Читать книгу Olivia Brophie and the Pearl of Tagelus - Christopher Tozier - Страница 7

There aren’t many ways of saying it and the whole thing seems overly complicated, but put as simply as possible, Olivia Brophie’s father did not want her around anymore.

This really should not have been a big surprise under the circumstances. In fact, her whole life started spinning out of control three weeks ago on her tenth birthday. A plain brown package arrived with no card, no return address, and strangely enough, no stamps. It was addressed simply to “Miss Olivia Brofee.” No one ever called her “Miss” and clearly the sender didn’t know her well enough to spell her name correctly.

“A secret admirer,” Dad quipped, his eyes sparkling.

“No way,” Olivia shot back. But the thought of it fired her cheeks so hotly she considered not even opening the box. Perhaps she should have just tossed it with the junk mail into the garbage. It was probably another dish detergent sample anyway. Even as she decided that was exactly what she should do, her thin fingernail worked its way inside the brown paper seam and ran along its edges to the corners.

As she opened the meticulously taped box, the smell of bananas and smoke exploded through her nose like a swarm of yellowjackets. Olivia stumbled backwards for a second before looking into the box. Inside sat a single red barrette. It looked old. Very old. Tiny gems encrusted its delicate surface in the pattern of miniature flowers and a single bumblebee. As soon as her fingers picked it up, Olivia swore she saw a pink spark zip above her head and out the screen door. Her little brother Gnat was standing next to her — his own hands twitching as she opened the present — and he didn’t say a single peep so, at the time, she figured the banana smoke made her see stars.

“Who sent me this?” Olivia wondered aloud. “It’s . . . it’s beautiful.” As she turned the barrette in her hand, the sparkling bumblebee flew from one flower to another.

“My little one . . . all grown up . . . soon to be married,” Dad wailed, rubbing pretend tears from his cheeks.

Gnat chuckled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.

Olivia slipped the barrette into her brown hair and turned sideways in the mirror to see it glowing up there like a hazel berry. That should have been the end of it. Life should have returned to normal.

But disturbing things started happening. For one, deer started sleeping in the yard. When Olivia walked outside, the deer nervously pawed the ground, but they didn’t run away. One even followed her from the front yard to the back. When Dad or Gnat went outside, they all leapt over the fence and clattered down the neighborhood streets.

Because the deer ate all of their hedges, Dad became very interested in making aluminum pie pan scarecrows. He even bought all of the wind chimes from the hardware store and hung them from the trees, hoping the wind would blow.

Someone also started leaving corn muffins in their mailbox.

“Don’t you dare touch or bite into any of those muffins,” Dad ordered Gnat, who already had a muffin halfway to his mouth. He called the police, but they said “no crime had transpired.”

Olivia started dreaming horrible dreams: dead frogs dropping from the trees, little eyeless dolls made of cactus spines, faces in her window, long fingers scratching words into the glass like “acu pira,” “hurry up,” and “I await you.” That sort of thing. She soon learned that keeping the barrette in her hair while she slept would keep the nightmares away.

When she woke up the first morning of summer break three weeks later and shuffled downstairs for breakfast, she knew right away that something else was wrong. Something changed. Something worse than nervous deer and nightmares. Dad didn’t pour himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t pop his head through her door to wake her by saying “Time to get up, Butterfly.” He didn’t even walk out to the end of the driveway for the morning paper. He just stood in front of the kitchen window, looking out at the enormous cottonwood tree in the backyard. The leaves twitched with every slight breeze. Fawns stretched in the dappled light. It would have been a perfect morning if her life wasn’t about to be ruined.

He tried to make it sound like a summer vacation, but no one packs all of their clothes and toys for a vacation, do they? Besides, he wouldn’t look her in the eyes when he told her, “I did my best. I just need this.” He didn’t look like her father at all when he said it. His eyes were blanks, his mouth, even his skin looked different. He looked like a stranger.

“But why? I don’t want to go. I can stay at Katie’s,” Olivia begged, giving her best gimmie-face that always worked on Dad. Only this time she wasn’t faking it.

“I’m sorry, but you have to understand. I will come get you as soon as I can,” he said.

“Can’t we call Mom? In an emergency?”

“You know we can’t do that,” Dad snapped.

