Was Rhoda trying to take this dog right out from under me? I needed it to find Ma.
“I’m afraid I’ve grown attached,” I said, kneeling myself and touching its soft hair.
Rhoda rubbed the dog’s velvety ears. “If she was mine, I’d shampoo her hair every day, and then I’d tie it up into little bows. Why, I might even paint her nails. What’s her name?”
“Um, Pan-Cake.”
Rhoda scowled. “You mean like something you eat?”
I shrugged. “Or a makeup base.”
“Well.” Rhoda became prim and proper. “I’d name her Queenie.”
I stood and patted my leg. “Come on, Pan-Cake.”
I could feel Rhoda’s glare as we headed down the sidewalk. The clouds woke with flashes of light, and scattered raindrops tapped my hair. I was starting to like the name Pan-Cake.
• • •
By the time I reached St. Maria’s, the clouds were releasing a torrent. As I ran to the front entrance, trying to keep my head covered, the church’s clock tower bonged three times.
I was half an hour early.
The church’s double doors were locked, so I knocked while Pan-Cake shook herself dry beneath the eaves. One of the doors creaked open and the smell of dust and Pine-Sol mixed with the rain. A pair of horn-rimmed glasses glowed in the darkness. The reverend was small with thin black hair and clammy-looking skin, like he’d been dipped in wax.
“Yes?” he said in a pinched voice.
“Can I come in?” I said, wringing out my hem. The knit-cotton dress was soaked through and clinging to my body.
The reverend’s eyes scanned the street. “It would not be becoming to invite a young girl into the church alone.” He began to close the door. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I must iron my bookmarks.”
“Wait!” I said.
The door stopped at a crack.
“I’m part of the Girl Scouts,” I said. “They’re meeting here in thirty minutes. I just need to stay dry till then.”
“You are the . . . actress’s daughter,” the reverend said through the narrow opening.
“Yeah?” I said, hugging myself and shivering.
“I fear your mother’s wantonness will bring death upon us all,” he said. “Good day.”
The door clicked shut.
I scoffed and looked at Pan-Cake, like, Can you believe he just did that to us?
Ma may have been a lightning rod for monsters, but it didn’t have anything to do with her looks, I didn’t think. Besides, she was “as chaste as a nun’s knickers” up until the day she married Brad, the pilot who saved her from the Chrysler Building. That’s what she claimed anyway.
The church’s door creaked back open and then shut again. An umbrella fell by my feet. I opened it over my head and watched the rain clean the dust off the Lincoln sitting in the parking lot. When Beth arrived, her smile just about banished the storm.
• • •
The rain pelted the windshield while the squeaking wipers did a miserable job of keeping up. There were four of us in the station wagon, plus Pan-Cake, who sat on Beth’s lap and watched the desert plants whiz past the window.
“We’re simply tickled that you could join us this afternoon, Phoebe!” Beth’s adoptive aunt Gladys said in the driver’s seat.
“Tickled!” Susannah said from the passenger’s.
They seemed like the kind of women who would be tickled by a trash compactor. Their skin was pale as milk and their beehive hairdos brushed the car ceiling. I thought I might drown in their lavender perfume.
I didn’t want to participate in community service. I wanted to look for Ma. But my search was rained out anyway, and joining the Girl Scouts sure beat being ogled by Officer Shelley in the motel room of gloom.
“So!” Susannah awkwardly rotated in the passenger seat so she could address me. “Loretta Lane’s daughter. How exciting. Where’s your father in the picture?”
“He was part of the expedition to Alaska in fifty-one,” I said, thinking fast. “He was one of the first to dig up the saucer.”
Gladys sucked through her teeth. “He wasn’t one of the ones who . . . burned alive, was he?”
“She probably doesn’t want to talk about it, Auntie,” Beth said.
“Where are my manners?” Gladys said. “Phoebe, today we’re going to the Nava-Joe reservation.”
I had flashes of the boy I’d met when I was twelve. The one with his arm in the sling. If my heart got one more pinch that day, I swore it would pop.
