Caleb and Kit

by Beth Vrabel

  Kit laughed at me. “Don’t worry, silly goose.” She jumped off the crate with the box still in her hands and sunk to the barn floor. “Look what I found!” I sat beside her.

  “Listen, Kit,” I started to say as she opened the box. “We’ve got to get out of here. Let’s go back to the rock.”

  “Oh, come on,” Kit said. “This barn is a treasure chest. Look!” Kit pulled a blue bottle from the box, rubbing off some of the dust with her shirt. It was small, only about the size of my palm. Bubbling out from the glass was the word SERUM.

  “Serum? That’s what turned Captain America into a hero.” I grabbed the bottle from her. It was the same color as the medicine given to Cap, too. “Huh.” I handed it to Kit, who pushed it back toward me.

  “Keep it,” she said. “It’s yours. I can tell.”

  “I can’t keep it. It isn’t ours.”

  A raindrop pelted against the roof of the barn. Kit rolled her eyes. “Look around, Caleb. No one cares about the stuff in here. It’s all pushed aside, waiting to be crushed when this roof finally caves.”

  “It’s still stealing, even if no one ever notices.” And suddenly the World of Faerie book blossomed in my mind. I pulled the strap of my backpack up my shoulder.

  More raindrops hammered, sounding like nails being slammed into the old wood over our heads, and the scant sunshine faded. “We should go.” I pushed myself up to my feet. My stomach was grumbling. I was going to need to find a bathroom soon. Something else bothered me, too. Like a little mouse gnawing on my gut, something ate away at me. I just couldn’t put my finger on what it was.

  Kit sighed, slipping the blue bottle into her pocket. Then her hand darted down and grabbed another, almost like it but bigger, and put it in her other pocket. “They’ll never miss them. I swear.”

  Just as we climbed through the broken board, lightning shot across the darkened sky. Thunder rumbled like a monster’s roar a moment later. Kit squealed and ducked back into the barn, dragging me with her. “We can’t go out in this.”

  “But we can’t stay here!” I clenched my fist. The scrapes from the dog’s teeth weren’t deep, barely scratches really, but they stung. I shoved my hand into my pocket, my fist closing around my phone. What if I just called Mom, or even Patrick? Would they come for me? Don’t be stupid, I told myself. How would I explain being in a barn with Kit?

  Kit settled back against the barn wall. “This is the perfect spot for a picnic. Let’s just eat here.” She looked like Shelly when she was the only one who knew the answer to one of Mrs. Richards’s math problems in school. That’s when it struck me, the thing that had been bothering me all afternoon. School. And it was just like in a cheesy movie—the moment I remembered, a lightning bolt crackled across the sky.

  Kit’s lips moved as she counted. When thunder boomed, she said, “That was five seconds. The storm is about a mile away. I bet it’ll be over in a half hour, max.”

  “Where did you learn how to do that? Count between lightning and thunder to figure out how far away the storm is?”

  Kit paused, her eyes narrowing. “I don’t know. I must’ve picked it up somewhere.”

  “In homeschooling?”

  “Yeah,” Kit said, and started rummaging through the box again. “In homeschooling.”

  “Not science class.”

  “What are you getting at, Caleb?”

  I crossed my arms. Goose bumps popped out over my arms and not just because of the storm’s drop in temperature. “Before we cut that dog loose, you said you saw the naturalist assembly at your school, too. But when I met you, you told me you had never been to school.”

  Kit sighed. “What’s your point?”

  “You lied to me!” I sort of yelled.

  “So what, okay?” Kit’s voice was mellow but stung all the same. “I lied. People lie sometimes.”

  “But why?” I asked. “It doesn’t even make sense. Why would you lie about that?”

  Kit shrugged. “It just sort of happened. I mean, I just sort of said it. It didn’t make sense to start school when we moved in May, so I just stopped early for the summer. But I am going to be homeschooled next year, okay?” She looked up at me, and I saw two pink patches on her cheeks. She felt bad, I could tell, about lying.

  The anger nibbling at my gut finally loosened its jaw. It wasn’t like I never lied. I could name six times since Tuesday. And she had never pushed me about anything—about why I swallowed a half dozen pills before eating or why I ate enough food for a horse every day. I sat down next to her, my stomach grumbling. I was so tired.

