“She’s a nit,” Clover said, unseen but not unheard.
“Who said that?” Winter asked, confused.
Clover materialized and smiled. Winter stepped back just a bit, her green eyes wide.
“It’s okay,” Leven said. “It’s just Clover.”
Clover leaped from Leven’s head onto Winter’s shoulder, smiling. “You don’t know this, but I think I might know you,” he said happily. Winter smiled back. “If so, you were taller before,” he added.
“Really?” Winter said, tentatively touching Clover on the back of his head. She slowly began to pet him as if he were a cat. Her smile made it obvious just how delighted she was.
“Sure,” Clover purred, his eyes closing slightly. “But we can reminisce later. I think the time has come for us to go,” he said, suddenly serious and shrugging Winter’s hand off of him.
Leven looked at Winter. Something was finally happening in his life. He felt different than he had felt only moments before. It was time for him to step away from his past and walk into his future.
“I just need to get a few things from my house before we go,” Leven replied.
“Well, hurry,” Clover insisted. “I’ve been waiting years for this to begin.”
“I can’t wait till I know what we’re even talking about,” Winter laughed.
“Me, too,” Leven said seriously, looking at Clover.
“I’d tell you if I could,” Clover smiled. “But I was told specifically not to be the one to break the news.”
“So tell Winter, and she can tell me,” Leven tried.
“I would still be telling Winter.” Clover disappeared.
“So, you could—” Leven was stopped by the school gym teacher, Coach Tally. He had been out having lunch when he spotted Leven and Winter running off. A lover of the hunt, he had hidden behind the shoe store and jumped out, and he was now holding Leven by the ear.
“Where are we off to, Thumps?” he asked, his crew cut bristling in the sun. “You should be on campus.” Coach Tally was heavy, kept his hair cropped short, and had a perpetually red face. His breath always smelled of garlic.
“Nowhere,” Leven said in pain, his ear being stretched to its limit.
“Nowhere’s the other direction,” Coach Tally yanked.
Winter was just about to turn the belligerent man to ice when Clover came up with an idea. He materialized, sprang from Leven’s head, and like lightning hurled himself into the face of Coach Tally, cramming himself into his open mouth. Coach Tally let go of Leven, gagging and choking as Clover began to slip down his throat. He threw his hands to his neck and tried to squeeze Clover out. His eyes bulged, and his face was the color of fire. As Clover meshed into his body, becoming one with the coach, Tally emitted a loud belch and looked desperate and confused. Clover twisted the big body and stood up straight. The coach stared, bug-eyed, at Winter and Leven. They in turn stared back, not knowing what to make of him or what had just happened.
“Now where was I?” Coach Tally said, sounding like himself but with the inflections of Clover. “Oh, yes, Foo.”
Under the influence of Clover, Coach Tally pulled a piece of chalk out of his pocket. The coach kept it there to draw circles on pavement, in which he made students stand until they, as he said, “developed character.” Coach Clover began to draw on the outside wall of the shoe store.
Leven and Winter were dumbfounded.
“Listen closely because I am only going to say this once and even then I am going to deny having said it.” Coach Clover looked around as if to make sure nobody was near. “There is a space between the possible and the impossible—a very real place called Foo.” He drew a big circle. “It is a place your mind enjoys keeping from you, yet it is as real as a thick patch of goose bumps or as any strong nagging notion. It exists within the minds of everyone, because without it there would be no room to dream or hope. It was created at the beginning of time so mankind could aspire and imagine. It is an entire realm hidden in the folds of your mind.”
Coach Clover was talking with great excitement. Spit was flinging everywhere. He again looked around to make sure no one could overhear what he was saying.
“As real as Foo is, however, it is not easy for someone to get there,” he went on. “You can’t plan a trip and call your travel agent. Most people who enter Foo do so by accident.”
Leven looked around as if confused.
