The Cydonian Pyramid (14 page)

“What’s the matter?” Ronnie said. “I was just being friendly.” As he reached toward her leg again, Bounce exploded from her arms with a horrific screech and attached himself to Ronnie’s face.

Ronnie screamed and took his hands off the wheel. The truck swerved across both lanes toward the ditch. Ronnie tore the cat off his head, grabbed the wheel, and cranked it to the right. The truck skidded and tilted, rising up onto its driver side wheels. Lia was sure they were about to roll, but after a moment that felt like an eternity, the truck plopped back down. Bounce launched himself out the open window.

“You trying to get us killed?” Ronnie yelled.

Lia shouldered open the door and jumped out. She saw Bounce disappear into a cornfield. She looked back at Ronnie. His face was bleeding from several claw marks.

“That cat is a menace!”

“Bounce does not like you touching me,” Lia said. She turned her back and walked away.

“I didn’t mean nothing by it!” he yelled after her as she followed Bounce into the field.

A
T SUPPER THAT NIGHT
, M
ARIA ASKED
R
ONNIE HOW HIS
face had gotten all scratched up.

Ronnie shot Lia a look, waited a second to see if she would say anything, then told Maria that he had been clearing prickly ash away from the north fence line.

“Waste of time,” Arnold said grumpily. “You get anything else done today?”

“Yeah — all
your
damn work,” Ronnie said.

“Ronnie! Language!” said Maria.

“Pardon my French,” Ronnie said with a smile that was not really a smile.

“Did you bring those hay bales up from the south field?”

“They can wait,” Ronnie grumbled.

“If you want to live here with us, you have to pull your weight, son,” Arnold said. There was a plaintive note in his voice that Lia had not heard before.

“I pull plenty of weight,” Ronnie said.

“He does work hard, Arn,” said Maria.

“When he works,” Arnold muttered.

Ronnie threw his knife and fork down, shoved his chair back, and stalked out.

“Now see what you’ve gone and done,” Maria said.

“He needs a firm hand,” Arnold said.

“He’s a good boy.”

“He’s a grown man. I won’t have him freeloading off us.”

“He’s not freeloading. With your leg, what would we do without him?”

“My leg will mend. I’ve got half a mind to take this cast off right here and now.”

“Arn, the doctor says you need to keep it on four more weeks. Even then, you’ll have to take it easy.”

They heard the sound of Ronnie’s truck starting, the rattle of gravel spitting from the rear tires as he spun out of the driveway.

“How can I take it easy with that boy driving us to wrack and ruin?”

Maria bowed her head and pressed her lips together. Lia pushed her food around on her plate. Her appetite had deserted her.

Later, after finishing the dishes, Lia went outside. Maria was weeding her flower garden. Arnold had hobbled out to his shop and was hammering on something. Lia sat on the steps with Bounce, feeling empty and afraid.

“I am not of this world,” she said to the cat.

Bounce licked his paw and used it to scrub his face. Lia thought about the boys by the lake, and their swing. She imagined herself arcing high above the water. She imagined the Gate appearing before her, imagined letting go of the rope and sailing into the unknown.

Without making a conscious decision to do so, she found herself walking up the driveway.

By the time she reached Hardy Lake, the sun had settled on the horizon. She heard several sharp bangs, then excited voices. She walked up to the edge of the bank and sat down with Bounce. The boys were still there. Or perhaps they had left and then returned. One of them — Tom Krause — launched himself from the tree and swung out over the lake. Tucker and Will watched from the beach below. She saw the flare of a match. A streak of orange fire shot from Will’s hand as Tom neared the apex of his swing. A burst of yellow was instantly followed by a loud crack. Tom shouted something. Will and Tucker were laughing. Another rocket streaked toward Tom and exploded. Tom dragged his feet in the water to slow himself, leaped off the swing, and chased Will down the beach. Tucker followed. Lia would have been concerned, but both Tucker and Will were laughing. Clearly, this was some sort of game. It was strange, but no stranger than many of the other things people in this place did.

“Boys are very entertaining,” Lia said to Bounce. Bounce was not impressed.

Lia looked at the place in the air above the lake where she had seen the Gate, but saw nothing. Yar Song had once told her that the Gates were not reliable, that they came and went at will.

“Whose will?” Lia had asked.

“That is a mystery,” Song had said.

The boys were coming back along the lakeshore, talking in loud voices, arguing over who would swing next. They didn’t notice Lia sitting on the bank.

Lia raised her voice. “Why build your swing on the edge of a lake if you are not going to jump?”

They looked up at her.

“Why don’t
you
jump?” Will said.

Lia climbed down the bank and joined them. “I heard explosions.”

“They’re called fireworks.” Tom held up a handful of sticks attached to small cylinders. “These are rockets,” he said. “You light them here. I’ll show you.”

“Wait a sec,” said Tucker, grabbing the rope. “Let me give you something to aim at.” He pulled the rope up the bank and started up the tree trunk as Tom and Will prepared to set off more of the bottle rockets. Seconds later, Tucker was swinging out and up — and suddenly he was in the air, and the rockets were exploding around him. She felt a moment of sheer terror as he plunged into the water, then exhilaration and relief as he surfaced and splashed back to shore, grinning broadly.

Lia did not think about Ronnie Becker or her life in Hopewell. She thought only about Tucker Feye.

