Wood Sprites (4 page)

Louise shrugged. “She’s been in beauty pageants since she was three. What do you expect?”

“But she doesn’t win because she’s smarter or wiser or more creative. She wins because her father is rich and bought himself a beauty queen as a wife. She wins because her mother doesn’t need to work and set up endless little bribes to make sure her daughter is the most popular girl in class. She wins because she’s tall and blond—and I’m not.”

“So basically you’re pissed off at her because she’s not as smart or creative as we are and needs her mommy to fight her battles?”

“Shush you, monkey girl.” Jillian paused at the playground door. On the other side of the asphalt, Elle and the other Girl Scouts were playing jump rope. Elle’s loose blond hair waved like a banner in the weak spring sunlight as she skipped through the doubled ropes. They stood a moment, watching enviously, as Double Dutch was one of those things the two of them couldn’t do alone. “I just wish sometimes Elle could be our friend without one of us having to be the loser. It’s not like with you—I don’t ever have to worry about which one of us is the winner.”

Said the twin that everyone said was the cutest and the most creative. Louise blinked quickly to keep tears from showing in her eyes and lifted up her tablet to distract Jillian. “So, Wilbur, now that we found April Geiselman, what do we do?”

“We go and see her!” Jillian glanced back at Elle and smirked. “And I think I know how we’re going to do it.”

* * *

Jillian decided that they’d go disguised as Girl Scouts selling cookies.

Louise wasn’t sure they needed disguises. And she was fairly positive that they hadn’t needed to actually join the Girl Scouts in order to obtain the uniforms. She suspected that Jillian secretly just wanted to join but wouldn’t admit it. Elle had been so stunned when they showed up at the after-school meeting that she just stood there, mouth open, with a confused look on her face. Mrs. Pondwater was much better at covering her emotions. She ran on autopilot, welcoming them to the troop with only flashes of horror going through her eyes when she happened to look at Louise’s blast-shortened hair. Jillian had told everyone in class that Louise’s new hairstyle was because of an accident with bubblegum so there were no embarrassing questions about explosions, leveled playhouses, or emergency-room visits. Mrs. Pondwater apparently knew the truth, which indicated that the woman obsessively tracked everyone who touched upon her daughter’s life. She obviously didn’t want to take responsibility for anyone who had already managed to blow themselves up once. The spirit of Girl Scouts—as Jillian pointed out—was to accept any girl no matter her ethnic and social group.

So they would have the uniforms, cookie order forms, and a creditable alibi for all of Saturday.

Neither one of them remembered that Saturday was their birthday.

* * *

“The Girl Scouts?” their mother said for the third time after they told her. She was in her power business suit, her briefcase on the counter, and dinner from the supermarket’s hot deli still in its insulated bag on the kitchen table. The evening news was on but muted.

“Is there something wrong with the Girl Scouts?” Louise got out four plates and four forks.

“You said we should try to play with the other girls more.” Jillian investigated the bag. “Oh, good, rotisserie chicken!” She pulled out a small full chicken and then other containers that held steamed brown rice, salad makings, and fresh fruit.

“There’s nothing wrong with Girl Scouts.” Their mother took off her heels with a sigh of relief. “I thought—oh, what’s her name . . . ?”

“Elle Pondwater.” Louise supplied the name and four glasses.

“Yes, that Elle’s mother ran the Girl Scouts here and you thought she was materialistic and extremely controlling. What’s changed?”

Since it was true, Louise let Jillian field the question.

“By ignoring the Girl Scouts, we were allowing Elle to control that power base. By infiltrating that clique, we could disrupt her monopoly on it.”

Their mother pursed her lips, studying Jillian with eyes narrowed. “I am never sure whether to be dismayed or proud when you talk that way.”

Louise tried to soften the statement. “The other girls don’t seem to be aware of what Elle is doing, but she is using the group to exclude us. Today in Art she did a ‘Let’s all sit together’ and then picked the other side of the classroom.”

Their mother hummed something that sounded like “Oh, that sneaky bitch.” She tried not to say negative things aloud, wanting them to make up their own minds about people. She couldn’t, however, keep completely silent when she was angry for their sake.

“She’s never mean to our faces.” Louise supplied serving forks and spoons for the chicken and the side dishes.

