Every Soul a Star (13 page)

I stare at her, wide-eyed, mind racing to every horror movie advertisement I’ve ever seen. None of them end well for the heroine.

“Just kidding,” Ally says with a note of triumph in her voice.

My heart slowly returns to its normal rate. She smiles for the first time since I’ve met her. “No inmates,” she says, “I swear. But there
are
bears. And the ghost of our dead cat, Galileo. And the occasional moose. And anything that you see flying around after dark
isn’t
a bird—it’s a bat. No buffalos though, so that should make you happy.”

I’m so relieved that I won’t be chased by knife-wielding murderers that I almost don’t hear her say the words
bears
and
ghost
and
bat.
Then it registers. I stand up and almost fall backward over the bench. “No way! No way am I living out here. This is crazy!”

“Calm down,” she says, grabbing hold of my arm. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have done that. But you were trying to scare me, too.”

Reluctantly, I let her pull me back down. “Why are you so cheery all of a sudden? Cracking jokes, smiling. Are you, like, mentally unstable?”

She shakes her head. “No. At least I don’t think so. It’s just that while you were writing that last thing I realized something. We
can’t
move! Because once the word spreads that we had a potential alien signal—which happened this morning before you arrived— everyone will want to talk to my dad. He’ll be so busy traveling to conventions and being interviewed for magazine articles, that he won’t be ABLE to hold down another job. So even if our plans don’t work, we always have THAT to hold over them.”

I admire the kid’s enthusiasm, I really do. As a former cheerleader, I know what it takes to drum up enthusiasm when you’re having a bad day. But somehow I just can’t get too excited about her idea. “Um, I don’t mean to sound stupid, but how many other people are checking for these alien signals?”

Her smile sags a tiny bit. “Over five million people since the program started in 1999. From 128 countries.”

“And how many signals have turned out to be positive so far?”

Her smile fades a bit more. “Well, none.”

Neither of us says anything for a minute.

Finally I ask, “How about we focus on the plan?”

She nods, her smile now completely gone. I feel like I’m always bursting Ally’s bubble. It’s not like I ENJOY doing it. I really don’t. I’m about to tell her to forget what I said, that I’m sure her signal is “The One,” but she starts shooting out suggestions on how to put our plans into action, so I get busy writing them down. I’ve gotta hand it to her, she might not have much experience being devious, but the girl has good ideas. We’re so engrossed in our plans that when a tray crashes to the ground in the center of the pavilion we both jump. Everyone turns to look, just like in the school cafeteria. I crane my neck, but can’t see anyone.

“There’s a kid on the ground!” Ally says, jumping up. She runs toward where a crowd is forming. I swing my legs over the bench and run after her. The boy is about six years old and he’s just lying there. In fifth grade I saw a kid have a seizure in gym class, and at first I thought he was just trying to get out of climbing the rope. But the boy on the floor isn’t shaking or anything like that, just lying there with his eyelids fluttering. His parents are on either side of him, but I can’t hear what they’re saying. Before I even think, I’m kneeling down next to him, stroking the kid’s hair and telling him it will be all right.

“I’ve got it,” a voice calls out above the crowd. I turn to see a pudgy kid about my age running toward the group. “I’m so sorry,” he tells the father as he reaches into a canvas bag and hands him a first-aid kit. The father hurriedly opens the box and pulls out what looks like a magic marker. Everyone watches in silence as he leans over the boy’s leg and jabs it against his thigh. Within seconds, literally, the boy is sitting up and asking what happened. His parents give him a hug and his mother starts to cry. The pudgy kid gives me a quick glance, then picks up the kit and puts it in the bag.

“He ate a peanut-butter cookie by mistake,” the father explains to the small crowd that still remains. “He’s usually so aware of what to avoid.” He looks around, probably for the pudgy boy, but he’s gone. I start to stand up when I see my parents and Ally gaping at me. I don’t want to have to explain why I flung myself to the rough cement floor to cradle the head of some strange boy. So I do the only thing I can think of.

I stand up, dust myself off, and run.

JACK

4

The box of licorice slips out of my hands and narrowly misses landing on my foot. “What do you mean she’s
missing
?”