After Tucker’s triumphant leap, the boys lost interest in the swing and focused on their fireworks, lighting off ever larger quantities and combinations of firecrackers, rockets, and a short tube that looked like a deacon’s stun baton but shot out fire like a priest’s
arma.
They called it a Roman candle. They used the last of the explosives by building a small fire of driftwood and leaves, then throwing everything they had left into the flames and running. Lia hid behind the tree as rockets and balls of fire flew in every direction. When it was over, she peeked out to see if any of them had been injured. They were standing somberly around the smoldering remains of the fire.

“That was cool,” Will said, slapping a mosquito.

“Really cool,” Tom said. “We should probably get home.”

The boys climbed up the bank. Tom took out a pocketknife and began carving something on the tree trunk.

“Come on, Tom. I want to get home,” Will whined.

“Just give me a minute,” Tom said.

“Why are you cutting the tree?” Lia asked.

“I’m carving my initials,” Tom said.

With their fireworks gone, the energy seemed to have drained out of them. Tom finished defacing the tree, then he and Will hopped on their bikes and took off, leaving Tucker and Lia alone.

Tucker said, “Um . . . you want me to walk you home?”

“I can walk,” Lia said.

“I mean, you want some company?”

“I do not mind.”

Tucker walked his bike with his left hand on the handlebar, while Lia walked on his right. Bounce, who had run off while the fireworks were exploding, appeared from the tall grasses by the roadside and followed them. As they walked, the loudest sound was the legs of Tucker’s sodden shorts rubbing against each other. Lia would have liked to talk, but she didn’t know what to say. When the boys had been together, they talked all the time, as naturally as breathing. Lia had to think about what she said, and it didn’t always come out the way she wanted. She hoped Tucker wouldn’t think her stupid or dull.

They were halfway back to the Beckers’ when Tucker finally spoke.

“You’re kind of strange.”

Lia stopped walking. She did not think she liked being called strange.

Tucker quickly added, “I mean, I
like
that you’re the way you are.”

“What way is that?” Lia asked.

“Like everything is new to you. Like, that you’d never heard of fireworks.”

“You like that I am ignorant?”

“I didn’t mean that. I just mean . . . I don’t know what I mean. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. I was just talking.”

Lia liked that he had as much trouble expressing himself as she did.

“Is it the way I talk?” she asked.

“No! Well, maybe a little.”

“I do not run my words together. I was taught to speak clearly.”

“You talk fine.”

“I know it is strange.”

“I’m kind of strange, too,” Tucker said. “Look at my mom.”

“Look at your mom?” Lia did not know what he meant.

“She’s as strange as they come, and I’m her kid, so that makes me strange, too.”

“You grew up here,” she said. “But to me, everything is strange, so I guess I am stranger than you.”

They looked at each other.

“I don’t even know what the word
strange
means anymore,” Tucker said. “That’s really strange.”

They stared at each other for a heartbeat, then both of them started laughing. It felt good. Lia couldn’t remember the last time she had laughed.

“I like you,” Tucker said.

“You do?” She sensed that he was embarrassed. Why should he be embarrassed to like her?

“Even if you are a little strange,” he said, and they laughed again.

Neither of them was willing to risk saying anything more, so they started walking. In her head, Lia replayed the conversation they had just had. When she had told Ronnie that Tucker was her friend, she hadn’t really believed it.
Now,
she thought,
it feels true.
They continued in comfortable silence, except for the wet scraping sound of Tucker’s shorts, and did not stop or speak again until they reached the Beckers’ driveway.

“Thank you for showing me fireworks,” Lia said. She picked up Bounce and held him. Bounce immediately began to purr loudly.

“That cat really likes you,” Tucker said.

“I like him.”

“Maybe we could do something sometime. You and me. And the cat.”

“I would like that,” Lia said. The moment felt both awkward and good.

“Okay, then, see you!” Tucker said. He got on his bike and rode off. Lia watched his shape getting smaller, sad to see him go but happier than she had felt in a very long time. When he was out of sight, she turned to the house. The lights were all off. Arnold and Maria probably didn’t know she was out — as long as she did her chores, they paid her little notice. Ronnie’s truck was still gone. Lia let herself in and crept upstairs to her room, then lay down on her bed without undressing. Her clothes and hair smelled of fireworks. She closed her eyes to find images of exploding bottle rockets and Tucker Feye. He thought she was
strange.
Even though they had laughed about it, it bothered her. Will had teased her about the way she spoke. She did not squeeze words together the way Tucker and his friends did. She said
do not
instead of
don’t,
and
I am
instead of
I’m.
She had thought it the polite way to talk, but if it made her sound foolish — or
strange
— she could change. Lying in bed, she practiced:
Can’t. Shouldn’t. Won’t.
It wasn’t that hard. Maybe it would make Tucker like her more.

And what if he did? Was it enough to make her stay here in Hopewell? Lia strained to imagine the future. Tucker would enter a disko and travel to the pyramid in Romelas . . . or he would not. He would become the prophet Tuckerfeye . . . or he would not. They would both stay in Hopewell . . . or not. Maybe Hopewell was not such a bad place.

After a time, her churning thoughts were interrupted by the sound of Ronnie’s truck. She imagined his face leering at her. She could still feel the ghost sensation of his hand. The truck door slammed. She got up and moved her dresser against her door, then went back to bed without undressing. She heard Ronnie’s uneven footsteps in the hallway, heard him pause outside her door. The knob turned. Her door opened a crack but was stopped by the heavy dresser. Ronnie muttered some curse words, then clomped unevenly down the hallway to his own bedroom.

She waited a very long time for sleep to come.