“Pay attention,” Coach Clover insisted, tipping a bit. He was having a hard time balancing such a big body. “Now, someone interested in things other than themselves might have, at one point in their lives, noticed that all sidewalks and street corners and roads are not the same. Some are wide, some are narrow. Some are made of concrete while some are brick or stone. The world is covered with thin, dirt lanes and wide, expansive stretches of asphalt, all of them designed to lead someone somewhere and most of them connecting and crossing evenly, straight, and just as they were planned. There are, however, roads and lanes that are not quite so uniform—street corners and crossings that don’t match up as they should. Whether they were designed poorly or constructed by people too lazy to do a perfect job, it doesn’t make a difference.”
Leven and Winter looked down at the ground they were standing on. It looked all right.
“If you stand between two connecting lanes that don’t match up quite right, while the temperature is divisible by seven, and the universe sees fit to fire off a couple of shooting stars, you will get quite a surprise—quite a surprise indeed.” Coach Clover spat. It wasn’t an impressive spit. The saliva just barely cleared his lips, then sort of drizzled down onto Coach Tally’s chin. The big body began to sway back and forth. “The mind will snatch you up instantly and take you to Foo.” From the way Coach Clover was teetering, it was obvious that Clover was having a hard time managing such a heavy body. He leaned up against the shoe store to keep his balance.
“How does—” Leven tried to ask.
“Save all questions to the end. Take Gladys Welch, for example.” Coach Clover used his chalk to draw a stick figure of a woman on the side of the building. “She was an innocent woman who was simply walking her child on a hot August night when she unknowingly stepped upon the very spot where East Willow Road and Juniper Way haphazardly meet. Who knew that twenty years earlier, when John Packer and Timmy Lance were pouring that sidewalk, that they were unknowingly creating an entrance to Foo? John was in a hurry to meet up with his girlfriend, and Timmy wanted the day to end so he could play a little pool before going home. They had rushed through the job, ignoring the plans and doing a halfway job. Their sloppiness resulted in a less-than-perfect street corner and a potential portal to Foo.
“It wasn’t Gladys’s fault she stopped to calm her fussy child right there on that particular corner. Likewise, it could be argued that she was simply going about her business when she looked up at the dark sky and spotted a shooting star streaking across the black, like chalk across a newly inked blackboard. Before she could make a wish, however, she was gone, swept into Foo.”
Leven and Winter remained silent and amazed.
“Nobody ever saw Gladys Welch again. The papers went on and on about how tragic it was—her disappearance, that is. A young mother taking her child for a walk just up and disappears, the helpless baby left on the corner of a public street alone and scared. Some speculated that Gladys Welch had been murdered; others assumed she had simply abandoned the child; a few suggested she had been abducted by aliens. But no one knew the truth, which is that Gladys had been taken to Foo.”
Leven and Winter stood there with open mouths.
“These are the evidences and thumbprints of a place and force nobody knows to worry over or actually even wonder about. No one knows to be careful or to step lightly, but their lack of knowledge doesn’t change the fact that all over the world there are street corners and intersections that don’t quite match up or evenly meet. And if the heavens have you in their sight, they just might take you before you
r time and send you, in interim, to a place called Foo.”
Coach Clover drew on the wall what looked to be a big raisin and a square sun, when in reality it was supposed to be a brain and a gateway.
“There is no place on earth that even begins to compare with the realm of Foo. In the beginning it was a perfect place set up so there would be room for all those who were born on earth to dream, an area the brain created to hatch the dreams and imaginations the logical, physical world would deem impossible.”
“Amazing,” Leven whispered.
Clover just couldn’t manage the big body any longer, so he decided to wrap it up.
“In conclusion, sycophants are a blessing to us all.”
Coach Tally began to quake and teeter. His body was doing the wave. A large lump rose in his throat, and he suddenly expelled through his open mouth the agitated Clover, who landed in Leven’s hands. Coach Tally crumpled into a big pile of human on the ground.
Leven and Winter stared at Clover.
