Gabby Duran and the Unsittables (5 page)

A massive crash from downstairs made both parents jump. Lisa raced to Edwina. “Can’t we just open the door and check? Gabby seemed so sweet. I can’t live with myself if she
ends up like the girl who tried to help the Blitzfarbs.”

Edwina didn’t answer. She looked up from the tablet and met Lisa’s eyes just long enough to communicate that the interruption was most unappreciated. Then she gazed down again. Lisa
went back to pacing and chewing on screws. John stopped drinking, but he nervously dangled his eyes in and out of their sockets.

Finally, Edwina’s tablet beeped.

“It is time,” she said.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Lisa gushed. She raced for the basement door and flung it open. The cat was right there. It stood on its back legs and had one of its front paws raised, as if
it had been about to knock on the door itself.

“Good, you’re here,” the cat said in a sweet feminine drawl, “’Cause believe me, y’all don’t want to miss this.”

Remaining on her back legs, the cat led Lisa, John, and Edwina down the stairs. As they turned the corner, Lisa gasped. The basement was a shambles. The sky-blue walls were riddled with dents,
patches of carpet were shredded to bits, and several beanbag chairs had been ferociously gutted, their innards spilled across the floor.

John put a hand on his wife’s shoulder. “We’re too late,” he intoned.

“For the love of Zinqual, will you please keep moving?” Edwina asked sharply. When the parents wouldn’t, Edwina sighed and pushed her way past them until she’d fully
descended the stairs and could take in the entire room.

“Shhh,” Gabby said. “He’s napping.”

Gabby sat in the one intact beanbag chair. In one hand she held a copy of
Better Homes and Gardens
. With her other she stroked the back of Philip’s gelatinous head, which lay in her
lap. The rest of his body sprawled across the floor.

“We were playing his favorite game,” she whispered to Edwina. “He got really into it—tired him right out, so I read him stories until he fell asleep.” She indicated
the magazine. “He said he likes this one because it’s scary: ‘Top Ten Ways to Eradicate Slugs.’” Gabby shuddered. “Gave us the shivers too, right,
Vondlejax?”

The cat had made her way to Gabby’s side and leaned one elbow on the beanbag chair. “You know it, honeylamb. My tail was so far between my legs I could’ve tickled my own
chin!”

Gabby laughed, then turned to Philip’s parents. “I’m so sorry about the furniture. It’s my fault. I have to admit I got a little nervous when he first…you
know.”

“A little?” Vondlejax teased. “Sweetcheeks, I thought I’d have to run you to my litter box!”

Gabby let out an embarrassed laugh. “A lot nervous. Pretty completely terrified, to be honest.” Then she turned to the cat. “You didn’t exactly help.”

“I declare, I most certainly did! I shouted right out, ‘Don’t you panic! Every little thing’s gonna be just peaches and cream!’”

Gabby tilted her head and looked at Vondlejax. The cat cleared her throat.

“…which I suppose might have been a teensy weensy shock,” Vondlejax admitted, “seein’ as you thought I was an ordinary house cat.”

“I
did
panic,” Gabby said apologetically to Philip’s parents, “and I ran and knocked into some things.…I may have even screamed a little.…”

“You think?” Vondlejax hooted.

“But then…” Lisa stammered, “how did you…”

John finished for her. “What changed?”

“Well,” Gabby said, “before Philip…altered himself, he said he wanted to play a game. So even though I was really scared when he was chasing me, I realized that’s
what it was to him, a game. But it wasn’t a nice game, you know? I mean, he might look like a monster—sorry—but that doesn’t mean he is one. He’s just a kid. And
it’s kind of awful that he knows someone like me who’s supposed to take care of him is going to run away screaming. It made me really sad.”

Lisa sniffled loudly. “That’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard a human say,” she sobbed. John handed her a tissue, and she blotted the tears that trickled from her
elbow.

“You ain’t heard nothin’ yet,” Vondlejax said as she leaped onto the back of the couch. “Our girl Gabby spun around all upon a sudden and cried out, ‘Now
it’s my turn to chase you!’ Oh, was that boy surprised.” The cat fanned herself with a paw and Gabby laughed.

“It’s true,” she said. “I think that’s when we did the most damage down here. But he was having fun. Real fun. I could tell. And then he got sleepy.”

Gabby smiled down at Philip. His head was still in her lap. Careful not to wake him, she gave him a gentle hug. Her arm sank a bit into his gooey skin. He sighed happily in his sleep.

