Small Persons With Wings (11 page)

She tucked her feet under her skirt, smoothing it just so on the white pillow. “He showed it to me once, but then he put it away.”

“Really? Where did he put it?”

“I do not know.”

“Why didn't he wear it, in case somebody lied to him?”

“I do not know.”

“Okay, try this. What does it look like?”

“This I know.” She held her hands up to form an oval. “It is such as this, white as milk unless held to the light, when it has many colors inside. The ring fits Ogier's smallest finger.”

Well, that was something. Time to get up and start looking again.

“How on earth did she get up here?” Mom asked when I walked into the kitchen, Durindana flitting around my head like a deerfly. “Last I knew, they couldn't go through walls.”

“We have made a Small Person's door into your grand staircase,” Durindana said.

“Oh,” Mom said. “Great.”

I went down and peeked while Mom got Durindana a bowl of cereal. Sure enough, halfway down the stairs to the street door, one of the vents near the ceiling had turned into a set of six-inch-tall white double doors. I suppose when you have wings a door near the ceiling makes sense.

When I got back to the kitchen, Durindana was perched on the toaster, eating. Mom had made a cup of coffee and was sitting at the table, watching her. I sat down too.

“Well, well, well, well, well!” Dad marched in from the stairway. “Good morning, Mellie. Good morning, Durindana. Lovely day.”

He poured himself cereal and ate it like someone who didn't have a morning of cushion-and-mattress innards ahead of him.

“How are they all?” Mom asked him.

“Sound asleep. Apparently there was a ball last night.” Durindana gave a milky sob. “Rinaldo woke up long enough to urge me to find the moonstone with no unseemly delay. Had absolutely no suggestions as to where it might be.”

“They have a door into the stairway now.”

“So I see. Oh well, one big happy family.”

Mom snorted into her coffee.

“Is that the French stuff?” Dad said. “It's kind of bitter.”

“I'm scared of the Turkish stuff. Besides, who knows how long it's been in there. At least the French stuff has a date on it.”

“I don't think coffee goes bad in the freezer. Especially Turkish coffee.”

“Roly, feel free to make Turkish coffee if it means so much to you.”

“No, no.” Dad poured himself a cup of what she'd already made. “This'll be fine.” He sipped it noisily and made a face. Mom—still at rope's end—blew air out of her nose.

“What are we doing today?” I asked.

“Oh, it's going to be a jolly day,” Mom said. “We're going to tear open everything out there in the yard and sift through the stuffing. Personally, I plan to wear a dust mask and I want you to wear one too, Mellie. I don't want any of that stuff in our lungs.”

“I'll wear one too, if anyone cares,” Dad said. Mom walked over and gave him a great big kiss on the lips. They are so strange.

We spent a gruesome morning in the backyard, ripping open sofa cushions and mattresses and poking around in the innards. The breeze picked up about mid-morning and pretty soon the yard had moldy cushion stuffing all over it, mostly this whitish fluff. It looked like the cotton plantation in my fifth-grade social studies book.

“We'll rake it up later,” Dad said.

Which was a great idea except that the breeze gradually turned into a wind. Soon our yard and the Wrights' yard were in their own private blizzard.

“Maybe we'd better start raking now,” Dad said.

“Hey!” a lady yelled from an upstairs window next door. “What is this stuff?” She didn't actually say “stuff” but as I mentioned before, I can't use biological swears until I'm eighteen.

The lady disappeared from the window and we knew she was on her way down to raise holy heck. (Now, why is
that
okay? Beats me.) Dad started raking to show he was doing his best. Mom combed her hair with her fingers and smoothed her T-shirt, preparing for battle.

The lady was short, tidy, and Mrs. Wright, of course. She was ticked. Turned out they had a swimming pool and now it had white fluff all over its entire surface and that would clog the filter and cost thousands and thousands and what kind of idiot makes all this fluff on a windy day? And why did we have masks on? Was it dangerous, this fluff?

Mom said no, it's just moldy and we didn't know the wind was coming in so hard and of course we'd clean everything up right away and were so, so sorry and new in the neighborhood and from Boston and how do you do, Mrs. Wright, I'm Veronica Turpin and this is my husband, Roly, and my daughter . . . where did she go? Mellie? Mellie?

