Lost in Cyberspace (3 page)

Heather blinked. “Beyond grunge,” she said.

Mom was still looking for somebody to match the picture. But the girl came toward us, getting bigger and bigger. We weren't hard to spot. We were the only people left.

“Fenella here,” she said, gazing over our heads with big sleepy brown eyes.

“Oh,” Mom said. “Oh. I'm ... Mrs. Lewis.”

“I'm Josh,” I said, staggering back because Fenella had dropped her laundry bag on me.

“I'm like amazed,” Heather said, staring.

 

The snow was blowing out to sea, and the air was crisp and clear. You get a great look at Manhattan on a night like that: all the twinkling towers and the chains of lights on the bridges. Mom wanted to show Fenella the view. But she slept through it. She was zonked right to our door. We had to wake her up to get out of the cab.

“Jet lag,” Mom said in a hushed voice. “It's just temporary. But I wonder if that spider is permanent.”

Then Fenella dozed off in the elevator, slumped against the wall with her hat tipped down to her nose rings. She snored.

She slept for nineteen hours. By then it was Saturday evening. Mom was getting nervous. For one thing, she was going out that night. Behind a door, I heard her and Heather.

“It's not a date,” Mom was saying. “Stop calling it a date. It's dinner and the theater with Mr. Ogleby, Jr. It's business. He's head of the accounting department, and he's welcoming me into the firm. He's just showing me professional courtesy. Should I wear my drop earrings, or are they too much?”

“It's a date,” Heather said when she caught me listening outside the door. “Mom's dating again. We better get Fenella on her feet or Mom won't leave. She'll cancel Mr. Ogleby, Jr., and stay home with us. She'll want to pop popcorn and rerun
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids.”

We cracked the door of Dad's den. The sofa folds out into a bed. There was a large lump in the middle of it. Fenella's hat was on Dad's desk, covering most of it.

“Hey, Fenella,” Heather said. The lump moved. “It's like a whole different day. In fact, it's night again. Get up.”

Fenella seemed to be on her hands and knees now, shaking her head. “Crikey,” she said, or something like that.

Mom was dressed in her best and beginning to pace when Fenella came into the living room. She filled up the whole door. She'd taken off some of her black layers and left on the rest. We hadn't caught a good look at her with her hat off before. Hair sprang up like a stiff mop all around her head, and it was between maroon and purple. On her right cheekbone was a small human skull with a dagger through its eye socket. So the spider wasn't permanent.

“Oh,” Mom said. “Feeling rested?”

“Feelin' like I just been jumped by a bunch of skin-heads,” Fenella said. “Feelin' like I was just kicked in the—”

The buzzer rang, and it was Mr. Ogleby, Jr. Mom had to go. “Maybe I should call when we get to the theater,” she said at the door. She didn't feel any too good about leaving us.

“It's cool, Mom,” Heather said. “We'll 0 Pear Fenella. She'll be fine.” Then Heather gave me a look which she usually doesn't do.

After that we showed Fenella the kitchen. She stood in front of the refrigerator, making a few selections.

“Do you want to do some gourmet cooking?” Heather inquired, testing her.

“Some wot?” Fenella said. “You got Big Macs in this country yet?”

It wouldn't have surprised me if Fenella had wanted to call it a day and go back to bed. She didn't move fast even in her thinking. And I'll tell you this. She never did figure out what our names were. We followed as she roamed around the apartment, ending up at the living room windows. “Oy,” she said or something like that. “It's night.”

“I tried to tell you,” Heather said.

“So let's go,” Fenella said, beginning to stir.

Heather blinked. We're talking New York here, so we don't go out at night a lot. On the other hand, Heather began to see some possibilities. Anyway, maybe Fenella would be protection enough.

“Like where?” Heather said carefully.

“Like outta here is flippin' where,” Fenella said. “Clubs and such.”

“Clubs?” Heather had heard of them, but didn't know where they were.

“Clubs, raves, venues,” Fenella said. She was waking up now. “I got some addresses. Downtown.”

