Wood Sprites (7 page)

They had an older sister. Better yet, she wasn’t some beauty-pageant poser like Elle Pondwater; she was a super-cool gearhead. She lived on Elfhome. She probably knew Elvish. And their grandfather understood magic, so she might even know some real spells. She couldn’t get more perfect unless she also had all sorts of interesting pets. She could own an elfhound. Or a horse! According to April and old satellite maps of Pittsburgh prior to first Shutdown, the hotel where Alexander lived could house an entire zoo.

It was at once terrifying and intoxicating to think that they could actually call their older sister and talk to her. Maybe she could figure out a solution to how to save their baby siblings.

Every thirty days, the Chinese turned off the hyperphase gate (invented by their male genetic donor) and Pittsburgh returned to Earth. Initially Shutdown had been the first of the month. While the thirty-day cycle had worked for September, April, June, and November, all the other months and a half dozen leap years pushed Shutdown to some illogical date currently falling in the middle of the month.

They maintained a website for their production company, Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo. Since their parents forbid them from using the website for any true advertising or promotion, they simply had a counter counting down to the next Shutdown. They used it for an interesting, self-imposed deadline for their videos. Louise sighed at the ticking numbers. While it would only be a few days until they could contact Alexander, it seemed like forever.

And there was the niggling problem that they didn’t have a phone number for Alexander. Apparently at some point Tim Bell had changed his phone number, and April had taken it as a sign that she was not to call his house. Trying to find any information out about Pittsburgh was much like being a jewel thief. Even the most mundane of information was locked away. They had to routinely hack into secure databases to get what they needed for their videos. They usually copied anything they could get away with, but up to this point they hadn’t needed a telephone list.

Louise glanced at her alarm clock. She had ten minutes until their mother expected them to be eating breakfast. She might have time to find a copy, especially if she got lucky and it was on one of their favorite sites. A band of anonymous hackers ran a data haven, posting information on Pittsburgh they’d “found” in undisclosed locations. As always, she made sure that she couldn’t be traced before dropping into the forum.

The first post made her heart jump. The heading was “Looking for Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo.” She sat staring at it with fear. Should she read the post? Who in the world even knew that they visited this forum?

Taking a breath, she opened the post. It was breezy in tone, meandering in points, and signed with a name that made her squeak in surprise.

“What?” Jillian called from their bathroom.

“Nigel Reid wants to talk to us.”

“Nigel Reid? You mean ‘I just love Nigel’ Nigel Reid?”

“I never said that!” She respected the filmmaker. He was her favorite naturalist. “But yes, that one.”

Jillian squeaked, too. “Seriously? Talk to us?”

“Yes. Well. Lemon-Lime JEl-Lo. He’s seen
The Queen’s Pantaloons
and wants to know if the gossamer call is real. He’s coming to New York to do the
Today Show,
and he wants to know if he can meet us.”

“Meet him? Like in person?”

“Generally that’s what ‘meet’ means.”

“Are you nuts? You know that Mom and Dad would just freak if they found out that we were going to meet some old guy from the Internet. They’ll get him arrested as a pedophile!”

“He wants to meet with a film-production company!” Louise cried in defense. “He doesn’t know Lemon-Lime is just two kids. If he did think we were kids, he probably thinks we’re in high school or college.”

“Pfft, high school is just as bad. Besides, we don’t know if this is really Nigel Reid posting this. It could be anyone. We list him as one of our influences. By posing as him, anyone could hope to lure us out.”

“It would be so cool if it was.” Louise went to Nigel Reid’s official personal site. How could they tell if he was actually the person contacting them and not a pervert using his name? “Nigel is going to be on the
Today Show
in like three weeks. We could go see the show.” Although “seeing the show” would really be standing on the sidewalk at the corner of 49th and Rockefeller Center with the crowd that gathered daily at the break of dawn.

Jillian considered it. “I don’t know. Feels like a trap to me. How is he going to know we’re really us? A big sign that says ‘Nigel, we’re Lemon-Lime’? And if it’s not him that posted that? Whoever is trying to lure us out would have us cornered.”

Jillian was right. They’d be out in the open for hours, with Nigel probably camping out in a green room. If someone was just using his name to lure them out, they could be in lots of danger. Although, no one knew they were two nine-year-olds. Lemon-Lime could be the group name for fifteen muscle-bound men—who liked Barbie dolls.

But why would someone like Nigel Reid want to meet them? While no one else seemed to realize how the elves were controlling the great living airships, the clues were there if anyone started to look in the right place. All the research they’d done, anyone else could do. They’d sketched out a mock-up of a gossamer call along the lines of a dog whistle, but they had no way of knowing if it would actually work. They agreed that they were probably missing something important in the design. Magic existed, flowed, pooled, and was depleted. The elves harnessed it in countless ways but guarded many of their secrets carefully. Humans still didn’t understand magic well enough to quantify it or even determine its source. If the elves were combining an ultrasonic whistle with magic, then no, the twins’ call had no hope of actually working.

Did Nigel think they had a working gossamer call?

And why would he think that? The only time they mentioned it in their videos had been a throwaway line in a comedic sketch about frilly underwear. Who in their right mind would use that as evidence of a working prototype? It made no sense.

Still, it was Nigel Reid! And yes, maybe she did love him. He seemed really, really nice, and he was always so gentle and kind to the animals he filmed. If there was a chance to talk to him face-to-face, she wanted it to happen.

What they needed was a two-part recognition process. The
Today Show
would serve to establish that Nigel Reid was the person who posted on the forum. After that they could pick someplace safe to meet.

Like maybe invite him to dinner at their house.

