My Diary from the Edge of the World (6 page)

I guess my dad is superstitious after all, because he said, “Maybe you'll be our good luck charm,” and welcomed Oliver on board. Oliver turned to me, his green eyes flashing, and he gave the hint of a smile, relieved. “Is it okay with you, Gracie?” he asked.

It took me by surprise, because no one in this family
ever
asks me if anything is okay with me. I made a big show of nodding, knowing Millie had heard him. “Of course, Oliver,” I said . . . rather nobly.

Oliver smiled in relief, then he pulled Tweep out of his pocket and cupped her in both palms, whispering to her. “I'll be back in just a second,” he said to my mom. He stepped out of the Trinidad onto the grass and opened his hands, letting the faerie fly away. Then he climbed back in and sank onto one of the couches by the table, pulling his stuff close to him so that it'd be out of the way.

When he looked up, we were all staring at him, curious. “She gets car sick,” he said. “She always wanted to go back to Connecticut anyway—she has friends there.” I couldn't tell for sure, but it looked like he was about to cry.

There's really no room for Oliver, but I'm glad I don't have to worry about him now that he's with us. And I'm relieved I kept this diary with me, because there's too much happening not to be written down. I'm just trying to keep up.

Now we're out of downtown Cliffden on Route 1, and driving past the strip malls that sprawl at the very edge of town. We just rolled past the T.J.Maxx, still charred and half burned down. (Mom just said they haven't
been able to rebuild because they didn't have dragonfire insurance, as if talking about insurance could distract us from what we're leaving behind so fast.)

Now I can see, not our dear hill anymore, but dear Bear Mountain in front of our hill, and the Dairy Queen, and the bike store.

Now only a vaguely familiar stretch of road. I just looked out the back window and there's no sign of the Cloud following us.

*  *  *

Now we've pulled onto Route 80 and left Cliffden behind forever.

*  *  *

Now we are gone.

I've decided to go back
and put an epigraph on the blank page at the front of this diary, though I haven't decided on what yet. Who knows, maybe I'll be a famous writer someday and this'll be my first work of literary genius.

I'm writing from my bed, hiding behind the curtain I've made from a blue flannel blanket. We've each claimed our own small piece of the Winnebago: Mom and Dad have the “master suite”—a small room nestled against the back window and next to the bathroom. Oliver is on the vinyl pullout couch, and Sam is sleeping with Mom and Dad, though he's also claimed the little cupboard right behind the front passenger seat, filling it with boxes full of goldfish crackers and his bear Jim who has one droopy glass eye. He sometimes
crawls in there for hours at a time and won't come out even when I offer him my Oreos. (We each get two a day.) Millie has claimed the bigger of the two pull-down bunks, which come down from the ceiling on either side of the main cabin, and plastered her wall with pictures from
Vogue
. Not that she lets me come up there.

My pull-down bunk is small, practically a shelf, across from Millie's and just barely big enough to fit me. Still, I've decorated it as nicely as I can with some lucky items I've taped to the wall, including a perfect clamshell from the beach and the tiny
Home Again
suitcase Arin gave me.

Mom's added sophisticated touches everywhere. She's made a “library” of the shelves above the kitchen table with some classics she couldn't bear to leave behind:
To Kill a Mockingbird
,
The Giant's Lament
,
Little Women
,
Hamlet
. She says they're all required reading for us on this trip, because “Books are the way to stretch out people's souls, and I won't have children with small souls.” Whenever it's open, she covers the fold-out table with a tablecloth, and she's laid some afghans along the back of the vinyl couch.

Her traveling outfit today consists of a maroon
floor-length dress. All the other moms in Cliffden wear pants and jackets and shirts they bought at the mall, but my mom wears dresses and always smells like sandalwood, because, she says, “I'm a hippie born at the wrong time.” She doesn't wear a gold wedding ring, but instead a big turquoise one that she insisted my dad get for her when he proposed.

