Watch the Sky

by Kirsten Hubbard

  In the kitchen, Mr. Diaz was slicing lasagna with a pizza cutter. He set it down to shake Jory’s hand. “A pleasure to meet you, Mr. Birch,” he said formally. “I apologize in advance for the wilted lasagna. Our oven is ancient and temperamental.”

  “Lucky for you, you’ll get a brand-new one soon,” Alice said.

  “At your new house?” Jory asked.

  Mr. Diaz nodded. “If the development ever finishes! Anyway, this lasagna’s not just wilted, but vegetarian. My wife is on another meat cleanse.”

  “What’s a…meat cleanse?”

  “It’s when my mom gets all sentimental about food with faces,” Alice explained. “After just three days, she’ll crave a burger, and—”

  “I heard that!” Mrs. Brooks entered the room. She honked one of Alice’s hair buns like a clown horn. “I’ll have you know, it’s not about faces. Sometimes one burger can be made with the meat of a thousand cows, all ground up together, did you know that?”

  It sounded like something Caleb might say. Jory wondered if Mrs. Brooks also listened to any of Caleb’s talk-radio programs.

  “I could eat a thousand cows right now,” Mr. Diaz said.

  Mrs. Brooks handed him a stack of plates. “Then let’s get this show on the road, lasagna man.”

  Alice had to push Jory into the dining room and point at a chair. He felt like all three of them were staring at him, even when they weren’t.

  “So, Alice tells us you live on a farm?” Mr. Diaz asked.

  Jory tried not to groan. “Well, not like a farm farm. It used to be one, but we don’t have animals or anything.”

  “Ah,” Mr. Diaz said.

  Jory smiled tightly, bracing for more follow-up questions. But Mr. Diaz directed his next question to the entire table.

  “If you could have any type of farm in the world,” he asked, “what would you have?”

  “Miniature horses,” Alice declared. “No question. Also Shetland ponies. And Shetland sheepdogs.”

  “I always thought it’d be nice to grow flowers,” Mr. Diaz said.

  Alice raised her eyebrows. “Isn’t that just a garden?”

  “Where do you think all those bouquets in the supermarket come from? No, I’d grow entire fields of flowers. Poppies, lilies, wildflowers.”

  “Once you farm a wildflower,” Mrs. Brooks said, “it’s not wild anymore, is it?”

  “Oh yeah? Then what would you farm?”

  “Ostriches. You can ride them! I saw it on the Discovery Channel.”

  “That doesn’t seem very comfortable,” Mr. Diaz said.

  “Why not?” Mrs. Brooks said. “Your seat would be padded with feathers.”

  “What exactly would you be farming, though?” Alice asked. “Don’t farms need a purpose? Would you eat the ostriches?”

  “Of course not!”

  “Ostriches have faces,” Mr. Diaz said knowingly. “Off-limits for consumption.”

  Alice grabbed a bottle of hot sauce, leaned over the table, and squirted a smiley face on her mom’s lasagna. “What’re you gonna do now?”

  Everybody at the table laughed, Jory included. Their conversation was so playful, so joyful. No tension. No talk about digging or danger.

  Jory wondered what his family was doing right this minute.

  Sleeping, probably.

  He wondered if that was why he didn’t miss them.

  After dinner, Jory sat beside Alice on the front porch as she restrung the laces on her sneakers. “I can never get these dumb things right,” she complained. “They’re either too tight, or too loose.”

  “Maybe you should get some boots,” Jory suggested. “Mine have zippers up the sides. See? I can put them on really quickly, if I need to.”

  Alice yanked on her laces, then turned to him. “Can I ask you a question?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  “Don’t get offended. But—is there a reason you dress that way?”

  “Look who’s talking. Isn’t that a bathrobe?”

  Alice sniffed. “Anything goes for around-the-house apparel. I’m talking about your big ol’ monster boots. And those crazy pants. All the buckles and pockets and snaps. Alfonso Mendoza says—and I know he’s human waste, it’s not like I believe him, okay—but he says maybe they’re for, like, weapons.” She squinted at him. “Don’t get offended. Are you offended?”

