Two Girls, a Clock, and a Crooked House

by Michael Poore

  Moo emerged from the bushes and waved her hand.

  “My friend Gertrude,” said Amy. “The dog made us have to go to the bathroom.”

  “Gertrude,” called Officer Byrd, “why don’t you come on down here and be part of our conversation?”

  Moo approached.

  “She doesn’t talk,” Amy told the officer, tapping her head. “Head injury.”

  Officer Byrd looked concerned. “All right, kiddos,” he said. “You’re safe here. I’ll make sure of it.”

  When he said this, a heart winked on like a light over his head, beside the German shepherd. Amy relaxed some.

  She noticed for the first time that Officer Byrd’s cop car looked kind of old-fashioned, with big, bulky lights—like gumball machines—on the roof.

  “You guys go to Hook Elementary?” Officer Byrd asked.

  “Yes,” Amy answered. Well, good…her school existed in this time, whenever that was.

  “Well, listen, both of you. Dog or no dog, I don’t like that you’re wandering around on your own out here, when you ought to be in school. I guess you know a young man is missing.”

  Amy figured the smart answer was “Yes,” so she said, “Yes.” (Local people who weren’t time travelers would be expected to know something like that.) (Also, her stomach jumped. She didn’t like the idea of missing kids. No kid does.)

  “He might even be in your class; you look about the same age.”

  Amy didn’t know what to say to this. Her mind screamed like a jet, trying to think of something NORMAL-sounding to say.

  Fortunately, Officer Byrd changed the subject.

  “How about you two climb in, and I’ll drive you on over to the school. They’re bound to have some clean clothes you can change into. My niece tore her pants once, and the teacher had a pile of castoffs for her to wear. Hop in back.”

  Aw, man, Moo broadcast.

  “It’s an experiment,” Amy chanted under her breath. “It’s an experiment….”

  Yeah, said Moo. You keep on telling yourself that.

  IT SMELLED FUNNY IN the backseat of the cruiser.

  Officer Byrd talked into the police radio, saying, “Twelve is ten seventy-six for Hook Elementary, heavy two young ladies.”

  The radio made a scratchy, squawky noise and said, “Ten four.”

  “Is that Spanish?” Amy asked Officer Byrd.

  “Police Spanish.” The officer laughed. “We talk in code to save time.”

  Police Spanish for “Take us to jail and trap us in the old-fashioned times,” said Moo. Plus, someone’s going around grabbing kids. This feels less and less like an experiment.

  They were rolling down the street now. Outside the police car, neighborhood houses passed by.

  They passed Amy’s house. A strange, old-fashioned car sat in the driveway.

  “What kind of dog was it?” asked Officer Byrd, glancing back.

  Dang. Officer Byrd wanted details.

  “It was a little dog,” said Amy. “Like a Chihuahua, except with foofy hair. It wasn’t big, but it was awfully mean.”

  Moo raised her eyebrows at Amy. She was impressed.

  Officer Byrd nodded, and a minute later they pulled up in front of the school.

  Hook Elementary looked the same, Amy was happy to see. A long, one-story brick building with windows like a hundred eyes. A wide concrete walk with a flagpole. A yard with some trees. Out in back, a vast green area opened up. Beyond that, some woods.

  Of course, she still didn’t know when they were, and she had no idea when the school had even been built. But the more familiar things looked, she thought, the better chance they had of not drawing attention to themselves. The better chance they had of getting back to the clock chair and back home.

  You had to be super careful around adults. If they sensed you were up to something, they’d try to help you, and assume responsibility for you, and take over your life until they thought you were okay. If adults thought you needed help in a big way, they weren’t very likely to let you just go on back to the woods and travel through time.

  Officer Byrd let the girls out and walked them past the flagpole into the school.

  The inside of the school, too, was unchanged and familiar: two halls, shaped like an L, with the library and office in the middle.

  In the office (the same office), a secretary (not the same secretary) with dark hair sat behind a desk, wearing a set of glasses on a chain around her neck.

  She put the glasses on and squinted at the three of them. And smiled.

