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Authors: Kathleen Van Cleve

BOOK: Drizzle
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My grandmom was dead.
I kept waiting for her to open her eyes and tell me something like “Don’t fall into the slugs” or “Rhubarb is almost as pretty as cabbage!” But her eyes stayed shut, and I felt deep in my bones that everything was going to change. I wanted something huge and terrible to happen—I wanted an earthquake to rumble and smash everything: the buildings and the castle and the trucks and the Umbrella. I wanted to fall into the roaring lake and sink to the bottom.
But the ground stayed still. The plants bent over and flapped their leaves good-bye. Flies and bumblebees and spiders and dragonflies fluttered around her, even in the rain. And I stayed there, holding on to her hand, as the tiny tips of the diamonds glittered. She wore her emerald ring, and I wore mine. We had a lot in common, Grandmom and me. We loved the farm. We preferred to be outside. We both had crooked index fingers on our right hands. And we were crazy about the rhubarb on our farm that tasted like chocolate.
I loved Grandmom with every bit of my heart.
For about a week after she died, I did odd, maniac kinds of things: I smacked a rhubarb plant and it smacked me back, I yanked out some of the rubies from the Learning Garden, I threw cinderblocks as hard as I could against the castle walls. Mom tried to help—she put her strong, wiry arms around me as we sat by the weeping cherry blossom tree, thinking, I guess, that if she could hold me in, keep my jittery energy from exploding, I’d start to get over Grandmom’s death. Instead, I jumped away from her, away from the tears of the tree, and leaped into the lake, wishing more than anything that things
could
die in our lake, that it
was
possible to drown even when I knew full well that nothing ever died inside of it.
Eventually I pulled myself out, not even noticing until hours later that my emerald ring—the gift from Grandmom herself—had slipped off of my finger. Mom was waiting for me with a big towel and a sad face. I wanted to make her feel better, but I couldn’t. I had a riptide swirling inside of me.
I went to my turret that night, and stared out the window. Grandmom had been dead six days, and the lake was still turbulent, the plants at half-mast. I thought that maybe everything was going to die without Grandmom—the plants, the trees, my family, me.
But the next day I awoke to find the green mist spread across the entire lake, with what seemed like millions of dragonflies threading their invisible fabric. Beatrice, our chef—and basically our second mother—brought me breakfast and told me that she thought the mist was like the farm’s coat of armor, and that the dragonflies were making it even stronger by sewing their trail of sparks in it. They were making us a shield, in other words, so that our farm would be safe.
It worked. Aunt Edith blew through our house that very night.
“
Remember the great author Willa Cather, Polly
,” Aunt Edith commanded as she breezed in. “
She said, ‘I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived.’”
She reached down and hugged me quickly, then straightened up. “
Trust me,”
she said. “
Everything will be okay. Now where can I put my coat?”
By the next morning, the mist had disappeared. The plants had lifted their leaves and the lake calmed down, and by noon the clouds had gathered and the sky had turned gray. And just like every Monday of my life, it rained at precisely one o’clock.
Aunt Edith gave up her amazing life in New York City to come and live on the farm. She’s the kind of person who can hang the sun up in the sky at the same time she pushes a mountain out of the ground. She didn’t just come back and save the farm—she saved me too.
So while I was right that a lot of things would change—now it seems as if the whole world wants to eat chocolate rhubarb, and our farm is the country’s number six tourist attraction—a lot has stayed the same too. Nothing has died in the lake, the truly weeping cherry blossom tree still weeps, and my older sister, Patricia, is mean to me every chance she gets. It’s been mist-free and normal. Not good normal or bad normal, just after-Grandmom normal.
Until today.
SAME DAY, MONDAY, AUGUST 18
 
