Outside In (3 page)

FOUR

Return of the Glurb

As she rounded
the corner to home, Lynn saw a man coming out the front door of her house. Her heart read “Clive” before her brain, the more sensible organ, realized it was a stranger. Nothing like Clive, really. Just male and dark-haired.

Was it one of those guys who was dealing with the soaking drywall?

No. Of course not. It must be Brandon. Of course. She hadn't planned to come home for dinner. Shakti wasn't expecting her.

He was wearing drop crotch pants. Oh, come on. How pathetic was that?

Which car was he heading toward? Not the Prius. That was Aileen-from-next-door's. Not Jag number two. That was Mr. Downley's organ donation vehicle for Jag number one.

Oh, no. He was coming right toward her. Didn't this loser even have a car?

Lynn panicked. Would he recognize her? Maybe — oh, gack — Shakti had even shown him a picture.

Lynn felt as though she was in a tunnel with no escape route.

She turned right abruptly, to the path heading toward the apartment building midway down the block. She went up to the intercom, walking slowly. She stared at the directory. Occupied, occupied, occupied, Satrous, occupied. The door clicked open and an old man came out pushing a walker. She held the door for him.

“Now, I can't let you come in,” he said. “It seems so inhospitable but my daughter tells me that I'm not to let anybody into the building. She's a very suspicious person, my daughter. She always has been. She was a suspicious child. So I have to close the door and then you have to use the phone right there. Who was it that you wanted?”

“Um, I'm just going to visit my friend.”

“Well, you have a nice visit. I'm going to get a paper. The crossword is very good on Friday.”

Lynn slid a glance sideways. No Brandon. She stood trying to look like somebody impatiently waiting for a buzz-in. She slid a glance in the other direction. No Brandon.

She gave a sharp sigh and turned away from the door. The sidewalk was empty except for the man and his walker picking their way toward the newspaper box.

When she got in her front door she was met by the now-familiar smell of wet drywall. Some guys had come and cut out a big piece of the basement wall, and now there were fans down there. Most of the contents of the basement had been moved upstairs, adding another layer of chaos to the existing post-Clive mess.

Lynn heard the sound of the kettle whistling in the kitchen. She walked through. Shakti was pouring water over coffee grounds.

“Hi.”

“Ah!” Shakti started and spilled some water. “Oh. Lynn. Didn't expect you home for dinner.”

Lynn saw her deciding whether to mention Brandon. She saw the yes.

“Did you encounter Brandon on the way in?”

Well, it wasn't exactly an encounter.

“No.”

“I know. You're not ready yet. You have a good sense of your own limits.”

Oh, gack. “Shakti. Where's my passport?”

“Your passport? You don't have a … oh.” Shakti set down the coffee pot with precise care.

“My passport. You know. I gave you the application to mail about a month ago. It should have been here by now. I need it for Monday morning. You know. Portland.”

“Oh, no. Did I mail that application? I remember you gave it to me. It was just before Clive left, right?”

“Yes.”

“Wait.” Shakti left the kitchen and came back with her bag. She dumped it out onto the kitchen counter, knocking over the jar of coffee beans as she did so.

Lynn spied it right away — the gray envelope, fat and official.

“You forgot to send it in.”

“Oh, I must have. It was such a confusing time. Oh, I'm so sorry. Are you absolutely sure you need a passport just to go on a school trip?”

Lynn didn't even bother to answer that stupidity. “You know this means I can't go.”

“Oh, surely not. Come on. We'll look up the website and see what the rules are. Surely people have to get last-minute passports in a hurry. I'm sure we can find a way around this.”

Click, click, click. There was no way around it. Even paying lots of money you could not apply for a passport at dinner time on Friday and get it by Sunday.

“This is unacceptable. What are people supposed to do if they have an emergency? It's because it's federal. If the government didn't spend so much money propping up their corporate cronies they could fund the passport service properly.”

Lynn grabbed the mouse away from Shakti. “Stop clicking links! You've messed up! Admit it.”

“Oh, Sixer, I'm so sorry. You must be feeling so disappointed. You were really looking forward to this trip, I know.”

“Stop telling me what I must be feeling. You don't know a thing about what I'm feeling. All you think about is you. You and Brandon.” Lynn felt a sob creeping up her throat. She would not let herself cry.

“Ah, is this really about Brandon?”

“No. This is
not
about Brandon. This is about my passport. The passport I don't have.”

Shakti angled her head the way she did when she was being understanding. All Lynn wanted to do was wipe that look off her face. From somewhere she got all the words, neatly packaged.

“You want to know what I was looking forward to the very most about the trip? The choir competition? Traveling on the bus with Kas and Celia and everybody? Singing? Outlet shopping? Missing school? No! It was escaping from you. You're useless. So useless that people are sorry for you. You don't even notice that, the way they look at you. Wherever you are, whatever you do, you just make things worse. No wonder Clive left. I just wish I could.”