  “Hi, Doug. Nice to see you. What have we got? Runaways? My goodness, what did you do, bury them alive?”

  “Dog attack, Mrs. Nyday,” answered Officer Byrd. “Chihuahua.”

  “Terrible creatures.” The secretary—Mrs. Nyday—addressed herself to the girls. “Were you bitten?”

  Amy said, “No.”

  “I’m going to leave them in your capable hands,” said Officer Byrd. He leaned down and looked Moo in the eye, and then Amy.

  “Going to be all right?” he asked.

  They both nodded. Amy added, “Thank you, Officer Byrd.”

  That seemed to be what he wanted to hear. He straightened up, said, “You’re most welcome,” and was gone, out the door and out of sight.

  Leaving them to Mrs. Nyday.

  “First things first,” said the secretary, looking at them the way you might look at some dog poo that has presented itself at your desk. “Down the hall to the nurse’s office with you, where you can wash, and I’ll see if we can dig up something else for you to wear to finish out the day.”

  She led the way to a little medical-looking room and stood politely in the hall while the girls scrubbed at a tiny sink.

  “Make sure you get under your nails,” she called through the door. “Your nails are filthy. By the way, whose class are you in?”

  Amy opened her mouth but got stuck. NOW what was she supposed to say?

  I’ve got this, said Moo. Tell her we’re not in a class yet. Our mom was supposed to register us.

  Smart, Amy thought. And she repeated this little story for Mrs. Nyday.

  “You’re not registered?” asked Mrs. Nyday, leaning into the room and frowning at them. “You’re sisters?” she added, looking doubtful (looking SUSPICIOUS!).

  We’re both adopted, said Moo.

  “We’re adopted,” said Amy, feeling like a parrot.

  “Adopted? Well, that’s always interesting. I’m adopted!”

  Score!

  “Still, I need your names, at least.”

  Amy told her the truth. Why not? “Amy Wood and Gertrude June Kopernikus,” she said.

  Mrs. Nyday frowned at Moo.

  “Do you not have a voice of your own?” she asked.

  Moo barked, Tell her she’s an insensitive old sourpuss who’s going to get kicked in the knee if—

  “Actually, no,” Amy told the secretary. “She had a brain injury, and now not being able to talk is her own personal individual challenge. Other than that, though, she’s perfectly fine and, in her own way, surprisingly loud.”

  Mrs. Nyday looked apologetic. “Oh!” she said. “I was trying to be funny, and it wasn’t funny at all. Anyway, your mother…?”

  Prompted by Moo, Amy said: “Mom was going to bring us in and get us registered this morning, but she got called in to work. She said for us to go ahead and walk to school, and she’d come in and register us later and everything.”

  The secretary was frowning again.

  “Kids don’t show up out of the blue, generally,” she said.

  “She called last week. To let you know we were coming.”

  “No,” said Mrs. Nyday (now even her voice was frowning). “I would’ve made a note of it if anyone—”

  “
She said she didn’t talk to the secretary. She talked to someone else who didn’t usually answer the phone. But they took a message.”

  Mrs. Nyday was thinking; Amy could feel her thinking. It was like a pot of spaghetti cooking.

  You’re amazing, she told Moo. You’re like Mozart, except with a symphony of lies.

  Moo shrugged, saying, I’ve been sitting on my porch unable to move or talk for a thousand hundred years. I sit and make stuff up. What else was I going to do? Tell her we’re done cleaning up.

  “I think we’re all scrubbed,” Amy told Mrs. Nyday. “Necks and fingernails and knees and everything.”

  “Good girls,” said the secretary. A minute passed while she rummaged in a closet and found some pants and a couple of gym shorts and socks.

  “These’ll get you through the day,” she said, stepping into the hall while they changed. “I do wish we could get hold of your mother, to bring in some of your own things from home. Maybe we could go ahead and call her at work? I’d certainly feel better if—”

  “There’s no phone,” said Amy, parroting Moo. “She doesn’t work in a regular office place.”

  “And this irregular nonoffice workplace is where?”

