Watch the Sky

by Kirsten Hubbard

  “I don’t—what?” Jory felt utterly baffled. “When?”

  “After school yesterday.”

  He thought back. “I don’t even think I said anything.”

  “You know what you did.”

  The burly one leaned in Jory’s face. His breath smelled like lunch meat. “I could snap you like a stick insect, Farmer Jory.”

  “Like a stick, you mean?”

  “You think you’re so smart, you twerpy little hick.”

  Twerpy little hick? Jory sighed. Even though he’d gotten plenty of sleep last night, he still felt tired. Mr. Bradley had accepted Jory’s stack of belated homework with a smile. But when he learned Jory had fallen asleep on last night’s assignment, he’d frowned. “Don’t you think you should have completed last night’s first?” Which made sense. But so did Jory’s way.

  Anyway, he was tired. “Don’t you guys have anything better to do?” Jory asked the twins. “I’ve got to get home. My family’s waiting for me.”

  “You mean, your family of weirdo farmer freaks?”

  Suddenly, Jory woke up. He could handle the twins insulting him, but not his family. “What did you say?”

  “I said, go chew some hay with your freaky farmer family,” the burly one said. “Go milk a bull.”

  “A cow, you mean?”

  “You think you’re so smart,” the burly one said again.

  “I think I’m so smart,” Jory repeated, ducking out from under the skinny one’s arm. “You know what? I am smart. Compared to you two idiots, anyway.”

  The twins stared at him, slack-jawed.

  “I’ll kick your—” the burly one began.

  Before he could finish, Jory was halfway down the block. He could hear the twins hollering behind him. They were chasing him. And they were catching up. This was turning out to be a terrible idea.

  He needed a new one.

  Quickly, Jory recalled Caleb’s story—the one where the superior officer had ordered the soldiers to stay and fight.

  There’s no shame in hiding.

  Jory sprinted around the corner, eyes darting. A playhouse—too obvious. A mailbox—too small. A juniper hedge—scratchy, and also probably spider-infested.

  A doghouse—just right.

  He checked to make sure there was no rottweiler. Then he dove inside. He curled up with his arms around his knees, his chin in the cleft between them. The space was dark and reeked like dog, which made Jory think of the black-and-white one.

  He liked that dog, to be honest. He wished he could choose the moments it barked into his life. Like right now. Except it’d also need to be big enough to eat the Mendoza twins’ faces.

  Then he heard a commotion just outside the doghouse. Shoes slapped the pavement. “Farmer Jory!” the skinny one called. “Come on, we just want to talk!”

  “Where’d he go?” asked the burly one as they panted past.

  “I don’t know! That dumb hick vanished into thin air…”

  Jory counted to twenty. Then he crawled out of the doghouse on all fours, scraping his forehead in the process. It hurt. Still, he couldn’t help grinning. Hiding had worked! Caleb might not tell Jory much, but he told him what was important.

  Well, except where digging was concerned.

  That night, the stars shone through wispy clouds. The moon was yellow. A harvest moon, Mom called it. It signaled the ripening of crops, the perfect time to pick, although they’d already harvested everything in the fields. Chopped it and boiled it and pickled it in mason jars.

  As Jory hiked through the chaparral thicket, he wondered what progress his family had made without him.

  Not much, it turned out. The heap of brush-covered dirt didn’t look any larger. The hole—a crooked gash, really, like a smirk in the earth—looked exactly the same size. Jory figured he’d have to stay away a week to see any difference. It was a lot like growing. You didn’t notice unless you made marks on the doorjamb, the way Mom did, measuring their height months apart.

  But Jory knew he’d never get a weeklong vacation. Night after night, he’d be down here in the canyon bottom.

  How many nights until they finished?

  It depended, of course, on what they were digging for. For a moment, Jory let himself wonder. People dug for lots of reasons, the Internet had informed him. They dug to make things. They dug to find things. They dug to hide things. He hadn’t read about families digging tunnels in their own backyards, though. Maybe he’d look it up on Alice’s computer next time.

  If there was a next time.

  Alice had seemed open to the possibility, anyway. She’d even asked Jory to dinner. He’d never had a turkey burger. He liked turkey all right, although he didn’t care much for avocado. He’d have to ask for his burger without—that is, if he could trust her family’s food.

