Unspeakable Things(24)

He didn’t tell her about Goblin, but maybe he didn’t get a chance because when he mentioned the new curfew, Mom’s face closed up like she’d pulled a zipper over it.

“Lilydale’s under curfew?”

Dad had scooped a big spoonful of mashed potatoes and stopped with it almost to his mouth. “Yeah. Two boys claimed they were abducted.” He spit out the word “claimed” like it’d been soaked in vinegar. “Supposedly only one of them went to the police.”

My mouth dropped open. Two boys. That wasn’t right.

A year of Mom’s life seemed to fall away. She turned to me and Sephie. “Do either of you know anything about this?”

Sephie shrugged.

“I heard it was only Clam. Mark Clamchik,” I corrected, when Mom looked confused. “He’s an eighth grader.”

“That poor boy,” Mom murmured.

“If it’s even true,” Dad said. “Kids lie.”

“I heard after he was abducted, he ended up in the hospital,” I offered, not sure exactly what I was saying. I hadn’t wanted to use the word “raped,” but neither was I 100 percent clear on what it meant to be abducted.

“A friend of mine’s mom is a nurse,” I continued. “She said Clam was in bad shape.”

“Who’s the other boy?” Mom asked.

We all stared at Dad. He was digging into his grub, this time going for the cow liver. He loved the stuff, said the iron in it gave him superpowers. The texture made me want to gag. It was like chewing on a wet book.

“Another Hollow boy,” Dad said.

Sephie twitched, looking as startled as I felt. If what Dad was saying was true, it meant the second boy also rode our bus.

“What’s his name?” I asked.

Dad kept chewing.

“What’s his name?” I repeated.

“That’s other people’s business,” Dad said, his eyes sliding. He was hiding something, I could tell. I wondered if it was connected to the secret he and Sergeant Bauer shared.

“That’s enough,” Mom said. “We’re not going to speculate about other people’s troubles.” She reached into the radish bowl, coming out with one as bright and plump as a cherry. She’d grown it herself. Along with the spinach, it was the first crop of the year. She bit in.

The crunch made Sephie and me jump.

Mom and Dad moved to the living room while Sephie and I cleaned up supper. Mom brought out a stack of papers to grade, and Dad settled in front of the television like he did most every night. He watched a lot of TV. I guess many people did. Maybe like him, they preferred their lives delivered to them in a box.

“Do you know who the other boy is?” I asked Sephie.

She’d offered to wash dishes, me to dry and put away. She stoppered the sink and squirted out some green Palmolive before twisting on the hot water. “There’s a lot of talk, but it’s just rumors. Clam seemed fine on the bus.”

I scraped the leftover potatoes into a plastic container, licking the spatula when I was done. “He looks okay, but he’s not the same. He cornered me in the band room today.”

“Clam?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Except different.”

She seemed to chew on this for a while, riling up the water to make bubbles. “Why’d you steal the lip gloss?”

“I didn’t.” I fitted tinfoil over the top of the plastic bowl. “I just wanted to see it. That’s when Clam found me. I shoved the gloss in my pocket without even thinking.”

“What? Why didn’t you tell Mrs. Janowski?”

“Because that sounds even stupider than saying I stole it.”

Sephie began dipping dishes into the hot, soapy water in the order Mom had taught us. Glasses first, so they didn’t streak. Then silverware. Plates and bowls came after that, pots and pans last because they greased up the works.

“I’m sorry,” Sephie said finally.

I looped my hands around her waist and squeezed. “Thanks.”

“Get offa me!” she said, laughing. “Hey, you’re going to help me study again tonight, aren’t you?”

“Do bears poop in the woods?”



I’d crammed all the chemistry that’d fit into Sephie’s head before padding back to my bedroom.

The night was humid, the color of ink. A storm was coming, I could smell it in the air, all hot and electric. It was definitely a stretch-out-under-the-bed night, but if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to flip my pillow to harvest the coolness underneath. That’s why I chose the closet, and I stuck with my decision even though a mosquito found me, buzzing and burrowing into my sticky skin when I’d drift off.

To take my mind off the heat and the bug, I imagined my summer. Tomorrow was the last day of seventh grade for me. Soon I’d be running through the corn rows with my hands out to catch the pollen, the air exploding with the smell of green juice and earth. Summer meant everything detonating in fruit and flowers. Clouds the color of rose quartz would fluff overhead, and Sephie and I would pedal so fast that we’d make our own breeze, racing through the air, rich and spicy with the smell of secret forest and water bug swamps.

Maybe Gabriel would want to join us. Shame threatened to creep back into my heart when I thought of him, but I wouldn’t let it. Gabriel might not know about the lip gloss, and even if he did, he would forgive me once I explained myself. Sephie had. We’d bond over that mistake, maybe, and fall in love.