by Robert Reed
I looked at my sandy hands, wondering why he was telling me this stuff. I felt uncomfortable. I wished he would at least look elsewhere when he talked to me. Why me?
“Indeed,” he announced. “If I add up every potential world-killing mishap—heat death and cold death, comets and asteroids, plus exotic horrors like supernovae and quasars at our galaxy’s core—the chances of us sitting here now, like this, have fallen to almost nothing. Which is why the sky is so quiet, and so empty, and why we have no one to listen to but ourselves.”
I concentrated hard, trying to understand.
“Ryder?” he said. “Do your friends ever tell you things? Things they want to have remembered?”
I looked straight at his eyes and nodded.
“I hope you consider me a friend.” He waited, then he said, “I can’t tell you why this is important. Not yet, at least. And maybe not ever. All right?”
“Okay.”
“It’s something between the two of us. No one else.”
I nodded again.
“It’s a dismal load to carry, I know. But there are reasons, and you’ll have to trust me. Can you trust me?”
He was Dr. Florida, and everything involving Dr. Florida was an honor. “I trust you, sir.” What were my choices? Painful words or not, he had thought enough of me to give them to me. A gloomy sense of despair…I felt it with every breath, a part of me wishing I could cry hard and long.
“Mention this to no one,” he muttered. “For now.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Life is precious,” he reminded me.
“Life is precious,” I echoed.
“Indeed.”
Then I breathed and had to ask him, “Who would forget such a thing, sir? Who?”
And he shook his head sadly.
After a moment, almost without sound, he told me, “You can never be too sure, Ryder. You can never be too sure.”
We ate lunch on the beach, the six of us. My friends loved talking to Dr. Florida, Marshall making half the noise, asking him endless questions about the snow dragon. Dr. Florida was like the buoyant man I remembered from the pasture. He smiled and joked, once telling Marshall, “I can’t diagram everything about the dragon, can I? Would that be fair?”
Marshall shrugged his shoulders and stared at the bright white sand. I could see him blushing, embarrassed now. Then I looked past him and saw Lillith emerging from the false rocks of the wall.
She came with several other adults from the room’s well-hidden entrance. They were wearing office clothes and looked very much out of place. Dr. Florida saw them and rose from his cool chair, and I watched his face and how he walked to them, slowly but not slowly. Jack touched his chair and said, “We ought to get one, Cody. For the oak.”
The adults were speaking with Dr. Florida. I couldn’t hear them over the crashing waves. Lillith was looking at the five of us. At one point she started to say something; and Dr. Florida, without fanfare, touched her chin and dipped her face out of sight.
He returned in a little while.
“I have to leave,” he told us. He looked at me and halfway winked. “Enjoy yourselves and I’ll be back soon. All right?”
We nodded. We watched Dr. Florida vanish through the door, and Beth touched me and asked, “Ryder? Why are you so quiet, Ryder?”
“What did you guys talk about?” asked Marshall. “Before.”
“Oh,” I said, “nothing really.”
Cameras hovered around us. A moment ago they had been far out over the water.
“Come swim,” Marshall told me. “There are all kinds of neat fish in the water. And turtles. And these tiny whales—”
“Are you tired?” asked Cody.
“Some,” I said.
“A swim would make you feel better,” she told me.
“But we have to wait,” cautioned Beth. “Because we just ate.” We had had sandwiches and lemoned Pepsi for lunch. Now we belched into our hands. There was strange fruit waiting in a cool tub and more food than twenty of us could have eaten. Cody started picking the meat from several sandwiches, wrapping it in plastic, and she stood and tried biting a rust-colored ball of fruit. “Sour,” she snarled, and she spit out the dry pinkish guts.
Beth said, “Cody?”
Cody walked toward the surf, her plastic-wrapped meat in one hand.
“Where are you going?” asked Beth.
“I’m going to feed the fish,” she announced. Sand clung to her butt and the dark backs of her legs. Her swimsuit was straining against her muscles, the cords showing in her arms and hamstrings and across her broad, flat shoulders. Beth said something about cramps, she might get cramps, and Cody looked at us and smiled, saying, “Me?” and then winking.
