Odessa Again (14 page)

Finally, it gave way, and Milo tumbled forward, hitting his head on the wall with an alarming
whack
.

“Nothing to worry about,” Milo said as he rubbed the spot just above his right eyebrow. “I don’t really use my head much anyway.”

Odessa hesitated. She’d visualized so many possibilities for what lay beyond that door with no handle that she was suddenly afraid to look inside.

She wasn’t afraid of finding
something
.

She was afraid of finding
nothing
.

She stared into the darkness.

“Well,” Milo said. “My work is done here.”

He stood up to leave. Odessa opened her mouth to ask him to wait, because what if an alternate world really did lie beyond that darkness? What if she was about to step into a new life? She’d need Milo by her side.

But she didn’t say anything, because she knew what was inside that door. She knew it in her bones.

Nothing.

Milo started down the steps, but then he stopped. “You know,” he said scratching his head. “You really should try to be a little more patient with and nicer to your brother. I know it isn’t always easy, but … he’s your person in this world. And you’re his. You’ll need each other, all your lives.”

He closed the door behind him.

Odessa sat still for a moment before grabbing Mr. Funds’s light and switching it on. She didn’t see the point of sitting around feeling guilty.

She held the penlight in front of her. It only lit up one small patch of darkness at a time. If Odessa were more courageous, she might have climbed inside the crawl space. Instead she sat at the edge of the opening, shining the light’s small beam all around, illuminating wooden boards and cobwebs.

Just as she was about to give up and figure out how to close a door with no handle, the beam caught something.

She moved closer, holding the penlight out straight.

A small owl figurine.

Just like the ones that filled Mrs. Grisham’s front parlor.

Odessa leaned in to grab it. She didn’t disappear into an alternate world, but she did get her lungs full of dust. She took the owl out and wiped it off with the hem of her T-shirt. She held it and stared at its gold glass eyes.

Why was Mrs. Grisham’s owl in her attic? What had she been doing up here? Did she know more than she was letting on?

Odessa placed the owl on her desk, right next to her cat-of-the-day calendar. She sat down in her swivel chair and looked at it.

Owls were supposed to be wise, weren’t they? In cartoons they always had glasses and funny square graduation hats.

Please,
she pleaded with the small figurine.
Help
me. Solve my mysteries.

And what she heard it say was:
Whoooo.

Whoooo.

Whoooo
do
you
have
in
this
world?

She had to hand it to the owl. It was an excellent question. Who
did
she have in this world?

Dad was
re
marrying Jennifer. Mom had a new job. Sofia couldn’t be trusted. Claire was just a bus friend. Mrs. Grisham was probably hiding something from her. Milo was falling in love with Meredith.

Oliver.

Odessa had Oliver.

Milo was right. He was her person in this world.

Odessa reached for her dictionary.

She needed the soothing power of words. She put her hand on top of it as if she were swearing on a Bible. She opened it and began to flip through the pages, slowly at first and then faster. She loved the sound of pages being flipped, the rush of air they gave off. She stopped, placing her finger randomly inside, and the word she was looking for found her. There it was, underlined in purple.

Compunction:
regret; the state of feeling sorry for something.

Compunction.
It was different from feeling
blue.

She thought of Oliver and how she’d spoken to him tonight and how he’d lost the power to smile and how he had no friends other than one dead hamster and one dirty stuffed one. How she’d stolen more than a hundred dollars from him, robbed him of his one triumphant moment.

Compunction
overwhelmed her.

When Mom came knocking at her door saying “Come down right now, young lady, you’re being rude,” it was a relief. A big fist had reached inside Odessa’s chest and was slowly squeezing her heart and lungs tighter and tighter. She stood up, but that squeezing feeling held firm inside her.

Without stopping to think, Odessa marched to the center of her room, rolled up her cheetah-print rug, and jumped.

*

After her third visit to Snippity-Do-Dah and her third lollipop she couldn’t crunch through in two seconds, Odessa brushed her hair shiny and went down to Oliver’s room.

“You should change,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because that shirt is too small for you and Meredith is coming for dinner. And you want to make a good impression. It’s the first step toward making a new friend.”

