Wish Girl (2 page)

I
didn't die. I didn't even get in trouble when I got home four hours later. Turns out, it's not running away when no one notices you're gone.

“What did you do today, Peter?” Dad asked, passing me the mashed potatoes at dinner. “You didn't stay in your room again, did you, buddy? You know, some fresh air would do you good.”

I didn't answer for a minute. What could I tell him? “Dad, I ran away and spent the afternoon trapped by a venomous snake”? Maybe he'd feel guilty. He'd been the reason I'd left, after all. Well, his drumming anyway.

Dad had lost his job and most of his hair in the past year, and he'd decided to relive his youth or something by playing the drums. He was “brushing up his chops” to audition for a band in Austin, he said.

That afternoon, he'd tried to get me to join in, handing me cowbells and triangles and nodding at me when I was supposed to bang on them. Father-and-son time.

I had told him the sounds gave me a headache.

I wasn't lying.

“You're so sensitive, Peter,” Dad had said, disappointed in me, as usual. “You've got to toughen up.”

I'd only heard that a thousand times. But for some reason, that day the truth had hit me. I'd never be tough enough for him.

I wondered if he'd believe I was tougher than a rattlesnake. I glanced up. Nope. He was wearing his perpetual “Why is my son such a weirdo?” expression. So I just answered, “I went walking.”

“Oh?” Mom perked up and looked away from her lap, where she'd been typing something on her phone under the tablecloth. Probably trying to get on Facebook, even though it was practically impossible to get reception way out here. “Where did you go? Did you meet anyone?”

I thought of the snake and smiled a little. I didn't think that was what she meant.

My older sister, Laura, stopped spooning baby food into Carlie's mouth—or mostly onto her shirt and bib, as Carlie was sort of a moving target—and interrupted. “Are you kidding? Of course he didn't see anyone. Come on, Mom. You moved us out to the butt end of nowhere. There aren't any people for, like, fifty miles around.”

“Laura, that negative attitude has to go,” Mom argued. “I'll have you know, there are two boys Peter's age who live at a house only a mile away. This is a great place for us. It doesn't take any longer for me to commute in to the office, since there's almost no traffic—”

“Because no people,” Laura interrupted, leaning back in her chair and angrily popping pieces of okra into her mouth. “No civilization,” she growled through a mouth full of okra guts.

“No tattooed boyfriends,” Dad added. “No potheads.” He winked at me. I tried not to smile. I was the only one who'd heard, since Mom had started up again.

“Well, you're hardly one to talk about being civilized, Laura Elizabeth Stone.” Mom raised her eyebrows. “Eating with your fingers? When you two go back to school this fall, I think you'll want to act a little nicer—”

That set Laura off again, on her favorite topic of having to attend a country high school where the biggest summer event was a rodeo, and 80 percent of the kids raised goats and steers for 4-H.

It was really different out here in the hill country, that was for sure. Different from our apartment in San Antonio, where we'd lived for almost eleven years. We'd only been in the new house for a week, but I could tell it wouldn't ever be home. There was nothing homey about it: a two-story, thirty-year-old wood-frame box with three different colors of vinyl siding and windows so loose they rattled in a stiff breeze.

I hated it. I think we all did. But we hadn't had much choice. Our old landlord had said that Dad's drums and guitars were driving away his other tenants. “Driving them crazy,” he'd moaned the day he delivered the news that he wouldn't renew our lease.

I couldn't blame him. The noise of my family was unreal. The TV was on all the time, turned up loud enough to cover Carlie's constant tantrums and crying. My mom talked on the phone whenever she was home, or talked
at
the girls and me. When she didn't think we were listening to her—which was pretty much always—she just talked louder.

Like she was doing now, arguing with Laura. My head started to feel like something was squeezing it slowly, but hard. Carlie went from spitting food on her tray to crying. I picked at my meat loaf and thought of the valley I'd found that day. Where I'd met the snake.

It wasn't that far. Just across some fields of weeds, cacti, and a few scraggly trees and bushes that had more thorns than leaves. Then over the top of the hill behind that, past the fence made of railroad ties stacked diagonally on each other like enormous Lincoln Logs, and across the thin stretch of asphalt that was being retaken by grasses and wildflowers on both edges.

