by Jane Kelley
“So if you didn’t go to a store, then why won’t you tell me?”
The phone rang. Emma held the receiver out to Lanora.
Lanora walked into the bathroom and shut the door. She turned on the faucet and flushed the toilet and turned on the shower. But she could still hear her mom.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.… I don’t see how I can make her.… No, she didn’t go to school.… I don’t see how I can make her do that, either.… I do tell her to go.… Fine. You want to threaten her, then come over here and tell her that yourself.… No, I haven’t set up the community service with Val’s mom.… You can call her.… Because I’m busy. I just got home. I may not be a financial wizard or whatever you call yourself now, but I work, too!”
After a few minutes, her mom tapped on the bathroom door. “Sweetie? If you don’t want macaroni, I could make grilled cheese. Or soup? I know, what about we order Chinese? What’s that dish you always liked? With the tiny ears of corn. You always said that elves ate them. You tried to keep them, but of course they got all rotten after a few days. Only these wouldn’t be rotten. These would be good. Would you like that?”
“No, thank you,” Lanora said as politely as she could.
She couldn’t be tempted by food, for humans or for elves. All she wanted was to regain control of her life. She wanted to be back on that glorious black stallion with a white blaze on his head, urging him to leap over the obstacles.
* * *
The ringing phone sounded very loud at eight o’clock. Drew ran to answer it, even though he had only one arm inside his Superman pajamas. He waved the ringing object over his head. “Mom, it says ‘private caller.’ But I know who it is, so can I answer?”
“No,” Mom said.
“It’s got to be Werd. Nobody else is sneaky like that. He probably wants my ankle wings. But he can’t have them, either.”
Mom took the phone from Drew. “You go on to bed. Your dad will help you.”
“Come on, Superman.” Dad lifted Drew up to help him fly.
“I’m not Superman. I’m just borrowing his clothes while mine are in the wash,” Drew said.
“Hello?” Mom said. “Why, hello, Tom.”
Val crept down from her loft bed. Tom was Lanora’s dad. He had never called them, not even when Lanora was over at their house and needed to be walked home. Val put her ear against the door to listen. She couldn’t hear what Tom was saying, just the footsteps as her mom paced back and forth, saying, “Uh-huh.”
Then her mom said, “Of course I’ll help Lanora find someplace to do community service.… She hasn’t? Well, that is serious.”
What was serious? Had Lanora’s father found out about the hardware store?
Her mom’s pacing got faster. Clearly she didn’t like what he was saying. “No, I can’t make that kind of recommendation. And I don’t think that’s the answer.… Let’s hope it won’t have to come to that.”
Come to what? Val opened her eyes wider as if she could see the words she wasn’t able to hear.
“Good night.”
Mom hung up.
“What did Tom say?” Dad said softly.
The whispers of her parents were usually as soothing as the wind teasing the leaves of a tree. This time the sound was ominous.
“Lanora stopped going to school,” Mom said.
“Why?” Dad said.
“She probably can’t face the kids.”
“Val would stand by her.”
Mom sighed. “I don’t think the girls are friends anymore.”
Val shut her eyes. It was true, but she didn’t like hearing her mom say it.
“So what are they going to do?” Dad said.
“Tom wants to put her in an academy.”
“You mean a reform school?”
“They don’t call them that anymore.”
“But that’s what they are. Places to re-form kids.”
Val had to put her hand over her mouth to keep from shouting “no!”
There seemed to be only one thing to do. She couldn’t wait any longer for Drew to change his mind about giving her the ankle wings. She just had to take them.
She tore a piece of paper from her history notebook and wrote a note.
Dear Drew, I’m a bird and I took my feathers back.
It was lame. Lanora would have invented a better story for why the ankle wings were gone. But Val couldn’t ask her. Or Tasman. The best Val could do was add some chicken scratches. She dabbed a little Wite-Out to make a blob of bird poop on the bottom. Then she waited for the apartment to be quiet.
Her parents were watching TV. Val knew they were worried; they weren’t talking back to the news. Eventually Mom and Dad left the living room and went into their bedroom.
Val waited. And waited. A clock ticked. Someone screamed on the TV in the apartment next door. A dog barked. A distant siren faded into the night. Finally there was snoring.
Val climbed down from her bed and began her long journey to her brother’s room. The apartment wasn’t dark. Streetlights and neon signs caused a pale haze in what should have been the night sky. The shapes of the furniture looked like sleeping animals. Val reminded herself that they were friendly creatures as she tiptoed around the sofa, past the rickety table, the tall bookcase, the wide bookcase, and the door to her parents’ room.
“Sa-sa-sa-sa-sphew.” Her dad spluttered like a cartoon character. She smiled. Only her dad could be funny even in his sleep. Then she continued on.
Drew’s room was just past the bathroom.
A great whoosh of water made her freeze. But it was someone in the apartment above flushing his toilet.
She pushed the door. His Jupiter nightlight glowed. She tiptoed to a row of hooks where he hung his masks and hats and superhero belts. How would she ever find the ankle wings in that tangle? She patted the objects, hoping to feel the feathers. A metal belt buckle jangled. She glanced at the bed to see if the sound woke him up.
