Bob Read online

  I’m under the covers, thinking. I like to think like this sometimes when nobody knows I’m awake. And what I’m thinking about is what to do about Bob.

  Bob thinks I can help him find his home. He waited for me in Gran’s closet for five years. But where did he come from?

  The first thing Bob can remember is the chicken coop. So maybe we should start there. We’ve got to figure out how Bob can go outside without anyone seeing him. How does a green guy blend in to a place where nothing is green anymore? Everything around Gran’s house is kind of dry and brownish.

  I don’t think the chicken suit is going to work. How could Bob ever pass for a chicken?

  The bag-crinkling stops suddenly. Did I say that out loud? I sit up.

  Bob is standing right next to the bed, looking at me with sad eyes. He’s just tall enough to rest his green chin on the mattress.

  “Don’t worry,” Bob says. “This chicken suit has never failed me.”

  I look at him. He’s got the hood on and zipped everything up, but one shoulder of the chicken suit has slipped off again. He’s squeezing the potato chip bag. I see that he taped a couple of loose feathers to his arm, and they’re sticking out in three directions, in a way that a real chicken’s feathers would never, ever do.

  But I decide to be optimistic. Dad says being optimistic is when you decide everything will probably be okay, even if you don’t exactly know how. Like when my soccer team was losing 7–0, and Dad had us put our hands together and chant, “We are champions!” before the second half started.

  So I smile.

  Bob smiles back. “That’s better. You look almost like the old Livy!” And he pops the top of his orange soda.

  “There’s only one me, Bob.”

  He slurps.

  Then he burps.

  I sigh. We lost that soccer game. I think the final score was 12–1.

  Only one more night until Mom leaves with Beth Ann. A bad feeling starts in my stomach. I tell it to go away, but that just makes it bigger.

  I look at Bob again.

  He’s spent more than a thousand nights in this house without his mother. He’s watching me, munching away. I want to promise that I’m going to get him home, wherever home is for Bob. But what if I can’t?

  Suddenly I’m looking at the back of him. Bob can move fast. The closet door closes behind him at the same moment the bedroom door swings open and Mom sticks her head in.

  She smiles. “Didn’t think you’d be able to sleep through those magpies. Aren’t they amazing? They sound like that cute robot from the first Star Wars movie.”

  I listen, and there it is—a funny bird-warble from outside. A lot of bird-warbles, actually. They kind of do sound like R2-D2.

  Mom sits on the edge of the bed and puts one hand on my forehead like she’s feeling for a fever. I want her to leave that hand there forever.

  “You doing okay?” she asks.

  “Sure,” I tell her. We’re probably both playing the same movies in our heads:

  1.  Me getting picked up from Maya’s house at nine o’clock the last two times I tried to sleep over.

  2.  Me getting picked up in the middle of Audrey Miller’s slumber party.

  3.  Me getting picked up from the school trip to Newport. That one was a long drive for Dad.

  Ever since Beth Ann was born, I can’t sleep without knowing Mom or Dad is there.

  “I’ll only be gone for six nights,” Mom says. “And Gran is family.”

  “I know that.”

  “You should be fine,” Mom says.

  That only makes me feel worse. I flip over so that my face is in the pillow, even though it means that Mom takes her hand away. Because I know I should be fine. I know there’s no reason to feel worried. But the stomachache shows up anyway.

  Mom squeezes my shoulders and says, “My brave girl,” which is the last thing I feel like. I feel her weight leave the bed. “Breakfast in a few minutes, sweetie.”

  As soon as she’s gone, I hear the closet door open. I lift my head, and Bob is back where he was before. No food this time. Just big eyes.

  “Bob,” I say. “I’m not going to leave you alone again. I promise.”

  * * *

  A few hours later, we’re standing at the kitchen door, looking across Gran’s yard to the chicken house. Mom has taken the baby into town for some shopping, and Gran has walked over to the neighbor’s farm. In Massachusetts, it takes about thirty seconds to walk from our front door to the neighbor’s house, but at Gran’s it’s a long walk.

