The Children on the Hill(6)

He took a step forward. Vi held her ground, standing right in the middle of the flagstone walkway to the house, her own roadblock.

She was thirteen years old, tall for her age, but still not even up to this man’s shoulders. Gran was always telling her not to slouch, to stand tall and proud, and that’s what she did now.

“Mr. MacDermot, I’m sure if you talk to my grandmother, she’ll tell you it’s okay for animals to be in the house. My brother brings home plenty, and Gran encourages it.”

“Does she now?”

“You go ask her yourself. Or, if you like, I can go in and call over to the Inn and ask her to come home, but I hear she’s real busy so she might not be too happy about that.”

He frowned at her, ran his pasty tongue over his dry lips, clenched his hands around the rifle. “She’ll hear about this,” he said.

“Yes, sir,” Vi said, smiling as big as she could, like the silly smiley face on the Have a Nice Day mug Gran drank out of sometimes—a gift from one of her patients.

“It ain’t right,” he said, turning to leave. “Keeping a wild thing captive.” Old Mac shuffled back down the driveway, muttering to himself, cradling the gun.

Vi went inside, her bare feet cold against the tiled floor of the front hall. She bolted the door, just in case. She let her eyes adjust to the darkness, took in the walnut-paneled walls, the french doors to the right that led into the parlor and the huge tiled fireplace, the curved staircase to the left. The house smelled of dust, old books, lemon furniture polish.

She heard soft mumbling coming from the kitchen. Sometimes Eric had conversations with his animals, made them talk back in different voices. He was really good at voices. Vi thought that maybe when he grew up he’d go to work doing voices for cartoons or Sesame Street or something. He could do a perfect Bugs Bunny: “What’s up, doc?”

“Eric?” she called. “You in the kitchen?”

“Yeah,” he snuffled. Then she heard a squeaky rabbit voice say, “So scared.”

Vi hurried down the hall.

Sunlight streamed through the window over the sink. The Crock-Pot hissed on the counter—they were having sloppy joes for dinner and the kitchen was full of the smell of spicy, meaty tomato sauce. Gran had made Jell-O parfaits for dessert—they were chilling in the fridge.

Eric was still cradling the bunny in his shirt.

Vi cleared everything off the table, pulled the sunflower tablecloth off, and laid down a clean dish towel. “Put him down here and let’s take a look,” she said.

“Save him, Vi,” Eric said as he set the rabbit on the table. “Please.”

Vi touched the rabbit carefully. She turned it over and gave it a quick exam. It didn’t look like the gunshot had hit any organs, just grazed the outside of its left haunch. The rabbit was holding very still but breathing very fast. “I think it’s in shock,” Vi said.

“Is that bad?” Eric asked.

She bit her lip. “Sometimes, when you’re in shock, your heart can stop.”

“Don’t let that happen,” Eric whimpered.

“I know what to do,” Vi said, spinning away from her bare-chested brother. She ran back down the hall, to the enclosed porch that Gran called the sunroom. It was where they played games and did artwork and stored weird stuff that didn’t belong anywhere else. It was also where Gran made her gin.

In the corner of the room, Gran’s still was set up on a heavy table: a crazy contraption of copper and glass tubes, flasks, and Bunsen burners. Gran was on a never-ending quest to distill the perfect batch of gin. One of the burners was on, and the still bubbled gently. The air smelled tangy and medicinal.

Vi turned away from it, went to the shelves, and found what she was looking for: the battery-powered camping lantern they used when the power went out. She took it down and opened it up, taking out the blocky six-volt battery. She rummaged around in a basket full of odds and ends on the shelf and pulled out some pieces of wire.

“What are you doing?” Eric asked when she brought the battery and wires back to the kitchen. The little rabbit was holding perfectly still under his hand. Its eyes were closed.

“We have to be ready to restart its heart. Give it a shock.”

Eric looked baffled.

“Trust me. A body, it’s got its own electrical system, right? Gran’s explained that a thousand times—how it’s all connected: the brain, the nerves. It’s what keeps our hearts beating, right? And you know how on Emergency! they use those paddles to bring people back? It’s like that.”

She licked her lips, then attached two wires to the big six-volt battery from their camping lantern. She thought about all of Gran’s lessons on circuits and electricity, how Vi had made a lightbulb glow once with the electricity generated from a potato, nails, and wire.

Gran had once said the human body had enough electricity running through it to power a flashlight.

And yes, Vi thought of Frankenstein. Not of the book she’d been reading, but the movie. Of Boris Karloff being brought to life in Dr. Frankenstein’s lab.

It was her favorite scene in the movie. The storm raging, Dr. Frankenstein lifting the table with the monster up out of the room, into the sky so lightning could strike it, bring the creature to life with a great jolt. Then lowering him back down, seeing the creature’s hand twitch: It’s alive, it’s alive, it’s alive!