She was in luck. He had gone to sleep clutching the ankle wings in his fist. Now that he was dreaming, his hand dangled off the edge of the mattress.
She knelt down below the bed and touched one red ribbon. She pulled ever so gently. She watched the feathers slip out of his hand.
Suddenly she felt a gun pointed at the side of her head.
A deep voice, or at least as deep as her brother could make his typical squeak, said, “Drop it.”
Twenty-two
Court was convened Saturday morning—before breakfast. Val, Drew, and their parents sat at the table. There would be no dancing cereal boxes, no puns about jam, no toast towers to topple. There would just be a serious discussion.
“You do realize that attempted murder is a much worse crime than borrowing,” Val said.
“Attempted murder?” Dad said.
“With a marshmallow?” Mom said.
“The gun was pointed at my head,” Val said.
“Stealing is stealing,” Drew said.
“I didn’t actually steal it,” Val said.
“Only because, like all superheroes, I sleep with my eyes open and my gun ready,” Drew said.
“So you didn’t actually shoot me and I didn’t actually steal anything. So we’re even.” Val sneaked a glance at her watch. If this discussion took much longer, she’d be late for soccer.
“That isn’t what concerns us,” Dad said.
Her parents were looking at her. They weren’t paying any attention to Drew. Val had to stick her hands in her armpits to keep from wiping the grin off his face.
“We know some kids get a kind of thrill from bad behavior,” Mom said.
Then it hit Val. This was going to be about Lanora. “I’m not like that.”
“We know that you aren’t. But…”
Val winced when she heard the “but.” Parents could always stick one in. No matter what was being discussed. No matter how well you argued. No matter if you were right and they agreed. They could turn it all upside down. Yes, of cours
e we know that you’re older now and should be allowed to walk by yourself, but not after dark. And not anyplace fun.
“I’m never going to be like that,” Val insisted.
“I would agree. But I would never have thought you’d steal from your brother.”
“I wasn’t stealing.”
“When you take something without permission, it’s stealing,” Dad said.
“And you did not have my permission. You had the opposite of my permission. You had my…” Drew paused while he worked it out in his head. Finally he shouted triumphantly, “Noise-sim-rep!”
“We’re very concerned that you thought you could take whatever you wanted without considering anyone else’s feelings.”
“But I wasn’t being selfish. I was thinking about Lanora.”
“What does this have to do with Lanora?” Mom said.
“Nothing,” Val said.
“Then why did you bring her up?” Mom said.
“Never mind. You wouldn’t understand.” Val slumped into her chair.
These were the wrong words to say to Mom. She prided herself on her ability to walk a mile in anyone’s shoes—except those women who wore superhigh heels.
“I might. Believe me, adults are just as susceptible to peer pressure as kids. Didn’t I go see that movie that I knew I would hate just because everybody else was going?”
“You didn’t hate it as much as you thought you would,” Dad said.
“I hated it enough,” Mom said.
Val started to relax. Her parents were squabbling about their typical adult stuff. Maybe it would be okay. Maybe she could still get to soccer before the captain made the latecomers do extra pushups.
“What movie was it?” Val said.
“You know, the one about the superhero?” Mom said.
“Drew should have gone.” Val smiled at Drew. He could talk about his favorite topic all day.
She had underestimated her little brother. He pointed his finger at her. “Don’t let her change the subject. She hasn’t been punished yet.”
“That’s right,” Dad said.
“Okay. So what’s my punishment?” Val decided it would save time to plead guilty.
“Community service,” Mom said.
“You mean, clean my room?” Val said.
“No. Soup kitchen. You can come with me today.”
“But I have soccer. I can’t let down my team,” Val said.
“You should have remembered them last night,” Dad said.
“Can’t I do a different community service after practice?” Val said.
“No. I want you to pay attention to people who have less than you do. Then maybe you’ll appreciate what you have,” Mom said.
* * *
The soup kitchen was in a church. Mom led Val past the ornate front entrance guarded by stone gargoyles, around the corner to the back. A line of people waited. New York was full of lines. Lines for movies, for plays, for tables at restaurants, for special milk shakes, for fancy dancing clubs. Some New Yorkers joined a line whenever they saw one just in case it led to something exciting. This wasn’t that kind of line.
The people waited patiently. They weren’t chatting, checking phones, reading, amusing themselves. They were just waiting. For soup.
Val wanted to say to her mom, Okay, I get it now. She used to feel this way in math class, when the teacher went on and on about the least common denominator. Val always wanted to tell him he could stop talking about those slices of pizza. She knew who got what share. Of course these people hadn’t gotten any shares. They stood, waiting, for whatever they could get.
Val’s mom greeted many of them by name. She asked people about their arthritis, complimented a brightly colored shirt, joked about the weather.
One man wore a pale blue toga. His hair was a nest of snakes. He waved a pink wand around his head.
“Watch what you’re doing. You’ll poke my eye out,” someone said.
“Can’t you be still?” someone else said.
“Got to keep them away. Away, away, away, away.” The man made a full circle.
Val’s mom rushed toward the man and put her hand on the wand. The man stopped spinning. “This seems quite powerful. I think you’d better keep it in your belt for now,” Mom said.
