CHAPTER
ONE
iana fidgeted. Her
foot jumped up and down. The pencil in her right hand slapped repeatedly against
her left. She tried not to show how nervous she was, but she couldn't help it. A
small hurricane was brewing inside, anxiously waiting to be unleashed, and it
would be five more minutes before the bell rang! It was always hard waiting for
school to end, but today was worse than ever.
Ms. Ormond kept droning on about English grammar, and Diana wondered how the
woman did it. How did she stay awake?
"...so direct objects are influenced in some way by the verb. You see class, you
must choose your words carefully because..."
The boy sitting behind Diana, the class clown, suddenly jumped to his feet.
"Because words have power!"
Diana burst out laughing along with everyone else, until Ms. Ormond's suspicious
gaze flickered her way and she pushed the laugh down inside with the rest of the
hurricane. Her foot tapped a little faster and her shoulders started to fidget
too. If the bell didn't ring soon, she would explode!
BRRIIINNGGG!!!!!
Yes! The room erupted into motion as thirty-five students jumped from their
seats and sprang for the door. Like whipped cream through a nozzle, the first
ones were forced through the door by the pressure building up behind them, and
held back by the pressure of those already in the hall. It seemed that not only
Diana, but the whole school, was in the midst of a carefully controlled
explosion.
She raced through the hallway, and had almost made it to the exit, when a large
hand grabbed her arm. “Hey, Diana," Ripley Jones said, "what's the rush?"
Diana turned and looked into the face of the most feared boy in the school. He
was big; he was bad; and he was mean. He was also, having been left back several
times, at least three years older than the rest of the kids. "Get your hand off
me, you big jerk," she said, trying to shake her arm free. Ripley just laughed.
"Where's your brother, Diana banana?”
"You better let me go, or I'll get my other brother, Bobby, after you."
"Oh! Oh! I'm so scared!"
Oh, how she hated that boy, and he was hurting her too. "Leave me alone!"
The other boys were laughing, enjoying her helplessness and Ripley's stupendous
idiocy, so Diana did the only thing she could think of, kicking the big bully
really hard on the shin. He let go of her arm and she ran. "Tell your brother,
Eric, I'm after him, Diana! You hear me!" Ripley's voice died out in the noise
of the hall, and Diana ran for the door.
It was an ordinary day in early spring. Diana could feel it in the air, that
sense that something was coming, and it wasn't just that it was Friday. She took
a deep breath and stood for a moment in front of the school watching the world,
thinking how at this very moment people all over the planet were working in
offices and schools. Doctors and nurses were tending their patients. People were
cleaning houses; mothers were feeding babies; men were fixing cars; scientists
and engineers were building new technologies. What a great world to live in.
Spotting her mother pulling up in the van, Diana adjusted her backpack on her
shoulder, pushed through the crowd, and opened the door. Mom was talking on her
cell phone as usual. After a minute, she smiled and said, "Hi, sweetie. How was
school?...Yes, Jack, I heard you. I know that's what I said..."
Diana loved her mother, and she knew her mother loved her. She just didn't
understand why her mother never waited to hear the answer to that question.
Every day, Mom asked how was school, but no matter what Diana answered, her
mother said, "that's good," or something like that, and drove away. Adults were
a mystery. A little scary too. She wasn't sure she ever wanted to be one.
Eric, her twin brother, was unusually quiet this afternoon. He sat in the back
of the car pointedly not speaking, and Diana wondered if they had had a fight or
something that she had forgotten. Turning in the front seat, she looked at him.
"Ripley Jones is after you." He just shrugged as if he didn't care. She smiled.
He didn't smile back. "What?" she cried, "What's the matter with you?"
Suddenly, his face split with his familiar crooked grin, and he held a toad up
and waved it in front of her face. "Gotcha!" Diana rolled her eyes and turned
around. Brothers were such a pain.
At home, Diana rushed into the house, dropping her backpack by the door. She was
already in her room pulling out her overnight bag when her mother called her.
