The Accidental Siren (6 page)

“Cool.”

“Every Sunday she pulls out her wedding album
and tells me the same stories over and over.”

“Stories?”

“About her husband. He left.”

“Oh. Are all the pictures ripped like the
picture in the frame?”

“You’re the first boy I’ve ever seen in the
house. Aunty hates them.”

“Them?”

“Boys.”

“Oh. Do you hate boys too?”

Mara dipped her finger in the cheese.
“They’re just... gross.”

Gross.
I’ve heard a million girls use
that word, but “gross” from Mara’s lips carried a dark undertone
and stern authenticity. I thought about the boys in the trees.
“Zombies...” I said.

“I call ‘em ‘ferrets.’”

“Aren’t ferrets fast? Those boys were
practically saying ‘braaains’ with their arms out in front of
them.”

She shrugged, then wiped her mouth on her
sleeve. “Maybe a little of both.”

The wind picked up and rustled the leaves. A
strand of hair loosened from Mara’s ponytail and my insides
ached
to brush it back behind her ear.

“Have you heard the radio commercial for
Great Lakes Family Diner?” She searched my eyes for comprehension,
but I couldn’t stop staring at the fallen strand of hair. “You
know... the one where the Dad asks his kids where they wanna eat
and the little girl says, ‘How ‘bout Great Lake
Faaaaaamily
Diner!’”

The catchphrase snapped me back to the
conversation. “Yeah!” I exclaimed. I stuck out my jaw and squinted
my eyes. “Hop in yer pick-up and bring in the kids for the best
darned chicken in West Michigan! When you want good food, make it–”
Mara chimed in, “Great Lake
Faaaaaamly
Diner!”

She grabbed her tummy and keeled with
laughter. “That’s me!” she said. “The little girl!”

“No way! That’s totally rad!”

The bout of giggles unhitched another strand,
giving her face a golden frame. I sat on my hands to keep them
away.

“They said I did a good job–”

“I love that commercial!”

“–but Aunty says I can’t do ‘em any
more.”

“What a geezer.”

The tips of Mara’s unkept hair were moist
from brushing against her lips. Another gust of wind twirled the
strands and they lashed her cheeks.

“Hey,” I said, “you should act in my movie! I
need a girl for the lead!”

Mara shook her head. “She won’t let me.”

“Why the heck not? I wrote the screenplay and
everything!”

“Do you go to school?”

“Duh,” I muttered and forced my gaze from the
taunting hair to the sky. “Who doesn’t go to school?”

“I was supposed to be in sixth grade this
year, but I didn’t go. Do you think I’ll still hafta take it, or
will I go right into seventh?”

I looked back to Mara with wide eyes. “You
skipped the sixth grade? That. Is.
Awesome!
”

“I got in trouble last year. It wasn’t really
my fault, but Aunty wouldn’t let me go back.”

Another strand.
The new ribbon of hair
fell in a beautiful arc across her brown eyes. I was certain she
would see it–

I leaned forward and freed my hands. I swept
my fingers across Mara’s brow and tucked the strands gently behind
her ear. “I– I just– You’re just– Holy cow,
I’m so sorry
. I
just had to–”

“Thanks,” she said. She smiled.

I realized I was holding my breath. I exhaled
loudly, then sucked in the cool air.

Mara didn’t seem to notice my gasps. “I keep
telling you stuff about me,” she said. “Tell me somethin’ neat
about you.”

“Well...” I cleared my throat. My life was
full of interesting tidbits that Mara might enjoy, but that stupid
camera came to mind first. I didn’t want to stutter like a moron,
so I went with it. “I like to make movies. I was gonna direct one
this summer but...” I paused.
How much should I tell
her?

“But?”

“But I lost my camera.”

“That stinks.”

“I lied. I didn’t lose it...”

“Oh?”

I would discover later that Mara’s powers did
not include coaxing people to tell the truth... but the magical,
mystical, otherworldly attraction was already working its–

Another gosh-darned strand of hair
dismounted her perky ear with obnoxious timing and I blurted the
truth. “I traded my camera to Danny B. for a picture of a naked
girl because he’s a bully and he was gonna show his friends and I
felt sick even though I didn’t know the girl and my parents asked
about it so I lied!”