  It’s a good thing no one’s home, because Bob insisted on going down Gran’s back stairs on his butt six times: It turns out we did have a name for it. It’s called butt-bumping. And it hurts. Maybe I had more padding when I was five.

  “Looks like the coast is clear,” I say, scanning the dusty yard.

  “I told you, it doesn’t matter about the coast. The chicken suit works perfectly.”

  I can’t even look at him. We’ve spent the last twenty minutes taping every loose feather in the closet to Bob’s back, and the chicken suit looks dumber than ever.

  “Don’t think that way, Livy,” Bob says. “We have to think positive thoughts.”

  I blink. “Are you reading my mind or something?” Because this is the second time that’s happened.

  He reaches up to poke my nose. “I am reading your face.”

  Deep breath. “Okay,” I tell him. “Let’s go.”

  We head out, just me and a small green mystery wearing a chicken suit, into the sunlight. Three steps across the yard, I glance down at Bob and burst out laughing.

  “Now what?” he asks. “Why are you laughing?”

  “I’m laughing at the way you’re walking. Like this.” I do some fast little jumps, pumping my knees up into the air and landing on my toes.

  “But that is the quicksteps,” Bob says, looking hurt.

  “And what’s this?” I demonstrate again, still doing the crazy knees while also kind of lunging to the left and then to the right.

  He sniffs. “That is the side-to-side.”

  We start walking, but after a few steps I have to stop again, I’m laughing so hard. “What’s this part for?” I stick my head as far out on my neck as I can, then pull it back: out, back, out, back.

  “That is the head-poke,” he says impatiently. “Am I doing something wrong? This is the chicken walk you taught me.”

  “Are you kidding? I have no idea how to walk like a chicken! No offense, but it’s dorky.”

  “You did teach me. You watched the chickens, to see what they did. And then you taught me how to walk like a chicken. The old Livy taught me.”

  I look over at the chickens pecking in their chicken yard. “Really? Weird. Let me see it again.”

  Bob walks out in front of me, knees pumping, stepping left and right and pecking at the ground.

  I glance at the chickens again, and then back at Bob. “You know what? That’s actually a pretty good chicken walk.” Because, I realize, it is.

  I can see him smile, even though he is still in full-on chicken mode. Bob smiles with his whole head. It makes the sun feel warmer.

  “Yes,” he says to the dirt. “It is a very good chicken walk that the old Livy taught me.”

  “There’s only one me,” I tell him.

  “If you say so,” he says.

  “HALLOOO there!” There is a man walking toward us, down Gran’s long driveway. It takes me a few seconds to notice the boy walking next to him. He’s maybe six or seven.

  I look at Bob and realize how crazy it was that we ever thought this could work. Because Bob is a green mystery creature covered in orange cloth, tape, and feathers, pecking—kind of desperately, now—in the dirt. I hope he’ll just keep his face down—maybe I can pass him off as my strange little brother.

  The man and the boy smile all the way to where we’re standing.

  “Hi!” I say, jumping and waving, as if I can distract them from Bob by acting
like a weirdo.

  The boy waves shyly and looks at his feet. The man booms, “You must be the famous Olivia!” His voice is super friendly, but his face is nervous. “You got big! I almost didn’t recognize you.” He’s twisting a white envelope in his hands.

  “Yes! I’m Livy!” I’m still jumping. I don’t want him to take his eyes off me. If he sees Bob he might call the police or something.

  “Hoppy little thing, aren’t you?”

  “Yes!” I say. “I’m kind of hoppy!” I start hopping on my right foot only. It must be working, because neither of them is looking at Bob.

  He laughs, then catches himself and looks at the envelope in his hands. He seems surprised to see that it’s bent, and starts trying to flatten it out. “Is your gran at home?”

  “No!” I say, switching to my left foot and hopping a little faster. “She went over to the neighbor’s!” The harder I hop, the harder Bob pecks in the dirt.

