Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (17 page)

“I
s this
your
room?” I whisper as Kyle opens the wooden door at the top of the spiral staircase that starts in the kitchen of the Selva Lodge. It’s a very small room with a green-blanketed bed that looks even narrower than a twin, but it has a big window facing the volcano. I never knew teenage boys could actually keep their rooms tidy.

Kyle doesn’t reply to my question. Before we’re even through the doorway, he’s holding The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter up, staring at it.

“A code!” he says, his eyes gleaming as he gazes at the dumb poem and childish drawings. He reads aloud, very slowly:

A weird hot feeling comes over me, a feeling that seems like it could lead to either laughing or crying, and I hear myself saying, “
Maybe
it’s a code. Or
maybe
Dad’s just crazy.”

Roo and Kyle ignore me. Together they flop down on the round red rug next to Kyle’s bed and stare at Dad’s letter. “Have you tried the first letter of each word?” Kyle asks Roo.

“Uh,
yeah
,” Roo says, offended.

“How about every other word?”

Roo rolls her eyes.

“How about the last letter of each word?”

“
Puh
-lease,” she says.

“Are you sure it’s a code?”

“As I said—” I butt in.

“YES,” Roo says. “Every single letter Dad ever wrote me was a code.”

“Okay,” Kyle says excitedly, “it’s such nonsense that there’s got to be something more to it. Let’s try some complicated patterns. How about, every second vowel and every third consonant.”

“Humph,” Roo harrumphs. “I actually haven’t tried that one yet.”

I give a theatrical yawn and sink down onto the bed. I’m pretty sure The Very Strange and Incredibly Creepy Letter is just that—very strange and incredibly creepy, and nothing more. Dad sent it in April, which we now know was
after
he had captured at least one Lava-Throat, so he was already insane, right?

Anyway, while Kyle and Roo do their little back and forth, I sprawl across the bed and try to put my face at its nicest angle for Kyle and let my hair fall down across my cheek in a way that I hope is kind of glamorous. But Kyle isn’t the one who notices these gestures. Instead, Roo interrupts her code-breaking to ask, “What are you doing? Do you need a barrette? Why are you putting your hair there? That’s weird.” Meanwhile, Kyle just keeps talking to Roo, as though he has a special blind spot for me.

“What if the code is based in Spanish rather than English?” he proposes. “We should think about that too.”

I stop trying to get Kyle’s attention and just zone out and stare up at the volcano. Which is now spewing some bluish smoke. It’s probably fine, I tell myself. And even if it isn’t, what can I do about it?

I rest my head on my arms and time passes. It’s boring, lying there while the others work on their impossible task, and I can’t stop feeling sad about Dad being crazy. Next thing I know I must’ve fallen asleep, because the sound of La Lluvia starting with a slam jerks me awake.

As soon as I realize it’s just the rain, I relax and sink back down. I’m lying there, groggy, listening to the rain, when the thought crosses my mind: Right where I’m lying right now, right where I just took a nap, this is where Kyle sleeps every night! I can’t help it, the thought makes me blush, and I get up off the bed before the blush turns into a giggle, and I flop down alongside Kyle and Roo, who are making all sorts of complicated charts on pieces of scrap paper. I prop my chin in my hands and do one of my least favorite things, in hopes that it will make me stop blushing about Kyle’s bed: I look at The Very Strange and Incredibly
Creepy Letter. I’ve never really stared at it before, and now that I am, it hits me what a totally, seriously,
unbelievably
terrible drawer Dad is.

“Jeez, his flowers don’t even look like flowers,” I say. “That one just looks like a
W
.”

Roo and Kyle keep scribbling away.

Then, suddenly, Kyle stops.

“Wait a sec,” he says, snatching Dad’s letter up off the floor. “
W …
”

“
W…,
” Roo repeats, tracing it with her finger.

“Hey!” Kyle exclaims, pointing. “An
M
!”

“THEY’RE LETTERS!” Roo shrieks, dropping her pencil. “THE
FLOWERS
ARE
LETTERS
!”

We work our way around Dad’s flowery border, finding letters disguised as flowers and vines and leaves, and writing them down. Once you know they’re there, it’s not so hard to see them—the bars of an
F
stretching up into a leaf, and
B
s and
D
s forming blossoms, and
S
as part of the main vine, and
L
a vine that curlicues off the main vine, and
M
and
N
and
H
composing the bases of flowers, et cetera.

“Oh my
gosh
,” Roo mutters, “I am so stupid. Why did I not figure this out forever ago?” She groans. “And there’s even
huge
hints in the letter! I love you left right up down! Plus that being smart is being silly. The goofy flowers are the silly part! He was basically
shouting
at me to look at the border!”

Sometimes we wonder, wait, is that supposed to be a
K
? Is that a
V
? But every time we wonder, we assume it
is
, because Dad’s careful that way. This is what we end up with, going around the four sides:

It’s thrilling to find letter after letter when all I saw before was scary craziness and bad drawing.

This is obviously what Dad wanted us to figure out.

Happiness gushes through me, because now I know he’s not insane! No insane person could be this clever.

But as I gaze at the letters my heart gets heavy all over again. They still don’t mean anything. There are no vowels to help us along.

“The left-hand side …,” Kyle murmurs.

“Something repeated three times!” Roo says. “An abbreviation, like LOL!”

“Something important, I guess,” I add. “Maybe—stop him, stop him, stop him?”

“It’s a
Y
,” Roo tells me quietly. “Not a
P
.”

Embarrassed, I shut up.

