Rebecca's Rashness (11 page)

We arrived at the doorway of Fall to see the entire room ablaze.

"Oh dear," Rebecca said, at last looking awed at her own power.

"Oh, this is very bad," Petal said. "Rebecca chose me to show off her strength. What if she chooses me for this too?"

"It'll be like the Salem witch trials," Annie said.

"But without a real witch," Georgia added.

"I'll go get the fire extinguisher," Zinnia offered, sounding as though she might be growing weary of it all.

"Psst," Pete whispered to us as Rebecca went on staring at what she'd done. "I think we need to have a family conference."

"Without Rebecca," Mrs. Pete added.

Pete had used the term
family conference.
We were inclined to feel moved by this, the idea that even though we weren't related to them by blood, the Petes thought of us as family. But we had no time to be sentimental.

"You're right," Annie said. "Things simply can't go on like this."

***

We held our family conference standing around the charred remains of our dining-room table. We would have sat, but the chairs had been destroyed too. So stand we did around the smoldering mess.

Rebecca was upstairs lying down for a bit, having been instructed by Annie to do so.

"That's a good idea," Rebecca had said when Annie suggested it. "I think better when I'm horizontal, so I'll be able to come up with more world-taking-over ideas."

"Things simply can't go on like this," Annie said again now.

We saw that Annie was right.

We'd suffered threats from outside before, many times: the Wicket, Crazy Serena, Frank Freud, Crazy Serena again. But this time the threat was coming from within. Would Rebecca destroy our house and us in it?

She might not mean to, but she was certainly capable of it.

"We need to find a way to contain Rebecca's power until August hits," Pete said.

"But how?" Mrs. Pete said.

"Perhaps we could tie Rebecca's hands behind her back," Petal suggested.

We suspected that Petal had been wanting to do this to Rebecca for a very long time.

"She'd only shoot fire backwards," Marcia said.

"And then where would we be?" Georgia said. "With Rebecca unable to see what she was shooting fire at, who knows what she might set on fire by mistake?"

"I wish a carrier pigeon would come to visit," Durinda said with a sigh. "Especially if the carrier pigeon came bearing a note with helpful advice."

That seemed like a too-magical thing to wish for, that a carrier pigeon would just appear with useful information at exactly the right moment. Still, we couldn't blame Durinda as we gazed at the windows hopefully and then wistfully. It would have been nice.

"We could wrap Rebecca's hands in great big mitts so that her fingers were covered," Petal suggested.

"I don't think that would work either," Annie said. "Unless the mitts were made of steel, Rebecca could shoot fire right through them."

"You're right," Pete said. "What we need is something that will remove Rebecca completely from the house."

"You mean like send her to jail?" Petal suggested.

We all ignored Petal, except for Pete.

"Unless the jail's made entirely of steel," he said, "that wouldn't work either."

"Steel ... steel ... steel..." Marcia mused. "People keep mentioning steel. I'm guessing there might be something in that."

"We need something completely made out of steel," Annie said excitedly.

"And then we need to put something into the thing made out of steel so that Rebecca will enter it," Jackie said.

"Whatever this is we're thinking of," Zinnia said, "it sounds like it might be a mean trick to play on a person." Then Zinnia sighed. "But I am getting tired of hauling that fire extinguisher around. My back is killing me. Zither says hers is too."

"Do you think you could build something like that, Mr. Pete?" Annie asked. "Like what we're describing?"

"Yes, I think I can," Pete said. "And as hard as it might be, the idea of sequestering one of you lot, it has to be done."

"What does
sequestering
mean?" Petal asked.

"It means to keep someone apart from other people," Jackie said.

Okay, we'd known about Jackie, but who knew Pete had such a vast vocabulary?

"It's not just for our own good and the good of society," Pete went on. "It's for Rebecca's good as well. Why, if we just let her go on like this, she might eventually go up in self-immolation."

Six of us weren't completely sure what that meant but we were fairly certain Pete meant that Rebecca might set herself on fire.

Conflagration. Immolation.

One good thing that was coming out of all this: we were expanding our knowledge of synonyms for the word
fire.