“God forbid people realize what a backstabber she is.” Jillian poured milk for herself and Louise. “All the other girls probably think she’s always nice.”

“Pause!” their mother suddenly cried to the TV, which had frozen the picture at her command. “Go back a story. Unmute.”

The screen switched to the Waldorf Astoria’s famous façade in Manhattan. The reporter was standing across Park Avenue while people with signs marched in front of the hotel’s entrance. “Demonstrators gathered today in front of the Waldorf Astoria to protest the UN’s plan to enlarge the quarantine zone controlled by the Earth Interdimensional Agency in southwestern Pennsylvania.”

Keywords appeared at the edges of the screen indicating linked stories. In the top left was a mini-window showing the original story that had spawned the current events. The United Nations had set up only a one-mile-wide band around Pittsburgh. When the Earth city shifted to Elfhome, a virgin forest of towering ironwood trees took its place. The lack of magic kept invasive species from taking hold in Pennsylvania, but it hadn’t stopped humans from wreaking havoc. A few weeks earlier, someone had managed to illegally log part of the forest, triggering a call from the United Nations to increase the zone to ten miles wide. It would, however, cut deep into several towns that had grown up at the edge of the zone.

The reported continued, “The Waldorf Astoria serves as the embassy for the representatives of the Royal Court of Elfhome when they’re on Earth. Currently, however, there are no elves in residence.”

“Exactly!” their mother cried. “So why are they there?”

“The famous landmark hotel will be the site of a black-tie event on Saturday evening for the Forest Forever, an United Nations Foundation charity that advocates against deforestation worldwide. Celebrity supporter Lady Lavender of Teal is scheduled to arrive sometime today.”

Their mother cried out as if stabbed.

“Isn’t that one of your events?” Jillian asked.

“Yes.”

The garage door opened and closed as their father arrived.

He came padding in the basement door, dressed in scrubs. “Sorry I’m late.” He gestured toward the TV, which was offering more stories about the protests. “Apparently the protests screwed up all the traffic in Manhattan.”

“You took the car?” Jillian asked.

Their father found this funny for some reason. “Yes, Detective, I took the car.”

“You only take the car when you have stuff to pick up,” Louise said.

He took his chair, canting his head toward their mother and spreading his hands in a plea for help.

She sat beside him. “Our daughters have decided to join the Girl Scouts, and on Saturday they will be selling cookies.”

“This Saturday? On their birthday?”

Louise winced and glanced at Jillian. They’d forgotten in the flood of information on their genetic donors and siblings, both born and unborn. “We weren’t doing anything special on Saturday. You had your event.”

“I had that covered.” Their mother used “had” instead of “have” to indicate that the news report meant she might have to work after all. “And you didn’t want a party, but that doesn’t mean we can’t plan something special for just the family sometime on Saturday.”

Louise exchanged another wince with Jillian. They’d turned down a party because they weren’t really friends with any of the kids in class. “Sunday is just as good as Saturday.”

Their mother nodded in agreement, probably because she had no way to foresee her work schedule.

“What do we do about their present?” their father asked.

“What present?” the twins cried.

“We can give it to them early,” their mother said. “But dinner first. Our food is getting cool.”

They ate with Louise wondering what their parents might have gotten them. She could almost hear the capital
P
in “present” that indicated that it was expensive. Her father had taken the car out and picked it up today, so it was something too large to carry home on the subway. Her father obviously thought it was a wonderful gift and that they would love it. Her mother was more reserved; the twins might not like it as much as their father expected them to. Which parent was right? What could they possibly have gotten the girls? What did they want? Jillian would want a camera to replace the one they’d blown up. A camera wouldn’t have required the car. Louise would want a dog or a pony or a monkey, but those were all impossible since their father was allergic to animal dander.

Judging by the looks that Jillian was giving her, Jillian couldn’t guess, either.

Finally the meal was judged over and their father went back down into the basement garage. Soon he was back, empty-handed.

“Where is . . .” And then Louise saw it and squealed in pure excitement. It was a dog! A pony-sized dog! For a moment she was filled with shimmering, bright, pure joy, and in her delight, missed the first clues.