Something flashed across Shakti's face. Something fell away. Lynn hadn't meant to say that. Was it even true?

A small breeze made its way through the Venetian blinds. The slats fluttered and scraped against the window frame.

Shakti stood up, turned her back and began to scoop the coffee beans off the edge of the counter into her hand and then back into the jar, a few at a time.

Lynn walked to the door. “I have to phone Mr. Inkpen.”

“Yes. Of course.” Shakti turned. She swallowed. “Would you like me to do it and explain?”

“No.”

Lynn got to her room, shoved music into her ears and lay down on her bed. According to Shakti, expressing anger was cleansing. So why did she feel like throwing up?

She pulled out her phone. There was a text from Kas.

Zup?

Her finger hovered over the Reply key. Until she answered, until she phoned Mr. Inkpen, it didn't have to be real.

≈≈≈

On Monday,
everybody at school was kind. The counselor, Ms. Yandle, had Lynn into the office to say how sorry she was to hear about the mix-up. The teachers were giving a pass on homework. Some girl she barely knew plunked down beside her at lunch saying, “Bummer about the choir thing,” and offering a bag of chips. Between every class there were texts from Celia and Kas with details of Mr. Inkpen's bedhead, all the extra luggage Alexis had brought and how they started to sing in the customs hall at the border but the officials made them stop and how much they missed her, LYL.

But the day seemed long and pointless. It was a relief to be burped out into the rainy afternoon when the final buzzer rang.

There was the bus pulling into the stop. If the light turned green she could just make it.

She dodged the flagpole, cut across the grass and sprinted toward the street. The light stayed stubbornly red against her. She bounced on her toes and used her psychic powers. Turn! The bus loaded up and lumbered out into the traffic again just in time for the light to wink a sarcastic green.

Silver lining. There was plenty of room on the bus bench. Lynn inspected the backs of her legs. They were pock-marked with mud from her off-road run. Rain was making its way down her neck. She pulled up her hood.

Somebody slid onto the bench beside her. There was a whiff of fresh-turned soil.

“Would you like to be my friend?”

Lynn turned. Kilt, private-school coat, knee socks, pack. Brown hair pulled back.

It was her! She was holding a red umbrella that tinted her face pink.

“You! Wow. You're the one who gave me the Heimlich, right? So did you see our thing in I Saw You?”

The girl frowned. “I don't know what that is.”

“Oh, okay. It's just this part in the free paper. For finding people. Mostly it's some guy who saw some hot girl on the bus and he was going to speak to her but then it looked like she was with some other guy and was she really and if not he was the one with the, like, pencil mustache.”

“Mustache?” The girl was looking at her as though she was speaking algebra or something.

“Never mind. You're here! So. What's your name?”

“Blossom.”

“Cool.”

The girl smiled. “Is it? Is it a cool name?”

“Sure. Could be a singer or something. I'm Lynn. I know. Blah. It's not really a cool name but it's way better than my real name which, believe it or not, is Lindisfarne, which is this holy island over near England. My mom was into all that Celtic medieval stuff when I was born.”

Lynn shook the drops off the edge of her hood. Why was she talking so much? She didn't usually spill the beans about her weird name right away.

“I've been looking for you. My friends were helping but we couldn't figure out what school you went to. I wanted to thank you. You saved my life. So … um. Thank you.”

“You're welcome. You wouldn't have found me. I was being invisible. I hear your bus approaching. Are you busy right now or can we visit?”

Approaching? Was this Blossom ESL or just formal? And did she just say that she could be invisible? Oh, boy. Either this extremely ordinary-looking person in a school uniform was a nutbar, or the world had become like one of those fantasy trilogies that Shakti liked to read and which were Lynn's least favorite books. Maybe this person was a glurb and she had an amulet that had to be restored to the true Druid princess or some such, and wouldn't it just be Lynn's luck if it turned out by some horrible cosmic joke that the world was really like that. She would have to go and lie down in the tundra somewhere and just give up.

The bus was poised at the light. On the other hand, what was waiting at home? Shakti mess of all sorts. Maybe a glurb was just what she needed.

“Okay. What shall we do?”

FIVE

A Cup Full of Rain

Blossom took
a very active approach to hanging out. She had a plan all ready to go.

“There's a guitarist at the rowboat dock at the lake. It's free. We could walk there in an hour.”

An hour. That was quite a hike.

The rain was not a factor. Blossom reached into her pack and pulled out a polka-dot tube.

“Would you like an umbrella? This one has several features.”

Who went around with two umbrellas? “Sure.”

One of the features was a push button. The umbrella snapped into shape.

They set off, Blossom taking the lead. The route involved back alleys and cut-throughs. After about three turns, Lynn was completely turned around. What were the mountains doing
there
?

