“And can we also agree that these . . . structures are probably totally definitely replicas of an Arctic island?”
Stan pauses, looks to Dave and then to me. “I believe I think we can,” he says.
“Okay,” I say. “Well, I’m really curious about what any of this means. And I want to try to figure this out.”
“Me too,” says Stan. But then Dave says it too, just a nanosecond after Stan started speaking, so they’re almost exactly in unison, like two cheesy actors in a bad sitcom. Mimi loses it immediately, falling to the floor laughing again, and I only hold a straight face for about ten seconds, and then everyone’s laughing, and it’s almost enough to make me ignore the strange shuddering feeling seeping into my bones.
NINE
STAN AND I sit at the dining table trying to figure out what to do, while Dave walks around picking up cups and putting them into a giant trash bag he’s hung from his neck.
“Reporting this is out.”
“Turning them in is out.”
“Cutting open their brains in the name of science?”
“ . . .”
“Cutting open their brains in the name of science is definitely out.”
Dave takes a break from cleaning to see how we’re doing. I give him a kiss and squeeze his hand, but my heart is only barely in those gestures.
“Maybe it doesn’t mean anything,” Stan says.
“Maybe,” I say, though when I turn to look at Callie and see her worrying—practically praying—over her island on the kitchen floor, I remain completely unconvinced of Stan’s theory.
“Maybe,” Stan says, “when you’re an Iceling, this kind of behavior is totally normal. Maybe building sculptures of islands is the Iceling equivalent of playing hearts or watching YouTube videos.”
“What if it’s not, though?” I say.
Stan looks stumped, and I let out a big sigh. Suddenly, Callie raises her hand like she has a question.
“Callie?” I say uselessly. “You okay?” But she just continues to raise her hand as she stares at mine.
“I think she wants you to raise your hand,” says Stan, one eye open, resting them in shifts.
I raise my hand, and Callie’s eyes sort of light up a bit, and then she stands up and comes toward me and grabs it, takes hold of it. She leads me over to her sculpture and places my hand on the trembling field.
My hand is there, over the trembling, dancing field. My hand is trembling too, and now Callie’s hand is holding mine, and hers is trembling too. And right now it feels like the whole world is trembling.
I look up to see that Ted has, meanwhile, done the same thing with Stan: raised his hand, then took Stan’s and led him over to us. Stan and I crouch across from one another, our siblings pressing our hands down against these buzzing fields, as if asking us to read them like braille.
Suddenly and simultaneously, they pull our hands back from the fields, then bring them back down again. They keep doing this, holding our hands down to the fields, pulling them back, bringing them down again, over and over, as if they’re trying to make us point at the sculptures and then at them. It’s three or four in the morning at this point, and I know something is happening, but per usual with my kid sister, I have no idea what, and I don’t think I’ve ever been more frustrated about the language barrier. Their eyes are getting worried, and Stan and I are getting worried too, and the more worried we get and the longer the night draws out, the less sure we are about what we’re supposed to do.
And then they’re gone.
They run out of the house, leaving the front door gaping open, and we follow. We run to the edge of the driveway and look up and down the street, but we don’t see them. I spin around in a panic, and there they are, sitting in the backseat of Stan’s car.
“Road trip?” says Stan.
“So it seems,” I say.
CALLIE AND TED are still in the car, and I’m in the kitchen, putting on a pot of coffee and telling Dave that Stan and I have to take the Icelings somewhere. I tell him I’m sorry and that I don’t know what else to do, but that I have no reason to think we’ll be gone for a very long time.
“I get it,” Dave says. “But don’t you think you at least need to tell your parents? They’ll be worried. Or, like, leave a note? You know, Dear Mom and Dad, Callie made a weird sculpture, so we drove to the Arctic. Back in a few days! Or something like that.”
“No way,” says Stan.
I glare at Stan, because he’s snapping at Dave, and Dave is only trying to help.
“We can’t tell them, really,” I say sweetly. “All they’d do is freak out and call the hospital and then come home and then their trip would be ruined, and Callie and Ted’s trip would be ruined too. And if the hospital finds out . . . I don’t know what they’ll do. They might take her away, I don’t know. I know you know I need to do this. She’s my sister, Dave. She’s my family. And she needs me. I need to figure this out. For Callie, but also for myself.”
“Well,” Dave says, grinning a little bit, “who am I to get in the way of you finally figuring out what’ll make your sister happy?”