Then Jillian said quietly, “Oh, Lou.” And Louise knew that something was horribly wrong with the gift, and as her excitement drained away, she saw that the dog wasn’t real.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Their dad had missed her crash and burn. “You really have to look closely at it to see that it’s a robot.”

“Yes.” She forced herself to agree. It was a big, square dog, nearly as tall as the twins, with pure white legs and belly. A creamy gray poured over its back. Its tail, face, and ears were black, with just a little white around its nose and muzzle. Its tail curled tight into a loop of gray that ended with a tip of white. If it had been real, it would have been the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen.

Jillian was watching her closely, bottom lip quivering in sympathy for her disappointment.

“What kind is it?” She pushed the words out, glad that she managed to sound happy. “I don’t recognize the breed.”

It stood waiting, more impassive than a real dog would ever be. That was the problem with robots. They were either too hyper or too still. Apparently the programmers had decided that with such a big facsimile, they would err toward still.

“It’s an American Akita,” their father said.

Because her mother was watching her closely, Louise went and petted the dog. The fur was a little too soft. Its tail wagged in perfect imitation but it didn’t sniff at her hands or lean against her touch or look about the new room with curiosity.

“It’s so big,” Louise said.

“But why a dog?” Jillian joined her in petting the robot.

“We’ve never been comfortable with how much time you spend alone,” their mother said. “The explosion really made us rethink your safety.”

“It’s a nanny-bot?” Jillian looked pained. “We’re nine.”

“Going on twenty,” their mother said. “And Seda Demirjian let us know that she and her husband are getting divorced and they’re putting their house up for sale.”

“Oh,” Louise said as understanding dawned on her. “Vosgi won’t be going with us on the subway anymore?”

“No.”

Vosgi was sixteen and had acted as their transportation babysitter for the last year. Before that it had been Carl Steinmetz, but he’d graduated. None of their other neighbors attended school in Manhattan.

“We’re going to be commuting alone?” Jillian said.

Their parents shared unhappy looks. “Until we can think of a better solution than a nanny-bot, yes,” their mother said.

“So, what do we call her?” their dad asked.

Louise didn’t want to call the nanny-bot anything.

“What was the name of the cat?” he asked.

They looked at him with confusion. Because of his allergies, they’d never had a cat.

He made a motion of something drifting up and away. “The toy cat?”

“Popoki?” Jillian cried. “No, we’re not calling it Popoki.”

Once upon a time that was now growing to be a dim memory, they had a small robotic cat, Popoki. It had met an untimely end involving a pair of large helium balloons and their lack of understanding how much lift said balloons could generate versus the weight of the small toy. Louise’s last memory of Popoki was it floating up over the Steinmetz’s house. It went higher and higher, its electronic meows growing fainter, until the balloons were a tiny dot drifting toward the ocean. Jillian had been inconsolable for days.

“George.” Their mother scolded their father with his name. “What was the dog in
Peter Pan
? This one looks like it.”

From the perked-up ears to its curled tail, the robot looked nothing like the nanny dog of
Peter Pan
. The only similarity was its size and the pattern of its markings—but then everyone always thought the twins were identical.

“Nana,” Louise said. “She was a Newfoundland in the original story, but Disney made her a Saint Bernard. They’re the same size dog, only Newfoundlands are usually all black.”

“Saint Bernards are easier to illustrate facial emotions, because of their markings,” Jillian said.

“It doesn’t feel like a girl to me,” Louise said. “It feels like a boy dog.”

“A boy dog?” their father said.

“Something like . . .” Louise thought for a moment, but the only male names that were coming to her were Orville and Wilbur. What was another famous inventor? “Tesla.”

Jillian giggled, recognizing the path that Louise took to get to the name. “Okay, Tesla!”

“Very cool name.” Their father crouched down beside Louise. “Do you like it, honey?”

She wanted to say no. It probably cost a lot of money that could have been spent on things she and Jillian would have liked more. It was, however, a practical gift considering the situation. If they couldn’t safely commute to school, their parents would probably take them out of Perelman School for the Gifted and enroll them someplace else. It wasn’t that she loved Perelman, but “someplace else” could be anything from a local high school with kids four years older than them to a boarding school. “It’s a wonderful present. Thank you, Daddy.”