  “Out of town. I forget exactly where. We’re still new. Everything’s all so new. She’s a professional gravedigger, at a cemetery, and there’s no phone, out where the graves are.”

  “Well,” said the secretary, “we’ll need to stash you someplace for the day. What grade did you say—”

  “Fifth grade, ma’am.”

  “Well, come on, then,” said Mrs. Nyday, leading them out into the hall, past the library. “And don’t ‘ma’am’ me. ‘Ma’am’ is for grandmas; I’m only forty.”

  Amy rolled her eyes mentally. Adults were always saying things like “I’m ONLY forty” or “ONLY twenty-two,” as if they didn’t know how totally OLD that was. People who were forty could have known Mulan or Andrew Jackson.

  “What time is it?” she asked Mrs. Nyday.

  “Just past one. You’ve missed lunch.”

  Waaay down the hall, stopping at—

  Stopping at Amy’s actual classroom door, the classroom she went to every day, back in the future. Wow!

  “Hang on here a sec,” said Mrs. Nyday, slipping inside. To talk with the teacher, Amy presumed. They would whisper together, and shrug and be irritated together. Adults were always irritated when unexpected things happened, or especially irresponsible things, like when gravediggers sent their kids to school caked in dirt, without properly registering, and one of them had brain challenges, and—

  Mrs. Nyday was back. She shooed them through the door, saying, “You’re all set, Amy Wood and Gertrude June Kopernikus. Have a good rest of the afternoon, and stop at the office before you go home.”

  “Okay,” said Amy, and, “Thanks.” She shut the door behind them and turned to face—

  Amy’s jaw dropped.

  “Holy cats!” she blurted. “Mrs. BARCH!”

  IT WAS HER! NO doubt. But a different Mrs. Barch. This Mrs. Barch was a thousand years younger. She had dark hair and bright eyes and looked like she’d been ironed and made smooth.

  My God, thought Amy, how far back have we come?

  Besides Mrs. Barch, there were a bunch of schoolkids in the room. Half a million of them occupied their desks, all turned around in their seats, staring and judging, the way kids do. Thinking what all kids think when a new kid appears: Is this kid higher or lower than me in the food chain? Will people like this kid better than they like me? Is the new kid friend material?

  “Hello and welcome,” said Mrs. Barch (her voice wasn’t scratchy; she sounded like what a glass of apple juice would sound like if it spoke to you). “We’re partway through science, so just take a seat until we can get you sorted out.”

  A seat? Everything looked full.

  “One of you can sit in the Cloud Chair,” Mrs. Barch said, indicating one corner of the room. A wonderful reading corner, with a lamp and a bookshelf and a giant sock monkey sitting on a yellow beanbag chair, all arranged on a blood-red carpet.

  Moo zoomed over and plopped down in the beanbag, propping the sock monkey up beside her.

  The class made envious noises. Sitting in the Cloud Chair was a special privilege, apparently.

  Mrs. Barch appeared to hesitate.

  Then she pointed to the one empty desk, on the far side, in the second-to-last row, by the window.

  “Over here for now, sweetie,” she said, sounding uneasy. “Just till we get you organized and official.”

  Something was wrong. Only Amy and Moo could see it, but a shadow wound through the classroom like a dark spiderweb, touching all the kids, and Mrs. Barch, too.

  “That’s Oliver’s desk,” someone said.

  Oliver?

  The missing boy, said Moo. Wanna bet?

  Oh no.

  Amy stood beside the desk without sitting down, quite.

  A million eyes flared at her. She could hear the kids thinking, Don’t you dare….

  She didn’t look at the eyes. She looked out the window. Looked at the houses across the street. Leafy trees rose among the rooftops, the same trees she was used to seeing through these same windows, except smaller. A bird hopped across the school lawn.

  “He’s coming back,” someone whispered in a shaky voice.

  Mrs. Barch had been holding a big Teacher’s Edition Earth Science book. She now closed it and laid it down on her desk.

  “I think so, too,” she said quietly. Then, addressing Amy, she said, “Amy, I’m sorry. How about you sit here at my desk today?”

