Durinda's Dangers Read online

  "And why is, er, Carl heartbroken?" Durinda asked in a soothing tone.

  "Because Carl is in love with Betty... and Betty never even seems to notice Carl!"

  Betty, like Carl, was one of our mother's inventions. She was a black and gold robot who was supposed to make our life easier by cleaning, but Betty seemed to have gotten her job description all wrong.

  As though to illustrate this, Betty came rolling through the room, used her pincer hands to throw a bag of dust rags in the air like so much confetti, and then rolled back out again.

  And as though to prove Carl's point, she completely disregarded Carl when he shouted after her, "Bet-ty!" like some T-shirt-wearing maniac in the rain outside a building in the South or something.

  "There, there, Carl," Durinda soothed, looking for the proper place to pat Carl. "It'll be all right."

  "No, it won't!" Carl said. "Valentine's Day is coming! I don't even want to live, and I don't see how I can properly concentrate on keeping food cold if I can't have Betty!"

  Apparently, the prospect of Valentine's Day had the whole world going bonkers.

  "There, there," Durinda said again. "It'll all work out."

  "But how?" Georgia demanded.

  "We'll all starve!" Petal said. "First we became orphans, and now we're going to be starving orphans!"

  "I'll bet Carl could win Betty's heart," Zinnia said, "if he bought her a really great present."

  "I wonder if a new refrigerator is in our budget?" Annie wondered. "Perhaps I should just go look at the checkbook—"

  "Don't. You. Dare." It was amazing to hear Durinda speak so harshly to Annie, but we supposed that having the talking refrigerator melt from love before your very eyes when your domain is the kitchen could be disturbing. "It'll all work out. No one will starve. Now, everyone except Jackie, shoo. I've got to figure out what to make for dinner, since we've wasted so much of the afternoon on love that snack time is long gone."

  ***

  While Durinda and Jackie set about finding something to make for dinner that did not require foods that had been properly refrigerated, the rest of us set to work making valentines for Will. Durinda and Jackie would get their crack at the art supplies after they served us dinner.

  We gathered together all the craft supplies we could find: construction paper, scissors, markers, glitter, feathers, sequins, paste. Of those items, Georgia loved the paste best; Rebecca loved the scissors—which she liked to run with—while Petal and Zinnia fought continually over the glitter, feathers, and sequins. Marcia was happy as long as she had a little bit of everything, and Annie was happy if we didn't kill one another and left her in peace.

  You might think it strange that we could devote so much time to worrying about valentine competitions and the love life of a talking refrigerator when our parents were missing. Or dead. But you must realize: (1) our parents had been missing for more than a month; (2) we had no idea where to look for them; (3) it took much of our energy each day merely to survive—get the grocery shopping done, keep ourselves and our eight cats fed and cleaned, learn how to drive cars and pay bills, all while keeping the outside adult world from realizing that there were eight kids home alone; and so (4) it was impossible to remain sad and worried every second of the day.

  So we cut, colored, glittered, and pasted little bits of feathers and sequins all over one another until it was time for Durinda to call us in to dinner.

  After all our handy-dandy artwork, we were positively famished. Before dinner, we collected Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally from the drawing room and set them up in the dining area. Daddy Sparky was a suit of armor. Mommy Sally was a dressmaker's dummy. Not long after Mommy and Daddy disappeared, or died, we dressed Sparky and Sally as our parents so that if nosy neighbors like the Wicket peeked in, they would think our parents were home. At mealtimes now, we liked to keep them in the room with us. It felt like having real parents, except they couldn't talk, which was sometimes a good feature for a parent to have.

  As we settled at our places around the dining room table, after following Annie's instructions to wash our hands first, we were anticipating a satisfying meal. Perhaps it would be spaghetti and meatballs? Or maybe something truly spectacular, like that Thanksgiving-style dinner Durinda and Jackie threw together once for a celebration? It was all we could do to keep from rubbing our hands together in glee and salivating like dogs as Jackie held open the swinging doors for Durinda and Durinda entered with a silver platter piled high with...

