by Juliet Bell
Grandmother nodded, but seemed hardly to hear him. “My library, Ella,” she said, as if in answer to some phantom question, “holds an extraordinary and valuable collection of books, though some people”—here she glared, as if I were one of them; it was probably Phyllis Stine and her ilk she was referring to, I figured—“find this hard to understand. It is to catalog and order this collection, a task long overdue, that I hired …” She gestured impatiently toward Abercrombie.
“Jackson and Jason,” he supplied.
“Precisely, Jason and Jackson. And it is also why Christopher so kindly came all this way this summer, so that he could consult with me about it—a plan that we could not easily change, incidentally, just because you were coming here, too.”
This was pretty unfriendly, even for my grandmother. I blinked. She did, too, and I had the sense that she suddenly noticed that it was me, a kid, standing there, not my dad. Sometimes grown-ups’ fights were like that, I’d noticed: they kept at it with each other even after the other person was gone or no longer on the line. After my dad’s occasional visits in California, my mom used to carry on muttering for a day or two, to no one in particular.
“In any case.” The GM tried to fix her voice—take it down the dragon scale a few notches. “Would you like to go see a movie today, Ella?”
“A what?” I figured I must have feathers in my head and misheard.
“A movie.” She didn’t even correct the what. “Joan offered to take you sometime, if you’d like, and today seems a good day for it.”
A movie? A movie? A MOVIE??!!
“Uh, yeah. Yes. I would, Grandmother. That sounds fun. Thanks.”
“Good. I’ll call her and let her know, and she can come and collect you.”
At last we agreed on something!
I had been screen starved for so long by this point that the idea of a movie made me giddy. I was so excited that I went outside to tell the birds the good news and give them the celebratory banana peels. They were happy for me, I could tell.
“Here, chick-chick-chick-chick-chickens,” I called out, trying to do something like Miguel’s “pea-song.” I liked to call the peacocks chickens so they didn’t get too snobby, thinking they were better than everyone else. “Here you go.”
A little embarrassing to be caught doing that when up the driveway came two teenager-sized clouds of dust swirling around Tweedledum and Tweedledee. Jackson and Jason, as at least their own moms must call them.
“Hi,” I said like a normal person, but high school boys, I don’t know if you know any, aren’t normal people who say something simple, like “Hi,” back to you. The dark-haired one, whose thumbs were a blur of activity, didn’t even look up, but the taller, blond floppy-haired one—who wore a starry T-shirt that said POLARIS: FIND YOUR TRUE NORTH—said some small syllable like “Hey” or “Eh” before spitting out a bunch of sunflower-seed shells in the direction of a few peacocks. They darted away, then circled back to peck at the remains.
“Come on, dude—we’ve got to get in there,” Sunflower said. Texty grunted vaguely, and the two of them shuffled up toward the door.
To Texty I was still invisible, but Sunflower half nodded at me, which might have meant “Bye” in his language. I never knew when these boys were coming or going, but they paid so little attention to me, it hardly mattered. The idea that they were using computers to somehow sort through the GM’s books seemed to me a bit like trying to use a scooter to scale Mount Everest, but whatever. It was a summer job. It wasn’t like either of them had the personality to be a friendly barista, or a swim lesson instructor at the local pool. I wondered if they used white gloves while they worked, or if they ever illegally licked their fingers before turning a page, when no one was looking.
After that brilliant social encounter I was ready for more, so it didn’t seem surprising somehow that Rosie’s mother Adela should pull up soon after to drop Rosie off. I wondered if Rosie was going to gloat about my fall, or even ask how I was doing, but when she got out of the car, she slammed the door so hard, it made my efforts with Grandmother’s big boat look like little love taps.
Miguel trotted over and tried to give Rosie a hug, but she pulled away and skulked off to the cabin. She didn’t even glance at me. I began to wonder if I had been given a magical invisibility cloak without knowing it, which was why everyone suddenly seemed able to see right through me. Then again maybe Rosie just had more divorce mess to deal with; that produces a lot of bad tempers. Miguel went over to talk to Adela, who was still sitting there in her car. There were more rapid, low voices.