Mom was overseas in Iraq fighting in the war. The 147th Aviation Battalion. Mom had served in Iraq almost half of Olivia’s life, most of what she could remember. Olivia had a cloth patch stitched with a red and tan hawk holding an arrow. The patch meant she was an honorary member of The 147th.

They were only allowed to talk on the phone the first of each month. Today was May 5th. They talked just a few short days ago and Mom had said nothing about anyone getting kicked out of the house. Olivia wished hard that it was the first of June so she could put an end to this craziness, but that seemed like years away now.

She listened to her father calling Aunt and Uncle Milligan from around the hallway corner. He covered his voice as he talked into the phone.

“Please come as soon as you can. The kids are excited. No . . . they don’t know . . . Yes. We are still in the same place.”

“Who said you get to decide?” Olivia screamed before Dad hung up the phone. “We’ve never even met them. They are probably freaks.”

“That’s enough,” Dad sighed.

She stormed upstairs.

Gnat sprawled upside down in bed wearing his headphones and playing a video game. He happily believed Dad about their “surprise” vacation. Olivia certainly wasn’t going to tell him the truth. He was only six years old. He was short, annoying, and almost always had candy in his mouth. His brown hair sat loosely high above his huge forehead. Gnat played video games constantly. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it was something like “Level Three!” or “Mega-blaster!” causing the adults around him to simply shake their heads and stare dumbly at him. Occasionally, he stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs with the most incredibly loud, whining sound — and for no apparent reason.

A few days later, Olivia was peeling the crust off a bologna and ketchup sandwich when she heard a crash outside. She ran to the front door. A long, turquoise car pulled into the driveway. It looked forty years old. The tires smoked, and something definitely burned under the hood. Olivia read some faded lettering that had been removed from its side years ago. It said, “Milligan’s Exotic Citrus.” The back of the car was jammed to the roof with tools, pillows, and clothes. Deer scattered in all directions.

A tall man with a graying beard jumped out of the driver’s seat and yelled like he was mad about something. Out of the passenger door emerged a bright red woman. Various cups, napkins, pens, coins, magazines, maps, sunglasses, and what looked to Olivia like a brass trumpet fell out onto the driveway. That old car was so stuffed with junk that it exploded out of every door and window. Olivia heard the red woman screaming, “I told you! I told you!” Olivia ran to her room and slammed the door.

When she saw them next, they had obviously resolved their fight. Aunt in particular had a very kind, round face. She had the same curly brown hair as Olivia. And the same brown eyes. But she had freckles. Lots of freckles. She leaned over Olivia. “Are you ready to move . . . I mean visit Florida, Olivia? I’m your aunt!” she said with a gravelly voice.

Olivia turned over in her bed. “I’m not going anywhere in that piece of junk.”

“Come on. We’ll have fun.”

Olivia didn’t respond.

“We can go to the beach whenever you want. And Disney World is just a short drive away. Don’t you looove Florida?”

“Ugh,” Olivia grunted.

Uncle came inside to get her bags. Olivia snuck a peek. He looked like a ferret on hind legs. The top of his ungroomed head almost scraped against the ceiling. His tiny eyes darted around the room. His gaunt cheeks were wrinkled by something other than time. Maybe too much sun. Or too much worrying. He picked up almost all of her bags in one armful.

“We’ll give you a few minutes,” he said, signaling Aunt with his head to leave.

“You can give me a few years for all I care.”

Uncle frowned.

Olivia suddenly missed her house very badly. Her closet was empty. Her drawers were open. Everything seemed quiet and hollow. She had never even been over the border to Minnesota or Illinois, much less Florida. Someone tapped softly on her door.

“Hey, Butterfly. I just want to say goodbye.”

“You never even told me why.” Her voice was almost too weak to say anything.

“I can’t explain it now. It’s complicated. Adult stuff. Just go with your aunt and take care of Nathan. I’ll call you in a few days.”

“I don’t even like them. They’re weird. I think Aunt smokes,” she said, knowing that Dad didn’t want her anywhere near a smoker.

“She quit smoking years ago. They aren’t so bad. They’re funny. You’ll have a great time,” he said, leaning over to hug Olivia. He said it in a way that really meant “No argument.” She buried her nose into his shirt. She never liked the sour smell of the pine sawdust he always had in his clothes from working the pulping yards, but she didn’t mind it so much this time. He didn’t hug her as hard as he usually did. His hands dropped faster than normal.