Friendship
 
I’m supposed to be at the White House right this second to meet my family. Mom always hollers when I’m late, but I have to tell my best friend, Harry, about the mist. Usually he has some good ideas. Mom would like him, if she ever met him.
Actually, she has met him—she just doesn’t know it. He’s always on the farm, west field, row eighteen, column thirty. This is because Harry, my best friend, is a chocolate rhubarb plant.
Obviously Harry can’t talk. He’s a plant, not a person. Still, he communicates—all plants communicate. And not just on “magic” farms. It happens
everywhere
. If you don’t believe it—like some people,
cough
, my sister
Patricia
—it’s because you’re not really paying attention. I’m not saying they’re going to
talk
back. Even I know that would be crazy. But they’ll answer you. It’s a fact.
When I run up to him, Harry curves one of his bottom stalks into a semi-circle. That’s his smile, and he always does this when he first sees me. I think he’s the nicest plant in the world.
“Hi.” I crouch right by him in the dirt. “I have something serious to tell you.” I look him straight in the leaf. As solemnly as I can, I tell him that the mist is back.
Harry doesn’t move, which is a little odd.
“The mist, Harry. Remember? Do you know what it means?”
I watch for the smallest of responses: the end of a leaf curling up, the sudden stiffening of a green stalk. But nothing.
“It must mean something, right? It’s way smaller than before, and no one’s died—” Suddenly my heart thuds. “Is someone dying?”
Harry reaches out his biggest leaf and brushes me on the arm with the underside. He’s telling me to relax.
“But—”
He interrupts me by flapping some of his leaves.
“Oh.” I sit back down. “You’re saying I’ll be okay.”
He flaps his leaves again.
Yes, definitely,
he tells me. I’ll be okay.
“But can you find out what it means? Maybe one of your friends—” I gesture to all the other plants surrounding him.
Harry waves his middle leaf up and down.
Okay
. He’ll ask his friends.
“Thanks.” I smile and look up. Right now, the sky is perfectly blue and the Midwestern sun shines directly upon us. Our farm is located in one of the driest, hottest sections of the country, in the Midwest. But we’re the only place where it rains one day a week—every single Monday at 1:00—and the temperature never goes above one hundred degrees or below thirty-two degrees. It never rains any other time. Dad says it’s because of the rolling hills that form a boundary to our property. I don’t know how that explains our weekly rain—or the chocolate-tasting rhubarb, or anything else strange on our farm—but it makes him feel better to have a scientific explanation.
Harry reaches over and touches the tip of his smallest leaf to my cheek.
My eyes blink open. This means
pay attention
.
“Pay attention? To what?”
He’s about to answer when we’re interrupted.
“POLLY!” My sister Patricia has the voice of a whistle. “COME ON! EVERYONE’S WAITING!”
Harry freezes. He doesn’t like Patricia, and I don’t blame him. Patricia believes all the magical things on our farm are a series of coincidences. Rain the same time every week? It’s a weather pattern that no one’s bothered to figure out. Real diamonds outlining Grandmom’s body? Obviously it’s because diamonds are a naturally occurring mineral found in the ground. Plants that communicate? Ridiculous. The wind moves them, or the sun. Not the plants themselves.
Naturally, she’s offended Harry so much that he would never ever dream of communicating with her.
“Pay attention to what?” I whisper, trying to get Harry to answer me before Patricia arrives.
But it’s too late.
Patricia stands over me, the sun lighting her up like a movie star. She has long, thick blond hair and clear blue eyes, the complete opposite of my own thin brown mess and dark brown eyes. People never believe we’re sisters.
“How’s Larry the Rhubarb Plant?” she asks.
“His name isn’t Larry,” I grumble as I stand up. I steal one last look over at Harry, hoping that he’ll tell me something. But he doesn’t. He just watches us leave, giving me a small twitch of a leaf to say good-bye.
“Do you ever comb your hair?” Patricia sneers. “I mean, ever? In all the years of your life?”
“Just tell me why we’re in such a hurry.”
“It’s a surprise,” she tells me. “A
guest
.”
My stomach instantly drops down to my feet. A surprise guest showing up on the same day as the mist on the lake? I sneak another look back to Harry, but I’m too far away and all I see is a blur of red stalks and green leaves, fluttering gently against the light brown soil.
“Who is it?” I ask her.
“A boy—he’s eleven too. A
human
,” she says. “Do you think you can handle it?” She snickers, but doesn’t wait for me to answer. Instead, she takes off, running to the steps of the White House.
Whoever said that older siblings set a good example should have their head examined. For a second, I consider running back and huddling with Harry. Patricia may be right—every time I’ve tried to have a human friend, it’s been a disaster. Grandmom used to say that friendships were too important to just acquire like things you can buy at the store; that people needed to build roots and history together if they wanted to confide in one another. She was trying to make me feel better, but there was no way Grandmom could understand. As soon as Grandmom smiled, people felt like they could run up next to her and tell her their secrets. Everyone always liked her, instantly. My older brother, Freddy, is exactly the same way—he smiles and the world smiles back. The only Monday it
hasn’t
rained on the farm in eighty-six years is the day when Freddy was born, seventeen years ago. Mom is sure it’s because Freddy was able to make the sun smile too, so much so that it couldn’t allow clouds to ruin his day.
But me? I must radiate something prickly, or ugly, or plain old weird. Mom is convinced my lack of friends is because of the farm; that some people don’t understand it, and because they don’t understand, they assume it’s bad. She wants me to snap at them, tell them that our farm is wonderful and special and that they’re out to lunch. That’s what she would do. (Actually, it’s what she does.)
I don’t snap, and I do smile, but none of it matters. When I was at school, I’d feel like the words I wanted to say—the magical words that would make all the difference—got clogged up in my throat. Even people who may have been nice to me soon thought I was strange and uncomfortable. They were right. It didn’t have to do with the farm. It had to do with me. I was strange and uncomfortable. I don’t know how to do it. To relax, make friends.
I pick up my pace, sighing. I can see the White House up ahead. It would be nice to have a human friend. But there’s no reason this boy should be any different.
SAME DAY, MONDAY, AUGUST 18
 