  I unpacked what was left of my lunch. Mom always packed me two juice boxes, so I handed one right away to Kit. I downed my pills and spread out the rest of the food. An apple, carrot sticks, two cheese sticks, two granola bars (one labeled Snack time in Mom’s careful handwriting). Kit divvied them between us, and we ate while rain hammered the roof.

  As hungry as I had been a moment earlier, I had a hard time finishing even the cheese stick. I forced it down and ate a couple carrots. Kit hummed under her breath, checking out all the different bottles. Maybe if I lay down, my stomach would settle and I’d be hungry again.

  I hadn’t realized I was sleeping until I woke up. I opened my eyes and the air was still and thick and almost vibrating, the way it always is moments after a storm. My stomach clenched but I ignored it, trying to remember what had happened. Did we really set free that dog? I grinned at Kit, who had stopped humming and was watching me. She smiled back and soon we were laughing. It all seemed so funny suddenly—a big adventure.

  And then I ruined it with my stupid mouth. “You didn’t go shopping with your mom, did you?”

  Kit’s eyes clouded over the same way the skies had earlier. I held my breath, half expecting that any second I’d see a flash of lightning and need to count seconds. But Kit just grew very still. She looked at the bottle in her hands, this one with notches and numbers along the sides like measurements. “I think these had medicine inside once,” she said instead of answering.

  I didn’t say anything, letting my question swell around us. Finally, she said, “No. She’s looking for work—she used to work at a store but quit.” Kit shook her head. “That’s a lie. She didn’t quit. She was fired. She didn’t show up to work. After my dad left a couple years ago, she just sort of…” Kit tipped the empty bottle, as if pouring out all the contents. “Sort of was empty. She keeps saying she’s going to do things and then doesn’t. Like she said we’d fix up Grandmom’s old house, but it’s exactly the same except for the improvements I’ve made.”

  I didn’t say anything, thinking of the red porch and wondering what else Kit had done.

  “Grandmom lived with us for a while. She kept Mama on track, you know, made sure she took her medicine—she gets strange thoughts sometimes—and Grandmom made sure I was okay. Grandmom’s the one who told me about the fairies.” Kit kind of smiled as she glanced over at me. She tossed me the serum bottle.

  “What did she say?” I asked, looking down at my bottle.

  “Grandmom said Mama was so beautiful when she was a child, so special, that the fairies couldn’t resist playing with her. But since she was human—all the way human—she couldn’t handle the contact. It twisted her mind so she sees things humans can’t, hears things that aren’t there. It’s the fairies.”

  I bit my lip, thinking hard. “It sounds… sounds kind of crazy, Kit.”

  Kit stilled and didn’t speak for a long time. “I know it sounds crazy. I’m not explaining it right. But if you could’ve seen Grandmom when she told me, you’d know. You’d believe her.”

  I nodded. “You’re like that. I believe you, too.”

  Kit continued as if she hadn’t heard me. “Grandmom took Mama to doctors, made sure she took the medicine that kept the fairies from bothering her too much. But now Grandmom’s gone. And so is Mama, mostly.”

  Kit grabbed a different bottle and her hand clenched around it. “She’s never even home. She mak
es promises all the time. ‘We’re going to go shopping.’ ‘We’re going to go into town.’ ‘I’m going to sign you up for school.’ And then it doesn’t happen. She’ll come home, later and later, and say she’s sorry. Say she’ll make it up to me. But she won’t. She can’t.”

  I racked my brain trying to think of what to say. But I couldn’t think of anything.

  Then Kit stiffened and sort of shuddered, like she was throwing off an itchy blanket. When she looked at me, her eyes were fierce as the thunder I had been waiting to hear. “She’s constantly doing that, you know?”

  “Doing what?” I asked quietly. I focused on the serum bottle, tilting it so it caught glimpses of the sunlight. Kit had taken most of the other bottles out of the boxes and they lay around her in a ring. None of the others were blue like mine.