“Dad. Dad, don’t make us go. Please,” she said with tears running down her cheeks, “give Mom our phone number.” But he was already walking out the door.

“I love you,” she whispered.

Olivia couldn’t figure out how, but Uncle crammed all of their stuff into the car and still had enough room for them to sit. Barely enough room. She squeezed herself into the back seat next to a finch cage filled with socks. On the floor, she shoved a miniature vacuum cleaner to the side with her feet. Olivia was convinced that the first time they turned left or hit the brakes, the entire wall of junk would bury her forever.

Dad didn’t watch them leave. He didn’t wave. He stood out back by the cottonwood tree.

And that was the last time Olivia saw Sun Prairie, Wisconsin.

Olivia stared out the window. Gnat sat next to her making faces at the other cars in between levels on his video game. Lips smacking on a caramel, his fingers jumped around methodically over the game’s buttons for hours. She could hear the laser sounds blasting through his headphones. “He’s going to be deaf before he turns six. And toothless,” she thought.

Uncle tried to tell funny stories. He kept looking in the mirror to see if she was smiling. Aunt kept asking her if she was comfortable.

“Do you need anything? Can we get you something?” Over and over and over.

Olivia wanted to scream “NO already!” She wanted to scream loudly, like an adult, so they would take her seriously. But she didn’t move a muscle. She simply stared out the window. She pressed her forehead into the glass. After one hour, her forehead hurt. After two hours, she couldn’t feel a thing.

Olivia didn’t want anyone to know she could hear them, or see what they see, or think any of this was acceptable. Once, she even held back a sneeze until she felt her head would explode. The thought of someone saying “Bless you!” or “Gesundheit!” if she actually had sneezed made her sick to her stomach. She watched the landscape pass by as they drove south, pressing her forehead harder and harder into the glass.

There were prisons in Illinois with names like “SuperMax” and “Ten Towers.” They passed a dinosaur made from tractor parts, some mountains, and a waterfall. In Kentucky, she heard that there were a lot of horses; there were billboards that said so, but she didn’t see a single one, not even a pony. One town in Georgia had a giant peach standing high on top of a pedestal. She thought there mustn’t be a single place in that flat town that couldn’t look up at any time of day and see that peach up in the sky.

At some point along the way, Olivia was not quite sure where, all of the pancakes turned to waffles. All of the apples turned to pecans. The Holsteins in the fields turned to Brahmans. The lilacs vanished. The birds grew larger than any bird she had ever seen and they stalked the roadside ditches for frogs.

They stopped at a gas station that looked like an old nineteenth-century plantation, at least on the outside. Behind the two-story columns was an enormous store containing every variety of jam known to mankind. Gnat ambled through the candy aisle filling a little paper bag with exotic sour balls and novelty chocolates. He beamed with excitement. They sold candy by the pound!

Olivia walked to the rear of the store, past the preserved alligator heads and rubber tomahawks. She was eating a fresh praline that she bought with her own money and it was pretty good. Suddenly, two men hustled her through a back door behind the plantation. One man covered her mouth so hard she thought she wouldn’t be able to breathe. Olivia kicked and squirmed. She slipped out of their hands but before she could take a step, they grabbed her again. Their eyes darkened like pieces of coal. As hard as she struggled, they didn’t even budge. The man behind her grabbed a fistful of her hair and pulled her head back. Tears streamed down her face. She was too scared to scream anymore. The second man leaned closer. He stunk of hair grease and old popcorn. He grabbed her by the chin and forced her head first to one side then the other.

“There must be some mistake,” he scowled. “She doesn’t have the mark.”

“There is no mistake,” the shorter man said. “Let me see.” They traded places, only this time the greasy-haired man didn’t grab her hair.

“Maybe you are right,” the short man said perplexed, straightening up. “How can that be?”

Olivia saw her chance. With all of her strength, she stomped her heel on top of the greasy man’s foot. With a yowl, he released her and she darted through the door back into the store. She heard the door click safely shut behind her as the men tried to force their way in.

“Oh! There you are, sugar,” Aunt announced from halfway across the store. “Are you ready to get going again?”

