“Yeah,” Coco chimed in. “Thanks for saving us.”
Ollie hadn’t thought of it like that before. “You’re welcome,” she said awkwardly. “Um—I didn’t know. Not exactly. But—hang on, I have to pee.” She went behind a tree, like on a camping trip. When she came back, Coco was looking like she wanted to do the same but was really embarrassed. “Go on,” said Ollie, amused. “It’s better than a gas station bathroom.”
Coco went and came back fast. “No, it’s not,” she said, sneezing. “It’s cold and wet.”
Ollie grinned and plunged into the story of stealingSmall Spaces, of Beth, Caleb, Jonathan, and the smiling man, of the strange similarities between Misty Valley and Smoke Hollow. Of the bus driver’s warning. She pulled the book out, let them read the epigraph.
“So let me get this straight,” said Brian, when she’d finished. “Jonathan made a deal with this guy—the smiling man. Who brought his brother back to life. Then Jonathan disappeared. And then his brother disappeared. Andthenthe schoolhouse-fire kids disappeared. Assuming they weren’t burned to death. So—what, have we disappeared now?”
“Maybe,” said Ollie. Put so clearly, she wasn’t sure. “I mean—the book was right about the mist rising and stuff. And about avoiding large places at night. If we hadn’t found that cave, we’d have been grabbed too.”
“Is this all because of the smiling man, then?” whispered Coco. “Who is he? Do you think—do you think he’s around?”
A hundred years later?“I don’t know,” said Ollie slowly, wishing she could say,Of course not.“Maybe—well, the bus driver said,His people are coming.Those’d be the scarecrows, I guess. Maybe they—work for the smiling man?”
“Or could all be just coincidence,” said Brian impatiently.
“In math, when two angles coincide, they fit togetherperfectly,” Ollie said. “All of this has to fit together too. Somehow.”
A small frown appeared between Coco’s pinkish eyebrows. “But the schoolhouse-fire kids didn’t make a bargain or summon the smiling man or anything, did they? Neither did we. So, why? Whyus?”
“I don’t know,” said Ollie.
“Deliver us from evil,” Brian said suddenly, and crossed himself. The girls looked at him. “What?” he said. “I’m not agoodCatholic but maybe God is listening.”
“Maybe,” said Coco. She shivered again. “I wonder who else is listening? I hope not the scarecrows.”
They all glanced around at the silent forest. They could see no one but themselves.
“Well,” said Ollie, “ifwehave disappeared, can we assume that this place is—somewhere else? Like a horrible sort of Narnia? Not our world at all? And when the mist rises, you fall through the door? Maybe the scarecrows sort of exist in both worlds? The bus driver said something like that. That they’re only dangerous here at night, something about them being partly in the sunshine world during the day.” Even to Ollie it sounded far-fetched.
“Narnia?” said Coco, sounding puzzled. “What’s Narnia?”
“The Pevensies go to Narnia through the wardrobe, when it was under the control of the White Witch,” saidBrian. “That’s why it was always winter but never Christmas. Don’t you read?”
“I don’t like novels,” said Coco with dignity. “I like books that tell you about real things. So you think the smiling man is the White Witch? He controls this place? Is that what you mean?”
Ollie hadn’t thought of it that way. They didn’t even know if the smiling man was real.
“Someone has to be doing this,” Coco continued. “Maybe the scarecrows are like—like robots and someone is pulling the strings. A White Witch. The smiling man.”
“Robots don’t have strings. That’s marionettes,” said Brian.
“Whatever,” said Coco.
Then Brian said slowly, “If you’re right, then maybe there’s not help waiting on the farm. Maybe that’s where the—thepuppet master,is and that’s worse.”
“But if thereareany answers, they have to be on the farm,” Coco said. “Not here in the woods. And,” she added practically, “we can’t just stay here. We’ll starve.”
“Not today,” said Ollie. She pulled out her lunch box. She was getting hungry anyway. Three quarters of a huge turkey sandwich, a chocolate chip muffin, carrot sticks, a bag of homemade granola, a slice of pumpkin pie from the farm, and peanut butter cookies all lay nestled in herbig unicorn lunch box, and Ollie had never in her life been more grateful for her dad’s overpacking. “I have this,” she said. “We should eat the turkey sandwich soon, anyway. The meat won’t keep.”
Coco was rummaging in her own backpack. She pulled out a large bag of trail mix. “I have this.”
They both looked at Brian. He scraped a foot in the leaves. “I ate my snacks yesterday,” he said, a little shamefaced. “I got hungry on the bus.”
Boys.Ollie and Coco had the same thought at the same time. They looked at each other and Ollie almost laughed. “Right,” she said. “We should eat and then make a plan.” That’s what her mom had always said on hiking trips.If you’re ever lost, think of your basic needs first. Are you hungry, are you thirsty, are you hurt?Ollie wished for the millionth time that her mother were there.
“You can’t eat allourfood,” said Coco to Brian, holding her trail mix a little defensively. “We have to make it last.”
