of notepaper on which she had curlicued all those stupid boy names and turned it over. Quickly, before she forgot, she scrawled down everything she had seen on that sign: ORGANIC INDUSTRIES and ETHANOL PLANT #4 and FREEMAN, IOWA and CLOSED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE.
Okay, now she knew where they had killed him, and where—she was sure—they had buried him, baseball glove and all. What next? If she called the number for Missing and Exploited Children, they would hear a little kid’s voice and pay no attention . . . except maybe to give her telephone number to the police, who would probably have her arrested for trying to prank on people who were already sad and unhappy. She thought of her mother next, but with Momo sick and getting ready to die, it was out of the question. Mom had enough to worry about without this.
Abra got up, went to the window, and stared out at her street, at the Lickety-Split convenience store on the corner (which the older kids called the Lickety-Spliff, because of all the dope that got smoked behind it, where the Dumpsters were), and the White Mountains poking up at a clear blue late summer sky. She had begun to rub her mouth, an anxiety tic her parents were trying to break her of, but they weren’t here, so boo on that. Boo all over that.
Dad’s right downstairs.
She didn’t want to tell him, either. Not because he had to finish his book, but because he wouldn’t want to get involved in something like this even if he believed her. Abra didn’t have to read his mind to know that.
So who?
Before she could think of the logical answer, the world beyond her window began to turn, as if it were mounted on a gigantic disc. A low cry escaped her and she clutched at the sides of the window, bunching the curtains in her fists. This had happened before, always without warning, and she was terrified each time it did, because it was like having a seizure. She was no longer in her own body, she was far-being instead of far-seeing, and what if she couldn’t get back?
The turntable slowed, then stopped. Now instead of being in her bedroom, she was in a supermarket. She knew because ahead of her was the meat counter. Over it (this sign easy to read, thanks to bright fluorescents) was a promise: AT SAM’S, EVERY CUT IS A BLUE RIBBON COWBOY CUT! For a moment or two the meat counter drew closer because the turntable had slid her into someone who was walking. Walking and shopping. Barry the Chunk? No, not him, although Barry was near; Barry was how she had gotten here. Only she had been drawn away from him by someone much more powerful. Abra could see a cart loaded with groceries at the bottom of her vision. Then the forward movement stopped and there was this sensation, this
(rummaging prying)
crazy feeling of someone INSIDE HER, and Abra suddenly understood that for once she wasn’t alone on the turntable. She was looking toward a meat counter at the end of a supermarket aisle, and the other person was looking out her window at Richland Court and the White Mountains beyond.
Panic exploded inside her; it was as if gasoline had been poured on a fire. Not a sound escaped her lips, which were pressed together so tightly that her mouth was only a stitch, but inside her head she produced a scream louder than anything of which she would ever have believed herself capable:
(NO! GET OUT OF MY HEAD!)
8
When David felt the house rumble and saw the overhead light fixture in his study swaying on its chain, his first thought was
(Abra)
that his daughter had had one of her psychic outbursts, though there hadn’t been any of that telekinetic crap in years, and never anything like this. As things settled back to normal, his second—and, to his mind, far more reasonable—thought was that he had just experienced his first New Hampshire earthquake. He knew they happened from time to time, but . . . wow!
He got up from his desk (not neglecting to hit SAVE before he did), and ran into the hall. From the foot of the stairs he called, “Abra! Did you feel that?”
She came out of her room, looking pale and a little scared. “Yeah, sorta. I . . . I think I . . .”
“It was an earthquake!” David told her, beaming. “Your first earthquake! Isn’t that neat?”