  "Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches?" Georgia fish-wifed as Durinda set the platter down in the middle of the table. "You expect us to eat that? For dinner?"

  "I think I'm feeling a nut allergy coming on," Petal said worriedly.

  "You don't have nut allergies," Annie pointed out.

  "This is wretched," Rebecca said, picking up one of the sandwiches and then throwing it down again in disgust. "What were you two doing in the kitchen all this time? It doesn't take that long to make wretched sandwiches."

  Jackie blushed. "We were working on sketching out plans for our own Valentine's Day cards for Will. We didn't want to fall behind."

  "Do you have any idea," Durinda said, "how hard it is to keep this family fed every day? How much energy it takes? And do you have any idea how hard it is to find something to prepare that is safe and nutritious but doesn't require refrigeration? You're all just lucky I don't quit."

  Durinda was so angry, she was tapping her hand against her leg.

  "We'll all really starve!" Petal said, not noticing how angry Durinda was getting. "It will be awful! They will find our skinny bodies in the gutter!"

  Later, we would think we all should have paid more attention to how angry Durinda was.

  "The kid may be whiny," Georgia said of Petal, "but she does make a good point. Well starve if we have to eat PBJs at every meal."

  "We do get hot lunches at school," Annie pointed out.

  "Doesn't matter," Georgia said. "It'll still be PBJs twice a day on weekdays and every meal on weekends."

  "I'll go on a hunger strike," Rebecca threatened. "We all will. It's inhuman to give us—"

  And that's when it happened.

  Durinda, in her anger, patted her right hand against her leg three times, then pointed sharply at Georgia as though her finger were a gun. "You. Shut. Up."

  Who knew Durinda had so much anger in her?

  Perhaps it was because she had to cook for us all the time.

  Then Durinda turned slightly and did the same to Rebecca. Three leg pats, sharp point: "You. Shut. Up."

  And Georgia and Rebecca froze right where they sat in their chairs, both with their mouths open as though they had been about to say something, probably something awful, and now couldn't.

  They couldn't because they were frozen solid.

  Like statues.

  CHAPTER THREE

  "Cut it out!" Durinda yelled at Georgia and Rebecca.

  But they didn't cut it out.

  Jackie crossed to where Georgia and Rebecca sat. Then she waved her hand in front of first Georgia's and then Rebecca's eyes.

  Georgia and Rebecca remained frozen in position, their eyes glazed over as if seeing nothing.

  Jackie leaned in, her lips close to Georgia's ear. "Boo!" she shouted as loud as she could.

  Georgia didn't flinch.

  Jackie turned to Rebecca, placed her lips close to Rebecca's ear, and said in a sweet voice, "We have a whole can of pink frosting just for you and you can eat it now before dinner."

  Rebecca didn't salivate.

  "Huh," Marcia observed, "they really are frozen like that. I wonder how long they'll remain this way?"

  Petal looked at Durinda, real fear in her eyes. "What are you, some kind of witch? What have you done to Georgia and Rebecca?"

  Without thinking, Durinda tapped her right hand three times fast against her leg and pointed sharply at Petal.

  Petal froze where she sat, the look of horror unchanged on her face.

&nb
sp; "Oh, my," Zinnia said in an awestruck voice. "I think you just found your power, and it's a doozy."

  "I would have thought," Marcia said thoughtfully, "that you were using magic words, and those words were, 'You. Shut. Up.' But you didn't say any words to Petal at all just now and yet you froze her where she sat. I think it must be those three taps you give your leg combined with that sharp point of your finger."

  "I wonder which power is better," Jackie wondered, "Annie's ability to be as smart as an adult or Durinda's to freeze people whenever she wants to."

  "Oh, I'd say Durinda's," Zinnia said, a wistful expression on her face now. "I'd love to have a power like that."

  Annie looked offended at this.

  "But I didn't want to freeze anybody," Durinda objected. Now it was her turn to look horrified at what she'd done. "I just got angry and then it happened. I don't want this power! It's too much! It's too much... power!"

