“Hey, Al!” Ryan calls out. He lifts up his pan and watches the water drain through the tiny holes. Four gold nuggets remain. “See? Told ya I’m feeling lucky!”
Kenny watches me carefully as I select a pan from the pile by the shed and join them. It’s Kenny’s job to stock the shallow stream with nuggets, and as soon as I dip my pan I can tell he’s put too many in there. Normally I would say something, but my throat is a little tight. I don’t think I’ve ever heard someone talk about me behind my back before. It feels weird. We pan for about twenty more minutes, and then take a tour of all the Unusuals. By the time we get to the Sun Garden, I’m feeling like myself again. We clown around by pushing each other out of the way to see who casts the best shadow. I leave Ryan and Kenny in Alien Central while I go finish stocking the tents.
Ryan’s grandpa is a really good cook and he makes a big batch of chili for everyone for dinner. Mom and Dad keep dashing off to answer calls, or to check people in. Nine o’clock comes and goes with only Kenny and me waiting in the pavilion for our family meeting. Kenny falls asleep on one of the benches and almost rolls right off. I escort him back to the house and up to his room. On my way back down, I find Mom rummaging through papers in her filing cabinet, pencils stuck behind both ears. I point to the clock, which now reads 9:45.
Her eyes widen when she sees the time. “I’m sorry, honey,” she says, closing the metal drawer. “Tomorrow morning, I promise.”
I sit out on the front porch and look up. For a minute I’m tempted to get Ryan so we can say good night to Glenn together, but when he left dinner he said he was going to work out. I don’t want to bother him.
“Good night, Glenn,” I whisper. “Night, Eta and Peggy.” I close my eyes, picturing them, countless light-years away, laying their heads on their pillows. I wonder if they HAVE heads. And pillows.
I wonder if they’re hotties. Not that I have the slightest idea what makes someone a hottie or even if it’s a good thing to be.
Or why, according to Ryan, I’m not one.
BREE
3
I can’t even speak as my parents fill in the details of our move. Literally, all of the muscles that are supposed to move my mouth have gone slack. Unfamil-iar words are flying at me. Homeschool-in-a-box. Alien House. Unusuals. Solar Eclipse. What do these words even MEAN? I would be more than happy never to find out.
I’m on my feet now, staring up into my father’s face. “Please, please tell me you’re kidding. You’re not really taking me out of school, away from my friends and my new job and everything that matters to me, to go live somewhere where aliens have their own HOUSES? Tell me this is a joke. I’m begging you.”
“Honey, you knew this was a possibility. You just didn’t want to believe it. I know it sounds extreme, but —”
“Extreme?” I repeat. “It sounds insane!”
“I think it sounds awesome!” Melanie says, jumping up and throwing her arms around Dad.
I whirl around to face her. “You don’t mind leaving everything you’ve ever known behind?”
She shakes her head. “You guys will all be there, so what’s the big deal?”
I feel like my head is about to explode. “The big deal is that we’ll be living in the middle of nowhere! There will be NOTHING around us for miles and miles. No people. No restaurants. No stores. No movie theaters. NOTHING. Who lives like that?”
Melanie shrugs. “It sounds like an adventure.”
“That’s the spirit, honey,” Mom says.
I feel like throwing up. Literally, I may lose my breakfast bar right here and now. All my dreams are flying past me. Whoosh! There goes the one where I decide which of the A-Clique boys I want to date this summer. Whoosh! There goes the one where I get discovered at the mall and become a bigger supermodel than Kate Moss. Whoosh! There goes the one where I get voted Prom Princess in high school.
I get down on my knees and clasp my palms together. “Please, please, let me stay with Claire while you guys are gone. Mrs. Rockport loves me and they have plenty of room. I’ll come visit every school holiday. Well, Thanksgiving and Christmas, because Mrs. Rockport already invited me to Florida with them next spring break.”
“Hey, drama queen,” Dad says, crossing his arms. “We’re not leaving you a thousand miles away from us, so forget about it.”