“Stay!” Kyle says. “Stay, stay, stay! It’s got to be S-T-A-Y! Stay him?”

“Isn’t that an old-fashioned way of saying
Stop him
?” I ask.

“STAY HOME!” Roo yelps.

Oh yeah. Duh. Stay home. Stay home. Stay home. Of course. Dad didn’t want us to come. That’s been obvious from the first day, when he was so cold to us. When he said to Mom,
Why are you here?

Stay home, stay home, stay home. Well, it’s a little late for that, isn’t it.

But why did Dad want us to stay home? If he were having problems, wouldn’t he have wanted us to come help? Wouldn’t it have made him happy to see us again?

Anyway, okay. Stay home. But what about the rest? We’re all staring so hard at the letters that we jump when the door creaks open.

It’s the witch, standing there at the top of the spiral staircase with a plateful of black muffins and three glasses of emerald-colored liquid on a tray.

“
Black
muffins?” I say suspiciously. Boy, you don’t get much witchier than that.

“From black corn,
querida
,” the witch replies. “A local specialty.”

“What’s that green stuff?” Roo says. “It looks too healthy. Does it have seaweed in it?”

But still she grabs and chugs from the glass the witch hands her, and Kyle swoops out to seize two muffins. Then the witch shoves the tray toward me, insistent.

I look at Kyle and Roo, devouring the muffins and gulping the drink, not keeling over from being poisoned or anything. And I don’t want to be paranoid the way Mom got during The Weirdness. And it’s not as though I actually, truly, one hundred percent believe the witch is a witch or the green stuff a potion.

So I reach out for a muffin and a glass.

Only after Roo and Kyle have thanked the witch about a hundred times for the incredible snack, only after she’s smiled secretively behind her veil and trundled off down the spiral stairs, only then do I take a sip of the liquid and eat a crumb of the muffin.

And I have to admit: The emerald substance is amazing, as rich and sweet as jungle flowers. And the black corn muffin melts like butter on my tongue.

When I look back at our rectangle of letters, the top line suddenly flashes into words before me, as though I’m seeing it through a whole new set of eyes.

“
L-L,
” I say, “La Lava! La Lava
W-I-L-L H-A-R-M M-M-R
.”

Roo and Kyle stare at me, surprised. And impressed. We all crouch over the paper.

“
M-M-R,
” Roo whispers. “Mom-Mad-Roo. Or Mad-Mom-Roo.”

“
F-D
doesn’t kill—” Kyle says, moving his finger very slowly down the right-hand side.

“
L-T-V-T
s!” we all say at the same time.

“Okay,” Kyle says, “but
F-D
?”

“If Dad …,” I murmur with a strange certainty.

“Yeah!” Roo says. “Left, right, up, down. Stay home, stay home, stay home. If Dad doesn’t kill LTVTs, La Lava will harm Mom, Mad, Roo. But what about the bottom?
L-T-V-T
, easy-peasy, but what about
B-N-K
?”

“Bank?” I suggest, feeling like I’m on a roll.

“Bank,” Roo mutters. “That doesn’t make sense.”

“
P-P-L,
” Kyle says. “That’s easy too.”

“People!” Roo yelps.

“People,” I echo. “But … 
B-N-K-P-S
?”

“Let’s try for
Y-N-G
first,” Kyle suggests.

“
B-N-K-P-S …,
” I say, ignoring him, totally stumped.

“Young!” Roo cries out. “LTVT blank people young!”

“
B-N-K-P-S,
” I repeat.
B-N-K-P-S. B-N-K P-S? B-N K-P-S? B N-K-P-S?

“
K-P-S
—” Roo says. “Keeps! Keeps, keeps, keeps!”

“But what’s the
B-N
?” I wonder. “
LTVT
blank keeps people young … ban? Bin?”

“
Bone!
” Roo says victoriously. “Bone, right? It’s got to be!
That’s
why the Villaloboses saw those carcasses up there without any bones!”

“
LTVT bone keeps people young,
” I whisper.

“Wait,” Roo is muttering, “wait, wait, wait, oh my gosh, it’s like that thing about the volcano! About how it makes you young!”

“THE VOLCANO CAN RESTORE LOST YOUTH,” Kyle quotes.

It’s so miraculous to see the words taking shape before our eyes that I’ve forgotten to be upset about what we’re learning. But now my crouching legs give out and I fall back against the bed.

LTVT bone keeps people young
.

So. That’s it. There you have it.

That’s why Taller was putting pressure on Dad yesterday. That’s why La Lava is holding the best bird-tracker in the world hostage.

And La Lava will harm us. If Dad doesn’t provide LTVTs. Which they need for Vivi and everyone else’s crazy-expensive miracle youth treatments. Which he’s having trouble finding. Which he
better find by the time of the gala or else. Which is in four days. Or, now, three days.

Roo and I were wrong when we said the Bird Guy would never kill a member of a Lazarus species. Of course he would, if that was the only way he could protect us.

“Well,” Roo says matter-of-factly, “we have to help him find a bird so La Lava won’t hurt us.”

“Yeah,” Kyle agrees. “We’ll go into the jungle early tomorrow morning and tell him we’ll help.” Then he adds, sounding almost happy, “I
knew
he had a reason.”

Excuse me, but how can they be discussing this in such a calm way?

“Um, what if La Lava hurts us while we’re wandering around the jungle?” I ask.
We have our eyes all over them
. The sentence flashes back to me out of nowhere. I didn’t even realize I remembered it. Taller’s sneering voice, talking down to Dad yesterday. So
we’re
the “them.”