Stranger and Stranger (5 page)

Just woke up, facedown in my journal. Have drooled all over the place. Going back to sleep.

June 3

OK—Silifordville is no Blandindulle, but it does have some superior sewers!!!!

It’s always high priority with me, whenever we move to a new town, to check out the sewer system and its relative usefulness for my needs. The easiest place to get into the Silifordville sewers (that I’ve found so far) is on a dead-end street where all the buildings seem to be vacant or inhabited by invisible hermits—anyway, there was no one around to see me lift the manhole cover and sneak inside.

Of course I was wearing my special full-body sewer suit with oxygen tank—you only need to get bacterial pneumonia once, that’s for sure!!

Spent the next couple of hours slogging through tunnels and mapping them. Was pleased to see that they are only ankle-deep in filth, with nice picturesque crumbling walls, horribly/delightfully antique valves and manholes, and no sign of infiltration by other people. If there’s one thing that really spoils an otherwise lovely sewer system for me, it’s other people. Well. OK. I guess you could say that about pretty much everything I enjoy in life: skateboarding, ROCK AND ROLL, thrift stores, weird science, arts & crafts, muscle cars with engines forged in the speed-loving dungeons of darkness…cats…prankery…nighttime loitering…the outdoors…the indoors…SOLITUDE…

Am making a new addition to my general philosophy of life. It goes a little something like this:

OK—enough philosophy for one night. Am now back at my original manhole and about to return to the surface. (Note: Original Manhole would be a great name for a band, if no other
phrases were available.) Excellent progress for one night! Cannot wait to come back!

On the downside, there are no sidewalks in this town. Everyone parks their cars halfway up the lawns. Streets are too narrow and pavement too uneven for good street skating. Will have to keep an eye out for other skateable surfaces! Maybe a nice, smooth parking lot or empty swimming pool will turn up.

Later

On the upside, there is a tolerable junk shop in Silifordville, and as a little bonus it is next door to (and shares a Dumpster with) a hardware store! They may not keep late hours like Zenith did, but a Dumpster’s doors are always open to a kid with lock-picking skills.

Later

May need to get Raven back in the cage after all!!!!

I think she must have overheard me telling Mom that I was going out to get to know the neighborhood. Anyway, when I got
home from investigating Silifordville’s sewers around one a.m., there was a police cruiser parked in front of our house.

SIGH! So soon, it begins…

Naturally I hid in some bushes to scope the situation. In a couple minutes the front door opened and a policeman left, politely saying good night to Mom. Once he was gone, I hurried inside to find out what the flagbrakes was going on. It wasn’t good. Apparently Raven had taken it upon herself to go door-to-door introducing herself to the neighbors. From what Mom said, it went a little bit like this:

[Loud knocking.]

N
EIGHBOR
: Yes? Is everything all right? Who are you?

R
AVEN
: Uhhhh…Raven.

N: Well, it’s past midnight, Raven. What is it you want?

R: Uhhhhhhhhh…Iono?

N: Get off my porch, you!

So, yeah, after a few blocks of this, Officer Thomas came and picked her up. Am very glad that I sewed our address on her shirt yesterday. (Would have preferred to tattoo it on her arm but reflected that I would have to cross it out and update it every 13 months or so.) Am also REALLY FARBING THANKFUL that he didn’t try any force on her, or there would be one badly broken
police officer in Silifordville tonight. No, he just brought her home and gave Mom a talking-to about keeping her mentally slow daughter safe in the house, then (rather shyly) said she could always call him if Raven ever needed a personal escort around town.

WHEW!!!!

Not a great start for us in Silifordville, though.

Later

Raven and I have given the attic its first complete coat of white paint. UGH. We are both smudged and polka-dotted from head to toe. Wish I could take a bath in turpentine to get it all off me. Am hoping one more coat of paint will do it.

At least Great-Aunt Millie was appreciative and levitated Raven until it got me laughing.

Later

Have finished reassembling my lab and its command center, my lovely, lovely Oddisee—better than ever, thanks to Raven’s help!

Am anxious to restart all my various projects. Duplicator and Master Prank are top priority, of course. Am looking forward to a summer full of weird science and prankery. Hopefully the science will lead to more effective prankery!!!

Also cannot wait to do more exploring, including closer surveillance of the neighbors, so I can learn their habits and weaknesses. Let the Summer of Silifordville begin!!!!!

June 4

Honking mugworts! Raven is causing more problems! Not sure exactly what got into her, but I suspect she is listening to my random comments to the cats about my plans and interpreting them as suggestions that she ought to act on. So anyway, during the day, while I slept, she wandered the neighborhood again, getting into random conversations, talking to birds, and generally weirding out the populace until the police brought her home. Of course Mom caught the worst of the trouble, as they started asking her hard questions about whether Raven wouldn’t be better off in some kind of institutional setting where she could be looked after properly.

Anyhoodle. Mom has asked me to do something about Raven to prevent further family embarrassment. Am trying to figure out an acceptable solution. I mean, I worked hard on this round of programming, and it seems like such a waste to dumb her down again. And I NEED her to be smarter, to be a second set of hands for me. I’ve got a duplication device to build AND a Master Prank to mastermind! And I want to keep her. I mean, she’s one of my greatest accomplishments, this little golem of mine.

The way I see it, Mom worries a bit too much about what
people think. Man, we’ve been over this soooo many times, like when the Blandindulle neighbors complained about my weird weed garden in the front yard, which, OK, to be honest, didn’t exactly color-coordinate with the other gardens on the block and had been known to nibble on passersby.

Or like that time the Buttston school nurse decided I was being neglected, just because I always wear the same outfit. And Child Protective Services didn’t even listen when I tried to tell them how lucky I am that Mom lets me wear what I want. Instead I had to see a shrink
about why I want to wear the same thing all the time. Lucky for me the guy was half asleep and incompetent. I bored him out of his head talking about science experiments, and after two sessions he told them I was perfectly well-adjusted. Mom and I laughed our cheeks off when it was all over, but, needless to say, I’m pretty sure she suffered all kinds of guilt and anxiety over that one.

Hmm, may need to work out some kind of compromise with Mom after all. Ugh, maybe later. Am itching to do some more Silifordville exploration.

Later—out and about…

Cats and I have done some preliminary patrols of the neighborhood, getting the lay of the land and scoping the neighbors. Got most of their names off mailboxes and have done some minor spying. Just need to know what I’m up against, in a general way.

Later

Morning—time for me to be in bed, but Mom needed to discuss the Raven Issue. I started off by telling her that I thought she’d been through enough on my behalf, and didn’t need the neighborhood gossiping about my golem and asking pointed questions about whether Raven has a soul, and where I got the body parts I made her out of, and whether it might be appropriate to ask the FBI to come take a look at her.

M
OM
: Yeah, well, I don’t think anyone’s going to ask THOSE particular questions, E.

M
E
: Really? Then I guess we’re good, right?

M: Um, not really. First of all, if Silifordville is anything like Blandindulle, then half the men in town are going to have crushes on her within a week. And you know that’s only going to lead to trouble.

M
E
: Oh, right. Like, fistfights and stuff?

M: [Rolling her eyes.] Yeah, and stuff. And what happens when I start getting the calls about my beautiful but slow-witted daughter, who’s up on the neighbor’s roof chatting with birds? How about when she accidentally puts someone in the hospital?

M
E
: OK, Patti…why don’t I just donate her to science? Would that solve the problem?

M: Hey, no need to get sarcastic. I’m just saying, you brought her into the world, so you have to be responsible when she gets into trouble.