“We tried to trace you through your skirt. What school do you go to?”

“I don't go to school.”

“Oh. Home schooled?”

“No. I don't go to school at all.”

“So, what's with the uniform?”

“It's a citizen disguise. No. Sorry. I can't discuss that yet. Do you have any interests?”

Interests. Lynn felt like she was filling out a form. “Sure. Let's see. Mummification.”

“Is that a common interest?”

“No. It's a joke.”

Blossom nodded. “I thought it might be but you don't want to laugh at somebody's real interest.”

She took an abrupt deke between two houses, calling over her shoulder, “What about clubs?”

This was a very weird conversation.

“Blossom, are you from somewhere else?”

“No. Here. What about clubs?”

Lynn felt a giggle starting to bubble up.

“Well, I'm in the school choir. That's for real. And, yes, that's a pretty common club. You?”

“No, I haven't had a chance to be in a club or youth group. What about hobbies?”

Hobbies! The bubble made its way rapidly northward from Lynn's stomach.

“Stop it! Stop it with the hobbies!” And then the word hobbies started to seem like some ridiculous, naughty preschool word like peanutbutterbum, and the next minute Lynn was doubled over, snorting. She collapsed against the fender of a car.

“Is saying hobbies like making a joke?” Blossom was studying her intently. Her green eyes looked backlit.

“Not exactly. Hang on a minute.” Lynn was madly mining her pockets for a tissue to mop up her laughter-running nose but all she came up with was pocket fluff, a bus transfer and one prehistoric and petrified Kleenex.

Blossom pushed something into her hand. It was white and absorbent and it smelled like blueberry candles.

Lynn took off her glasses, mopped her eyes and nose and then examined the white thing.

“Is this a sock?”

“Yes. They were a good find. A big box of them out behind Behemoth's. All new. Too narrow for socks but excellent for other uses.”

Behemoth's. “So that's why it smells like blueberry candles. Have you ever noticed that? All dollar stores smell like blueberry candles.” She stuck the sock into her pocket.

Blossom nodded. “It's not the same smell as blueberries.” She ducked into a narrow lane between two stores. “Come this way. It's a good cut-through.”

“I'm laughing because you sound like some interviewer, with your questions about interests and hobbies.”

“Too many questions?”

“Kind of.”

“I'm new to making friends. I read something in a library magazine. A magazine for teenagers. It said you should ask about the other person's interests. And then suggest a mutual activity.”

Going to the library to look up how to make friends, and then admitting it. There was something about this girl, something so uncool that it almost met the distant back end of extremely cool.

Blossom's style of walking favored back alleys and hidden features. The backwards house, the bubble-blowing equipment nailed to a telephone pole, the little free library, the graveyard of faded pink plastic flamingos, the raccoon family living in a derelict hot tub, the abandoned car with a tree growing up through the middle, the tin can fountain, the backyard skateboard ramp, the raven's nest.

“Have you ever seen those shrubs cut into the shape of chess pieces? It's worth a detour.”

Lynn felt like a tourist in an unknown city.

After about an hour they came around the corner of a community center to the edge of a small lake and the sounds of a guitar.

The guitarist was sitting cross-legged on the dock under a rigged-up tarp. A bouquet of umbrellas nestled around him. He had a copper-colored shaved head and square-tipped fingers. He looked varnished, like his guitar. Hunched over, he seemed to have grown around his instrument. His face was a calm mask except for a little twitch near his left eye.

“Is he busking?” Lynn whispered. “His guitar case isn't open.”

“Sometimes he does. Maybe not today.”

A fine mist rose from the lake and inside it the music was fast, faster, fastest, disappearing fingers, each note washed by raindrops, a scrape up the neck and then those high ping sounds that seemed to get into your body by some route other than your ears. Behind it all was the drum section of rain on the tarp and on umbrellas.

Someone in the audience called out a word. Lynn couldn't make out what it was. The guitarist gave a half-nod and slid the melody into something absolutely simple. One note at a time, walking pace, repeating like the warm-ups at choir. Then he reached up and retuned the strings while he was playing, and the whole thing changed color.

Then it was done. People tried to clap and their umbrellas went sideways and everybody laughed. The musician laid his guitar in the case and turned ordinary — awkward, not great teeth, one of those nerdy jackets with too many pockets. The listeners gave each other pleased smiles and little nods and then slid away into the rain.

The dry zone under the tarp, still inhabited by wisps of music, invited the girls to settle.

“Was this a fun mutual activity?” Blossom asked, her gaze level and calm.

“Yes. Yes, it was.”

“The magazine said that friends talk about plans and feelings.”

Maybe it was the moment of the day, when things disengage before changing gear. Maybe it was the place or maybe it was just this girl. She made Lynn want to crack up and cry at the same time.