  Of course he could. That was silly. Alice ate her family’s food every day, and she seemed perfectly healthy.

  “You all right?” Caleb asked Jory, making him jump.

  “Yes, sir,” he said quickly. He stood up straighter. “I’m doing just fine.”

  “Good. I hope you’re feeling well-rested—we’ve got lots of work to do.” Caleb paused, resting a hand on Jory’s shoulder. “Want to tell me what happened to your forehead?”

  Jory winced. He wondered whether he should make something up, like Alice had with her parents. Then he felt ashamed for even considering it. He couldn’t lie to Caleb.

  “It was a doghouse,” he said.

  “A doghouse?”

  “I was hiding in it.” Jory had felt clever at the time—even brave. Now he just felt stupid. “There are these two guys…the Mendoza twins. They’re in my grade, but much bigger than me. Anyway, they were—well, I thought of your story, about the superior officer and the ambush in the alley.”

  “You did?”

  Jory nodded. “Instead of fighting, I hid in a doghouse. I stayed back and kept my eyes open. Just like you said I should.”

  “Sounds like you made the right decision.” Caleb patted Jory’s shoulder. “I’m proud of you, son.”

  Jory’s heart swelled in his chest. “Thank you,” he said.

  Caleb lifted up his shovel. “Would you mind asking Kit to sort stones?”

  Kit was standing just a few yards away. But Caleb avoided speaking to her directly. “Just the way fathers are with daughters,” Mom had told Jory. “Ages ago, mine was the same way.”

  Jory found Kit using a stick to pry a dirt clod from her boot. “Caleb wants you to sort rocks. Better than digging, at least.”

  She glanced at him. Then she hurled the stick with all her might. It arced high into the sky, higher than seemed possible when flung by such a skinny arm, before falling into a far-off patch of brush.

  “Are you all right?” Jory asked.

  Kit just turned and walked away. She couldn’t still be angry after last night, could she? He hadn’t even done anything.

  And yet it bothered him all night, like an itch he couldn’t reach.

  In his dreams that night, Jory stood outside Kit’s bedroom. The doorknob felt like ice. He knew he had to enter, but he was frightened.

  Not for Kit—but of Kit.

  Which made no sense, so he opened the door.

  His sister stood at the window, looking out. Her face was bathed in blue-gray moonlight. Her black hair fluttered and shifted, as if caught in a breeze. But the window was closed. He couldn’t tell what she was looking at, but she was riveted.

  “What is it?” Jory asked.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Kit replied.

  After three years of silence, her voice seemed to echo, dancing inside Jory’s chest and head. Like an old song he’d loved, but couldn’t remember. Like a dream he’d forgotten, but couldn’t forget.

  “What’s so beautiful, Kit?”

  She didn’t answer. The breeze picked up, until it became a wind, until her hair flew like a black banner behind her. Jory couldn’t tell if the room had grown cold or hot.
/>   “What’s so beautiful?” He felt frantic. “What is it?”

  At last, Kit turned to Jory.

  Her eyes were shaped like stars.

  ON SATURDAY, THE DAY OF REST, CALEB WAS IN A GOOD MOOD.

  He drew up the blinds in the kitchen and let in the sunlight. He had Mom cut up a bowlful of apples, which the family ate with peanut butter. When she pointed out he’d gotten peanut butter in his beard, he chuckled.

  Jory was in a good mood, too. The Mendoza twins hadn’t been at school Thursday. Jory had spotted them in the schoolyard on Friday—but as soon as they’d seen him, they’d scurried away. Like they were suddenly afraid.

  It made Jory wonder. Caleb hardly ever interfered with school stuff—home was home and school was school. And the twins looked fine. They certainly hadn’t been buried up to their necks in a red ant pile in the hottest part of the desert, like Jory had fantasized more than a few times. But he decided not to ask Caleb if he’d gotten involved, in case he was wrong.

  Or in case he was right.

  Digging on Thursday and Friday had seemed easier, too. His shovel had felt lighter. The dirt, not quite so hard-packed. Jory suspected he was building up muscles. New ones, to go with the calluses under his gloves.