Mara’s eyes were bigger than the moon. She
brushed the hair from her face, but it fell right back.

“Now your aunt gave me a new camera but I
have to buy film for it and film is really expensive and you have
to send it in to get it developed and– God, Mara,” I crooned,
“
you’re so pretty
.”

I reached for that last strand of hair... but
when the tips of my finger brushed her cheek, she leaned forward
and I leaned forward and the tips of our noses touched.

That trifling moment of nuzzled faces and
near-kisses unlocked within me a treasure chest of new
understanding.
It finally happened. The mystery was solved!
Butterflies, explosions, and white-hot elation spurred my very
first girl-inspired stiffy, and I squirmed in my seat to squash
it.

If my body and mind had been developed enough
to be
naturally
excited by an accidental Eskimo kiss, the
feelings that followed might have been ordinary. But looking back,
I was at least a year away from the awkward stage of wet bed sheets
and curly tufts of hair. My arousal was premature. The thirstiness
in my gut was not the usual first-love infatuation... but something
unnatural, foreboding, and stronger than a life debt
.

Mara pulled away and smiled. “More crackers?”
she asked.

* * *

I don’t remember our conversation after the
moment our noses touched. I don’t recall climbing out of the tree,
and I’m not sure how Mara reached the rope over the barb-riddled
bushes.

I do remember tying the basket to the blanket
and the way her slender arms hoisted the contraption like an anchor
on a boat. I remember the last words she whispered from her perch,
“
See ya later, alligator.”

I remember her smile.

Somehow, Whit had managed to keep us out of
trouble. I snuck through his house, down the ramp to the basement,
then regaled him with my adventures until the morning sun turned
his bedroom orange.

We attended our last day of elementary school
with heavy eyes and naps at recess. When the last bell rang and the
kids went berserk, I felt above it. Mrs. Conrad picked us up at the
flag pole and unknowingly ushered us into the craziest summer of
our lives.

Back in Whit’s bedroom I remembered the item
that sparked the evening’s insanity.

“Is it broke?” he asked.

I inspected the plastic casing and twisted
the dials.

“Is it gonna work?” he asked.

I rotated the lens... and it fell off in my
hand.

“Shit!” he said. “That dick weed broke
it!”

“Crap...” I said, but before the grief had a
chance to settle, a hatch sprung open. I scrunched my brow and
poked the camera’s innards.

“What?” Whit asked. “What is it?”

I removed a black and yellow canister of film
from the open chamber.

“Didja already shoot somethin’?”

“No,” I said. “The old lady must’ve.”

Whit grinned. “We gotta develop that shit.
Today.
”

3. SAINTLY
MS. GRISHAM

Tuesday.

Mara’s variation of
Amazing Grace
had
been stuck in my head on an endless loop. It wasn’t a bad thing–the
music rocked me to sleep at night and nudged me awake in the
morning–but the melody had kindled a blistering thirst that
couldn’t be satisfied. When I was alone, the girl’s voice was so
translucent that I swore she was hiding between my bedroom walls or
serenading me from the distant woods.

I had to see her again. But opportunities
were gonna be sparse.

Three days into summer vacation and Whit was
already a regular at the Parker home. His parents worked all day,
so the moms decreed that the bulk of our playtime would be spent at
the castle. Whit’s mom even taught my mom how to assist with his
nightly leg stretches.

Luckily, the castle was the perfect place to
have a best friend and a mystery to unravel. Tucked behind my
clothes in my bedroom closet was a secret passageway with a door
small enough for a garden gnome. I told the lil’ tykes that it lead
to Narnia and Cair Paravel, but the real passage was a million
times cooler than some make-believe world. The walls were lined
with cotton-candy insulation. There were knotty joists, archways of
colorful wire, and mysterious rattling sounds that spurred my
imagination. I had to crawl for the first few feet, but then the
tunnel grew into a plush cavern and I could sit upright without
bumping my head against iron pipes. An orange extension cord ran
from my bedroom, beneath the tiny door, to a power strip where I
could charge my camera batteries, play my stereo, or run a fan
during the summer. The only source of light came from a naked bulb
screwed between the plastic ears of a Mickey Mouse lamp. I had a
personal stash of books, journals, and Batman comics stacked
beneath the rectangular duct in the corner. On the opposite end of
the secret cavern, the tunnel narrowed, curved right and led to
another tiny door in the library. My best screenplays were written
in that dusty womb beneath Mickey’s dim light.