It tumbled out. Shakti and the claw-handed chandelier and Clive and the flood and Choirfest and married Brandon. All the mess of the past few weeks.

Somebody turned up the volume of the rain. The tarp began to sag. Lynn pulled her feet farther into the dry zone.

Blossom didn't comment. She just listened but her listening was so intense that Lynn found herself saying something she had never said aloud. She looked out through the mist walls of the floating room.

“Sometimes I hate her.”

“Yes.”

Lynn turned to meet Blossom's eyes, the quiet gaze of a sudoku master, concentrating as though Lynn were a stray eight that needed a box and a column and a row to be in.

Blossom frowned slightly. “I have a question.”

Lynn was too busy swallowing to speak. She was going to need another sock, any second. She nodded.

“Is this a typical citizen family?”

“Um, I don't really get the question. What's the citizen thing?”

“Citizens. That's you.”

“And not you?”

“No.”

“Are you a new immigrant or illegal or something?”

“No.” Blossom bit her bottom lip. “I'm an Underlander. Oh. I'm not allowed to tell you about us. That's a rule. We have to be invisible to citizens. But I wanted to find a friend. Tron used to be my friend but now he acts like he's ashamed of us. And I love Larch but he's fearful of so much. And I've been reading stories from the library about citizen girls and their friends. They all have friends. And then I saved your life so I thought I would try to be your friend because if you were already my friend I would know that I could trust you and then I could tell Fossick about you, but I have so many questions and I can't really answer any of your questions because I am already disobeying him and all the books say that friendship is supposed to be equal.”

In the middle of this confusing declaration, Blossom's voice started to wobble. Any minute now she was going to need a sock, too. Lynn leaned over and grabbed her hand.

“Hey. It's okay. You don't need to tell me one single thing. You can just be mystery woman.”

“Really?”

“Really. We can even have a code word. If I ask you about something that you're not allowed to talk about, you can just say, like, pretzel or something. Try it. Come on. Who the heck is Fossick?”

“Um. Pretzel?”

“You got it.”

Blossom grinned, reached into her pack and took out a plastic cup. “Thirsty?”

Lynn nodded. “But I've got my own water bottle.”

“Wait, this is better.” Blossom held the cup out beyond the tarp and then took her umbrella and pushed up the baggy tarp roof. A great whoosh of water drained off, filling the cup to the brim. Blossom plucked out a single leaf and offered the water to Lynn.

Drinking the rain. How odd. How perfectly ordinary. How delicious.

“Okay. I didn't answer your question. No, we're not a typical citizen family. Shakti is not typical of anything. My friends Kas and Celia, their families are more typical, I guess. Two parents married to each other, that's the usual citizen thing.”

Lynn handed the half cup of rain back to Blossom.

“These friends. Do you tell them everything?”

“Not exactly everything.”

Blossom set down the cup and beamed her sudoku gaze.

“You can't tell them or anyone else about me. You have to keep me a secret. It's important. If the authorities find out about us we could lose everything. Our home. Each other. You must make a solemn vow.”

Solemn vow? The authorities? Even if there were no amulets, this person in a kilt was definitely from another world. What had she said? An Underlander? Was this a cult or something? But Blossom just didn't have the borderline crazy look of those ones with the pamphlets. She just seemed, well, some combination of young and old and, more than anything, real.

Feeling half like a kid doing a pinkie swear and half like a witness taking an oath in court, Lynn replied, “Okay. I promise. I mean, I make a solemn vow.”

Blossom exhaled. “Thank you. Thank you, Lindisfarne. That's a joke. Well, more a tease than a joke. Next time we can talk about hobbies. That's another joke. Now I'll go.”

It could have been abrupt but it was just clear and tidy. And there was to be a next time?

“Um, Blossom?”

“Yes.”

“I don't actually know how to get back.”

“Oh.” Blossom looked around and thought for a second or two. “The nearest stop for your bus is four blocks south and one block east.”

“And that's …”

“Oh, sorry.” She pointed. “That direction. Then turn left.”

“Cool. Great. Here's your umbrella.”

Blossom shook her head. “No, it's for you. Umbrellas are an easy find.” Then she headed off into the trees at the edge of the lake and was gone. Invisible girl.

Lynn whapped the umbrella open. Polka dots. Secretly she still loved polka dots. Were there once some polka-dot overalls?

She twirled the umbrella before heading out into the wet and noticed something odd. All collapsible umbrellas died the same death. The ends of the spokes became detached from the fabric, leaving flapping nylon and naked metal points that threatened to put out the eyes of fellow pedestrians. When that happened, the umbrellas ended up in a garbage bin, like so many dead herons.

But this umbrella featured ingenious little reinforcements at the end of each spoke. Neatly sewn in rainbow colors, they were obviously a post-production addition, and done by hand.

Who would take the time to mend an umbrella?