Just J (7 page)

Well, not even half.

“Let's go inside, ” Aunt Guin cheerfully suggests as she and Art move toward the death trap.

“I'm okay out here.” Actually I won't be okay until I'm far, far away from here.

“Oh, come on. Remember, this is an adventure!”

“Our final one, I'm sure.”

They disappear into the house and I reluctantly follow.

I make my way cautiously up the porch steps toward the structurally challenged house. With each stair, my step softens as the creaking gets louder. The whole house begins to whimper, begging me to stop.

Trying to will myself lighter, I think of nothing but feathers. At the top of the stairs, I stop and muster my courage to make it across the porch, which seems miles wide. The stairs are exhausted, ready to turn to powder from the strain that we've put them under.

“There's no turning back now,” I tell myself, thinking of animals that get trapped on islands and ice floes during spring thaw. Pushing fear and wisdom aside, I gingerly move forward.

“Feathers, feathers, feathers.” I'm halfway there. “Feathers, feathers, brick—oh no.” With a loud crack the boards beneath me splinter and send me plummeting. Wood spears and rusty nails rip through both pants and skin and I come to a sudden ankle-shattering stop. I wince—the shock and intense pain take my voice away. Waist deep, I'm imprisoned by shards of wood that act like a medieval tor–ture device. This is what it has come to, my tragic life cut short by shoddy craftsmanship. What could be worse? Then I feel it.

A rat crawls over my foot, dragging its six-inch tail. Its claws and dirty fur infect my wounds; its whiskers tickle my ankle; its little rat nose bobs up and down, sniffing at the cuts; its small black eyes grow larger and larger at the sight of blood. It starts to gnaw at me with its sharp little teeth. Another rat comes to join in the feast, and then another and another. Soon my legs are covered with them. My mouth opens, but still nothing comes out—betrayed by my own vocal cords.

“Come on, J, it's perfectly safe,” I hear Aunt Guin say, and I look up to see that she's come back to the door to hurry me along.

Okay, so maybe there aren't rats and maybe the wood didn't break, exactly—or at all—but it could.

Once inside, the smell that fills my nostrils makes me realize it's unlikely there are any rats around. Judging by the aroma, whoever lived here before must have had about a million cats—or one cat with a
really
big problem.

“Oh my god! That smell! We can't stay here!” I say, since neither of them seems to notice.

“It just needs a little tlc,” Aunt Guin says optimisti–cally.

“Unless that means turpentine, lighter fluid and other combustibles, then I think you're aiming a little low.”

Art laughs, which I like, even though it wasn't really meant to be funny.

“You have to look at what it could be,” Aunt Guin says, her voice filled with optimism.

“An insurance claim.” I'm on a roll, but Art isn't laughing this time. He is smiling though, but he's trying to hide it. I look over at Aunt Guin; she looks disappointed. What was she expecting? The place is a hole. Actually, a hole would be an improvement.

“I'll get your things from the van,” Art says as he heads toward the door.

Aunt Guin looks at me.

“What?” I ask. “This place is a total disaster.”

“You're looking at the flaws that lie without, instead of the potential that lies within. It's a solid house with a good foundation. It's just been neglected.”

“It stinks.”

“Okay, let's start with that.” She looks around, inhaling deeply without throwing up, which is pretty impressive.

Then she gets down on her knees and puts her nose right down to the stained, baby blue carpet. She inhales again and I think
I'm
going to throw up.“Yep,” she says, “that's the source.” She pulls a Swiss Army knife out of her pocket and cuts though the carpet, pulling up a corner. “Oak.”

“That's good?” I ask.

“Yes, that's good,” she says. “What else do you see?”

“I don't know,” I say.

“Just look around and tell me what you see.”

“Stained wallpaper to match the stained carpet, yellow trim—that I think started out white—an old fireplace with a god-awful green mantel. How could people live in this?”

“If you start thinking you're better than others, then it stands to reason that others are better than you. The universe doesn't play favorites,” Aunt Guin says. “And besides, everything you mentioned is superficial. What I see are beautiful bay windows, nine-foot ceilings, maple trim underneath the paint, and a roaring fire under the cherrywood mantel.”