Beth shrank down a little bit.
We watched Cody position her goggles and dive into a rising wave. We waited for her head or her back, counting seconds, and then she emerged in the deepest water. Her hands tore the meat to pieces. The water itself was halfway still, and I saw the fish breaking the surface—colored fins and eager mouths, flashes of red gills and Cody surrounded, seemingly fish food herself.
I thought hard about the fragile, precious business of life.
I wanted to weep for all the dead and lost creatures on other worlds. But I didn’t. Dr. Florida had told me to keep our conversation secret, and I knew if I cried I would tell everything. So I bit my lower lip and tucked my knees to my mouth and never, never made a sound.
Marshall talked about the dragon. On and on. “Dr. Florida knows I can figure it out for myself. How to catch it. That’s why he did what he did. I bet so.”
Jack said, “You’re an idiot.”
Beth said, “Guys.”
“Platinum brains, my ass,” said Jack.
“I’m not listening to you,” said Marshall.
I thought about Jack Wells. I hadn’t yet mentioned him to Dr. Florida, believing we had the entire day. But where was Dr. Florida? Had something gone wrong? I remembered a cool hardness coming into his face when Lillith appeared, and I tried to guess what was happening. I made a hundred good guesses, all of them wrong.
“We can swim now. Ryder?” Beth touched me and told me that our lunches were settled. We grabbed more sandwich meat and waded into the surf, and Jack was beside me, not strong in the water but kicking hard and refusing to quit. A long rainbow-colored eel stole the meat from my hand, fleeing into the rocks far below. I dove and my chest burned, and I quit and rose again and laughed a halfway laugh. Then Cody shot past me with Marshall and Beth clinging to her back, and she dove and they rode her down. Then she shook them off and kicked to the surface, treading water, her working legs making it look as if she was standing in shallow water.
“Want a ride?” she wondered.
I was too tired. I told her, “Later,” and swam toward shore, letting the waves do the hardest work. I came in fast and the beach itself seemed to be pitching beneath me. I blinked and saw Dr. Florida waiting for me. He was wearing office clothes. He didn’t have his hat anymore. I saw his sweat in the false sunlight, and he told me, “I’m sorry. An emergency has arrived,” and he took a long ragged breath.
I blinked and waited.
He said, “There were other things I wished to tell you, to try to explain…but maybe later.” He said it hopefully. He said, “You and your friends keep on playing. Don’t worry about anything. We’ve got people watching you, of course, and if you want to leave just go through the door. All right?”
“Dr. Florida—?”
“Yes, Ryder?”
“I was wondering.” I could see Jack’s arms and head, his strokes slow and disjointed. I explained my concern for him, trying to make Dr. Florida appreciate his circumstances and needs. “Maybe, I was thinking…maybe there’s something you could do for him? He’s not like the rest of his family. Not at all. Ask Cody, sir. She’ll tell you. Jack tries to keep away from his brothers, and if he could just get some help—”
Dr. Florida said, “Ryder. Ryder, Ryder,” and sh
ook his head.
“If you could, sir—”
He stared at Jack and the others for a long moment, then he took a breath and looked at me. I felt his eyes. Something made me nervous. Then he began to laugh in a strange way. I thought he was close to crying, and he sniffed and said, “Nothing. Forget it.”
“What, sir?”
He kept silent.
“I like Jack,” I said, “and I was hoping—”
“Ryder? Let me tell you something.” He bit his lower lip, then he said, “A lot of people have bad luck. I know you mean well, but trust me…I’m doing the best I can for everyone, for you and for him, and there simply are things more important than giving a disadvantaged kid a bunch of books. All right?”
I watched him.
“I know. You can’t understand.” He turned and began to walk across the beach, climbing to the high powdery sand. “But maybe soon you will, the way it looks. Good day to you, Ryder.”
“And to you, sir.”