“Not many girls are interested in going to Gray Rock, unfortunately,” Beth said. “That’s why we’re only four today.”
Susannah flipped on the radio. “—individuals in Switzerland have been mysteriously decapitated, losing their heads to what people are describing as a strange mist which has crawled its way—”
“Blech,” Susannah said. “Always bad news.”
She tuned it to “Twilight Time” by the Platters.
Out here in the desert, the horizon so distant, I could see all the way down past the black box in Daddy’s hand to his towering shins, covered in flannel pajama pants. It was an unfortunate angle because it was obvious where I inherited my legs, which didn’t pinch off at the knee, but continued in wide columns right down to the ankles.
“Now, Phoebe,” Gladys said, adjusting the rearview so she could meet my eyes. “I want you to listen to me very carefully. These people we’re about to visit aren’t in what we’d call an ideal position.” She spoke in a low voice as if the Navajo people might hear her across the long desert miles. “That’s why it’s our job as good Christians to save this, um, tribe from their untamed selves. Is that what we’re calling it now? Tribe?”
“Yes, tribe,” Susannah said.
Beth mumbled something that sounded like “Nation.”
“Don’t get me wrong,” Gladys said. “Those Nava-Joe code talkers were very helpful in the second war, but after the fighting was over those people didn’t behave themselves, now did they? Doing peyote and performing those ceremonies and . . . well, goodness knows what else. If they aren’t careful, they’ll invite God’s wrath and drop a disaster the size of Ook on all of us. Oops, excuse me.”
“It’s okay,” I said.
“The only part that’s okay,” Beth mumbled.
“Besides,” Gladys said more quietly, “we need to keep up relations to make sure their tribe keeps digging up that uranium.”
I looked out my window through the rain at Daddy, whose eyes never seemed to fall on an Indian reservation. I wondered how Gladys would explain that.
We rode in silence for a while. Pan-Cake tried to crawl from Beth’s lap into mine, but I pushed her off.
“Oh!” Susannah burst out and started ruffling around in a paper bag between her legs. “I almost forgot! I figured since it was our first time visiting the Nava-Joes, we could try to blend in.” She sat up, wearing a feathered headdress. “How, Chief!” she said, raising her hand with a mock Indian accent.
“Oh, you’re too much,” Gladys said.
They laughed in pitches so high, I worried my eardrums might break.
“May I see that?” Beth asked with a strained smile.
Susannah handed her the headdress. I turned away for a split second when Beth said, “Whoops!”
When I looked again, the headdress was gone, and Beth’s window was open. I followed her eyes through the rain-streaked rear window to see the headdress rolling along the highway like a struck bird.
“Oh, shoot,” Susannah said, craning her neck around. “That cost me three dollars.”
Beth shrugged. “The wind stole it right off my head.”
I had this funny feeling like Beth had tossed it out the window on purpose. But why, I had no earthly idea.
“Ah, well,” Gladys said. “We still have the Bibles.”
• • •
After a half hour of driving, the rain calmed to a drizzle. The highway spat us out onto a muddy road, which wound its w
ay to a wide valley lined with mesas and plateaus that looked like sandy birthday cakes. We passed a military base with a banner that showed a picture of a winking cadet and read SO LONG, MOM! I’M OFF TO DROP THE BOMB!
Beth yawned awake beside me and petted Pan-Cake. “Are we there?”
“We sure are!” Gladys said. She pointed a sparkly fingernail at several eight-sided wooden houses with mud roofs scattered around the base of a small hill. “Phoebe, your and Beth’s job will be to read stories to the little ones.”
I grimaced. I never saw the point in children. How could anyone in good conscience bring kids into this world when they might just get gobbled up by a Shiver?
As we pulled up, a man exited one of the houses to greet us. He wore jeans and a flannel shirt and his hair was tied in a bun with white yarn. A woman in a black dress and a suede jacket watched from the doorway. I was suddenly glad Beth had ditched the headdress.
“Wait here while I work my magic, girls,” Gladys said.
She got out of the car and smiled brightly. “Why, good afternoon! Looks like we dried up all the rain!”
