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  Saving Sky

  Diane Stanley

  for Rosemary Brosnan

  “This conflict, which threatens us today, is unlike anything America has ever faced before. It is a Shadow War, against an unseen army. These killers do not attack us openly, dressed in the uniform of an enemy nation. They hide among us, posing as friends, and coworkers, and neighbors—while secretly they plot to destroy us. And so we must be watchful, we must be vigilant, and we must have courage.

  “America did not ask for this war. It was forced most cruelly upon us. But of one thing you may be sure: we are going to win it.”

  —President Root Bainbridge

  State of the Union Message

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Part One: In the Beginning

  1. Not Normal

  Part Two: Seven Years Later

  2. Red-Alert Day

  3. Professor Frybrain and His Stink-away Juice

  4. The Universe Is One Great Spirit

  5. Voices in the Darkness

  6. Goat-Man

  7. He’s Only a Boy

  8. Penance

  9. Saving Kareem

  10. A Really Bad Feeling

  11. The Mystery Woman and the Men in Suits

  12. Something Weird Going On

  13. A Hiding Place

  14. I Saw You Ha Ha

  15. Do We Have a Deal?

  16. Suspicious Origins or Associations

  17. Moon-Glow

  18. Real but Not Real

  19. The Big Finish

  20. A Perfect Day

  21. The Sled

  22. A Few More Questions

  23. Hunted

  24. Farolitos

  25. A Light in the Darkness

  26. The Secret

  27. A Quick Little Sunset Ride

  28. Pretend You’re a Shepherd

  29. Saving Sky

  Part Three: Four Months Later

  30. The Winners

  31. Her Best Blessing Yet

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Books by Diane Stanley

  Credits

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  PART ONE

  In the Beginning

  1

  Not Normal

  UNTIL SHE WAS FIVE, SKY believed her life was perfectly normal.

  Her world consisted of her family, their horses, their dog, and sixty acres of beautiful New Mexico ranch land. She knew there was a city, not too far away, called Santa Fe. That meant “Holy Faith” in Spanish. It was where her mother worked. But Sky had never been there. She’d never driven on a highway either, or gone shopping, or eaten in a restaurant. She hadn’t been to a movie, or watched television. She didn’t have a clue what a computer was. And if you didn’t count her baby sister, Mouse, Sky had never even met another child.

  Her parents cut her off from the news of the world because the news of the world was so disturbing. There were things you just didn’t tell a child of two, or three, or four.

  So Sky didn’t know that her country was at war, or what a terrorist was. To her, 9/11 meant nothing but numbers. And since she’d never heard of the White House, or the president who’d been in it that terrible day, she didn’t miss either one of them. She was a little fuzzy on the very notion that human beings could die.

  All of that changed one day in late August.

  She’d be starting kindergarten soon. Her parents had always known they couldn’t protect her forever; she’d hear things from the other kids at school, things that would upset and confuse her. The time had come to tell her.

  It was a beautiful afternoon. The family sat out on the portal, as they had so many times before. Muddy, their chocolate Lab, dozed in the shade. Ana rocked in the old porch swing while Mouse, cradled against her shoulder, watched the world move back and forth through wide, unfocused baby-eyes. Luke leaned forward, elbows resting on knees, hands clasped, trying to find the words.

  The afternoon clouds were starting to build, as they always did that time of year. A cool wind was rising. By the time they had finished their talk, the rain was coming down hard.

  That night they held their first blessing.

  PART TWO

  Seven Years Later

  2

  Red-Alert Day

  SKY SLEPT LATE THAT MORNING. Muddy finally woke her, barking out in the yard. She lay there under the covers for a while, trying to clear her head. She felt sure it was a school day, but the sun was already up.

  And then she remembered. Of course. It was a red-alert day.

  She sat up in bed, wrapping the quilt around her, and closed her eyes. She took slow, deep breaths and imagined herself standing in a meadow full of flowers—wild purple irises, and yellow snapdragons, and tiny white daisies, and here and there an Indian paintbrush for a welcome splash of red. On all sides the meadow was sheltered by tall ponderosa pines, and beyond them the dark shape of tree-clad mountains. The sky was the deepest, truest blue, and the sun overhead was dazzling. It warmed her face, and her arms, and her chest—all the way down to her innards.

  Having captured the vision, Sky began to reflect all that light and warmth back out into the world: loving thoughts, generosity, patience, affection, sympathy, tolerance, humor. Every good thing she could summon from her spirit she offered up as her morning gift.

  Then, since it was a red-alert day, she did an extra blessing. Concentrating hard once more, she called the terrorists up in her mind. She always pictured them as young—olive-skinned, teenage boys with curly, dark hair and large, brown eyes. They’d be handsome if they didn’t look so angry.

  We’re not your enemies, she told them. We can all live together in peace. Please don’t take any lives today! She whispered this over and over again—softly, patiently, like a mantra. When her imaginary terrorists turned to look at her and smiled, she knew her job was done.

  “Amen,” she whispered, then slipped into her bathrobe, grabbed her clothes from the chair by the bed, and thumped her sister gently on the head as she passed.

