Cover

Dedication

For Darwin

Part One

A HOWL IN THE WOODS

Chapter 1

THINGS THAT DON’T SUCK, LIKE FRENCH TOAST AND WEEKENDS

I’m always the first one to wake up on Sundays because it is my favorite day, and I never want to lose any time on the weekend by spending it asleep. Weekends mean no school. No math. No waiting, friendless, at the bus stop morning after morning. Weekends mean I get to video chat with my best friend, Jude, who just moved to Utah, and I get to help my moms make a big Sunday-morning breakfast. Weekends mean I can pretend things are still easy, the way they were before I turned eleven a few months ago.

Today is no different.

I hop out of bed and stick my feet into my frog slippers—which ribbit if I step hard enough on the little buttons inside the stuffing-filled frog heads—and make my way downstairs to the kitchen. My slippers echo ribbitribbit, ribbitribbit with each step.

I start getting out all the pans and mixing bowls and ingredients we will need, lining them up on the kitchen counter: bread from the old wooden bread box; eggs, milk, and real butter—not the healthy fake butter that Mom hates but Mama always tries to get us to use instead—from the fridge; vanilla extract and cinnamon and powdered sugar from the cupboard where we keep the spices; and Mama’s vegetarian sausage patties from the freezer, because that is one food she won’t negotiate on.

Sunday-morning breakfast is a family tradition. The best part is dipping the bread into the egg batter and then slapping it onto the hot skillet and listening to it sizzle. French toast is my favorite food of all time. I would eat it for every meal of every day if my moms would let me. But they won’t. I’ve asked.

This is when Catniss Everdeen—my older brother Noah’s cat—comes wandering into the kitchen sniffing around to see if she can steal anything. He named her after his favorite book character. I thought we should name her Purrmione Granger, but Moms said it was Noah’s decision. Catniss is very good at creeping in and sneaking food when you’re not looking. Once she walked off with a whole package of “faken,” which is what Noah calls Mama’s veggie bacon, and no one even noticed.

My moms usually come downstairs and start making their morning coffee by the time Catniss makes her way to the kitchen. So I sit on one of the stools at the counter and wait.

And I wait.

Catniss loses interest when she sees that no cooking is happening, and she curls up into a tiny cat-ball inside of the square of sunlight that shines through the window onto the kitchen floor.

Still no Moms.

My slippers ribbitribbit as I make my way back up the stairs, with Catniss leaping alongside me, swatting at my feet every few steps. I open my moms’ bedroom door, expecting to find them sleeping in, only to discover the bed already made and my moms nowhere in sight.

“Moms?” I call out.

No answer.

I look everywhere—in the bathroom, behind the shower curtain, even in the closet—but the whole house is quiet.

Too quiet.

My heart starts to race as my mind scrolls through all of the terrible things that could have happened to my family: Abducted by aliens. Swallowed by a sinkhole. Trapped in an alternate universe that sucked in everyone in the world except for Catniss and me. Or maybe I’m the one who’s stuck in an alternate universe!

“Moms!” I scream this time, struggling to breathe normally.

I hear Noah’s bedroom door creak open in the hallway.

“Sadie, stop yelling,” he says, with his eyes sleep-squinty and his big curly hair mushed up on one side of his head, flattened on the other. Catniss darts from Moms’ bed and pounces on my left frog slipper, making it croak out a small ribbit, before she leaps inside Noah’s room.

I let out the breath I’ve been holding, relieved to see him, because at least that rules out the whole alternate-universe thing. But I don’t tell him that.

Instead, I ask, “Where are Moms?”

“Grandpa Ed’s,” he mumbles, and starts to go back to his room. “That means I’m in charge, and I say stop yelling and let me go back to sleep.”

“But it’s Sunday,” I say. “And why didn’t they ask if I wanted to come?”

I love when we visit Gramps. We always go to the park that’s across the street from his apartment building and feed the pigeons and play checkers on this special table that’s made out of two different colors of stone. Gramps likes to talk to everyone we see because he says they all have stories inside them. He even sees stories in me, and he always listens as I tell him all about the graphic novel I’ve been working on: The Interstellar Adventures of S. Hawkins, Special Agent. And he never forgets to ask about the progress of the fairy fortress—not fairy garden—that Jude and I created in the backyard way back when we were in second grade.

