Daphna was bending down to gather them up when someone called, “Little help!” She cringed at the nasal voice. Wren. And Teal was surely half a step behind because the two were practically joined at the hip.
Their possible presence was the real reason Daphna avoided walking through the game. She wasn’t remotely ready for the confrontation. Having no choice, Daphna stood up and turned around when the girls reached her. They looked momentarily stunned in their matching sun visors.
“Daphna!” Wren cried, breaking into a gleaming, perfectly orthodontured grin. She sounded for all the world like she’d just run into her long lost best friend.
“How was camp?” Daphna asked, coldly. She felt like she was a thousand years older than these twits now. How could she ever have admired them?
“Oh, it was awesome,” Wren lied, her blue contact lenses shining with wonder at all the fake memories. “Really, you should come next year. It would be so cool to hang with you.”
“I thought you weren’t getting back until next week.”
“Oh, yeah,” Teal said. “Um, well—”
“There was a fire!” Wren lied. She barely even paused before coming up with it. “They had to send us home early. That was a bummer, but it was kind of cool in a way. We heard there was one around here, too. We were all just talking about it. Did you see it?”
Daphna seethed thinking of the letters she wrote while waiting for them to send the camp’s address. She was suddenly too furious to go on with the charade.
“I know you didn’t go to camp,” Daphna snarled. “I know you’ve been using me.”
Wren and Teal looked at each other.
“It’s nothing personal,” Teal said after a long, hideously awkward pause during which Daphna’s heart pounded furiously in her chest. Teal looked distressed. “We just—in the summers, we’re really too busy—“
“To keep stringing me along,” Daphna said. “Yes, I see. Lots of Frisbees to throw. Also to catch. And putting together the Frisbee outfits. I’m sure it’s all quite overwhelming.”
Wren smirked. She didn’t look distressed at all. She looked amused, if slightly surprised.
“We figured you were busy doing next year’s homework, anyway,” she said. “I’ll drop mine off tomorrow.”
“Let’s go, Wren,” Teal said.
Daphna’s face felt like it was ready to catch fire. “I can’t believe I ever wanted to be your friend,” she fumed. “I can’t believe I didn’t see how pathetic you two really are.”
“You calling us pathetic?” Wren laughed. “Now that’s pathetic!”
“Come on,” Teal urged, looking back at the others. “She’s not worth it.”
“You have no idea what I’m worth, you—you—twit!” Daphna raged.
Now Teal’s eyes went narrow.
“You might as well know,” she said, her voice a bit shaky, “that every single person over there knows what a sucker you are. We all used to take turns saying something nice to you to make sure you’d keep the answers coming.”
“Everyone is going to be so disappointed,” Wren put in, pleased her partner was finally joining the fun. “But then again, there’s never a shortage of wannabes. By the way, love the outfit you put together.”
Daphna looked down and saw that she was covered in clots of that lint-like junk from the dump, and now leaves and twigs were in her hair from the Clearing, too. And despite the fact that her appearance demonstrated just how much distance there was between her concerns and those of these two shallow, spoiled little prima donnas, she was ashamed.
Ashamed of being ashamed, humiliated and incensed, Daphna simply wanted to scream. And she did scream, but what came out was some kind of incomprehensible word. The moment it passed her lips, Wren and Teal doubled over, blue-faced and choking.
Daphna, shocked at first, stared down at them in confusion. When she finally grasped what was happening, she was too flustered to make it stop. Teal’s eyes bulged incredibly from their sockets. Wren clutched her chest and tried to scream. They both fell to their knees and looked up at Daphna, terrified.
Daphna gaped down at the strangling girls, less flustered now than simply amazed. Thank goodness they were both thirteen and able to hear the First Tongue. They were literally groveling at her feet. In her wildest revenge fantasy—not that she’d had time to actually imagine one—she’d never have dared hope for such a thing. Wren collapsed and clutched at Daphna’s shoe.