We've been on the road for seven days and about four hours, and so far there's been no sign of the Cloud. Still, Dad insists on driving long into the night to put some distance behind us.

How great would it be if it didn't follow us?! Maybe it'll just stay and wait on our back deck forever. We wouldn't ever be able to go home, but at least we wouldn't have to worry about Sam,
and
we wouldn't have to go searching for the Extraordinary World, which will never amount to anything anyway. We could find somewhere else to live, sad as that would be.

It may seem like I should have more faith in my dad, but to be honest, Millie doesn't either, and my mom is noticeably tight-lipped about the whole thing . . . which means she probably has her doubts too. It's not just that everyone back home thinks he's crazy. It's just hard to put your trust in someone who never really looks you in
the eye and who's more interested in the weather than the people around him.

I also have a more immediate concern, which is that Grandma might tie us up and use our toenails for spells. That's what the witches in
Extreme Witches
do, though Mom says they're playing it up for the camera and that Millie and I shouldn't watch junk TV.

About an hour ago Sam climbed into my bunk wanting to be told the story of the night he was born. I've been telling it to him ever since he could talk, and he loves to hear it whenever he's feeling afraid or worried (or, in this case, homesick). I let him snuggle in next to me and began the way I always do.

“The night you were born, Dad called from the hospital to say you were a boy, and . . .”

“You cried your eyes out,” Sam put in, rubbing his eyes sleepily and then nestling his chin against my shoulder. His breath smelled like goldfish crackers, and I could tell he hadn't brushed his teeth even though it was his bedtime.

“I cried my eyes out because I wanted a little sister to torment just like Millie torments me.” I took a breath, then went on, feeling Sam's little heartbeat against my shoulder. “When Mom and Dad got home, I refused to
hold you. But then Dad tricked me and slipped you into my arms, saying . . .”

“Can you hold these potato chips!” Sam shouted.

“Shhh. Yeah, he said, ‘Can you hold these potato chips?' and then put you in my arms. And when I looked at you . . . and you looked at me . . . I felt . . .”

This is the part I can never describe quite right, and it's the only part of the story that ever changes. I tried to remember that exact feeling of looking into Sam's eyes, so new to the world.

“I think I felt so happy that it made me scared, too. Like that I might drop you or lose you, and never recover.”

Sam seemed satisfied. He squeezed me tight around my middle.

“I'm amazing.” He sighed.

“Don't get a big head.”

I didn't even have to tell him to go to bed. Sam always behaves, almost too well. (Well, except he hates brushing his teeth.) He slithered out of my arms and slipped silently off my bed.

I poked my head out to see him off, and watched him give everyone a kiss good night. He even walked on tiptoes (he loves walking on his toes) over to the pull-out
couch where Oliver was reading (
Little Women
, of all things—he's so peculiar) and laid a big sweet kiss on Oliver's cheek. “Night, Oliver,” he said, and then disappeared. Oliver looked over at me from his book, and a rare smile climbed onto his face. “I never had siblings,” he said. Then his smile kind of melted and disappeared. Maybe he was thinking that he doesn't have a mom and dad either now. I didn't know what to say, so I pretended to get really interested in something on the ceiling, and then ducked back into my bunk.

*  *  *

We just passed a mall that looks like it's been closed for years, with stores like Pottery Barn and Toys “R” Us all grown over with weeds. I've been sitting here writing, on and off, and playing with my
Home Again
suitcase: opening and closing it.

Now I can hear Sam in Mom and Dad's bed talking to Jim the bear. I can't hear what he's saying, but it's clearly a very lively conversation in which Sam is convincing Jim that, actually, Grandma is not going to be awful at all. I suppose he's just convincing himself. I wish I could convince myself too. Dad says that once we get to Smoky Mountain State Park, it's just a short hike through the mountains to the Crow's Nest. I
have to say that part doesn't sound so appealing either.

