She pulled away, and then hugged each one of us. My mom held on tightest and longest, unwilling to let go, and finally Millie had to unpry her arms and kissed her cheek. Dad stood beside them looking like he might disintegrate. Millie gazed at him and said, like she was reading his mind, “You’ve never failed me, Dad. Never. Don’t ever think you did.”
She hugged me last.
“There are endless possibilities,” she said. “That makes me hopeful. It really does.”
* * *
Ever since it had first shown up on our horizon, I’d always thought the Cloud was cruel: something that wanted to hurt us, waiting for the time to be right to break us apart. But that’s not what it looked like when the Cloud took Millie away.
Once she’d said her good-byes, it beckoned for her to come closer with a little tendril of white vapor, gently, like a friend. It reached toward her, and she reached back—her hand disappearing into the mist.
“You know,” she said, looking back at us, “Sam is right. It doesn’t look much like a clown. It looks like someone smiling at me.”
Tentatively she stepped farther into the Cloud, and it wrapped itself gently and softly around her shoulders. It looked like it was giving her a hug.
She turned to wave at us as the mist spread around her. She didn’t look scared anymore, but curious, like she was thinking about what came next. Her waving hand was the last thing to disappear into the white puff of air, and then the Cloud began to rise.
As it did, for some reason I can’t explain (except that I couldn’t make myself watch Millie float away), I reached a hand out to catch the falling snow. I kept looking at the snowflakes, trying to see each one individually, tiny one by tiny one. You can’t tell each snowflake is different just by looking—they all appear the same to the naked eye. But science tells us they are, and we can imagine how different they must be. We can’t see it, but we know it.
I don’t think I’ll write in here again. In fact, I’m probably giving up my writing career forever—it doesn’t seem very interesting now. So these will probably be the last words you read from me. The thing is, my hand feels too heavy, and nothing feels magic anymore.
October 31st
It’s October in Cliffden—Halloween, in fact. The leaves are falling like they do every year. From my window I can see the trick-or-treaters getting an early start—it’s not dusk yet, but already I can see a gaggle that includes a witch, a pumpkin, and a rock star running up our neighbor’s steep driveway as if their lives depended on it. I don’t even feel tempted to dress up this year. I think I’ve outgrown it for good.
Mom is making apple crisp downstairs. Mouse is out jogging. Yes, jogging. It’s his new thing. He says he’s training for the Olympics. Dad keeps telling him he’s too miniature-size for the Olympics, but Mouse doesn’t seem deterred. He’s grown two inches in the last two months. His doctor says that his medication has been effective, and that in another few months he might even be able to come off it. All signs point to Sam having a healthy life. He doesn’t even hide under furniture anymore.
I always wonder, before I think things through, what’s Millie doing. I forget sometimes that she isn’t here. One minute I’ll be missing her so terribly, and the next minute I’ll say to myself, “I wonder if Millie will let me borrow her mirror.” And then I realize my mistake and miss her worse. Having a sister is a hard habit to shake yourself out of.
Tonight, a few minutes ago, I sat down on my bed in my room and looked around. And I decided it was time to dig this diary out of the closet, where I threw it as we were unpacking the day we arrived home. I want to see if my hand isn’t so heavy anymore.
So here it goes.
I’ll tell you about the last few days of the voyage home. They were uneventful, so don’t get your hopes up.
It’s easy to feel, the longer you’re at sea and the waves rock you and the quiet stretches on, that the world is a beautiful place, and an endless one, and that you’re a small speck on the planet, and not as big as you used to think.
I’ve never felt so small as I did on the trip home, but it didn’t bother me anymore like it used to. It actually made me feel a little better. For the first time I think I began to understand what Oliver said that night at Grandma’s, about how he likes being small.
We sailed for weeks before the weather started getting warm. One day it was finally so nice out that the captain had the dining table carried onto the deck so we could eat “alfresco.” The clouds were threatening rain, but the captain was determined, and the fine linen tablecloth, and the cutlery, the shiny china plates were all laid out.
We sat eating in silence, as usual, and the captain looked disappointed that even this special treat hadn’t pulled us out of our shells. And then it got worse. The first huge drop of rain fell with a smack right in the center of the table where we could all see the wet spot it left. I felt another on my head, and another thwapped against a glass.
“It’s just a drizzle,” the captain said, though it was clear our alfresco dinner was about to end in a soggy mess. We were all silent and awkward, not wanting to hurt the man’s feelings by going in, but not wanting to stay outdoors, either.
And then it started to fall more steadily, and Dad was just about to take a sip of his iced tea, when a drop landed in it and splashed some of the tea against his glasses.
He looked up at the sky, at the dark clouds, and then he said in a hopeful voice, “Maybe a tiny drop of Millie just fell into my cup.”
There was a moment of silence, and everyone looked at Mom tensely. She was going to say it was a horribly inappropriate thing to say—I was sure of it.
She seemed to be thinking for a minute, about to cry, when instead she let out a deep breath and turned her face up to the sky. She opened up her arms and the rain fell harder, and soon we all had our faces up to the sky. The captain laughed, turning his face up too, not getting the joke, or what it meant to us.
That was when I knew that even though we’d never get over Millie, we’d still be us. We’d still be a family. She was still with us.
Dad said one night, before we landed in New York, that it’s very possible, according to the laws of physics, that things happen endlessly, over and over again even if we don’t know it. I wonder if I like that idea. It would mean losing Millie all over again, and the Cloud chasing us across the earth—all the fear and uncertainty happening over and over again. But then it would also mean fighting with Millie over her hairbrush and laughing with her, and the night she kissed Virgil, and our time together in the Winnebago as a family being endless too.
