The Summer I Saved the World ... in 65 Days (18 page)

I know she didn't want to keep going.… It was too hard. She never wavered. But that decision also meant she would leave me.

One of the last things she told me was “Love your mom. She's the kind of person who needs love more than she can give.”

Even when I was little, I had this feeling of trying to reach out for Mom. Like her love was there but just beyond my grasp. She held on to her love tightly, like she didn't want to let it go. I thought if I was funny, or looked really pretty, or did good in school, she'd love me more. The way I wanted her to.

I used to think Grandma didn't get how hard Mom can be to love sometimes. But now I know that's why
she told me. She knew she wouldn't be here anymore to love Mom, so I had to take over.

And Matt. He's a lot like Mom. Holds things in. He's been hard to love too.

The swing next to me moves slightly. I turn my head and see the fox across the park. Just like before, she looks right at me. She has one tail.

And I remember something else I read that night when I looked up the meaning of the
kumiho
.

In some legends, a fox possesses wisdom, courage, and the ability to step back and see its surroundings from a unique perspective. Because of its ability to camouflage and become invisible, a fox is an animal of in-between times and places.

A faithful guardian. Like me.

She is so beautiful.

The fox is still for a few more breaths, and so am I.

Then she's gone in the night.

And one of Grandma's STs comes to me: When you make up your mind to do something and you know it's right, don't let anyone tell you different.

I
t's the thought of Thomas that really saves me, though.

Running through the park with his cape, fighting the bad guys he sees everywhere. Believing in superheroes. Believing that I am one.

I walk slowly out of the park.

All these things I've been doing.

They're like stitches. Some are neat. Others you have to tear out and redo. But in the end, they're connected.

I turn the corner and see the circle of eight houses.

A different perspective from the way I drew it for art. Where's the vanishing point?

The Dixon house is dark. Matt and his friends must have left. I look at my own house.

This whole time, this entire summer, I've been doing things for the neighbors, but what was I really trying to sew back together? Or who?

M
att is avoiding me, and Mrs. Millman is out to catch a ghost. If I tell her there isn't one, she will ask how I know. I've sent Matt a few texts, but he hasn't responded. I think he slept at a friend's after I saw him at the Dixons'.

At nine o'clock the next night, the Millmans, with Beanie at their side, set up watch. Mrs. Millman is dressed in all black, wearing a headlamp, and she has a camera strung around her neck. Mr. Millman is loading a backpack with a first-aid kit, a flashlight, and
water bottles, and the staticky cell phones are on his lap.

They are sitting on chairs on the sidewalk in front of the Dixon house.

“Just what do you expect to accomplish tonight, Myrna?” Mr. Millman asks.

She holds up a small white plastic box that's beeping every few minutes. “This is an EMF detector, Stan. Electromagnetic field. Very sophisticated. If there are ghosts in there, this will locate and track them. We take a picture, and get proof.”

“Then what?”

“We will ask the spirits to stop haunting the people in this neighborhood and move on.”

Mr. Millman crosses his legs and shifts in his chair. “So we're going to sit here all night until a ghost appears on your little detector, kindly ask if it would mind posing for a photo, and then demand that it fly away.”

“In short, yes.”

“Myrna, we have been married for forty-two years. I've lived through your suspecting that your brother wasn't really your brother, believing my boss was on the terrorist watch list, and thinking my cousin was in the witness protection program. But this, this takes the cake.”

She shakes her head. “There are things going on in that house. I have been saying it all summer, but no one believes me.”

Mr. Millman sighs. “I'll say one thing. You do know how to keep life interesting.”

She smiles and takes his hand.

They grow quiet. The sky darkens. And they wait.

I'm about to go inside. Nothing's going to happen. I'm sure what she saw was the shadows of Matt and his friends. The Millmans spent all this money on ghost tracking equipment when, as Dad said, there must be a perfectly reasonable explanation—

The EMF detector starts beeping wildly.

Mrs. Millman jumps up from her chair and switches on her headlamp. “The ghost!”

Oh, God, please don't tell me Matt has been dumb enough to go back into that house.

Mr. Millman grabs the cell phones and hands one to Mrs. Millman, and the two of them tiptoe around the back, looking like something out of a Scooby-Doo cartoon. I'm right on their heels. They're standing in the weeds, staring into the kitchen, clutching each other. The glass door is open a crack.

