Me, My Elf & I (23 page)

Now I’m totally lost. Every time I think I’m getting close to finding out how he feels about me, he makes some weird joke or completely changes the subject!

I realized that he’s using Bellaspeak and I think I might cry.

And now I’m smiling again. Before I manage a response, he sends me another message.

My hands shake from excitement as I type.

“Zephyr!” I hear my dad’s voice booming through the fading light. “Zephyr! Where are you?”

“I’m up here, Dad,” I yell.

“Come on down. It’s getting dark,” he yells back.

“Just a minute,” I call.

“No, now.” His voice is getting closer. “You can’t be up there all night with that thing. You’ll wear out the battery.”

“But Dad!” I say, impatient to get back to my conversation.

“Your mother is right,” he says from somewhere near my tree. “You do act like an erdler sometimes.”

“Seriously, just one minute. That’s all,” I beg.

“I’m counting to sixty,” he says, then actually begins to count out loud. “One, two, three . . . ”

I do my best to tune him out while I punch at the keys frantically.

But before I get his reponse, my dad yells, “Sixty! Come down right now or you never get the Treo again!”

“Fine,” I mutter as I sign off. “I’m coming.” Great, I think to myself as I climb down the tree, the last thing I said to Timber was “moose crap.” What kind of weird girl says “moose crap” to the guy she likes? I’m going to have to find a way to make sure he doesn’t think I’m some kind of freakola mountain mama who lives in a shack and uses corncobs to wipe my butt. “Dad,” I say when I jump down to the ground. “When can I use this again?”

He puts his hands on his hips and stares at me. It’s nearly dark beneath the trees but I can still make out the aggravation on his face. “You were just up there for nearly an hour!”

“But I’ve been away for almost a week, so an hour is barely any time at all!” I protest.

He holds his hand out for the Treo and reluctantly I give it to him. “You’ll not get it at all if you act like that,” he says. Then he shakes his head and laughs a little. “Boy oh boy, we’ve changed, haven’t we? A few months ago we never argued like this!”

I look down at the dark forest floor. “I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s just that . . . ”

“Nah,” Dad says, and slings his arm around my shoulders. “Don’t worry about it.” We start walking through the trees. “I know things have been turned upside down and inside out for you lately.” He gives me a little hug. “For me, too.”

“Are you going to leave?” I ask.

“I’m going down to Appleton overnight but no one is going with me. Not even Grove. I promised your mother. And then . . . ” Leaves crunch beneath our boots as we walk.

“What?” I ask.

“Mom started to tell you in the kitchen.”

“Tell me what?”

“Our song made the Top Twenty-five. I never thought it would, but it has and my manager might get us a live spot on VH1, a music channel that lots of people watch, so . . . ”

“Oh my God, Dad!” I squeeze his hand. Thanks to Mercedes and Ari, I finally get what this means. “That’s great! It’s amazing! You’re going to be on TV! Dad, this is huge!”

Dad smiles down at me. “Yes, it is,” he says. “It’s nice that you understand that. Nobody else here gets it.”

“Of course I get it, Dad! Why else did we go there? Auditions! Opportunities! TV, radio! All of those things we can’t do here.” Then I let go of his hand. “Wait a minute. Are you going to New York, then?”

He stops smiling. “Probably.”

“Da-a-a-a-a-d!” I whine. “Come on. You have to take me.” I pull on his arm and beg. “Please, please, please let me come! I have to get back to Brooklyn!”

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I promised your mother. And besides, she’s right. It’s good for Fawna to have you near. All of you. You should really spend some time with her, Zephyr.”

“But you’re letting Grove go to New York, aren’t you?” I say.

“Zeph, come on now. That’s different.”

“It’s not fair!” I shout.

“He’s in my band, honey.”

“What about school? What about my audition? I need to go back, too!”

“You will.”

“When?” I demand.

“I don’t know. Eventually.”

“But I can’t wait. I have to go. Soon! Now!”