Olivia wiped the tears from her cheeks. She had been crying for the last day and a half anyway, so no one really noticed these tears fell for a different reason. She knew she should have those men arrested, but she was so confused about everything right now.

She nodded her head and sped for the car. She saw the two men get into their white minivan and drive off. The short one stared at her with his black eyes.

“We are almost in Florida,” Uncle announced, cramming Gnat into the back seat and quickly shutting the door to keep him from falling out. “It will be nice to be home again.”

Back on the interstate, Olivia watched the wind pulling last year’s cotton up from the fields. It floated like snow against the windshield. Uncle called it “orphan’s cotton.” Aunt punched him when he said it.

And then, finally, she saw the great and glassy sea. Olivia had never seen the sea before. Or palm trees. The closest she had come was on Palm Sunday when stern Pastor Kwashanski handed everyone a piece of palm frond to wave in the air when he gave the command after the Invocation. Although it seemed an odd thing to do in church, Olivia thought she would like a place like Florida where the palms waved in the air all year long.

Olivia’s eyes grew big. She saw something silver jump just beyond where the waves were turning white.

“It’s beautiful isn’t it?” Aunt whispered over the seat. Olivia turned away so she couldn’t even see Aunt out of the corners of her eyes.

Uncle pulled the old blue car over and yelled, “Everyone take off your shoes!” and the next thing Olivia knew he was running down the dunes toward the water. A trail of junk followed him. He left the keys in the car and the door open. There was a great commotion as Aunt pulled off her sandals and ran after him squealing. Gnat waddled along behind with his headphones still on and the cord dragging on the sand.

“This is stupid,” Olivia said loudly in the empty car. She looked down the highway for the white minivan. Nothing. It felt good to be alone after being cooped up with these oddballs for so long. She took off her shoes and walked toward the beach. The sand burned her feet. Gnat was kneeling on the sand and sticking his fingers down a crab hole. Aunt and Uncle splashed each other in the waves. Olivia walked to a quieter spot down the beach and let the water wash over her burning heels. She watched each sparkling wave rise up clear as glass then foaming white as it crashed down.

A ship chugged away on the horizon getting smaller and smaller. Maybe it was sailing to Bombay or Jakarta or Timbuktu or Iraq. Olivia thought about what might be on the ship. Probably cabbages or blue jeans. Maybe the ship carried spies to the war. She thought something on the ship might find its way over the enormous ocean to her mom.

Olivia looked down at her feet and saw a pale, pink shell the size of her fingernail rising up out of the sand. Its fleshy arm stretched and flexed to hold itself upright. Then another shell rose up. And another! Shells were rising out of the sand everywhere. Thousands, each a different color. Striped and spotted. Tangerine, violet, and rose. Pink, indigo, and chocolate. Olivia smiled. There were so many shells she couldn’t even see the sand beneath them. She could feel them tickling up under her feet. Funny-looking shrimp washed up in the waves and sat down in the sand around her. They were all staring up at her as if she, Olivia Brophie, were something inexplicably wonderful that they had never seen before. Their tiny black eyes never blinked.

“Oh my,” Aunt exclaimed from up the beach. Olivia spun around. Hundreds of white crabs lined up on the sand. Even worse, birds of every shape and size stood on the beach, all staring at her silently. While she had watched the ship, the birds had quietly landed behind her back: pelicans, skimmers, oystercatchers, laughing gulls, turnstones, terns, ringbills, sandpipers, plovers, sanderlings, willets, gannets, grackles. But to her, they were all nameless birds. They all just stood there, staring with their yellow and black eyes. Their beaks snapped at the wind. Feathers ruffled. Olivia didn’t move a muscle. She suddenly didn’t like the beach very much. She couldn’t breathe.

“AAaaaYiiiiiiiiiii!” Gnat screamed like a very loud fire alarm and stood up with a large crab hanging from one of his fingers. All of the birds took off with a great cackling and cawing. The white crabs scurried to their holes. The shrimp rode the next wave out to sea. The shells — all of those purple, pink, and blue shells — disappeared beneath the brown sand.

Olivia ran to Aunt, “What is going on?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never . . .” She frowned at the birds circling overhead. “Come on. Let’s go home.” Aunt put her arm around Olivia as they walked back up the hot sand.

“Florida is very strange,” Olivia thought. She didn’t realize that this was going to be the least strange day she would have for a long, long time.