The man looked at the sky and scratched above his eyebrow like he didn’t necessarily consider this good news. Still, he extended his hand. “My name is Eugene,” he said. “I’m the chairman here at Gray Rock.” He gestured to the woman. “This is Darcy.”
“Oh!” Gladys said. “Why, what nice names.”
“Could be worse,” Eugene said, chuckling. “What can we do for you?”
“Well,” Gladys said, laying a hand on her chest. “My name is Gladys, and I am the head of the Girl Scouts of Pennybrooke. In the car is Susannah, Beth, and Phoebe. Oh, and Pan-Cake. Wait till you hear what we’ve brought you today! It’s Bibles. And they are an absolute steal.”
“We already have Bibles,” Darcy said from the doorway.
“Not like these, you don’t,” Gladys said, shaking her finger.
While she tried to sell the Navajo people on Bibles they didn’t need, something about the woman caught my eye. My heart lit up. She was wearing Ma’s jacket. It had the hole in the elbow and everything.
I popped open the car door.
“Phoebe?” Susannah said. “Maybe you should wait until—” I slammed the door on her.
“Tell you what,” Eugene was saying. “We’ll be happy to purchase some Bibles if you consider buying some of our blankets. Darcy’s weaving provides warmth to the body and the soul.”
“Oh!” Gladys said, wringing her hands and laughing nervously. “Well. Um—”
“Where did you get that jacket?” I said to Darcy, running up to her.
She clasped it around her chest and pointed toward the highway. “I found it. In the road.”
In the car, Pan-Cake was yapping her little lungs out, leaping and scratching at the window.
“Phoebe?” Gladys said. “I think your dog needs to go tinkle. Perhaps you should—”
The moment Beth opened the car door, Pan-Cake leapt out and took off running across the highway right in front of a speeding truck.
Beth covered her eyes. “I can’t look!”
The truck swerved, nearly making a pan-cake of Pan-Cake, but she made it safely across the road and continued into the open desert, barking.
It was like she was onto a scent. Like she remembered something.
I took off running after her, across the highway and into the desert, my pumps kicking up mud.
“Phoebe?” Gladys called after me. “Phoebe! You’ll ruin your dress!”
My legs were on fire. I’d never run so far in all my life. The ground was still soft with rain and the sucking sands had stolen one of my pumps, but still I chased Pan-Cake into the desert.
My anger gave me strength. I was ready to yell Ma’s ear off the moment I found her. Finally, I’d have enough leverage to abandon these suburban towns forever and make her take me to New York or Paris or better yet both. Of course, I wouldn’t start shouting demands until after I hugged her for an hour at least.
I followed Pan-Cake past sandy mounds and scrub oaks and every now and then a fenced-in water pump. When the desert was aglow with twilight and the Colgate constellation was fading in above Daddy’s head, we arrived at a rocky outcropping. Pan-Cake sniffed around the rocks’ outer edge and then started to bark.
“What is it, Pan-Cake?” I said. “What did you find?”
My heart took a tumble. There, set into the rock, was a steel door. It was as dark as the space between the stars and seemed to swallow moonlight. The desert insects played strange music. A fierce wind whipped through the Joshua trees. I was suddenly afraid.
How many coincidences had to happen for me to find this door? The Pomeranian, Officer Shelley, the Girl Scouts, Ma’s jacket . . . It was as if this door wanted me to find it.
Still, if Ma was here, there was only one way to get her back.
I reached for the rusted handle. It was cold and it was locked.
Pan-Cake spun in circles and barked.
“Hush,” I said.
If there were people in there, I didn’t want them to hear me coming. But Pan-Cake wouldn’t stop yapping.
“Quiet!” I said.
Her bark grew even louder. I was about to grab her muzzle and clamp it shut when there came a thunk from behind the door, deep and echoed. I heard someone climbing stairs. I hid behind the shadow of the rock just as the handle turned and the metal door scraped open. A rectangle of light was thrown across the sand, and a man’s silhouette fell over Pan-Cake.
“You little devil,” he said.