“Look at that!” Mrs. Millman screams. “Take a picture! Take a picture!”

Mr. Millman grabs the camera from around her
neck and starts snapping like crazy. The flash is going off everywhere, and Mrs. Millman's headlamp is beaming like a lighthouse.

I peek around them. There's water on the kitchen floor, with a mist above it, circling in the stale air of the house. Then—a huge bang. Followed by rattling.

Mrs. Millman turns and runs faster than I've ever seen her move before.

Mr. Millman spots me. “I'll be damned,” he yells, running after her. “For once in her life, Myrna is right.”

I
'm still at the sliding door. I pull it open. “Hello?”

Nothing.

“Hello?”

Maybe ghosts don't respond to “hello.” Maybe I need Mrs. Millman's advanced equipment in order to make contact.

I take a step inside. I don't actually believe in ghosts. It has crossed my mind, like it has for most people, but I can't really buy into the idea. Which is too bad, because if I did, I could try communicating with Grandma.

“Matt? Is anyone here?” I feel like he's hiding upstairs with his friends, but the house seems to be empty. The mist has stopped swirling above the water on the floor. I walk around a little. There are some flies buzzing. It smells sort of mildewy. The water's all over but looks deeper by the sink. I hear a gurgling noise.

Wait. The sink?

Mrs. Millman's ghost could quite possibly be a leaky water pipe.

I slosh through the water to the sink and open the cabinet underneath it. Water is dripping from the pipe. Not only that, but there are full bottles and unopened chip bags inside the cabinet. Matt's secret stash? What are those guys
doing
in here?

I pick up a bottle with a wet paper label, fearing the worst. But I'm relieved to see it's just root beer.

Root beer …

Right after Grandma died, Matt set up a game of war, opened two bottles of root beer, and asked me to play. I looked at him, feeling so raw and empty, and said, “How could you think of playing cards right now? That's so wrong.”

He swiped his hand across the table, threw the cards onto the floor. I knew he was crying. He ran upstairs, slammed his door.

I should have run after him. Why didn't I? I should
have played. It's my fault too, how he closed up. I could have tried more.

I stare at the pipe, thinking,
If my parents find out … If someone reports this … If the Millmans come back …

If Matt gets in trouble again, Mom and Dad said the college could withdraw his acceptance.

I kneel and try to tighten the part of the pipe where the water is coming from. Disaster. Water starts pouring out faster. I try to turn it the other way, but it doesn't move, and now my hands are wet and slippery.

This is a good thing that I can't do alone. Or anonymously. There's only one person I can go to. Eli. Even if I sort of hate him right now. I know he can help. He's been fixing stuff in their house since his dad left.

I sprint across the street and knock softly.
Please be here
. I knock again, a little louder.

No answer. I'm going to have to figure this out. I run into my house and grab a stack of towels and any tool I can dig out of the kitchen drawer. I barely know what they are, let alone how to use them. I'm running down the driveway with everything, when I crash right into Eli. The towels fall and a screwdriver clatters to the ground.

“Come on!” I gather them up.

“What's going on?”

“I'll explain when we get there.”

“Where?”

“The Dixons'.”

“
What?
” Eli follows me across the street. “Nina!

Wait!”

Mr. Dembrowski is backing out of his driveway. He turns onto the street just as we reach the sidewalk in front of the Dixon house. When I look back, he's stopped. His window is open.

This couldn't be crazier.

“What's the trouble?” he asks.

“M
r. D.,” I say, like I talk to him all the time. “Do you know anything about fixing a leaky water pipe?”

“As a matter of fact, I do,” he says, pulling over and getting out. He's the most normal-looking person I've ever seen, in a pair of khaki pants and navy shirt. Not a criminal or hoarder. And of course he knows about fixing pipes.

I lead Eli and Mr. Dembrowski to the back of the house. “Oh, man!” Eli shouts. “What did you do?”

“I didn't do this!” I yell. “You think I did this? It
just happened! I'm trying to fix it! This is number fifty-three!”

They give me confused looks.

“The pipe under the sink is shooting out water.”

Mr. D. says he'll be right back. I hand Eli some towels, then start throwing my stack onto the floor, trying to soak up the water. He's just standing there. “Are you going to help me?”