Kepler’s Dream

by Juliet Bell

  “What the (expletive deleted)?” Abercrombie shouted. Not being a dog, he wasn’t too fond of the stuff. “Who’s there?”

  Rosie had held her breath and lain absolutely flat. She said she asked her abuelito to keep the peacocks quiet for a minute, and it must have worked, because they shut up. Then she heard rapid footsteps, and she figured that though Abercrombie wanted to know if someone was watching them, he wanted to get them out of there even more.

  And that was it.

  Rosie stared at me in the bright noon Albuquerque sun. It was getting hot up there. “So? What do you think?” she asked me.

  “I think we had better keep a very close eye on Christopher Abercrombie.”

  “Me too,” she agreed. “And Jason. Didn’t you say Abercrombie’s leaving soon?”

  “In a few days.”

  “We have to find a way to see if he’s got it. You know, hidden in his bags or something.”

  So we started working on a plan of how to do that—stage an accidental-on-purpose search of Abercrombie’s luggage. Then something surprising happened.

  My cell phone rang. “Nowhere Man.”

  Nowhere Man hadn’t called me for quite a while.

  I hadn’t even remembered I had the phone on me, it rang so little. But ever since Mom had the tomato juice put in her, I wanted to have the device nearby, just in case Auntie Irene ever needed to call me. For any reason.

  “Dad?” I said, giving Rosie a What do you know? look. I had told her how flaky my dad was, how he had promised he would come to the GM’s while I was staying here. And how he hadn’t made it yet.

  “Belle, old girl!”

  Same greeting as usual, but he didn’t sound quite as hearty as he sometimes did. There was a lot of static on the line.

  “Hi.”

  “How’s the crxxxxZcrsxxxx? Still crcxxxZing?”

  “Where are you, Dad? Out on a raft somewhere? I can hardly hear you.”

  “Oh. Yeah, that’s probably because I’m crxxxxZZxxxxZ.”

  This seemed so typical: by the time my dad was finally trying to call me, he wasn’t even somewhere where he had a decent signal. I decided to lay—ahem! lie—flat on my back on the roof, soaking up some sun. There was some ratty old cloth up there, conveniently nearby, so I used that as a grimy sort of pillow and settled down.

  “Uh-huh,” I said into the phone, like I had any idea what he had just said.

  “CrxxxxZZZxxxx July seventh,” he said.

  “Yeah.” I was glad my dad was keeping track of the calendar. There were a few other things he was letting slide, like worrying about his daughter, but—whatever.

  “CrxxxxZxxx crZxxxxxxZ Crxxx,” he added. But then finally he came clear. “So she’s probably going to the cemetery.”

  “Wait, what?” I asked him, sitting up. “What about the cemetery?”

  “Mother usually goes there on the anniversary of my father’s death. Today. I had thought of CrxxxxZxxx, but CRxxxxrzz ZZZZcxx.”

  “Oh. Right.” I thought about my grandmother saying she was getting her hair done that day. The idea that she wanted to look her best for a visit to the cemetery gave me a shudder of sadness. It wasn’t as though Edward could still see her.

  Rosie touched my arm and pointed to the tree, like she was going to climb back down. I nodded, and mouthed that I’d come in a sec.

  “OK, Dad,” I said, as if we had been having something like a real conversation. “So, you know, thanks for calling. Let me guess: you’re not coming to visit, right?”

  I don’t know why I put it that way. It only made it easier for him—he hated having to admit he was bailing out on me. But it seemed stupid at this point to guess otherwise.

  “Well, listen, Ella, that’s one of the reasons I CrxxxxZxxx. You see, ZZxxxxCRxxxxx …”

  Then I lost him. Or he lost me.

  Either way, he was gone.

  July 11

  ABQ

  Not to be confused with “BBQ”

  Dear Mom,

  How are you doing? Auntie Irene said All Systems Are Go, according to the doctors, though they have to watch out that your old host blood doesn’t fight with your new guest blood. I remember Dr. Lanner saying that could sometimes be a problem.

  On playdates, though, you always taught me to make the guest feel welcome, like I would want to feel if I were at the other person’s house. Remember? So I hope you’re doing the same thing. Besides, if Violet Von Stern and I can find a way to get along, you and your tomato juice blood should be able to, too.

