He could not tell Jake what he saw when he finally, finally looked over the edge.
- Jake breathed in and it sounded funny, like the air got caught on something in the back of his throat. It was a ragged, shuddery kind of a sound. "Or how about telling me something Wayne said?" Jakes voice was searching for something, opening cupboards and pulling out drawers.
And there it was.
Something Wayne said.
A shady, hidden memory of the night before the accident- - Henry and Wayne barely needed their headlamps as they hiked up the mountain, the moon was so full and bright. The trees were shorter up this high, more like shrubs than trees, and the sound of rustling branches came at their knees instead of above their heads. It was a softer sound too, the branches were covered with needles not leaves. Soon they used their hands to climb up steep rock faces. Brae bounded ahead of them, leaping on and off the rocks three times for every one grab their fingers made.
Then they were at the top.
"We made it!" shouted Wayne, throwing his backpack off his shoulders. He spun in a circle. Brae ran around him.
"Uh, yeah," said Henry. "Like always."
"Never at night, though, Henry. Isnt it amazing up here? Look at the sky. Look at the moon." Wayne continued to spin. He looked like the top of a helicopter, his arms spread wide. Like a helicopter just beginning its flight- - Henry couldnt bear to remember it. But it was coming. Oh man, oh man, oh man, it was coming. He felt sick. He thought he might have to ask Jake to pull over.
Jake looked over his left shoulder and changed lanes. Henry peered into the window of a station wagon as Jake accelerated past it. Two boys were playing cards in the backseat.
"The night before-" Henry took a deep breath. "The night before, when we were on the top of the mountain, we were...ummmmm...we were talking. A lot. We were talking a lot." They had been too. Henry didnt usually talk that much, he was the nodder or the head shaker. And Wayne was the fists-clenched puncher. But that night they had talked a lot.
Jake switched back into the right lane.
"We...ummmmm...we talked about-" Henry struggled to say something. To say anything. "How it felt good to be on the mountain," he said miserably. "Wayne said he felt-he said-he loved climbing to the top of the mountain at night."
Was that enough? He did want to give Jake something.
The station wagon sped past the truck. Henry saw the backs of the two boys heads. They were close together and moving in a jerking motion, back and forth. Henry imagined they were trying to pull cards out of each others hands.
Jake cleared his throat. "So he was happy?"
Henry nodded.
At that point he had been, anyway.
- Jake and Henry drove in silence after that. Henrys brain felt scorched. Like the wind had burnt the clouds that filled his head, and now the sun was too bright and too hot. He didnt want to remember so much. He wanted those clouds back.
The clouds outside turned cream-colored, then yellow, and then a sort of orange. Like the sun had baked them longer and longer as they drove south. The air was thicker too, even saltier, though Henry couldnt believe that was actually possible. Henry saw a dead dog by the side of the highway. He thought he saw its tag gleaming in the sun, and he wanted to stop, but Jake said no. The dog made Henry miss Brae. c.r.a.p, he missed him. He missed him in a way that felt like he had been hit in the chest with a baseball so hard it broke through his skin, snapped his ribs, and tore apart his heart.
"I wonder if those two boys in the station wagon ever stopped fighting," he said at one point.
"Dont know" was all Jake said back.
chapter 25.
ZAVION.
"No, Zavion," said Papa, from his chair in the dining room where he was still painting little landscapes. "No, no, no."
"But Papa-"
"And no."
He was so calm when he argued. No yelling, no sweating, no jumping up from his chair.
"I have to repay the store." Zavion rubbed the marble against his palm with his fingers. It was warm, tucked in his new jeans pocket. Zavion could only hold what fit in his hands now. The marble and chocolate bars.
"I can say it again, if you really want-"
Zavion did not want.
"No."
Clearly, it didnt matter what Zavion wanted. It didnt matter what he knew-he knew-was the right thing to do. Zavion felt a renewed sense of hope with the magic marble in his pocket. He had already wished on it. Just like hed done with the wishing rocks. Hed even found a windowsill to sleep near, and he placed the marble there. Just where his wishing rocks had sat. He was hoping it would make him sleep better.
"Let me call the market," said Zavion.
"We dont even know its name. We cant just look up "market with broken window near the convention center," said Papa.
