A wet mouth closed around my earlobe and I flinched away.
Lear stuck up his hands like he was under arrest. “Whoa. Excuse me for living. Last I checked you were my girlfriend. Do I need written permission to touch you now?”
I felt the blood rush to my cheeks. “No. Of course not.”
His arm slid across my shoulders and his fingers tickled my collarbone just like Officer Shelley had done.
No. Not like Shelley. Because this was Lear.
“I was only gonna ask if you wanted to drive up to Sugarman’s Pass tonight,” he said.
I snuggled up under his arm. My lips felt about as useful as taffy. “I’ll have to see what’s on my schedule.”
Was this happening? Was I really about to go for a drive with Lear, only handsomer, in this new, trim body of mine, on a cloud-dappled, pink sunset evening, free of monsters, that couldn’t have been lovelier if someone painted it?
“Well, don’t hurt that pretty head of yours thinking about it,” Lear said, “star eyes.”
• • •
We passed through the parking lot, my head nearly floating off my shoulders when I slid my arm through Lear’s. His letterman jacket felt scratchy soft. His eyes were pale blue. His breath smelled like chocolate milk. And he was all mine.
The dread that had built up in me over the last couple of weeks had shrunk to a shallow pool at the bottom of my stomach. It would evaporate soon. It just had to.
We got into Lear’s sparkling green Plymouth Fury with yellow interiors. The smell of leather and gasoline was manly and intoxicating. Lear started the car and revved the engine, and the vibrating seat woke all sorts of desire in me.
Lear reached under the seat and pulled out a flask. He took a long pull and then offered it to me.
“What is it?” I said.
“It’s hooch,” he said, taking another swig. “You picky now, all of a sudden?”
“Oh, no,” I said, blushing. “It’s just if we’re going driving in the canyon, don’t you think maybe . . .”
Lear gave a little laugh of disbelief. “Someone spike your milk shake with the square drug or something?”
“Don’t be silly,” I said, grabbing the flask and taking a sip. The motel sign glowed a warm rose at the end of Main Street. “Oh! You mind if we stop and see Ma before we go?”
Lear killed the engine and fell back in his seat with a sigh.
“What?” I said. “I still want to go to Sugarman’s Pass.”
He stared out the windshield and wiped at his lips. A desperate feeling rose up in me. I just wanted him to put his arm around my shoulders again.
“I just think it’s a little weird that you talk about your Ma so much,” he said.
“I do?” I would’ve thought if I ever got a true-blue, blue-eyed boyfriend I’d stop talking about Ma altogether.
“Almost constantly,” he said. “And you know, I hate to say it, but I think your Ma?” He swiveled his finger around his temple. “She’s a little loony tunes.”
I felt like an ant had pincered me right in the stomach. And I knew what that felt like now. Or I thought I did.
“Ma is not loony tunes,” I said.
“What other woman do you know who can’t pay her rent and keeps her daughter cooped up in a motel?”
“That’s not her fault,” I said. “It’s my dad’s. He’s . . . never paid child support.” The words found their way into my mouth, and whether that was true on this channel or I invented it, I didn’t know.
Lear laughed, but not in a funny way. “I knew I should’ve listened to my old lady when she told me not to date a girl whose mom was committed.”
I crossed my arms, holding my shoulders for support as I stared at the glove box.
“Oh, come on,” Lear said. “Everyone in town knows your mom spent time in the hospital, Phoebe. Honestly, you’re lucky I asked you to prom with a reputation like that.”
My hands fell to my lap. The smell of leather and gasoline was starting to make me nauseous. I was so hungry. Had I gotten Lear to ask me to the dance by starving myself?
“My mom said this would happen,” he said. “She told me that the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. And any woman who’s been in the loony bin was bound to have bad seeds. But hey, maybe I’m the crazy one because I was ready to go out with you no matter how rotten the family tree is.”
My jaw clenched. My shoulders were riding up to my ears. This was not how this was supposed to go. We weren’t in the scary world anymore. The world filled with monsters. This was supposed to be a dream. A dream I’d never wake up from.