  The man laughs again. “Well, we are the neighbors.”

  “Oh! Ha!” I switch back to the right foot.

  “Is everything all right?” he asks. “You don’t need anything, do you? Like—the toilet, maybe?”

  In Australia they say toilet for bathroom. I know this because I have spent a lot of time back home trying to teach my mom not to say toilet for bathroom.

  “No need for the toilet! Ha-ha! I’m just getting some exercise! Hopping is great exercise! This is how we exercise in the United States!” I don’t let my eyes look at Bob, still pecking furiously.

  “Exercise, huh? Must be something new. Well, we’ll probably meet your gran in the road, I’m thinking. But if we don’t, can you tell her that Danny and I came by to see her?”

  This is when I notice that “Danny” is staring at Bob.

  “Sure!” I say, switching legs again. “I’ll tell her!”

  “And”—he looks at the envelope in his hand like it’s telling him something he doesn’t want to hear—“could you give her this for me?”

  “Okay.” Still hopping, I reach out for the envelope. But then he pulls it back. “Never mind. I’ll give it to her later. Let’s go, Danny. We have cows to milk.”

  They start back down the driveway, and I see the man pat the small head of Danny, who looks back over his shoulder and quietly says two words: “Nice chicken.”

  I stop hopping and stand there, breathing hard. I look at Bob, his orange hood pulled tight to his round face, the red-felt chicken comb flopping over to one side of his head, and old chicken feathers stuck up and down his arms with big Xs of Scotch tape.

  He stands up straight and puts one hand on his hip. “I told you the suit works. It works every time.”

  But how?

  “Forget the chicken walk,” I say. “Let’s just get to the chicken house before someone else shows up.” I grab Bob’s hand, and we run. His hand in my hand feels familiar and comfortable. Like a girl and her not-zombie-fake-chicken should.

  The chickens are walking around in the chicken yard, which is fenced in with wire. They’re walking back and forth in a group and pecking in the dirt. There are a lot of loose feathers around. Bob is shoving them into his pockets.

  “Your chicken suit has pockets?” I ask.

  “Of course.”

  I look a little more closely. In the daylight, this chicken suit looks very familiar.

  “Are those my old pajamas?”

  Bob nods. “Of course.”

  I remember them now, fuzzy orange pajamas with a hood. I guess that explains how I made Bob’s chicken suit when I was only five. All I needed was a bottle of glue and a lot of feathers. And some red felt, for the chicken comb.

  “Let’s go back to the first thing you remember,” I tell Bob. “Exactly where did I find you?”

  He points to the little wooden chicken house that sits against one side of the fence. “In there.”

  Bob slips through the doorway without a problem, but for me it’s a squeeze. Inside the chicken house there’s barely room to stand up. There’s not much light and not much to see—just water pans and straw and chicken poop. And more feathers.

  “Anything look familiar?” I ask Bob.

  He looks around. “Oh yes,” he says. “Very familiar. It is just the way I remember it.”

  “It’s kind of smelly,” I say.

  Bob nods.

  “And this is where we met? For the first time?”

  He thinks. “This place is the first thing I remember. About anything. This place, and you.”

  It’s almost like he hatched from one of the chicken eggs. I take a long look at Bob. No way he came from a chicken.

  “Maybe there’s a passageway or something?”

  Bob’s face lights up. “Yes, a secret passage! To home!”

  “You feel around over there,” I tell him. “I’ll check this side.”

  We both drop to our knees and start patting the ground. As soon as we start moving the straw around, a lot of gross dust goes up my nose and into my eyes. After a while, I hear Bob say, “I used the door, though.”

  “What?”

  “The door.” He points to it. “I used the door to come in. Not a secret passageway.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” I wipe my face, but my hands are so dirty that it just makes things worse. “It’s really gross in here, Bob. Why did you come here in the first place? Do you think you were running away from something?”

  Bob thinks, tilting his head so that his chicken comb flops in the other direction. “No,” he says. “I came here because it was warm.”