“Are you starting to see the potential?” she asks. “Just let your imagination run free and listen to what the house tells you.”

“What the house tells me?”

“Sure. It knows what it wants to be. You just have to encourage it a bit and it'll tell you; now listen.”

I look and I listen to the house, and you know what the house tells me? Nothing. It's a house! It can't talk! I turn to point out this little fact, which she's apparently overlooked, when I'm stopped by her expression. You'd think she'd just walked into one of those homes out of
Martha Stewart
Living
or
MTV Cribs
. She walks around, avoiding imaginary furniture and admiring the finished wood that lies under about six coats of paint. I decide to leave and she doesn't even notice. Outside, I see Arthur looking around the overgrown yard with the same stupid expression on his face as there is on Aunt Guin's. I head to the beach.

Chapter Thirteen

I
arrive at the water as the sun slowly slips behind the bushes that stand watch at the top of the sand dunes about a kilometer away from the house. I head toward them. The beach behind the house is flat white sand, and it doesn't take long for my shoes to fill. I could go back and get the sandals that I'm sure Aunt Guin packed for me, but instead I just remove my shoes and socks. The sand feels hot but pleasant, massaging my feet with every step.

The disappearing sun turns the sky blood orange and promotes the sand to gold dust. Without the sun's heat, the sand becomes cool under my feet. I climb to the top of the dunes like a queen in her treasury room.

Near the top I sit to rest and admire the lake, now golden as well. It's hard to distinguish where the sand ends and the water begins. I push myself down into the dune, which is as formfitting as a giant beanbag chair.

From my perch, the house looks lonely and embarrassed. Its windows grab the colors of the sunset and hold them to distract from the peeling paint and overgrown garden, but the brilliant colors do little to improve it. The house looks like a vagrant with a marigold in his lapel.

Maybe it
can
talk. Maybe I just wasn't listening hard enough. Or maybe I'm losing my mind. I stare at the house, and I listen harder and harder. When I have a clear picture in my head, I close my eyes to try and heighten my other senses.

“Tell me what you want, talk to me. Speak, speak, tell me how you feel.”

“Banzai!” The word blasts out over the dunes, echoing off the water. I spring up and open my eyes, and something hits me from behind, snapping my head forward.

“Banzai” turns into “aggghh” and then “ouch” as a boy goes tumbling over me and rolls down the dune. He digs his feet in and comes to a sliding stop about three-quarters of the way down. He shakes the sand out of his long, dirty-blond hair. At least I think it's dirty-blond, but maybe it's just blond and dirty. His face has sand stuck to it, but I can make out some freckles and sparkling green eyes.

“Cool,” he says before looking up the hill to see what tripped him, which is how he finds me, still rubbing my head.

“Oh, sorry. I didn't know you were there.”

“Well, I was,” I tell him, which is a dumb thing to say.

“Yeah, I can see that now,” he says, which is pretty much the only thing you can say back. “I really am sorry. Are you okay?”

“Aside from the whiplash, you mean?” I snap. “What were you doing?”

“Just jumping off the top of the dune.”

“Why?”

“To see how far I could jump.”

“Sounds like
loads
of fun,” I say.

“You should try it! You just run as fast as you can and when you get to the edge, you jump. You're airborne for a few seconds, and then you slide into the sand. That is, of course, as long as you don't trip over someone. Then it gets a bit more complicated.”

“So kicking a stranger in the head isn't usually part of it?”

“No, that's an added bonus.”

He smiles. Through reflex alone, I smile back.

“Name's Connor,” he says, climbing the dune and sticking his hand out as if he's been waiting a long time to meet me.

“I'm J,” I say and put out my hand so as not to be rude. He shakes it firmly before plopping down at my side.

“You're not from 'round here, are you?”

“Unfortunately, no.”

He nods and looks confused. Perhaps he's unfamiliar with sarcasm.

“Where you from?” he finally says.

“Toronto.”