  “They’re not for weapons!”

  “I know. That’s what I told him.” Alice paused. “But then what are they for?”

  “They’re for…”

  Well, the boots were for tramping around in the canyon, obviously. But Jory couldn’t say that. And he didn’t know the exact purpose of the buckles and pockets and snaps. They were another thing Caleb had never explained—but he could guess.

  “They’re for being prepared,” he said finally. “Prepared for what?”

  Jory wished someone had taught Alice to keep her questions inside her head. Or that he had a simple answer to give her. “You know my stepfather, Caleb?”

  “I don’t know him, but yeah, you mentioned him.”

  “He thinks…” Jory swallowed. “He thinks something is coming.”

  Instantly, he felt guilty. Like Caleb was standing behind him, peering over his shoulder. But he felt relieved, too. Like a tiny pin had breached the balloon in his chest. It didn’t burst—but almost imperceptibly, the pressure let up.

  “What kind of something?” Alice asked.

  “Something dangerous.”

  “What kind of something dangerous?”

  He shook his head. “Caleb doesn’t share many details. At least not with me and my sister.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister!”

  Jory tried to keep a straight face. He couldn’t believe he’d mentioned Kit! He’d gotten too comfortable after their dinnertime conversation, his stomach full of Mr. Diaz’s lasagna. He took a deep breath, trying to act like it wasn’t a big deal. “She’s younger,” he said. “And homeschooled.”

  “Oh. Is she—”

  “Anyway,” he interrupted, “Caleb knows things, but he’s careful about what he tells us. Sometimes I think it’s war—he was a soldier, so he’s able to predict that kind of thing. If not war, or normal war, maybe it’s something like…” He lowered his voice. “Aliens.”

  Alice’s eyes grew large enough to rival Kit’s. “Aliens?”

  “I don’t know. There are signs.”

  “Like the green kind of aliens? Or the gray kind? Or giant robots or lizards or insect monsters or what?”

  “Come on! That’s ridiculous.”

  “You’re the one who brought aliens into this!”

  “Not me—Caleb. And it’s not like he said, ‘The aliens are coming!’ It’s just something I’ve wondered about, because he always tells us to watch the sky, and that’s why…” Now Jory started to feel ridiculous. “It’s probably not aliens. I’m sure it’s not.”

  “Your stepfather sounds kind of crazy,” Alice said. “I’m sorry! Don’t look at me like that. But he does.”

  “You don’t know anything.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe I don’t.”

  “There are signs,” Jory insisted. “Caleb’s really smart. Like off-the-charts-IQ kind of smart, Mom says. One of the best soldiers there ever was, even if his superior officers didn’t always know it. He’s done the research. He knows what he’s talking about. And even if—even if the something bad didn’t come, what’s the problem with being prepared?”

  He sat back, feeling smug.

  “I guess there’s no problem,” Alice replied. “But then again—how much time do you spend preparing for the…something? For the future?”

  “I don’t know. A fair amount.”

  She shoved back her bathrobe cuffs thoughtfully. “I used to be really big on environmental stuff. Remember last year in fifth grade? When Mrs. Feinberg made me the Earth Crusader? I used to lie awake at night thinking of ice caps and polar bears, and the chopped-down rain forests,
and that huge dead spot in the Gulf of Mexico because of farm poisons seeping into the sea. I’d think about how the world was for sure going to freeze or catch on fire or whatever. I’d even, like, cry about it.” She smiled self-consciously. “Sometimes I still want to.

  “Nowadays, I recycle and take short showers and stuff. Plus I fully intend to become an ecological cryptozoologist someday.”

  “An eco-what? Is that an actual thing?”

  Alice ignored him. “But I realized something. When you spend so much of your life worried about the future…you forget to live.”

  Jory wanted to shake his head. He was living right this minute, wasn’t he? His heart was beating and everything. But he was pretty sure that wasn’t what Alice was talking about.

  “I just don’t see the point of being so scared all the time,” she said. “You know?”

  He had to laugh. “Oh yeah? What about all that talk of bones and ghosts and chalk-white faces, huh?”

  “That’s just fun.”