  “Upsey-doodle,” she said, then made a dash to be first in the bathroom.

  “Grrrrr!” Mouse called after her.

  Sky stepped into the shower and turned on the water.

  As she did every morning, she thanked the summer rain and the winter snow that had soaked deep into the ground so it could be pumped out again for their use. And she thanked the wind for powering the water pump, and the sun for providing the energy to heat the water. She remembered to thank her father for putting those solar panels on the roof, and building the passive solar hot-box around the water tank, and doing all that plumbing and tile work on their spiffy new bathroom. She even thanked herself and Mouse for the pretty mosaic—fish, and crabs, and seaweed—they had made out of pebbles on the floor of the shower stall.

  Thank you all, even myself, for making this perfect moment possible, this greatest of all human pleasures: the hot shower.

  Having finished her final blessing for the morning, and being well aware that she lived in the desert where water was a precious commodity, Sky turned off the faucet, toweled herself dry, and got dressed.

  Mouse was waiting outside the bathroom door, wrapped in her quilt and attempting to look fierce. In this she was not successful. That little head, with its halo of messy curls, peeking out from a mass of down comforter—entirely too cute.

  “Enjoy,” Sky said, grinning.

  Muddy, who’d been sleeping contentedly in his usual spot next to the cast-iron stove, hoisted himself up and brought her a pillow from the couch. She thanked him, ruffled his ears, and put the pillow back where it belonged.

  Then she went to join her father in the kitchen.

  “Hey,” she sai
d.

  “Hey yourself.”

  She stood beside him, leaning against the counter, watching bacon sizzle in the pan. That meant there would be corncakes, too, with fried apples on top. The latest version of their special breakfast.

  “Daddy,” she said dreamily, “remember when we used to have blueberry pancakes and maple syrup?”

  “Yes, I do, Sky. I was the one who made them.”

  “And orange juice?”

  “I remember that, too. Also coffee.”

  All those things were rationed now. Because of the war and the oil shortage.

  “Do you miss it? Coffee?”

  “I would if I let myself dwell on it.”

  “I always thought it smelled kind of nasty.”

  “Really? Well, there you go. Different strokes.”

  Sky pulled out a kitchen chair and straddled it backward, leaning her crossed arms over the backrest.

  “So,” she said, trying her best to sound casual, “have you heard anything yet?”

  He didn’t turn around. “No,” he said. “Don’t obsess on it, Sky.”

  “I’m not obsessing. I just asked.”

  “Aunt Pat will call us if anything happens. And if she does, I will tell you.”

  She knew he meant well. He was only trying to protect them. But he went so needlessly over the top, it drove her positively nuts.

  “Where’s Mom?” she asked after a while. “Is she gone already?” Ana was a nurse; and medical personnel, like all other first responders, had to work on red-alert days.

  “It’s almost nine,” he said. “She left two hours ago.”

  “Oh, shoot!” Sky jumped up from the chair and grabbed her fleece off the peg by the door. She’d completely forgotten about the horses.

  “Don’t worry,” Luke said. “I already fed ’em.”

  “You did? Sweet Daddy!” She went over and wrapped her arms around him. It felt good, so she stayed there for a while, leaning her head against his back while he went on frying bacon.

  “You and Mouse need to do a good cleanup in the barn this morning,” he said.

  “I know.”

  “Then we’ll shoe the horses in the afternoon.”

  “Okay.”

  Mouse shuffled into the kitchen, her curls wet and droopy, her eyes still sleepy.

  “Daddy fed the horses for us.”

  “Oh.” Mouse flashed an angelic smile. “Thanks!”

  “You’re welcome. I explained to Peanut and Blanca that you were a couple of lazy heads, and they said that was all right as long as it didn’t happen too often.”

  “They’re very understanding,” Sky said.

  “Prince didn’t much care. He was just hungry.”

  “Yeah. Figures.”

  Luke handed Mouse a bowl of sliced apples. “Spoon that into the skillet and stir it around. Careful, the handle’s hot. Don’t let the apples burn.”

  Mouse set the bowl on the counter, dragged the foot-stool over to the stove, and climbed up. Carefully, she scooped the fruit into the skillet. It sizzled in the bacon grease and gave off wonderful smells.

  “Has Aunt Pat called?”

  “No, Mouse.” There was an edge to Luke’s voice now. “But she will if anything happens. As you know.”

  “Yeah,” Mouse said. “I do. And my friends think it’s totally weird how we get all our news from—”

  “Fine!” Luke said. “Let ’em!”

  “I wish we had a TV,” she muttered, almost to herself.

  “You do? Why?”

  “’Cause then we’d know if there was an attack or not. We wouldn’t need Aunt Pat to call and tell us. Andrea’s mom leaves it on all day whenever there’s a red alert. They know right away if anything—”

  “Great! What a good idea! We wouldn’t want Andrea to miss any of that death and destruction. I mean, you can never get enough of that stuff, can you?”

  Mouse stared at him, open-mouthed.

