by Tad Williams
Tyler scowled. “I’d rather watch Martin Peirho eat boogers than have to sit around listening to you and Caitlin talk about boys all summer.” His sister and her friends spent all their time talking about the guys on television, musicians and actors, as if they knew them personally, and about boys in school as if they were the guys on television- “Oh, I think Barton isn’t ready to have a real relationship yet, he’s still getting over Marlee.” Tyler hated it. He wished there was a game where you could chase stupid, fakey celebrity boys like that and shoot them all into little pieces. That would rock .
“Well, maybe you won’t have to do either.” Mom was looking strange, the way she looked when someone was giving her good news she didn’t quite believe, like the time Tyler’s teacher had told her how much she liked having Tyler in her class, how hard he worked in math and how good he was on the computer. Tyler had been proud, but at the same time his mom’s surprise made him wonder if she’d actually thought he was stupid or something. “Apparently you have a great-uncle Gideon. Gideon Goldring. Some relative of my dad’s, I guess. I sort of remember him and Aunt Grace, now that I think about it. But he’s dead, isn’t he?” She obviously realized this sounded pretty silly. “I mean, I thought he was dead. It’s been years… He’s a farmer, it says here, and he has a big place out in the middle of the state and he wants you to come visit. Standard Valley, it’s called. I’m not sure where that is, exactly…” She trailed off.
“What valley?” his sister asked. “Who’s this Gideon? Some crazy old family member, and you’re going to send us to stay with him now?”
“No, he’s not crazy.”
“But you don’t know that-”
“ Stop it, Lucinda-just give me a moment to read this carefully! You obviously learned how to be patient from your father.” Mom squinted at the letter. “It says that he’s been meaning for a while to get in touch with me since we’re almost the last of the family. He says he’s sorry he hasn’t contacted me sooner. And he says he understands that I have two lovely children. Ha!” Mom did her best sarcastic laugh. “That’s what it says here-I wonder who told him that whopper? And he wants to know if they-that’s you two-could come and spend some time with him on his farm this summer.” She looked up. “Well? That solves all our problems, doesn’t it?”
Lucinda looked at her in horror. “A farm? We’ll be slaves, Mom! You don’t even know this man, you said so-he might not really be your uncle. Maybe he just wants kids so he can work them to death milking cows and pigs and everything.”
“I’m pretty sure he’s related to your grandfather. And you can’t milk pigs.” Mom returned her attention to the letter. “I don’t think so, anyway.”
“So now you’re going to send us away to some… death ranch,” Lucinda said, almost to herself, and then she dropped her hair over her face and clutched her arms around her middle again.
Tyler didn’t like arguing, but he wasn’t any happier about this idea than his sister. “Not a ranch. A farm.” He had a sudden memory of a picture he’d seen in his American history book, a decaying shack in the middle of a huge field of dust, a place as empty as the moon’s surface. “Uh-uh. No way.” He didn’t think they had the internet on farms. He was even more sure they didn’t have GameBoss and SkullKill. “I’m definitely not going to any boring farm all summer.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“Don’t be so closed-minded,” said Mom, as though they were talking about whether or not he should try a bite of something gross like fried squid instead of ruining an entire summer that they’d never get back for the rest of their lives. “Who knows, you might really enjoy yourselves. You could… go on hayrides. You might even learn something.”
“Yeah,” said Lucinda. “Learn how to be pecked to death by chickens. Learn how people break child labor laws.”
Tyler leaned forward and snatched the envelope from Mom’s hand and examined the strange, squinchy handwriting. On the back of the envelope was a little drawing of two old-fashioned letters tangled together-they looked like an O and an F -and a return address that explained those two letters and confirmed all his worst fears.
“Mom, look at this!” he said, holding it out. “Oh my God, look at the name of this place! Ordinary Farm! ”
“Yes, it does sound nice, doesn’t it?” she said.
