My Diary from the Edge of the World Page 4

  We haven’t had a single person interested in the house yet. But Mom and Dad have started packing anyway. They say no matter what, whether we sell or not, we’ll leave on Wednesday.

  September 27th

  Our life is in boxes. Most of it’s going to Bernard’s Self Storage on Witches’ Pike. The rest will be squeezed into the Winnebago (which Dad has christened the Trinidad after Ferdinand Magellan’s ship—so dorky), though how we’re going to squeeze anything besides ourselves into that old banana on wheels is anyone’s guess. So far Millie and I have refused to set foot inside the awful thing. Mom keeps telling us how nice and homey it is inside, but even we can see she’s stretching the truth by the way her nose wrinkles whenever she looks at it parked out there in all its lumpy, yellowing glory. Only Sam scrambles in and out of it, because he’s the peacemaker and he wants Dad to be happy. He’s been hiding in there for hours at a time. Dad attached a small pod trailer to the back for extra luggage, with a tiny screened window on each of its four sides. Millie asked if that could be her room, because it’s the farthest away from everyone else. Mom laughed, but I don’t think she was joking.

  Sam is blissfully ignorant that all of this is for him. He’s convinced we’re going on some kind of adventure, and he seems to be feeling a little better because of it. He even asked me last night why everyone keeps staring at the Cloud out back. I played dumb and said, “Cloud? I didn’t notice.”

  His answer chilled me. He said, “You know, the one that looks like a face smiling at me? The smiling man.”

  Sam is too innocent to know what he’s supposed to be afraid of.

  My cast comes off Wednesday. That’s all.

  October 3rd

  I found Oliver! It’s a secret I can only write here . . . when I have more time, after dinner.

  LATER

  Okay. So today I skipped school. I needed some time to walk the streets of Cliffden and say good-bye to some favorite things. I pretended to be on my way to class when I parted with the others, but really I went down past the angel statue and out the underground exit. When I got aboveground again, I wandered in the direction of the zoo.

  The Cliffden Zoo is tiny but impressive. I love to watch the monkeys, and when something’s on my mind I can stay all day. You can tell how intelligent monkeys are and that they have senses of humor. It’s nice they don’t hold it against us that we’ve taken them out of the thrilling jungle and stuck them in what is pretty much a big glass box.

  Well, to get to the monkeys you have to go past the banshees, who give me the willies, and also the aquarium, which I’m not fond of because of the giant sea snakes and cryptids. (They stare out through the glass like they want to devour you, because they do want to devour you.) As I was rushing along my way, I saw a boy who looked like Oliver on the other side of a big pane of glass, gazing into the beluga whale tank while slipping Skittles into his pocket. I skidded to a halt.

  I followed him past the seahorses, which are even weirder looking than the cryptids, moving very stealthily until I was sure it was him. He walked so slowly it was hard to be patient. At the octopus exhibit I finally stepped out of the shadows in front of him triumphantly. Oliver didn’t seem shocked in the least.

  “Aren’t you surprised I’m here?” I asked.

  “You’re too loud to be a good spy.”

  “I didn’t say anything the whole time I was following you.”

  “You even look loud,” he replied.

  I decided not to dwell on this. Oliver stood with his hair even messier than usual; it tilted to one side so much that it looked like his whole skinny body would tip over. His scar had gotten a little less pink and was less noticeable than it had been the last time I’d seen him. He was looking at me with a mixture of suspicion and concentration, like he was measuring me in his head.

  A little crunching sound was issuing from the pocket of his jeans. We both looked down: A pair of big black eyes were peering at me from a tiny crooked face that had just poked out. The creature—about the size of a dragonfly—was bald except for a red patch of hair right above its eyes, and its ears were twice the size of its little head.

  “Is that a faerie?” I asked, surprised. It’s illegal to own faeries as pets in the United States unless they go through a very expensive quarantine process. Usually only celebrities and really rich people own them—Meryl Streep has one that she always brings to the Oscars.