“Stop this!” My dad glowers down at me in a way I’ve rarely seen. I shut up and shrink into myself like a rabbit disappearing into its hole. “Just because you’ve spent a few weeks among the erdlers is no excuse to become demanding, pushy, and selfish,” he lectures me.

I look down at my feet and mumble, “You’re the one who took me there in the first place.”

“Well then, you can damn well bet I won’t be taking you back!” my dad says, and stomps off ahead of me.

I run after him. “No, Dad! Don’t say that! It’s not fair. You found that school for me. You took me there. I made friends. Started a life. For the first time I was going to audition for something and now you want me to just forget about all of that?”

“Is this about that boy?” he asks. “In the park? The singer?”

I look down at my feet.

He stops short and turns to me. “Maybe your mother is right. Maybe it was all a mistake.”

“Why?” I ask. “Because you took me away from Alverland and I was happy?” I’ve never spoken to my dad like this before. There’s never been a reason. But now, I can’t sit back and let my mom and dad ruin my life. “I love Alverland. I always will. And I love my family more than anything else in the world, but I want more than this!” I throw my arms out wide to the forest surrounding us. “It’s not just about Timber, Dad. I’ve got something inside me and it’s bigger than this place.”

“I know,” Dad says.

“No you don’t! How can you know?” I ask angrily. “You know nothing about my life in Brooklyn!”

He reaches out and puts his hands on my shoulders. I stand up straight and tall and look him in the eyes. “You’re right. I don’t know enough about your life in Brooklyn but I do know this . . . ” He pulls me into a hug. “You’re a lot like me, Zephyr. I’ve always known that.”

“Then you should know how important this is to me,” I say.

My dad sighs and rests his chin on the top of my head. “You might not believe me, Zeph, but I do understand how you feel. It’s just that I also know how important family is and that to truly be happy, you have to find a balance. Which is hard.”

I push away from his embrace. “You’re not taking me with you, are you?”

He shakes his head. I turn away and head up the path away from him. “But it’ll be fine, honey,” he calls after me. I don’t stop. “Believe me. There will be other opportunities for you. I promise.”

His words flit away like bats chasing mosquitoes in the night sky as I walk silently into the cover of the trees. For the first time in my life, I’m so mad at my father that I don’t want to be near him.

chapter 12

MY DAD LEFT
early this morning for Appleton, alone. “Don’t you care that Dad went without you?” I ask Grove while he’s shoveling in a huge bowl full of Mom’s granola.

“Nah,” he says. “Being on the road isn’t all that great, Zeph. It’s boring. Besides, I like being back in Alverland. It’s like a mini-vacation with great food.”

I pick through the fruit bowl on the counter. “You mean a mini-vacation with nothing to do.”

“Exactly.” He drains his cup of tea.

“It’s just so boring here,” I complain as I rub a green apple against my tunic. “At least in Brooklyn . . .”

“You know, Zephyr, you’re always grousing about Alverland,” says Grove. “About how no one will try something new. About how it’s so limited and you wish you could go with Dad and me so you could perform . . .”

“Duh, I know. That’s why I like Brooklyn.”

“You’re missing the point,” he says.

“What point?” I take a big bite.

“Why don’t you do something new? Why don’t you make a change here instead of expecting everyone to cater to what you want?”

“Why don’t you shut up?” I say through a mouthful of tart apple.

“Real nice. You’ve learned so much in New York.”

“You sound like an erdler, Mr. Sarcasm,” I say.

“At least I don’t act like one. Now, if you’ll excuse me . . .” He pushes himself back from the table. “I’m going to go do nothing.”

No matter what Grove thinks, for me this whole thing stinks. To make it even worse, Dad wouldn’t leave me his Treo. So I’m stuck here disconnected from the world. Since I don’t feel like being cheered up by anyone I head for my favorite hideout—a big hollow stump that’s shaped like a frog’s mouth behind my grandparents’ place. I skirt around the edge of their house on a trail half hidden by overgrown ferns and fallen leaves. No one is in the clearing. I slip past the vegetable garden and tiptoe beyond the smokehouse to my frog stump, which is in the center of a half circle of oak and elm trees. I used to come here when I wanted to be alone, but I haven’t been here for a few years. When I try to shimmy inside the frog’s mouth, I’m too big. I have to settle for sitting on top of the stump to mope.

