13 Gifts (5 page)

Chapter Six

 

The sound of my stomach growling startles me
awake. I expect to see Emily’s messy room but instead I find myself in darkness. I squeeze my eyes shut and open them again. How did it get dark in the ten minutes I’d been lying down? I catch sight of my alarm clock on the night table and groan. 2:13
A.M
.! I am clearly the worst houseguest ever. On the other side of the room, I can just make out Emily asleep on her back, a book open on her chest.

I tentatively lift the corner of my own blanket and am relieved to see that even though I’m now barefoot, my clothes are still on. It would have been really embarrassing if Aunt Bethany had put me in my pajamas like I was a little kid. She must have plugged in my clock, though, which means she was in my suitcase. I wonder what she saw.

I realize I have no idea where the bathroom is. My bladder tells me I can’t wait till morning to find out.

Creeping across the room on my tiptoes, I do my best to step around the piles that I can just make out thanks to the full moon shining through the blinds. I make it to the door without Emily waking up.

The closed doors up and down the hall mock me. Seeing no
other option, I put my ear up to the first door I come to. I don’t know what I’m expecting to hear but it’s not like I can knock. After a few seconds of hearing nothing, I open the door to reveal a closet full of sheets and towels. Gentle snoring wafts into the hallway from the next room. I hurry past it, glad I hadn’t tried that knob. Barging into my aunt and uncle’s bedroom in the middle of the night would really not be a step in the right direction.

The room next to theirs is the one where Uncle Roger keeps his collectibles, so I turn around and start down the other side. A faint ray of light peeks out from underneath the first door. Just like a night-light in a bathroom would! I lean close to it, and, hearing only silence, eagerly push it open.

Nope. Not a bathroom. Judging from the blueprints, charts, magazine articles, and newspaper clippings fluttering on the long white walls, along with the most random assortment of stuff I’ve ever seen, I’m pretty sure I’ve just stumbled onto Uncle Roger’s lab. Every surface is covered with machinery of some kind, from tiny screws to what looks like an airplane engine but probably isn’t because who has an airplane engine in their house? Huge rolls of cloth in every color line the left side of the room. One corner is full of beakers and test tubes and jars marked
DO NOT DRINK
. Lamps and vacuum cleaners and tires and tubes, bundles of wire and row upon row of metal filing cabinets fill the rest of the space. It’s as unorganized as the Collectibles Room is tidy.

I trace the light source to a tall lamp next to the desk. Or what I’m assuming is a desk since I can’t see the surface of it. Emily must feel very at home in this room.

Should I turn off the light? I probably should. Waste of electricity and all that. I take a few steps toward it, careful not to trip over the stack of magazines in the way.

“Going on walkabout?” an amused voice asks from behind me. “And I thought they only did that Down Under.”

My body tries to take a step backward and whirl around at the same time. As a result, I get tangled in my own legs and fall right over the magazines, which splay out in all directions.

“Sorry, didn’t mean to startle you,” Ray says, bending down to help me. “Just came to check when I heard noises up here.”

“Why are you always sneaking up on me?” I grumble. “Because here in America, it’s considered
impolite.”

“Oh, it’s impolite Down Under, too. It’s just fun.”

“I was trying to find the bathroom.”

“In here?”

I sigh. “Can you just show me where it is?”

We walk out into the hall. “Last door on the left,” he whispers.

I lower my voice, too. “Then what are all these other doors?”

“They all open into the lab. Your rellies knocked the walls down to make it one big room.”

I should have realized that. “Hooroo,” Ray says and leaves me at the bathroom door with a wave. I figure that either means “good night” or is Australian for “Don’t wander into your uncle’s lab again or I’ll be forced to tell him.” Or maybe it’s his imitation of an owl. If he weren’t so cute, I would have lost patience with him three conversations ago.

By the time I get back to the bedroom, Emily’s blankets have become a tent. The only sound is the rustle of pages turning.
I’m about to tell her she doesn’t have to hide under there on my account; the glow of the flashlight wouldn’t bother me. Then I hear “But if the square root of the integer is nine …” and I decide to tiptoe past her bed instead. I wouldn’t want to disrupt a genius at work.

