Читать книгу Memories of You - Margot Dalton - Страница 8

CAMILLA FINALLY LEFT her cats and her apartment, feeling a little comforted but still worried and tense. She locked the door, hurried down the hall and entered the elevator. Three other people stood inside the little enclosure, a couple of graduate assistants and a young janitor with a mop and pail. Camilla greeted him with a smile.

The elevator doors opened as they reached the lobby. Camilla walked down a shady path to one of the buildings in the English department, then made her way through a maze of corridors to a suite of cramped, book-filled offices where she shared a secretary with three other professors.

“Hi, Camilla.” The secretary looked up from her computer keyboard with a bright smile. “Did you have a nice summer?”

“Very nice, Joyce.” Camilla took a bundle of files from one of the compartments. “How about you?”

Joyce shrugged. “I’m glad to be back at work. My kids were really driving me crazy.”

“Didn’t you manage to get away for that vacation in Banff? I remember how much you were all looking forward to it.”

“Oh, that was fun, all right, but it only lasted two weeks. The kids always get so bored by the end of August.”

“How old are they now?” Camilla paused, then shook her head. “My goodness, Jamie must be ten already. I can hardly believe it.”

“He sure is. And Susan’s eight. Little monsters,” Joyce said darkly, but her smile was fond.

Camilla tried to imagine what it would be like to spend a whole summer with children that age.

Most of her experience with younger children involved the primary-school study group at the university. This class was made up of about fifteen gifted children aged six to ten years. The children came from all the western provinces to receive an accelerated education. They were also tested and observed by some of the senior professors who were doing research into intelligence.

“So, did you go home for the summer?” Joyce was asking.

“No,” Camilla said after a brief hesitation. “I had a couple of papers to get ready for publication, so I stayed here and worked.”

“What a pity. It must be beautiful in New England at this time of year,” the secretary said wistfully.

“New England?” Camilla asked.

“Barry says your people have a summer home out there, near the Kennedy compound.”

Camilla shifted the stack of books to her other arm, putting the files on top. “Well, I haven’t been to New England in a long time,” she said.

“Okay.” Joyce gave her a conspiratorial wink. “Whatever you say.”

Camilla hesitated for a moment, wondering what to say, then nodded and let herself into her little office. She dumped the books and files onto her desk, troubled by the secretary’s words.

These rumors about Camilla’s family had started circulating around campus a few years ago, and grew more outlandish all the time. By now, her half-hearted denials only served to make people more convinced that she came from a lavishly privileged, aristocratic background and chose for some reason to keep her private life a secret.

Although Camilla was sometimes dismayed by the exaggerated stories, she was grateful that they served to keep her colleagues a little intimidated. People seldom invited her to functions like staff parties and backyard barbecues, assuming that she wouldn’t want to attend. As a result, she wasn’t forced to get close to people, or form any relationships that required an uncomfortable level of disclosure about her personal life.

She was almost always lonely, but she was safe at home with her plants and books, her cats and her research work. And safety was more important to Camilla Pritchard than anything else.

Much more important…

She crossed the room and stood for a moment looking out the window at the throngs of students, wondering what her colleagues would think if they ever discovered the truth.

But, of course, none of these people could possibly learn the truth about Camilla Pritchard. As long as she kept everybody at arm’s length, there was no danger.

She pushed aside the fears, sat down at her desk and began to work.

A knock sounded at the door. “Come in,” she called.

The door opened and Gwen Klassen appeared, looking brisk and cheerful. She was one of the professors who shared their suite of offices and taught the class of gifted primary children in their bright, toy-filled study center down the hall.

“Hi, Camilla,” she said, coming into the room. “I need to borrow a couple of your books on cognitive processes. Are you all ready for the new term?”

Camilla moved some papers so her colleague could sit on the corner of the desk. “Actually, I’m even less ready than usual.”

“You?” Gwen asked. “Go on. You’re so superorganized, I thought you always prepared about three years ahead,” she said as she perched on the desk, swinging her feet in their white running shoes.

Gwen was about fifty, with a slim figure, a shock of gray hair and a manner so sunny and engaging that even Camilla’s shyness and reserve tended to melt under its warmth. A born teacher, Gwen Klassen treated her scholarly colleagues exactly the way she did her little students, with a humorous, gentle indulgence that endeared her to everybody.