Chapter 2
Flaming Cows and Window Monkeys
M om was in such a hurry to get them to the station that Lucinda forgot her hair dryer. She couldn’t imagine how she was going to get through the summer without a hair dryer, and she was pretty sure that they wouldn’t have something that modern and useful on some stinky old farm in the middle of nowhere.
“Don’t worry about it too much,” Tyler told her as they walked across the train station parking lot. “They probably won’t have electricity, either.”
Mom looked at her watch three times between the parking lot and the platform where the big board said the train to Willowside would leave. “Come on!” Lucinda told her. “Would it really kill you to be a little late to this singles thing? This is probably the last time you’ll ever see your children before we get mangled to death by some kind of farm machinery.”
“I’m not even leaving for that until tomorrow morning, as it happens,” said Mom. “I’m just worried about you getting on your train.” She grabbed one of Tyler’s backpack straps to get him to move faster, but Tyler yanked it away again.
“It’s the only one for days that stops in Standard Valley-I don’t think it’s a very big town. Oh, good, there it is. Come on, children! Give me a kiss. Don’t forget to write and tell me all about it. I’ll find out the address of the retreat and have Mrs. Fleener next door forward your mail to me.”
“Which means that when we write to tell you we’re prisoners of a satanic cult and they’re about to sacrifice us, you’ll find out, what, two or three weeks later?” Lucinda asked, only half joking. It was like they were Hansel and Gretel abandoned in the woods or something.
“You kids, you’re so funny.” Mom shook her head. “You know, if you stopped complaining you just might enjoy yourselves. Now, give me that kiss.”
Lucinda kissed her mother on the cheek even though she was angry, just in case it was the last time they ever saw each other. She didn’t really think they were going to get chewed up by a haymower or something, but she couldn’t help feeling frightened and sad, and the fact that she was tall enough now that Mom didn’t have to bend over to be kissed just made her feel even more of both.
“Hurry, kids. Oh, and here’s something that came in the mail for you from your uncle Gideon-I almost forgot!” Mom handed the parcel wrapped in brown paper to Tyler, since he was nearest, then blew them both a kiss and stood smiling brightly as they climbed onto the train. When they got into the compartment Lucinda went to the window. Mom waved to her as the train began to pull away. Lucinda waved back, but it made her feel like a dumb kid, like standing in line for Santa at the mall when you were too old.
We don’t even have any bread crumbs to leave a trail, she thought sadly as the station disappeared behind them. And no one’s coming to look for us, anyway.
The train was old, with paint chipped off the walls of the coaches and the seats sunken and wrinkled by what had to be a hundred years of other people’s bottoms. It made Lucinda want to stand up all the way, but Mom had said it would take them at least five hours to get to Standard Valley so she led her brother to the least gross-looking of the available seats. The compartment was fairly full, mostly with people in clothes that didn’t quite fit or who looked like English was their second or even third language. Many of them looked pretty miserable. Or maybe that was because that was how she felt.
Sometimes Lucinda really wished she knew how to stop being sad and angry.
They were a long way into their journey before either of them remembered the package Mom had given them. Tyler had been plugged into his GameBoss Portable-he loved the thing and could play it for hours at a stretch, deaf
and blind to the outside world. Lucinda, eyes closed, had been thinking mournfully about the summers her friends were going to have-Caitlin and her family going to Tyner Lake to water-ski and swim and hike, and Trina and Delia, who, even though they were staying home, were still going to the city and taking guitar lessons. The two of them would probably learn to be musicians and wind up on television someday, hanging around with all the other famous people and appearing on commercials while Lucinda spent the rest of her life shearing sheep.
“This is pretty weird,” Tyler said. He had found and unwrapped the package.
“What?”
“There’s a note in it. It says, ‘Lucinda and Tyler, please read this and pay close attention. It could save your lives.’ What does that mean?”
“A note in what?”
“This book Uncle What’s-his-name sent.”
“Gideon.”