"Luna Market," said Zavion. How did Papa not know that? "On Chartres Street." Until that moment, he hadnt realized that he knew the street name too.
His brain had been functioning that day whether he had known it or not.
"Please, Papa," said Zavion. "Can we try to call?"
Papa put down his paintbrush. "You are bullheaded, boy, do you know that? The phone line at the market is probably down."
"Probably."
"Most likely."
"Maybe, but maybe not," said Zavion.
Papa smiled. "Bullheaded. Just like your Mama." He indicated over his shoulder to a desk with a computer on it. "Use that. See if you can find the number. Then you can call." He pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket. "I borrowed Skeets phone to call Gabe. I left him a message."
Zavion walked over to the desk. The computer screen had a map up. He looked at it closely. Point A was Baton Rouge. Point B was Topeka, Kansas.
Zavion needed to act fast.
He typed Yellow Pages into the search box and then typed Luna Market, 311 Chartres Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.
It was there!
"I found it," said Zavion.
"Heres the phone," said Papa.
Zavion stood behind him and punched in the number. He squeezed the marble with his other hand. For luck. He swallowed hard. What would he say? He hadnt thought about that.
He glanced over Papas shoulder. The sunlight, streaming in from the side window, lit up a corner of his painting. A purplish-blue color shimmered there. Zavion leaned forward to get a better look. A tiny marsh under a full moon.
Papa seemed obsessed with these landscapes he could hold in his hand. There was something rea.s.suring to Zavion about that.
"Well-" said Papa, startling Zavion.
The phone! Zavion had forgotten that he was on the phone.
No ringing. No sound. Silence.
"Nothing," he had to admit. He handed the phone back to Papa.
"Phone lines have to be down," said Papa. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. "Its too soon."
And the way he said it made Zavion think that he meant it was too soon to even think about New Orleans.
"Go on, Zav," said Papa. "You need to go for a run-"
"I need to repay the store," said Zavion.
Papa sighed. "How about you send money later when we get some?"
Zavion couldnt wait until later. He didnt trust that the mail service would get the money to the market. He couldnt risk that. This was something he had to do in person. He had to look the cashier in the eyes. He had to make sure he was understood.
"Please, Papa." He was going to try one more time. "Please take me to New Orleans."
"No."
Zavion knew he would say no.
If Papa wouldnt do it with him, then he was going to do it alone.
"Then Im going to go by myself." There. He had said it out loud. He felt his heart beating in the wrong place, up against the bottom of his throat.
Papa looked up from his painting. He stared at Zavion without blinking. Zavion had the same wide, long eyelashes-he had Papas eyes and cheeks, but he had Mamas nose and mouth-and his eyelashes fluttered furiously as he blinked and blinked and blinked while Papas sat frozen above his eyes.
Zavion knew that Papa usually, eventually, let him do things his way. Even if Papa had more control over his eye muscles and knew how to hold a paintbrush for hours at a time, Zavion was the one who controlled everything else.
Or he used to.
"Its the right thing to do, Papa. So Im going to do it," he said.
"You will not go back into New Orleans," said Papa slowly.
"But-"
"Do. You. Understand. Me?" Papa spoke even more slowly.
Zavion willed his eyes to stop blinking. He widened them and kept them still even as they dried and he had to fight the urge to blink.
"Why?" He spoke the one word as slowly as he could.
"Because-" Papa looked down then. He closed his eyes. He put down his paintbrush and flexed his fingers and closed them into a fist. He opened his eyes again and opened his fist and shook his hand back and forth. "Because," he finally said again, "I dont want you...I cant have you...back in that...drowned...monster of a city..." He gripped his hands together, interlocking his fingers, and leaned forward. "That...place...isnt...safe-"
Zavion knew about safe. He had made it his job to keep Papa and his own self safe for all these years.
He bent his head down to the floor and finally blinked his eyes. They were wet, but he wasnt crying. He had messed up something huge during the hurricane. He rolled the marble from one finger to another in his pocket. It sounded kind of silly, but he believed he had a touch of magic, now that he had found this marble.
He would find some money.
He would find a way to get to New Orleans.
He would find Luna Market.
chapter 26.
HENRY.
"This bird has a pouch like a kangaroo."
"What is a pelican?"
"This is the largest raptor in the world."
"What is the Andean condor?"