  Fun. It wasn’t a word Caleb used very often. Or any of the family. It felt like ages since he’d spent real time with Kit, the way they used to. There was no time for fun anymore, other than Survival, and that hadn’t ended well. Jory’s head began to hurt. Not that he’d never questioned Caleb before. But it made him feel nervous, every time. As if Caleb wasn’t just standing behind Jory, peering over his shoulder—but a part of him, inhabiting his skin.

  “It’s getting late,” Jory said quietly. “Thanks for dinner. Thank your parents again for me, okay?”

  “Don’t you need to use the computer?”

  “Maybe another time.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets and took a few steps down the sidewalk. Then he turned and came back.

  “Hey, Alice…”

  “Yeah?”

  “A minute ago, you said something about forgetting to live.”

  She nodded.

  “What exactly did you mean?”

  Alice’s grin grew until it stretched across her whole face. “Do you really want to know?”

  “TRASH?” JORY WRINKLED HIS NOSE.

  They stood behind the hardware store in the waning light. Alice was balanced on a wooden pallet, rifling through a trash bin overstuffed with boxes. “Cardboard,” she corrected him.

  “So, trash.”

  Alice threw him a haughty look. “One person’s trash is another person’s treasure, Jory Birch. Haven’t you ever made a cardboard box into a spaceship? Don’t you have any imagination?”

  “Of course I have one.” He paused. “My sister and I make things out of wood scraps sometimes.”

  “Things like what?”

  “Houses. Towns.”

  Jory nudged a piece of gravel with his toe. He felt like he’d betrayed his family’s trust again, even though they were only talking about games. Kit wouldn’t mind, he told himself. In fact, she’d probably love Alice Brooks-Diaz—her outrageous ideas, her bizarre fascinations.

  Jory cleared his throat. “Need any help?” he asked Alice.

  She was leaning so far over the trash can, Jory worried she’d fall inside. “Oh, this one’s perfect!” she exclaimed, righting herself and hopping off the pallet. She shoved a rectangle of cardboard at Jory.

  It said TANGER.

  Jory looked at Alice quizzically.

  “Probably belonged to some tangerines,” she explained. “It’s not important. The shape’s what’s important, and the stiffness. Too stiff, and it won’t slide right. Too floppy, and you’ll possibly shatter your tailbone. Which would make sitting in class really problematic, don’t you think?”

  “Hey!”

  Erik Dixon strolled toward them, grinning. His bouncy gait made Jory think of walking on the moon. Jory raised his hand to wave, then scratched his head instead.

  “What are you guys doing?” Erik said.

  “I’m taking him sledding.” Alice brandished a wedge of cardboard.

  Sledding? She had to be joking again—it got cold where they lived, but rarely snowed. Erik knew exactly what she meant, though. “The slopes!” he exclaimed. “For real? Have you done it before?”

  “Thousands of times,” Alice boasted. “Jory here is a newbie, though.”

  Jory resented being called a newbie, but he kept quiet.

  “Man oh man,” Erik said. “You’re gonna love it.”

  Instead of leaving, he stood there, watching. Jory didn’t get it. It wasn’t like Erik had nothing better to do. He probably had nine guys sitting on his front porch right now, waiting to play baseball or badminton or whatever it was they did after school.

  Alice glanced at Jory, eyebrows raised. He shrugged.

  “Erik Dixon,” she said, “would you like to hit the slopes with us?”

  Erik grinned even wider. “I thought you’d never ask.”

  It’s not like they were that high.

  They’d walked six blocks and climbed two rickety staircases shaded by eucalyptus trees—a different grove than the one Jory walked through daily. These trees felt taller, because of the way they staggered up the hillside. More like an actual forest.

  Once they reached the top of the hill, Erik nudged Jory with his elbow. “This view over that way is my all-time favorite.”

  Jory turned to look. “Wow,” he said. He wove through the trees until they ended, and there was nothing around him but air.

  It’s not like they were that high. But he felt on top of the world.

  Jory grinned as the wind picked up, whooshing against his face. No, it wasn’t the wind. It was the sky itself. Ruffling his hair with sunset-colored fingers. He stretched his arms, and they seemed to go up and up and up.