  “Were you cold?”

  “No,” he says slowly. “You were cold.”

  “I was cold?”

  “You were shivering.”

  “Why was I shivering?”

  “Because it was almost winter. And you were soaking wet.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  BOB

  If I think back really hard I can still see the five-year-old Livy curled up on the straw, her long hair and orange pajamas matted with leaves, and a tiny frog stuck inside the hood.

  “A frog?” she says when I tell her.

  I nod, remembering the bright greenness of the frog. “It hopped out and landed on your nose, and when I shook you, you woke up, and then you laughed when you saw it.” I don’t add that when she saw me, she stopped laughing.

  “Why was I sleeping if I was soaking wet in a chicken coop? Was it raining?”

  I shake my head. “It was sunny.” I remember the early-morning light through the slats in the roof, and the dust hanging in the air. “And you took a long time to wake up.”

  “But I thought I was the one who saved you.”

  I shake my head again. “That came later.”

  She sighs. The old Livy never sighed. This one sighs a lot.

  A car door shuts. Livy jumps up and peers through the window. “Mom’s back! Stay in here until we’re out of the way, and then you can run back to the house. Okay?”

  She still doesn’t trust the chicken suit.

  She ducks through the door before I can say that I don’t want her to go. Now I’m all alone with the real chickens, who look at me suspiciously. I cross my arms and sit in the corner, the same corner where she was all wet.

  A minute later I can hear Livy laughing. I risk peeking out the window. Gran has joined her and her mom and the baby. They’re feeding cucumbers and carrots to the pigs! Gran shows Livy how to hold the vegetables so the pigs don’t nibble her fingers. “Your dad will love this,” her mom says, snapping pictures. “Our little farm girl!”

  I slump back down. I want to be a little farm girl! Well, a farm not-zombie! I haven’t been outside in FIVE YEARS. I should get to feed the pigs. And run in the grass. And stare up at the wide, blue sky that I’d almost forgotten existed. I should get to climb a tree if I feel like it. Why does Livy get to make all the decisions?

  I don’t like the way that one chicken over there keeps glancing at me. I think she is up to no good. She looks like the kind o
f chicken who could peck your eye out and not even feel bad about it.

  I scurry out into the sun. Now everyone is laughing at how the pigs’ tails are like little curly question marks and how they would go boing if you unwound them. I do my best chicken walk toward them but then stop before I get too close. Livy will be so upset if she sees me. Maybe this was a bad idea. I glance around, looking for cover, and spot the well. This time Livy can’t keep me from checking it out. I change course and dart behind it. I am now officially a rule breaker.

  The stones that surround the well are warm from the sun. Leaning against them feels nice on my back. My feet feel funny, though, like cold and hot at the same time. The funny, tingly feeling starts there, but then it goes higher and higher till it reaches my head. Is this what Spider-Man’s spider-sense feels like? Or was it the beans?

  I bet it was the beans.

  I turn to my left. I am not alone at the well.

  Danny, the old man had called him earlier. He is sitting against the low wall with his knees pulled up to his chest and a book at his side. He sees me and his eyes widen in surprise, but it’s not the kind of surprise like if you just saw a not-zombie, more like the kind where you just saw a big chicken.

  He has pink icing around his lips and he’s been crying. I want to ask if he’s okay, but chickens do not talk. So instead I peck at the ground and think that life can’t be all that bad if you just ate something with pink icing on it.

  “You’re lucky to be a chicken,” the boy says, angrily wiping at his eyes with the back of his hand. “Your life is so easy.”

  Easy peasy lemon squeezy, I want to tell him. Old Livy used to say that. I’ve been waiting for a chance to use it, but now is not that time. Plus, my life is SO NOT EASY.

  He sniffles, then reaches out and strokes my fake chicken comb. I hold my breath.

  This suit works REALLY WELL.

  “Some days I wish I could be a chicken,” Danny says. “Things are hard when you’re a person. Grandpop is going to lose his farm soon. Nothing grows anymore.”