by Jane Kelley
Drew banged his spoon against all the dishes he could reach. “I have an announcement.”
“What?” Dad grabbed the hand with the spoon. Mom carefully took his fork, too.
“I decided what to be for Halloween.”
This was serious business. If you wore a costume every day of the year, what could you do for Halloween? Last year Drew had driven the whole family crazy with impossible plans. He wanted to be a dragon with actual fire-breathing capabilities. He wanted to be the Staten Island Ferry with cars that could drive off and on his ramp. He wanted to be the universe. No wonder Mom and Dad were worried.
“I considered the Mars Rover,” Drew said.
“Excellent choice. I think even I can make that,” Mom said.
“But I can’t be the Mars Rover because some people have forgotten to do something extremely important.” Drew stared at Val.
“What people?” Dad said.
Drew straightened his cape. “Because those people have not kept their promises, I have to be The One Who Saves Lanora.”
“No, you don’t,” Val said.
“I do. I’m going to have a special hat with feathers. And I’m going to have a shield and a harness with a big, sharp sword.”
“Why do you need a sharp sword?” Mom didn’t like weapons.
“Because I have to punish Werd for doing this to Lanora.”
“Maybe you could let his guardians punish him?” Mom said.
“No. Justice must be done. It isn’t fair that Lanora is suffering and nothing bad is happening to Werd.”
Val squeezed the paper with her talking points in her fist. Drew was right. It wasn’t fair that the A Team just la-la-la-ed along. The worst that had happened to them was that her mom had scolded them for eating grapes.
“Do you know what karma is?” Dad said.
“Yes. Karma is when you’re in a car with your ma. And something makes her mad. Like another car going too fast. And your dad says, ‘Don’t worry. They won’t get away with that.’ And sure enough, you go around another hill and there they are in the ditch,” Drew said.
“Sort of,” Dad said.
“Except I don’t get mad,” Mom said.
“Oh, no,” Dad said.
Mom made a face at him. “The point is that you don’t have to punish anybody. Karma takes care of that.”
“What about saving? Who takes care of that?” Drew said.
Val moved some food around on her plate.
“Because I’ve been waiting a very, very, very long time for some saving to happen,” Drew said.
Val didn’t like being scolded by her brother. She had been trying her best to get it done. “You won’t have to wait much longer.”
“I won’t? What are you going to do?” Drew said excitedly.
She obviously couldn’t tell him about the ceremony, so she decided to make her other announcement. She glanced at the piece of paper. “On Saturday we’re all sleeping over at Helena’s so we can work on poetry about issues facing kids today. Kids like Lanora.”
“Poetry?” Mom said.
“Poetry?” Dad said.
“Poetry?” Drew said.
“What’s wrong with poetry?” Val said.
“Nothing. It’s just so unlike you,” Dad said.
“How do you know what I’m like? I’m in middle school now,” Val said.
“My super mind-reader can probe your secrets.” Drew grabbed the closest fork and spoon and stuck them out from his eyes. He swiveled his head and scanned the room. “Beep, beep, beep.” He faced his mom and said in a mechanical voice, “Do not get sauce on your yellow shirt.”
Mom laughed and tried to give him a fork that wasn’t dripping.
Drew swiveled around and pointed at Dad. “Beep, beep, beep. I wish I had one of those devices.”
Dad laughed. “He’s right. I do.”
Then he pointed at Val and said, “Beep, beep, beep. Lanora, Lanora, Lanora. Tasman.”
“Who is Tasman?” Mom said.
“Nobody.” Val took her plate into the kitchen and turned on the faucet to wash it.
She heard her parents quizzing Drew. Who was Tasman?
The water spiraled down the drain. Who was Tasman? Why had she believed him?
She had followed the instructions. She had gathered the things with fire and spirit. (Well, everything except the gift from her own heart.) But what would she do when she was at the obelisk? What really would happen when the spirit had been restored, when Archandara, Photaza, Zabythix?
Would the doors be thrown open? Would Lanora take her place among those who are whole? Or would something else come out from the depths? Something that Tasman feared?
Thirty-two
On Saturday morning, Lanora’s mom tapped on the door.
“Wake up, sweetie,” Emma said.
Lanora had been awake for hours, trying to figure out what she should do on her last whole day in New York City.
“Time to get up, Lanora,” Emma said.
On Monday morning, Lanora wouldn’t hear her mom’s voice singing the syllables of her name. Something else would roust her out of bed. A clanging bell? A buzzing alarm? The blast of a bugle?
“You can’t lie in bed all morning. Today is the first day of the rest of your life.”
That wasn’t quite true. Today was the last day of her old life. Monday would be when her new life began. When she would put on her uniform and take her place among the other kids who had been sent away.
But today, she didn’t have to wear the white button-down blouse or the pleated skirt. Today she could wear whatever she wanted.
She stood in front of her closet. She pulled out the gypsy skirt and the pirate shirt. She held them against her body, but she didn’t put them on. Why dress up when she had no place to go? She put them in the large black trash bag that contained more clothes than her suitcase. She was being practical. There wasn’t any point in keeping the things she could never wear again.
“Lanora?”