  “My mom was from Ireland,” Oliver said. “Everyone has faeries over there. So when she immigrated, she had a license for them. She made them little habitats in these big aquariums in our house. This one’s called Tweep. I inherited her when . . .” He trailed off. He rubbed Tweep’s head and the faerie purred and cooed. She was an ugly little thing, and I wondered how Oliver could care for her so tenderly. “None of the pet stores carry faerie food around here, but she eats flies and Skittles.”

  “I’m sorry . . . about your family,” I muttered.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “I guess you ran away from your foster family.” Oliver frowned, and nodded.

  “Everyone’s worried about you.”

  He thought on this, seemingly torn. “I don’t want people to worry. But I also don’t want new parents.” There was an edge of anger in his voice, but I suppose if I’d been through what Oliver has been through, I’d be pretty angry too.

  “Where are you staying now?” I asked, ignoring Tweep, who’d disappeared into Oliver’s pocket and begun to chirp.

  He looked at me forlornly. There were circles under his green eyes. “I’ve been living at the fairgrounds; I sleep in a Ferris wheel car that was taken down. I still have twenty dollars left from my allowance. I’ve been eating McDonald’s.”

  I nodded, trying to look knowledgeable about what it’s like to run away. “We’re moving,” I offered, thinking moving to escape a Dark Cloud might be almost as bad as losing your whole family to bloodthirsty monsters. I wanted him to know I was on his level.

  “Where?”

  “I’m not sure. We’re going to my grandma’s.” I hesitated, then went on. “But I think my dad really wants to try to get to the Extraordinary World.” I don’t know why, but talking to Oliver made me feel like it was okay to be honest.

  The silence stretched on and on. Most people don’t like long silences, but Oliver seemed completely content to let the empty seconds stretch between us. “When are you leaving?” he finally asked politely.

  “Wednesday afternoon, I guess.” I was still hoping, counting on, a miracle that would let us stay.

  “I’m sorry you have to go,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said, and looked at the ground.

  “You can’t tell anyone you saw me,” Oliver went on. “They’ll try to bring me back to my foster parents.”

  I promised, but I wasn’t sure it was the right thing.

  Before I left, Oliver looked at my cast, pulled out a marker from his backpack, and wrote on it, on the underside where I couldn’t see.

  * * *

  My mom says that one of the reasons she loves paintings and poetry and things like that (which I mostly find extremely boring) is that they focus not only on what is but what could be. She says that it’s very important to accept what is but also to never stop dreaming about what could be. Sometimes we play this imagination game where we come up with ideas of what life would be like if there were no sun but only a moon, or if we spoke in music instead of words. . . .

  Anyway, walking home I tried to imagine the world without sasquatches and Dark Clouds—how Oliver’s parents would still be alive, and how Sam would be safe and we’d get to stay in Cliffden. It cheered me up for a few minutes.

  I debated whether to tell my parents about Oliver, and I couldn’t decide. So far I’m only writing it down here. Now I’m on the couch, and Mom has lit a fire in the fireplace and closed all the curtains that look out on the backyard. Everything is cozy and warm, and seeing Oliver feels like something I only imagined. Except that, just bef
ore I started writing this entry, I remembered to look in the mirror to see what he’d written on my cast. It said I was never here.

  October 7th

  It’s hard to write because my hands are shaking. We’re all packed. The Winnebago is stuffed to the gills. The Cloud is hovering above the back deck this morning, just a couple of feet from the door, as if waiting to be let in. We’re leaving and I’m writing as fast as I can.

  Yesterday Arin Roland surprised me by showing up at my door with her mom to give me a big hug and also a present. It’s a tiny silver suitcase with the words Home Again engraved on one side. It’s sort of a dumb little knickknack, but I’ve decided to make it into a lucky object that’ll bring us back here someday.