Enough was enough, though. It took several tries, but Daphna managed to pronounce the Word again. Immediately, the girls rolled onto their sides, sucking in air. The moment they could, they got back to their feet and, massaging their throats, staggered away without their Frisbee.
Daphna watched the girls rejoin the other Pops before tucking the books back under her arm and heading off. Did any of that just happen? Shouldn’t she be feeling a whole lot worse if it did?
Next time, Daphna told herself, next time I’ll handle things better. But she had to say this repeatedly in her head as she walked. It was the only way to drown out the other little voice in there, the one telling her that if she lived forty billion lives, she’d never want to handle it any other way.
CHAPTER 7
mixed (up) messages
Second thoughts gnawed at Dexter as he sprinted away from the park. It was he, not his sister, who should’ve gone into the woods. Yes, Daphna had logic on her side, but he was a boy. She was a girl. But that was stupid, wasn’t it? Dex didn’t know. He did know he’d get nothing out of Emmet if he went in, except possibly two oversized hands around his throat that wouldn’t let go until he was dead. He wasn’t going to confuse his newfound ability to take a punch with committing—
The blaring of a furious horn made Dex suddenly stop. Only when the car passed did he realize he’d charged blindly across a street—and how close he’d come to getting hit. Dex leapt onto the opposite sidewalk and stood there hunched over with his hands on his knees, trying to steady his fraying nerves.
I should go back, Dex thought when he recovered, but then he looked up to find he was standing right outside the R & R. There was only one thing to do, it having actually been too late to change the plan for nearly ten minutes. He sped in through the Home’s automatic doors, hurried across the lobby and burst into his father’s room.
“What’s going on?” Latty yelped. She was sitting in a chair pulled up next to Milton’s bed. He was sitting up with his laptop computer on the food tray, looking surprisingly refreshed and alert.
At first, Dex thought Milton must’ve told Latty the story he and Daphna told him, and she was furious they’d gone against her wishes. But his father didn’t look concerned at all.
Then Dex realized how his entrance must have looked. He still had some of that fluffy junk from the dump stuck to his clothes, and he was sweating profusely.
“Nothing’s going on,” he said, “just thought you might be wondering where we were.”
When Latty looked confused, he added, “There was an—accident at the dump, but we were nowhere near it. There was all this stuff there—couches with their insides all pulled out—we were messing with it.”
“An accident?” Latty cried through the hand that shot to her mouth. Then, inexplicably, her face purpled, and she began to cry.
Dex had no idea what to say. Latty was clearly going to pieces. He glanced at his father, who returned a knowing look. Dex had no idea what it meant.
“Ah, hey, Dad,” he offered. “How’s it going?”
“Hi, Dex,” Milton said. He sounded quite cheerful, though his voice was hoarse.
Latty stood up. “If you’re here to keep your father company,” she sniffled, pulling herself back together, “I may just run home to get the house organized and start working on dinner. The kids will bring you something later tonight, Milton. That lunch they wheeled in here was criminal. Is Daphna home?”
“She’s coming here in a bit,” Dex said.
“I hope she hurries,” said La
tty, voicing his thoughts precisely. “I feel much better when you two are here with your father, safe and sound.” Then she added, with an only half-joking wink, “You two can protect him from that Evelyn woman.”
Milton rolled his eyes good-naturedly.
After extracting a few tissues from her purse, Latty hurried out, though not before passing Dexter to brush and straighten his shirt. When she had him by the collar, she leaned over and whispered, “Don’t forget what you promised.” Then she straightened up and hurried out the door.
Dex looked at his father, unsure what to say next. “What’s wrong with her?” he managed.
“Oh, you know Latona,” Milton said with a tolerant shrug. “If you think she worries over you guys too much, you don’t know the half of it. Trust me.”
“But why does she have to worry so much? It doesn’t seem healthy.”
