The Dreadful Future of Blossom Culp (12 page)

“Just . . . get . . . outta . . . my room, Tiffany,” Jeremy said hopelessly.

“Who needs you, honker?” Tiffany slumped from
the room and banged the door behind her. I’d never heard tell of a girl named for a lamp before, though this one was none too bright.

Jeremy wiped small beads of sweat off his forehead. He blinked at me like I might not come to life again. I blinked back, glad for the chance, and stepped out of my pose.

“That is one bad-tempered girl,” I remarked. “What’s put her in such a mean mood?”

“Tiffany?” Jeremy said. “Oh, that’s as good as she gets. Basically I guess it’s because we’re from a broken home.”

I scanned the room again. It looked all right to me. “The roof fell in on me and Mama once,” I said. “And the porch has fallen off the house a couple times.”

Jeremy stared. “Not that kind of broken home,” he explained. “I mean our mom and dad don’t live together anymore. Dad’s living in a singles condo complex out on the Airport Highway.”

“Oh, well, shoot,” I responded. “I’m in a similar situation myself. The last time we saw my paw, he was hopping a freight for Centralia.”

Jeremy poked his spectacles higher on his nose. “You mean in olden times you people had divorce?”

“Well, I don’t know about divorce,” I said. “That sounds expensive.”

“I thought that all you did was pop corn and bake bread and sit around the fire telling stories and laughing a lot. It’s on all the Christmas cards.”

I decided not to try to explain to him about Mama.

I spent a restless night, though it gave me time to ponder. There were a couple of beds, one stacked upon the other. Jeremy sent me up a ladder to the top one. I was to sleep up there flat against the wall where nobody could see me.

I may have dozed, for I seemed to dream of pages fluttering off a calendar decorated with rocket ships. I dreamed, too, of Alexander Armsworth holding his lantern aloft in the immense distance. Waking once, I sensed some newcomer in the room. It must have been Jeremy’s mama. Light from the hall slanted across the room, and a figure approached to check on him. But when she went away, she eased the door shut with care, so it couldn’t have been Tiffany.

Toward morning I was awake again. “Jeremy?” I said quietly.

“Yes?” He was as awake as me.

“I’ve been giving this entire mess some thought. It couldn’t have been the storm and your machines that brought me here. Not entirely. My particular Gift works in a different way. Seems like I’m drawn out of my time to those in need.”

There was silence in the bed below.

“Do you follow this line of thought?” I inquired.

“Yes,” he said. “Need. I’m going to need some replacement parts. The screen, of course, and all the
circuitry governing the editing function and error detection. We’re talking in the neighborhood of a couple hundred bucks over the warranty just to get even. But I can cover it.”

I sighed. “If you’re talking about your machines, Jeremy, that’s not quite the kind of need I meant.”

Then, while I was resting my eyes, it was suddenly daylight in the room. A shock of red hair and two eyes appeared by my pillow. Jeremy hooked his spectacles over his ears and gave me more close looks. We were about nose to nose, but still he stared. He even studied Mama’s old fur piece around my neck like it might be growing on me.

“You’re still . . . here,” he said quietly. “I guess we better consider your . . . bodily functions.”

“Whoa!” says I. “Listen, where I come from we don’t discuss that type thing in mixed company.”

“Well, my bathroom’s right through that door if you need it, and . . . do you eat?”

What did he take me for? I gave him a disgusted look, and he decided to check out the house, darting for the door in a pair of pajamas printed all over with moons and airships.

As I was climbing down the ladder from my so-called bed, Jeremy ran into his sister in the hall outside. I froze to hear her greet him in her rude way. She called him both nerd and honker and invited him to bag his face. Then she lumbered off down the
stairs. The house rocked as Tiffany banged out the front door.

Jeremy popped back into the room. “The coast is clear,” he announced. “I heard Mom’s Trans Am tool out of the garage before I got up. She’s an interior decorator.”

Though this meant little to me, it seemed to calm him. “Come on,” he said. “Let’s find some breakfast.”

I hung back, not scared exactly, but a little uncertain.

“It’s okay,” he said, but still, I was far from sure. He walked over to where I stood, digging my toe into the carpet. “Don’t worry.” A little shy himself, he put out a hand and took mine.

It was quiet then, but for the cheeping of a bird or two outside the window.
At least they haven’t done away with birds,
I thought.

Jeremy peered at me in his thoughtful way. “I guess you’d be a real old lady now if you . . . I mean, you know what I mean.”

I nodded. “I guess I’d be a real old lady or . . . out of the picture entirely.” I pointed to the ceiling. In the mornings I tend to be moody.

“Well, anyway,” said Jeremy, “come on. We can’t hang around up here all day. I don’t have a chance of sending you back till I can give my equipment a little TLC. We’ve got to go to school.”

I hadn’t thought of that.

“School? I’m a fugitive from 1914, Jeremy.
They’d drop a net over me and put me in a sideshow!”

“Oh, just chill out on that, Blossom,” he said. “I got that part all programmed. You can leave that to me.”

So having little choice, I followed him out into his world, though my spirits were not high. There was more trouble ahead. It stood to reason.

A
S FAR AS
I
COULD SEE
, every corner of the old Leverette farmhouse had been brought up-to-date. Though it was not to my taste, it was all strictly modern.

In my opinion, the kitchen went too far. It was one machine after another, each with its own name: Cuisinart and Frigidaire and Hotpoint and Whirlpool. It was all microwave this and radar control that.