“Am I Mom?” Noah snaps at me, in that grumpy way he’s been snapping at everyone lately. “How would I know?”

Noah just turned fourteen, which means he’s in ninth grade this year. Now that he goes to a different school and takes a different bus than me, and has a girlfriend (even though he always says, “She’s a girl who’s my friend—not my girlfriend”), it’s like he’s decided to start acting like he’s too cool to hang out with me. Or even be nice to me anymore. Which basically means he’s turned into a total butthead.

“But what about breakfast?” I say, crossing my arms. “I already started getting everything set up.”

“So?” he says with a shrug, pretending he doesn’t know full well that Sunday-morning breakfast is a family tradition. “Just have cereal.”

“Cereal?” I groan. “Cereal is for school days!”

“This is me caring.” He rolls his eyes and closes his door in my face.

As if everything else wasn’t already sucky enough, I’m really beginning to despise being the younger sibling. I used to love being the youngest. It made me feel special. But now that we’re older it just feels like an excuse for everyone in my family to not take me seriously. I generally don’t believe people should go around having archenemies and things like that, but if I had one, it would definitely be Noah.

So I knock as loud and hard as I can, pounding both of my fists against the door, and I don’t stop until he opens it again.

“Leave me alone,” he grumbles.

This time I walk away from him, saying loud enough to catch his attention, “I’m calling Moms!”

“Don’t call them, Sadie,” he says as he follows me down the stairs. “I’m serious; they’re busy, and they don’t need you annoying them right now!” I reach for the phone in the kitchen and start dialing, when Noah takes it away from me.

“Hey, butthead!” I yell at him. “Give that back to me. I’m telling Moms you’re being mean.”

“Don’t be such a toddler!” That’s his favorite thing to call me lately. “Moms didn’t want me to tell you this because you’re such a baby, but Grandpa Ed is—” He stops in the middle of his sentence.

“Gramps is what?” I ask.

“Gramps is . . . old, okay? Get a clue, buttmunch, they’re not going for fun. They’re going because he can’t live alone anymore.”

“Why not?” I ask, even though I’m not sure I want to know the answer.

Noah sighs and looks down. “The people at his apartment building called Mom because something happened in the middle of the night with Gramps being confused. He was wandering around the halls, or something weird like that.” Noah pauses, and now even he looks a little worried, and he never seems worried about anything. “So Moms went there today to bring him back here.”

“Maybe he was just sleepwalking?” I offer.

“He wasn’t sleepwalking. He couldn’t remember which apartment was his. Mom says he can’t live alone anymore.” He pulls down the boxes of cereal from the pantry, and I sit at the table. “I think he might have to go to a—” But he stops talking.

“To a what?” I ask when he doesn’t finish. “Where does he have to go?”

“Never mind. Just don’t tell Moms I told you about Gramps, okay?” he says, a little bit nicer—more like the way he used to talk to me—even if there is something he’s not telling me. “They want to explain it all to you later.”

Noah takes his bowl of cereal into the living room and turns on the TV.

Suddenly, the air in the kitchen feels strange and sticky and weird. Not at all like what a Sunday is supposed to feel like. I spoon my lumpy, soggy cereal to my mouth, but I’m not hungry anymore.

Chapter 2

BIFFLES AND PUZZLES

I go to my room and open my laptop to send Jude a message.

ME: jude, r u around? can u video chat w/me?

ME: it’s a v strange day. just found out there might be something wrong with gramps. noah wouldn’t tell me much. but moms left early this morning (before french toast even) to see gramps. im kinda freaking out . . .

I wait for a response.

ME: i need a distraction. how was ur week? how’d ur science fair volcano turn out? please send picture and/or video unless it blew up the camera

Nothing.

ME: i hope the kids at ur school are getting nicer.

ME: the ones here r not.

ME: oh, and give me an update on CODE NAME: WINTER BREAK? any progress??

Ever since Jude and I became friends in second grade, we’ve always had some sort of new mission we’re working on. Usually they are secret missions that only the two of us know about, and they all start with “Code Name.” Our current mission is to get our parents to let Jude come stay with me for a whole week over winter break.

ME: i really wish you were here right now. i need my biffle ☺

Biffle means “BFFL,” which means “best friend for life,” which is exactly what Jude and I are. We like spelling it out because it’s a silly word, like sniffle or whiffle.