I wonder about the Crow's Nest. Is it really a nest? Does Grandma have a flock of crows that will peck our eyes out? Recently, in New Hampshire, a witch made a boulder fall on a couple who cut her off in the parking lot at Safeway. I'm not sure Grandma is that violent, but Mom and Dad never told us why they stopped speaking to her. Millie has always said it's because she put a curse on Sam, and that's why Sam is always sick and why he's so small. She met her once when she was little, before the big rift, and she says she has pointy teeth and that she's one of the most infamous witches in the Smokies, which are full of infamous witches.

I guess now I have a habit of thinking of pleasant things before I try to go to sleep.

Eighty or so years ago
, according to Dad, people tried to build highways across America, but the forest monsters—mostly sasquatches, ghosts, and wood demons—harassed and kidnapped the workers. The dream of the highways was soon abandoned, and that's why, in order to get to Grandma's, we have to take this winding, crumbling road that makes Millie carsick. Even now, sitting on the bench near the back windows, she looks a shade of green, which I find pretty satisfying.

No sign of the Cloud again today, though I suppose if it were following us we wouldn't see it anyway, since the road is so curvy. I've decided I'm going to tap three times on my silver suitcase for luck every morning, to keep it away.

In the past hour I've been noticing that lots of the billboards along our way have been ripped down or torn to shreds. I've seen some lying on the side of the road, crisscrossed with gashes that could only come from large and vicious animals. I keep looking at Oliver to see if this worries him. He
looks
calm, but I've also noticed he has a habit of rubbing his ears when he's nervous, and that's what he's doing now.

Sam has found his new idol, and he likes to wait beside Oliver's bunk in the morning for him to get up. He's even started squeezing his hair to try to get it to stand straight up like Oliver's. He then walks around raising his eyebrows at us. It seems he thinks raising the eyebrows heightens the effect. Little kids are so indecipherable.

Dusk is falling and we've
crossed the border into West Virginia. (“Welcome to Wild, Witchy West Virginia”—I learned from the sign posted at the border—is the state motto.) I just had the most surprising conversation, which I'll try to record faithfully here.

Oliver and I were sitting together at the kitchen table. He's been teaching me bridge, which he says his mom taught him. Every time I think I have the hang of it, I miss some big rule and he has to patiently explain things to me again.

“No, spades are ranked higher than hearts,” he said apologetically.

“That's stupid.” I sighed and laid my cards, mostly hearts, face down on the table.

“I'm sorry, Gracie. We don't have to play.”

His politeness made me feel embarrassed about my bad temper. He's very good at bridge, which annoys me. Actually, he's good at everything, because he's patient—patiently going through the rules with me, patiently helping Sam tie his shoes, patiently cleaning around the camper even when it's not him who's made the mess. He's managed to keep his little area of the Trinidad neat and inviting, while my bunk is permanently disheveled. I've noticed he also has a great attention span for reading.
I
get bored so quickly and end up flinging books over the side of my bed, while Oliver lies perfectly still and can read for hours. He's already finished
Little Women
and moved on to
The Giant's Lament
. He says he read
To Kill a Mockingbird
last year, while I've only gotten to the part where Scout dresses up as a ham for Halloween.

Also, he's been trying to find things for me to do to pass the time. Yesterday he showed me how to make paper boxes out of loose-leaf. He puts little gifts in them—like a single goldfish cracker or a penny—and leaves them on my bed. Millie just raises her eyebrows at me like she can't believe someone would like me enough to give me presents. I don't think
it's that Oliver likes me especially, but just that he's extremely thoughtful (almost too thoughtful) and maybe extremely lonely.

Anyway, back to our card game. When I'd had enough, Oliver began collecting all the cards and shuffling them. “Don't worry, Gracie, you'll get it next time.” I sat back and stared at the table, feeling grumpy.

He opened the cabinet above the couch to put the cards away, and I noticed a photo lying on top of his things. He saw me looking at it and pulled it down to show me.

“It's my parents,” he said. I stared at the photo: In it was a younger Oliver, scarless, looking happy and bright. His dad looked sporty, like he might be just about to go for a jog, and his mom was wearing a net over her face.