  I want to record the curve of our driveway and the missing tiles of our gingerbread roof. I want to keep in my mind forever the paint smudges along the trim of my bedroom window and the tree stump I tripped over once while we were playing ghost in the graveyard, the church stone just peeking out over the top of the hill and the blinking eye of my house. I’ve picked up several rocks from the yard to take with me. I smelled each and every flower left in my mom’s garden. I touched the grass in several spots and buried all my pennies, and then I took my favorite glass prism from my room and buried that, too. I’ve also resolved to bury this diary. It seems like I should leave it here as a reminder of me. Sam is curled on my mom’s lap on the front stairs, crying into her chest, and Millie is already in the Winnebago waiting, but I just want these seconds to last forever. Good-bye to the—

  * * *

  I’m writing from my seat in the camper. Something big has happened.

  A few minutes ago Mom got in the driver’s seat and called us all to get in. There wasn’t time to bury this diary in the yard after all. We were pulling out of the driveway when suddenly Dad looked in the rearview mirror and said, “What the heck is that?” Millie and Sam and I smushed our faces against the back window to see what he was talking about.

  There was a tall wiggly blob running after us down the road, nearly falling over, carrying a big sack of stuff up near its head so that it looked not like a person but a giant hopping worm, like a sleeping bag come to life. My mom stopped the Winnebago and the side door whooshed open, and climbing up the stairs was . . . Oliver.

  He dropped his stuff down at his feet, the scar down his cheek extra bright on his flushed face, looked around at us as he tried to catch his breath, and asked, “Can I come with you to the Extraordinary World?”

  Millie helped him in with both hands and explained his story to my parents, as much as we know of it. There was a kerfuffle and arguing and pros and cons and Millie kept hugging him like she was this sweet mama bird, which was annoying because she’s nothing like that in real life, and it only made Oliver look shy and uncomfortable. He pulled out of her arms as quickly as he could, rubbed his scar, and patted his pocket to calm his faerie, who’d begun to squeak and rumble.

  I guess my dad is superstitious after all, because he said, “Maybe you’ll be our good luck charm,” and welcomed Oliver on board. Oliver turned to me, his green eyes flashing, and he gave the hint of a smile, relieved. “Is it okay with you, Gracie?” he asked.

  It took me by surprise, because no one in this family ever asks me if anything is okay with me. I made a big show of nodding, knowing Millie had heard him. “Of course, Oliver,” I said . . . rather nobly.

  Oliver smiled in relief, then he pulled Tweep out of his pocket and cupped her in both palms, whispering to her. “I’ll be back in just a second,” he said to my mom. He stepped out of the Trinidad onto the grass and opened his hands, letting the faerie fly away. Then he climbed back in and sank onto one of the couches by the table, pulling his stuff close to him so that it’d be out of the way.

  When he looked up, we were all staring at him, curious. “She gets car sick,” he said. “She always wanted to go back to Connecticut anyway—she has friends there.” I couldn’t tell for sure, but it looked like he was about to cry.

  There’s really no room for Oliver, but I’m glad I don’t have to worry about him now that he’s with us. And I’m relieved I kept this diary with me, because there’s too much happening not to be written down. I’m just trying to keep up.

  Now we’re out of downtown Cliffden on Route 1, and driving past the strip malls that sprawl at the very edge of town. We just rolled past the T.J.Maxx, still charred and half burned down. (Mom just said they haven’t been able to rebuild because they didn’t have dragonfire insurance, as if talking about insurance could distract us from what we’re leaving behind so fast.)

  Now I can see, not our dear hill anymore, but dear Bear Mountain in front of our hill, and the Dairy Queen, and the bike store.

  Now only a vaguely familiar stretch of road. I just looked out the back window and there’s no sign of the Cloud following us.

  * * *

  Now we’ve pulled onto Route 80 and left Cliffden behind forever.

  * * *

  Now we are gone.

  October 15th

  I’ve decided to go back and put an epigraph on the blank page at the front of this diary, though I haven’t decided on what yet. Who knows, maybe I’ll be a famous writer someday and this’ll be my first work of literary genius.

