Runaways (11 page)

“What machine?”

“You know. The one on the big truck?”

“Yeah?” Dani had a horrible feeling that she knew what Pixie was driving at and where the conversation was headed, but she didn’t intend to help it get there. She knew Pixie wanted her to ask what the machine was really for, but she wasn’t going to do it. If Pixie wanted to say that her parents had a machine for making monsters out of dead people she was going to have to do it on her own, without any help from Dani. No help from Danielle O’Donnell, who didn’t believe in any crazy stuff like that. Particularly crazy stuff about Frankenstein monsters. So “Yeah?” was all she had to say.

Pixie nodded, and repeated, “Yeah.” The nod was slow and solemn but the blue-fire flashes were constant now. “Why do you suppose they wanted to live way out there anyway, where no one could see what they’re up to? Did you ever think about that?”

“Well,” Dani said. “I thought …” What she’d thought, what Linda had told her, was that the Smithsons were studying the rocks and soil, which had sounded pretty reasonable. After all, rocks and soil were about all there was out there. And—if they were really crazy Frankenstein scientists, where were they going to get all the body parts they were going to need? Aha! Let’s see what little Miss Frankenstein says about that.

“Look,” Dani said triumphantly, “maybe a house way out on the desert would be a good place to do secret stuff, but on the other hand it wouldn’t be much good for getting hold of a lot of dead bodies. Where are they going to find a bunch of dead bodies way out there? Tell me that.”

“Dead bodies?” Pixie asked. Then she lowered her long eyelashes so that the fiery blue light was hidden, and for a moment sat very still. When she finally looked up her eyes were wide and blank. Her voice had that childish breathless sound to it when she said, “I can’t tell you. I just can’t tell you about that.”

Of course she couldn’t, but it wasn’t because it was just too awful to talk about. Or because Pixie was worried about what might happen to her if she told. Dani was pretty sure that couldn’t be it. But for whatever reason, Pixie went on not being able to talk about it until the Smithson tank came up Silver Avenue and she ran out to meet it.

D
ANI DIDN’T BELIEVE ONE
word of it. She didn’t believe that Mr. and Mrs. Smithson were planning to put a bunch of body parts together into one and zap it with a whole lot of electricity and make it come to life. Right after Pixie left she told Stormy so. “And that stuff about the body parts proves it,” she told him. “Like she just didn’t have time to figure out that chapter of the story yet.”

But Stormy only shook his head solemnly. “She knows that chapter,” he said. “She already told me about it. They’re going to get them from the graveyard. She already told me they were getting some from the Rattler Springs graveyard.”

Dani almost fell over laughing. “That’s ridiculous. That graveyard is just an old boomtown burying place. I don’t think anybody’s been buried there for years and years. Not since the silver mines gave out.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. All you have to do is read what it says on the grave markers. They’re all, like, around 1900, or even before that.”

“Well, what’s wrong with that?” Stormy asked.

Dani was still grinning. “Well, what’s wrong with that is …,” she said in her most sarcastic tone of voice, “what’s wrong with that is, the Rattler Springs graveyard’s too old. In the Frankenstein story he went to the graveyard right after someone died. Right away after, so there would be a real body, with skin and muscles and stuff like that. What kind of a monster are the Smithsons going to make out of some practically ancient bare-boned skeletons?” She was grinning when she asked, but she could tell immediately by the look on Stormy’s face that he didn’t see anything very funny about the idea. And after she’d had a moment to think it over, she didn’t either. Nothing particularly funny about the idea of a bare-boned skeleton who’d been zapped to life, stalking around the desert looking for … Just like Pixie said, it was the kind of thing you didn’t want to talk about. Or even think about.

She was still trying not to think about it when Linda came back from the movie and Stormy finally took himself off home. And later that night when Linda was sound asleep on the daybed couch, Dani, in her stifling hot bedroom, had something else to not think about besides Gila monster truck drivers. Rolling over for the umpteenth time, she shook her head hard to chase away a cloudy procession of monsters in greasy denims, only to have them replaced by a parade of living skeletons.