“You two are her life,” Milton said, “and you’re all she has of your mother. In fact, it was Latty who talked her into trying to have kids in the first place. Your mom thought she was too old. And of course Latona has no family of her own—”
Dex had never considered Latty’s personal life. He’d assumed she had some kind of family, somewhere, though she clearly didn’t ever see them now that he thought about it. Of course, neither he nor Daphna had extended family, either. Maybe Latty was trying to make up for all that.
“What’s she got against the lady who runs this place, anyway?” Dex asked.
Milton chuckled. “Just like they say,” he said, “the more things change, the more they stay the same.”
“What do you mean?”
“Oh, well, do you remember how I met Evelyn? I guess how we all met her, really. You and Daphna were with me after all. We all sat together on the same flight from New York to Portland. We’d connected from Jerusalem, and she was moving from New York City.
“Anyway, I guess she took a liking to me, and to you two, as well. Latty could see this when we all walked off the plane together, or at least when she saw Evelyn give me her phone number. The truth was I found her a bit aggressive for my tastes. Anyway, Latty took an immediate dislike to her.”
Dex struggled to keep a straight face. A woman hitting on his father? The very idea was laughable. The story was over, but he didn’t know how to keep the conversation going. It seemed his father didn’t either.
After an awkward silence, Milton said, “Oh! How could I have forgotten? Latty tells me you and your sister are collaborating on a project about city waste.”
“Ahh—”
“It just so happens I know someone who used to have an interesting history of garbage if you’re interested—my old friend and colleague Berny Quartich. The odder the topic, the more likely he is to have it! Since I woke up I’ve been feeling fantastic, other than the sore throat and strange dreams, anyway. So when Latty told me what you were up to, I e-mailed him. He already wrote back and said he still has it. Here, have a look.”
Panic rose in Dex like a geyser. He was nowhere near ready to tell his father about his reading problem. He wasn’t so sure about this syndrome thing. Daphna probably didn’t remember it right.
“Ah—sure,” Dex stalled, “but you said you’re having strange dreams?”
“Yes,” said Milton. “One, actually.”
“What is it?”
“I keep dreaming that I’m walking down a stone street in Malatya—”
“That town in Turkey you went to!”
“I’ve been there before,” Milton said, “but not for some time. I’ll be going this summer, actually, so I guess it’s on my mind.”
“Okay,” said Dex, deflated to see there’d been no change in his father’s memory. “So what happens?” he asked.
“Well, I do know the town, but not this street because it’s not in the main area of commercial activity. It’s lined with quiet little shops.”
“Do you go in one?”
“Yes, a coffee house, the kind where they read your fortune in the grounds of your cup. Fikret Cihan’s Coffee House. I just remembered that.”
“Weird,” Dex said. “You don’t even drink coffee.” He was beginning to suspect that this was a memory, not a dream. “Do you get your fortune read?”
“No,” Milton said. “I ask the proprietor, Fikret Cihan, about an author I’m curious about. He tells me he hasn’t heard of him, but then suddenly someone I hadn’t seen in the back of the shop, an ancient looking old fellow sitting under a lamp copying text from a book, lets loose an awful, soul-piercing cry. He falls out of his seat with the book he was copying and literally begins crawling toward me with it. There is all kinds of confusion in Turkish, but eventually this Fikret brings me the old man’s book and positively begs me to take it away that instant. It’s in absolutely awful shape.”
“Then what?”
“Well,” Milton said, looking slightly taken aback by Dexter’s fervor, “I take it, give him my card, and walk back outside. And that’s the end of the dream.”
Dex, certain now that this was how his father found the Book of Nonsense, decided to take a risk. “This author, Dad, that you were asking about—”
“I don’t think it’s an important detail, Dexter. I can’t actually remem—”
“Any chance it was Adem Tarik?”
Dex held his breath.
“That name,” Milton said, “it does sound familiar. Where did you hear it?”