To us, downtown is anywhere south of Saks, and we don't go there. A strange, eager look came over Heather's face. “I don't think Josh can get in,” she said, still carefully. “Of course, we could leave him at home.”

“You
couldn't get in like that.” Fenella looked down at Heather in her peach cableknit cardigan and then at me in my Bulls warm-up jacket, which I'm always wearing when I'm not wearing something else.

“You, Tiny Tim,” Fenella said to me. “You got a school uniform? Coat and tie, something like that?” I nodded. “Go put it on. They'll think you're a midget.” This could have been Fenella's little joke. But I didn't want to get left behind, so I went to change. Fenella pointed Heather to her room and followed her in.

In fifteen minutes the three of us were out in the hall, waiting for the elevator. I was in blazer and Huckley tie.

Fenella didn't look too different. She had her hat on, a major statement. She'd freshened the black on her lips and added a ring or two to her nose. From her laundry bag she'd come up with a long black cape. She looked like a cross between a vampire and a graduating senior.

Underneath, she had on a really micro-skirt, also black, with fishnet stockings. The stockings had holes in them with a lot of Fenella showing through.

But Heather was the center of attention, which she likes. Fenella had done her over. In fact, Heather had on Fenella's face. Her lips were coal-black. Fenella had even drawn in nose rings with her eyebrow pencil, along with a small coiled rattlesnake with fangs on Heather's cheek. Heather's hair is pale and preppy. But Fenella had wrapped it in a black scarf, turban-style. Heather's skirt was amazing. It wasn't any wider than a scarf itself. In this light it looked like shiny black leather.

“It's a plastic garbage bag folded and pinned behind,” Heather whispered. “Fenella's a genius.”

Heather wore her own panty hose, which she'd torn some serious holes in. She already had the right shoes. She looked like Minnie Mouse from Long Island, but older, which thrilled her.

The elevator door opened, and a man and woman were inside. The woman saw us and screamed. The man jammed a button, and the door closed in our faces. We took the next elevator. But the man and woman had been the Zimmers, Aaron's parents.

“Wot come over them?” Fenella wondered. Then we were past the doorman and out on Fifth Avenue. “Which way's downtown?” she asked, and we pointed her south. With her cape billowing behind her, Fenella was like a large pirate ship under full sail. There was a lot of space in that cape. I began to see how all three of us might get into a club.

“It's south of SoHo,” said Fenella, who was a little better organized than she seemed. “Do we hoof it or wot?”

I had money, but didn't know what a cab that far downtown would cost. So I aimed us left on 68th Street for the subway entrance.

We rocketed downtown on a train. And I have to say there were some stranger sights on it than Heather and Fenella. Heather kept giving me looks with her new eyes, which had giant lashes painted in. She was pretty excited. We don't do the subway and certainly not after dark.

We got off way downtown in the warehouse district. But Fenella had a good sense of direction when it came to finding clubs. Finally we were walking along a dark street that was all stripped cars and fire escapes with icicles.

Then we were walking past a line of people who seemed to be looking for a Halloween party. Half of them were on Rollerblades. You had punk and post-punk. You had important hair and totally shaved. You had prom dresses with leg warmers. You had more tattoos than a tractor pull. You had everything from biker boots to bikinis. You had stuff you can't believe. At the front of the line two big guys were guarding a metal door.

“Right, you two,” Fenella muttered to us, “under the cape and put a sock in it.”

“Put a sock in what?” Heather asked.

“Shut your gob,” Fenella explained. “Keep quiet.”

Suddenly I was sandwiched between Heather and the back part of Fenella under the cape. The world got even darker.

Fenella had planned to talk us straight into the club, no waiting. But the big guys at the door were giving her static.

“Aw right, aw right,” she said. “Don't get your knickers in a twist. I come all the flippin' way from Lunnun to get in this club. I get in all the Lunnun clubs. I'm a personal mate of Boy George. Wotcher mean, I'm too dressed down? 'Ere, stand aside, you miserable gits, or I'll have your guts for garters.”