Camilla examined the file on her desk, containing class lists and an outline of her teaching schedule for the fall term. “I mean, I’m not emotionally prepared. I feel less ready every term,” she said in a rare display of her personal feelings. “I love teaching, but I keep thinking maybe I’m missing something. Like there should be…I don’t know.” She moved books around restlessly on her desk, trying to smile. “Maybe I’m just getting old.”

Gwen looked down at her with surprise and sympathy. “It sounds more like you’re getting burned out, honey. Why don’t you consider applying for a sabbatical? You know they’d give it to you in a minute, because there’s nobody on staff who deserves it more. You could spend a whole year doing research and writing, and come back feeling like a brand-new woman.”

“I don’t know what I’d do with myself if I took a sabbatical,” Camilla said. “A year off from teaching would be too long. I just need…some kind of change, I guess.”

“Like what?”

Camilla shrugged and leafed through some papers, embarrassed at having revealed so much of herself.

“Why don’t you come over to my place on Friday night?” Gwen said casually. “Dan and I are having a few people over. Barry and his wife, and Gail and Joe from the administration office, and one of the new professors who’s a whiz on the electric guitar. It should be a good time.”

“I don’t think so, thanks.” Camilla smiled regretfully at the other woman. “It sounds like fun, but I have…I have a prior commitment.”

To Camilla’s relief, Gwen didn’t ask about the commitment. Instead, she changed the subject with her usual tact.

“Did you go away at all?”

“Not really. I pretty much stayed home and looked after my cats, and did a lot of writing.”

“That’s not what Barry’s been telling people,” Gwen said with a brief grin.

Camilla sighed.

Barry Bellamy was another of their office-mates. He taught modern drama. He was a terrible gossip, and seemed fascinated by all the myths about Camilla’s background. In some perverse way, he enjoyed retelling and embroidering these far-fetched stories, as if contact with such an imposing personage somehow gave him additional status.

Camilla found it all embarrassing, but she didn’t know how to stop the man from gossiping and meddling in her life without revealing the dreadful truth about herself.

“Barry’s too much,” she said. “I don’t know where he comes up with all the stories he keeps telling people.”

Gwen gave her a keen, thoughtful glance. “So, have you looked over your class lists?” she asked after a moment.

“Briefly. The freshman class is pretty huge, but at least my senior-level creative-writing courses still look to be a decent size. I guess the full impact of the budget cuts hasn’t reached us yet.”

Gwen smiled happily. “Well, I’ve got a nice little group this year. You’ll love them, Camilla. Your first session with my kids is scheduled for tomorrow afternoon, isn’t it?”

Camilla checked her calendar. “That’s right,” she said. “Two o’clock. I’m planning to do a study with some of them on the relationship between symbol recognition and the early development of reading skills. I’ve been collecting the research materials all summer.”

“We’ve got the cutest pair of twins this year,” Gwen said. “Seven years old, named Aaron and Amelia. Just darlings, both of them.”

“Twins?” Camilla said with interest. “I don’t believe we’ve ever had twins before.”

“I know. Even though they’re fraternal twins, a boy and a girl, they look almost identical. Wait till you see them, Camilla. They’ve got the sweetest smiles, and IQ’s so high we haven’t even been able to measure them properly. But they’re both quite reserved. I’m having a hard time getting close to them.”

“Where did they come from?”

“Out in western Saskatchewan. They were living on their family’s cattle ranch, attending first grade at an elementary school so far away they had to spend almost two hours on the bus every day.”

“Are they boarding at the university?” Camilla asked.

Gwen shook her head. “Their father bought a property on the edge of the city. He’s divorced—I’m not sure where the mother lives. But he moved out here with them so they could attend the study group.”

“What about the ranch? Did he have to sell it?”

“Apparently, money is no problem for this guy. He turned over the ranch to a foreman and flies his own plane back to Saskatchewan every weekend to oversee the ranching operation.”

“All this,” Camilla asked, “just to get his kids into an accelerated program for a few years?”

“Not entirely. He also has a couple of other children who’ll benefit from the better schooling opportunities in the city. In fact, one of them’s a freshman here on campus. And guess what?”

“What?” Camilla asked.

“The man… Jonathan Campbell, that’s his name…he’s actually taking a full load of courses himself. He says it’s a good way to fill his time since he has to spend the winter in the city, and—” Gwen stopped midsentence. “Camilla,” she said in alarm. “You’re as white as a sheet. Is something wrong?”

Camilla began to gather books and papers. “No, I’m fine. This man,” she said with forced casualness, “the twins’ father…how old is he?”

“Oh, probably about forty, I’d guess. Quite a handsome fellow in a rugged, Clint Eastwood kind of way. Apparently, he had a couple of years of college when he was young but never finished his degree, so now he’s decided to go back to school along with his kids.”

Camilla got to her feet and lifted the pile of books. “Well, I’m looking forward to meeting these brilliant little twins of yours,” she said. “Help yourself to whatever books you need, Gwen. I’ll see you later this afternoon, okay?”

She hurried out of the office and down the hall, trying to calm herself as she walked.

After all, she wasn’t in any danger, Camilla reminded herself. Now that she was a fully tenured professor, her academic position here and her life were both utterly secure.

Being granted tenure had been, for many years, the most important concern in her life. She’d passionately wanted the security of that position.

Once she managed to acquire tenure, she was guaranteed a future that nobody could ever take away, no matter what happened.

She’d achieved this coveted status almost three years ago, and had hoped that, for the first time in her life, maybe she’d begin to feel safe.

But it hadn’t worked that way. The fears remained, stirred by feelings of anxiety whenever people began to speculate about her personal background.

And now that Jonathan Campbell had inexplicably popped up once more in the middle of her life, she was more afraid than ever.

THE SUN WAS still hanging above the mountains when Jon finally bought the last of his textbooks, checked some materials out of the library and left the campus. He drove through the city of Calgary and headed west toward his new property, a sprawling acreage in the foothills of the Rockies.

He parked the car in the garage, walked past the aluminum hangar where his six-seater airplane was kept and strolled toward the house, which seemed unnaturally quiet in the early-autumn afternoon.

He glanced at his watch and realized it was almost time for supper. The kids liked to eat early, leaving plenty of time for their various activities in the evening. In fact, they might already be waiting for him. Margaret always had them wait for their father if there was any chance he might be home in time for dinner.

Jon quickened his steps, still looking at the big house. It was a modern split-level made of pale field-stone, with a brown-tiled roof and banks of high, sharply angled windows.

A lot different from the comfortable old clapboard mansion at the ranch, with its shady veranda and white picket fences.

Again he reminded himself that this move was necessary. Besides, it was only temporary. In a few years when the twins were older the bus ride wouldn’t be so hard on them. Then they’d all be able to go back to the ranch full-time.

He walked up a path at the side of the house and let himself inside, pausing to wash his hands and hang up his hat and jacket. Then he entered the kitchen where a storm was brewing.

“You little animal,” Vanessa shouted, gripping the telephone receiver in one hand as she glared across the room at her seven-year-old brother. “You absolute beast. Ari, give me that before I kill you!”

Aaron smiled up at her with maddening calm. He stood in the doorway holding a book in his hands. Amelia hovered just behind him, eyeing their sister with a cautious, frightened expression.

The twins were beautiful children with curly dark hair clipped short around their heads, and slim, straight bodies. Amelia had green eyes while Ari’s were gray, and she was a little smaller than her brother. Apart from these slight differences, they were very similar in appearance.

During their early years, the twins had hardly spoken to anyone but each other, and they still inhabited a private world that few adults were allowed to enter. Ari was usually the instigator, impulsive and creative. Amelia acted as his partner and support, always ready to help him carry out his schemes.

While Vanessa watched in speechless outrage, Ari opened the book and pretended to read from it. “I just love Jason Weatherly,” he said in a loud, exaggerated voice. “When he smiles at me across the room in math class, I go all—”

Vanessa screamed, dropped the receiver and lunged at her little brother.

Ari dodged away from her and ran around the kitchen, still reading. “I go all shivery inside, and then I feel…”

The teenager continued to scream. Steven, Jon’s elder son, watched idly from the adjoining family room where he lounged on a couch, watching television. None of the children seemed to be aware of Jon’s arrival on the scene.

Vanessa tripped on the kitchen tiles and fell sprawling to her knees. She crouched on the floor, glaring furiously, long dark hair falling messily around her face.

When Jon strode into the middle of the room, an abrupt silence fell. He crossed the kitchen, lifted the telephone and said, “Vanessa will call you back.”

Then he hung up and turned to face his children.

“Where’s Margaret?”

Nobody answered. The only sounds were Vanessa’s heavy breathing and the roar of gunfire on the television.

Jon looked from one young face to another. “Where’s Margaret?” he repeated.

“In the garden,” Steven said at last. “She went out to pick some tomatoes for the salad.”

“I see.” Jon turned to his younger son, who stood near the archway leading to the family room. “What’s that book, Ari?”

“Van’s diary,” Ari said reluctantly.

“What are you doing with your sister’s diary?” Jon asked. “You know better than to go into somebody else’s bedroom.”

“It wasn’t in her room,” Ari said.

Amy stood close behind him, lending support with her presence. She nodded earnestly.

“Where was it?” Jon asked.

“Under the couch.” Ari gestured toward Steven in the family room. “She left it right over there in plain sight. We found it when Margaret made us clean up our Lego.”

“You horrible little monsters,” Vanessa muttered, getting to her feet. “Do something, Daddy,” she added bitterly. “You always let them get away with everything.”

Jon looked at his elder daughter with a familiar mixture of sympathy and exasperation. At sixteen, Vanessa was a beautiful girl, and bright enough that she was already in her final year of high school. But her looks and personality were so similar to her mother’s that he often worried about her.

Jon and Shelley Campbell had suffered through a dozen years of a stormy, unhappy marriage, complicated by the fact that they shared almost nothing in the way of tastes, dreams or attitudes. In fact, they shared nothing at all except their children, and Shelley’s interest in her offspring had always been so limited that even this tie was tenuous at best.

Jon had met her when he she was nineteen and he was twenty-two. It had been immediately after the most distressing experience of his life, a painful time that he still remembered with frustrated sorrow.

Lonely and desolate, Jon had been an easy target. He’d mistaken Shelley’s sexuality for warmth, her frenetic gaiety for intelligence, her possessiveness for loyalty. By the time he discovered his mistake, it was too late. She was pregnant with Steven, and both Jon and Shelley came from families where getting married was the only possible course of action.

After Steven’s birth, Jon couldn’t bring himself to leave, for fear of losing his child, though the marriage was increasingly miserable. By the time Vanessa was born, less than two years later, Shelley had interests of her own and was seldom home.

The twins had been the unexpected result of a final attempt at a reconciliation. Shelley was appalled when she discovered her third pregnancy. She demanded an abortion.

Jon had talked her into carrying the twins to term, but it was the last straw for their marriage. Soon after the birth, angry and bitter, claiming that the kids were all he’d ever cared about, Shelley dumped all four children with him and left for good.

At the moment she was living in Switzerland, using her lavish divorce settlement to support the young ski instructor who was her current lover. She barely managed a couple of trips a year back to the States to see her brood of growing children, and when she did fly in for visits, all of them were invariably hurt and disappointed by her flippant, erratic manner.

Still, she was a beautiful woman, Jon thought ruefully. Even at forty, Shelley looked a lot like her older daughter, with the same violet-blue eyes, delicate complexion and slim figure. But Vanessa at least had an excuse for her selfish behaviour, since she was caught in the miserable throes of adolescence. Jon had hopes that his daughter might yet develop into a mature and caring person. Shelley, on the other hand, simply refused to grow up.

Jon turned from Vanessa to look at Ari. “Just because Van left her diary out here doesn’t give you the right to read it,” he said. “Everybody’s entitled to privacy and respect for their belongings, Ari. Give me the book.”

Ari moved forward silently and handed the diary to his father.

Behind him, Amy’s green eyes filled with tears. Jon knew his children well enough to understand a little of what was going on with the twins.

They’d never known the security of a mother who loved and cared about them. Over the years Jon had tried hard to make up for their loss, but he knew they were as hurt and confused as the older children by their mother’s carelessness. As a result, they tended to cling fiercely to familiar and comforting things.

Now they’d been uprooted from the isolated ranch home they both loved. Their security was further disrupted by this move to a strange new environment, a different kind of school and a modern, unwelcoming house.

Their loneliness and homesickness tore at Jon’s heart. He knelt on the kitchen floor and took Amy’s little body in his arms, reaching for her brother. “Come here, Ari,” he said.

Ari hesitated, then pressed against him.

“Tell Van you’re sorry,” Jon whispered. “Tell her you’ll never do it again.”

Ari gulped, swallowed hard and turned to Vanessa. “We’re sorry,” he mumbled.

“We won’t touch any of your stuff ever again,” Amy added.

“Daddy, for God’s sake,” Vanessa began furiously. “Don’t let them get away with this! You should make them…”

But Jon was holding the twins again, cuddling them tenderly. “How would you both like to come with me to the ranch this weekend?” he murmured against their dark curls.

Ari’s gray eyes shone. “Really, Daddy?” he whispered huskily.

“Really. But you have to be super-good between now and then.” Jon kissed Amy’s cheek and wiped her tears. “Now run and wash your face, sweetheart,” he said gently. “Let’s eat our supper.”

While the twins ran out of the kitchen, he got up and seated himself at a big oak table that was neatly set for seven.

When the twins came back, all four children joined him silently. A side door opened, and Margaret came in from the garden, carrying a basket of ripe tomatoes.

The housekeeper was a big, friendly young woman with a mop of red hair and plump freckled arms. She had a boyfriend who worked on the oil rigs north of Edmonton, and who came home infrequently to visit his sweetheart. This erratic courtship seemed to suit both of them well enough, much to Jon’s relief. Margaret was the only housekeeper he’d ever found who was able to deal patiently and lovingly with all the children, and he dreaded the thought of losing her.

She greeted Jon with a smile and carried the tomatoes to the sink.

“What’s all this?” she asked when she saw Amy’s reddened cheeks.

“They’ve been reading my diary,” Vanessa said sullenly. “But Daddy refuses to punish them, as usual. Little monsters,” she muttered, glowering at Amy, whose eyes began to glisten with tears again.

“Poor little chicks.” Margaret ruffled Amy’s dark curls. “That’s all right, love. You know, Ari, you shouldn’t have touched that book,” she said, turning to the other twin. “Did you apologize to your sister? Poor Vanessa, she has to put with an awful lot from the pair of you. Steven Campbell, don’t you dare start eating till your daddy has a chance to dish up the food.”

The tension left the room with her cheerful arrival and evenhanded approach. All the children watched as Margaret served bowls of salad and sliced tomatoes along with a macaroni casserole.

Jon sat at the head of the table, looking around at the young faces that were so dear to him.

The twins had obviously been comforted by their promised trip to the ranch. Even Vanessa appeared somewhat mollified. Only Steven was quiet, his handsome face looking bored.

Steven resembled his father more than any of the other children, but nowadays he lacked any trace of Jon’s casual air or easy smile.

Jon felt increasingly troubled about the boy.

When Steve was a child, they’d had a warm, open relationship. Father and son had spent long hours together on their windswept prairie ranch as they fished, rode horses and tramped through the coulees. These days, though, Steve was slipping further away from the entire family, wrapped up in some mysterious world that Jon could no longer enter.

“How are your classes, Steve?” he asked.

The boy shrugged. “Okay, I guess.”

Jon glanced at his elder son again, but didn’t press. Instead, he turned and addressed the twins. “Tom called me last night. He says the calves are just about ready to sell.”

“What else did he say?” Ari asked.

Tom Beatch was the foreman at the ranch, a grizzled old cowboy who was a great favorite with the twins.

Jon told the children the news from Tom and the other cowboys, including the latest in Tom’s sporadic courtship of Caroline, who ran a lunch counter in a Saskatchewan border town.

“Those two will never get together,” Margaret said placidly from the sink. “Tom Beatch doesn’t want to get married any more than my Eddie does.”

“When’s Eddie coming back?” Jon asked the housekeeper.

“Next month,” Margaret said, beaming. “He’ll be home for a whole week at least, then off north to look for work again.”

Jon looked at the twins, whose animation at the mention of Tom seemed to have disappeared. They were picking at their food, looking disconsolate. Apparently, their homesickness was as deep as ever. He sighed and cut up a tomato, searching for something else to say.

“Tom’s getting real worried about me,” he told the children finally. “He wonders what I’m going to do with myself for a whole winter here in the city.”

Steven gazed out the window at the trees bordering the front driveway, clearly lost in his own thoughts. The twins exchanged an unhappy glance and continued to move bits of macaroni around on their plates while Margaret watched them.

Only Vanessa, who seemed to have recovered from her sulks, was interested in what her father was saying. “I know what I’d do,” she told him. “I’d spend the whole day shopping. I’d buy every single thing I ever wanted, and spend all day trying clothes on.”

Jon watched her pretty face, wondering whether her preoccupation with material things was just a teenage phase—something she would outgrow. “Well, Van, I know what I’m going to do, too,” he said calmly. “I’ve got it all planned. In fact, I started today.”