  I’m writing from my bed, hiding behind the curtain I’ve made from a blue flannel blanket. We’ve each claimed our own small piece of the Winnebago: Mom and Dad have the “master suite”—a small room nestled against the back window and next to the bathroom. Oliver is on the vinyl pullout couch, and Sam is sleeping with Mom and Dad, though he’s also claimed the little cupboard right behind the front passenger seat, filling it with boxes full of goldfish crackers and his bear Jim who has one droopy glass eye. He sometimes crawls in there for hours at a time and won’t come out even when I offer him my Oreos. (We each get two a day.) Millie has claimed the bigger of the two pull-down bunks, which come down from the ceiling on either side of the main cabin, and plastered her wall with pictures from Vogue. Not that she lets me come up there.

  My pull-down bunk is small, practically a shelf, across from Millie’s and just barely big enough to fit me. Still, I’ve decorated it as nicely as I can with some lucky items I’ve taped to the wall, including a perfect clamshell from the beach and the tiny Home Again suitcase Arin gave me.

  Mom’s added sophisticated touches everywhere. She’s made a “library” of the shelves above the kitchen table with some classics she couldn’t bear to leave behind: To Kill a Mockingbird, The Giant’s Lament, Little Women, Hamlet. She says they’re all required reading for us on this trip, because “Books are the way to stretch out people’s souls, and I won’t have children with small souls.” Whenever it’s open, she covers the fold-out table with a tablecloth, and she’s laid some afghans along the back of the vinyl couch.

  Her traveling outfit today consists of a maroon floor-length dress. All the other moms in Cliffden wear pants and jackets and shirts they bought at the mall, but my mom wears dresses and always smells like sandalwood, because, she says, “I’m a hippie born at the wrong time.” She doesn’t wear a gold wedding ring, but instead a big turquoise one that she insisted my dad get for her when he proposed.

  We’ve been on the road for seven days and about four hours, and so far there’s been no sign of the Cloud. Still, Dad insists on driving long into the night to put some distance behind us.

  How great would it be if it didn’t follow us?! Maybe it’ll just stay and wait on our back deck forever. We wouldn’t ever be able to go home, but at least we wouldn’t have to worry about Sam, and we wouldn’t have to go searching for the Extraordinary World, which will never amount to anything anyway. We could find somewhere else to live, sad as that would be.

  It may seem like I should have more faith in my dad, but to be honest, Millie doesn’t either, and my mom is noticeably tight-lipped about the whole thing . . . which means she probably has her doubts too. It’s not just that everyone back home thinks he’s crazy. I
t’s just hard to put your trust in someone who never really looks you in the eye and who’s more interested in the weather than the people around him.

  I also have a more immediate concern, which is that Grandma might tie us up and use our toenails for spells. That’s what the witches in Extreme Witches do, though Mom says they’re playing it up for the camera and that Millie and I shouldn’t watch junk TV.

  About an hour ago Sam climbed into my bunk wanting to be told the story of the night he was born. I’ve been telling it to him ever since he could talk, and he loves to hear it whenever he’s feeling afraid or worried (or, in this case, homesick). I let him snuggle in next to me and began the way I always do.

  “The night you were born, Dad called from the hospital to say you were a boy, and . . .”

  “You cried your eyes out,” Sam put in, rubbing his eyes sleepily and then nestling his chin against my shoulder. His breath smelled like goldfish crackers, and I could tell he hadn’t brushed his teeth even though it was his bedtime.

  “I cried my eyes out because I wanted a little sister to torment just like Millie torments me.” I took a breath, then went on, feeling Sam’s little heartbeat against my shoulder. “When Mom and Dad got home, I refused to hold you. But then Dad tricked me and slipped you into my arms, saying . . .”

  “Can you hold these potato chips!” Sam shouted.

  “Shhh. Yeah, he said, ‘Can you hold these potato chips?’ and then put you in my arms. And when I looked at you . . . and you looked at me . . . I felt . . .”

  This is the part I can never describe quite right, and it’s the only part of the story that ever changes. I tried to remember that exact feeling of looking into Sam’s eyes, so new to the world.

  “I think I felt so happy that it made me scared, too. Like that I might drop you or lose you, and never recover.”

  Sam seemed satisfied. He squeezed me tight around my middle.