Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (22 page)

“Oh,” I say, even more sarcastic. “Okay, great, perfect, that’s helpful, I’ll get right on that. Hello, I’m a bird, I need to eat, fly, poop, sleep.”

I know I sound really dumb, and also rude, but hey, I’m kind of dehydrated. I wait for Roo and Kyle to respond to my little outburst, but they don’t say a word. They just keep pressing on, deeper into the jungle. And, blushing a bit, I follow.

Once in a while one of them looks back sharply when I snap a
twig or stumble over a log, but other than that, they pretty much ignore me. For some reason none of us has brought up the fact that they’d be way better off without me tagging along behind. But I guess they don’t want to be mean, and there’s sure as heck no way I’d ever be able to find my way back to the Selva Lodge alone.

So I try to forget about Dad and LTVTs and all the things I’m worried about and instead just think about the jungle, the amazing colors of it, the hundreds of shades of green as you look deep into it. Also I think about Kyle, a few yards ahead of me, holding his transparent bird net out in front of him. Kyle and Roo keep their necks craned upward, and whenever a bird darts overhead they freeze and stare. I try to catch a glimpse too, but can I just say this is
so
hard? I mean, the bird is here and gone in less than half a second!

“Was it an
it
?” Roo mouths to Kyle, or he mouths to her, and every time the answer is NO. No, no, no, no.

So this is it, the search for the Lava-Throated Volcano trogon? Three kids wandering around the jungle in the general area where it might possibly be possible to spot the last living members of a species about to go extinct? Three kids playing make-believe? I’d laugh at us if I didn’t want to cry with hopelessness.

Still, we keep on keeping on, same old same old, Roo and Kyle doing their thing while I bumble along behind. Finally, sometime in the middle of the day, after I’ve been starving for a long time but have bravely not complained, Kyle stops and pulls some food out of his backpack: black-corn tortillas, pineapple chunks, strangely shaped nuts that make me sad for a second because these are probably the unusual jungle nuts Dad wrote us about in one of his early, normal letters back in January.

“
¿Comida de tu abuela?
” Roo asks.

“
Claro,
” Kyle says.

The witch’s food is the most satisfying food in the world. Even though there isn’t a lot, after eating it I feel very full and very strong. It’s actually kind of eerie how much that little bit of food does for me. My senses are more alert, my ears perked to the screeches and hoots and howls and trills of the jungle. Now that I’m truly listening, the jungle seems to overflow with the noise of demon creatures. But I’m with Roo and Kyle, and Roo and Kyle are with me, so I try to stay calm.

By late afternoon, though, Kyle is in one of his don’t-you-dare-talk-to-me moods and Roo looks like she wants to kick somebody. Even though I was right all along about this being impossible, it’s not as though I’m enjoying my rightness. The jungle keeps getting darker and darker, La Lluvia’s warning sign. Kyle says something to Roo in Spanish and she turns around and starts leading us back downhill, back toward the Selva Lodge. So even Roo and Kyle are finally giving up after this stupid exhausting useless march. I can feel Kyle storming along behind me. I wonder if he’s thinking that my hair looks nice and dark and shiny, or that it looks dull and dark and dirty, even though I pretty much know he’s not thinking about my hair at all. I glance back at him, hoping that maybe he’ll be looking at me, but he’s staring at the high branches of the trees, his eyebrows wrinkled with Big Thoughts, and somehow I bet his Big Thoughts are also very dark thoughts, and a fresh layer of worry spreads over all the worry I’ve already got.

As usual, everything is normal back at the Selva Lodge, parents standing up from lawn chairs and wiping sweat off their foreheads and yelling at their wrestling, squealing kids to get out of the pool because the rain is going to start any second now and besides, it’s
siesta time. I’m surprised all over again to see people actually vacationing.

The concrete courtyard quickly empties of tourists, and Kyle and Roo head straight for the kitchen of the Selva Café, so I follow.

“
Tengo sed
,” Roo mumbles as she staggers in the door.

“
Yo también,
” Kyle says.

It’s a little lonely being the only one who doesn’t know what
sed
means. And I feel extra lonely when we discover that the witch isn’t in the kitchen, which is like something out of an impossible nightmare, because she’s
always
in the kitchen at this time of day. And it strikes me that I’m not so very scared of Señora V anymore. When I call her a witch I’m doing it out of habit, or even as a compliment. I mean, yes, I still think she’s powerful, I still bet she’s capable of doing some scary things, but I’m just not that scared of her. And I really wish she were here right now.