I was next door, where the freckled kid, Timmo, came out and handed me a scoop thing for the pool. He took a rake and pushed the fluff in my direction and I scooped it out. Being wet, it stayed where it was while we used yard rakes to clean up the fluff that was all over their grass.

More fluffs kept wafting over the fence but Dad actually was making progress on his side, so they got to be fewer and fewer.

“Sorry,” I said to Timmo. The galaxy-gray eyes weren't so obvious in full daylight. You wondered why the wind didn't scoop him up like fluff, he was so scrawny.

“No big deal,” he said. “Mom gets a bit overwrought.”

“Overwrought” was a fat word for a skinny kid. Nevertheless, I was not there to make friends. I had enough troubles.

A tall blond girl came out. She looked like she was in high school. “Where's the evil mom-creature?” she asked Timmo. He jerked his head toward our yard and kept raking. The girl leaned against the house, watching us.

“Don't help or nothing, Eileen,” Timmo said.

“Okay, I won't.”

“Don't help or
anything
,” I said.

Eileen snorted. “I heard about you.”

I stopped raking to look at her. She had perfect purple eye shadow. I felt doom coming on.

Eileen smiled. “My friend's cousin goes to your school in Boston.”

I waited for it.
Fairy Fat. Tampax.

But Eileen didn't say any of that. Her smile broadened. “Yup. I heard all about you.”

I couldn't rake anymore. My whole new life turned to slush on a playground.

“Eileen doesn't know nothing,” Timmo said. “Nor does she know
anything
.” He kept his head down, raking, but the corners of his mouth quirked up.

The adults arrived to check out the damage. Mrs. Wright didn't know what to say when she saw that the pool was fluff-free, so she pointed to the pile of wet stuff and said, “Timmo, get that junk” (again, not what she really said) “off the custom pavers.”

“I'll get it,” said Dad, who had a trash bag in his hand.

“How are you, Timmo?” Mom said, smiling.

“Good 'n' you,” Timmo said. Which turned out to be a question, because Mom said, “Fine, thanks.”

“How do you know Timmo?” Mrs. Wright asked.

“He and his father . . .” Mom paused, and I guess we Turpins all remembered at the same time that we hadn't even thought about looking for the lawyer's letter.

There was an awkward pause, which Eileen finally broke. “Oh, that's right. And they found out Mr. Turpin's dead.”

We waited for Mrs. Wright to say she was sorry for our loss, but she didn't. She gestured at Eileen. “My daughter, Eileen.”

“Pleased to meet you, Eileen,” Mom said.

Without warning, Eileen transmogrified herself into Miss America. She extended her hand to Mom and said, “And how lovely to meet
you
, Mrs. Turpin.” Mom shook Eileen's hand and Eileen extended it to Dad, palm down as if she expected him to kiss it. He shifted his rake from right hand to left and grasped her fingertips, giving them a bit of a shake before dropping them like dissected earth-worms.

Timmo blew out his breath and came to take my rake away. He leaned it against the fence, along with his own rake.

“You study the stars, Timmo?” Dad said. “Mellie's got sort of a science bent too.”

“I'm going to be an astronaut,” Timmo said.

“I'm going to be the Venus de Milo,” I said. It came out more snide than I'd intended.

Predictably, Eileen snorted and Timmo turned red behind his freckles. His mom said, “Nice to meet you, Mellie,” and opened the sliding glass door to her house.

“I guess we'll be going,” Mom said, giving me her
How did I ever end up with a kid like you?
look.

“No, no,” Miss America-Eileen said. “Please come in for coffee.” She ignored the hairy eyeballs everybody was giving her. Her mother's had death rays in them.

Pause.

“Yes,” Mrs. Wright said. “Please come in.”

Mom aimed a despairing look at Dad, easily interpreted as “Think of an excuse not to do this.” Dad inspected his rake, buying time. “Uh, we have a lot of, um,” he said.
Smooth, Dad
.

The look in Eileen's eye was oddly familiar . . . beady, bright, out for a good time.
Fidius, turning slimy squash into slimy candy corn.
I didn't trust Eileen. “Oh, you can take a minute for a cup of coffee,” she said.