The man shook it at her. “If it’s powerful, then why are the vermin eating all the gold?”
He looked at Val. It was the man she had seen in the park. She took a step back behind her mom. The man peered at her. “You tell me why.”
“Me? I don’t know,” Val said.
“We’ll be opening the door soon. You can have some lunch,” Val’s mom said.
The man left the line and wandered down the street, waving his wand in a big circle around his head. “Don’t want lunch. Want gold! Need gold. Got-got-got get-get-get go-go-gold!”
Twenty-three
A man dropped a wooden crate on the floor. The crash woke Mau.
“Watch what you’re doing there. Can’t you read?” the Captain shouted.
The word “fragile” had been written on the crate in three languages. None of them were English.
After the man left, Mau hopped down from the windowsill and trotted over to the crate. She sniffed. Yes, she could tell there had been mice. She licked her lips.
“Tasman! Got something new here!” the Captain called.
There was no answer.
“Where is he hiding?” the Captain said to Mau. “Tasman! Get over here! Bring your notebook. There’s work to be done.”
From the far corner of the shop, footsteps shuffled closer and closer. Tasman appeared. If possible, his hair was wilder than usual. His eyes were puffy. He wore old slippers on his feet. He held up his notebook and a pen, but he didn’t speak.
“Were you sleeping?” the Captain said.
Tasman shook his head.
“Are you sick?” the Captain said.
Tasman shook his head.
“Then what’s the matter with you?” the Captain said.
Tasman just stared at the Captain.
“Bah.” The Captain got a long knife from his workbench and approached the crate. He used the tip of the knife to pry loose metal staples from the top.
“Stand back till I see what we got. Last shipment I got from Alexandria was full of poisonous spiders.”
“I’m not afraid of spiders,” Tasman said.
“You never got bit by one. That’s your trouble. You’re afraid of the wrong things.” The Captain used the knife as a lever to lift up the lid.
Mau crouched, ready to pounce at whatever came out. Nothing did. The box seemed to be full of crumpled newspaper. The Captain speared some with his knife and flung them onto the floor.
“Then there was the time I got a snake. Of course it was dead. I never did find out if it was alive when the journey started.”
The Captain pushed aside more paper until he uncovered something wrapped in cloth. “Ah, now this will be interesting.” He put down the knife and put on his grimy white gloves. Gently, oh so gently, he lifted the swaddled object from its nest of papers and placed it on his desk.
“It looks like a baby,” Tasman whispered.
“I hope not. Don’t need anybody sending me another kid.”
Tasman looked at his slippers and said nothing.
“Stop standing around like a landlubber. Make yourself useful. Cut the twine.”
Tasman picked up the knife and carefully sawed through the strands.
The Captain unwrapped the cloth. A bit of brown could be seen.
Tasman leaned closer. “Is it another bowl?”
It was a brown stone box.
Tasman sat on a stack of books.
“Limestone.” The Captain slowly lifted up the lid and placed it on his desk. Inside there were seven objects made of white alabaster. “Ah. Ceremonial objects. Haven’t seen any like these since that time we opened up the tomb near Luxor.”
Two were small bottles. Four were small cups. The
Captain picked up the central piece—a long tube that divided into two curves at one end. He brought the tip of the tube closer to Tasman’s face. “The priests used this for the ritual of the Opening of the Mouth.”
Tasman shrank away from it.
The Captain laughed. “Don’t be scared. It’s not for making people talk. Wish it was.” He waved the tube in front of Tasman again. “Never thought I’d be saying you were too quiet.”
“So what is it for?” Tasman said.
“If you touch this to the mouth of a dead person, then he can breathe and drink. The little cups are to offer the poor fellow something. He’ll be thirsty after you bring him back. The Egyptians put different things in the bottles. You had a choice of milk, salt water, or fresh water. Of course, if it were me, I’d be wanting something else.”
Mau came over to sniff the smallest cup.
“Get away from there, you mangy beast.” The Captain waved his arm at Mau. She didn’t move. She glared at the Captain.
“Look at the both of you, staring at me.” The Captain pointed the tube at Tasman again. “Come on. Tell me what you want. Is it new boots?”
Tasman tucked his feet underneath him. “I don’t need new boots.”
“What happened to your other ones anyway?”
“I lost them. Because you wouldn’t let me have the bowl,” Tasman said.
The Captain pounded his fist against the side of a shelf. Dishes jumped. A small candlestick toppled over. Mau darted away.
“How many times do I have to tell you? I don’t have the incantation bowl.”
“How could you sell it? Didn’t you know I’d need it?” Tasman said.
“Bah,” the Captain said. “Don’t you need the money more? Don’t you need to eat? Have a roof over your head?”
Tasman picked at a tear in his slipper. “Those aren’t the only things that matter.”
“Then you tell me what does. You tell me why you want that bowl.” The Captain filled a glass with wine.
“Then you do have it? You didn’t sell it?”
The Captain held up his hand. “Didn’t say that. Don’t be twisting my words. I just asked why.”
“Why is the sky blue? Why does a baby smile? Why do some people have too much imagination and other people not nearly enough?”