“Huh?” Tyler was turning the pages of the book now.
“Never mind.” She looked over, almost interested, but it didn’t look like a real book. It had a kind of paper cover, for one thing, like someone had made it at a copier place.
Lucinda watched the tail end of a town going past the train windows. Everything looks gross from a train window, she thought. You could see into everybody’s backyard and they always had their laundry hanging out and some pathetic, rusty old swing set for the kids.
Something flicked past the window so quickly that Lucinda jumped, startled. She thought it had actually brushed the glass-a bird, probably.
“Do cows have fire breath?” Tyler asked.
It took a second for her to understand what he’d said.
“What are you talking about?” she said finally.
“Just answer the question.”
“In real life?” She frowned, thinking. She didn’t actually know much about cows. Milk. Gross-looking things hanging down underneath them that the milk came out of. Saying “Moo.” Standing around in fields. Eating grass. None of those things had anything to do with fire. “No,” she said. “Of course they don’t.”
“Man, this is a really weird book.” Lucinda tried to take it from him to look at it, but he pulled it away from her.
“Back off. I had it first.”
She was too depressed to argue. There would be plenty of time for arguing later, anyway-all summer long, in fact. She put her feet on top of her suitcase and picked up the brown paper wrapping that he had discarded. The neat handwriting was different from the cramped scrawl in the original letter, which both she and Tyler had read several times, trying to decide if this farm visit was actually going to be as bad as they thought, or maybe even worse. The package was addressed to “ Master Tyler Jenkins and Miss Lucinda Jenkins,” which was so silly it almost made her laugh. Along the bottom, in big letters, it said, “ DO NOT OPEN UNTIL YOU ARE ON THE TRAIN TO STANDARD VALLEY. ” The back had the same “ OF ” stamp as had been on the letter.
Different handwriting. What did that mean? That their surprise great-uncle wasn’t the only crazy person they were going to have to deal with?
“Hey, listen,” Tyler said. “This is so bizarre. ‘It should never be forgotten, even in the most routine tasks of care and feeding, that these animals are large and dangerous. Even a belch from a contented
… cow… can throw out a six-foot flame. Many… cow… keepers have remembered this only after being badly burned. Flame-retardant suits and other special equipment are recommended for all tasks…’ ” He turned to her. “That means they can burp fire!”
“What are you talking about? Does the book really say that-that they are flaming cows?” Now she was beginning to feel seriously nervous. “This guy is crazy. We need to get off this train.”
“What’s asbestos? Because you’re supposed to wear some kind of gloves made of it when you feed the cows.”
Lucinda shook her head. “I don’t know. Let me see that.”
“Forget it.”
“Give it to me or you won’t get any of the money Mom gave me for lunch.”
“That’s not your money!”
“That’s not just your book, either. It’s addressed to both of us.” He only glared back at her. “Come on, Tyler. Let me look at it. This is scaring me.”
He stared for a moment longer, then handed it over. It was floppy and heavy and up close it really did look like someone had gone to Kinko’s or somewhere like that to make it themselves. The cover, which was on even cheaper paper than the rest of it, said “Care and Feeding of Cows by Gideon Goldring.” She opened it up. The very first page said:
Some may wonder why I would write this book when so few people will ever have so much as the glimpse of a cow, let alone take care of one. But the sort of information contained herein is hard-won and should not be lost. I am no longer a young man and it could be that I will not be around to share all my knowledge with whoever shall follow me. Therefore, I commit it to writing, in hopes that those who are to come will see their cows not only survive but thrive and fly high.
“ Fly high? ” Lucinda looked at Tyler. “He is crazy! He’s really crazy!”
“You’re telling me. Wait until you get to the part about catching them-it’s all about putting nets in the tops of trees and stuff.”
Lucinda peered at the page. “Hold on. This didn’t use to say ‘cow,’ I don’t think.” She stared, then rubbed at the paper with her finger. “Before they copied it somebody went through this and put ‘cow’ in over some other word. See, it’s shorter than the original word. There’s a lot of white on either side.”