“What was that all about?” Leven asked.
“Is that true?” Winter asked in awe.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Clover sniffed. “I didn’t say anything.”
“Unbelievable,” Leven whispered, his brown eyes glowing. “Foo’s a real place?”
“My lips are sealed,” Clover declared.
Coach Tally began to twitch and groan. Leven led Winter at a quick pace to Leven’s house. Addy was at work at the napkin factory, and Terry wasn’t at home. He was most likely down at the corner bar telling the waitress his troubles. Leven had planned on gathering a few things to take with him, but he soon realized he had little to gather. He threw on a thin hooded sweatshirt and shoved some extra socks into his pocket.
As he exited the house the wind was blowing fiercely, causing the huge tree in his yard to sway and violently bend. Small branches were breaking off the limbs, and it looked as if the gigantic trunk might be wrenched out of the ground. Leven gazed at the wind-whipped tree, realizing he might never see it again, and was surprised to experience a feeling of sadness.
He said good-bye to the writhing tree and empty house and he and Winter walked away. As they did so, the wind ceased.
“So you can freeze things?” Leven asked Winter as they headed toward town.
Winter nodded.
“Anything?” Leven asked.
“I think so,” she smiled.
“Well, Lev can see the future,” Clover bragged, materializing in the hood of the sweatshirt Leven was wearing. “He’s an offing.”
“You can see the future?” Winter asked, amazed.
“Sort of,” Leven answered.
“And,” Clover went on, “he can change the future.”
“Really?” Winter said as if she didn’t exactly believe it.
“I think so,” Leven said. “If the timing’s right, or if it’s necessary, I can make things turn out in a way different than they might have.”
“That’s pretty cool,” Winter smiled.
“Pretty unpredictable,” Leven smiled back. “I think I’d rather be able to freeze things whenever I wanted.”
“We all have our strengths,” Clover said, trying to sound wise.
Winter and Leven looked at him and laughed.
“So where should we go?” Winter asked. “How do we get to this Foo place?”
“I say we head downtown,” Leven answered. “Let’s find someplace to practice your freezing and my manipulations while we figure out where we’re going.”
Both Leven and Winter looked at Clover as if to prompt him to speak.
“All right, I think I can let you in on one more thing,” Clover said, looking around nervously.
Leven and Winter stared at him.
“We’re looking for a person named Geth,” he whispered. “He knows the way.”
“Geth?” Winter questioned.
“Yes,” Clover answered seriously. “He’s the only one who knows what’s next. He’ll find us.”
“That’s all you can tell us?” Leven asked. “Geth? Can’t you take over Winter and tell me more?”
“No way!” Winter gasped, covering her mouth with her hands.
“I think I’ve said enough for one day.” Clover said, then disappeared.
Leven and Winter walked at a fast pace toward town. Leven wished he had a better idea of what his future really was to be. At the moment all he sensed was a new purpose, mixed with equal amounts of panic and uncertainty.
Chapter Eleven
Taking an Ax for the Home Team
The morning was different from usual on Andorra Court. Yes, the sun rose and the night faded. Sure, the paper boy came by flinging papers. A few automatic sprinklers turned on and off, and Mrs. Pendle stuck her ratty morning head out of her front door. She looked around to see if anyone else was out, then waddled quickly out to get her paper, wearing nothing but the tattered robe her husband had begged her for years to throw away.
As usual nobody saw her.
Actually, that’s not completely true. The giant fantrum tree, which possessed the soul of Geth and stood in front of Leven’s house, saw her—just as he had seen her every morning for so many years. He had seen everything that had happened there at 1712 Andorra Court—the ends of his branches gazing at all times in hundreds of directions and places.
Geth breathed and shook his leaves as if the wind were pushing through him. He shivered again, knowing the time had finally come. He was strong enough and Leven was gone. He had tried to stop Leven from leaving, or at least get his attention, but the boy had walked off.