“Hey,” Lear said, softening his voice and bringing his face close to mine. “Look, I’m sorry for saying that stuff, okay?” He ran his fingers through his greasy hair. “I just like you so much that I want you all to myself, y’know?”
I didn’t budge. Before I knew what was happening, he took me in his arms and tilted my head back. He mashed his liquor-sweet lips so forcefully onto mine, I could feel the hardness of his teeth. He broke away and his eyes sparkled into mine.
“Dammit, Phoebe, if there’s one thing in this world I can’t stand, it’s a girl who doesn’t understand how beautiful she is.”
“If there’s one thing I can’t stand in this world,” I said, “it’s guys like you. Let go of me.”
Lear jerked away like I’d bitten him. He took out a pack of cigarettes, shook one into his mouth, and lit it. “If you want to take your ma up to Sugarman’s Pass and dance naked under the moon or whatever it is you do, you’re more than welcome. Or you can come with me and I’ll give you the night of your life. Up to you.”
He stared out the driver’s window and smoked. I looked at the drifting blue smoke, the mauve Letterman jacket, the golden class ring that gleamed on his finger. And I got out of the car. The engine snarled to life and Lear peeled out of the parking lot.
• • •
As I walked down Main Street, I could hear the church being rebuilt in the distance, hammers tacking and saws snarling through the spring air. Ethel was beating rugs in front of the motel and gave me a little smile and wave. She was wearing her knee braces the right way round.
Ma was asleep on one of the beds, limbs sprawled. She looked broken, like a bird that had struck a window. I thought when I saw her I’d squeeze the breath right out of her, but something felt wrong. On the other channel, my channel, every time I walked through the door, Ma greeted me with a smile and a bottle of pop or something.
“Ma?” I said to the figure on the bed.
I touched her shoulder and her head jerked up off the bed so fast that my hand leapt back.
“Oh,” she said, laying her head back down. “I thought you were him.”
I felt some relief. This woman had human eyes and a human voice. Unlike the woman in the commercial. She just looked like an exhausted version of plain old Ma.
“Him who?” I said.
She shut her eyes and didn’t say a word.
I smelled the boozy air and saw the bottle of vodka on the table.
“Are you drunk, Ma?”
She tried to laugh, but it turned into a series of coughs. “What a question.” She sat up on the bed, facing away from me, and cradled her face in her hands. “Ern left. He’s gone.”
“Who is . . . Ern?”
She looked darkly over her shoulder.
I searched the room with my eyes. Ern must’ve been a boyfriend. Ma had always said she wanted to see me safely raised before she tried dating again. And even then, with all the running town to town, it would have its complications.
“Sorry,” I said. “I’m just surprised is all.”
Ma scoffed. She stretched to the nightstand and grabbed a cigarette. “Surprised I haven’t replaced him already?”
“What? No, I—”
We fell into silence. In the closet hung my prom dress. Purple with frills.
“And how was your date tonight?” Ma asked. She patted around the comforter until she foun
d a lighter.
“Terrible,” I said, flopping onto the bed, ready to open up about everything that had happened. To have her help me piece together this great puzzle of a channel.
Ma couldn’t get the lighter to light. “Well, maybe if you dressed more respectably, Lear wouldn’t treat you so bad.”
I sat up. “What?”
Ma had only ever been supportive of how I dressed. When I was six and pulled her pantyhose over my head, she’d smiled and said, I’ll miss seeing your pretty face, but you’ll make a killing as a bank robber.
“Boys treat a girl the way she dresses,” Ma said. She gave up on the lighter and tossed it. “It’s common sense.”
I looked in the motel mirror and touched my face. I was . . . pretty. I’d won the jackpot in this channel. I looked more like Ma than Daddy. But I didn’t give a damn if this was what our relationship was like.
“I think I need to be alone a while, Beefy,” Ma said, lying down.
“Oh,” I said. “Yeah, sure. I’ll just . . . go for a walk.”