He seemed oblivious of me. He had an old man’s face and an old man’s stooped back, and perspiration dripped from his forehead and hands, glittering and then vanishing into the dry white sand.
Seven
“Emergencies happen,” cautioned Mom. “You can’t expect someone like him, with his schedule, to spend an entire day with you.”
Dad said, “Gwinn?”
“Gwinn, what?” she responded. “You pumped up his expectations, and now look at him. He’s worn out and depressed because of the way things went.” She paused, giving Dad a fierce look. Then she sighed. “Anyway, it’s over.” She nodded and the fierceness dissolved. “Now, can we get back to a normal life, at least?”
I hadn’t mentioned my long talk with Dr. Florida, of course. My folks just knew about us eating with him and swimming after he had left us. Jack had gotten tired in the deep water, a warning horn blaring and Cody nabbing him in time. In plenty of time, really. Then Marshall said something to Jack, teasing him when everyone was back on the beach, and Cody had had another fight to dismantle. That’s when we decided to go home. Lillith met us in the hallway, saying, “Dr. Florida sent me to say good-bye. He’s in a meeting…and he wishes all of you the best and hopes to see you again. Soon.”
Dad cleared his throat. “Sounds like some emergency,” he said. “The suits-and-ties showing up on that beach like that? Getting him?”
“What about it?” asked Mom. She showed no interest.
“Oh, I’m just thinking.” He looked at me, needing an audience. “I showed a house last week. To a pregnant woman.” He shaped a swollen belly with his hands. “Her husband works for some accounting department in one of the local Florida divisions. I don’t remember where, but anyway…he couldn’t see the house too. He was out of town for some emergency, and she didn’t know when he’d return. So naturally I asked if he was being transferred. Was it wise buying a bigger home now—?”
“It’s her decision,” cautioned Mom. “Not yours.”
“I forgot to tell you this story, Gwinn.” Dad turned to Mom and said, “The woman didn’t know his whereabouts. And that was the funny thing. She said no, he’d be home soon. It was just some big secret assignment; she didn’t know where or why, but he was supposed to be back in a few days. Or weeks. She said she wasn’t worried.”
“That’s good,” said Mom. “So what?”
“I never asked if she was worried. She volunteered the information, as if maybe she was worried. As if she wanted to reassure herself—”
“She didn’t know where to find her husband?”
“Not a clue, I guess.”
“So he ran off with another woman and she was too proud to say it—”
“Gwinn,” said Dad. “I just thought it was funny.”
“It’s silly.” That was Mom’s verdict. “Kip,” she said, “I never understand the points of your stories.”
“So what kinds of secret assignments involve accountants?” Dad shook his head and laughed. “I ask you.”
“And I, for one, do not care.”
“Oh, Gwinn,” he muttered.
“Oh, Gwinn,” she echoed.
Dad kept smiling. He touched my closer hand and said, “Anyway, we’re glad you had a good time and nobody drowned. I’m sorry if things didn’t quite meet expectations—”
“It’s all right,” I promised.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m just tired.”
He seemed heartened by that news. “Well, a good night’s sleep will fix what ails you.”
I nodded, agreeing with him.
Then Mom repeated her fondest hope. “Now life can get back to normal, just maybe,” and she sighed. I looked at her blonde hair and her wishful eyes, and I wished the same thing. As hard as I could, I did.
I fought with Marshall over the game, and then that next winter I became best friends with Cody. I did make up with Marshall in the end. I’d go to his house because he’d plead, though we never played war games again. And I insisted that Cody meant more to me now. I wouldn’t let him think otherwise.
In spring I went snake hunting with Cody, and she taught me how to find snakes in the growing grass and underbrush and beneath junk and old boards. She showed me how to pin them with my foot or hand and how to bring my hands at them from behind, avoiding their slashing jaws. In the summer we began building our first treehouse. It was in a big ash up above the slabs, overhanging the main trail cutting through the woods. I told Marshall, “You ought to come see it.” He was afraid of Cody, and jealous, and the three of us rarely played together. “If Cody lets you,” I told him, “you can climb up and help us work.”
