Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (18 page)

“And don't make friends with any Outsiders,” Europa added. “They'll only contaminate you. The only people you need live here.”

 15 

“W
ho will come to Story Night?” I asked Ephraim over dinner. It was almost seven o'clock, so V had already turned on the porch light and straightened up the living room for our guests. Europa was upstairs trying to put Eris to bed. We barely got Kale to sit still long enough to eat her carrots, and now she was in the kitchen supposedly helping Cham make tea for our guests. I popped the last bite of asparagus in my mouth and started gathering dishes.

“Let's see.” Ephraim pushed back from the table. “Adlai and Penniah almost always bring their kids, Dathan and Sapphira. Devin and Paul come, and sometimes their mother, Seta. Sometimes others.”

“What about Sun?” I was curious about the quiet, brooding cook.

“Oh no, Sun would never come to a Story Night. He has . . .” Ephraim tapped two fingers on the table, “unprocessed feelings about the Family.”

“Make sure you talk to Penniah about your cough, Ephraim.” V walked through the dining room toward the living room. From the window she yelled, “They're here! Would someone let them in?” before she disappeared upstairs without answering the door.

Adlai and Penniah turned out to be the sweet but tired parents of ten-year-old Dathan and eight-year-old Sapphira, who immediately turned the living room into a gymnastics exhibition full of headstands and cartwheels. Devin and Paul showed up a few minutes later, and Devin jumped into the show, holding Sapphira in the air by her ankles while she wriggled around telling everyone she was doing a levitating headstand. Paul grabbed a guitar and started making up a song with the chorus “Levitating headstand,” and Story Night was under way.

People filed into the room, selecting instruments from the music box and joining in on the jam session. After a medical consultation with Penniah, who turned out to be a nurse, Ephraim brought his ukulele out and played beautifully along with Paul. Cham joined in on harmonica, while Devin played a hand drum. I found a wood flute, a poorer version of the one on the Farm. Europa, V, and Io were the last to join in, all coming down the stairs together.

V was now wearing a loose-fitting black dress that fell to her knees, with thin straps over her shoulders. Her hair was no longer in a ponytail, but swinging down her back in gentle curls. I wasn't the only one who noticed. I caught Devin absentmindedly beating his hand drum while his eyes followed her.

Our little jam continued for five minutes, with family members periodically returning to the chorus, “Levitating headstand, oh sweet levitating headstand.” It was the first time since leaving the Farm that I felt the anxiety and sadness, expectation and disappointment, drain away. For a few minutes, I was taken away by the music. Indus never galloped through my thoughts.

Ephraim raised his hands to welcome a crescendo, and everyone started playing harder and singing louder until he swept his hand to the side, and we finished our song with a flourish, laughing and complimenting one another. The same magic seemed to work on us all. Cham looked the happiest I had seen him, and the little kids could hardly calm down. Kale continued dancing long after the music ended.

“Thank you for coming together tonight, Family,” Ephraim said when we were quiet.

“We'll have some songs and stories and poems, but first, I want to honor the newest member of Beacon House. She spent her whole life on the Farm and got her Calling to come join us. Welcome, Starbird.”

A bunch of voices said, “Yes” and “Welcome, Starbird.” I wasn't expecting it. Hot tears jumped into my eyes, and I realized how good it felt to be welcomed and safe in this strange place.

“Starbird, will you start us off with a story?” Ephraim strummed a few times on his ukulele.

I had been telling stories my whole life, practically from the time I could talk. On Story Night, anything could be a story—something that had just happened, something that happened years ago, something significant or mundane. There were no rules, and yet I drew a blank. I must have seemed lost because eight-year-old Sapphira stood up and said, “Tell it about EARTH.”

Penniah hugged her daughter around the middle. “She's been very curious about him lately. She was five when he left for the Mission, so she doesn't remember much about him.”

“Great idea.” Ephraim strummed again. “Tell a story about EARTH.”

The living room got quiet. Even Kale stopped dancing and sat down on the rug to face me. I looked at Sapphira, enthusiastic at eight years old. My mind wandered back through time and settled on a day when I was a few years older than her.

“One time EARTH let me sit next to him during a Translation,” I said.

Sapphira's eye doubled in size. She sank down on the floor and crossed her legs.

“We were all in the Sanctuary waiting for the Translation to begin. We had been seated for twenty minutes, but EARTH still hadn't appeared. I was next to my mother, and my brother was seated on the platform, looking fidgety. He was EARTH's apprentice,” I explained. Sapphira gasped and put a hand over her mouth.

“I suddenly realized that I hadn't gone to the outhouse after brunch, and I knew I wouldn't be able to hold it all the way through. So Fern told me to run to the main house since it was closer than the yurt village.