Jude must be busy. Maybe her family is starting their own Sunday-morning tradition. I lean back in my chair and look out my bedroom window, trying to ignore the cannonball of disappointment settling in my stomach. I really need Jude right now.

The window on one wall faces the street, and the other window looks out onto the backyard. I love the back window because it’s in the shape of a circle, and because my bedroom is on the second floor I can see far off into the distance. We have a fence all the way around our yard, but then past our yard is just woods, as far as I can see. It’s always reminded me of an enchanted forest, like the kinds that you see in movies or read about in stories.

I try to think about that: the enchanted forest just on the other side of my backyard—instead of worrying about what’s really going on with Gramps.

No one in my family ever tells me anything. Everyone thinks I’m too young—a toddler, like Noah says—but I’m not. They think all I do is daydream about dragons and fairies and outer space, but the truth is I have a lot of things on my mind. It just makes me feel better to have my head in the clouds sometimes. But with Jude gone and Noah’s buttheadedness, and now that Gramps might be losing his mind or something, can anyone really blame me? The clouds are a lot more fun.

I glance back to my screen to see if Jude responded, but she hasn’t.

Sighing, I pull my sketchbook from my bedside table where I left it last night when I was drawing before bed. I thumb through the pages, the chronicles of S. Hawkins, intergalactic teenage time traveler, trying to find her best friend and partner, who is trapped in an alternate timeline in the Andromeda Galaxy.

Usually, working on my graphic novel lets me forget all the things that are not going right, like with Jude, and now Gramps. Last night I left off just as S. Hawkins wakes up on her spaceship, which has crash-landed on the planet Earth.

My pencil scratches against the paper fast, sketching the outline of her space suit as she stumbles out of the smoking aircraft in the middle of a field in a land called “UTAH,” her malfunctioning GPS tells her right before it goes haywire. She looks all around, taking samples of the vegetation to bring to her home planet—text bubble: IF SHE CAN MAKE IT BACK THERE.

Next panel: S. Hawkins sees a forest of tall trees, a rocky mountain range in the distance, and she knows she’ll have to make it over the mountains to find help. She walks toward the dense tree line, wondering if the first earthlings she meets will be friends or foes . . .

Just then, there’s a howl in the woods.

I look up from my sketch, and I’m back in my room. I can’t tell if I imagined the howl in my pages or if it really happened.

I check my laptop again. Still nothing from Jude.

Well, S. Hawkins helped for a little while, anyway.

Downstairs, Noah is sitting on the couch with a strand of red licorice hanging out of the side of his mouth, playing video games with the volume turned all the way up. I tell him I’m going outside, but I don’t think he even hears me. Or else he’s just gone back to ignoring me again.

I don’t need a jacket because even though it’s fall, it’s a bright, sunny day. I try to think about what I would be doing right now if this were an ordinary day. Things still seem very ordinary:

There are birds pecking at feeders in the yard.

A squirrel runs along the telephone wire like a tightrope walker.

A dog barks in the distance.

After breakfast, on a normal Sunday, I would usually go out to Mama’s “She Shed” to help with her latest mosaic (which is a type of art). My job is to—very carefully, wearing goggles and gloves and all the other safety equipment—smash up old chipped dishes and glass and ceramic tiles into small pieces that Mama uses to make pictures. She uses glue and cement to put the pieces back together again like a puzzle, only you’re not sure what the puzzle is supposed to look like until she’s done.

I cup my hands around my eyes and look inside the window of the She Shed and see all of Mama’s supplies neatly put away in boxes. The mosaic we were working on is only half-finished, propped against the wall. I realize the last time we were actually out in the She Shed was weeks ago. We haven’t been out back in ages.

I walk down the stone path that leads out to the fairy fortress that lines the base of the biggest tree in the backyard, the one that has a hollowed-out kid-sized hole that Jude and I used to pretend was a portal to the enchanted part of the forest. That’s why we chose that tree to build our fairy fortress around in the first place. The fairy fortress started out as “Code Name: Pixie Dust,” a mission to protect the magic fairy portal that lives inside the tree. Whenever Jude and I found special rocks or shells or other tiny things that were unique, we would add them to the fortress.

Or at least we used to, when she was still here.