Roo and Kyle and I plunk down into the red plastic chairs at the metal table and just sit there staring blankly and not talking. Kyle puts his elbows on the table and his face in his hands. My head feels fuzzy and heavy, and I bet theirs do too. Tired and mad and sad and tired. Hot, thirsty, hopeless. We’ve become so limp, so
lame
, and I realize that this must be us giving up for good. The gala is tomorrow and we’ve got nothing, nothing, nothing.

I stare out the kitchen window and notice that the volcano is steaming and smoking even more than usual.

“Can we get
outta
here?” Roo says to me, her voice rising with frustration. “If she’s not around I’d rather just take a nap or something.”

“Sure.” I leap on Roo’s suggestion. I want to get out too. I never thought I’d feel this way, but I’m finding that the kitchen seems absolutely horrible without the witch, dull and doomed.

Kyle doesn’t pay attention to us, his face still buried in his hands. Roo and I stand up to leave, but the
exact
second we reach the door, La Lluvia comes crashing down.

And when we turn around, who should be there but the witch in her beautiful black lace veil, pouring something hot and red into three mugs on the metal table. I swear, it’s like she appeared out of
nowhere
!

Kyle heaves a huge relieved sigh as he gazes up at his grandmother. It only takes me an instant to get up the courage to flop down into the chair right beside his, my ankle thumping against his ankle and then staying there, touching. I guess that’s the kind of friends we are. The kind of friends who let their ankles touch under the table while La Lluvia does its thing outside. I have to bite down on the grin that pops onto my lips.

The witch pushes one of the mugs toward me. Frankly, the liquid in the mug looks more like blood than anything else. But here’s the strange thing, which hits me right then as I stare at that steaming, poisonous-looking liquid: Now I’m excited, not scared, to drink the witch’s drinks.

I take a sip. And much to my surprise, it tastes like honey and chocolate, two of my favorite flavors.

“Ooo!” Roo gasps. “Vanilla! And pink Skittles!” Vanilla and pink Skittles—two of Roo’s favorites. But it’s most definitely
not
vanilla and pink Skittles. It’s honey and chocolate!

“No,” Kyle corrects, “it’s Dr Pepper but without the fizz, plus candy canes.”

Well, okay, whatever. The witch smiles on us from behind her veil with a warmth that feels almost physical, like the way the sun feels on your arms, and suddenly I’m calmer than I’ve been all day.

A few sips in, I notice what a pleasant smooth sound the rain is making all around us, so loud we can’t talk, but such a lovely sound
that it softens my thoughts, and I’m really enjoying the warmth of Kyle’s ankle against my ankle. We’re just touching the tiniest of bits (like, he probably doesn’t even notice) but there’s this
heat
coming off his skin. And suddenly I’m thinking:
Maybe it’s all going to be okay, maybe it’s all going to be fine, maybe it’s all going to work out very, very well
. For a while I stare deep down into the red heart of my drink, and then when I finally look up, my vision feels somehow different—warmer, more glowing. Maybe someone flicked on a light, I’m not sure, I was kind of spaced out there, but anyway, when I look over at Roo and Kyle and the witch, they seem extraordinarily wonderful to me. Bright little fireball Roo, perking up to listen to whatever Spanish words the glorious good witch Señora Villalobos is murmuring into her ear while smart, solemn, radiant Kyle looks on. They all just look
exceptionally
beautiful! But not only beautiful. They look … larger than life. Like ancient gods or something. Kyle’s golden eyes seem to be creating their own light. My head and fingers and belly feel very airy. Sort of like they don’t weigh anything anymore. Almost as though I’m drifting toward the ceiling. It’s a splendid, splendid feeling. A floating, joyful feeling that erases my frustration. I can’t wait to try again, to go back into the jungle tomorrow and look for that bird. I stare at Kyle and Roo, wondering if they’re feeling the same thing I am. I want to ask them, but my vocal cords are as drippy as honey and I can’t speak. So instead, I just smile, huge and loving, the way Señora V smiles behind her veil, and Kyle is looking back at me with an expression that I think might be awe. Kyle looking at me with awe! Just the way I’m looking at him! I feel my heart straining inside me and hold out my mug for another serving of the hot red liquid, whatever it is.