At first Addy and Terry had made no mention of Leven not coming home that afternoon. But eventually Terry began to complain about what a stubborn and careless child Leven was to stay away when there were chores to be done. Addy took an hour off of work to both grocery shop and circle around Leven’s school to see if he was there. Exhausted, she finally gave up the search and went home and argued with her husband about him finding a job, so she could take a break from folding.
Geth saw it all.
It was not a coincidence that in the afternoon, three quarters of Leven’s house was shaded by Geth. Fate had put the Graphs’ mobile home right where it sat, and now fate was going to take the next step. As Mrs. Pendle read her horoscope and drank her prune juice, the giant tree in her neighbor’s yard was implementing a plan.
Geth would have preferred fate to have matched him up with Leven before the boy left, but what was done was done. Fate needed a little help, and it was now up to Geth to get to Leven. Of course, it’s not easy for a tree to just walk down the street and get on its way. Trees have rules they are bound to obey simply because the earth feeds them. There are, however, ways to accomplish things when the need gets desperate, and Geth had been preparing and practicing for just such a situation.
The morning got brighter. Addy’s alarm clock rang, and she rolled over and hit the poor thing harder than was necessary. It fell from the nightstand and softly bounced on the shag carpet. Addy sat up and moaned. All that folding had given her carpal tunnel syndrome, and her wrists were hurting like crazy. She felt cheated out of a life of luxury and resented the necessity of having to work. She was sick of it. She picked up the clock and looked at the numbers. Her face was pale green from her dried mask, and her hair, as usual, was a mess.
“A woman of leisure shouldn’t have to get up before ten,” she grumped to herself, her tongue feeling thick in her dry morning mouth. “Look at him,” she added spitefully, glancing at Terry as he lay next to her, unshaven, mouth agape, snoring loudly. He had his knees pulled up to his chest and one arm hanging off the opposite side of the bed—every fifteen seconds or so his left leg would quiver.
Addy had finally had enough. “Get up!” she said, suddenly angry and whacking him on the chest with one of her sore arms. “Get up. I’m sick of it. You need to find a job.” The mask on Addy’s face cracked.
Terry grimaced and motioned for her to leave hi
m alone.
“Get up!” Addy snarled. “Now!”
“I’m tired,” Terry complained. “There’s no work out there for me.”
“Paul Brogan got a job last week. A good job with benefits,” Addy informed him. “That job could have been yours.”
“No use talking about it now,” Terry whined. “He got the job and I didn’t.”
“You weren’t looking,” Addy snapped at him. “Now get up and go look.”
“I will this afternoon,” Terry said, closing his eyes.
Addy got up and moved around the bed to the closet, making as much noise as possible. She opened the closet door and pushed the hanging items to the side.
Addy’s actions got Terry’s attention. His right eye popped open; it was sunken and red like a pitted cherry.
Addy pulled out the two brown boxes that sat on the floor of the closet.
Terry’s left eye opened; it matched the right.
Addy pulled back the carpet and lifted up the loose board that was hiding Terry’s secret drinking money. She had known it was there for years, but figured it was easier to let him have his secret than to have him constantly begging her for money.
Terry’s mouth opened. “Hey!” he hollered, jumping out of bed and grabbing for the money she had just snatched. “How’d you know? . . . that’s my money.”
“Wrong,” Addy smirked. “It’s my money. I earned it and I’ll keep it.” She stuffed the entire wad deep down the front of her nightgown.
“All right,” Terry panicked. “I’ll go look for work as soon as I can. I promise.” His eyes were opened wide and his mouth sagging. His mushy nose glowed.
“You’ll look now!” Addy screeched, the veins in her neck bulging.
“Now?” Terry repeated sadly. “But it’s early. I can’t just be expected to—”
Addy stamped her foot and glared.
“I can’t believe I’m treated this way in my own house,” Terry complained.
Addy pushed her hair back behind her square head and smiled coldly. “I’ll give you the money back as soon as you’ve found a job.”