Aunt Edith
 
The White House is our farm’s headquarters. On the outside, it’s so similar to the one in Washington, D.C., that you’d think you were getting ready for a walk in the Rose Garden with the President. Inside, though, it’s completely different: there’s the rhubarb restaurant and café, the History of Rhubarb Archives, and the office where Aunt Edith works. Patricia’s already reached the porch and has latched herself on to her boyfriend, Sam. Sam’s big and strong and has curly brown hair and round wire glasses and he’s always nice to me, even when Patricia isn’t. Honestly, I have no idea what he likes about her, except for the fact that she’s beautiful. My mother and father stand to one side, talking to Freddy, their faces lit up, laughing. Beatrice clusters around one of the columns, talking to someone I can’t see.
When I reach the very top of the steps, I see a bony hand spread out against one of the white columns. As I get closer, I see the hand belongs to a tall boy with longish white-blond hair that hangs in his face. At first glance, he looks serious. And shy. At least I don’t have that sickening feeling I get when I look at someone and know, immediately, that they’re mean.
“Polly!” Beatrice strides forward to greet me. She has taken care of me and Patricia and Freddy since we were babies. She’s short—even shorter than I am—with smooth dark skin and wild hair that sticks out around her head like a black sunbeam. She was born on a sugarcane farm in Bermuda but came to the U.S. when she was a young girl; she says that finding my family—particularly Grandmom—convinced her she was born under a lucky star.
“I’ve been waiting for you! This is Basford. My godson. I’ve been begging for him to come and now, finally, he’s here.You’ll be in the same class at St. Xavier’s.” She looks so proud of Basford that you’d think he just won a gold medal in the Olympics. Basford must feel the same way I do: a red streak blazes across his face, reaching the tips of his ears. He’s totally blushing.

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