  “Trading her todays for tomorrows. ‘I’m sorry, Kit-Kat. I can’t today. But tomorrow will be great. Tomorrow will be awesome. Tomorrow I’ll make it up to you.’ Always tomorrow! I’m not like that. I’ll never be like that.” I had to look at Kit then, when her voice snagged on her last words. Kit reared back her arm, throwing a bottle as hard as she could against the barn wall, where it hit with a bang and shattered into dozens of pieces. Then she grabbed fistfuls more of the old bottles, throwing them all against the wall to shatter in showers of forgotten green and clear glass.

  Kit did all of this—this eruption of shattering glass—without crying or screaming or moving with anything but purpose. I was frozen in place, too scared, too startled to do anything, even ask her to stop. But the thing that made it even harder for me to move? Kit wasn’t sad. Wasn’t angry. She was as determined and deliberate as when she told me about our destinies. “I won’t trade my todays for tomorrows. I’m going to make every day mine. Every moment of it.” Kit stood and pulled the last bottle (aside from the blue one in my own hand) from her pocket. Her fist tightened against it, but instead of throwing it away, she put it back in her pocket. Kit handed me my backpack and nodded toward the opening in the doors. “You can’t count on tomorrow. No one can.”

  Every day mine. The words rattled around my skull.

  “I have something for you,” I said, and opened my backpack. But the corners of the notebook I made had curled in the humidity. Some of the black paint blurred. I bit my lip and reached behind it. Mom would never notice the book was missing. It wasn’t like she read it a lot or anything. It was sort of like the blue serum bottle in my pocket, wasn’t it? Just sitting in here, gathering dust instead of being used, having a purpose. I pulled out the World of Faerie book and handed it to Kit. “This made me think of you,” I said.

  She pulled it onto her lap, her eyes wide as she brushed her fingertips across the paintings of fairies. “For me?”

  “To keep,” I added.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Something awful happened before I left the barn. Something I don’t want to talk about. Something I couldn’t help and that Kit, waiting outside for me, pretended not to notice. She’s good at pretending.

  The stream surged after the storm, making tiny rapids around rocks and reaching the middle of our calves. Even though we had stayed mostly dry in the barn, our wet clothes now clung to us thanks to trees dropping raindrops on us at the slightest breeze. What was the point of trying to stay dry, anyway? We stood in the middle of the stream, sending armfuls of water to erupt and shimmer like fireworks as we threw them in the air and over our heads. Nothing mattered then. Not the chill that soaked through me from the storm and its sudden coolness. Not the old man’s stretched-out and angry face. Not the stinging scrapes along my hand from the fairy dog. Nothing at all but jumping and splashing and being, totally being, in the moment.

  I could still wring rain and stream water from my shirt as I crept to the edge of the park that afternoon. No one spotted me as I made my way to the sidewalk. That’s what I thought anyway.

  “Hey!” someone yelled behind me.

  I whipped around, heart pounding, but it was just Shelly. “Hey,” I said and turned back.

  “Hold up,” she said. I could hear her sneakers hit the sidewalk as she trotted toward me.

  “Shouldn’t you be up at the pavilion, making Ava’s life miserable?” I muttered.

  “Shouldn’t you be?” she said back. “I want to know what’s going on.” Shelly gathered her frizzy hair into a ponytail and matched my long strides. “I told Ava I was going for a walk, and I’m not going back until I have answers.”

  “Nothing is going on,” I said. “I just don’t want to be at camp.”

  “Caleb,” Shelly said in her I-know-everything voice, “no one wants to be at camp. But that’s where you’re supposed to be. Ava thinks you’re sick or something.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Are you sick or something?” she asked quietly. “I mean, I know you have cystic fibrosis, but you always seem fine to me. A little entitled maybe, but—”

  “Back off, Shelly,” I snapped.

  “Fine, but at least tell me what that’s supposed to be.” Shelly pointed to my arm and I felt like a complete dork. I forgot to stash the shield behind the tree. I couldn’t turn back now, not with Shelly watching me.

  “It’s vibranium,” I muttered. That’s what’s in Captain America’s shield, not that Shelly would have any idea.

  “Come on,” she said. If someone could talk in a rolling-your-eyes tone, that’s totally what Shelly was doing. “That shield’s not even adamantium quality.”

  “Hey—how do you—?”

  Shelly’s cheeks flared. “I like Captain America. Thought I saw you reading one of the comics during math class last year.”