Not long after I plunk myself down to think endlessly about everything I’m missing—my friends, my classes, the audition, and Timber—who he’s talking to right now (hopefully not Bella) and what he’s doing right now (again, hopefully not Bella)—I hear someone coming slowly through the clearing. I drop down behind the stump and crouch so whoever’s walking this way won’t see me. The footsteps stop, though. Great. Like I want to be stuck behind a frog-shaped stump for the next hour. I peek out to see who’s ruining my perfectly good alone time. I’m surprised to see Grandma Fawna in a soft white sleeping tunic, leaning heavily on a big walking stick. Her eyes are closed and she lifts her face to the breeze coming down through the colorful fall leaves above her.

I pop out of my hiding place and take her arm. “Should you be out here?”

She opens her eyes and looks at me with a happy smile. “Zephyr, my little chipmunk. What are you doing here?”

“I should ask you the same thing. You should be in bed. Resting.” I lead her over to the stump so she can sit.

“Oh now, don’t you start. I can get up and take a little walk anytime I feel like it,” she says, but she seems relieved to be sitting again.

“You look better,” I admit. The color is back in her cheeks and her green eyes sparkle. But still, she looks tired and smaller than I remember.

“I am better,” she says simply. She rearranges herself to get comfortable, then pats a place beside her. “Sit down here and talk to me. I haven’t had a chance to catch up with you.”

I snuggle up next to my grandmother because it’s impossible to be near her without curling into her body. Somehow, no matter what’s going on in my life, being next to her turns me into a little kid who wants to hold hands and listen to fairy stories.

“Tell me about this place called Brooklyn,” she says.

“I like it,” I tell her with a sigh.

“That doesn’t sound very convincing.”

“Oh no!” I say. “I really really like it there. I’m just . . . I don’t know how to explain it. It’s so strange but since I’ve been gone, sometimes I feel two things at once. Like right now. I’m happy to be here, but I’m sad not to be there. I miss Brooklyn, but when I’m there, I miss being here.”

“Mm-hmm,” says Grandma. “A conflicted heart.”

I look up into the twisted branches of the oak trees spread above us. “Have you ever felt that way? I thought it was an erdler thing.”

“Erdlers might feel it more often than we do. We tend to be a little less complicated about matters of emotion, but still, being conflicted is part of growing up and realizing that there’s a wider world than you suspected.”

“The funny thing is . . .” I study the overlapping pattern in the leaves and try to figure out how to explain what I’m feeling. “Sometimes I’m not so sure I want to be part of that big world. It can be so mean. But when I think about never going back to my life in Brooklyn, I get really sad because I know I’m missing out.”

“That’s the dilemma, I’m afraid,” says Grandma. The sun winks in and out of the canopy overhead as I listen. “If you want to have big experiences, some of them are bound to be unpleasant. But the good ones can be great if you’re willing to take the chance.”

“That’s exactly it!” I tell her. “Like there’s an audition at school that my friends want me to do. At first I was scared and I didn’t want to try because I was afraid I’d look like an idiot. But now that I’m probably going to miss it, I wish I were there so I could do it.”

“But won’t there be other auditions?”

“This one is kind of important to me.”

“Because . . . ?”

“It’s kind of embarrassing.” Grandma looks at me kindly and waits. “The whole thing is not very nice,” I admit, but she only blinks. I take a deep breath. “There’s a girl named Bella and she always wins every audition. She acts like she’s nice, like she’s your friend, but really she’s very mean. She said some awful things about me and about my friends, who are mad at me now because of what I told her, but it’s so unfair because she tricked me and twisted my words. I don’t have any way of getting back at her except to beat her at this audition.”