“I ran up the gravel drive and tried to get into the bathroom on the first floor, but the door was locked. So I used the one upstairs. When I came out, the door to EARTH's bedroom was open, and EARTH was sitting there on the floor, staring out an open window.

“When EARTH noticed me standing at his door, he nearly jumped. ‘You startled me,' he said, then he snapped his fingers. ‘Seeing you just reminded me that I'm expected at the Translation. Did they send you to get me? I was just watching the storm clouds move in from the west. The Cosmos is sending us rain.' Looking out over the back lot, I could see a bank of slate-colored clouds rolling in.

“EARTH stood and adjusted his robes. ‘Mars Wolf is feeling ill,' he said. ‘Could you be my Mars Wolf today, Starbird?' My joy could have scared away the clouds.

“EARTH and I walked to the Sanctuary together, and he let me enter before him through the north door. My brother's mouth fell open when he saw me walk onto the platform. I sat on the right side of EARTH, while Doug sat on the left, all the way through the Translation.”

“Wow,” said Sapphira, looking up at her mom again.

“Lovely story,” said Penniah.

“Big honor for a girl who couldn't remember to use the bathroom before Translation,” said Europa.

“EARTH recognized something great in you,” said Ephraim.

“I don't get it,” said Dathan. “How could he just forget that everyone was waiting for him? That doesn't make any sense.”

Everyone looked at me and I looked down. I had purposely left out part of the story because it was private, a secret between me and EARTH. EARTH's door wasn't really standing open when I came out of the bathroom that day. It was just cracked a bit and there was a skunky smoke drifting out into the hall. I had walked to EARTH's door, pushed it open, and said, “Is something on fire?”

EARTH had turned his head to me suddenly, a short, thin cigarette burning in his hand. He exhaled a cloud of smoke through the window.

“Starbird,” EARTH had said. “Come in here a minute. Seeing you just reminded me that I'm expected at the Translation. Did they send you to get me?”

I shook my head. “Bathroom,” I said.

EARTH motioned me in to sit on the cushion in front of him. “Do you know what this is?” He held up the cigarette.

I shook my head again.

“It's called marijuana. It can get you high, so you feel”—he paused and looked out the window—“clear. Sometimes I smoke it when I need to get some clarity. Do you understand?”

I nodded, but I didn't understand.

“The Family in Canada introduced me to it. They use it together as part of the Translations. It's good for them, they need it. But it isn't right for the Seattle Farm. We have too many people here who drank or did other things on the Outside, before they knew how to use it properly, and they had problems with it. Does that make sense?”

I nodded again. EARTH's eyes were bluer than the tapestries hanging on his walls. They were the color of icebergs, but the whites of his eyes were bloodshot.

“So I need for you to keep this”—he held up the cigarette again—“a secret between us, okay?”

I nodded.

He stood and adjusted his robes. “Mars Wolf is feeling ill,” he said. “Could you be my Mars Wolf today?”

Then we walked downstairs and I heard the sound of Mars Wolf getting sick in the bathroom. I couldn't tell that part on Story Night.

I cleared my throat and looked at Dathan. “He didn't exactly forget. He was watching the storm clouds come in, and the Cosmos started speaking to him,” I said.

Dathan nodded but he didn't look convinced.

“I want to meet your brother,” said Sapphira. “Can I meet him?”

“No,” I said, my throat suddenly dry. “I don't know where he is.”

“Hey. I've been working on a Woody Guthrie song,” said Ephraim from his reclining chair. “I need you to let me know what you think.”

“From my window, sad and lonely . . .” Ephraim started crooning along to his ukulele, and soon we were all absorbed in the song.

The rest of our Story Night contained more songs and stories. Io read a poem she had written, and Devin and Paul sang a perfect duet. Venus didn't stay at Beacon House that night but went home with Devin. I climbed the stairs to bed, wishing it was a moonlit night and that I was walking to the yurt village, wishing Indus were holding my hand.

 16 

T
he schedule that Ms. Harper emailed looked like this:

Every junior gets one elective per semester, so I chose horticulture for period six. Apparently, there was a greenhouse on the top of the building, and it seemed like a great opportunity to be around growing things again.

I trailed Cham to the bus stop. For my real first day at school, Io had suggested the plaid wool shirt, a white T-shirt with a lamb on it, gray tights, and my boots. Over it all, I wore one of my bulky wool sweaters from the Farm. I was willing to wear some nicer clothes for school, but I didn't want to just look like an Outsider.

Still, I was on the Outside and, so far, it didn't seem that great to me. This was what Doug ran away to? As we passed houses and apartment buildings, I found myself thinking,
Could Doug be in one of those houses?
I tried to peer through the glass, looking for people inside.
Would I recognize him? Would he recognize me? Should I even be trying to look?

“Bus is here.” Cham jogged the last few feet to the stop.