Looking at it now, I see how dirty and dingy I’ve let it get. There isn’t a trace of the rainbow glitter we used to sprinkle over the fortress grounds, and the polished stones and gems and pieces of discarded mosaic tile are all covered in a coat of dirt. The little ceramic unicorn figurine that we found at the dollar store has sunken sideways into the mud. I adjust its position and try to anchor it into the ground so that it is standing up straight again. I clear away some of the brown fall leaves and prop up a few of the pretty red and yellow ones. If there really are such things as fairies, they are probably not very happy with how I’ve been neglecting their fortress ever since Jude left.

Not that I still believe in fairies.

Maybe growing up is sort of like a mosaic too. Like putting together pieces of a puzzle, but the picture you’re trying to make keeps changing.

I hear barking coming from the woods beyond our backyard. There are old paths and trails that run through the woods, and sometimes people in the neighborhood hike them, and sometimes they bring their dogs with them, so it’s not that unusual. The part that is unusual is that the barking sounds like it’s getting closer, louder, and more insistent.

I take a few steps away from the fairy fortress and begin walking toward the back fence to see if I can get a better look. I reach the gate that leads out into the woods, and the barking gets louder.

Underneath all the other sounds—the barking, the rustle of dried leaves under my feet, the swish of the wind around me—I hear something else: a word, a feeling.

Help!

Looking all around, I can’t tell which direction it’s coming from. I cup my hands around my mouth and call, “Hello?”

Please help!

It’s like a voice in my head, but not my own. To the left, I see the leaves of the overgrown shrubbery moving and shaking. Even though I know Moms don’t like me going into the woods by myself, I lift the latch of the gate.

Can you hear me?

I glance back toward the house. There’s no time to get Noah; this is urgent.

The branches and brush tremble like there is an invisible wave moving through them. As I walk toward the bushes, everything suddenly gets very still and quiet. I squint, trying to see beneath the layers of leaves and branches. That’s when I see two eyes, one blue and one brown, watching me closely.

It’s a dog!

“Hey,” I whisper. The dog stands still, like maybe it's just as surprised to see me. I take a step closer. “Are you friendly?”

Are you?

“Me?” I say out loud, looking around for the source of this voice. “Hello? Is anybody here?”

There are lots of reasons I shouldn’t go any closer—I remember all the times my veterinarian mom has told me, “Just because an animal is cute doesn’t mean it can’t be dangerous.” I know. I remember. It could have rabies or be aggressive or feral. But Mom isn’t here; she can’t see how sweet its eyes are. Those aren’t rabies eyes. They aren’t feral eyes. They’re soft and kind and curious, and its stance is relaxed.

I kneel down on the ground, not speaking so my voice doesn’t scare it, thinking really hard, It’s okay, doggy. I hold my hand out to be sniffed, palm up like Mom says to do. I won’t hurt you.

It blinks, and I swear I hear that voice in my head again say, Okay, I believe you.

I blink back, and slowly, the dog fully emerges from the cover of greenery, with its head—no, her head—low and her nose wiggling, her tail wagging slowly and evenly, calm as she sniffs the air between us.

Come here, I say in my head, stretching my fingers toward her.

She’s not wearing a collar, so that makes me wonder if anyone is even looking for her. As she moves closer, I see that she is not like any dog I’ve ever seen before. Her coat is speckled in dots and spots of brown and red and tan and white and gray and every shade in between. I can feel her breath on my hand as she sniffs. Just like her two eyes are different from each other, so are her ears. One of them is pointy and the other is floppy.

Our eyes meet again, and I suddenly feel hungry and tired, just like she must be.

As she nuzzles the top of her head into the palm of my hand, I see that she has a small cut above her blue eye, and she limps a little with each step. The tiny hairs on my arms stand up, and somehow I can feel how very afraid she’s been. But even if she is a little scared, she lets me run my hand along her flank and behind her ears until she sits down in front of me.

She starts licking at her front paw, seeming bothered by it. Every time she sets it on the ground, she lifts it back up right away.

Slowly, I hold my hand out and she lets me take her paw. I try to tell her again with my thoughts that it’s okay. She lets my fingers feel around the bottom of her paw. I find something sharp and pointy stuck right between two of her paw pads. I grab it with my fingers and very slowly, very gently, pull on it.

She lets out a huge yelp and jumps away from me.

The Story Continues on BooksBarbecue!

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