To fit through the opening, Whit had to
vacate his chair and crawl. “Your the only person who’ll ever see
me do this,” he said. “It’s flippin’ embarrassing.” Although he
moved a bit like a broken marionette, I retained my dignity (as Dad
would say) and held back my laughter.

“I’m not a bad case,” he told me in the
cavern’s musty pink fluff. “I don’t have any of the usual symptoms
of spina biffida. I don’t have learning disabilities, I’m not
fat–no offense–and I’m not allergic to latex.”

Whit was halfway through a book about secret
codes and taught me clever ways to disguise my secrets. Our
production notebook became a tome of cyphers; I would write,
“Please Eat Nine Interesting Smarties, Brother. Reptiles Eat A
Tiny Hamburger!”
Whit would write:
“All Signs Say We’re
Inbred People Eaters!”
then we would trade messages and die
laughing.

When Mom (who upheld “sucks” as a dirty word
until I turned eighteen) discovered the notes in the trash, it
didn’t take her long to decipher our intricate system of words. My
teeth were promptly smeared with a bar of soap and Whit was sent
home with an apology letter to his parents.

We regrouped the following morning. Mrs.
Conrad dropped her son off in the driveway and I carried his chair
up the foyer steps. He hoisted himself back into his seat and
rolled to my bedroom. When the door was closed, he clapped his
hands once and declared, “We gotta make this movie!”

I stood beside my bed and stared at the
tussled remains of a restless night. “We need a camera to make a
movie,” I barely replied.

“We’ve been planning this thing since
Christmas. Two weeks ago I couldn’t shut you up about the monsters
and the castle and the fireworks. Then we run into one little snag,
and you act like you don’t care anymore!”

My sheets were covered in big,
primary-colored dinosaurs roaming cotton ripples and the damp
stains. “I’ve been busy,” I said.

“You remember Dave-the-nose-picker?”

“Uh huh.”

“His mom got first place at The Lakeshore
Celebration Art Show last year. She makes real ugly pictures; I
think she gives finger paint to a toddler and calls it art.”

“So what.”

“So she won! And her trophy was huge!”

“We’re kids. We’re not gonna beat real
artists with a movie.”

One of the twins blew through the door,
tongue flubbering in a torrent of slobbery motorboat noises. He
made a running leap for my bed but I caught him mid-air, spun him
around like an airplane, aimed him at the exit, and said, “Scat!”
The boy buzzed away and I slammed the door behind him.

“Why don’t you talk to Danny,” Whit
suggested. “See if he’ll give you back the camera.”

I sighed and paced my bed. “Roslyn’s gone,
remember?”

“So trade him somethin’ else. Your dad’s an
architect.”

“So?”

“He’s rich.”

“I’ve got bigger things on my mind than a
stupid fairytale.”

“Hey! I’ve been producer on this thing
since–”

“Since Christmas, I know.”

“And I’m the co-writer, too.”

“Bull Shanky! You came up with one idea!”

“And it was good! The Girl gets seduced by a
nasty monster–”

“We don’t have a camera!” I shouted, then
snapped the little-kid dinosaur sheets off my bed.

Whit rolled his eyes. “How long till the tape
comes back?”

“We sent it two days ago.”

“Crap. So another five?”

“At least.”

“You better not watch it without me. You
promised.”

I balled the sheets in my arms, threw them at
the hamper, and plopped down on the bare mattress.

“Think your sexy girlfriend is on the
tape?”

“It’s not tape, it’s film. And for the
bagillionth time, I don’t know.”

“Think we’ll see her bedroom? I love the
smell of girl-bedroom.”

“You wouldn’t know a girl’s bedroom from a
hamster cage.”

“Why are you so crabby?” Whit rolled to the
bed and poked me in the arm. “Are you whipped?” When I didn’t
respond, he sang, “
James and Mara, sittin’ in a tree–”

“Grow up.”

“
F-u-c-k-i-n–
”

“Whit! Knock it off!”

He groaned. “Why aren’t we having
fuuuuun!”

I sighed again. “I have a question...”