"Diana, come back down here this minute and put your books away. I've told you a
million times that I will not live in a messy house. Diana! Do you hear me?"
"Yes, Mom," Diana said, resigned to the inevitable. She knew that if she tried
to postpone putting the books away, her mother would keep interrupting her until
she did it. It would save a lot of trouble to do it right away, so Diana went
back down the stairs, and picked up her backpack.
"Clean your room and pack for this weekend," her mother ordered as Diana hurried
back up the stairs. "And don't take too much, Diana. We'll only be there for two
days."
Eric, rushing through the door, just as Isabel exited, stopped in his tracks.
“Two days! That sucks. Why can't we stay longer?”
“Because we can't,” came the answer from the other room.
Diana frowned and provided the real answer in an expert imitation of her
mother's voice. “You know we have to work, Eric. Your father and I don't have
the time right now. Be grateful! Two days is better than none!”
Eric ignored her, and Diana turned to go back up the stairs. Why did her mother
always talk to her as if she were stupid or something? “Ouch!” she yelled as the
Nerf dart shot by Eric from below hit her right between the shoulder blades.
Turning to do battle, she changed her mind as she saw him disappear down the
hallway. “Boys,” she muttered as she slammed the door to her room, automatically
turning on the television on the way to her closet.
Oh well, packing her overnight bag would be fun anyway. She needed some sweaters
because the nights would be cool. It was only May after all, not yet summer in
New York State, and upstate New York would be even cooler than Long Island where
Diana lived.
Every year, since she was little, she and her family had gone camping up at the
lake. Usually, they went for a week or two, and Dad had promised that they would
take a long vacation at the end of the summer when he had more time. For right
now, though, they had to be satisfied with just a weekend.
As she was stuffing the last sweatshirt into the bag, Tiger jumped on the bed.
Grinning, Diana scrunched up next to him. “Poor Tiger,” she said as she stroked
his long fur. Well it was supposed to be long, but her mother couldn't stand the
shedding, so she had Tiger shaved every month. The only fur he had was on his
head. It looked a little like a lion's mane. “Poor little hairless kitty.” Diana
lay her head next to Tiger's, enjoying the rumble of his purring.
Absently, she looked at the TV, not really watching as the a Coke commercial
ran, but something caught her attention. Sitting up, she watched more closely.
What was that? It looked like some kind of silvery guy with wings. On his head?
No. On his feet. That was weird.
Whatever! Her overnight bag was packed. She was ready to go. She picked it up,
carried it downstairs, and left it by the front door. "Mom," she called out,
"when are we leaving?"
"As soon as your father comes home," her mother replied. Diana followed her
voice and found her in the kitchen preparing dinner.
"When is he coming home?" she asked.
"Oh, he should be home about five or six. He had a meeting with the Listers."
"I guess I'll go watch TV for awhile."
Diana hated waiting, but waiting seemed to be what she was destined to do this
afternoon. Why didn't Dad get home so they could leave? Why did he have to take
so long? She was so-o-o bored. She could almost imagine that time had stopped.
The clock seemed to tick slower and slower, echoing in a vast chamber of time.
She thought of that movie where the months were peeling off the calendar. Time
was endless. Daddy would never come home. It would be winter by the time he
arrived. Even the cartoons on the TV seemed to be moving like molasses. And what
was that? A woman covered in flowers stirring a cup of tea, the tea swirling so
slowly and turning into a flower opening in slow motion.... “Don't even know
they're alive,” a voice murmured.
Abruptly, Diana sat up and snapped out of it. Waiting was too hard. Maybe she
should go outside and find her brothers. At least, they would keep her occupied
for a while.
Eric and Teddy were crawling through the bushes, trying to hide from another
boy, that kid from down the block, Scott. Diana called him Snot, because she
couldn't stand him. Ugh. She didn't want to play with them. Walking through the
yard, she sat down in her swing and lazily let it drift back and forth. There
was no fence between her yard and the next door neighbors', and Penny, the girl
next door, was sitting on her back porch.