Oliver smiled at her. “Will you help me pick something out?”

“Sure,” she said, and she reached over and touched his freshly cut hair.

7 Hours

Suddenly, it all made sense. The reason. The purpose. After all, people don’t just go falling through floorboards backward in time
willy-nilly.

Finally, Odessa had a mission.

Project
Oliver.

She would use her power to help the most powerless person she could think of. She’d make up for not having always been the world’s greatest sister.

Oliver didn’t know what to make of Odessa’s sudden attention. He eyed her with suspicion, the way any younger brother might whose previously mean or indifferent older sister started saying things like:

“Time to lose the Power Rangers lunchbox. How about getting a Bakugan one?”

Or:

“Maybe you should take Tae Kwon Do.”

And:

“Why don’t you see if that kid Jack can come over sometime? But don’t call it a
playdate,
that’s too babyish.”

She tried not to be bossy; she knew from experience that it wouldn’t help Oliver see things her way.

Everyone needs friends, especially shy kids, so Odessa decided she’d become Oliver’s first friend. If he had one, others were sure to follow.

She started sitting next to him on the bus. Claire didn’t seem to mind. She would turn around in her seat to talk to them, and Odessa figured it couldn’t hurt Oliver’s reputation to be seen with two fourth-grade girls, even if one was his sister.

A few mornings she walked Oliver to his classroom so she could give Blake Canter a look that said:
Don’t mess with my little brother, even if you are littler than he is.

After that, she wasn’t sure what to do. How do you help a toad become a prince when there’s no way you’re ever going to kiss him?

*

Odessa showed Mrs. Grisham the owl she’d found in the crawl space. Mrs. Grisham looked up from the honey spice cake she was slicing. It was a Wednesday, a
dinner
out
with
Dad
day. Even if Odessa
did
want to spoil her appetite, she wasn’t sure she’d do it with a honey spice cake.

“Oh, I remember that one. I haven’t seen it in ages.”

“That’s because I found it in my attic. In the crawlspace.”

“Huh. I wonder how it got in there.” Mrs. Grisham turned it over in her hand, and then held it out to Odessa. “Here, it’s yours. Finders keepers and all that.”

Odessa took it back. She’d already tried asking Mrs. Grisham all about the house and the attic, and she hadn’t gotten anywhere, but she decided to tried again.

“Did you ever spend time in the attic?”

“Of course. It’s my house, after all.”

“Did anything strange ever happen?”

“Strange things happen all the time. Now eat your cake.”

Odessa took a few bites, just to be polite. Then she went upstairs and looked out her small window onto Mrs. Grisham’s house next door. It looked the same, except pink. She knew from being inside that the rooms were similar, but darker and more filled up with stuff. And now she saw—it should have been obvious—that Mrs. Grisham’s house also had an attic.

What if that attic had magic powers too? What if the answer to Odessa’s biggest mystery lay up a narrow flight of stairs in the house next door?

Odessa waited until Saturday.

Saturday afternoon was the one time Odessa knew for sure that Mrs. Grisham left the house. She went to the farmers’ market in town, where she’d buy fresh vegetables that she’d try to hide in Odessa and Oliver’s afternoon snacks. She’d buy herself a bunch of dahlias too.

When she left, Odessa walked around the outside of her house, trying all the windows and the back door. Everything was locked. Odessa had never burgled anybody’s house, though she did so love the verb
burgle
.

Stupid!
Of course Mrs. Grisham locked her door and all her windows. Nobody wants burglars. Especially not old ladies who live alone.

Odessa would have broken a window if she hadn’t been afraid of cutting herself. She’d have kicked down the door if she had known Tae Kwon Do.

She went back to her own house and up her attic stairs.

*

When she opened her eyes again it was 7:15 that morning. She scrambled for her bathrobe and slippers. Mom and Oliver were still asleep, so she tiptoed out of the house.

She’d never rung Mrs. Grisham’s bell so early. What if old people slept late? What if she turned off her hearing aids and didn’t hear the doorbell? What if she answered without any teeth?