“Yeah, you’re right-here and here too. And here.” Tyler leafed forward a couple of pages. “All the places that say ‘cow’ used to say something else.” He looked at his sister.
“What’s that all about?”
“I don’t know. I’m just wondering if we have enough money to get home if we get off in the next town.” She took the money out of her purse and counted it. “Twenty dollars. Do you think that’s enough? It’s not enough.”
“It’s enough to get us lunch and a couple of Cokes.”
Something slid past the window again outside, a little swipe of shadow, but when Lucinda looked up she saw nothing but the endless, dry California valley slipping past.
“I can’t believe Mom!” she said. “Sending us off to some crazy man who thinks cows breathe fire, and she doesn’t even give us enough money to get home again if he tries to kill us or something! As soon as we get to the next stop I’m going to call her to come get us.”
Tyler laughed, but he wasn’t happy. “Then you better work on your Star Wars trivia, because she’ll take us straight to the Peirhos’ house. Martin and Anthony are going to spend all summer quizzing you about what kind of underpants Boba Fett wears.”
Lucinda shuddered. People always said she was too negative-her teachers even asked her why she never tried to see the good side of things-but this was proof, right here, that no matter how bad you thought things were going to be, they turned out even worse.
For once, Tyler was right. Arguing wouldn’t help. There was no escape. “Well,” she said, “I guess being killed by an exploding cow fireball will be less horrible than having to watch the Peirho twins and their battling action figures.”
Tyler laughed. Lucinda almost felt better. Then something brushed her window again, and this time she looked up just in time to see a tiny furry head no bigger than a kiwi fruit looking in at her from the top of the window. For a moment it seemed even more bizarre than it was, its mouth at the top and its eyes at the bottom, until she realized the creature must be hanging upside down on the side of the train like a bat, watching her. She even thought she could see the tip of a leathery wing pressed on the glass. But it wasn’t a bat.
“Tyler-” She stared right at it, certain that if she looked away it would disappear. “Tyler, there’s a monkey on the train.” It disappeared anyway, flipping away like a leaf blown from a car windshield.
“Yeah, and it’s you,” he said, not reall
y paying attention. “Whoa, do you really think we’ll get to see some cows explode? Like in FarmFrag?” He grinned, then put in his earbuds and said, way too loud, “ Maybe it will be an okay summer after all. I’ve never seen a real cow blow up! ”
The monkey face was gone from her window, but now everyone else in the compartment was staring at Lucinda and her brother. She shrank down in her seat and held the strange book in front of her face. Had she only imagined what she’d seen? Because outside of movies she was pretty darn sure there weren’t any such things as flying monkeys.
Of course, there weren’t any such things as fire-breathing cows, either. Lucinda tried to focus on the words on the page, but that wasn’t working. She couldn’t help wondering whether the summer ahead was going to be as boring as she’d first thought, terrifyingly weird, or somehow both at the same time.
Chapter 3
The Man With the Wrong Name
T he station sign for their stop was old and beat-up, missing a couple letters. WELCOME TO TANDARD ALLEY.
Tyler wiped sweat off his forehead, then pulled his baseball cap back down over his messy brown hair. It had been so hot on the train that he had drunk three whole soft drinks, but it was even hotter here.
Now that the train had gone, the platform was empty. Tyler felt like the two of them were the only people in the whole tiny town.
“So where’s Uncle Gideon?” said Lucinda. They wandered through the empty station and looked out into the empty narrow street that ran in front of it. A few houses were in view but nobody seemed to be outside-not that Tyler blamed them. “Or are we supposed to walk to his crazy farm and die in the heat?” Lucinda continued.
“Someone’s going to meet us,” Tyler said, looking around. The station had nothing more than a ticket booth and a couple of vending machines, but it was cooler than the platform. “That’s what Mom said, anyway.”