  I didn’t say anything for a second. “Who’s the better villain—Red Skull or Crossbones?”

  “Neither,” she said, this time actually rolling her eyes. “Batroc is the best.”

  “Batroc? Are you insane?” I laughed. “He’s such a weirdo. A total joke.”

  “Oh, please. Batroc and his brigade could destroy Hydra without getting a single scratch.”

  “Batroc is lame. All he ever does is kick things.”

  “Kickbox things,” Shelly fired back. “Difference.”

  “Lame.”

  “Whatever.” She laughed. Shelly’s laugh was nice. Soft and musical, not obnoxious like the rest of her. “So, why do you need a shield?”

  “I don’t—”

  But before I could come up with a suitable lie, the bus pulled up and out stepped Perfect Patrick. Never had I been so happy to see him in my whole life. “Patrick!” I yelled. “Okay, gotta go, Shelly. My brother’s here. Head back to camp!”

  Patrick looked from me to Shelly, Shelly to me. Then he got that stupid smirk on his perfect face again. “That’s all right, Caleb. You can hang out with your gir—”

  “Bye, Shelly!” I yelled over my shoulder, sprinting ahead to Patrick. “See you!”

  “Tomorrow, right?” she called back. “At camp?”

  “Right. Tomorrow!”

  Mom hummed in the kitchen as she made dinner.

  “Need some help?” Patrick asked. Part of me wanted to join her the way I used to, chopping up veggies and washing lettuce and laughing at her attempts to dance. But I was so tired from everything that had happened that day, I couldn’t muster up the energy to offer.

  I slouched on the couch instead and pulled a blanket over me. I couldn’t seem to get warm, even though I had turned off the air-conditioning.

  Mom’s phone rang and I heard her laughing, high and tinkling. “Yes, please!” she said. Then a little softer, “I have the boys this weekend. Want to come over?”

  A pause and then, “Great! See you Saturday!”

  I groaned and covered my head with the blanket. “Awesome,” I said when she put the phone down again. “Another weekend with Derek. Can’t wait to hear what’s exciting in the lives of trees this week.”

  Mom didn’t answer but she did stop humming, turning on the TV instead. Patrick grabbed the remote an
d nudged the volume up.

  “Do we have to watch the news?” I asked from under the blanket.

  “You don’t have to watch anything at all. Mom and I are watching the news,” Patrick said all snooty. He turned up the volume more.

  The newscaster’s voice filled the room. “Police are asking residents to be on the lookout for a German shepherd mix on the loose in the area. The owner, who says the dog is aggressive, claims teenagers taunted the dog before cutting the rope tethering it. Residents should contact the police if the dog is spotted and are warned not to approach the animal, but to call animal control. Police also ask that anyone with tips on the perpetrators should come forward.”

  “Wow, Kendra,” a different newscaster said. “Those kids are lucky they weren’t hurt.”

  “Yes, Steve, and we’re all going to be lucky if the dog doesn’t attack.”

  “Unreal.” Mom clicked off the television. “Dinner’s ready,” she said.

  My legs shook as I walked to the table, and I was sure Mom and Patrick would see right through me. I hadn’t considered that what we were doing was illegal.

  “You don’t think it could’ve been someone you know?” Mom said to Patrick as I pulled out my seat. “I mean, the kids who messed around with that dog?”

  Patrick shook his head. “No way would any of my friends be so stupid.”

  I gulped down pills and water, and then scooped up mashed potato. If my mouth was full the entire time, they wouldn’t think to include me in on the conversation.

  “The worst part is,” Mom continued, “when that dog is captured, animal services will undoubtedly have to put it down.”

  “Put it down?” I echoed even though I was in the middle of chewing a piece of chicken.

  “Disgusting,” Patrick muttered.

  I stuck out my chicken-coated tongue at him.

  Mom sighed and said, “Put to sleep, I mean. The owner said it has a history of aggression. Now he’s run off.”

  “But it’s not the dog’s fault!” I said. “It’s those kids, the ones who set it free. It’s their fault.” Guilt barreled through me faster than that dog had and I bolted from the table. Patrick glared at me, so I added in a fake-nice voice, “Excuse me! I have to go to the bathroom. Might be a while.”