  Auntie Irene told me something else that shocked me. That it’s Aunt Miranda who donated the blood for your operation! Or the stems, or whatever it is exactly. Anyway, that as your sister, even if she has a totally different personality, she had just the right “match.” Auntie Irene worried after it came out that she wasn’t supposed to tell me. (“Oh, hell’s bells!” she said, which is a funny one: what do hell’s bells sound like? And how does anybody know?) She thought maybe you didn’t want me to be mad at Aunt Miranda if the operation didn’t work.

  One thing I’ve been thinking about here at Broken Family Camp (another name I came up with) is when blood ties are important and when they’re not. On the one hand, look at Auntie Irene, how much she’s done for us, or Miguel, ditto, though they’re not related to us by blood. On the other hand, look at Grandmother and Dad, who can barely have a telephone conversation without the phone bursting into flames. And now on the third hand—or maybe it’s Lou’s paws I should be counting on, so there are enough—Aunt Miranda has come through with a perfect match for you, and her blood will, we hope, get the job done.

  I am still missing you a lot. I know on the phone you said you aren’t very pretty right now, but guess what? I don’t care! I’m not very pretty, either. I may not have been nuked, but my hair is halfway grown out and I look like a mutant. I’m seriously relieved no one at school can see it. That’s one thing about summer: you can get through a bad haircut without comment from Caitlin Berenson or Chelsea Nash. Lou is, of course, too polite to mention it.

  Pretty soon now I can come and visit you. Two weeks. I’ve got July 24th circled on the calendar in gold sparkly pen, with stars and stripes all around it.

  Sometimes before I go to sleep, I get everything all mixed up—you being like an astronaut on your stem cell mission, and the host versus guest blood, and Grandmother’s missing Dream. I forget who’s going to the moon exactly, Kepler or Neil Armstrong or you. Whoever it is, my wish is still the same, that the return journey goes smoothly and after it’s over we can all celebrate: MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!

  I love you.

  Ella

  NINE

  “HeLLO?”

  It was a tiny, scratchy voice—like one you would hear on some old-timey recording.

  “Mo—Mom?”

  I wasn’t a stutterer, but it just didn’t seem as though it could be her.

  “Hi, sweetie.”

  It sounded as though my mom was speaking through the wrong end of a microphone, that instead of making her sound louder, shrank her right down to practically nothing.

  “I won’t talk long,” I said. Auntie Irene, who was there visiting, had told me it was best to keep our conversations short, because Mom was really wiped out by all the treatment, but the truth was, it also spooked me to hear her. “I just wanted to say hello. So, you know: uh, hello!”

  There was a silence, and then in the same scratchy voice from far away: “Did you find your dream?” I was pretty sure she said “dream,” but it was hard to make out.

  “You mean—Grandmother’s book? No, we haven’t found it yet. We’re still trying to figure it out—”

  “That dream. That … argument. All those years …” Mom’s voice seemed to drift, and I wondered if she was going into one of her chemo moments. This nice nurse Faye in Seattle had told me that it was common for patients at this stage to get confused, and that if my mom said something I didn’t understand, that was probably why.


  “It’s OK, Mom. It’s just—it’s an important book for Grandmother, and it’s gone missing. But I’m all right. And I’ll see you soon, OK? I’ll be coming to visit soon.”

  I hated having to talk to her like she was a kid or from a foreign country or something. Auntie Irene got back on the line and I think she heard my voice wavering, like a kite in the wind, so she went straight into the Giants and how they were doing, to change the subject. I turned my charm bracelet around my wrist—star, heart, bunny—while Irene talked about the Giants’ great pitchers and their cute rookie catcher.

  And then I hung up. I wasn’t feeling great after that. I could have gone for a quick shot of Jewel Quest, or even Boggle, but when I wandered over toward the kitchen, Abercrombie and the GM seemed to be huddled around the table having a heart-to-heart talk. Assuming they both had hearts—something I had only lately started to believe about my grandmother. The jury was still out on him.