  Much better. She nodded eagerly, walked around behind Mrs. Barch, and sat down in her rolling, swiveling, upholstered teacher chair.

  Somewhere in the room, a couple of kids sniffled.

  “Let’s take a few minutes,” Mrs. Barch told the class, “to think about Oliver a little bit, and send him some good thoughts?”

  Mrs. Barch, Amy thought, was a smart teacher. A teacher who knew there was no point in trying to teach science to a bunch of kids who were upset about something.

  Mrs. Barch crossed her arms and looked at the floor. You could tell she was just as sad as the kids, but she was being teacherly and professional—

  “He’s not coming back,” said a big, growling voice. “Why do you keep pretending like he’s going to come home any second, when everyone knows—”

  Amy zeroed in on the speaker, a big kid with hair like a mop. Hair that hid one eye, while the other eye—wow!—shone out like a blue torch. Like a spear. Like a tiny blue volcano. And he was dressed in a suit. A suit!

  “That’s ENOUGH, Henry,” Mrs. Barch barked. “Everyone is very hopeful—”

  “It’s not hope!” Henry spat. “It’s denial. My dad says so. Not only is he not coming back—”

  “HENRY ZANE!” shouted Mrs. Barch, turning red.

  “—she’s probably EATING HIS HEAD right this very second.”

  Amy gasped. So did every other kid in the classroom. There was an increase in sniffles, and some actual crying began.

  The witch! said Moo.

  Amy swallowed hard.

  Oliver’s empty desk glowed like a big, sad candle.

  A couple of other kids followed Henry Zane’s lead. Two redheads—twins?—a boy and a girl wearing matching cowboy boots.

  “She might as well sit in his desk,” said the girl, pointing at Amy.

  “She could even use his stuff,” said the boy. “That way it would be like he hadn’t been eaten in vain, because—”

  “Stop it!” said someone.

  A couple of someones. One row behind Oliver’s desk, another boy and girl (not twin-looking) had stood up and were staring at Henry Zane.

  A boy in a dinosaur T-shirt and a girl in a sparkly
dress.

  “Or what?” shot back Henry and the redheads. Henry stood up, but he had a cautious look about him. A nervous look, even.

  There was more to this boy and girl, Amy sensed, than met the eye. You could see it in the way the other kids looked at them.

  “Henry,” said Mrs. Barch in a certain voice all teachers have. And she didn’t say anything else. She just pointed at the door.

  Very few kids, even the meanest ones, would keep messing with a teacher once she’d unpacked that voice. Behind that voice was the murky, mysterious soul of an adult bristling with wizardly, grown-up powers, and—

  “No,” said Henry Zane.

  Every eye in the classroom bulged. Every eye looked at Henry Zane, then at Mrs. Barch, then at Henry Zane again, and back at Mrs. Barch, then baaaaa­aaaaa­ck at Henry Zane.

  Mrs. Barch did not yell. If anything, she became eerily calm.

  “Heather,” she said, “will you please press the call button for the office?”

  Over by the door, the smallest kid in the class, a little girl with shining black hair, slipped out of her desk and reached way up high to push a white button like a plastic Tylenol. Then she climbed back into her seat and rejoined the rest of the class in gaping at Henry Zane.

  Silence.

  Henry Zane glowered at his desk, brooding like a dark lord. The redheads in the cowboy boots did their best to look just like him, doing exactly as he did.

  Dinosaur Boy and Sparkly Girl stood quietly. Calmly. They might have been thinking about peanut butter sandwiches, they looked so calm.

  Amy! said Moo.

  What?

  Look at the board. The chalkboard.

  Across the room, Moo was using her head to point at the chalkboard.

  What? Why was Moo trying to distract her? Amy wanted to focus on whatever was going to happen with the bad kids and Mrs. Barch.

  LOOK! urged Moo.

  So Amy looked at the chalkboard. It had the usual school stuff on it. Some notes about photosynthesis. A flag. Some chalk and erasers.

  The date, said Moo.

  The date was written on the board. Amy scanned it twice. Three times. Meanwhile, the class and Mrs. Barch remained quiet.