  "Why don't we go check the loose stone in the drawing room?" Annie suggested reasonably.

  It was a great idea, but we also suspected that Annie was trying to regain the center of power. After all she'd done for us, it probably didn't make her feel too good to think that we preferred Durinda's power to hers. And in truth, looking at the frozen bodies of Georgia, Rebecca, and Petal, we believed that Georgia, Rebecca, and Petal did not find Durinda's power as wonderful as we did.

  We headed off to the loose stone in the drawing room. It was behind the loose stone that we'd found the first note, on New Year's Eve, announcing our parents' disappearance. And additional notes had appeared there after Annie had discovered her own power and gift.

  Sure enough, behind the loose stone there was a new note.

  Dear Durinda,

  Nice work. Three down, thirteen to go.

  As always, the note was unsigned.

  "Whoever is leaving these notes," Marcia commented, "at least he or she has solid math skills."

  "Well, that was easy," Jackie said.

  "How do you mean?" Annie asked.

  "It just seems to me," Jackie answered, "that it took you a long time to discover your power. But Durinda found hers right away."

  "Does anyone else sense a pattern here?" Marcia asked.

  "How do you mean?" Annie asked again.

  "Well," Marcia answered, "first you found your power and gift, now Durinda has her power. There seems to be a clear pattern of discovery running from oldest to youngest."

  Zinnia sighed a heavy sigh and collapsed into an overstuffed chair in front of the fireplace, her cheek sagging against her open palm. "That must mean I will discover my power last." A heavier sigh. "That's me all over: always the last at everything."

  "But I don't want this power!" Durinda said. These were the first words she'd spoken since we'd entered the drawing room and found the new note. "It's too much! What if Georgia, Rebecca, and Petal remain frozen forever?"

  Annie shrugged. "Would that really be so awful?" She thought about this. "Well, I suppose it would be sad if Petal never came back, but it is nice getting a break from all of her worrying."

  "But I don't want them to be frozen forever!" Durinda objected. "Not any of them! It's fine to have Daddy Sparky and Mommy Sally be that way. One's a suit of armor and the other's a dressmaker's dummy. But not my own sisters!"

  "Why don't we go back and check on them?" Annie suggested in a soothing voice.

  So that's what we did.

  Back in the dining room, Georgia, Rebecca, and Petal were right where we left them.

  But then a minute later, just as it looked like Durinda was going to go all hysterical panicky again, Rebecca's eyelids fluttered, and she said, "PBJs for dinner after we've been slaving all day." It was as though Durinda hadn't frozen her after "It's inhuman to give us—"

  It was obvious that wherever Rebecca had gone when she was frozen, she had no memory of it, if she'd even been anywhere at all other than empty space.

  A moment later, Petal was back. Five minutes later, Georgia was with us too. None of us could figure out why it took Georgia the longest to come back, since she'd been frozen only a few seconds after Rebecca, but we accepted that there were some things in life for which there was no explanation. There were already so many things in our lives lacking explanations. What was one more?

  It took us the longest time to persuade Georgia, Rebecca, and Petal that they'd been frozen, and then to convince Petal that Durinda wasn't a witch. In fact, we had to have Durinda freeze Marcia, which took much persuading—not of Marcia, who was happy to be the guinea pig, but to get Durinda to use her awesome power again—just to demonstrate.

  Once Marcia was frozen, a thought occurred to Jackie. "How long did the others remain frozen before?"

  It was a good question, to which none of us knew the answer.

  Had it been ten minutes? Twenty? An hour? The first seemed too short, the last too long. But who knew what was going on with simple things that a person could usually depend on, like time, in our house?

  "Get the stopwatch," Annie directed Zinnia.

  Zinnia was the one of us Annie least liked to order around, but we suspected she did this now to make Zinnia feel better, like she had something important to do. It was obvious Zinnia still felt bad about learning that she would in all probability be the last one among us to receive her power and her gift.

  "What's the stopwatch for?" Jackie asked when Zinnia returned with it.

  "We're going to do time trials," Annie announced. "Durinda will freeze one of us and we'll use the timer to see how long it takes that person to become unfrozen again."