“What’s that, Mr. C.?” Margaret got up and began to load the dishwasher.

“I’m going back to school.” Jon helped himself to more casserole while the others watched in astonishment. “I had my first two classes today.”

Vanessa’s jaw dropped. “Back to school?” she said at last. “Like, to college, you mean?”

Jon smiled at his elder daughter. “Don’t look so amazed,” he said. “I took two years of college when I was young, then had to quit before I graduated. I thought this would be a good opportunity for me to finish my degree.”

Vanessa gripped her fork and continued to stare at her father, aghast. “You’re going to university?“ she asked. “On the same campus with Steven? The same place I’ll be going next year?”

“The very same,” Jon told her solemnly.

She dropped her fork, speechless with horror. Privately, Jon was a little amused by her reaction, but took care not to show it. In fact, he often tried deliberately to ruffle Vanessa’s feathers to keep her from getting as self-absorbed as her mother.

But this time, judging from her look of whitelipped shock, it seemed Jon might have pushed his daughter too far.

“It’s a big campus, Van,” he told her gently. “Thousands and thousands of students. Nobody’s going to notice me.”

“But what if you’re in one of my classes next year?” she wailed. “God, I’d just die.”

Steven’s lip twisted. “Oh, shut up, Van,” he muttered. “Why do you always have to be such an idiot?”

Jon frowned at him and turned back to Vanessa. “I won’t be in any of your classes, You’ll be a freshman. I’ll be taking fourth-year courses next term.”

“But having my father on the same campus…” Her face twisted with distress. “This is the worst thing that’s ever happened to me,” she said tragically. “The totally, absolute worst.” She pushed her chair back, got up and ran from the room.

There was a brief silence in the kitchen.

“She’ll get over it, Mr. C.,” Margaret said comfortably. “She gets upset about a dozen times a day, and every time it’s the very worst thing that’s ever happened to her.”

Jon looked at the doorway where his daughter had vanished. “I’ll talk to her later,” he said. “She won’t be so upset once she realizes that our paths are never likely to cross on that big campus.”

Steven’s brief spurt of animation had vanished. He ate macaroni in gloomy silence.

“How about you, son?” Jon asked. “Will it bother you, having me on campus?”

Steven shrugged. “Why should I care?”

“You don’t seem to care about much of anything these days,” Jon said, trying to keep his voice casual. “What’s the matter, son?”

Steven looked at him with a brief flash of emotion, and Jon held his breath, hoping the boy was about to say something meaningful. But the moment passed and they all returned to their meal, eating in silence while Margaret continued to load the dishwasher.

A COUPLE OF HOURS LATER, on a hill near the house, Ari lay on his stomach in the slanted rays of evening sunlight. He drummed his feet on the ground as he chewed a spear of grass.

“Churks,” he muttered. “Fizzlespit.”

Amy looked at her brother with tense sympathy. These words were part of their private language, seldom used and shockingly profane. The fact that Ari was saying them now showed how sad and lonely he was.

“We get to fly to the ranch this weekend,” she said, watching a dark green beetle as it lumbered through the tangle of grass. “Daddy promised. It’ll be fun to see Tom and ride our ponies, won’t it?”

But Ari wasn’t ready to be comforted. “I wish Daddy would get married.” He plucked another blade of grass. “We need a mother.”

Amy turned to him in confusion. “We already have a mother.”

“I mean, we need one who lives in our house. If Daddy got married, we’d all move back to the ranch and live together and be like a family.”

“Do you think so?” she asked wistfully.

“If Daddy was married, he wouldn’t worry so much what school we went to. When Mummy was home, Daddy and Van and Steve all lived on the ranch together. I hate being in this place.”

“It’s not so bad here,” Amy said loyally. “Daddy wants us to go to school without having to ride so far on the bus, and Mrs. Klassen is really nice. I like the aquarium at school,” she added. “And the model of the hydrogen molecule. Don’t you?”

Ari scowled. “I want to go back to the ranch. We need to find a lady for Daddy to marry.”

“Maybe he could marry Margaret.”

“You’re so dumb,” Ari said. “Daddy could never marry Margaret.”

“Why not? She’s nice to us all the time, and she cooks and cleans and everything.”

“I don’t know,” he admitted after a few moments of deep concentration. “But it can’t be Margaret. It needs to be somebody different”

“Like who?”