"Hey Penny," she called out, "Whatcha doing?" Penny didn't respond. Well, that
was typical. Penny was very quiet and sometimes didn't answer people when they
talked to her. She was two years older than Diana and really pretty, but Diana
guessed she wasn't that happy being that she lived with her grandmother instead
of her mom and dad.
Penny was very serious. She was always alone and usually reading a book, and
today was no different. Diana got up and walked over there. "What’re you
reading?" she asked. At first, Penny didn't even look up, but Diana just kept
talking. "We're going camping this weekend.”
Penny lifted her eyes from the page. "I hate camping."
"I love camping. We go out on a boat and swimming and my Dad catches fish and we
sing songs around the campfire. I can't wait."
"It's too cold to go swimming," Penny stated, looking down at her book.
"Why are you always reading?"
"I like to read."
"Do you want to do something?"
"Would you just leave me alone!"
Diana had a pretty thick skin—you had to when you have three brothers—so she
wasn't bothered by Penny's remark. "Don't you like me?" she asked.
Penny hmmphed.
"I like you," Diana said. "What happened to your mother and father?"
"What do you think happened to them?"
"I don't know...I..."
Just then a stream of water hit Penny squarely on the cheek, and the three boys,
Eric, Teddy and Scott, jumped out of the bushes hysterical with laughter.
"Hey Penny, what kind of name is that?" Scott yelled.
"Yeah, Penny. You related to dollar Bill?" Eric whooped. He thought he was so
funny.
Diana jumped up and screamed at her brothers. They didn't often listen to her,
but sometimes her voice got a dangerous edge to it like it had now, and they
knew that they'd better disappear or their goose'd be cooked. "Get out of here,
you stupid boys!" she yelled. "Leave her alone!"
No one was more shocked than Diana at her reaction, not even Penny. "Don't pay
any attention to them. They're just stupid. My mom says that someday I'll like
boys, but I really doubt it. Not with three brothers."
Penny looked at her thoughtfully. "All the boys tease me. They think I'm weird."
"So what? Nobody's really the same as anybody else. They're all just pretending
to be the same so they won't be alone."
"Who told you that?" Penny wanted to know.
"My father."
"I have to go in now," Penny said, and taking her book, she sprang to her feet
and opened the door. Diana started to ask her to stay, but the door was already
closing, and then it was too late. Oh well, Diana thought, maybe next time.
Bounding off the porch she raced back into her own yard.
Inside the house, nothing had changed. Dad still wasn't home. Diana opened the
refrigerator to get some ice cream, and was just putting the spoon in her mouth
when her big brother, Bobby, came up behind her and clapped his hands together.
It sounded like a rifle shot. She jumped. "Bobby! Don't do that!"
"Hey Cat, you ready to go camping?" He always called her Cat because when she
was a baby and her Dad had called her kitten, he'd disagreed, saying that she
was far too tough to be anybody's kitten. Diana, he said, had claws, and she was
his little Cat.
"Everybody's ready. We're just waiting for Daddy to get home."
"You know we won't be leaving here till after dark."
"No. Mommy said we'd leave about five or six."
"Trust me, Cat, it won't be until eight or nine."
Diana groaned and flopped into a chair. "Don't worry," Bobby said, now that he'd
made her worry, "we'll get there."
Having nothing else to do, Diana ran up the stairs to her room and shut the
door, trying very hard to control her temper. Not that anyone was making it
easy. The TV was still on, and she watched it for a few minutes, then decided to
play with the ROOMBA. It wasn't really a toy, but it could be fun. Laying down a
trail of torn up paper, she turned on the automatic vacuum cleaner and watched
it making spirals on the floor, entirely missing the trail. Taking the remote
control in hand, she made it back up and start over. Bit by bit it ate the bits
of paper, which Diana was pretending were bits of debris from a plane crash.
The sound of the door opening downstairs, set her in motion. ROOMBA made its
power down noise when she turned it off and ran for the door.
Behind her, she missed seeing the face staring out at her from the television.
He was definitely silver. |