  For lunch on Saturday, the family ate MREs. MRE stood for “Meal Ready-to-Eat,” Caleb explained. The same thing he and his fellow soldiers ate when they were stationed abroad. It was fun peeling open the foil packages. Even if the food inside didn’t taste all that good.

  The family spent the afternoon sitting in the patio, drinking milk made from powder and playing games. Not Worldbuilding but Survival: Caleb’s favorite. The family named survival scenarios—a hurricane, enemy aircraft, an influenza epidemic—and discussed what they’d do to stay alive.

  Sometimes the game seemed sinister. Fateful, almost. Jory could practically see the superstorm lashing against the windows, hear the dark planes buzzing overhead, feel a cough tickling his throat.

  Today, the game was funny.

  They’d just finished orangutans escaped from the zoo and rain turned to Kool-Aid. Mom was laughing, and Caleb’s eyes twinkled over his beard. “Zombie invasion,” he said. “Go.”

  “First, you dig a hole in the ground…” Mom began.

  The family laughed.

  “Are they fast zombies, or the slow staggery kind?” Jory asked.

  “Fifty-fifty,” Caleb said.

  “Then…you hide. Because eventually, they’ll eat everybody. Everybody who’s not hiding. And then they won’t have anyone left to eat, and they’ll starve.”

  “Very good.” Caleb smiled. “We might survive the zombies yet.”

  Jory lurched toward Ansel with his arms out, growling. Ansel smiled. Then Jory turned and roared at Kit, who was wrapped in her flowered blanket. She rolled her eyes, then smiled, too. Maybe things were okay between them now.

  He’d watched her closely since Wednesday night—ever since his dream. Her eyes were definitely eye-shaped. Larger than average, but ordinary. If it hadn’t been a dream—and Jory felt pretty sure it had been—the star-eyes part must have been a hallucination, a trick of shadow and moonlight. Her voice, an illusion of wind.

  “All right, Jory,” Caleb said. “Your turn. What’s the danger now?”

  Jory thought. “How about aliens?”

  The smile in his stepdad’s eyes dimmed the slightest bit. “Okay,” he agreed. “Aliens.”

  “What kind of aliens?” Mom asked. “Friendly ones, or…?”

  Caleb shook his head. “You’d never know. Not until they arrived. You probably couldn’t imagine them—what they looked like. What they acted like. What they could do to you.”

  “But how would we know they were dangerous?” Jory asked.

  “Why else would they arrive on our planet?”

  “Maybe…to explore.”

  “Name one explorer who didn’t have ill in his heart. Tearing apart the land. Searching for gold or silver. Enslaving the natives.”

  Charles Darwin, Jory thought. He explored the Galapagos Islands, discovering species. Or astronauts—their journeys into space were about discovery too, weren’t they? Then again, he could think up plenty of ill-hearted what ifs.

  What if Darwin did it all for fame and fortune?

  What if astronauts stole moon rocks to sell on the black market?

  What if…

  “Of course, most aliens wouldn’t be dangerous,” Caleb went on. “Just like humans. Most people are just trying to get by—here on earth, anyway. But it’s the ones in charge we’d have to fear. And it’s the ones in charge who’d make it to our planet first.”

  “The Officials,” Mom said.

  Caleb nodded. “Whatever their version of Officials is.” Then he nodded at Kit. “Better hope those Officials don’t come for you, too.”

  For a moment, the family was silent, unsure whether Caleb was joking. Then Mom forced a chuckle. “Don’t worry, Kit,” she said. “We’d never let that happen.”

  “Never!” Jory agreed.

  Caleb just sat there, smiling with his eyes.

  The sun still shone through the patio windows, but the room seemed darker. Jory felt responsible—he’d come up with the topic, hadn’t he? He should have said killer unicorns or evil clowns or something totally preposterous. Then again, he’d thought aliens were preposterous, too.

  Always watch the sky, Caleb had said.

  Jory glanced at Kit. Her eyes were still eye-shaped, but her jaw was set. Her cheeks glowed pink. She met Jory’s gaze for an instant. Then she reached for her glass of chocolate milk—and knocked it onto the ground.

  Caleb stood so fast his chair tumbled over. “What’s the matter with you?” he bellowed.

  Ansel burst into tears. Caleb rarely ever yelled, and his thundering voice was a shock. “I’m sure it was an accident—” Mom began, looking distressed.