“Um,” Dex said, “you said it when you were sleeping.”
“Perhaps that was it then. But enough of this nonsense,” said Milton. “It’s you I want to talk about. I’m ashamed to say there’s so much about you I don’t know. I really would like to help with your project. Shall we respond to this e-mail?”
“Actually, Dad,” Dex said, “we’ve decided to change our topic.”
“Oh, to what?”
“We’re not sure,” Dexter replied, but he’d seized on an idea. “Maybe you can help. We’re supposed to interview someone in an unusual line of work, and I was thinking—”
“You—you don’t mean you want to interview me, do you?” Milton asked, misunderstanding. His eyebrows had piled together and his lips were parted in surprise. “Don’t tell me after all this time, you’ve finally come around—”
“Bookscouting is pretty cool,” Dex said, feeling a sharp stab about how pleased his father looked, about how easy it would’ve been to show just a little interest all these years. “We’d like to interview you,” he lied, struggling to keep the conversation turning to his purpose, “but you gave me another idea. I’m thinking it can’t get any more unusual than reading fortunes in a Turkish Coffee House. How ’bout we check to see if there really is a Fikret Cihan’s Coffee House in Turkey?”
“Well,” Milton said, “why not? Let’s see what we can do.” He clicked around on his computer and opened up a search engine. After a moment he said, “Well, I’ll be. There is. In Malatya, Turkey! And with a website in both English and Turkish, no less. But I really don’t recall ever—I’ll have to check with Latty. She plans all my itineraries down to the last detail, even restaurants. She’d know—”
“You sure you want to freak her out with all this?” Dex asked, alarmed.
“Upon reflection,” Milton replied, smiling but serious, “not on your life.”
“Does the website have a phone number?” Dex asked, allowing a tiny sigh.
“He’s got an e-mail address. Here, I’ll open an e-mail to him. There. We can send a note. Why don’t you come around and—”
Again, the panic.
“Hellooo in there!”
A lanky woman stepped into the room, rescuing Dex. She was so tall, thin and full of awkward angles, that all Dex could think of when he saw her were those hanging projects kids make in elementary school out of linked-up coat hangers. She was blushing as she pushed her tiny glasses up her nose. It was Evelyn Idun, Director of the Home.
After she’d arranged Milton’s transfer from the hospital, she’d made sure he got a
room near her desk in the lobby so she wouldn’t have to go far to check on him. When Dex had pushed his father’s wheelchair into the building that morning, she’d made a big fuss and promised the twins she’d have him back on his feet in no time.
“Hello there, Evelyn,” Milton said, offering a genuine but hesitant smile.
“You look fantastic!” Evelyn declared, marching right to Milton’s bedside. “The color has come back to your face.” She put the back of her long-fingered hand on his forehead. Milton blinked, looking slightly overwhelmed.
“Amazing!” Evelyn said. “Though I don’t like the sound of that voice. Let’s do some walking, shall we? You can do it. Two minutes, I promise.”
Milton looked unsure.
“Go ahead, Dad,” Dex urged. “Maybe I’ll e-mail the guy while you’re out.”
“Very well, then,” said Milton, as if he had a choice. Evelyn was already hauling him out of bed and getting him situated behind his rolling walker. As they inched to the door, she complained that he never returned her calls. Milton said something about the messages probably getting lost on Latty’s desk, but then they were gone.
The screen saver came up on the laptop, attracting Dex’s attention. After a big sigh, he sat on the bed and touched a key, bringing up the e-mail form his father had opened. It was perfect the way things were working out. Perfect, except for the fact that Dex couldn’t type.
As part of his lifelong campaign to camouflage his reading problem, he’d kept away from computers. When he had no choice, he’d sit and click away, pretending to know what he was doing, then stop and quit if anyone came to see what he was up to. Teachers assumed he was messing around with the computer’s hard drive or visiting forbidden sites on the web, and that was fine by him because it often got him kicked off.
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