When she stamped her big elf boot, she nearly flattened one of my toes. My foot jerked back and caught Heather on the shin: one more hole for her panty hose.

“A right pair of yobbos you lot are,” Fenella was telling the door guards. The cape flapped, and I realized she was putting up her fists.

She was about to punch out two bodybuilders of gorilla size. By now Heather had both hands around my neck, holding on. We'd never have gotten in that club anyway, not with all those extra legs under the cape.

Fenella was starting up the steps anyhow, fighting her way in. I tripped, but followed. Then the world shifted. Robo-hands slipped under Fenella's armpits. She was suddenly off the ground. Her big legs windmilled in every direction. Then we all seemed to be airborne and peeling out of the cape.

We hit frozen litter in the gutter between two stripped cars. A cheer went up from the waiting line of Halloweeners.

The next thing I remember is limping down a side street, listening to what Fenella was calling the two bouncers. They were probably pretty bad words in England. “Prats” was one of them, and “wallies” was another. Heather was beginning to trail behind because of her shoes.

No cab would pick us up, so we had to take the subway again.

Since we hadn't been out that long, I thought we might be home free. But Mom opened the door. She'd called from the theater, and her own voice answered her on the machine. She panicked and came home.

Now she was looking at us. Fenella's hat was still knocked sideways, with the skull on her cheek showing. Her cape was crusty with gutter slush. Heather's turban was unwinding. But her drawn-on nose rings were hanging tough, and you could practically hear her snake rattle. She'd lost the pin, so she was holding what looked a lot like a narrow garbage bag around her waist. And she wouldn't get another wearing out of those panty hose. We looked like we'd been in a wreck, but not serious enough to feel sorry for. I was wearing school dress code, which made me look responsible, though I wasn't.

We took Fenella out to JFK for her flight back to London the next day.

“As a single parent, I see I'm going to have to make a lot of split-second decisions,” Mom said. “Fenella goes.”

Frankly, Fenella didn't seem that surprised. This may have happened to her before in other countries.

Coming back into the city, I wanted to sit up front with the cabby. He didn't speak English. I thought that might be better than what Mom had to say. But they don't let you sit up front. You could be armed.

Mom sighed. “Fenella had no more judgment than you two.” I was on one side of her, and Heather was on the other, staring out the window and trying not to be involved.

We'd been over everything last night. Now we had to go over it again. “All right, Josh,” Mom said. “Who should be out at night in New York?”

“Adults,” I mumbled, “in cars or cabs. Above-ground.”

“And where should they be?”

“Well-lighted neighborhoods. Uptown, East Side preferably, except in the immediate Lincoln Center area.”

But Mom couldn't let it go. “Planet Hollywood, I could understand,” she said. “The Hard Rock Cafe maybe. Even the Harley-Davidson Cafe in a pinch.”

“You could look at it as kind of a field trip,” I said.

“Field trip, my foot,” Mom said. “The only reason Fenella came over here is to go to so-called clubs in Tribeca and other battle zones that sell drugs to New Jersey teenagers.”

Heather sighed. She was waiting for Mom to say “disco,” which is a word out of Mom's past she uses sometimes.

“You could see at a glance Fenella was a night person,” Mom said. “All she wanted to do was go to discos.”

Heather looked around her at me.

“And don't think she wanted the two of you along. She only took you because it was her first night. Later, she'd have dumped you. I wouldn't know who was in charge of you or where you were.”

“Mo-om, you don't need to know where I am all the time,” Heather whined. “I'm virtually thirteen and emotionally—”

“If you were half as mature as you think you are,” Mom said, “you wouldn't have walked past the doorman last night, twice, wearing nothing but a rag on your head, a snake on your face, and a Hefty bag.”

“The Zimmers saw us too,” I mentioned.

Mom slumped. “You don't mean to tell me that the Zimmers saw you.”

“Put a sock in it, Josh,” Heather said.

The first field trip that next week was to the Museum of the City of New York. This is probably the most low-tech museum in town. But it's worth a trip, though probably not twice a semester. They had us in with the fourth and fifth grades again.