  "But I'm not sure I want to—" Durinda began to object.

  "Just do it!" Annie shouted at her.

  Whatever else was going to happen tonight, one thing was certain: Annie would retain her position as acting head of the household in our parents' absence. Or death.

  But once Durinda had agreed to the inevitable, she had no idea who she should freeze.

  "I just don't know!" she said anxiously.

  "Do me!" said Jackie.

  "Do me!" said Zinnia.

  "Do me again!" said Georgia.

  "Do me again!" said Rebecca.

  "Do me again!" said Petal.

  Marcia probably would have said "Do me again!" too, but she was still frozen.

  "I'd love to be frozen," Annie said, wearing a wistful expression on her face, perhaps at the thought of childhood lost, "but I have to run the stopwatch."

  So that's what we did that night for the longest time: time trials, to see how long a person would remain frozen at Durinda's bidding.

  As it turned out, how long a person remained frozen varied from person to person.

  Georgia really was the longest. This time when Durinda froze her, she remained that way for nearly a whole hour. Petal was the shortest: just a scant seven minutes. We had no idea why Georgia was the most susceptible; she just was.

  We even had Durinda freeze Annie after Annie had timed everyone else, and she lasted just a minute longer than Petal.

  But there was a problem.

  One of us wouldn't freeze.

  "Why can't I freeze like everyone else?" Zinnia said, breaking into sobs. "This is just awful! First I learn I'll have to wait until after everyone else has gone to receive my power and my gift, and now I can't even be frozen like everyone else!"

  "There, there," Annie said, putting her arm around Zinnia's trembling shoulders. "I'm not sure whether Marcia's right and you really will have to wait for everyone else before you receive your power and gift. But I do know one thing."

  "What's that?" Zinnia asked.

  "Not being able to be frozen?" Annie shrugged. "It means you're special. In a way, when you think about it, it's like you have a power all your own already: the power not to be frozen."

  Zinnia's smile glittered through her tears.

  "Why, look at Georgia," Annie went on. "The girl freezes at the drop of a hat. Now tell me, what's so special about that?"

  Zinnia's smile
glittered even brighter.

  "That's right," Annie answered her own question. "There's nothing special about it at all."

  We did all laugh at that. Lucky for us, Georgia was frozen yet again, staring into space like a zombie. If she hadn't been, there would no doubt have been the devil to pay.

  Timidly, Zinnia approached Durinda. "That really is an awesome power you have there. I hope you use it wisely."

  "Oh, it's just handy-dandy," Durinda scoffed. Durinda was still unsure of how she felt about all this.

  "Oh, but it is," Zinnia said. "Why, between you and Annie, the two of you could probably take over the world."

  "You know," Annie said to Durinda, "Zinnia is right. Your power will come in handy, once we figure out what best to use it for. In the meantime, it's kind of nice for me. I was getting lonely being the only one who had her power so far."

  When everyone was unfrozen, we sat back down at the table.

  And that night, after all that had happened, no one objected to eating the wretched PBJs for dinner.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The next morning, we had boxed cereal for breakfast. It wasn't that we liked cold cereal, but when Durinda went to get the frozen pancakes out, she found a huge puddle in front of the freezer. Carl the talking refrigerator was still depressed that Betty the robot wouldn't return his affections.

  "This really has to stop," Rebecca said, munching her dry cereal. All the milk had spoiled so there was no milk to put over it, and Marcia's suggestion to use water instead had gone over like a lead balloon. "I'm a growing girl. I need proper hot meals."

  "What do you have to complain about?" Durinda said, mop and bucket in hand. "I'm the one who has to clean up after Carl."

  It was true. We'd tried to get Betty to do the cleanup, since it was her job, but she just went off to watch her morning cartoons.

  "I think it's sad," Zinnia said. "Carl loves Betty so much. Why can't she just notice him a bit?"

  "It's just like Romeo and Juliet." Petal heaved a romantic sigh. "Only Juliet is a robot who prefers watching Dora the Explorer to dying for love."