Her mom must have heard her moving about. Lanora put on a T-shirt and a pair of sweatpants and came out of her room.
“There you are. I’m glad you slept late today. Tomorrow we’ll have to get an early start.”
Lanora nodded. She went into the kitchen and got a bowl and a spoon.
“I have to go back to the store. The list says seven white blouses and I only bought five. You’d think you could wear something different on the weekend.”
Emma smiled. Lanora smiled.
“I’ll be back soon. Can you find some breakfast?” Emma said.
“Sure, Mom.”
After her mom left, Lanora filled a bowl with a brown cereal that was supposed to help her lose weight and fight cholesterol, while supplying all the vitamins a girl needed. She dutifully ate what was good for her.
So what if other girls ate croissants with blackberry preserves as they anticipated a day of seizing whatever pleasures they wanted—provided the security guards weren’t looking. Lanora didn’t think about those girls whose names began with the letter A. She no longer wondered why they never got caught.
The cupboard door was open. She got up to shut it. Way at the back, in a forgotten zone, was a brightly colored box with a cheerful bird that didn’t seem to mind at all that he was burdened by an enormous beak. Toucan Sam.
She reached into the box and took out a few pieces of cereal. She arranged the brightly colored circles into the order for a rainbow. Red orange yellow green blue violet. She ate an orange one. It tasted stale. That wasn’t surprising. It had to be many years old. She decided she should preserve this artifact from a different era, from the period B.D.—before divorce. She carefully closed the box and carried it into her room. She put it in her suitcase. She would have to hide it somehow. But what if there were no private places? Not even under her bed?
The phone rang.
Her mom often called with a question. Could Lanora take something out of the freezer? Could Lanora see if they needed
another roll of toilet paper? Could Lanora measure how much milk was left in the gallon? Could Lanora reassure her mom that she hadn’t gotten into any more trouble?
“What, Mom?” Lanora said.
Only it was her father who said, “Lanora?”
“Mom isn’t home,” Lanora said.
“I know. She called me from the store.”
Lanora switched ears as she thought about what that meant. “So why are you calling?”
“Do I need a reason?”
Well, okay, he didn’t need one. But he usually treated her like she was his assistant who had to do certain things for him. Get good grades and exercise and send thank-you notes.
“You always have some kind of agenda,” she said.
“I guess that’s why Val said…”
She switched ears again, this time glaring at the phone for a moment, as if it were Val. No, because it wasn’t Val. Because Val didn’t care that she was going away. Val was too busy with Tasman. “What does Val have to do with it?”
“Nothing. So. How are you?” he said.
How was she? Was there ever a more meaningless question? “Fine.” A firm answer. With a big fat period after it.
“That’s good.” He sounded a little wistful.
Then there was silence. So she wondered, was there something else he was trying to say? If so, why didn’t he just say it? He never had trouble telling her what to do before.
“Mom got everything on the list.”
“The list?” He sounded puzzled.
“The Greywacke list. I’ll be all ready to go tomorrow.”
Suddenly she was eager to get out of there. Away from the tiny kitchen table always set for two. Away from the gap on the shelf where the mug she had decorated for him used to be. Away from the photographs Emma insisted on keeping on the refrigerator. All those little Lanoras. With no teeth. With rolls of fat. With peanut butter in her hair. Worst of all, the ones neatly cut in half. Emma couldn’t bear to throw away the whole picture just because it made her sick to look at a certain someone’s face.
“You might want to rent Mom a car with GPS. I can help her get to Greywacke, of course, but she’ll need it for the return trip. She gets confused when she’s upset.”
“I could take you. Unless…”
Since his voice trailed away, she finished his sentence for him. “Unless you have to work. Because you always work on weekends. And if you have to go play golf or to the theater or out to brunch, then it’s still work, isn’t it, Dad?”
He made a strange sound. Then he cleared his throat and said, “I meant, unless you don’t want to go.”
“Don’t want to?” She staggered backwards and bumped into the chair. She sat down on it. She held the phone in front of her so she could shout at it. “Like I have a choice?”
“But, honey, you do have a choice. You only think you don’t. But you do. You don’t have to go to Greywacke. All you have to do is…”
She hung up.
She looked at her feet. Her toenails were painted silver. The color of the actual shoes that Dorothy wore in the book The Wizard of Oz. The ones that had given her the power to get her wish. The ones that she had been wearing for practically the whole story before someone finally thought to tell her what the shoes could do.
Lanora clicked her heels together.
Nothing happened.
Then her mom came in. “I should have bought the blouses before. They didn’t have your size so I had to go to a different store. It was much more expensive. So I called your father because you know how he is about things like that.”
“Yes. I know.”
Lanora went into her room. She took the box of Fruit Loops out of her suitcase and put it in the trash bag with all the other things she wouldn’t be needing at Greywacke or ever again.
Thirty-three
All during the soccer practice on Saturday, Val had to keep retying her shoes. She was much more nervous than before a big game. With good reason. There had been no practice for the ceremony tonight! No game simulation. No drills. No endless repetition of the corner kick. She had never gone to the obelisk in the middle of the night with just a few scraggly feathers, a smelly cigar, an old bowl (if Tasman found it), and some other object she hadn’t even figured out yet.