  “It wasn’t an accident. I saw the entire thing. That girl did it on purpose.”

  Jory jumped up and grabbed the roll of paper towels. His hands shook as he sopped up Kit’s milk.

  “Go to your room,” Caleb ordered Kit.

  Slowly, she stood, still wrapped in the cocoon of her flowered blanket.

  “Wait,” Caleb said. “You should give Ansel that blanket. He’s shivering.”

  Despite his tears, Ansel looked cozy enough on Mom’s lap. But Jory knew better than to argue. Kit hesitated, her brow creased and her lower lip sticking out. Give it to him, Jory thought. Finally, she unwound her blanket from her shoulders and handed it to Caleb. Jory exhaled.

  Caleb draped the blanket over Ansel. “Thank you,” he said. “Now go.”

  The rest of the weekend passed slowly, with the family’s good mood gone.

  Jory tried to play Worldbuilding with Kit. Instead of painting her handmade house with her usual flamboyance, she painted it dark purple. All four walls and the roof, too.

  “Well, that’s depressing,” Jory said.

  She stuck out her tongue at him, then turned and flounced away.

  Jory rinsed their paintbrushes. He felt sorry for Kit—but also kind of annoyed. Because it really had seemed like she’d knocked over her milk on purpose. And if that was true…well, what had she expected?

  He cleaned the kitchen with Mom, who seemed subdued. Jory wondered if the volume of Caleb’s voice still echoed in her ears, too.

  He even took Ansel for a walk in the fields. Or tried to. They only made it twenty feet before Ansel sat down in the dirt and refused to go farther.

  Jory sat beside him. “The sky’s so blue today,” he tried. “No clouds for Cloudwatching. But you don’t know what that is. Hey, look!” Jory pointed out a hawk circling overhead. “That’s a hawk. Watch out, it might snatch you up.”

  Ansel scowled.

  “Kit would have thought that was funny,” Jory said. That was the problem, he thought. He had no idea how to make Ansel laugh. Was Caleb the missing link? Ansel was Caleb’s real child. Jory and Kit weren�
�t. On some level, that had to count.

  Jory snatched a rock from Ansel’s hands before he could put it in his mouth. His wail made Jory grimace. Whenever Ansel cried, his face turned a shocking shade of plum.

  “Better stop,” Jory warned, “or I’ll sell you to the Officials.”

  He felt bad immediately, but Ansel didn’t seem to understand. Finally, Jory lugged him back to the house.

  Sunday afternoon, Jory attempted to work on his tunnels project, but he couldn’t concentrate. He still wasn’t sure what to write about—there were too many possibilities. Tunnels were so much more than elongated holes in the ground. They had a purpose. They led to something.

  But what was the something?

  His topic was too broad, he decided. He needed more Internet time to whittle it into shape, but the computer line at school was always endless.

  It would make much more sense to use Alice’s computer again.

  BY THE TIME JORY FELT BRAVE ENOUGH TO KNOCK on Alice’s door, it was nearly dinnertime.

  “Well, look what we have here!” she exclaimed. She had on the same dress and sneakers she’d worn to school that day, except she’d traded her big plaid coat for a purple bathrobe.

  Jory shuffled his feet. “Um, hi.”

  “So, Jory Birch. What’s your story?”

  “Huh?”

  “Why are you standing on my doorstep, looking all sheepish?”

  Jory wondered if sheepish was better than owlish. “Well, I was hoping for some computer time. And…are you guys having dinner tonight?”

  “We plan on eating, yeah.”

  “Right. I meant, um…”

  “Relax, I know what you meant. We’re about to eat right now, actually.” Alice grinned, then hollered, “DAD! Is there enough food for my friend Jory Birch to eat with us?”

  It hadn’t occurred to Jory that there might not be enough food. He should have asked yesterday—or earlier today, at school. He should have come an hour ago. “I can just use the computer, if there isn’t—”

  “OF COURSE!” Mr. Diaz yelled back.

  “Are you sure?” Jory asked. “Is he sure? Because…”

  “Jory! It’s getting old.” She grabbed his arm. “Unfortunately, all we’re having is leftover vegetarian lasagna. Which means there isn’t even meat in it…”