Runaways (24 page)

“No,” Dani heard herself yelling, “you’re lying. Good parents don’t! Not ever!”

There was a moment’s surprised silence. Gloria stared at Dani through the screen door for what seemed like a very long time before she turned around and staggered off down the path. They watched her go until she disappeared around the corner. Then Linda put her arm around Dani’s shoulders and gave her a hug. “You all right?” she asked.

“I’m okay,” Dani said, “but Stormy’s locked in the bathroom.”

Neither Dani nor Linda slept very well that night. At least Dani certainly didn’t, and lying there awake, she kept hearing footsteps as Linda went down the hall to check on Stormy. Gloria didn’t come back that night, however, and by the next afternoon everyone in town knew that she’d quit her job at the hotel, packed her bags and hitchhiked out of town. So that was that, except that Mr. Bridgeman was working on some papers that would make the O’Donnells Stormy’s legal family.

Dani wasn’t too sure how Stormy felt about his mother taking a powder, because he still didn’t allow anyone to talk about her. But as far as she could tell he didn’t seem to be too unhappy about becoming a permanent guest at the O’Donnells’. Which wasn’t too surprising considering the fact that he’d been pretty close to permanent for quite a while. And it wasn’t long before he began to behave normally again. Stormy normal, anyway, like eating everything in sight, begging Dani to read to him and drooling over the Black Phantom whenever Pixie brought it into town.

Pixie was still living at the ranch and visiting the O’Donnells every few days, but that probably wasn’t going to last much longer. It seemed that she had decided to go back to live with her grandmother in San Francisco. But she would write, she told Dani. She would write to Dani and Stormy and after they’d moved she would come to visit. After all, San Francisco wasn’t that far from Sea Grove.

Linda worried about Pixie sometimes. “I really like Ivor and Emily,” she told Dani once, “but I’m afraid they just aren’t cut out to be parents. They try to be, I think, but it just seems to be something that it’s hard for them to keep their minds on.”

But Dani told her not to worry about Pixie. “After all, she gets along great with her grandmother. And I don’t think she misses her parents that much. At least not very often.”

“But you said she cried about them. You told me how hard she cried when she told Gus about her parents.”

“Yeah,” Dani said. “But I think that was mostly Pixie hysterics. I think people like Pixie really need to have something to be hysterical about now and then. Don’t you?”

Linda laughed, and after a minute or two she said, “You know, I think you just may be right about that.”

The next time Pixie came to visit she was being a little hysterical again, but this time it wasn’t about her parents. This time she was all excited about the miners and engineers who were living at the ranch now, working on the mining project and staying in big air-conditioned house trailers. According to Pixie, miners and engineers seemed like normal people, at least right at first. But after a while they started doing weird things and it turned out that most of them were actually aliens from outer space. Martians, probably, who were using the antennas on top of their trailers to contact their home planet. Pixie got very excited about how dangerous it was to have Martians living in your backyard. It made a good story and Stormy seemed to enjoy it. But Dani was pretty sure he didn’t believe it, at least not entirely.

There was another story that he liked even better, and that was the one where Pixie said she wouldn’t be able to ride a bicycle when she was back in San Francisco, so when she left Rattler Springs she was going to leave the Black Phantom with Stormy. He really seemed to believe that one and Dani certainly hoped it would turn out to be the truth.

Up until the end of June, Linda kept promising they could leave for the coast by the end of July. She was expecting her first check from the mining company by then and she felt sure it would be enough to hire a van and some movers and pay the first month’s rent on a house. But things always move more slowly than they’re supposed to, and it was during the first week in July that Linda asked Dani if she’d be too disappointed if they put off moving until the end of August.

They’d been sitting on Al’s big screened porch at the time, drinking root beer floats. At least Linda and Dani were still drinking theirs. Stormy had finished his and had started pounding the beanbag chair into shape, getting ready to settle down to listen to
Peter Pan.
“But I’m sure we can leave by then,” Linda said. “I’ve been figuring very carefully, and I’m almost sure we’ll be able to move by the end of August.”

“The end of August.” Dani slammed her glass down on the table.