At least there was that.

***

"What are you doing, Mr. Pete?" Rebecca asked.

Rebecca had apparently grown tired of being horizontal and was now back to being vertical. She'd found us in the backyard, gathered around Pete as he worked.

Pete grabbed a six-inch-thick sheet of reinforced steel and placed it next to another. Without being asked, Petal handed him a steel nail.

"Oh, what a shame," Pete said. "You've spoiled the surprise. Why, I'm building something for you, Rebecca."

"For me?" Rebecca said. "But why? And what is it?"

"I'm doing it because you saved my life," Pete said. "As for what it is, just watch and see."

So we all watched, most of us knowing what Pete was building, one of us not.

At last, Pete was done with the small structure; it looked kind of like Daddy's toolshed, only made out of steel.

"I still don't understand what it is or what it's for," Rebecca said. "I don't know why there's a little rectangular slot in the door, as if someone wanted to make sure there was proper ventilation, or what the fluffy pillow is doing in there, or why there's a sink with a water glass and toothbrush in it, or why you installed a toilet in the corner. And what's that miniature version of it doing off to one side and why does it have a water dish and a soft cushion and a catnip toy and a litter box inside of it?"

"Why," Pete said, "that's for Rambunctious. Rambunctious deserves a prize too."

According to prior arrangement, Durinda, Georgia, Jackie, Marcia, Petal, and Zinnia disappeared then, soon reappearing with wheelbarrows piled high with cans of pink frosting and kibble.

Immediately we began stocking the shelves inside the two steel structures.

"What—" Rebecca started to say, but Pete cut her off.

"It's your prize," Pete said. "I know how much you like pink frosting so I wanted to put a whole bunch of it separate from the house so you'd never have to share again with anyone else, never run out. And of course Rambunctious has her own personal supply of kibble now too."

Rambunctious tiptoed on cat feet into the smaller of the two steel things Pete had created.

"This is magnificent!" Rebecca said, entering the larger structure. "This is—"

That's when we slammed both doors shut.

And bolted them.

***

"Let me out of here!" Rebecca shouted.

Sounds of a cat wailing came from the smaller structure.

"Zither says Rambunctious would like to be let out too," Zinnia informed us.

We ignored Zinnia. A person didn't have to pretend to have the ability to communicate with cats to understand Rebecca's cat's sentiments at the moment.

"We will," Durinda shouted back to Rebecca.

"On August first," Jackie added.

"When it's safe to be around you again," Petal said. Then she paused, finally adding, "Or saf
er
."

"It's for your own good," Pete said.

Fire flew out the rectangular slots on the doors of both structures, but we ignored the flames, and the continued shouting too.

"Shall we go inside where it's quieter?" Annie said.

"I'll make us a snack," Durinda said.

"Oh, good," Zinnia said. "After all this, I've really built up an appetite."

"I think I'll stay out here," Georgia said, "maybe lounge in the hammock."

"Won't all the shouting bother you?" Marcia asked.

"Nah," Georgia said. "I find racket to be rather peaceful."

"Just stay out of the way of the flames," Jackie advised.

"Is everyone else ready for that snack now?" Mrs. Pete said.

So that's what we did.

We went and had a snack, feeling as though life had returned to some semblance of normal.

And for the next seven days, we continued to do normal things. We cleaned out the worst of the damage to Fall. We got the long picnic table we'd used at the Bastille Day party and put it in the dining room, so we had something to stand around when we ate our meals. We even went out and purchased a new TV.

We weren't worried so much about our brains rotting. We always seemed to have bigger things to worry about.

It was a peaceful week filled with us taking turns lying in the hammock, drinking lemonade and lying on our backs staring up at the puffy clouds to see animal shapes in them, all of which the Mr. McG had once advised us to do over the summer.

We didn't even mind, while we were relaxing outdoors, hearing the sounds of Rebecca shouting and Rambunctious doing the kitty equivalent of shouting and seeing flames flying through those rectangular slots. It'd been our experience in life that people could get used to almost anything.

Or at least we could.