Pan-Cake took off into the desert, and the man ran after her. The steel door started to fall shut, and without thinking I slipped inside. Two handrails led down a steep metal staircase, every third stair lit by a bright, caged light. The man could return at any moment, so I stepped lightly down the stairs, my shoeless sock squishing with every other step. At the bottom of the staircase was a round concrete passageway lit by more caged lights.
Beneath each light was a grenade-gray door, alternating on the left and right sides of the hallway, each with an inset wired window. Crouching, I slid along the curved wall to the first door. It was warm to the touch, and I could hear the whirring of belts and screaking of gears. I peeked into the window.
The room was filled with machines I had no words for: antennae crawling with worms of electricity, bright grids of blinking lights, and circular screens with wiggling lines. I ducked when a man with a clipboard stepped into sight. He tapped one of the screens and then scribbled something down.
“Let’s put another rabbit in the disintegration chamber,” he said to someone I couldn’t see.
I shuddered and continued down the hallway. The smell changed from something warm and electric to something like mildew and bleach cleaner. I peeked through the window of the next door on the opposite side.
This room was filled with aquariums and cages holding creatures of all sorts—frogs and lizards and birds and fish. A monkey nervously paced in a wire cage. A brain that I hoped wasn’t human floated in a fish tank half full of murky liquid. As I stared at it, thoughts echoed through my head: help . . . toothpaste . . . help . . . cornflakes . . . help . . . I got away from that door quick.
The room after that had a bit of what looked like living gum trembling inside a terrarium. The goo from space, I thought. But this little blob was not frozen like the headline at the police station claimed it was. And that wasn’t even the most upsetting thing about the room.
The far wall was made of glass, guarding a massive web of plastic tunnels. An ant farm. It brought back the worst Shiver Ma and I had ever escaped. Those things had torn through the town like it was made of paper, leaving no survivors.
Katie.
The window of the next door was foggy. Inside I could barely make out a garden nursery of sorts with rows of what looked like giant eggplants with leathery gray leaves sprouting out their tops. Pods . . . The kinds of pods that could grow a perfect copy of a human like they were a veg
etable. Hadn’t these all been destroyed when the military carpet-bombed Santa Mira?
The next door was filled with a glittering spray that almost looked alive the way it licked at the windowpane.
The door across from that stood beneath a flickering light and was as cold as a refrigerator. Inside the window was a sleek metal disc like a giant Frisbee. Beside it was a twisted figure frozen in ice. The sight raised goose bumps on the back of my neck.
The final door was big enough for a bus to fit through. Its window showed nothing but a wide dirt tunnel leading into darkness. The smell of wet soil wafted around the doorframe, and piled in the middle of the tunnel were giant sacks of sugar. What were they feeding down there?
Behind me, at the top of the staircase, the steel door scraped open again. I whirled, searching for a place to hide. None of these rooms were safe. I didn’t want to be blobbed or nibbled or have my body replaced by a vegetable copy.
The footsteps grew closer. On the back wall of the tunnel was a simple wooden door—a janitor’s closet maybe. I ran to it and pressed my ear against the wood. There were no sounds. I threw it open.
The light inside nearly blinded me. There were three people in the room. A man with glasses and a goatee saw me. His coffee fell out of his hand and splattered across the floor.
“Kill the lights!”
There was a deep chok! and the space fell into darkness, save the slanted rectangle of light from the tunnel that framed my elongated shadow.
I turned to run, but a rough voice said, “Stay right where you are!”
I had no idea if they had guns or what, so I froze in the doorway. In the darkness came a shuffling, the screeching of metal, the moving of something heavy, and someone whispering, “Where’s the darned—oof. I told you to tape that wire down!”
Finally, the rustling and scraping settled. There was another chok! and a ceiling lamp cast a circle of light around a chair in the middle of the room. A speaker above my head crackled and thumped as someone fumbled with a microphone. “Close the door and sit.”
I gazed back down the passageway. At the bottom of the staircase stood a man in a leather jacket, staring at me with his head tilted, Pan-Cake lying still in his arms. There was nowhere to run.
Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower Page 4