The guy with the broad shoulders jogs by again and I suddenly feel the need to be running, too. How could they tell me we’re moving in like, a week, and I’m just supposed to be like, oh, okay, great! “I’m going to Claire’s,” I announce as I run out of the gazebo. “I’ll see you at Thanksgiving!”
“Claire lives three miles from here,” Mom yells after me.
I don’t answer. I just keep moving. After about a mile, I’m vaguely aware that they’re following me in the van (okay, I’m highly aware of it because no other car in town bangs and hisses as it goes down the road), but I pretend not to notice. I have to stop every few blocks so that I don’t pass out, but I’m determined to get there. All those step aerobics classes must have done some good because even though it hurts to breathe, at least I’m still moving. When I’m two blocks away I call Claire and tell her to leave the front door open. She asks why. Panting, I reply, “Parents . . . moving . . . campground . . . no . . . life . . . not . . . going . . . live . . . you?”
“Your parents are moving to a campground where you’d have no life so you’re not going and you want to live with me?” she asks.
And that’s why Claire is my best friend.
When I get to her front door a few minutes later, she’s waiting for me. She steps aside. I run in and collapse on the white leather couch. I’m panting worse than Claire’s dog Maizy, who’s watching me warily from across the room.
“My mother said of course you can stay with us,” Claire says, kneeling next to the couch. “You can’t move away from here—that’s crazy. What would I do without you?”
“Water,” I croak.
She hurries into the kitchen and comes back with a bottle of Evian. It’s bubbly, and it hurts a little going down. The doorbell rings and I freeze. “Don’t open it! It’s THEM.”
We huddle together on the couch as the bell rings again. Finally Mrs. Rockport comes out to answer it. Claire tries to stop her, but her mom says, “There’s no excuse for bad manners,” and swings open the door.
“Hello, Elizabeth,” I hear my mother say.
“Hello, Sandy,” Claire’s mother replies. “You look—I mean—it’s marvelous to see you.”
“You too,” Mom says. I can hear the forced cheer-fulness in her voice. “Is it okay if I come in? I really need to talk to Bree.”
“Of course,” Claire’s mom says, even though Claire is glaring at her.
I bury my face in the couch. It occurs to me too late that my makeup is probably smeared all over it.
“Bree,” Mom says, resting her hand on my back. “I know you don’t want to do this. I understand what a big sacrifice this is for you, I truly do. But I promise, this will be a wonderful experience. The three years will just fly by.”
“Three YEARS?” Claire says. “You’ll miss most of high school! How will you get into college?”
“Yeah, Mom!” I say, flipping over like a fish. “You don’t want to risk me not getting into a good college. That’s all you and Dad talk about!”
“First of all, that’s not true. And second, colleges look very favorably on homeschooling, and —”
“Homeschooling?” Claire shrieks. Across the room I hear her mom gasp too. “Bree,” Claire says firmly, “you CANNOT do homeschooling! That’s only for spelling bee champions. Not for future Prom Princesses!”
“Tell me about it!” I wail. “Mrs. Rockport, do some-thing!”
Claire’s mom steps forward and clears her throat. “Um, three years you say? That’s a bit longer than Claire had indicated.”
“Mom!” Claire cries. “Bree’s my best friend. You have to let her stay!”
Her mother
doesn’t say anything, but mine does. “Girls, I’m sorry, but we’re moving as a family. And right now we have to get home and start sorting through our things. I’m sure the two of you will keep in touch. Nothing has to change.”
Everything will change. I’ll talk to trees for company, and Claire will become best friends with Lara Rudy, who’s been trying to worm her way between us since the fourth grade. My hair will lose all its sheen by being subjected to harsh outdoor conditions. I’ll lose my sense of style and start wearing pink with red and last season’s shoes. Meanwhile, Claire will discover deep conditioning treatments and get her nose fixed and she’ll be chosen Prom Princess instead of me.
I throw my arms around her and we both burst into tears. I can see the mothers rolling their eyes at each other, which makes me cry even harder.
“I’ll spend every day until you leave with you,” Claire promises, her mascara halfway down her face. Mrs. Rockport clears her throat. “Actually, Claire, we’re leaving tomorrow for your grandmother’s seventy-fifth birthday party in Boca. Remember? We’ll be gone for a week.”