“I don’t know,” he muttered.
“She’s got all sorts of plans.” I was proud of my best friend. “She knows where we can get solar cells, good ones, and super-loops. And maybe a freezer too—”
“Why a freezer?” he asked.
“We’ll make snowballs year-round,” I said. “For protection.”
His eyes went round. “Protection? Who from?”
“Everyone,” I assured him. “Maybe you can join us. You can ask!”
Marshall joined. In a fashion. At first he’d pick fights with Cody and then run home crying. It was as if he was testing her patience and anger, calling her names and refusing to help. Cody reacted by popping him or dropping a hammer inches from his feet…anything to make him behave. One day they had a wicked shouting match, and afterwards Cody told me, “You’ve got an immature friend, Ryder,” with her most adult voice. “I’m getting tired of him. Tell him so.” I did. Then Marshall returned and they didn’t fight as much. He seemed to realize he had reached some brink, and he didn’t want to be left alone. Anything but that.
Marshall helped with the work—nailing and sawing, the treehouse growing—and Cody fixed his blunders without fuss. He made plenty of blunders, but he also had excuses. Of course. Marshall did nothing wrong without good reasons. One day his coordination would fail because of his allergy medicines—the allergies sprang from his special genetics—and another day, in different circumstances, he was distracted because of some hairy math problem he was working in his head. Marshall was always working on problems. He talked about mathematics because Cody had no interest in such things. We tried to ignore him. Or sometimes, when nothing else worked, Cody looked straight at him and said, “It’s a good thing you’re smart. Otherwise you’d be nothing at all.”
Marshall spent an entire day carving equations into a long board, telling us, “These are the bones of the universe. This is how matter and light, and everything, is put together for us.”
I felt sorry for Marshall, and so did Cody. Cody told me, “I let him pull shit because it’s not all his fault. That bitch mother of his is part of it.” She shook her head and said, “My moms tell me stories. Maybe that mother acts sweet around you, Ryder. But she’s a terror. Believe me.”
We finished the treehouse at the end of the summer—an enormous rambling structure with few windows, li
ttle circulation, and nothing fancy—and Cody looked at it and admitted the truth. “We did it wrong,” she told us. “The wrong tree and the wrong design, and we’ve got to start again.”
“But school’s starting,” said Marshall. “We don’t have time—”
“Next year,” Cody announced. “The three of us will do it right next year,” and she turned and glanced at Marshall for a moment, and he smiled and felt ever so glad to be included. He did.
They didn’t fight during the fall.
We were playing cards one day, sitting inside our ugly airborne box, and I heard someone coming. I heard a pretty voice singing nothing in particular, and when I glanced outside I saw a dark girl, smallish and alone, passing beneath us. She was walking north on the trail. Marshall asked, “Who’s that?” and Cody looked downwards. “Hey,” she said. “Little girl. Wait a minute, would you? Hey!”
The strange girl bolted.
We climbed down and chased her. Our card game was boring, Marshall always figuring odds and strategy; but running the trails on a bright, brisk day felt splendid. The girl used a tiny trail and climbed a set of stairs leading up a stone wall. Cody reached the stairs first, pointing and saying, “She had too much of a lead.” The stone wall was massive, every block square and the mortar white as sugar. The stairs themselves had been built from smaller stones, rough and clumsily shaped. A metal handrail was stuck on the outer edge. I climbed the first few steps, curious, and when I touched the rail it moved in a sluggish way. “Don’t trust me,” it seemed to say. “Don’t trust me, and you’ll be fine.”
I didn’t go any farther. I thought there might be trouble.
Marshall was of the same mind, and Cody knew it. “Scout her out,” Cody told him. “I bet she lives up there. Go on. Are you chicken? Go on.” We watched while Marshall crept up the stairs, then watched him sit at the top, in a suspenseful crouch. Then he wheeled and ran back down to us, almost stumbling. “I saw her,” he said. “In a window. Maybe she saw me too. I think so, maybe.”
“I bet she’s calling the cops,” Cody told him.
“You think?!”