“Very kind of you,” Mom said mournfully. Dad leaned his rake on the fence next to Timmo's.

There was a neat row of shoes inside the sliding glass door. Mrs. Wright, Timmo, and Eileen slipped off their flip-flops and sneakers and added them, neatly, to the row. Mom gave Dad and me the fish eye, and we took off our shoes too. Dad's big toes were sticking out the ends of his socks, which were speckled with paint like everything else he owns.

“Please sit down,” Mrs. Wright said and disappeared into the kitchen. Mom and Dad pulled out chairs from the dining table—we all eyed the pale satin-covered seats and our own filthy jeans. “We'll stand,” Mom said. “We've been sitting all day.”

“You've been raking all day,” Eileen said. “Take a load off.” She smirked into the kitchen, where her mother probably was planning to burn anything we touched.

There was plenty of furniture to spare, all of it gorgeous. The house was about a hundred years old, with shiny wooden floors and sparkling clean windows. It had art on the walls in rich, calm colors, and big pottery and lamps that did not come from our favorite shopping emporium, Goodwill.

“You have a beautiful house,” Dad said.

“Thanks to Amalgamated American,” Eileen said.

“What American?” Mom said.

“Eileen,” Mrs. Wright said in a warning tone, coming in with a tray of coffee mugs. She smiled at Dad. “I had a lucky hunch in the stock market. I'm an investment manager.”

“Dad says she could sell seashells to a shrimp,” Timmo offered.

“That'll be enough of that kind of talk, Timmo,” Mrs. Wright said. “Please, Mr. and Mrs. Turpin. Sit down.” Mom and Dad perched themselves unhappily on the very edges of a couple of chairs.

“My work here is done,” Eileen said. She waved her hand airily at us all, and legged it through the living room. Obviously, Eileen had what Mom called “an impish streak.” The thought of her knowing all about Fairy Fat and the Tampon Incident made me want to throw up.

“Computer's upstairs,” Timmo said to me. Terror prickled at me. I'd never gone upstairs in any kid's house, let alone a galaxy-eyed boy's.
He's nothing special
, I reminded myself. Plus, maybe I could ask him about that blond lady he saw.

“We don't own a computer,” I said as we went up the stairs. “Dad says they suck your soul.” I'd used them at school, though, and my soul was intact as far as I could tell.

The Wrights' computer was in a narrow room full of clean laundry and cardboard boxes. To get there, you went past a closed door with a poster of some handsome guy dressed like a doctor, which I figured was Eileen's. Next to the computer room was a bedroom with paper airplanes and starship models dangling from the ceiling.

“Ooo,” Eileen said from behind the handsome doctor. “Timmo has a
girl
upstairs.”

My face started to warm up, but Timmo wasn't bothered. “You have to get used to Eileen,” he said.
I'd rather not, thanks.

I stuck my head into the airplane room. There was a telescope in the bay window, and star charts and nebula posters all over the walls. “Guess you do like space stuff,” I said.

“I designed this plane, look.” Timmo squeezed past me and detached one of the paper airplanes from its string. He handed it to me, and it turned out to be thin cardboard rather than paper. It had sharp wings like something you'd see on the cover of a comic book, and a nose that hooked down in front.

“The space program has selected three hundred and twenty-one astronauts since 1959,” Timmo said. “I figure designing planes might be a way in.”

“The Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci made more than a hundred airplane drawings,” I said.

“Yeah, one of them had wings like a screw,” Timmo said. “He wanted to run it with a wound-up spring.”

“He was one of the first to use oil paints instead of egg tempera, which was—”

“He designed retractable landing gear.”

“Egg tempera,” I continued, “is pigments mixed with egg yolk and it dries too fast, so oil paint is much more flexible.”

“Leonardo did not invent the telescope.”

How do you shut this kid up?
I waggled the cardboard airplane at him. “Does this thing fly?”

He grabbed the plane out of my hand. The next thing I knew it had sailed smoothly down the hall and hooked a right to disappear down the stairs. There was a
thunk
below, followed by the tinkle of something fragile falling on something hard.