This makes us cry all over again. I cling to her, hoping it will make the chilling fear go away.
“Wait here,” Claire says, pulling away. “I want to give you something.” She runs upstairs while I shoot my mom such a look that she turns away and feigns interest in the gold silk drapes.
Claire runs back down and hands me her modeling scrapbook. I look up at her in surprise. “You’re giving me your Book? But you’ll need it.”
“I’ll start another one,” she says, sniffling and rubbing her eyes. “You’re the one who inspired me in the first place. You should have it. It will help you remember me.” She bursts into tears again and I hug her with the Book clutched tight to my chest.
“Okay, girls,” my mother says, gently prying us apart. “This isn’t going to get easier if you drag it on. You’ll still visit each other, I promise. This isn’t forever.”
I wipe my eyes and drag my hand under my nose, sniffling. I shouldn’t expect Mom to understand. Dad is, like, her only friend. How will I know who I am if I’m not Claire’s best friend and co-leader of the A-Clique? My whole life has been about being at the top of the social hierarchy. And I got there in spite of my family’s nerdosity. Now they want me to abandon that and, what, wallow in obscurity during the prime of my life?
After one last crying session complete with promises to write every day, I let Mom lead me out the door and back to the van. I don’t think I have any more tears left in me. Dad and Melanie try to be nice on the way home by offering to help me go through my stuff for the garage sale, but I ignore them. They’re too cheery and it’s making me feel worse. Mom and Dad talk excitedly about how beautiful the campsite is. Unspoiled land, a big lake with fish and frogs, babbling stream with gold nuggets. Mom says witnessing an eclipse is something people wait their whole lifetime for, but they’re rarely in the right place at the right time. I don’t understand how you can have an eclipse in one place and not in another, since there’s only one sun, but I don’t want to encourage them by asking questions about it. She babbles on about how it’s going to be so exciting to watch the eclipse with people from all over the world. Wow, staring at the sun with a bunch of strangers. For that I have to give up my job at Let’s Make Up? A lot of other kids wanted that job.
“Aren’t you not supposed to look at the sun?” I ask, hunched down in my seat. “Didn’t I learn that in kindergarten?”
“We’ll have special glasses,” Dad replies. “The lens filters out the amount of sun that hits your eye. Don’t worry.”
Right, like THAT’S my biggest worry!
When we get home I go straight to my room, lock the door, and throw myself on the bed. Staring up at the poster of Orlando Bloom on the ceiling, I wonder how I’m going to get through this. I’m not the spend-time-on-my-own kinda girl. It’s like that old saying about a tree falling in the woods. If no one hears it, does it still make a sound? If I’m so beautiful but no one sees me, am I still beautiful?
Mom knocks on my door and when I don’t answer, she says, “I’m leaving some empty boxes outside your door. Anything you think you can part with can go in them. The garage sale is on Saturday, and the rest we’ll donate. Be generous. We won’t have room for storage up there.”
“I can’t part with anything!” I yell.
“I’m sure that’s not true,” she calls back. “All your magazines are a fire hazard, and they’ll have to go.”
All my Vogues and Vanity Fairs? All my Entertainment Weeklys? “They’re only a fire hazard if someone lights them on fire!” I squeeze my eyes shut tight against the tears.
Mom ignores my very logical argument and says, “Any item of clothing you haven’t worn in two years goes in there since you’ll have outgrown them.”
I’m already the tallest girl in the eighth grade. Chances are I’m not growing much more. It took years of saving my allowance and birthday money to build up my wardrobe, and all the belts and shoes and bags and jewelry to go with them. “I better keep everything,” I argue. “You know, for Melanie.”
Silence from the other side of the door. We both know Melanie would never wear my clothes. It wouldn’t kill the kid to wear something other than old jeans and t-shirts once and a while.