Stella’s son jangles the change in his pocket impatiently. “I went to her room to get her for breakfast, and she wasn’t there. Simple as that. We looked in the lobby, in the breakfast room, the game room, the bus. My wife suggested you might have seen her, or maybe made plans for breakfast?”

A few thoughts jockey for position in my head, in an order I’m not proud of. First,
there’s a game room at this motel?
Second,
I hope nothing bad happened to Stella,
and the third and craziest—
I wonder if this guy is my biological father?
I used to wonder this whenever I’d meet a middle-aged man. I’d size him up against the headless pictures to see if there was a match. I quickly push the first and third thoughts away and focus on the second. “I haven’t seen her since we got off the bus yesterday,” I tell him. “But I’ll help you look.” I hurry out the door and close it, realizing a second too late that I left my room key inside.

“Here,” the guy says, handing me a business card. “Let’s split up. Call me on your cell if you find her.”

I glance down at the card. Greg Daniels, Certified Public Accountant. “I don’t have a cell,” I tell him.

“How can you not have a cell?”

“I’m thirteen. How many important calls do you think I get?”

He sizes me up. “My son’s thirteen. His phone doesn’t stop ringing.”

I stare at him, unable to find a response to that.

“Just call me if you find her,” he says, hurrying down the walkway.

Before rushing off anywhere, I decide to think like a detective. I rack my barely-functioning-on-three-hours’ sleep brain for anything Stella might have said that could help point me in the right direction. Nothing comes. What if she got confused and wandered off into the highway and was hit by a car? Or wandered into the fields behind the motel and was eaten by a mountain lion? Maybe she got hungry, went to breakfast, and her son just didn’t see her?

I follow signs to the restaurant, a small room off the lobby. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to get some food in me that doesn’t have high fructose corn syrup as the first ingredient. The place is packed with hungry eclipse chasers, none of whom have seen Stella. David waves me over, and I don’t want to be rude so I join them. David’s son, Pete, talks a blue streak. In the time it takes me to wolf down three mini-blueberry muffins and a tall glass of orange juice (two minutes, twenty-six seconds according to the wall clock that I keep glancing at), Pete has brought up everything from the virtues of SpongeBob Squarepants to the magician he’s having at his sixth birthday party to whether or not chocolate should be considered a food group. I’m only half listening, because I’m thinking of more and more things that could befall a little old lady in a remote motel.

When Pete pauses to take a breath I explain I’m on a super-important mission and have to go. The bus is supposed to leave in only twenty minutes. Pete asks if he can come with me. I’m about to say
no, I work alone,
when his parents are, like, “Sure, go ahead. Just meet us back at the bus.” So off we go.

In the lobby we pass a poster of a small garden. Pete reaches out a little finger and pokes the poster. “Green,” he says. I remember seeing the poster when we checked in last night, but now I look closer. The poster is advertising a small garden behind the motel, donated by the local gardening club. Suddenly a tiny thread of something Stella told me comes floating back. I ask at the front desk how to get there and the guy points us down a long hall and says, “Follow the signs to the garden. It ain’t much to see.” Pete and I hurry through the mazelike halls, stopping at each intersection to read the signs. Finally I push open a heavy door and smell fresh-cut grass.

There, standing on one leg with her arms held out in perfect balance, is Stella, in a yellow sweat suit, doing Tai Chi like she does every morning before breakfast. I’m hugely relieved to see her. I let the dark thoughts dissipate from my mind as she catches sight of me and smiles.

Only fifteen minutes left till we’re supposed to be on the bus, but I can’t make myself interrupt her. Pete and I sit on a concrete bench and wait. I keep glanc-ing at my watch—an old birthday present from SD3 before he left. I still haven’t packed. Stella gracefully goes from one pose to another almost like a dance. I never would have thought she could do that at her age. I sure can’t do it at mine. “Mr. Daniels—I mean—your son, is really worried about you,” I say when she makes a little bowing gesture and finally ends her routine. “He thought you had disappeared.”

“I was right here. He just didn’t think to look.”

“Does he know you do this each morning?”

She shrugs. “He never asked.” She reaches down to pick up her huge pocketbook from the ground. I offer to take it from her and she hands it over.

“Well, he’s going to be glad you’re found.”