Just far enough away that I couldn't hear crying or yelling or drumming.

It had seemed like a dream. For the first time in years, I hadn't heard cars or trains, TVs or video games or people. Hadn't seen a roofline or even a plane in the sky.

I'd been alone for the first time in my whole life, almost. I liked it.

No, I loved it. Out there, my heartbeat was as loud as anything in the world.

Carlie shrieked. My head was the only thing pounding now. Well, that and Carlie's feet on the bottom of the table.

“Well, why couldn't we get a better house at least? One with high-speed Internet?” Laura asked. “It's like living on Mars.”

“True,” Dad agreed around a mouthful of salad. “That part's such a drag. Maybe we could get the cable company to hook us up—”

“We're on one paycheck,” Mom hissed. “Mine. Did you forget?”

Dad lifted his chin in my direction, like I was supposed to say something.

I knew better.

But he didn't. He rolled his eyes—at Mom. “Like you would let me for one minute. Nag, nag, nag.”

I held still. Laura did, too. Even Carlie paused in her tantrum. Then the world exploded into noise as Mom and Dad went at it, throwing blame and insults at each other as fast as they could, like they each were trying to win some invisible food fight.

And they didn't care who got hit.

“You chose this place without even consulting me, Maxine,” Dad yelled. “Just because I'm out of a job doesn't mean I'm out of the family.” His next word was a bullet. “Yet.”

Carlie was crying full-out now, and Laura picked her up, humming some lullaby but never taking her eyes off Mom and Dad. She looked as scared as I felt.

Was this it? Were they splitting up?

My parents had always fought a little, usually in their room at night, after they thought us kids were asleep. But since Dad had been laid off eleven months ago—the same week Mom had gotten promoted to assistant manager at the bank—the yelling had gotten lots worse.

“You know we had to get away from the city, Joshua,” Mom said, her voice low. “You know why.” I felt her eyes on me, their eyes.

Maybe it
was
Dad's fault we'd been evicted. But it was my fault we'd had to move out here, away from the city they'd all loved. I knew that. Laura made sure to remind me every day.

Their stares burned into my skin.

“May I be excused?” My voice was a whisper. Too soft; no one heard.

The headache was getting worse, fast. It felt like something was splitting behind my right eye. Like my brain was under attack.

I held every bit as still as I had that afternoon, and I wished I was back at the rim of the valley.

And then, in my mind, I was.

My skin prickled. Like something was watching me. Something invisible and mysterious and vast. It seemed like the valley was waiting to see what I would do. I stayed motionless for longer than I ever had, wondering what was expected.

And then the valley took a breath.

Wind moved across the bowl, shifting trees and bushes like the land was a giant cat being petted. It moved fast, faster. It was almost here, almost to me.

Would the wind knock me over?

The hot air rushed around me, and the clatter of leaves sounded like excited whispers in my ears. Sounded almost like . . . hissing?

I smiled, remembering the rattler. I'd been so still, when it slid across my feet it had probably thought I was a tree or a rock. Thought I belonged there.

I stood for hours, snake around my ankles, fear in my throat. The breeze rose back up, pushing strands of my hair past my ears. It reminded me of when my grandma was alive, and she would stroke the hair back over my ear, feather-gentle.

The world around me came to life, like an orchestra tuning up. Somewhere to my right, a bird began to sing, a bunch of mixed-up trills. A mockingbird, I thought. Grasshoppers and frogs joined in. Something larger must have moved a little farther away, since I heard the sharp thud of rocks knocking together and sliding downhill.

The sun beat on my face, and I saw the shadows of clouds moving across the sky even with my eyes shut, as the light behind my eyelids went from red to black to red again.

Someone—something—
was
watching me. A shiver ran up my spine and made goose bumps prickle on my arms. It was the same feeling I used to get when my teacher would lean over my desk to tell me what a good job I'd done, in a quiet voice so no one else would hear.

Then something else sent a chill up my back. The snake was moving.

I opened my eyes and waited as it went from being wrapped around my ankles to slithering across the rocky soil toward a bush. And then, with a flick of its rattle, it slid under the bush like it had never been on my ankles at all.