  Abercrombie was leaving at last, to go back and bother the Canadians. I’d be glad to see the back of him (another choice insult I got from the GM). In fact, I was staring at his back right then as he had his last breakfast at the Facility. I did envy him returning to the land of pancakes and bacon, though.

  “Violet, I think given what has happened these past weeks, it makes sense,” Abercrombie was saying in a hushed tone, “while you’re traveling. For your peace of mind.”

  I hovered in the doorway, listening.

  “Perhaps you’re right.” Grandmother sighed. “But it’s a lot to ask of you, Christopher.”

  “You’re not asking.” His voice had a Splenda sweetness to it. (Those fake sweeteners: my mom hated them.) “I’m offering.”

  “You would be willing to do that? And you could afford more time away from the bookstore?”

  “My assistant can manage ably.”

  My eyes got wider. I began to get an idea of what they were discussing.

  “And you see, while I was here, I could bring the boys back—er, at least Jason—and together we could make real progress establishing the inventory. Making sure that the property—and the Library—were not unguarded in your absence.”

  (Expletive deleted)! She was thinking of letting the man stay there while she was on her next trip!

  “Well, that’s very kind of you.” Don’t say yes! It would be like letting the Big Bad Wolf babysit Little Red Riding Hood. Not a good plan. “But perhaps I simply shouldn’t go away at all.”

  “Nonsense, Violet!” chided Our Honored Pest. “You love to travel. Besides, the South American trip sounds so … exotic.”

  “It does,” she agreed. “But you see, Christopher, perhaps someone—that same person—is just waiting for me to leave, in order to ransack the place for other items.”

  There was a silence. Three busy brains were probably imagining who that person might be.

  “It’s so distressing,” Abercrombie murmured. “But it’s often the way: those people closest to home … in whom one has entrusted so much …”

  “Yes. Close to home … ,” my grandmother said, but I had the idea her thoughts were following their own direction, not Abercrombie’s evil hint. I knew he was referring to Miguel, just like he had the other day when we were in the Librerery. The idea infuriated me. Miguel wasn’t the creep around here. Look in the mirror, Abercrombie. There’s the guy!

  “Ahem!” I said from the kitchen doorway, so they wouldn’t think I had been eavesdropping. I sounded alarmingly like Violet Von Stern.

  “Ah, Ella,” said the GM loudly. If I ever had to write up this House of Mud adventure—you know how at the beginning of the year in grade school, they make you write What I Did During My Summer Vacation—that’s what mine could be called. Ah, Ella.

  Abercrombie nodded primly. He’d be glad to see the back of me, too, I was pretty sure. “Can we help you?” he said, his forked tongue slipping out of his mouth for a moment.

  “Actually, I was wondering if I could help you.” I made my face all perky. “I thought I could help you with your bags. I guess you must be pretty beat after all your hours in the Library.” Because it’s such very hard work to pick up a book and shelve it.

  “Well—surely—” Abercrombie was caught off guard. “That is, won’t Miguel—”

  “Miguel,” I said pointedly, “is out running an errand for Grandmother.” Helping her out. Like he always does.

  “That’s thoughtful of you, Ella,” the GM weighed in. “I like seeing a willingness to be of help.”

  “Fine!” I said cheerfully, and trotted off to the Haitian Room before anyone could stop me.

  The idea was to try to get a quick rummage around in there before Our Honored Pest chased after me. Rosie and I had decided it was our last, best option. I knew Abercrombie would be right behind me, but also that it wouldn’t look good if he immediately got up from the table. I figured I had about a minute before he came in.

  By now I was sure that Abercrombie had the Killer Dolphin and planned to whisk it back with him to Vancouver. He had found it that day when Rosie was on the roof and had been hiding it ever since. I could never forget the drooling expression on his face when we first talked about the Kepler book the day he arrived: my theory was that the minute he sold it to my grandmother, he wished he could get it back.

  This was my chance to prove it.

  Abercrombie’s bags were on his bed. The carry-on—black leather, like a spy’s briefcase—was open, so I slipped my hand in. All I could feel were pills, magazines and a laptop, but nothing the size of the Killer Dolphin. The KD was not a tiny book. You’d have to work to hide it, maybe conceal it inside something else. (I’m sure James Bond could come up with something.) If Abercrombie was taking the Dolphin with him, it must be in his suitcase.

