locked, but she would have liked to have made sure. And why was Taft in such a hurry, anyway? The orphans weren’t going anywhere.

  But maybe they were. Christina emerged from the tunnel into leafy green light, blinked, and crawled up behind Taft, who was crouching in the bushes. Ahead, past the barbed and electrified fence, five columns of ragged children stood waiting in the circular driveway that looped past the orphanage. The yard boss, the man with the short bristly hair, paced in front of the columns, looking at his watch.

  “I hope they’re not waiting for the garbage truck,” said Taft worriedly. “Danny likes to sing, and I always had to remind him to sing the wrong notes. I hope he remembers, that’s all.”

  “Where is Danny?” whispered Christina.

  Taft’s eyes scanned the ranks of orphans, back and forth. “There. Fourth column, back row.”

  Christina could see him now, one of the taller boys, his head noticeably large even from this distance. She glanced at Taft, and hesitated. “What’s wrong with him?”

  Taft frowned and muttered something that she could not hear.

  “Was he born like that?” Christina persisted. She didn’t want to be rude, but she really wanted to find out.

  Taft squinted narrowly at her through his dense lashes. “I don’t know,” he said, looking annoyed. “He was like that when they brought him on the truck from the city. Why should you care? Nobody else does.”

  Christina blinked. Sometimes she thought Taft was getting nicer, and then all of a sudden, he was mad again for no reason.

  “Once I heard somebody say it was ‘water on the brain.’ But I don’t know what that means. Nobody explains things in there.” Taft jerked his chin in the direction of the pale brick building that squatted in the clearing like a large square mushroom. “You’re lucky to live with a scientist. I bet all you have to do is ask your father anything you want to know, and you’ll get an answer.”

  “Sometimes a very long answer,” Christina said cautiously.

  “At least you’ve got a father,” said Taft, a flush rising in his neck. “Anyway, so what if Danny’s a little slow? He’s good. And he tries harder than anybody.”

  “Listen, I didn’t mean—” Christina began, but the whine of a powerful engine cut her off.

  The yard boss blew his whistle. The slumping shoulders of the orphans straightened to attention. And as a long black car pulled up with a crunch of gravel and its tinted window rolled down, their wavering voices rose in what sounded—improbably—like a cheer.

  Give me an L! (clap, clap)

&
nbsp; Give me an L-E! (clap)

  Give me an L-E-N-N-Y, and then a Loompski! (stomp, stomp)

  He’s the Happy Orphans’ daddy

  (He’s a goody, not a baddy),

  When we see him we’re so gladdy—

  Lenny Loompski! (clap, stomp)

  The car door opened. A gray-trousered leg (the trousers were a little tight) kicked out, followed by the sausagelike body of Lenny Loompski. He straightened, his mirrored sunglasses glinting, and moved his head slowly back and forth, scanning the ranks of orphans.

  “Who,” he rasped, “composed that poem?”

  The yard boss tapped his hands nervously together. “Didn’t you like it? I picked the one I thought was best, but if you’d rather hear another”—he snapped his fingers at the nearest orphan. “You, there! Recite the poem you composed in Mr. Loompski’s honor!”

  A small boy stepped forward, twisted the end of his ragged shirt between his hands, and piped, “Loompski, Loompski, he’s our man, if he can’t crush you, no one can—”

  Lenny put up a hand. “No, I liked the first one. That was a real Happy Orphan welcome, Crumley!”

  Crumley bobbed his bristly head some ten or twelve times. “All our orphans are happy orphans, Mr. Loompski.”

  In the bushes, Taft glanced bitterly at Christina. “They wouldn’t dare be anything else.”

  Lenny put his hands on his hips and stood with his legs apart. “But which happy orphan composed this splendid poem in my honor, I wonder?”

  “Here, you!” the yard boss shouted, and a slight girl with tangled brown curls stepped forward to stand at the front of the line, her eyes dark in her pale face.

  “But what’s this? She’s not smiling!” roared Lenny Loompski, with a jolly laugh that echoed against the bricks.

  The girl swayed as his voice blasted. She stretched her lips over her teeth and turned up the corners with her fingers.

  “What’s your name, little orphan?”

  The girl looked up. “Dorset,” she said, her voice high and unsteady.

  Lenny patted her on the head with several blunt thumps. “And you wrote that poem all by yourself? Just for Lenny Loompski?”

  Dorset staggered slightly and nodded, her smile still frozen in place.

  “Because?” urged Lenny Loompski, bending over her until his sunglasses almost touched her face.

  Dorset shut her eyes. “Because you’re a wonderful wonderful person,” she recited, “and . . .” She faltered and appeared to swallow hard. “And we love you, Mr. Loompski.”

  “Good, good! And . . . anything else?”

  Dorset glanced at the orphan behind her, who leaned forward to whisper in her ear. “Oh! And when you win the Karsnicky Medal, everyone else will know how wonderful you are, too.”

  Lenny Loompski chuckled and turned to the yard boss, his fat cheeks bunched. “See that Dorset gets a special treat today. Here at the Happy Orphan Home, we reward creative writing!”

  “Yes, sir!” Crumley stood up straighter. The girl’s smile became real. The ranks of children moved restlessly.

  Hidden in the bushes, Christina turned to Taft. “She can’t really love him?”

  “Of course not,” whispered Taft. “But she knows she’ll get extra food if she pretends.” He shrugged. “I’ve written a few poems for Lenny Loompski, too. Only I could never bring myself to say he’s going to win the Karsnicky Medal. He’s not even a scientist.”

  “So Dorset’s special treat is—”

  “Tonight, at least, she won’t go to bed hungry.”