Only when I’ve climbed back into my bed does it occur to me to wonder why Ray would be here in the middle of the night.

The next time I wake up, it’s to the sound of my alarm playing “light rain.”

“Rats,” Emily mutters sleepily. “It’s raining.”

I reach over and shut it off. “It’s just my clock, see?” I lift the blind to show her the sun outside, but she has already rolled over and doesn’t respond when I call her name.

Even though it’s only seven o’clock, I’m wide awake. Except for my brief journey in the middle of the night, I’ve been sleeping for twelve hours. I may be hungrier than I’ve ever been. I slip on my shoes and sneak past Emily again. The other doors are still closed and no one’s in the kitchen when I get there. I’m halfway through my third bowl of Rice Krispies when Ray strolls in eating a roll and carrying a newspaper.

“G’day!” he says with his mouth full. “Not to be a knocker, but you must really like that outfit.”

I look down. I’m still in the black pants and black T-shirt I wore on the train. Instead of commenting on that sorry fact, I ask, “Do you, like,
live
here?”

“In the guest room down the hall,” he says, then shoves the rest of the roll in his mouth.

The guest room that should be
mine,
I can’t help thinking.

He sits down across from me and opens the paper. I quickly finish my cereal and bring the bowl to the sink.

“See you later,” I say, turning to go back upstairs.

“Getting ready for your party?”

I stop in my tracks. I’d forgotten all about that! The cereal in my belly congeals into a solid lump. “Do you think I can ask them to cancel it? I’m really not a party person.”

“Nope. Your aunt loves to throw parties.”

“I, um, I think I need fresh air.” I hurry outside and over to the shed. I need to be riding. It always helps me sort things out. Tools of all shapes and sizes hang from metal hooks that run the length of one wall. I find a wrench and raise the bike seat as high as it will go. A few swishes with an old rag and the spider-webs are gone. The tires are completely flat, but a bike pump solves that. I check under the seat to make sure no spiders are lurking, then walk the bike past the giant hole and around to the front yard.

The tires are a lot thicker than I’m used to and it’s hard to build up any real speed on the flat streets. But the air on my cheeks feels good, and I can move around easier without all the usual reflective gear.

After a few minutes, I can relax enough to put the looming party out of my head and take a look around. The houses are all pretty large, larger than the ones at home, but none as large as Emily’s. Not too many people are outside yet, only two dog
walkers and a little kid on his bike. The kid and I nod at each other as we approach on opposite sides of the street. He glances at my bike and then up at me and then down at my bike again. I pretend not to notice and keep riding.

After a few more times around the block I figure I better get back in case anyone’s looking for me. As soon as I enter the backyard, I hear a very strange sound. Not chanting, not singing, but a combination of the two. The voice is male. I don’t know what language it is, but it’s definitely not Australian. And the voice isn’t deep enough to be Uncle Roger. The only thing is, I don’t see anyone.

I walk the bike as silently as possible through the still-damp grass. The voice gets louder and louder. I look around for a hidden tree house, but see only leaves and sky. There’s only one other option. But who would willingly hang around the bottom of a pool pit? Maybe the boy fell in and it’s up to me to rescue him. I don’t have much practice in the rescuing department. I glance up at the house. The upstairs rooms are still dark. Guess it’s up to me. When I reach the edge of the hole, I kneel down and peek over, afraid of what I might find.

A boy around my age with short, spiky brown hair and wire-rimmed glasses is sitting cross-legged on one of the wooden boards. His eyes are closed, and he’s swaying slightly as he chants/sings. Sometimes the words are really hard and guttural, and sometimes they’re soft. It’s not unpleasant, just … different. Almost like it’s from another time and definitely another place. As far as I can tell from this distance, the boy doesn’t
look wounded in any way. I think I’m off the hook on the rescue.

I start to back up before he spots me, but of course my sneaker catches on a rock and sends a bunch of dirt and pebbles skittering down the side. The singing stops abruptly.

“Is someone up there?” he calls out.

Would it be really bad to just leave? Probably. So I step into view. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to bother you.”

He scrambles to his feet. “No, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t wake you up.”