I’m not even sure it matters what physics says. In this time and place, there are Clouds and monsters, and in this time and place, we don’t have Millie anymore. That’s what we’ve been given, and we can only do our best with what we’ve got.
Still, life is full of surprises. I saw something on the news the other day—just a tiny two-minute segment buried between a story on a local policeman and an interview with the mayor of New York. An obscure circus in New Mexico, by the name of Big Tex’s, was faced with an unusual problem on Tuesday when all of its animals—every single one, including the pygmy unicorn, somehow escaped from their locked pens. Big Tex is offering a big reward to anyone who knows their whereabouts, because apparently not one of the animals has been found. It’s as if someone loaded them into a truck and drove them away to freer pastures.
Oliver has been on vacation in Georgia with his new foster parents, who happen to be hippies, and who only live in the next neighborhood over from us. (My mom wanted to adopt him in the worst way and tried to convince him. But he said it would be weird to be related to us, instead of just our really good friend. And I have to agree with him.)
Anyway, it’s suspicious, of course, and I’ll have to see what he says about it all when he gets back. But it makes me think. . . . Maybe in the case of Big Tex’s zoo, Oliver just wasn’t willing to accept the world we’ve been given. Maybe he was trying to turn it in
to what he wants it to be, instead.
* * *
Anyway, back to our journey. The rest of the voyage is probably easy to guess. Soon New York was looming out at us through a fog. And soon we were on a bus home.
The last miles leading into Cliffden were some of the most exciting of my life. Every turn, every tree, every corner became more and more familiar. It might have been the best day of my life if Millie had been there too, but of course without her, it couldn’t be. Still, it was a dream coming true, and I strained for the first glimpse of our house on the hill, and when I saw it up there perched like a familiar old face, I thought I might explode.
But to be honest, coming home wasn’t what I expected at all.
Here is what I didn’t expect. The stairs seemed to have grown smaller. The yard was just a little square of grass, and the valley below didn’t seem as deep as it used to. The house itself looked like a doll’s house. Everything felt like it had shrunk.
It took me a moment to realize that it wasn’t the house that was different, but me.
* * *
I’m running out of ink and will have to go find a pen. I’m not sure how much more I’m going to write. Arin Roland is coming over later, believe it or not. She still gets on my nerves, but I think we’re both getting a little nicer.
What’s changed the most, maybe, is that ever since we’ve been back, I’ve been spending more time with my dad. He doesn’t spend nearly as many hours upstairs with his telescope like he used to, or writing calculations in his notebook. He pays more attention to real things now: the trees, the house, my mom, and me and Sam. Sometimes he even sits beside me near my church stone and watches the town and the sky with me—just enjoying the view. Sometimes we lie on our backs and look up at the sky and daydream. The other day he quoted to me from a book he’s been reading recently: “ ‘Not only is the universe stranger than we think. It’s stranger than we can think.’ ” And that makes me look at things this way: We don’t know where Millie went, and we don’t know if we’ll see her again, but there’s no reason not to hope. We just don’t know the answers, and maybe that’s a nice thing. Strangely enough, it’s made me pay more attention to science, even the weather. All of it seems to mean more than I used to think it did. I guess Dad and I have rubbed off on each other. I think we both feel that the world is messy and getting messier, but that it’s still our world, and we love being in it.
* * *
Okay, last thing. I’ve finally decided on the epigraph I’m going to put at the front of my first diary. It’s from Hamlet, which Mom made us all read on our trip. I think it’s fitting.
Who knows. Maybe out there someone somewhere will read this, maybe even in some other world; maybe someone’s reading it right now. Anything is possible, I think. So if you’re reading this in some other place: Hello. I was here. I spent time on this planet. And it was extraordinary.
And I love and miss Millie. Now that’s really all.
For real.
Forever.
Bye.
Acknowledgments
Without my editor, Liesa Abrams, whose passion and patience for this project has been beyond measure, this story wouldn’t exist. I’m very thankful to my agent, Rosemary Stimola, and deeply indebted to “Ukulele” Ben Katsuo Johnson for teaching me everything I know about clouds and lovable scientists. Many thanks go to Adam Smith for his keen eye.
Finally, this book wouldn’t be what it is without the feedback, generosity, and unwavering support of my husband, Mark, who makes all of my days extraordinary.
JODI LYNN ANDERSON is the bestselling author of several critically acclaimed books for young people, including Tiger Lily and the May Bird trilogy. She lives with her husband and son in Asheville, North Carolina, a city that appears to have been founded by elves.
Aladdin
Simon & Schuster, New York
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ALSO BY
Jodi Lynn Anderson
May Bird, Book 1:
The Ever After
May Bird, Book 2:
Among the Stars
May Bird, Book 3:
Warrior Princess
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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Aladdin hardcover edition November 2015
Text copyright © 2015 by Jodi Lynn Anderson
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Anderson, Jodi Lynn.
My diary from the edge of the world / by Jodi Lynn Anderson.
pages cm
Summary: Spirited, restless Gracie Lockwood, twelve, of Cliffden, Maine, living in a world where sasquatches, dragons, giants, and mermaids are common, keeps a diary of her family’s journey in a used Winnebago as they seek The Extraordinary World in hopes of keeping her little brother, Sam, safe against all odds.
ISBN 978-1-4424-8387-3 (hc)
[1. Family life—Fiction. 2. Automobile travel—Fiction. 3. Animals, Mythical—Fiction. 4. Supernatural—Fiction. 5. Death—Fiction. 6. Diaries—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.A53675My 2015
[Fic]—dc23
2014039910
ISBN 978-1-4424-8389-7 (eBook)
Jodi Lynn Anderson, My Diary from the Edge of the World
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