“He said he’d try to come before the Fourth,” I heard Miguel say, “but you know how reliable he is.” Adela replied with something that made him laugh. Miguel put a hand on the side of the car and then knocked on it lightly, like, OK, see you later. She drove away. Not mad this time, though, I don’t think. The air was easier.
Grandmother’s driveway was like a parking lot, because at the same time a VW pulled up, honking like it was coming to a party.
“Hey, you two!” Joan called cheerfully from the driver’s seat. Phew: someone could see me, after all! “Shoo, you pesky pea-things. What do you say, Ella? You ready for the movies?”
“I sure am.” I found it hard not to go into a Southern accent around Joan. It was sort of contagious.
“How about it, cowboy?” she hollered over to Miguel in a friendly way. “You and your girl want to join us?”
“Oh, thanks, but Rosie and me are going to have a picnic up in the Sandias.” He tipped his hat to us. “You ladies have fun, though.”
“You know we will.” Joan waved good-bye. “All right. Buckle up, Ella. I don’t need to come in and speak with your grandmother. She gave me permission to kidnap you for the day and skip all the social niceties. Much as I’d lo-o-o-ve to talk more to the divine Mr. Abercrombie.” She rolled her eyes, and I giggled. The GM had brought Abercrombie to the bookstore the day before, and the meeting had not been a success.
“I love your grandmother, you know I do,” Joan said as we drove away. “But she doesn’t have a whole lot of sense of what it’s like to be a child. I told her the other day, ‘Violet, you’ve got to get this child to a mall!’ And she said, ‘Whatever for?’ I had to tell her: ‘Ella doesn’t live on books alone, like you and me, Violet. The girl needs a movie! She needs to go shopping! Take her to a mall, for pity’s sake! If you won’t, I will.’”
“Thanks,” I said to Joan. “You saved my life.”
“Mrs. Von Stern knows an awful lot—there are some incredible things Violet knows about, from all her travels and reading and conversations—but on the subject of how an eleven-year-old spends her time, the woman is sorely underinformed.”
I could only agree. Then, as I stared out at the wide streets of Albuquerque, I asked Joan if she could tell me something about my grandmother.
“Why, sure, hon. What do you want to know? I’ll give it my best shot.”
I thought of that harsh voice on the phone. “Why don’t she and my dad get along?”
Joan whistled. “Makes sense you’d ask about that.” She sighed. “First of all, sometimes it’s easier to be a person’s friend than it is to be their relative. I have some kin in Louisiana, and I love them and all, but let me tell you …” She shook her head. “Well, never mind about that. I don’t know your daddy, Ella, so I only know one side of the story, and believe me, with families there are always at least ten sides to every story.”
She went on to tell me the Von Stern side, which was that years ago, maybe almost ten years ago, my grandmother had gone out to visit dear old Mr. Abercrombie on the occasion of her finally buying a book she had hankered after for a very long time.
“Kepler’s Dream?” I asked.
“That’s the one.” Joan said Mrs. Von Stern was so pleased and excited about her “biblio-find” that she stopped on her way back from Vancouver to show it off to her son. My dad had been going up to do fishing trips in Washington dur
ing the summer at that point, but was just then deciding he would stay living there full-time and leave us in California—in other words, that he and my mom were going to divorce. My mom had come up to Washington, too, to talk it over with him. It was a typical case of family members getting their wires crossed: Grandmother came for a visit just as my dad and mom were fighting about the future, and to make things even more complicated, there was a little tyke around.
That would be me.
And there was Dad thinking his mother ought to pay more attention to her little granddaughter Ella, and there was Grandmother showing off her Morris Kepler, and, as Joan put it, “I reckon your daddy just about threw that book right back in Violet’s face.”
That was hard to picture, it seemed a little violent for my dad, but Joan explained that she meant the phrase only “in a manner of speaking.” “All I really mean is,” she clarified, “they didn’t see eye to eye on it.”