John knelt down next to Gabby. “Would you like to move in with us?” he asked. “Forever?”

“Come now, that’s hardly appropriate,” Edwina clucked. “In fact, it’s time for me to get Gabby home. A little assistance, please?”

Lisa gently lifted her son’s head so Gabby could slip off the beanbag chair without waking him. Gabby grabbed her purple knapsack, then before she got up she knelt down in front of
Vondlejax. The cat used both front paws to scratch behind Gabby’s ears. “See?” Vondlejax cooed. “Right there, just like that. Isn’t that just pure heaven?”

“You were right,” Gabby said. “It feels incredible, thanks.”

She gave the cat a hand-to-paw high five, then blew Philip a kiss before she followed Edwina back upstairs and toward the front door. John and Lisa shadowed their every step.

“So when exactly
are
you available?” John asked.

“Do you work during the school week?” Lisa added.

“Do you have room for any more regular clients?”

“How many months ahead can we book?”

Gabby started the same answer she gave all her new clients. “Just call my sister. She—”

“
I
will let you know when and if Gabby’s available,” Edwina cut her off. “Let us remember, she isn’t officially in the program yet.”

Before Gabby could say another word, Edwina herded her outside and back into the limousine. Gabby immediately rolled down the window. It was dark outside, but the front porch was well lit, and
Gabby could clearly see John, Lisa, and Vondlejax.

“Good-bye!” Gabby called. “It was wonderful meeting you! I hope to see you again soon!”

The threesome all waved back. Then John nudged Vondlejax, who quickly dropped to all four paws and began an intensive and very feline tongue bath. Gabby kept waving until the house was out of
sight, then she rolled up the window. She tried to sit back in her seat, but suddenly she couldn’t breathe. She sat straighter, tilting her neck back to gasp for air. Her body trembled all
over. Even her stomach felt fluttery.

“There’s a thick blanket under the seat,” Edwina said. “I recommend wrapping yourself up.”

Gabby reached down and felt thick fuzziness. She gratefully pulled the blanket around her and huddled into it. “I don’t understand,” she chattered. “I’m not scared.
Not anymore.”

“Delayed shock,” Edwina said. “It happens. Much like when you force yourself to be brave for an injection, but faint when you get up to leave. Keep warm. It’ll
pass.”

She turned up the heat in the back of the car.

Gabby felt frighteningly out of control of her own body. She cuddled deeper into the thick blanket and concentrated on the warm air bathing her face. Soon her teeth stopped chattering and her
breathing slowed. She was okay. She took a long, deep breath and let it out with a sigh as she relaxed into the seat.

“It was your sister, yes?” Edwina asked.

Gabby’s jaw clenched. She was always wary when people asked about Carmen. “What do you mean?”

“The child who didn’t deserve to be treated like a monster,” Edwina said. “Seemed like you had a good understanding of what that might be like.”

Gabby narrowed her eyes and glared at Edwina through the rearview mirror, but the older woman didn’t look critical, just matter-of-fact. Maybe even a little…kind? It made Gabby let
her guard down.

“Yeah,” she admitted. “That was Car. She was tough when she was little. She didn’t know how to deal when stuff made her uncomfortable…and a lot of stuff made her
uncomfortable. So she screamed…or yanked at her own hair…or threw things.…It was no big deal, I knew how to calm her down. But people didn’t get it. They stared. Or they
didn’t stare, but only because they were working really hard
not
to stare, which was worse. Like she was too horrible to even look at. She wasn’t. She just needed someone to
understand her.”

Gabby fiddled with her knapsack. She didn’t like to talk about when Carmen was little. It felt disloyal, like she’d just tainted Edwina’s vision of her sister.

“All people need someone to understand them,” Edwina said. “Just like Philip.”

Raising her eyes to look back at Edwina, Gabby said, “But Philip isn’t exactly a
person
…right?”

“There’s something I’d like you to read,” Edwina said. She pressed a button on the front console and the television screen in the limo’s backseat sprang to life. On
it, a glowing green insignia rotated inside a circle—a logo, it seemed—and next to it glowed the words:

“A.L.I.E.N.,” Gabby read the acronym. “Are you saying Philip’s an
alien
? Like…from-another-planet alien?”

Edwina pulled her tablet out of her bag and handed it back to Gabby. The screen held scans of several newspaper clippings, each cut off mid-article. “Read,” she said.

Gabby read.

From the
Philadelphia News Report
, August 30, 1955:

From the
Miami Gazette
, March 5, 1985: