you had to walk down to get here?”
Alison nodded. She didn’t think she would ever forget it.
“It’s called the Gray Zone. The things you see there aren’t exactly real. You might feel a little scared, which is sensible because there are unfriendly presences there. But I’ll be watching and I won’t let them bother you. All right?” Alison swallowed hard, but nodded. “Good girl. Just keep your head down and try to enjoy the journey, and you’ll be home before you know it.” Gloria squeezed Alison’s hand.
Then everything turned inside out, and Alison found herself holding an orange cat’s paw, in a room full of books. She let go, took a deep breath and turned to face the corridor. I can do this.
CHAPTER 4
It took a while for Arnold to find out about Alison’s strange adventure. First they had to help Dad put out the fire he’d started in the kitchen.
For a change, it was Arnold who first noticed what was going on, although that was only because Alison had gone out somewhere. If she’d been home making supper like she was supposed to, Dad wouldn’t have had the bright idea of trying to make French fries from scratch.
“This’ll be much healthier than McDonald’s!” he called out enthusiastically as he banged a frying pan onto the stove and started rummaging around for the cooking oil.
“Uh-huh,” said Arnold. He was in his room with the door shut and could barely hear Dad. Who’d have ever thought a spider plant could be so engrossing? Until now, he’d thought that the only plants that moved or did anything interesting were Venus fly-traps. Well, there were Mexican jumping beans too, but those didn’t count because they only moved on account of the little worm inside them. He’d got a Venus fly-trap for his eighth birthday, but it never did catch a fly or anything moving, and it closed very sluggishly on the flecks of hamburger meat and tuna fish Arnold fed it.
But this spider plant waved its leaves around as if it were an undersea plant caught in a steady current. Arnold tried poking it with a pencil, and the leaves ducked and then weaved themselves around it.
“Cool!” he murmured. He let go of his end of the pencil, which must have been one of Alison’s because the eraser end was all chewed up, and the plant continued to grasp onto it. Then Arnold smelled smoke. “Hey Dad, I think something’s burning!” he said.
Mom chimed in from her bedroom. “Jerry, check the stove!”
Dad didn’t respond to either of them. Must be absorbed in the newspaper like he was most nights. Arnold tried opening his bedroom door and repeating the warning, but Dad was busy yelling, “Can you believe what they’re pulling now! SCOD goons broke up a Bob Dylan concert last night! I mean, a lot of those fans are using walkers!”
“Dad, the stove—”
The front door banged open and Alison came running in. “Not again! Dad!” They had a frenzied couple of minutes, but this time there was no need to call the Fire Department because Alison had bought a fire extinguisher after the last time.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Dad said as he grabbed another roll of paper towels to clean up the mess on the stove. “I wanted to give you a break. It’s not fair for you to have to make dinner every night.”
Shuffling footsteps announced Mom’s arrival in the kitchen. “Why don’t we go out to House of Siam?” she said with her best attempt at a smile.
“I’ll help you get dressed, Ray,” Dad said.
Mom knitted her brow. “Why can’t I just go as I am?”
Arnold flicked a glance at Alison, who was looking at him. Mom was wearing nothing but a nightgown with little blue cornflowers on it. As recently as September she would have been with it enough to notice that, but now… now Dad took her arm and led her back up their bedroom.
“Do you think she’s gonna have to go to a nursing home?” Arnold whispered.
Alison snapped her head back as if he’d slapped her. “No way! Dad will never let that happen!” She blinked several times and shook her finger at him. “Don’t even say that word around me, turd-breath!”
Dad came down the stairs clutching Mom’s elbow. She was dressed in a baggy maroon sweater and blue jeans, but at least she looked halfway normal.
“Going out on a weeknight! I bet you wish Dad burned dinner more often, don’t you?” she joked. Arnold forced a chuckle.
The restaurant was close enough to walk to, but then, so was just about everything in Chincoteague. Mr. Freed spotted them walking from the other side of the street and raised a dirty hand to wave at them.
“How you doing, groovy chick?”
With a small shock Arnold realized he was talking to Mom, who flirted right back. “Just about ready for Woodstock Nation, soon as I get my time machine, Barry.” He smiled vaguely and shuffled on his way. “We ought to get takeout for him. That poor man,” Mom said softly.
Dad winced. “Maybe we can save him some leftovers, Ray.” It was an old argument.
The mood brightened as soon as they got to the place and Dad spotted Mr. Nomura eating by himself and waved him over to join them. The guy was even shorter and older than Dad, but still had shiny black hair. Dad’s hair was bushy and starting to go gray at the tips and along his sideburns. Mom liked to joke that it added at least five centimeters to his height and made him “only a short little guy instead of a dwarf.”
Dad’s friend had been just about done with his meal, but he hung out while everyone ordered their meals and ate. Their loud joking around helped cover how quiet everyone else was.
“You’re one good worker drone, Bruce!” Dad said. “I can’t believe they let you out of your cell long enough to get dinner!”
“Shuddup, you slacker!” Mr. Nomura said. They both cackled.
Pad Thai was Mom’s favorite thing, but she just toyed with her food and even offered Arnold some of the shrimp.
He held up his hand. “They taste like rubber to me, Mom, remember?”
“Oh, of course, it’s Alison who likes seafood. Seems like I forget everything these days,” Mom rasped.
Dad and Mr. Nomura were still having a grand old time and didn’t hear her, or at least they pretended not to, but Arnold looked at his plate, his enjoyment of the meal ruined. Why can’t I have a normal family, like everyone else?
As they walked home afterwards through the early dark Mom spotted Mr. Freed again, lurking around a leafless tree in the waterside park, and offered him her doggy bag full of barely-touched food. The smelly old hippie tried to pretend he didn’t want it but practically snatched the bag out of her hands. Dad opened his mouth only to shut it again when Mom elbowed him.
Arnold hung back, trying not to pay attention, but Sis was hanging back with him. Why can’t she leave me alone? Why can’t EVERYONE just leave me alone? He started to say something sarcastic but Alison talked over him. “Can you keep a secret, Arnold?”
This must be serious, if Sis was calling him by his real name and not turd-breath, stupid-head, nerd-face or one of her other usual terms of endearment. “Umm, sure,” he said.
“You’re gonna think I’m crazy.” With a heroic effort, Arnold managed not to say that he already did and just listened to the wild tale Alison spun. Could any of it possibly be true? It wouldn’t exactly be the first time she had pulled his leg. Take the time when he was seven and she was nine and she told him the word “gullible” wasn’t in the dictionary. Unlike most kids his age, he knew what the word meant, but to prove her wrong about the dictionary required him to go into Dad’s study to get the unabridged dictionary, which was too heavy for him to lift. When he asked Dad for help with it, Dad asked what he needed to look up, and when he told him Arnold discovered that people actually do roll around on the floor laughing. This prank had entered family legend.