Well, I wasn’t going to let Joan quit there. I stared at her for more details until she gave in and said, “Oh, all right. Listen, I don’t want to be the family gossip here, but I think the two of them each had their way of remembering Edward, and that’s what they fought about. It was grief really, still, I think, and the divorce didn’t help anything, either. Your daddy ended up telling Violet that she cared more about books than she did about people. She couldn’t forgive him for that, and from then on she cut herself off. From all of you.” She sighed. “Not that your daddy didn’t have a point. You know, Ella, however important books are—and listen to me, I run a bookstore, I make my livelihood from books—they can never take the place of flesh and blood. That is,” she corrected herself, “they shouldn’t.”
“Wait a second.” My brain was trying to process everything Joan had just told me. “So you mean, I was there? My grandmother and I did meet once before?”
“Sure. That one time.” Joan shook her head. “Should have been more, of course.”
This story made sense of a few things, like Mom’s comment in the hospital when I told her my vacation plan, something about what had gone on the other time. And Miguel giving me that sideways look the day he picked me up, when I said this would be the first time I’d ever met Violet Von Stern.
“I heard them fighting on the phone today,” I told her. “It sounded like she was telling my dad he shouldn’t come here to visit.”
“Tchhhhh!” Joan made a sound like a steam-train whistle. I wasn’t sure if it was disbelief, disapproval, or both. We pulled up at the multiplex, and by that point, I was ready to throw myself into princesses or monsters or teen drama—whatever they had. “You know, hon, all I can say about that is, I bet your daddy is just as stubborn as Violet. Those things run in families.”
She squeezed my hand for a second. “Enough of all that! Let’s enjoy the show. Popcorn and soda are on me—your grandmother doesn’t have to know a thing about it.”
I had a great time with Joan. The darkness blotted out all the confusion that was going through my head, and I had never had a large root beer that tasted so good. Afterward we cruised around the mall for a while, looking not buying, just yakking about stuff. Joan made me laugh. She reminded me of an Irish setter that belonged to a friend of my mom’s—big and red and funny and enthusiastic about everything. By the time we headed back to the House of Mud for dinner with Abercrombie and the GM, I felt ready to face anything—even liver. But out of nowhere there were barbecued spareribs for dinner. My favorite! I guess I had to get lucky at least once.
The grown-ups talked, grown-uppily, while I sat and listened to a replay in my mind of the GM on the phone with my dad. (Her voice had been so cold, like the air in a forgotten basement.) Eventually the table conversation turned to travel, a subject my grandmother always enjoyed. Whenever the talk ran dry between us, during our long nights of slaw together, I had learned to ask her about some of the places she had been. It always perked her right up.
“I’m beginning to plan my next trip,” my grandmother announced. “And I am happy to take suggestions from the table about where I should go.”
Abercrombie Books said London. For the books, of course. “You could visit Lovelace’s in Cecil Court. It’s a dreary little place, but he does have some surprising treasures … I should know. He got a few of them from me.” Joan said Egypt to see the pyramids, but the GM waved a hand, saying, “Oh, the pyramids,” in a way that made it unclear whether she had already seen them, thought they were overrated, or what.
When it was my turn, I said she should go to Peru.
“Peru!” the GM exclaimed. “What do you know, Ella, about Peru?”
I tried to remember that time my mom and I were sitting together at the desk at home, playing the Vacation Game, looking things up online. It felt like an eon ago.
“Machu Picchu is supposed to be amazing,” I said hesitantly. My grandmother was staring at me, like the judge in some TV contest. “The ruins are incredible. The Incas”—I remembered it, in pieces—“made the whole place like an observatory. To watch the stars. The light fell in a special way on the buildings during the equinox, and they performed their rituals then.”
A hush fell over the table. Of astonishment, I guess. I don’t think anyone, except maybe Joan, believed I knew anything much.
“She sounds a little like Edward,” murmured Abercrombie.
My grandmother nodded.
“My grandfather?” I asked him. I had forgotten that Abercrombie knew him, too.