I let out my breath and turned to go, my feet numb with the effort it had taken to stay in one place for so long. For a moment I wanted to shout, holler, and whoop as loud as I could. But before I did, a hawk flew by and yelled for me—screeched and wheeled right overhead, like it was saying hello. Or well done.

I waved with one hand, wondering why the hawk's answering call sounded like laughter. Why the sudden gust of wind felt like gentle hands pushing at my shoulders. Pretending to try to tip me over, the same way my grandpa used to when we'd sit on his porch in Houston, just the two of us, him telling dirty jokes and me holding back laughter so Mom and Dad wouldn't come and hear and make him stop.

Suddenly, the rattlesnake seemed like one of his jokes. Dangerous and funny and private. No one would believe me if I told them anyway.

“Helloooo?” The valley disappeared, and I blinked. Laura was waving her hand in front of my face. I didn't know how long she'd been doing it, how long I'd been staring at my plate.

It must have been a long time. Laura looked really worried, and her voice quivered when she asked, “What's wrong with you, Peter?”

“P
eter?” Laura repeated, louder. She had her hand on my arm. How long had she been touching me? I hadn't even felt her. I'd been lost in my thoughts. “Were you having a seizure or something?”

Mom and Dad were still fighting, in angry whispers, but standing by the door. So we wouldn't hear? A few words came through: “ . . . therapist bills or groceries? You have to try harder. He needs more help. He's still not himself. . . . ”

Talking about me. I could feel the blood rushing to my face, and I shook Laura's hand away. “No. It's nothing. I was daydreaming. Just . . . leave me alone.” I looked at my arm. She'd accidentally wiped some of Carlie's baby food there. “Gross, Laura.” I flicked it at her.

“Fine,” she said. “Be that way. Weirdo.” She pulled her phone out of her pocket, waving it around to try to get a signal, ignoring us all.

I cleared my throat. “Mom, may I be excused? Mom? Mom?”

I didn't think she'd heard me, but then—“Peep!” Carlie screamed her version of my name at the top of her lungs. “Peep!”

Mom swung her head around. “Did you need something, Peter?”

“I have a headache,” I said. “May I be excused?”

Mom fussed over me for a minute, tried to get me to take a Tylenol, and when I wouldn't, she stuffed a chocolate chip cookie into my hand like it was some sort of secret-recipe painkiller.

“Come watch a movie with us tonight,” she said as I cleared my plate. “We're going to do a
Fast and Furious
marathon the whole weekend, to celebrate having almost all the unpacking done so soon.”

“No, thanks. I'm just going to go sit in my room.” Mom chewed on her lower lip; I could tell she was trying not to react. “To read, Mom. That's all.”

I wasn't lying. I figured I would read up on snakes again. It might come in handy.

I left the table and had almost made it to my door when I remembered we'd put all the nature books in the living room. I was walking back when I heard Laura say softly, “What is it with Peter? Did you even notice him, just sitting there like a lump? We shouldn't have moved. He's worse than ever. Tell the truth. Is he brain-dead or something? Did you drop him on his head when he was a baby?”

“Laura Stone!” Mom's voice was harsh, but quiet, too. “Your brother's perfectly fine. He's just . . . different. Introverted. And you know what he was going through last spring. We
had
to move, for more than one reason. So stop complaining about it. Remember, stay positive around him.”

“Whatever,” Laura said. “I've tried. It's not working. He's getting weirder since we moved out here. All this time alone? It's not good for . . . whatever he has.”

“You know, you may be right,” Dad started. “I mean, he's always been so quiet, it's hard to tell what he's thinking—or feeling. But he may actually be getting more depressed since we moved. I was wondering if . . . ”

I tiptoed back to my room without the snake book, my face burning, not wanting to hear whatever my dad was saying back.

It wasn't like I was going to do anything anyway. I wasn't going to go rushing in there and defend myself. Standing up to them—to anyone—scared me more than running away, any day. Laura had told me a thousand times, and it was true: I was a wimp. I was a pushover. I was an embarrassment.

They all thought I was defective. I'd heard Mom tell Dad more than once that I'd been “born into the wrong family.” I even knew what they meant; I didn't fit in with the rest of them, except maybe Carlie. When she was asleep.

But it didn't make it hurt any less.