The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [40]
“No! You got one more person to look at, Craig, and it can’t be Jed since you already chased him away. It’s you. What happened to the man I married? The gentle and funny and responsible man? I want him back, or I want you out.” Her voice wobbled around but she held the words together.
Pa was pacing, pacing as she spoke. For the first time in my life I wondered if he would hit Ma. I puffed my chest out to get in his way.
“Now you done?” His words were clipped. The phone rang on, a shrill scream.
“Yep. Your turn, Craig. I’m listening.”
But Pa didn’t say another word. He yanked the door open and slammed it behind him. Ma let us loose. Barbie ran upstairs. I got the phone.
It was Grum, wondering if anyone planned to pick her up or if she should get in line at the homeless shelter.
12
As soon as Ma left to get Grum, I pulled out Odum’s glasses and put them on, mimicking his big smile. I was glad to have something to take my mind off the big scene that had just unfolded.
The house didn’t look any different through the glasses. Except it had even more cracks in the walls. Wait, those were the cracks in the lenses.
I stepped outside. The yard looked the same as it had an hour ago. I scanned the gore. No difference. Then I turned in a circle and looked all around, up and down the mountainside our yard is tucked into. Same. Same. Whoa, different! In a puddle of water next to Jed’s castle, I saw a faint blink. And another. And another. It made a swirly pattern of colors, maybe a yard long and an inch wide. Like a graffiti doodle swimming along. Unbelievable!
I took the glasses off and looked again. Just a normal mud puddle. Glasses on, blink blink blink. Like a winding trail of Christmas lights ending at the henhouse.
The henhouse!
In no time I was inside there, emptying the shelves in the supply closet so I could scan the mildewed wall.
“Ohmygodohmygodohmygod!” I couldn’t stop saying it even though Grum’s voice in my head was telling me I was probably causing a car crash somewhere by distracting the Lord’s attention. Through the glasses I saw specks of color moving around in the jagged black half-snowflake shape.
“What? What is it, Seb!” The Shish had followed me.
“I’ll show you in a minute,” I said and pulled open the hidden door.
Immediately I saw one blink after another, all different colors in the rock cliff. Or was it in the chickens? I didn’t get a chance to figure it out because I felt an irresistible pull on my stomach—Celery? Yes, she must be trying to get back to her flock, somehow. Before I could get a grip on the doorway to hold myself back, she had pulled me right up against the wall with all the other chickens.
Now I could see that they weren’t just piled up—they were stuck there. Like magnets. I could also see that this wall wasn’t just one slab of mountainside. It was a stack of fieldstones like we’d dug out of the yard to make the castle—a retaining wall without mortar. Somebody must have built it. Maybe Pa, back in his masonry days? But why do that in a place that nobody would ever see?
“Sebby, get out of there!” Barbie cried. “You’re scaring me.”
I was scaring me, too. Kicking and screaming, I pushed against the rocks with all my strength. And down fell the wall, Sebby and all.
Luckily none of the rocks landed on my head. A chicken foot scraped my elbow, though. The air suddenly smelled strongly like Ma’s tooth-breaking cookies. Then I noticed a cold tug on my face. A breeze. This must be the entrance to a tunnel!
Barbie overcame her terror and leaned in to ask if I was all right.
“No! I lost the glasses!” I cried, groping around for them.
“Wait, I’ll find the flashlight so we can see what we’re doing.”
But I kept groping around and found the glasses first. Man-oh-man, I could hardly believe what I saw! I was looking down a long wall of blinking curlicues. It was like one never-ending paisley tie. And of course I had to find out where it led. It’s not as if I had a choice. Celery had the same idea. And so