The Wikkeling (7 page)

“Um . . . going to the bathroom.”

“Then straight to bed.”

“Yes, Mom.” When she reached the bathroom, she debated what to take from the medicine cabinet. Veterinary science wasn't emphasized at school beyond “I
NJURED ANIMALS ARE DANGEROUS
.” But Henrietta did recall an old television show she'd watched once, in which a boy helped an injured horse, shaving the hair from the wound and bandaging it. Henrietta selected one of her father's safety razors, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, a package of sterile gauze pads, a tube of antibacterial ointment, and a roll of medical tape.

She headed back along the hallway, but as she passed her parents' bedroom, her mother's voice stopped her again.

“
Henrietta
,” it said curtly.

“Yes?” said Henrietta, pausing in the hall, trying not to drop any of her supplies.

“You forgot to flush.”

“Oh, right!” She quickly returned to the bathroom, flushed the toilet, and headed toward her room again.

“Straight to bed now,” said her mother's voice. “And don't forget to set your alarm.”

“I won't forget!” said Henrietta, hurrying past.

It was strange to enter her bedroom and see the dark square hole in her ceiling. Two minutes away from it had nearly convinced her it wasn't real. Once again, she entered the greenish glow of the moonlit attic.

The cat remained as she had left it, watching her with its enormous green eyes. Once Henrietta was inside this time, she shut the attic door behind her.

She laid out her supplies in front of the cat. “I'm going to try to help you with these,” she said. Hesitantly, she began. She put her hands gently on the cat, and examined the wound. It was tough to see through the fur, and she began to shave carefully. The cat shivered as the blade touched its skin, but Henrietta successfully cleared the wound. It was small, but there was no telling how deep. It looked like a stab. Thick, dark blood pulsed out slowly.

Henrietta applied hydrogen peroxide and antibacterial ointment, and covered the wound with a piece of gauze, which she affixed with medical tape. The cat's tense breathing slowed as she finished.

“I hope it's okay,” she whispered. “I have to go. I'll come back tomorrow if I can.”

She took one last glance around the attic. The angled walls of exposed rafters glowed in the moonlight, and deep in the space, beyond the bookshelves,
stretched a fascinating maze of dim sights: stacked furniture, sealed trunks, towers of boxes.

Reluctantly, she lowered herself into her room and pulled the trapdoor closed. It sealed up as perfectly as ever, leaving only the dot of blood at the edge, which Henrietta wiped away with the arm of her sweater.

In bed, she stared at the ceiling and imagined the animal that was right above her, sitting in the moonlit shadows of the most mysterious place she'd ever seen. And suddenly something occurred to her: when she was in the attic, no one had known she was there. She had been alone.

C
hirp.
The sound came from her cell phone. She'd overslept! When she answered the call, her mother's voice sounded simultaneously over the speaker and through the house from the kitchen. “Henrietta!”

“Sorry!” said Henrietta.

“Hurry up!”

“I'm hurrying.” Henrietta rushed into the hallway to find her mother already there. She gasped when she saw her daughter.

“Sweetie!” She reached out and took Henrietta's hand, which was covered in rust-red dried blood. She'd forgotten to wash it off.

She jerked back. “I . . . cut myself,” she said. “Picking glass out of my shoe.”

“We have to clean it,” said her mother, “and bandage it. Let me—”

“I'll do it after I shower. We're late.” Henrietta slipped past her mother and closed the door on her. She stepped into the shower, trying to gather her thoughts. Trapdoor. Cat. She looked at the red-brown flakes on her hand. She had really done all of that. “Make it quick!” said her mother from outside—she was already in the bad mood that always possessed her when they visited Henrietta's grandmother and Al. Henrietta's mother had never liked Al for some reason that Henrietta couldn't fathom. To Henrietta, he just seemed like a nice
old man, but her mother had been enraged when he and Grandmother Henrie had married two years ago, and since then Henrietta barely ever saw them.

After her shower, Henrietta found her clothes laid out: a long-sleeved shirt printed with yellow leaves, dark green pants, and her dreaded black plastic formal shoes. She threw everything on, and only remembered at the last moment the cut she'd lied about. She went to the medicine cabinet and wrapped a bandage around her thumb.

Because visits to her grandmother's often involved her sitting in a corner somewhere with nothing to do, she grabbed her textbook from her desk as she walked out, hoping she might study a little. She glanced regretfully up at the trapdoor as she left, wishing in vain for a moment to rush up there and check on the cat.

When Henrie and Al married two years ago, they'd moved together to Sunset Estates, a retirement community far out in the Addition, which was an hour's drive out across the endless traffic jam. Along the way they passed Henrietta's school. Henrietta looked at the long, low buildings and wished she was there, which was something she'd never wished before. But she had two friends now, and an amazing story to tell them when she saw them next.

“TURN LEFT AT THE INTERSECTION,” suggested the friendly voice of the car's computer. Henrietta's father entered the turn lane.

“What are you smiling about back there?” he said, unexpectedly. Henrietta's eyes snapped into focus. He was watching her in the rearview mirror.

“Nothing,” she said. She was a bit shy of her father, partly because she didn't see much of him. He often worked late during the week, and sometimes even on the weekend.

“Are you dreaming about a boy?” he asked impishly, raising one eyebrow to show he wasn't completely serious. But he wasn't completely unserious either.

“No,” said Henrietta. She wrinkled her nose as if to say,
yuck
.

“Leave her alone, Tom,” said her mother.

