Had her father actually said everything Liv recalled that he’d said? She felt like she could recite his rant verbatim.
I was in the woods. I couldn’t even tell you where. There was a place, like a clearing. And tubes—two giant tubes. I think these tubes suctioned me up. That part is confusing. It felt like I was going downward, into the earth, because it was cold. But I know I was going up. It was so dark up there. Their eyes aren’t like ours. They only need a little illumination to see. And it was cramped. I didn’t expect that. Something comes from that far away, you’d think their ship would be gigantic, but it was small. It makes sense if you think about it. Think about our space capsules and space shuttles. All those little astronaut tunnels. No wasted space. That’s what it was like. Like they couldn’t fit past each other fast enough to get to me. But they did.
Who? Aggie had asked, and Lee’s answer was all that Liv gave to Bruno:
“Aliens.”
Bruno nodded in sage confirmation. “The skinnies.”
Liv looked away from the sawdust the knife had dug from the table to give Bruno a reappraisal. He sounded genuine enough. But Lee Fleming had sounded genuine, too.
“Skinners,” Liv corrected. “That’s what he called them. He said they had blue, wrinkled skin they’d shed every day. There were a few specific skinners he was obsessed with.”
She set down the knife.
“Don’t you want to know who they were?”
Bruno registered her darkened tone.
“Yeah.” He sounded hesitant. “I guess?”
Liv sniffed and realized her nose was runny, which meant she was close to crying for the second time in two days. What was wrong with her? She crashed onward, trying to outpace the sob. “Because to me, it’s the worst part. I mean, anyone can get sick and see little green men. They’re in all the UFO movies. But the skinners he dreamed up? He was really sick, you know? Really, really, really sick.”
“Hey, let’s stop,” Bruno said.
But her voice was growing louder. “There was the Whistler. When the skinners were doing experiments on him, Dad said the Whistler stood out of view, whistling. That was weird because, guess what? Skinners don’t have mouths.”
“C’mon.” He was looking around in concern. “Stop.”
Louder now, losing control. “Then there was the Floating Pumpkin. This big, orange orb that floated over his body during experiments. He thought it emitted anesthetic rays. Oh, and the Green Man. The Green Man was the scariest one of all. Dad thought maybe the Green Man was what a skinner looked like after it shed its final skin. The Green Man was ten feet tall and just stood there, reaching for him with big green fingers.”
“Enough, all right? I’m sorry I made you talk about it.”
“But we haven’t even gotten to your question. We haven’t even gotten to the play.”
“That’s okay. I get it. He jammed all this stuff into Oliver! and it was weird. Right? Look, that fried cheese isn’t going to eat itself.”
“But you think that’s the point of the story. How weird it all was. You probably heard all sorts of stuff about the play. The orphans wearing big, blue smocks—skinners, check. An orange disco ball—Floating Pumpkin, check. A huge green stripe down the stage—the Green Man, check. What else? Oh, how by the end of act one, all the actors were holding each other and crying. Does that about cover it?”
Bruno’s regret had given way to a less charitable look. She was on the offense now, for no good reason, and they both knew it. Liv swiped the napkin from her tray.
“Is any of that true?” Bruno asked.
Liv blew her nose. “Some of it.”
“Well, I’m sorry.”
“The point,” Liv snapped, staring through swollen eyes, “is that it wasn’t a play. It was a crack in my dad’s head, and we were all staring inside it instead of helping him. Everyone knew Dad wasn’t okay, but we all let the play happen anyway. Because they already sold tickets? Because me and Mom hoped it would set everything straight? We were so stupid.”
“You didn’t know what to do. It was a new situation.”
“Gamble did. He stopped the play.”
“Principal Gamble?”
If there was a bearable part of the story, this was it. Liv embraced it, because it signaled the end.
“He went up onstage and made the orchestra stop, and when my dad came out all mad, Gamble just … he put a hand on Dad’s shoulder, and he said, ‘Lee.’ And I know it sounds stupid, but it was like he was saying goodbye. Goodbye from everyone. And Dad knew it. He walked off the stage real slow. Someone lowered the curtain. It took a hundred years. I remember thinking that curtain would never make it, and I’d have to stare forever right into my dad’s broken brain.”
Liv threw her wadded napkin into her salad and pressed her palms into her eyes. She had a sense that Bruno’s hands were near, one at her elbow, one at her back, but he probably hesitated, uncertain if he knew her well enough to touch her. He did not, Liv told herself, and she stood up, her thighs walloping the table hard enough to rattle cutlery. Talking had been a mistake. Maybe secrets didn’t go away with words after all; maybe words were the invocation to bring them back from the dead. Baldwin’s Oliver! would perform this rite on a scale Liv didn’t want to imagine.
She glared down at him. “So now what? You’re still going to try out for the play, aren’t you?”
Bruno blinked up at her, his brown eyes wide and injured, because he was, of course he was. To make a stand against a frivolous school musical would not affect a thing. Right then, when Liv should have been her most upset, her brain betrayed her: She did wish, quite suddenly, that those lovely hands of Bruno’s had settled on her elbow and back while she was still within reach, no matter what Monica might mutter to the gang when she saw it.
8.
She was pushing herself too hard. The slopes of Custer Road were deceptive in grade. Out here, along their lonely ribbon of gravel road, the concept of neighbors was relative, but she was heading up the rise toward the former house of Major Dawkins, coiner of Be the tallest you can. The Dawkinses had been important friends of the family; Major Dawkins was an ex-military bigwig of gold-leaf distinction who’d thought the world of Lee Fleming. But after Lee vanished, the Major and Mrs. Dawkins moved away, as if there was nothing left in the sticks worth seeing.
Liv’s heart was throbbing, and each exhale felt wet, like the kicked-up gravel shards had perforated her lungs. She kept going, though, up the winding driveway, past the rust-gobbled NO TRESPASSING: YOU ARE NOW IN RANGE sign, and through a lawn grown out to a primeval state Major Dawkins would have abhorred. She slapped the garage door—her midway point—and started back down the hill. It was Friday; she’d made this run every day after school since Tuesday and had become wary of loose rock.
What a week. Liv gave begrudging credit to Baldwin for behaving like Liv hadn’t told her off in front of the whole class, but Principal Gamble hadn’t been so forgiving. Her mood, of course, hadn’t helped. When Liv got to his office after the last class on Tuesday, her cafeteria conversation with Bruno had her nerves crackling again.