  No ceiling.

  No dirt.

  Nothing but air and sky and whatever came after that, stretching on and on into infinity. It made his town seem tiny, even though he could see more of it than he ever had.

  He stepped closer to the edge. He could see their school. The factory where Caleb worked. The new housing development at the edge of town, where Alice was planning to move. Its partially finished homes looked like Kit and his Worldbuilding game come to life. He could also see lots of canyons from the hilltop: gouged into the landscape in curves and zigzags. Some looked broad, others deep. Still others were so choked with brush he couldn’t guess their size.

  “I think that’s my house,” he said suddenly.

  Erik stood next to him. “The little rusty-looking one?”

  Jory laughed. “No, the big brown one beside it. The reddish one’s our barn.”

  “So you really do live on a farm?”

  “Technically it’s a farm. I mean, it might have been somebody else’s farm, before my stepdad bought the house. But we don’t have any animals. And the crops are just for us.”

  “Crops?” Alice asked.

  “Cucumbers. Squash. Mom preserves them, so we have…Whatever, it’s boring.” Jory grabbed a piece of cardboard. “Are we going to do this thing, or what?”

  Erik grinned and grabbed a second piece. “If you like the taste of dust. Because you two are going to eat mine.”

  Jory started to follow Erik, then hesitated. “Alice?”

  She was still looking at Jory’s house. “Don’t get all antsy pantsy,” she said. “I’m coming.”

  The slopes turned out to be a trio of cement slides, angling steeply down the hillside. They’d been there for decades, Alice explained. Ever since her parents were kids. Jory saw no rails, or anything to hold on to. His stomach flip-flopped.

  Erik and Alice didn’t seem nervous, though. They were already kicking off their shoes. Jory started to unzip his boots. He paused, feeling even more apprehensive. Then he rezipped them.

  “Stinky feet,” Erik said knowingly.

  From the bottom, the slides hadn’t looked that steep. Another illusion. As he settled on top of TANGER, Jory discovered the descent had quintupled.

  “I’m going to break every bone in my body,” he said, “aren’t I.”

  “Probab
ly,” Erik said.

  “Most likely, yes,” Alice agreed.

  “Thought so.” Jory shook his head. What was he doing here? He was seeking out danger when the rest of his life was about avoiding it, preparing for it. Anything to stay safe. Now Jory felt pulled by twin magnets. One tugging him home, where his family slept. One holding him right here—in the real world, with kids who might possibly become his friends.

  “Are you ready?” Alice asked.

  Jory held his eyes closed a moment, then opened them. “If this is what living means, I guess…”

  He pushed off.

  It was the longest five seconds of his life.

  When his brain vibrated back into place, Jory rolled over and sat up. There was mud in his eye. His mouth tasted like eucalyptus. “That was…” He spit out a leaf. “Wow. That was wild. That was so crazy, I don’t even…wow. Just wow. What?”

  Erik and Alice were cracking up.

  “Come on, guys. Are there leaves in my hair?”

  They only laughed harder. “No, you’re just—your reaction,” Alice said finally. “We’re laughing because you’re, like, a bubble of glee.”

  “I was laughing at the leaves in his hair,” Erik said.

  Jory followed them back up the hill to collect their shoes. The climb seemed shorter this time—maybe because he was practically skipping.

  “Want to go again?” Alice asked at the top.

  Go again? Seriously? It was stupid and it was dangerous and he could have broken every bone in his body. And it was the most alive he’d ever felt. “Yeah! But—one sec.”

  Jory began to unzip his boots.

  THE SLOPES CHANGED EVERYTHING.

  Well, maybe not everything. But for the first time, Jory found himself looking forward to school—not just the classroom parts, but also the parts before and after and in between. The parts he usually dreaded.

  Like lunchtime. Alice sat across from Jory halfway through lunch, as usual, but now Erik stopped by to chat. One time Sam Kapur and Randall Loomis joined in, too. They weren’t that bad, when Randall wasn’t talking about making out with supermodels.

  On Wednesday, Jory walked home with Alice.