  Outraged, Christina glared at Lenny, at the yard boss, at the shabby starveling children. No wonder Taft was mad all the time. She was starting to feel furious herself.

  Lenny, though, seemed terribly pleased. He flung out his arms, his flat face pink. “Is that how you really feel?” he cried. “Do you all think I’m wonderful?”

  “You’re wuuuuuuunderful, Mr. Loompski!” bellowed all the orphans together.

  “Then here’s another special treat for everyone—an extra hour of school, right now, before you collect trash!”

  The orphans raised a ragged cheer, waving their thin arms in the air.

  “You can type in all your poems on the computer,” Lenny said, raising his voice, “and print them out for me. I’ll be able to see just how much you admire your Happy Orphan Daddy!”

  He started his car and drove slowly toward the electrified gate, waving out the window like a president on parade. The gate clanged behind him, the horn blasted a last farewell, and the snarling black car disappeared up the mountain road.

  The yard boss barked an order. The orphans turned, line by line, and filed up the front steps. Danny followed, looking eager, but Crumley pulled him out of the line.

  “Not you.”

  Danny lifted his heavy head. “But I don’t push in line . . . and I can sharpen my own pencil . . . and I know A . . . B . . . C.”

  “Well, sometime you might learn D, too, but not today. Today I want you to scrub plastic toys. There’s a whole pile out back in the wheelbarrow. Get your bucket, boy.” The bristle-headed man slapped him on the back and disappeared through the large double doors, whistling between his teeth.

  Christina glanced at Taft. His face was pale, and his fists were clenched.

  “He wants to learn just as much as anybody,” Taft said, very low. “More. It’s not fair.”

  Christina watched as Danny lumbered around the corner of the large brick building, bucket in hand. She didn’t really understand why the orphans were so eager to have lessons—she wouldn’t mind if she had fewer, herself—but she supposed that if she had to work instead of learn, she might prefer to learn.

  Taft elbowed her in the ribs. “Come on. He’s going around to the back. There’s a place near the stream where the fence comes up close.”

  Christina wriggled after Taft through the weeds. “But what if he tells someone he’s seen us? Can he keep a secret?”

  Taft shook his head. “We won’t show ourselves. I just want to see if he’s okay. You know, see if he’s got any bruises.”

  CHRISTINA lay flat on her stomach among some weeds on a little rise of ground and looked between the humming strands of the electric fence to the swirling water just beyond.

  The stream, coming from some source higher up the mountain, twisted and turned behind them with a rush of foam. But as it approached the flatter land near the orphanage, it calmed, spreading out into a small, irregular pool fringed with reeds and tall stalks with purple flowers. The water still moved and eddied, but sluggishly, and in one spot a flat, jutting boulder had created a backwash, a place where leaves and half-submerged branches and other detritus piled and stuck fast, leaving the stream free to take up its course again on the other side. Farther on, the land sloped and the stream became noisy once more as it ran down the mountain, joined with other rivulets, and became at last the river that flowed like a blue and gray snake winding through the valley town of Dorf.

  Danny climbed out onto the boulder, his bucket banging at his hip.

  “There’s a good place to dip his bucket on the other side of the rock,” Taft whispered in Christina’s ear. “I only had to show him that once, and he never forgot it. If it’s anything he can do with his hands, Danny remembers.”

  Christina could see that the jutting boulder, which set up a logjam for trash on the near side, was balanced by a swirl of deeper water on the far side. But Danny sat down, pulled something white and purple out of his pocket, and began to dance it up and down his arm.

  “Is that a . . . bath toy?” Christina glanced at Taft, who looked embarrassed.

  “It’s a rubber cow,” he mumbled. “I saved it from the trash for him once. He sleeps with it every night.”

  The cow was back in Danny’s pocket. Now he lay on the boulder with his feet hanging over the deep water and reached his hand down into the piled river trash.

  “What’s he doing?” Taft popped his head up. “No, Danny! Put that down—that
’s glass. You’ll cut yourself!”

  Danny opened his hand with a guilty start, his mouth falling open. “Taff!” He scrambled to his feet and stood on the boulder, irresolute, his arms hanging. “Why are you over there, Taff? You went away on the truck!”

  “I got free, Danny. Get down! Pretend you’re getting water. Somebody might be watching from the windows!”

  Danny sat down obediently and picked up his bucket. “You went on the truck and then you got free?” He blinked twice, looking at his friend.

  “Yes, that’s right. Now dip the bucket, Danny. Get some water and don’t look over here. What were you doing, picking up glass? You know I’ve told you never to do that!”

  Danny, his tongue between his teeth, lowered the bucket carefully into the deep water and let it fill.

  “I thought you weren’t going to show yourself,” murmured Christina.

  Taft turned, exasperated. “What, you want to let him bleed to death?”

  “He wasn’t bleeding at all. He was just picking up a—” Christina peered through the weeds. The narrow cylinder Danny had found lay on top of the pile, glinting in the sun.

  “It’s a test tube,” Taft said disgustedly. “Somebody at the lab farther upstream must have dumped a bunch long ago, because they all ended up buried in that pile. Danny fished around in it once and found a broken one, and he almost did bleed to death before I found him.”

  “Oh.” Christina squinted at the test tube. She could see the crack in it from where she was, and the jagged top edge. Taft had been right to stop Danny, but—would Danny know enough to keep the secret? Or would he tell that he had seen Taft?

  Danny pulled up the sloshing bucket and turned his head carefully sideways. “Are you coming back, Taff?”

  “I will sometime, Danny. When I can find a place for us. Then we’ll both be free. But until then, no more glass, you understand?”

  Danny’s eyes clouded. “Not even in my pocket?”

  “Especially not in your pocket,” said Taft.