Here Where the Sunbeams Are Green (18 page)

Kyle and Roo barely look at me. “They won’t,” Roo says flatly. “If they hurt us before the gala, Dad will stop having a reason to find a bird.”

“Okay, well, shouldn’t we tell someone about this? Like, an adult?” I say.

“Who?” Kyle says, almost mockingly. “Ken? Your mom?”

I shiver, thinking of Ken/Neth’s ridiculousness and Mom’s yogafication.

“Great idea!” Roo says sarcastically. “Let’s talk to Ken, who works for La Lava!”

“I—I don’t know who,” I stammer. I hate it when Roo is sarcastic. But she’s right—it
is
pretty creepy that Ken/Neth works for La Lava. I wonder how much he knows about everything. All that
aside, though, I really do think we need to get a grown-up involved. “Like … the police or something.”

“The only police out here are on La Lava’s payroll,” Kyle says with a short laugh.

“I guess it’s up to us, then,” Roo says perkily.

Up to us?
Up to us to do what, exactly?
I wonder silently, not wanting to ask the question aloud because I don’t want to hear Roo’s answer.

“So he
has
been trying to kill a bird all this time,” Kyle says, more to himself than to us. “My
abuelos
knew it. But then why …,” he says, trailing off.

“Why what?” Roo demands.

“A few weeks back, I was in the jungle, tracking your dad, and he released one.”

I can picture it like a movie in my head, Dad spreading his arms, freeing a bird.

“You
saw
Dad release a Lava—” Roo stops herself before saying the name.

“He caught it in a net,” Kyle says, “and looked at it for a few minutes, and then opened the net and let it fly away.”

“Why didn’t you tell us this before?” I say, happy that Dad isn’t a total bird murderer but also freaked out that he let a bird go when he should’ve turned it in.

“It never came up,” Kyle says coolly.

I feel betrayed. Kyle, who’s practically our best friend now—correction: who
is
our best friend now—never mentioned that he’d seen Dad, in the jungle, releasing a bird! Instead, all we heard was the horrible thing the witch said about how they’d seen Dad capturing birds to kill. I hope Kyle at least told his grandparents this one redeeming thing about Dad, but if he did, it clearly didn’t make as much of an impression on them as Dad’s bird-capturing.

“
Why
would he have let it go, though?” I ask irritably. As much as Dad would want to release a Lazarus bird, it’s hard for me to imagine him doing so if it would put us in danger.

“Well, he knew what was going to happen to the poor thing if he kept it, duh!” Roo says.

“Yeah, and he also knew what was going to happen to
us
if he
didn’t
keep it!” I retort.

“So probably he had plenty of time,” she says. “Probably they had enough bird bone back then, so he didn’t have, have, have,
have
to give them another bird right that second, and he thought he’d just wait until it was
really
necessary, because killing a bird is the worst for him!”

“That’s pretty darn
risky
,” I say, my voice going all high and out of control.

“Dad
is
risky,” Roo replies.

“That’s being risky with
us
, though,” I tell her.

“Maybe he was seeing enough LTVTs around,” Roo says. “Maybe he was sure that when the time came he could find one. Or maybe he thought he’d be able to make a plan to get out of all this before he had to kill another. Maybe he was trying to do both—save the birds
and
us.”

“Okay, fine,” I say angrily. “Fine. Maybe Dad was gambling with our safety. So, what now? He can’t find a bird so La Lava is just going to …?” But it’s too scary to finish that thought.

Roo sighs impatiently. “Well, he’s obviously having a bit of trouble finding a bird right now, so
we’re
going to help him find one. As I said.”

“Three kids? Are going to help the best bird-tracker in the world? Find the rarest bird in the world? Before Saturday?” My voice rises even higher with panic.

“I’ve seen two of them this month,” Kyle says casually.

We both turn to stare at him.

“You what?” Roo says.

“I’ve seen two of the birds this month. The one I saw your dad release, plus another.”

“Or maybe it was the same one twice,” Roo points out.

“You think you’re a better bird-tracker than Dad?” I ask Kyle with a mean grin.

“No,” Kyle says, “but I’m as good as he is. And so is Roo.”

I harrumph.

“We have it,” Kyle says. “Your dad and Roo and I, we all have it.”

I’m not going to give him the pleasure of hearing me ask what “it” is. Instead, I sit there feeling like chopped liver (Dad’s phrase), since I obviously don’t have “it.”

Then I feel Kyle looking at me, and I meet his gaze, and it’s as though we’re looking at each other for the first time ever. I mean, sure, we’ve
seen
each other before, but we’ve never really
looked
at each other. At least,
Kyle
has never really looked at
me
. His eyes
are
golden, truly golden, no question about it, golden and golden and golden. He looks at me in this silent, serious, solemn way. The way adults must look at each other. You can’t wiggle out of this gaze by acting cute or girly. I try to look back at him with the same even stare but it makes me want to giggle. Not a pleasant, funny giggle. A stupid, terrified giggle.

“We have to do this, Mad,” he murmurs.

“I know,” I murmur back. Because I do know. They have to do it. Roo and Kyle. They’re the ones who can do great things. They’re the ones with powers. It’s not like I haven’t known all along that they can do things I can’t. That they know things I don’t. “You do.”

“
We
do,” Kyle corrects me. “We need you too.”

It’s a very nice thing for him to say, even though it’s not true at all.