“I don’t know,” Ari repeated. “But I’ll think of somebody.”

The twins lay quietly for a while. Then, like birds or fish moving in response to an invisible signal, they got up at the same moment and began to run, swooping down the grassy hill with their arms spread wide and their legs flying.

They ran until they were exhausted, then climbed another hill, heading for one of their favorite places on the new farm. It was the oldest building on the property, a big stone barn nestled at the foot of the hill and surrounded by trees.

The previous owner had used the barn to house a couple of vintage automobiles, and several improvements had been added to protect the valuable cars. All the windows were stoutly boarded, and a metal overheard door that was operated from outside by pressing a button had been installed. The control button was inside a panel that could be secured with a padlock.

Although the lock had been removed along with the contents of the barn, the control button remained functional. Ari loved to press it and watch the big door slowly open and close, sliding as if by magic.

When Vanessa reported on the existence of the automatic door, Margaret had immediately forbade the twins to play anywhere near the barn because they might get locked inside, a suggestion that made Ari scoff privately in derision.

“How could we get locked inside?” he asked Amy when they were alone. “You have to be outside to push the button. Margaret doesn’t know anything.”

So they ignored the housekeeper’s order and continued to frequent the barn. Amy was a little anxious about their disobedience, but her loyalty to Ari always outweighed her caution.

Now she followed him down the hill and crept along behind him as he edged toward the old building. The door was open which meant that somebody was inside.

Ari glanced over his shoulder and nodded. Amy understood at once, following him to the base of one of the trees beside the barn. The twins climbed silently into the middle branches, then moved out of the tree onto the shingled roof and crept up toward the row of air vents.

These vents were about two feet square and situated near the peak of the roof. Each twin stopped at the edge of an open vent. They clung to the rough shingles and slithered forward until they could peer down into the shadowy depths of the barn.

Steven’s yellow sports car was parked in the shadows, and Steven himself sat with three other boys on some baled hay as they passed a skinny cigarette back and forth.

The twins exchanged a wide-eyed, startled glance, then edged forward for a better look.

They’d never seen these boys, who must have slipped onto the property through a back road. They were a tough-looking group, hard-faced and scary, not at all like the happy neighboring kids who used to be Steven’s friends on the ranch.

The twins watched the four boys for a moment, then withdrew from the vents and looked at each other in alarm.

They slid back down the roof, melted into the tree branches and considered their next move.

“We should tell Daddy,” Amy said in a hushed voice. “Let’s bring him over here. They’re not supposed to be smoking.”

Ari shook his head.

“Why not?” Amy whispered. “The hay might catch on fire. Then the barn would be wrecked.”

“It can’t burn,” Ari muttered. “It’s made of stones.”

“But we should—”

He waved a hand to silence her. She settled more comfortably on the branch and swung her foot, liking the feeling of being up in the sky, hidden like a bird among the rustling green leaves.

But she didn’t like the boys who were down in the barn with Steven. They looked mean and threatening, like bad dogs who might bite you for no reason.

“We could push the button and close the door,” Ari said at last. “If we do, they can’t get out. They’ll be trapped.”

Amy shivered. “No, Ari. It’s so dark and scary in there.”

“Serves them right,” Ari said. “They’re bad, and Steve shouldn’t be with them. Dad would be mad if he knew what they were doing.”

“But it’s really mean to lock them inside the barn. You know it is.”

He avoided her eyes, looking down at a long scratch on his ankle.

“Besides,” Amy went on, “if we close the door and trap them, Daddy will lock up the button so we can’t open the door by ourselves anymore. He was going to do it last week but he forgot. Let’s just go away and leave them alone.”

Ari was on the point of climbing down from the tree. He scowled and hesitated.

Amy pressed her advantage. “It’s so much fun to play in there, Ari. If Daddy locks the barn, we won’t be able to get inside.”

“We could get a rope and swing down from the air vents like mountain climbers.”

Amy thought about the peak of the barn, almost as tall as the tree they were sitting in. “It’s too high. Besides, how would we get back up?”

“We could climb the rope,” he argued, but Amy could tell that he was weakening.

With relief, she turned and began to climb down the tree, slipping rapidly through the leaves and branches until she dropped to her feet on the hillside.

Ari joined her, and they ran back up the hill toward the flaring colors of the sunset, their small bodies lost in the vastness of the prairie sky.