  I was wondering whether to risk unlocking that one when in he came, looking flustered.

  “Ella, it’s really not necessary—”

  “No, no, that’s all right!” I said in a loud, bossy voice. I felt more like my grandmother every minute. It was kind of fun.

  Then I had a moment of inspiration. Abercrombie thought I galumphed, did he? Thought I was clumsy? Well, then it wouldn’t surprise him if—

  “Let me just carry this out for you,” I offered, awkwardly hauling the suitcase down off the bed. As I did it, I managed to unfasten the lock so it fell open, and the case vomited its contents all over the floor.

  “(Expletive deleted)!” shouted Abercrombie.

  “Oh my gosh, I am so sorry!” I said, with about as much sincerity as someone who has just stopped you from scoring a goal by fouling you. “Here, let me—”

  Pretending to help him, I started to put stuff back in his suitcase, while really of course I was looking around for the hollowed-out encyclopedia, or Kepler’s Dream wrapped up in a purple bathrobe.

  But nothing was that size and weight. I saw souvenirs placed around his clothes—a string of chili pepper lights, a bottle of hot sauce, a Navajo blanket. There was even one ratty old teddy bear, which made me think Our Guest had found the House of Mud spooky at night, too, but that didn’t embarrass him. The one thing that seemed to bother the guy was a small, slightly worn book with a gray cover. My eye caught the name WAUGH, my old pal. (Not to be confused with WAR …) This reminded me of that miserable day Grandmother had told me I was like that no-good Phyllis Stine, whoever she was. The book didn’t look like anything much, but it was causing Abercrombie to turn lobster red. He grabbed the book away from my sight line and nestled it inside the Navajo blanket. “Really, Ella … If you wouldn’t mind …These are my personal effects.”

  He was pretty upset, but he couldn’t say anything worse because the room filled up quickly with the two scuffling dogs, who always loved a kerfuffle, and the GM, who just said, “Good heavens! What’s the matter? Have we found a rat?”

  “Oh, Ella just inadvertently found her way into my suitcase,” Abercrombie said through pressed lips, like I was the bad guy here. He snapped his case shut with a decisive cli
ck and I apologized again, but this time more for the GM’s benefit.

  There was a rat, of course, but the purple bathrobe and chili pepper lights were disguising him, and I had run out of time to do anything about it. The man was red as a guilty lobster, but I hadn’t found what I was looking for. The Killer Dolphin. If he wanted to travel with chili pepper lights or some book by the famous Mr. Waugh, there wasn’t much I could say about it.

  When we went outside, the teenagers seemed to have sprung up again, gathered under the cottonwoods to send Abercrombie off with some farewell text messaging or sunflower-seed spitting—however they expressed their affection.

  Actually, that morning Tweedledum and Tweedledee weren’t looking as pally as they had in earlier days. Jason and his uncle traded words, the way a catcher and a pitcher talk to each other on the mound with their mitts held up to stop people from lip reading, and then Abercrombie backed off and went into a smile-like-nothing-is-happening routine. More loudly, he delivered another one of his play-reading lines: “Well, make sure you get as much done in this last stretch as you can. We’re counting on you!”—but he pretty well ignored Jackson.

  And that was that. Tweedledum and Tweedledee were given the rest of the day off from the demanding digitizing magic, my grandmother and Darling Christopher exchanged an embrace, and Mr. Books managed a lip tightening in my direction that could, if you had a good imagination, be considered a smile. His white rental car vanished in the dust, and Violet Von Stern and I were alone again, with a couple of dogs and a hundred peacocks for company.

  “Well, Ella!” she said. “That simplifies matters, doesn’t it?” I had to agree. “Just the two of us ruling the roost again.”

  She started back to the house. “You leave soon, too, don’t you?” she remarked. “Ten days.” Not like I was counting or anything.

  “It’s always so quiet around here, and then suddenly, this summer—such a crowd.” She paused. “Let’s go to the Library, shall we? I could do with some encouraging.”

  How that big church of books would encourage her I couldn’t say, but I tagged along. Sometimes, I’ve learned from watching Lou, tagging along gets you places.