“Oh, boy, then you are lucky.” Now I'm not sure, but I think he may be a bit more familiar with sarcasm than I first gave him credit for. “So what crime did you commit to get yourself sentenced here?”

Yep, he's familiar.

“My mom died and my dad didn't want me around.”

“What an idiot…sorry.”

“Don't be; he is one.”

“I mean about your mom; the sorry part, not the idiot part.”

“Oh, thanks,” I say. Maybe he's not as bad as I first thought.

We sit there for a minute in silence, but the silence isn't awkward. We're just enjoying watching the sky go slowly gray as the world gets older.

“So are you at the campgrounds?”

“No, my aunt bought a house just over there.”

“Which one?”

“The one that's crumbling,” I say, pointing it out.

“I thought an albino bought that place. Is that your aunt?”

“That's not very nice.”

“What?”

“Calling him an albino.”

“Your aunt's a he?”

“No, the al…he's her friend.”

“Oh, isn't he an albino?”

“He is, but it's not nice to say that.”

“What's not nice about it? I can see calling a really pale white guy an albino might be considered an insult—and even that's questionable—but if you call an albino an albino…I don't see anything wrong with that.”

“There is,” I say.

He stops to ponder.

Now the silence is awkward.

“Do you know his name?” he asks.

“Whose?”

“The al…your aunt's friend?”

“Arthur, Art.”

“Arthur Art?”

“Arthur, but he likes to be called Art.”

“All right then. I thought Art bought the place.”

“He bought it for my aunt—I think.”

“Now we're getting somewhere,” he says. “How long are you down for?”

“The whole summer,” I say, expressing my excitement about the concept as clearly as I can.

“It won't be that bad. There's a lot of fun to be had in these parts.”

“Like jumping off the top of the dunes?”

He smiles, more to himself than to me. It's kind of adorab…annoying. Annoying is what I mean—definitely.

“There's a dance hall buried in one of these dunes.”

“No way!” I say.

“So way,” he replies. “Moonlight Palace. The dunes shifted and buried it. They couldn't stop it because the government protects the dunes. They just had to sit back and watch it happen.”

“How long ago?”

“I don't know exactly—in the fifties, maybe. Some of the locals say that the sand of the dunes stopped the sands of time, and if you can find the hotel and get inside, you'll be transported back to when it was still open and thriving.”

“Really?”

“Really. Mind you, some of the locals drink a lot.” He glances over at the old house. “It looks like your aunt has a campfire going.”

On the shore a fire burns brightly, and I can make out Art and Aunt Guin carrying some chairs to set around it.

“I'd better get back,” I inform him.

“Yeah, me too,” he replies, but I'm not sure if he really has to or if he's just saying that because I did. “I work at Vittles and Vitals—that's my parents' store—in the afternoon, so if you want to stop by, it's just a ten-minute bike ride from here.”

“I don't have a bicycle.”

“I can get you one, as long as you're not picky.”

“That's okay.”

“It's no trouble.” He gets up and starts to walk back over the dunes from which he had so dramatically appeared. At the top he stops and turns around.

“Around here, people say things without thinking, so it's best to listen to what they mean instead of what they say. I didn't mean anything bad about your friend, though I can understand why you'd think so,” he apologizes. “See ya,” he adds, and then he disappears over the crest without waiting for a reply.

On the way back to the house, I think about what he said. I don't know why I got so upset about it. It wasn't like he used a derogatory term or anything. I wonder if Art gets offended if people call him that. I want to ask him, but I don't know if that would offend him. I wonder if even wondering about it makes me prejudiced. So I stop.

I start thinking about Moonlight Palace buried in the sand. How fast was it buried? Was there stuff still inside it? Was it a big hall? Did it have a chandelier? And what about going back in time? Yeah, I know it sounds stupid, but what if?

A strong smell tantalizes me, and I look up to see that Art has a grill set up over the campfire. On the grill are a couple of steaks, a tofu something—I imagine it's Aunt Guin's—and potatoes wrapped in tinfoil. The smell of garlic hangs in the air.