At that exact second, La Lluvia ends.

“
¿Qué pasa, abuelo?
” Kyle says, turning to look at the side of the room, his concerned voice cutting through my dreaminess.

It’s only then that I notice Señor V sitting on a stool in the
corner of the kitchen. Wait, has he been here all along? How could I have missed that? But what’s really odd is that his face doesn’t look serene. Señor V’s worried face is one of the most frightening things I’ve ever seen, because I’ve never seen his face
not
looking serene, and I can’t shake the feeling that if he’s worried, the rest of us better be
really
worried. Then it strikes me that, for all her veiled smiles and generous pouring, Señora V is distracted today too. She picks up her broom and paces around the kitchen, not sweeping but just wandering back and forth. As I watch her, the happy, hopeful feeling starts to drain away from me, and I feel sad, so sad.

“
El volcán,
” Señor V says simply.

We all turn to stare at it, and as we do, it releases a large burst of sickly greenish steam.

Roo whispers what we’re all thinking: “
Once the last bird dies, the volcano will blow.
”

The witch sits down with us at the table. Broom in one hand and pitcher in the other, she pours more red liquid into my mug, and then into Kyle’s, and then Roo’s.

“Tomorrow,” she says, almost growling, no longer the gentle witch of a few minutes ago, “you must do what you set out to do.”

“The day of the gala?” Kyle says. “There’s no way.”

The witch slams her broom down on the metal table, making a tremendous noise, and I cringe. Maybe I was wrong not to be scared of her.

“Drink!” she commands.

It’s hard to tell who she’s talking to, so we all gulp from our mugs.

“We would do it if we could,” she says, “but only you three can do it.” I get a little flutter in my stomach when she puts me in the same category as Roo and Kyle, even though I know she’s just being polite. “It requires youth,” the witch explains, “the pure conviction of youth.”

She gazes up at the ceiling with shiny wet eyes like those of the lady saint on the wall calendar behind her. Then she stands, mutters “
Arriba,
” and shuffles toward the winding staircase in the back corner of the kitchen. Kyle and Roo and I get up and follow in silence.

When the witch opens Kyle’s door, I’m puzzled to see three pairs of loose-fitting green pants and three long-sleeved green shirts laid out on his bed. One small, one medium, one large.

“Uniforms!” Roo gasps, clapping her hands.

“Put them on,” Señora V orders.

We pull them on over our shorts and T-shirts, and all the garments fit perfectly. Weirdly perfectly. The witch smiles, pleased.

“We’ll blend in so well!” Roo whispers excitedly. “We’ll be
invisible
.”

Man. Sometimes I wish I were nine and could still believe in invisibility and that kind of thing. I’m about to tell Roo she needs to have a reality check when Kyle grabs our hands and leads us over to the small circular mirror on his wall. Only then do I notice that the garments are made from cloth that’s green like the green of the jungle—a green that contains many different shades of green, a green that changes with every movement I make.

We stand there, shimmering. The feeling I got from the red potion returns. I’m suddenly flooded with belief, belief in impossibility and invisibility and magic. I squeeze Roo’s hand. I squeeze Kyle’s hand. Here we come.

I
t takes until the next day—around the time I tell Roo and Kyle to please stop marching onward because I really, really have to pee—for all the magic to wear off. The magic of pulling on our amazing camouflage clothes before dawn. The magic of Roo having an extra-large batch of yellow toe-flowers this morning—
oodles
of toe-flowers, such an incredible crop that even I had to compliment her on it. The magic of believing that today the toe-flowers are a good omen rather than a bad one. The magic of believing that ANYONE WHO TRIES TO CAPTURE THE VOLCANO BIRD WILL BE DRIVEN INSANE doesn’t apply to us, because we are a force of good. The magic of Kyle looking happy, truly happy, to see us when we met him at the back gate. The magic left over from the potion—that red, thrilled feeling—carrying us lightly upward into the jungle, up Invisible Path and beyond, convincing me there’s a Lava Throat around the next bend. The magic of Roo glancing back to nod and wink at me, except that she can’t wink, so her version of winking is to blink in a very friendly way. The magic of the three of us, out in the jungle, alone.