“Yes, of course. An impressive man,” Abercrombie Books said, though his voice was cool. “I knew Edward before I knew Violet, in fact.”
“It was at Christopher’s bookshop,” the GM added, “that Edward and I met.”
Abercrombie and I looked at each other with more curiosity than we had been able to muster before.
“Well, Ella,” my grandmother said, “I have to say I think your presentation was the most successful. Peru will now be on my short list of potential destinations. I can’t quite see myself hacking through the jungle, but I’ll research the possibilities.”
“Doesn’t she win a trophy, Violet? A ribbon, at least?” asked Joan.
A trip to Hawaii? A flat-screen TV?
“She wins a slice of cake,” was the GM’s answer. “As do we all.”
The whole dinner was about the best since I had arrived, but what with hearing about my father and grandmother arguing like cats and dogs, and the stimulation of a mall and a movie and Super Ball Joan—and knowing, in the back of my mind, that Mom was about to have pints of tomato juice poured into her veins somewhere in Seattle—it had been a long day. I was glad to take Lou on a spin around the premises, then crash early. It seemed like for the first time since I had arrived in New Mexico, I might actually get a good night’s sleep.
Ha!
I might have, if it hadn’t been for that little incident I mentioned earlier.
Because this was the night I heard the midnight scraping at my bathroom door, from Rosie all alone outside, sitting on a broken old cooler, waiting to tell me that Miguel had disappeared. This was the night I made up for getting caught eavesdropping by not getting caught tiptoeing at a millimeter a second all through the house in the pitch dark, and wandered out to find Rosie with only starlight to guide me. This was the night I looked up at the Big Dipper, wishing I really were like Edward Mackenzie and could read patterns and knowledge—and maybe even the future—in all those constellations.
And this was the night we heard Miguel’s gun go off. The shot, the alarm wail, the dogs barking and the high, scared cry of the birds.
By the time we were crowded in the front hallway of the House of Mud and Miguel was at the front door, he had a strange, haunted expression on his face. He seemed about as spooked as the rest of us. The alarm was blaring like crazy, the police were coming and my grandmother, once she was in her gold robe, was asking Miguel to go with her out to the Library. I tended to agree with Our Guest that it might be better if they waited, but as we all knew, y
ou couldn’t say no to Violet Von Stern.
Those were long seconds, waiting in the corridor with Christopher Abercrombie, Rosie and Lou. Although Rosie and I had been hanging out together earlier, in the dim firelight of Miguel’s cabin, now we had a hard time even looking at each other. I don’t think she was too happy that her dad had gone back outside. Who could blame her? And though we were all relieved when the GM and Miguel came back safely, the air got about ten degrees colder when we heard that Kepler’s Dream was gone.
The police who showed up that night, though, were mostly interested in making sure no one had been murdered. They had heard something about gunfire and gotten all up in arms—three cars showed up, their lights spinning dramatically—and seemed sort of disappointed when my grandmother told them those had just been warning shots, fired by Miguel. One uniformed guy hung around to interview Miguel about what he had seen, or thought he had seen, while a couple of others went out to rootle around in the tangled bushes and see if there were any bad guys lurking there.
The last one, a lucky chief named Officer Barker, a guy who seemed to be wearing a hand-me-down uniform that didn’t quite fit him, was the one left with my grandmother. The two of them went together, protected by the fearless Hildy, back to the Library so she could tell Officer Barker what she thought was missing.
The chief’s walkie-talkie kept making loud, scratchy noises, and every now and then he would speak some mysterious code into it. It was exciting. By staying a few feet behind, I was allowed to come, too. That is, both adults half pretended they couldn’t see me and seemed willing to ignore me if I kept quiet as a mouse. (Or, if I think about how loud the mice in our pantry used to be, even quieter.) I was still in my pajamas, but by now I had grabbed a jacket, and I decided not to worry about impressing Offcer Barker with my wardrobe selection.
The Librerery looked almost exactly like it had the last time I’d been in there. Maybe the piles were in slightly different places, but it was the same mixture of order, clutter and paper.