I looked for the drainboard where Alexander was going to stretch out Champ Ferguson for a monster. In its place were big double sinks and a drain that chopped up the garbage and ate it.

When Jeremy showed me how this so-called garbage disposal worked, I remarked, “You don’t leave much for the hogs.”

He shook his head. “It’s against the zoning to keep livestock in Bluffleigh Heights. I guess you people in the olden times kept a lot of hogs and chickens around.”

“I have handled no hogs,” I replied, “but I’ve kept a chicken or two.”

We were to eat our breakfast on high stools drawn up to a slick counter. Jeremy slid a bowl before me. “This is basically a high-fiber whole-grain product with dried fruit and wheat germ additives and minimal preservatives.”

“It looks like fodder to me,” I said suspiciously.

“What’s fodder?”

“It’s what you’d find in the nose bag of a horse,” I said. “Tastes like it, too.”

We washed this mess down with a couple glasses of what Jeremy called a vitamin C concentrate. I’ve personally had better grub out of Mama’s kitchen, which is only a cookstove and a cupboard, basically.

The little clock on the counter flashed the time in red numbers. Jeremy noticed and said, “Just stay here, Blossom. I’ll be right back. Then you’ll see how we’re going to pull off going to school together. It’ll be a real scam. Trust me.” He charged out of the kitchen in his airship pajamas.

What could I do? I was a stranger in strange parts. I sat waiting as the high-fiber whole-grain product settled like a brick in the pit of my stomach. The clever little so-called clock flashed 8:07, then 8:08.

I wondered how I was to pass unnoticed in Jeremy’s magnet middle school. I thought of Daisy-Rae holed up in her stall of the rest room and wondered if that was a possibility for me. Away my mind wandered.

It’d been a hard night, and my guard was down. Maybe I heard a noise outside the house, maybe not.
Suddenly footsteps sounded on the back porch. I about jumped out of my skin and fell off the stool.

A key fumbled for the back door lock. There I sprawled in a heap on the kitchen floor, and in the wrong decade altogether. The key turned. I’d never make it to the dining room. There was a big double door electrified icebox nearby. With any luck, I might squeeze in between it and the wall. I made one of my giant leaps.

Planting one boot in the little space, I was knocked nearly senseless by a collection of brooms and mops that keeled out on my head. There was hardly room for them, and none for me. When the kitchen door opened, I was standing right by it in full view.

A woman entered. She carried a ring of keys and a large paper bag of supplies. It hid her face from me and mine from her. She wore pants like a man and high-heeled shoes, which is one odd combination. Staggering under her load, she brushed past me.

I never moved, though I slewed my eyes around to the door. If I budged, she’d notice. But I might make a clean getaway. Still, I didn’t like leaving the house on my own, never knowing what new threat might wait for me outside.

The woman eased her bag onto the counter and began taking various grocery items out of it. She had Jeremy’s red hair, and I figured she was his mama. I was about to surrender myself to her and hope for the best, though it’s always difficult to
explain anything to a mother. I took one brave step forward and began to clear my throat.

At that moment she reached into her grocery bag and hefted out a cardboard container, labeled “
LIGHTLY LUSCIOUS LOW-FAT MILK
.” She jerked open a door on the icebox, and it caught me square in the face. I slammed back into the corner by the brooms. My nose seemed mashed level with my cheeks, and it hurt too bad to cry.

The woman continued with her tasks, jamming various items into cupboards. She reached up and turned the knob of a small device sitting on a high shelf.

Though my nose was throbbing, I gaped in wonder. In the window of this gadget a tiny man appeared. The kitchen filled with the sound of his piping voice. It was some kind of improvement on the Bijou Picture Show moving pictures, with color and noise added. The cheerful little man on the screen was doing exercises to music, much as Miss Fuller operates in Girls’ Gym. The midget man danced about like a cunning monkey. He had a head of hair as frizzy as my own.

“Well, now I’ve seen everything!” I exclaimed, but Jeremy’s mama never heard me. Her hands were busy with her chores, and her eyes were glued on the little exercise man. But she was about to get a shock. And so was I.

A fearful figure entered from the dining room. Though the creature was not tall, it filled up the door from side to side. Its skin was silver, and its
arms and legs were ringed like thick snakes. Its knees were large shiny circles, and its boots were of tremendous size. Something like a fishbowl served for its head. It grunted.

I was speechless, but Jeremy’s mama took one look and let rip an almighty scream. In her hand had been a box labeled “
FRUIT LOOPS
.” This object went soaring through the air, narrowly missing me.

Her hands clapped over her heart, and she slumped. “Oh, Jeremy,” she said, “what are you doing in that thing, and why aren’t you in school?”

His voice came from far off inside the fishbowl.

“Hi, Mom. We’re wearing costumes today. It’s the school Halloween party. I’m just leaving.”

By squinting, I could make out his face blurred behind curved glass. It was Jeremy’s voice, too, more or less. His eyes shifted to me, and he sized up the situation. I saw he was going to keep his mama talking while we got out of there somehow.

“Did Tiffany wear a costume to school?” she asked.

“Mom, you know those high school kinds think they’re too grown-up for that. Besides, Tiffany looks like Halloween all year long.”

“Now, Jeremy.” His mama sighed. “And what are you supposed to represent?” She planted a hand on her hip and examined his outfit.

“I’m a Citizen of the Galaxy, of course,” Jeremy said in a hollow voice. “You’re definitely not up on your Robert Heinlein, Mom. I made my knees but of hubcaps. What do you think?”