The next morning she was still thinking about what Stormy had said about the graveyard. Thinking about how ridiculous the whole thing was. She grinned, wondering what Pixie would say when she heard how old the graveyard was. But just wait, Dani told herself. When she finds out that story won’t work, she’ll think up a new one.

It turned out that she’d guessed right about that one. About Pixie having a better answer the next time she showed up. The only part she didn’t guess was how soon that was going to be. Like early afternoon on the very next day.

When Dani opened the front door Pixie came right in without waiting to be invited. “My dad had to come in to make a phone call, so I came too,” she said. “I can stay until he comes back.”

“Comes back?” Dani asked.

“Yes, comes back to town. At five. Like always.”

Dani looked over at the alarm clock on the daybed end table. It was just a little after two o’clock. “Well,” she had just started to say when Pixie came on in and started taking some books out of a big handbag made of woven straw. “I brought some more of my books,” she said. When she finished with the books she looked around and asked, “Where’s Linda? I thought you said she was going to be off today.”

Dani shrugged. “Yeah, I guess I did. The bookstore is closed but she took an extra job today. She’s baby-sitting for the Grahams while they’re in Las Vegas.”

“Oh.” Pixie looked around uneasily, even glancing out the window as if she were hoping her father might still be out there so she could change her mind and go home. “Oh, I thought …”

She didn’t finish telling what she’d been thinking, but Dani could guess. Pixie had probably figured that if Linda were home Dani wouldn’t have a chance to ask any hard-to-answer questions about the Frankenstein thing. Like where you could get body parts in the desert, for instance. Maybe she hadn’t come up with any good answers yet. And maybe she never would, because there just weren’t any good answers. Dani was beginning to enjoy herself, watching Miss Supercool Pixie squirm a little.

“And Stormy?” Pixie asked.

Dani shook her head, trying not to look smug. “Not here,” she said. “Gone somewhere on an errand for his mom’s boyfriend. One of her boyfriends, anyway.”

Another good try, Dani thought. Without Stormy, Miss Storyteller Smithson had lost her best audience. Sitting down in Linda’s rocking chair, Dani said, “About that question I was asking when your folks showed up last night. You know, the one about where they were going to get parts for their monster? I was just wondering if you could talk about it today. And I was also wondering if you knew that the Rattler Springs graveyard hasn’t been used for about fifty years. So don’t bother to tell me about the graveyard.”

Pixie nodded slowly. Climbing up on the daybed, she arranged herself carefully, smoothing her skirt down over her knees and crossing her feet in their scuffless saddle shoes. At last, when she was all ready, she sighed and said, “I shouldn’t have told Stormy that story about the graveyard. I just did it because—because …” She stopped and sighed. The sigh was slow and solemn but when she glanced up Dani got a glimpse of her eyes and there was nothing slow or solemn there. “I didn’t tell him the truth because it was just too—too …” She shuddered before she went on. “The truth is, well, my folks have this great big electric freezer. And back where they used to live there were lots of graveyards. So …”

Dani got the picture. And even though she certainly wasn’t trying to see it, there it was, flashing before her eyes. A picture of what you might have seen in Frankenstein’s freezer chest if there’d been such a thing in those days. Something cold and dead and coated with icicles and fuzzy frost. In spite of herself, a shudder crawled up her back.

“That is the most gruesome thing I ever heard of.”

Pixie nodded enthusiastically. “I know.” Then she sighed and her thumbnail-movie-book face flipped from eager to excited and then to sad-eyed pitiful. “And that’s not the worst of it. That’s not anywhere near the worst of it.”

“Oh yeah?” Dani said.

“Yes. There’s another part that’s a lot more terrible.” Pixie’s voice was still gloom and doom but the quick upward flick of her eyes was something else.

“Okay. You might as well tell me.” Dani sighed, trying to make her face and tone of voice say that she certainly wasn’t promising to believe it, but she wasn’t going to let Pixie get away with stopping at that point. “I mean, you can’t say there’s a worse part and just stop there.”

This time Pixie’s sigh was particularly long and mournful. “No, I guess you’re right.” Squaring her shoulders and lifting her chin, like a person getting ready to face up to something terrible, she began, “Well, see, the other day the generator stopped for just a few minutes but then, after they got it running again I heard them talking. They didn’t know I was listening but I was. And what I heard them say was … Well, my father said that it would have spoiled”—she paused—“er, everything if the electricity had been off much longer. And then …” She paused again, and when she went on her voice was like the music in a movie when it tells you something terrible is about to happen. “And then, I heard my mother say that they could still go on with the experiment if they could use parts from one other body.”