“Why don’t you bring a shawl with you?” she said without budging. “Cover up those shoulders.”
• • •
I walked the colorful streets of Pennybrooke, thinking.
This channel definitely felt better than any I’d visited so far . . . and yet it was horrifying in its own way. Lear was a creep. Calvin treated Rhoda like garbage. And Ma . . . It seemed people had still found ways to harden themselves even in a world without Shivers.
Daddy sat in the sky, holding his remote and awaiting instruction. To change or not to change?
“I don’t know,” I said to him. “I’m torn.”
Ants weren’t tearing people to shreds, Marsh was alive somewhere, and Ma was safe and sound. But what was the use in having her if she was miserable and I still missed her as much as when she was locked away beneath the desert? I couldn’t believe I was thinking this, but I would trade this new body of mine and be big again if it meant I could have the old Ma back. Even if she was buried in a cell beneath the desert.
But how could I return to a channel where I was just as helpless as a giantess and everyone was about to die? Where people already had died?
The sound of hammering led me to Saint Maria’s. The church looked like a turkey that had been burnt in the oven but still eaten. Reverend Marsh was on the lawn out front. He had his sleeves rolled up and was hammering two pieces of wood together. It didn’t seem to be going well.
“Hi,” I said.
Marsh barely glanced at me. “You are the actress’s daughter.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I am.”
He wiped sweat from his forehead. “I fear your—”
“Yeah, yeah, you fear my mom’s wantonness will bring death to us all.”
His brow wrinkled as if trying to figure out whether I was sent from heaven or hell.
“I want to thank you,” I said.
He froze as if trying to sense whether or not I was trying to seduce him or something.
I grew bashful and stared at my emerald green shoes. “Just for . . . being a good person. I know you don’t know what I’m talking about, but . . . well, it’s just important for me to tell you is all.”
He pursed his lips and continued hammering.
“Hey, can I ask you a question?” I called.
He stopped hammering.
“What is your idea of a perfect world?”
“Heaven,” he said, annoyed.
“No, I mean . . . what do I mean?” I studied the green of my dress. “What do you think is missing from this world?”
Marsh thought for a moment. The hammer spun once in his hand. “A perfect world is one in which people can recognize the sadness their actions bring. If that happened, we would all ascend.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “But what if in order for that to happen a lot of people had to die? What if . . . you had to die?”
The corner of his mouth ticked up in the closest thing I’d seen to a smile on the reverend’s face. “For that to happen, I would gladly sacrifice my life.”
I gave him a sad smile. “Okay. Thanks. I love you.”
Marsh’s hammering redoubled as I continued down the road.
• • •
The Penmark Roller Rink was aglow with yellow neon lights. The last time I’d seen this building, it was being carved open by a laser. It still looked broken down but for a different reason. Some of the windows had been smashed, sections of the brick chipped away, and someone had spray painted BOYCOTT across the side.
I looked at the sky where a flying saucer should have been . . . and something dawned on me. The thought flipped my stomach over with fear and excitement both. I looked at my hands.
What would I tell myself if I were watching this in a movie?
I turned in a circle, studying the streets, and made a quick list in my head: Bleeding child in Ook’s skull. Screaming girl on the test of strength. Ants climbing the Ferris wheel. Laser slicing through the roller rink.
I looked at Daddy. “Change it back,” I said. And then remembered one of the last things Beth said. “Channel five thirty-two.”
He lifted the remote.
“Wait!” I said.
I felt my stomach, so close to my spine it was almost silly. I took in the colors. The green grass. The pink motel sign flickering in the distance. The blue stars. The red traffic light beaming across the shops on Main Street.
“Okay,” I told Daddy. “Ready.”
KSSHT!
My vision leapt forty feet into the air as cuts and burns and bruises screamed to life on my limbs. The night drained of color as it filled with screams and machine gunfire, the whine of the laser and bullets ricocheting off the flying saucer. There was the roller rink at my feet, as small as a building from a train set, in flames.