Even though she knew that was impossible, it made her insides go all fluttery with nerves. With trembling fingers, she double-checked that the forum only had an anonymous e-mail account that wasn’t linked to them in any way. Once she was sure that a reply couldn’t be traced to them, she created a private message and typed in, “This is Lemon-Lime. Say ‘hi’ to us on the
Today Show
so we know this post is really from you and then check back here. We’ll private-message contact information after the show.”

“What did you do?” Jillian asked.

Louise showed her the post.

Jillian squeaked in surprise. “You didn’t!”

“I did.”

Jillian flung arms around Louise and hugged her tight. “That is so awesome! I can’t wait to meet him!”

* * *

“No,” their mother said simply.

“Neither one of us could take the morning off to go with you,” their father elaborated. “People start showing up for that at like five-thirty in the morning and stand around in Rockefeller Center until nearly noon.”

“We could go alone. We have Tesla.”

“No!” their mother said. “Tesla can walk you from point A to point B, but for standing there for over six hours, you need an adult. And don’t go calling your Aunt Kitty and asking her—she’s got a deadline she’s behind on.”

“Nigel Reid is the guest,” Louise said.

“I know he’s your favorite,” their mother said.

“And he always brings animals,” Louise plowed on.

Their mother laughed as if this was a joke. “Of course he does. He’s a naturalist. That’s what people like him do when they’re on TV shows: bring animals that misbehave in funny ways and scare the daylights out of the hosts.”

“It’s not like he brings dangerous animals.” Louise felt the need to point it out, just in case this was part of their objection.

Their parents exchanged a look.

“Not everyone likes all animals, honey,” their father said. “Some people are scared of snakes and, and—”

“Spiders.” Their mother added what mildly scared her. “And creepy-looking lizards.”

“That’s just stupid,” Louise muttered quietly.

“Don’t pass judgment on people,” their mother said. “And no, you can’t go, and don’t you two dare sneak off by yourselves to see it, or there will be a world of hurt for both of you.”

“World of hurt” translated to them losing everything from Internet access to having to surrender their video equipment. In Louise’s opinion, corporal punishment would be over faster and thus less painful in the long run—which was probably why their mother opted for her way.

* * *

Louise was so disappointed that she forgot why she’d been on the Pittsburgh forum in the first place until they reached school. The day got worse as she searched through the forums and discovered no one had a telephone directory for Pittsburgh.

“This day sucks.” Louise explained what she’d found out and why she’d been looking.

“We have Alexander’s street address.” Jillian pushed Tesla into their shared locker. “He’s not going to fit in this when winter comes and we have two coats and snow boots to store in here.”

Louise really hoped that by winter they’d have worked something else out, although Tesla was making it so they had a great deal of freedom to move through the city. “Anything we mail has to hit Cranberry days before Shutdown to make it across to the border. If we miss the window, it will sit at the post office for a month until the next Shutdown.”

“So?” Jillian leaned against the wall and watched the ebb and flow of fifth-graders in the hallway. “It’s not going to go bad unless we send something like cookies. Real homemade cookies, not the Girl Scout cookies. We can only call during the twenty-four hours of Shutdown. The first five hours are while we’re asleep. Then we’re here at school. And if we make a call at home, Mom and Dad are going to want to know who the heck we’re talking to.” Because they never talked to people other than Aunt Kitty on the phone.

“I’d rather talk to Alexander instead of mailing her a letter.” Louise started to check sites that might have a Pittsburgh phone book. They were places like the universities and government offices, so she needed to actually hack the sites to search them. At least she could bounce through the café next to the school, so she didn’t have to worry about being traced. “Just dropping a letter into the mail feels a little like writing a letter to Santa Claus. In September! If she answers back, it could take months for her letter to get to us.”

“Her answering would be Christmas?”

“Duh!”

“Shoot! Well, the day just got worse,” Jillian warned. “Incoming.”

Louise looked up from her tablet. “Huh?”

Jillian nodded down the hall, where Elle stood surrounded by the girls from the other fifth-grade class, taught by Mr. Howe. “Elle is passing out invitations to the girls.”

“Already? I thought her birthday was next month.” Elle’s elaborate birthday parties were a yearly ritual. Pride and etiquette demanded that Elle invite all the girls in their grade; thus, they were always included. It had taken them two disasters to realize that they were invited only in form, not in spirit. They hadn’t attended in third or fourth grade.

“I only did one invitation.” Elle handed it over like it should have been on a silver platter. “But it’s for both of you. That’s why I just put ‘Mayer’ on it.”

“And this is yours.” Elle handed Jillian their broken camera that had been standing in as mini-Tesla. “I have no idea how it ended up in my bag, or why you’d want something so broken, but my mother said I had to make sure you got it.”

“Thank you.” Louise knew her mother would ask later if she’d thanked Elle for the invitation or not. She also knew that because there was only one invitation, Jillian figured that they were both covered by Louise’s thanks.

Invitation delivered, Elle turned on her heel and wove down the hallway, skillfully avoiding the curious boys to intercept Zahara. The beautiful African-American girl was in Mr. Howe’s class. She was always late to the fifth-grade floor because she had to deliver her younger brother to his classroom downstairs.

Jillian tore open the envelope and muttered a dark curse at the invitation. “Little Mermaid.”

“You’re kidding me.” Louise had never understood the appeal of
The Little Mermaid
. “I thought she would have grown out of that.”

Jillian kept cursing.

“We don’t have to go,” Louise said.

“This isn’t about Elle’s birthday, it’s about the class play. She wants to do the play
The Little Mermaid,
and she’s going to be Princess Ariel. I’ll end up as the Sea Witch.”