“I know,” Linda said. “I’m disappointed too, but …”

Dani got up and went out into the yard. It wasn’t quite dark yet but the sun had set, and above the sleek black hills the endless desert sky was streaked and layered with weird shades of red. She stood there for a long time watching how the layers of color oozed and blended above the sharp-edged silhouette of the hills. It was, she had to admit, beautiful in a breathtaking sort of way. Cruel and deadly maybe, like she’d always thought, but certainly beautiful. And someday when she was back where she belonged, she might even admit it out loud. She might even tell people how gorgeous the desert could be. “Not yet,” she told the silent sky, “but someday, maybe.”

But in the meantime there were things that needed to be said to other people. She turned back toward the house, where Linda and Stormy were still sitting right where she’d left them when she slammed out through the screen door. Linda was looking sad again, and for just a second, Dani felt the way she used to—guilty and, at the same time, angry at Linda for making her feel that way. But then suddenly she found herself remembering how Linda had been that night when she’d told Gloria she couldn’t have Stormy back. Dani was still thinking about that other Linda when she went back into the screen porch, sat down and said, “Well, I guess I can stand Rattler Springs for one more month.”

“Yeah, me too,” Stormy said. Then he gave the beanbag an especially fierce punch and muttered, “Come on, Dani. Aren’t we ever going to read
Peter Pan?”

“Sure we are.” Dani settled back, opened the book to the first page and in a slightly sarcastic tone of voice said, “And then we’re probably going to read every book in the Sea Grove library.”

“Yeah.” Stormy grinned. “And every book in the whole world.”

“Sure, why not?” Dani said.

Zilpha Keatley Snyder (b. 1927) is the three-time Newbery Honor–winning author of classic children’s novels such as
The Egypt Game
,
The Headless Cupid
, and
The Witches of Worm
. Her adventure and fantasy stories are beloved by many generations.

Snyder was born in Lemoore, California, in 1927. Her father, William Keatley, worked for Shell Oil, but as a would-be rancher he and his family always lived on a small farm. Snyder’s parents were both storytellers, and their tales often kept their children entertained during quiet evenings at home.

Snyder began reading and telling stories of her own at an early age. By the time she was four years old she was able to read novels and newspapers intended for adults. When she wasn’t reading, she was making up and embellishing stories. When she was eight, Snyder decided that she would be a writer—a profession in which embellishment and imagination were accepted and rewarded.

Snyder’s adolescent years were made more difficult by her studious country upbringing and by the fact that she had been advanced a grade when she started school. As other girls were going to dances and discovering boys, Snyder retreated into books. The stories transported her from her small room to a larger, remarkable universe.

At Whittier College, Zilpha Keatley Snyder met her future husband, Larry Snyder. After graduation, she began teaching upper-level elementary classes. Snyder taught for nine years, including three years as a master teacher for the University of California, Berkeley. The classroom experience gave Snyder a fresh appreciation of the interests and capabilities of preteens.

As she continued her teaching career, Snyder gained more free time. She began writing at night, after teaching during the day; her husband helped by typing out her manuscripts. After finishing her first novel, she sent it to a publisher. It was accepted on her first try. That book,
Season of Ponies
, was published in 1964.

In 1967, her fourth novel,
The Egypt Game
, won the Newbery Honor for excellence in children’s literature. Snyder went on to win that honor two more times, for her novels
The Headless Cupid
and
The Witches of Worm. The Headless Cupid
introduced the Stanley family, a clan she revisited three more times over her career.

Snyder’s
The Changeling
(1970), in which two young girls invent a fantasy world dominated by trees, became the inspiration for her 1974 fantasy series, the Green Sky Trilogy. Snyder completed that series by writing a computer game sequel called Below the Root. The game went on to earn cult classic status.

Over the almost fifty years of her career, Snyder has written about topics as diverse as time-traveling ghosts, serenading gargoyles, and adoption at the turn of the twentieth century. Today, she lives with her husband in Mill Valley, California. When not writing, Snyder enjoys reading and traveling.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 1999 by Zilpha Keatley Snyder

Cover design by Barbara Brown

978-1-4804-7151-1

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com