She said good-bye to her teammates and walked home. The sun shone so brightly, it seemed impossible to believe that in just a few hours, they would be at the mercy of the moon. Now the sky was blue. The leaves were green. The colors of the kids’ clothing seemed to dance before her eyes. This world was so crowded with sights and sounds and smells; there didn’t seem to be space for demons and spells.
What if the ceremony didn’t work?
What if it did?
* * *
After a dinner she could hardly eat, Val went into her room to pack. She tried to stick her sleeping bag inside her backpack.
Drew handed her a small, fuzzy purple rabbit.
“What’s this for?” Val said.
“Just in case you miss me. I know I’m irreplaceable, but I held the bunny under my armpit for thirty seconds. That should be long enough for some of my powers to be stuck in its fuzz.”
“You mean your smell?” She taunted him with it.
“Don’t wave it around. It’s losing strength. Stick it in your bag.”
She hugged the rabbit. She wondered if she could bring something from her parents, too.
Her mom knocked and came into the room. “I just talked with Helena’s mother.”
Val turned away to put the rabbit in her backpack. Her mom couldn’t have spoken with Helena’s mom. She was dead. Val should have remembered that her mom would call Helena’s mom. Now Val was trapped by her lie.
“She sounded quite strict,” Mom said.
Val sighed with relief. Helena’s sister must have pretended.
“I hope she’s not so much of a worrier that you won’t have any fun,” Mom said.
Val smiled. No one worried more than her own mom. So Val hugged her.
“What’s this? You’re not nervous about going, are you?” Mom said.
“Are you nervous?” Drew said.
“I started spending the night with kids when I was eight,” Val said.
“I know. But it’s different than going to Lanora’s, isn’t it?” Mom smoothed Val’s yellow hair behind her ears. “You won’t know where the bathroom is.”
“Mo-om,” Val said.
“Well, you won’t,” Mom said.
“They might not even have a bathroom,” Drew said.
“Everybody has a bathroom,” Val said.
“Astronauts don’t. They wear diapers!” Drew rolled on the floor laughing.
“I better finish packing,” Val said.
“Aren’t you done?” Mom said.
“Not quite.” Val hadn’t chosen the third thing. “Maybe you could find us some cookies?”
“Yes, maybe you could find us some cookies?” Drew said.
“Of course, sweetie. I didn’t want to assume that Helena’s mom—or dad—didn’t bake. I’ll go get some right now.” Mom patted Val’s arm and steered Drew to the kitchen.
Val looked around her room in a panic. She hadn’t wanted to leave the third thing until the last minute. She just couldn’t decide. What was a gift from her own heart? What was the origin of the ministering wind? What was a ministering wind? Most winds seemed cold, and not the least bit caring.
“Are you ready? We’re going to walk you,” Dad called.
“Walk me?” Val stuck her head out of her room.
“It’s already getting dark,” Mom said.
So it was. Val had to hurry. She yanked open each of her desk drawers. What could it be? A picture of her and Lanora? The orange butterfly dangle? Neither of these things seemed important enough. Books, drawings, jewelry she never wore, socks, shirts, what could it be?
A golden soccer medal hung from its red ribbon on a hook. Val took it down and read the inscription: Most Valuable Pl
ayer. She had won it last year for saving the most goals. She carefully wrapped the ribbon around the golden disk and put it in the small pocket of her backpack next to the cigar.
As she came out of her room, Drew shone a flashlight in her face and then his own. “See or be seen?”
“He’s not coming, too, is he?” Val said.
“Of course he is,” Drew said.
“Nighttime walk,” Dad said.
Drew raced down the stairs. The rest of the family took the elevator because of the sleeping bag, the backpack, and a large canvas bag.
“I just said a few cookies,” Val said.
“I know, but I had a lot of fruit. And a big bottle of green tea. It isn’t cold, but you could pour it over ice,” Mom said.
Dad nudged Val.
“Thanks, Mom,” Val said.
Drew shone the big light in their faces as the elevator door opened. “Beat you!”
He ran outside the lobby. The beam of his flashlight attacked the side of the building. “Bam bam pshooo pshoo argghhhh.”
“It’s too bad we have to have all these streetlights,” Mom said.
“You want it to be dark?” Val’s voice cracked a little.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to walk outside at night and see stars?” Mom said.
Val looked up. The clouds moved above her at a dizzying pace.
“Would one night a year be too much to ask?” Mom said.
“On that night, it would probably be cloudy,” Dad said.
“Drew, wait at the corner!” Mom called.
Drew turned back and held his flashlight under his chin.
Val gasped. The sculpted shadows revealed an entirely different face. Old and ghoulish, and maybe even evil.
Drew shone the flashlight on his family as he danced impatiently from foot to foot. “Hurry up. They’re waiting.”
Val wondered why he had said “they.” He must have meant the girls at the party. He couldn’t know about Tasman. Or the spirits that they were intent upon summoning out of the dark.
She moved around her dad to be near the hand that wasn’t holding the sleeping bag, just in case she needed to grab on.