We swiped our cards and grabbed seats near the back. Cham slouched down and put his knees on the back of the seat in front of us.

“Do you like Roosevelt?” I asked.

“Sure.” Cham didn't look at me much when we were together. This time he stared out the window.

“Did you grow up in Beacon House?”

“Born there, left for a while. Ephraim's my dad.”

Usually only younger kids on the Farm would have said something like that. Ursa knows Adam is her father, and Pavo knows Firmament is his dad. After Adam and Eve had Badger, the Planet Elders realized that people in the second and third generations might become parents and would need to know if they were closely related. Fatherhood became a big issue when people started leaving the farm, too. Birth mothers wanted to keep their children with them, which was horrible for fathers if the birth mother wanted to leave the Farm, or if the father did. Some non-Believers stayed in the Family because of their kids, which I thought was wrong. Having non-Believers in our Family stole harmony from the collective.

“Dad joined. Mom didn't.” Cham pulled his right hand out of his pocket and chewed the edge of his fingernail as he talked.

I felt a bizarre jolt of jealousy. Even though Cham's mother wasn't around, Cham knew who his father was. I thought about Iron and my chest got red. “Ephraim says you're a true Believer.”

“I don't advertise it.” He shoved his hand back in his pocket. “You going to let them call you Starbird at school?”

“That's my name.”

“Up to you,” Cham said as the bus pulled up to our stop. Then he added, “Just don't tell them where you're from,” before climbing out through the rear door.

 
 

My first full day at Roosevelt, I felt like part of a strange school of fish, all darting into the massive building and down the halls in flashes of dazzling color. Even on our biggest Summer Solstice Festival before EARTH left, I hadn't been around so many people at once. V had given me a few notebooks and binders that she found in the basement at Beacon House and an old army bag to hold my books. I clutched a binder to my chest and made my way into the school.

Cham pointed me in the general direction of my first class. I held the plastic binder so hard my hands were sweating as I walked up the stairs and down the giant hallway, looking at the number above every door. My legs felt weak from being in such a large, noisy place, and I was tempted to run back outside just for the comfort of seeing grass. I had located the right corridor when a horrible buzzing sound, worse than my alarm clock, filled the air. I looked around and saw that the halls were suddenly empty, where a minute ago they were frantic with youth. With a little more searching, I found my classroom number and opened the heavy door.

Every person in every chair turned to stare at me. I smiled. No one smiled back. They wore the blankest expressions I had ever seen. I would have gotten more response from the chickens. I could feel the red splotches start to blossom on my neck where no T-shirt could hide them. I held the plastic binder higher on my chest so it nearly reached my chin.

A voice filled the room. It said, “Please rise.” I looked behind and around me. I looked at the teacher standing in front of the class who put one hand on his chest. The students got out of their chairs and mimicked his gesture. Following along with the amplified voice, they began a strange, emotionless chanting. “I pledge allegiance,” they said together, “to the flag. Of the United. States. Of America.”

I stepped back against the door. This is what Europa was talking about. This is how they are indoctrinated and brainwashed. The students looked forward with dead eyes, mumbling the words as if they were sleepwalking or hypnotized.
I can't let this happen to me
. I felt around behind me for the knob on the door and turned until it opened, releasing me back into the hall. The amplified voice was there too. “And to the Republic. For which it stands.”

I had taken three steps toward the stairs when a man's voice said, “Wait.”

It was the teacher, standing at the door to the class. The loudspeaker continued, “With liberty and justice for all.”

“You found the right classroom,” he said. “We're expecting you.”

I didn't move, but stood there gripping my binder.

“Come on,” he motioned, “come join us.” The man had a thick brown beard that needed trimming. He was wearing a wrinkled brown shirt with khaki pants. His smile was warm. Something about him reminded me of a Family member. He motioned to me again.

I walked back reluctantly.
I'm not staying here
, I told myself.
I'm going home soon
.

“Welcome,” said the teacher once we were back inside the classroom. He motioned to an empty chair. “It's okay that you're late. I know you're a new student.”

As I slid into the chair, he shuffled through his papers on a podium.

“I'm Mr. Bell, but you can call me Teacher Ted, everyone else does. And you are . . .” He ran his finger down a paper. “Murphy. Star . . . Star Bird?”

A boy sitting behind me laughed. Two girls leaned together and whispered.

“Yeah, Starbird.” I felt annoyed to hear the name Murphy attached to mine. It was like the Outsiders were forcing a dad on me.

“Well.” Teacher Ted looked up from his podium. “What a . . . refreshing name.” He stared at me for a moment. “I like it, Starbird. Welcome. You're a transfer student, so where are you joining us from?”

I thought about what Cham had said at the bus stop. “Bellingham.”

Teacher Ted turned back to the class. “Okay, everybody, today we're talking about the French and Indian War.”

Of course my first history class starts with a war
.