I sprinted across the parking lot, leapt over the roller rink, and snatched the saucer out of the air like a Frisbee. Keeping the heat of the laser pointed downward, I ran back toward the ant-filled carnival, the street melting to gooey asphalt beneath my feet. When I reached the Ferris wheel, I crouched and, holding the saucer like a shield, aimed the laser like a spotlight. Every ant it touched burst into flames. They screeched and writhed, a few abdomens popping in gushy explosions, as the ant army disintegrated before me in a blinding blaze.
The kids on the Ferris wheel screamed. The steel had melted under the extreme heat of the laser and the wheel was now drooping toward the ground.
But I couldn’t move. The flying saucer’s laser made the ground boil like lava, scalding my feet. I shook the saucer and hit it with my palms. “How do you turn this stupid thing off?”
Finally, using both hands, I crumpled the flying saucer like an empty beer can, and the laser sputtered out. I made it to the Ferris wheel just in time to catch Lear’s gondola before it struck the ground. I made sure he and Duane and Manuelito were okay inside before I went to grab Ruth from the drooping test of strength. She was sweating bullets, and Pan-Cake was panting up a storm, but they were none the worse for wear.
By the time I reached Ook’s skeleton, Lear had already scaled the ribs, carried Connor down, and used his shirt as a bandage for the boy’s bleeding stomach.
“Is he okay?” I said.
“Okay?” Lear said. “He’s a hero. He survived an ant attack, and lived to tell the tale.”
Connor’s eyes weren’t glazed over anymore, but he was still pale without all that blood. Maria wouldn’t stop hugging him.
“Medic!” General Spillane’s voice called behind us as he and his platoon marched in from the roller rink.
A group of soldiers placed Connor on a stretcher while Lear pried Maria’s fingers off of his neck and held her.
“I’ve gotta admit, giantess,” the general said, patting my calf. “That was an excellent use of firepower. I’d say you earned a medal if they made them that big.”
He saluted me, and Lear and the kids and I watched as they carried Connor back to
the barricade.
“Is Connor going to be okay?” Duane asked.
He seemed shaken to the core, like he didn’t expect a battle would be this bad.
Lear patted his shoulder. “One little ant bite? I think he’ll be just fine.”
None of us laughed.
The four remaining kids, Ruth and Maria and Duane and Manuelito, laid their heads on my foot. Pan-Cake licked the ash from my toe. Lear shivered and held himself. His shirt had left with the stretcher. He looked nothing like the Lear on the previous channel. His muscles were gone, his stomach and shoulders soft, and I could see the puckered skin on his back and sides where his father had drunk from him.
I was about to pick him up and hug him to my face when a scream pealed out across the carnival, making the kids and Pan-Cake jump. It was coming from inside the crumpled-up flying saucer.
Lear and I gave each other a look.
“Stay here,” I said.
I approached the smoldering saucer slowly, ready to see the twisted face of the alien thawed from the ice in the Buried Lab. But inside was something even more unsettling. Mr. Peak was dangling from the crumpled metal, bleeding but alive. He was laughing.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha! Boy, we put on a real show, kid! You picked up the flying saucer and I cranked up the juice! Liz was right about you. The big guy will stay tuned in for months! Ahahahaha!”
I pulled him out of the saucer and brought him close enough to prove I could fit his entire body in my mouth. His laughter stopped.
“No need for violence, now, kid,” he said. “We won. The big guy may be a sicko, but he sure does enjoy a happy ending.”
“Take me to the Buried Lab,” I said.
I’d need a hostage so they wouldn’t hurt Ma at the approach of my giant footsteps.
“They’ll have evacuated by this point,” he said. “You’ll never find them.”
I gave him the slightest squeeze. His face grew dark and he grunted.
“You’re going to show me the exact spot above Ma’s cell,” I said.
The rising sun washed the world in grays as I walked into the desert, Lear and Peak, the four kids, and Pan-Cake in my arms. Daddy watched, exhausted and fascinated.
Attack of the 50 Foot Wallflower Page 23