  “You’ve seen a big-screen TV, right? Like the one in the library at school?”

  She nodded.

  “So you know how vivid and lifelike the images are. Is that what you want, baby? You want to watch people dying? Up close? In high definition?”

  Mouse made a little growling sound deep in her throat. She threw the spoon into the skillet, jumped off the stool, and ran into the bedroom, tears streaming down her face. Luke turned off the flame under the pan and followed her.

  Their voices drifted in from the other room—Mouse sobbing, Luke comforting. Sky waited. After a while they came back to the kitchen. Luke was holding Mouse’s hand. They both looked very solemn.

  “I’m sorry, Sky. I was way out of line. It’s just…”

  “I know, Dad.”

  He nodded.

  Mouse climbed back onto the stool and started stirring the apples again. Luke reached across and turned the fire back on.

  “I’m thinking good thoughts now,” Mouse announced, wiping the remnants of tears from her face with the back of her hand.

  “Good plan,” Luke said.

  “I think there won’t be an attack today. We didn’t have one last time. Maybe nothing will happen at all.”

  Luke stopped what he was doing and went over to Mouse. Laying a hand on each of her shoulders, he leaned down and kissed the top of her head.

  “From your lips to God’s ears,” he said.

  When the apples were ready, Luke fired up the iron skillet, melted some butter, and poured in three puddles of batter. He gave the pan a little shake, spreading the liquid out a little more to make the corncakes thinner. They’d never be as fine and delicate as the real pancakes he used to make, with those sweet, gooey berries all bursting inside and the clear amber syrup on top. But they’d still be good.

  Sky got three plates out of the cupboard and set them on the counter next to the stove. Then she laid out the forks, and the knives, and the napkins, and filled three tumblers with apple juice.

  “Daddy?” she said.

  “Yes, pumpkin.”

  “We are kind of weird, you know. The way we do things.”

  “I guess.”

  “But I like it.”

  “Good.”

  “Most of the time.”

  3

  Professor Frybrain and His Stink-away Juice

  SKY DETESTED GERALD.

  She’d known him since kindergarten. Back then they’d even played together, at least the first couple of weeks. Sky was a high-energy kid, and he was, too. They’d done a lot of chasing around the playground together.

  But after a while he’d started to make her uneasy. Anything he got his hands on—a building block, a carrot stick, a plastic cow—turned magically into a gun; and he would run around pointing it at the other kids, going “Ptchew-ptchew-ptchew, you’re dead!”

  Sky couldn’t fathom this, even after her mother had told her what a gun was and explained what dead meant. Why would anyone think it was fun to pretend something like that?

  Then came that beautiful, crisp November morning when the famous bridge was destroyed. Sky had been at school at the time; there were no red-alert days back then. The system of safe rooms wasn’t in place yet either, so parents were called to take their children home. By the time Ana had arrived, Sky was almost petrified with fear.

  They’d talked about it at home for quite a while, and held a really good blessing afterward for the people who’d died. It had helped, but Sky was still feeling anxious.

  The next day at school, Gerald had wanted to play terrorist. He’d made a bunch of kindergartners stand on a picnic bench, then proceeded to “blow it up” by making loud explosion noises, and waving his arms in the air, and pushing the kids off the “bridge.”

  Sky had become hysterical and ran to tell a teacher. Gerald was sent home for the rest of the day. After that she was permanently on his hit list.

  He hadn’t changed much since then. He was still a bully and a show-off. Teachers still didn’t like him. And he still got in trouble all
the time. But he was a lot bigger now, and meaner.

  Sky had long ago learned that the best thing to do was simply to keep her distance. Mostly that meant avoiding him in the lunchroom and the carpool line. But during class time, when the teachers were in charge, even Gerald had to act like a normal person.

  Except, that is, in science.

  Mr. Bunsen, you see, believed seventh-grade science should be fun. The more the kids laughed, the better he liked it. Naturally, Gerald and his merry band of misfits, Javier and Travis, were only too happy to oblige.

  In Sky’s opinion, Mr. Bunsen wasn’t nearly as funny as he thought he was. She was hoping that since this was the day following a red alert, he’d turn the humor down a notch—even though there hadn’t actually been an attack.

  But no. There he was, all smiles, gesturing toward the chalkboard. “Meet Professor Frybrain,” he said.

  He had drawn a picture of the professor on the board with huge round glasses, enormous clown feet, and hair that stuck out all over his head.

  The class giggled.

  “The professor has ten students in his class. Yes, Gerald?”

  “What does Professor Frybread teach?”

  “Frybrain, Gerald, not Frybread. And he teaches…advanced pineapple slicing.”

  That got Bunsen another laugh, and he grinned.

  “But that’s neither here nor there. What we’re really interested in today is Professor Frybrain’s problem. Can anybody guess what it is? No, probably not. Well, it’s body odor! Not his, let me quickly add. No, no—it’s his students who are stinky. You see, they all ride their bikes to school so as not to use any fossil fuels; and by the time they get to class, they’re all sweaty and smelly.”