“We're just joking,” said her father.

“It's embarrassing her.”

“No it isn't.” Her father's voice lost its levity. Just then, his cell phone rang. Henrietta's father's cell phone was a small, flat oval resembling a polished stone. No one else had anything like it, but her father's employer, TinCan TeleComm, always gave him the latest models early. TinCan was a new company that had formed recently when two other companies merged. Her father's job, as far as Henrietta understood it, was to help the new company communicate with itself. He'd tried once or twice to explain further, with limited success. At the moment, he listened to his polished egg, and then spouted off a string of information Henrietta could scarcely interpret.

“If I.T. can't keep Skipping-Stone's PS for UPC, Marketing just has more time, so it doesn't matter. Right.”

“TURN LEFT AT THE NEXT INTERSECTION,” said the car's computer. “WHILE YOU DRIVE, WOULD YOU LIKE TO HEAR SOME ADVERTISEMENTS FOR PRODUCTS THAT MIGHT INTEREST YOU?”

“Not right now,” said Henrietta's mother.

“I.T. thinks that's important, but it isn't,” said Henrietta's father. “Tell them
it doesn't matter.” This was often what her father said on business calls. Telling people what didn't matter, Henrietta thought, seemed to matter.

The phone conversation continued, as did the directions from the car's computer, until the sign for Sunset Estates appeared:

Sunset Estates
DINNER 5P BINGO 7P

The car turned into the mazelike complex, composed of single-level row houses with tan vinyl exteriors. Each house was identical to the next, resulting in a pattern as they drove: Garage, porch, front door. Garage, porch, front door. Traffic was considerably less here—it was one of the only places in the Addition where cars were sparse, because it was a dead end.

Henrietta's father concluded his conversation, returned his phone to his pocket, and looked at Henrietta again in the rearview mirror. “Now, about that boyfriend,” he said, smiling.

“His name's Gary,” said Henrietta, suddenly curious to see what such an admission would bring about.

“
Who?
” said her mother, turning around and gripping the headrest of her seat with one hand. She had painted her fingernails for the birthday party, and they shone bright pink.

“I knew it!” said her father, triumphantly. He banged one hand on the steering wheel, as if to affix his astuteness there for display.

“He's my friend, not my
boy
friend,” said Henrietta. “He's the best student in our class, actually.”

“The highest rank?” said her mother. “That boy Gary?”

“Yes.”

“That's wonderful, Henrietta! Maybe he could help you on your homework. It's good to make good friends.”

“And you never know, love
could
blossom,” her father jibed.

“Stop it,” said her mother, still not amused.

“ARRIVING AT ZERO FIVE, ZERO SEVEN, SIX THREE TWO,” said the computer.

“Zero five, zero seven, six three two,” said Henrietta to herself, for no particular reason.
If you repeat it a few times, you'll remember it
, she reflected. Just like the composition sentences at school that stuck in her head, or certain Honk Ads she heard over and over.

Henrietta's father parked, and they exited the car. Henrietta tucked her textbook under one arm and they approached the front door of a home that looked like all the rest, except for its unique address: 0507-632. Henrietta's dress shoes pinched, and she walked strangely, trying to find a way to proceed that didn't hurt too much.

Henrietta's father rang the bell, commencing a computer-generated rendition of “Jingle Bells,” and the door opened. There stood Al, a smile lighting his old face. Al was a stooped gentleman, skinny as a stick, wearing black slacks and a green cardigan. Behind him, Henrietta could see and hear the party—guests talking and laughing, holding drinks, sitting or standing. All of them were old.

“Hello, kids!” said Al boisterously, his old voice crackling. “I saw you through the window. It's been too long!” He briskly shook Henrietta's father's hand,
saying, “Young Tom!” He hugged Henrietta's mother. “Good to see you, Aline.” Then he looked down at Henrietta.

“Henrietta! What occupies your thoughts these days?”

“Oh,” said Henrietta, thrown off guard by a real question. Al seemed to sense her discomfort.

“Do you accept hugs or handshakes, young lady?” he asked.

“Handshakes,” said Henrietta.

“She accepts
hugs
, of course,” said Henrietta's mother, a note of annoyance in her voice. She prodded Henrietta slightly from behind. It was odd—Henrietta knew she didn't like Al, but for some reason still felt it necessary for Henrietta to hug him.

Al, however, quickly held out his hand, and Henrietta shook it. “I watched you on the porch,” he said genially, “and I got the impression your shoes were a little uncomfortable. Am I right?”

“They're super uncomfortable,” said Henrietta.

“You know how I could tell? Because you walked like
this
!” said Al, and he limped comically ahead of the three of them, waving for them to accompany him through the crowd. Henrietta's father laughed, a laugh Henrietta recognized as fake, and the three of them followed Al inside.

The house was packed with all kinds of people united by the bonds of their common oldness. In her daily life, Henrietta saw very few old people, and it was daunting to encounter so many at once. Of course, the reason she didn't see many elderly people was because they all lived in Sunset Estates and other similar communities.

Through a sliding glass door on the opposite side of the living room drifted sizzling sounds and the rich, charred smells of a barbecue. Henrietta's mother would never allow an open flame near their house, and barbecue skewers could cause terrible accidents. But there it was, a metal clamshell on the rear patio, tongues of orange flame cooking steaks, hot dogs, and kebabs in sizzling rows. It was so mesmerizing that Henrietta didn't notice she was standing right next to her grandmother until she looked up to see Al, Henrie, and both of her parents watching her.