I shake my head. My experience talking to boys my own age is pretty much zip. That goes double for boys chanting in a foreign language from a really big hole in the ground.

“You must be Emily’s cousin,” he says.

I nod.

“I thought she told me you weren’t coming for a few weeks.”

I want to tell him he misunderstood her, but then I’d have to explain how I only pepper-sprayed the principal a few days ago, and I have no desire to share my life story with a strange boy. I look around for a ladder or rope, but don’t see any. Changing the subject I ask, “Did you, um, fall into the hole?”

He shakes his head. “Good acoustics down here. Nice echo effect off the dirt walls. And more privacy than at my house. I live across the street. Your aunt lets me practice over here.”

“Practice for what?”

“For my bar mitzvah. It’s in a month. I’ll, you know, become a man. According to tradition.”

That explains the foreign language. There are a few Jewish
kids in my grade, but I hadn’t been invited to any of their bar mitzvahs. “Well, I should, uh, let you get back to it.”

“Wait,” he says. “You don’t have to go. I mean, if you don’t want to.”

Considering this has been the longest conversation I’d probably ever had with a soon-to-be-thirteen-year-old boy outside of science lab, I figure I shouldn’t push it. I shake my head and say, “I’ve got to take a shower.” Then I cringe. Did I really just tell him I needed to shower? Head down, I scamper away before I can further embarrass myself.

Uncle Roger has taken Ray’s place at the table, the newspaper half-obscuring his face. “Eggs?” Aunt Bethany asks me, holding out a skillet. Oil sizzles and pops all around the pan. I can’t help noticing she’s wearing makeup even though it’s early on a Sunday morning. Maybe she sleeps with it on. I thought only women on soap operas did that.

I shake my head. “I’m sorry about last night. I didn’t mean to fall asleep.”

“Not at all,” she says. “You’d had a long day. We saved you some pizza; it’s in the fridge.”

“Thanks.” I’m waiting for her to ask where I’d gone, but she doesn’t say anything. I clear my throat and say, “Um, I was just out riding my bike, I mean, Emily’s bike. I should have left a note or something.”

She cracks an egg over the pan. The oil sizzles louder. “Ray told us,” she says, tilting the pan so the egg spreads evenly. “We want you to feel comfortable here, so feel free to do whatever you’d normally do at home.”

I’d rather not admit that at home my mother makes me tell her every time I step out of her sight. And I have no desire to wear body armor while biking in a strange town.

She glances at my outfit. “Perhaps you’d like to shower and change before the barbeque?”

I redden. “I was just about to.”

“Towels are in the hall closet,” she says, then lifts the pan off the stove. With a flick of her wrist, the fried egg jumps out of the pan, flips in the air, and lands in the center of the pan. She beams in satisfaction.

“Cool,” I say.

She waves her hand. “Don’t be too impressed. Eggs are the only things I know how to make that don’t taste like burnt bricks.”

The head behind the newspaper nods in agreement.

I’m halfway out of the kitchen when Aunt Bethany calls out to me, “Wait a sec.” She leaves the pan on the stove and picks up my arm, the one with my mom’s bracelet. “This looks familiar.”

I can’t think of what to say without admitting it was my mother’s, so I blurt out, “I have a whole bag of jewelry for you from Mom. It’s upstairs.”

She lowers my arm and smiles. “I saw the bag last night. I figured it was either your mom’s or you’re an international jewel thief posing as my niece. Speaking of your mother, you should call her now, before the plane takes off.”

She’s probably right. But I really, really don’t want to talk to my parents. Mom can always tell when I’m hiding something. Even over the phone. She’s truly gifted that way. I’m still not ready to tell them I lost everything they gave me.

“Darling?” Uncle Roger asks, calmly resting the paper on the table. “The eggs?”

We both turn to look at the stove. Black smoke pours from the pan. Aunt Bethany groans and runs over. I take the opportunity to run the other way.

I find Emily sitting up in her bed highlighting a section of her math book. This must have been the one she was reading under the covers.

She grins and points out the window. “It’s sunny now! I was afraid your party was going to get rained out.”

Too bad my alarm clock doesn’t have the magical ability to make
real
rain. “You guys don’t have to throw a party for me, seriously.”