After another hour of feeling hideously sorry for myself, I bring the boxes into my room. Melanie has already filled one up and placed it outside her door. I’m sure no one expects me to donate anything since they’re always saying how materialistic I am. Well I’ll prove them wrong! I pull down everything from my shelves, the trophies from summer camp that everyone wins even if you’re the worst athlete there, the dried-out arts and crafts projects, my old collection of four-leaf clovers, trophies and dusty candles and seashells and broken toys. I toss them all into the biggest box and push it into the hall without a second glance. I don’t know why I’ve kept that stuff so long anyway. None of it says anything about who I am today.
It takes two hours, but I manage to cut out all the pictures from my magazine collection that I want to keep. Clearly I’ll have plenty of time to tape them into my Book once we get to Purgatory, which is how I’ve begun to think of the campground. We learned in English class that Purgatory is the place where souls go to wait before being sent on to their final destination. That’s like me. My life is being put on hold for three whole years. It’s so unfair.
I continue tearing through my room, pulling clothes out of drawers and off hangers. Who knew I had so many shoes? But when I’m done going through all my clothes, I’m still left with not being able to part with most of it. I start to go through my CD collection and then realize all of them are loaded on my iPod. I pile them neatly in a box and slide it next to the other one outside my door. Melanie still only has the one box. Granted, she had a lot less stuff than me to begin with, but whose fault is that? Not mine.
I don’t say a word at dinner. Dad had picked up pizza, which is apparently something else that I won’t have for three years since not even Domino’s delivers to Purgatory. Melanie chatters on about how excited she is to learn how to use a telescope and to hike through the trails and it’s all I can do to keep from crying again.
The garage sale is horrible. I watch from my bedroom window as our furniture and dishes and silverware get snatched up by strangers. It’s not like it was even that nice to begin with, since Mom and Dad were never big on buying fancy things. But still, it was ours. Who knows what the furniture in our new house will look like? Supposedly the people who are there now are leaving most of it for us. I watch as the pimply guy from the local record store buys up all my CDs for one dollar each. I’m sure he’ll sell them for a hefty profit. Someone even buys my old soccer trophy from camp! What’s wrong with these people?
When the last bookshelf has been carted away, Mom and Dad count the money at our kitchen table, which is practically the only thing they didn’t sell. When all the crumpled bills are sorted into piles, they do a little da
nce around the kitchen.
“Now we can buy that new spectrometer,” Mom says gleefully.
“Not to mention pay our bills and moving costs,” Dad says, twirling her around. “We should have done this years ago!”
I don’t point out that had we done this years ago, we’d have no where to sit or put our stuff and nothing to cut our food with. Mom gets on the phone with the people who will be renting our house, and Dad goes out to the driveway to tinker with the van. He’s going to leave a few days early with all their research equipment and meet us at the closest airport, which is still four hours away from Purgatory. He asked if I wanted to drive with him, but since I’m currently not speaking to anyone, I don’t think I’d be very good company. Plus there’s no way that van isn’t going to break down on the road, and I don’t need to be a part of that.
The next few days pass in a haze. I feel like a zombie in my own life. The house is bare. All our stuff, including my clothes and Mel’s precious books, has been sent ahead. Dad is gone. Melanie is so excited to fly that she is able to talk of nothing else. Claire is still in Florida, but the rest of the A-Cliquers come to pay their last respects. Lara Rudy asks if I’m taking my pink Abercrombie t-shirt with the lace on the bottom. I had actually packed it in the one small bag Mom is letting us each bring on the plane. I figure if I give it to her, maybe she won’t try to steal Claire from me. So I dig into my bag and hand it to her. She squeals and runs into the bathroom to put it on. Lara’s only a 7.5 on her best day, so at least the shirt won’t look better on her than it did on me.
Waking up on the last day in our house is the hardest. I don’t want to get out of bed. Melanie runs in and jumps on the bed. “Get up, get up, it’s time to go!” Then she hops off and skips across the room. Honestly, the girl is more like five than eleven. I make it downstairs in time to hear my mom say into the phone, “Thank you again, but as I’ve said, it’s not going to be possible. We’re moving quite far away. Thank you for your interest in Bree.” Then she hangs up and seems surprised to see me standing there.