It’s pretty much impossible to act normal that night at dinner, but thankfully Mom is so yogafied that she just grins absentmindedly at us when we say we had “a very fun day,” and her grin only widens when we tell her that Kyle is going to take us into the jungle super early tomorrow morning to watch the sunrise over the volcano. If things were different, I’d rush to tell Mom everything. I’d want her to know that Dad is a prisoner of La Lava, that they’re forcing him to kill Lava-Throated Volcano trogons, that they’re using us to hold him hostage, that La Lava grinds up the bones of an almost-extinct bird to make people look young. I’d want her to help us figure out what to do. I’d want her to say we’re imagining things. But somehow I don’t think it would help to talk to her about any of this, and somehow I can’t shake the feeling that La Lava is
doing
something to Mom, because she’s sitting there seeming not at all like herself, looking totally spacey in her tulip dress as she laughs at Ken/Neth’s stupid jokes.

And Ken/Neth. Now I’m not only annoyed by him, I’m scared of him (the guy who put Dad in touch with La Lava! the guy who encouraged Mom to bring us down here!). He’s been so foolish and friendly all the way along I’ve never really believed he could be anything more than a silly, pesky guy with an unusual job and a crush on Mom. But who knows—maybe he’s known this whole time what’s going on with Dad. Maybe he’s well aware that Mom and Roo and I are in danger. Maybe he’s
spying
on us.

Looking across the table at him, though, I decide it’s impossible that he’s in on La Lava’s plot. The way he tries so hard to entertain Mom and me and Roo. The way he accidentally knocks over his piña colada. The way he fails to speak Spanish. He
is
just a goofy guy with a huge crush. He’s annoying as heck, but he’s not
evil
. There’s no way anyone with all the resources of La Lava would choose to give a guy like Ken/Neth any real power. Besides, everyone I’ve seen Ken/Neth interact with at La Lava always seems irritated by everything he says. As much as I dislike him, I know that when it comes to what’s really going on with Dad, Ken/Neth is as innocent as Mom. A pawn of La Lava, just like the rest of us.

“Dessert?” Ken/Neth proposes when the plates are cleared.

The thought of dessert on top of everything we’ve learned today makes me feel extra ill, but Roo says, “Yes, please!” as though she’s not in the least bit of danger.

T
he next morning, when Kyle wakes us up before dawn with three quick knocks at our door, Roo discovers an even larger batch of the little yellow flowers on her toes. “She’s got roses on her toeses, roses on her toeses, roses on her toeses,” she sings to herself as she pulls on her shorts and sneakers. I’m too tired to remind her that what she’s got on her toeses is fungus.

Outside, it’s absolutely dark except for the pinkish light of the fluorescent
SELV L DGE
sign. Kyle leads us toward the blackness of the jungle and opens the gate.

“Do you have a flashlight?” I whisper.

But Kyle just steps onto the dark path.

Who does he think he is? The guy who doesn’t have to answer questions? The guy who doesn’t need a flashlight?

“It’s
sooo
dark!” Roo says.

“No it’s not,” he says.

And, in a way, he’s right. Once my eyes adjust to the jungle, there’s a sort of grayness to the blackness.
Almost
enough light to see by. So I keep my mouth shut and we stumble along for a while.

We’ve been walking for about ten minutes when Roo trips right in front of me. I hear the hard thud of her body on the jungle floor.

“Roo!” I yelp, leaning down and reaching out for her in the darkness, my hands failing to find her. “Are you okay?”

Roo cries out, “I’m bleeding! I’m bleeding!” but she hops right back up, her back brushing my fingertips as she stands.

“Isn’t it too dark to tell whether you’re bleeding or not?” Kyle says.

Jeez, what a jerk! Now it’s Roo’s turn to ignore the question.

“Wait here,” Kyle says. I hear him stepping off the path into the jungle—to pee?

Then a moment later, he’s back, cupping something in his hands—something that gives off a greenish glow. He blows into his palms and the light inside his hands strengthens until it’s illuminating the path, showing us that, though Roo is covered in mud, there’s no blood.

“I’d rather not use this,” Kyle says. “The dark is better. But I guess we need it for now. Safer, I guess.”

Roo’s no longer thinking about her injuries, though.

“What
—is
—that?” she says slowly, breathlessly.

Unlike Roo, I’m not so shocked by Kyle’s little light bauble. It’s probably some kind of plastic glow-in-the-dark thingy. I’m just surprised he hasn’t turned it on till now.

But then Kyle bends over to show Roo what’s in his hands and I catch a glimpse. It’s a small, pale mushroom. A
glowing
mushroom. As I watch, the mushroom’s greenish light seems to seep away. Kyle cups his hands and blows on it, and the light of the mushroom intensifies again.

“
What. Is. That?
” Roo repeats.

“Oh, nothing,” Kyle says. “Just a volcanic mushroom.”

“I want one!” Roo insists.

“They’re all over the place,” he says. “Come on, let’s keep moving.”

As we walk, I stare into the jungle and realize that there
are
mushrooms growing on almost every tree trunk, so many that I’m shocked I didn’t notice them before.

I pluck a mushroom and blow on it but nothing happens. When Roo blows on one, it gives off a tiny little gasp of light, which is better than nothing, but it’s just a dim glint compared to the steady, cool light of Kyle’s mushroom leading us through the jungle.

“You’ll get the hang of it,” he tells Roo, ignoring me, which I’m getting pretty used to.

We continue onward, eventually ducking off Normal Path onto Invisible Path. The jungle seems more mysterious to me now than ever before. The animal sounds are louder than usual and getting louder with every step. I hear the whoops of monkeys high above us. Maybe I can listen to everything better now that my eyes aren’t distracted by all the bright colors of daytime. As we walk along, I have that feeling again where I wonder if we’re still on the planet Earth, or if maybe we’re a million miles from anywhere.