Dani tried not to gulp before she asked, “Another body? Who—Whose body?”

Pixie nodded. “She didn’t say. At least not exactly. But she nodded—toward my room.”

Dani’s gulp turned into a gasp. “Toward your room?” she repeated, sounding like a stupid parrot.

“I told you it was too terrible to talk about,” Pixie said. She was looking down, hiding her eyes again. She didn’t look up as she said, “But that’s why I have to go with you, when you and Stormy run away.”

T
HAT DID IT. IT
was the very next day that Pixie started being included in the running-away plans. At least more or less. Not that Dani really believed her crazy story, because she didn’t. Or at least most of the time she didn’t. It was only in the middle of the night, when it was easy to believe all kinds of impossible things, that she wasn’t entirely sure.

Dani had gone to bed that night telling herself scornfully that Pixie sure had a big imagination. But it happened to be a dark moonless night and a black desert wind was snaking around Rattler Springs, rattling shingles and sifting sand in around doors and windows. Lying there listening to the whispering wind and crawling sand, Dani drifted off into a dream about trying to climb into a truck and being grabbed by someone who looked a lot like a Frankenstein monster except he seemed to be wearing saddle shoes and a pleated blue skirt. She woke up then and stayed awake for a long time, thinking and worrying.

The next morning, when she told Stormy about Pixie’s latest tall tale, he didn’t doubt any of it. Not for minute. They were in the kitchen at the time. Linda had just left for work and Stormy was at the table fixing himself a huge bowl of cornflakes. Dani had hardly finished the telling when Stormy stopped pouring milk on his cornflakes, smacked his fist down on the table and said, “Yeah. I thought so.”

“You thought what?” Dani asked.

“I thought they might be going to do that.”

It was a ridiculous idea. Dani tried to tell Stormy so. Tried to tell him that it just wasn’t possible that parents, even slightly weird ones like the Smithsons, would ever think of chopping up their only kid. Not even if they happened to be mad scientists who needed some body parts for a Frankenstein-type experiment. “It’s just too crazy,” she told him. “And besides, parts from an extra-small ten-year-old just wouldn’t work. Not unless they were planning to make a midget-sized monster.”

But nothing she said seemed to make any difference. There just wasn’t any use trying to convince Stormy that everything Pixie said wasn’t the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. She was still trying when Stormy interrupted by saying, “So, how soon can we leave?”

“Leave?”

“How soon can we run away? Can we do it today?”

Dani stared in amazement. “You know we can’t leave yet. Not until we get some more money for tickets.”

“But—But how about stowing away in a truck, like you said before?”

“What?” Dani was amazed and indignant. “I told you I changed my mind about that,” she practically shouted. “So just forget about it. Okay?” She glared for a moment before she added, “Oh, I get it. So now we’re suddenly in a big hurry, are we? When I was the only one who needed to get away fast, you kept slowing things down, and now suddenly we’re in a big rush.”

Stormy did his thoughtful eye-rolling thing for so long that Dani was getting ready to punch him before he said, “But
you
weren’t about to get chopped up.”

At that point Dani got up, stomped out of the house and slammed the door. She was still sitting on the back steps and Stormy was still in the kitchen eating cornflakes when a car door slammed out on Silver Avenue. Dani jumped up, dashed through the kitchen and beat Stormy to the front door. It was Pixie, of course.

Pixie came into the house on tiptoe, her fiery blue eyes darting wildly. Tiptoeing up to Dani, she whispered, “Can we talk? Is your mother gone?”

Dani backed away. “Yeah, she’s gone,” she said in a normal, nonwhispering voice, not wanting Pixie to think she was going along with whatever game it was she was playing now. “What’s up?”

Still whispering, Pixie said, “That’s what I was going to ask you. What are we going to do today? You know”—her voice got even lower—“about running away.” She looked at Stormy. “Stormy told me how you were looking for a truck to stow away in.”