“Because the whole school is going to treat me like I’m weird?”
“Just tell them it isn’t true,” Dad advised. “Laugh at it before they start laughing at you.”
I thought Aidan was going to fight it further. It was more disturbing when he instantly gave up. He didn’t say anything else, just ate his dinner until there wasn’t anything left on his plate.
The phone rang again. And again.
Mom waited until we were out of the kitchen to start calling people back.
* * *
—
Aidan sequestered himself in the den again with the TV. I stayed in our room. When I heard footsteps in the attic, I couldn’t ignore them. I went upstairs and found Aunt Brandi standing in front of the dresser.
“I just had to see it,” she said when I walked up next to her. “It’s so…ordinary. You know, there are things in this attic that belonged to my grandparents—that chest over there was actually my great-grandparents’, which would make them your great-great-grandparents. It’s traveled the world, been through wars. And that dusty lime-green couch in that corner, under all that stuff? That was from your parents’ first apartment. Your mother would never dream of sitting on something so dusty, but she’s never going to get rid of it, because it was one of the first things that was theirs together.” She turned back to Aidan’s dresser. “But this thing? It has no history. Your mom bought it in a store. There are probably thousands out there just like it.”
“Do you think they all lead to Aveinieu?” I asked.
Aunt Brandi hiccupped a laugh. “I doubt it. If that were true, I imagine we would have heard a lot more about Aveinieu by now.”
“So how does it work?”
“I don’t know. I don’t even know if there’s a way for us to know. There’s definitely no way for Aidan to know. If what he says happened really happened, it’s far beyond our science and our language. If we’re lucky, we can know the what. But the how and the why? This dresser has about as much of a chance of explaining that to us as Aidan does.”
“Aidan keeps saying we can’t understand.”
“He’s right. But that doesn’t mean he understands it. None of us can understand it. Some people will accept that. Other people won’t. They get scared by things they don’t understand. Those are the people to be careful around. But they don’t get to dictate our reality.”
Aunt Brandi took a deep breath and sighed it out. Then she touched the side of the dresser as if she was touching the shoulder of an old friend.
“I told your parents I could stay, help out. Call in sick from work for a few days, or work from here. But they don’t see any reason for me to be here. They think they can handle it on their own. I think they’re wrong, but I respect that I don’t get a vote. Still, they can’t stop me from telling you to call me—anytime, any hour. I will drop anything to come back here for you and Aidan. Because you know what, Lucas?”
“What?” I asked.
Aunt Brandi sighed again. “There’s nothing we can do about it…but I guarantee you, tomorrow’s really going to suck.”
27
“It might only be a few parents who’ve heard,” Mom said as we pulled into the school driveway the next morning. “I doubt any of the kids will know. I mean, why would the parents tell their kids?”
Dad stayed quiet.
* * *
—
For a brief moment when we got into school, I thought Mom might have actually been right. A lot of kids were looking at us, but they weren’t laughing at us. It was almost like Friday all over again. People were curious…but that was about it.
Or at least that’s what I thought until I started to see the whispering. One kid telling another kid something, and then both of them looking in our direction in a way that was much less curious and much more judgmental.
“Dude!” Glenn called out as soon as he saw us come in. “What’s going on?”
“Hey!” Aidan said, stretching to reach a carefree, offhand tone—in other words, stretching to sound like himself. “Sorry I couldn’t text you back last night. Things were totally bonkers.”
“I figured. I know my mom talked to your mom—can you believe that crazy story going around? I mean, what’s up with that?”
Glenn wasn’t being quiet with his question. I felt like the whole hallway had heard it.
Aidan tried to keep the same hey-dude tone he usually used with Glenn when he said, “I have no idea what’s up with that.”
Glenn laughed. “I mean, right? Unicorns? Why in the world would the police think you said you were off with unicorns?”
I wanted to interrupt. I wanted to ask, Why are you asking him this in public? Why can’t you wait?
“Look, dude,” Aidan said. “Do you want to hear the truth?”
“Totally,” Glenn replied.
Aidan took a deep breath. We were at his locker now, so we all stopped. Only a few of the balloons from Friday were still there, and they’d shrunk over the weekend. The streamers didn’t stream as bright. Usually I would have kept walking to my own locker—but not now. I wanted to hear what Aidan had to say, in no small part because I was sure I’d be quizzed about it later by other people, including our parents.
“Okay,” Aidan said, “it’s like this: You know how I told you I didn’t have much to eat when I was away, and how I was sick and everything? Well, by the time I got back to my house, I was a little out of my mind. Or maybe a lot out of my mind. It’s amazing I found my way home at all. And once I did…the police asked me where I’d been, and I just told them this thing that was more like a dream than reality. I mean, unicorns and green skies and everything. It wasn’t until I caught up on my sleep and got some food that I started to make any kind of sense. It’s, like, so stupid that the police wrote down what I was saying, and it’s even stupider that other people heard about it.”
“Oh, man,” Glenn said, shaking his hand. “You’re right. It’s so stupid.”
Aidan surprised me then by turning to me and asking, “Didn’t I seem out of my mind that night?”
No, I thought. You seemed to know exactly what you were saying.
“Yeah,” I said. “Completely out of your mind.”
“They said you were found in the attic?” Glenn said.
“Yup,” Aidan said, opening his locker. “I have no memory of how I got there.”