“I always knew where I was.”

Even though I’m not too fond of the guy, I suddenly find myself taking his side. “He was worried. Maybe you should let people know if you’re going to go off, like, from now on.”

“Yes,
Dad,
” she says with a wink.

I redden. I guess I did sound like a dad. I’ve never had anyone to look out for before.

“Who’s your friend?” she asks as the three of us head back through the maze of hallways. We only have ten minutes left now.

“I’m Pete Goldberg,” he says proudly. “I’m six. I helped find you.”

“I wasn’t lost, I simply —”

I nudge her on the arm and she sighs and says, “Yes, you did, Pete. You found me.”

We head toward Stella’s room but run into her son pacing in the lobby. He doesn’t even thank me, just starts yelling that she shouldn’t wander off like that in a strange place. Now I feel like I should stand up for
her,
but honestly the guy scares me a little. Pete backs away, and I steer him to the check-in desk so I can get an extra key to my room. I hope I don’t have to pay for it because I didn’t bring my money.

The card turns out to be free, I just have to promise to return both copies later.

I almost trip over the licorice when I step into the room. Pete drops to his knees and grabs two pieces that had fallen onto the carpet when the box fell. Before I can stop him, he sticks them in his mouth. Now I’m an eat-off-the-floor type of guy, too, but who knows what has been on this floor? “Hey, don’t you know the two-second rule?”

He shakes his head, chewing happily. I take the second piece out of his other hand. “It means you have two seconds to eat something that has touched the floor before it gets all covered in germs. This has been here for a lot longer than that.”

“But I’m allowed to eat licorice, see?” he holds out his arm and pushes up the sleeve of his Disney World sweatshirt. A bracelet dangles from his wrist. I hadn’t noticed it before. He brings it up to my face. There are symbols of a peanut and a fish, each with a red line through it. “See? No peanuts, no fish. Nothing about no licorice.”

“Okay, well, it’d be really helpful if you threw the rest in the trash so I can finish packing.”

Pete dutifully tosses the licorice one by one into the trash, missing every other time. I run around the room making sure I don’t leave anything behind. Good thing it’s a small room.

When we get down to the bus, Pete’s mom is in the front, handing her last suitcase to the bus driver to store underneath. I toss mine in after, and see for the first time that the whole middle compartment is packed full with telescopes. At least I think that’s what they are since they’re all wrapped up, some in a silver foil-type material, others in blankets or long boxes.

“He wasn’t any trouble, was he?” Pete’s mom asks, putting her arm around his shoulders.

“I helped solve a mystery!” Pete says. “And I had some licorice!”

“Did you, now?” she says, amused. “Sounds like you had a busy fifteen minutes!” She thanks me for watching him, and they join David on the bus.

“There you are,” Mr. Silver says, waving me up the stairs. He makes a little check on his clipboard and then stashes it in his briefcase. I guess I’m the last one.

“I’d like to finish our conversation from yesterday,” he says, climbing up behind me. “Why don’t you come down to talk to me once we’re underway?”

“Okay.” I’m glad he didn’t ask me to sit up front with him. When I get halfway down the aisle I’m surprised to see Stella sitting next to her son, with the daughter-in-law across the aisle. She rolls her eyes at me and says loudly, “Gotta sit here so the warden can keep an eye on me. Goodness knows what kind of trouble I might get into in the back of the bus!”

“Very funny, Mother,” Mr. Daniels says, his lips drawn tight.

I tell Stella I’ll see her at the lunch stop and keep making my way back. I get more and more tired with each passing row. After the morning’s excitement, the lack of sleep is catching up to me. I settle into the window seat, close my eyes, and the next thing I know I’m on the floor in our den at home. I’m about to reach a new level in
Super Mario Bros. 3
on my Game Boy when the lights on it start going all haywire. Instead of helping Mario to leap over a bottomless pit, every time I press a button a Madonna song starts playing. The fact that I don’t KNOW any Madonna songs, coupled with the fact that my game is malfunctioning in this crazy way, alerts me to the fact that I’m dreaming. I know I’m not really at home. I know I’m sleeping on a bus right now surrounded by cornfields and cows. But I’ve done this enough times that the realization doesn’t wake me right up, the way it used to.