***

On the seventh day of Rebecca's sequestration, a strange thing happened.

Rebecca stopped shouting.

Could Rebecca have finally run out of anger? That hardly seemed possible. Whatever the case, Rebecca had stopped shouting and instead was speaking—dare we say it?—calmly.

How eerie.

"If I tell you what I've figured out," Rebecca said quietly through the slot to us when we went out to say good morning to her, as we did every morning, "and I further promise not to use my power again unless necessary, will you let me out of here?"

"It's a trick!" Petal cried.

"No, it's not," Rebecca said, still eerily calm.

"What do you mean, what you've 'figured out'?" Annie said.

"About Queen and the Ochos," Rebecca said. "Also about the Wicket and Frank Freud and Crazy Serena. You know, stuff like that." Rebecca paused. "It's amazing what a person can figure out in her own head if she's given time and space to think about things."

This was a revelation. We'd had good evidence that the only things filling Rebecca's mind were spider webs and cans of pink frosting. We never would have guessed there were actual ideas up there.

But wait a second. Hang on.

Rebecca now
knew
things?

TWELVE

"I don't hear any of you talking," Rebecca said after a long moment of silence. "Fine," she said when we still didn't say anything. "I'll tell you what I know and then you decide if it was worth enough to trust me and let me out of here."

A moment passed.

"You do have our attention now," Annie said to the slot. "Please talk."

"It's like this," Rebecca began. "We've already figured out that Queen is Mommy's identical twin sister, a sister we never knew about for some reason, just like we never knew about Crazy Serena. And we figured out that the Ochos are Queen's children because her last name is Ocho and we know there are children involved. But what we haven't figured out, at least not before today, is how many children there are."

"And you've managed to figure this out?" Georgia said with sneering skepticism.

"Yes," Rebecca said, and there was that calm again, serenity even. "There are eight Ochos, just like there are eight Huits."

"Eight?" Petal cried in fear. "So many?"

"Yes," Rebecca said. "It stands to reason, doesn't it?" She paused. "The Eights? That's what we're called. The Other Eights? That's what they were called in all those notes the carrier pigeons brought us. Eight isn't just our last name, and it can't be just their last name. Eight is how many of us there are. Eight must be how many of them there are too."

Wow. The idea of there being eight Ochos, just like we were eight Huits. Eight Ochos who were ... our cousins!

"I can't believe I'm saying this," Annie said, "but I think Rebecca's right."

"I'm sure she's right," Marcia said. "It's simple mathematical math sense."

"Have you figured out anything else about the Ochos?" Jackie asked Rebecca.

"Not for certain," Rebecca said. "But I see no reason why they can't be octuplets too."

What a horrifying thought! We'd always thought we were so original!

"They could be octuplet girls, for all we know," Rebecca said, "just like us. Or maybe they're even boys—our male counterparts. But whatever they are, I'm certain there are eight of them."

This was so much to think about.

"But wait a second," Annie said. "You also said you'd figured out something about the Wicket, Frank Freud, and Crazy Serena."

"Oh, that," Rebecca said, as though it were nothing.

"Yes, that," Georgia prompted.

"I simply figured out," Rebecca said, "that we need to stop worrying about them like we always do. None of them knows anything. If they did, it would be obvious. All they want is the secret of eternal life. We should forget about them and refocus our energies on discovering where Mommy and Daddy disappeared to."

"Don't you mean to add 'or how they died'?" Georgia said.

"No, I don't," Rebecca said. "I'm sure they're still alive. I feel it."

This was a new Rebecca.

"Can I come out now?" Rebecca said. "I promise not to burn things unless you specifically ask me to."

What else could we do? We let her out. Rambunctious too. We weren't sure they'd behave, but Rebecca had promised, and Zinnia informed us that Rambunctious had promised too. Letting them out after their promises—it was a chance we'd have to take.

***

"Well, what do you know?" Rebecca said calmly as she reached for the knob on the front door. "It looks like my gift has arrived."

Rebecca was right once more, we realized as we saw the heart-shaped locket dangling from the doorknob.