The Hole in the Wall - Lisa Rowe Fraustino [81]
The two of them had made us all appointments later in the week to go to Zone Q and be examined, but we all got to go home afterward. Jed described to Odum all about how the colors had left his body and Pa’s, and how the leachate had left the swirly patterns in our yard, and stuff like that to help ORC study the adrium. But he didn’t say a word about the spectacular mother lode on our property. We had a family conference and everyone agreed that was going to stay hidden behind the nailed plywood. We’d never let the land leave the family or allow it to be mined.
“Some things that are found in the ground should stay in the ground,” Pa said. For once Jed agreed with him.
So back to the boat. We hadn’t caught anything yet, and it was almost time for Ma to get out of work. I really wanted to catch her dinner today. The other days, Pa wound up going to the store for fish so he could keep his promise about frying it up in the pan.
“Here, fishy fishy fishy,” I said and cast out the line.
Jed looked up at me. “You guys wanna check your email? Sebby, what’s your screen name?”
I shrugged. I didn’t get much free time on the computers at school, and I had way better things to do on them than email.
“His would be danielssebastian@stoms.edu,” Barbie said, turning her page.
Oh, yeah. I forgot we all had email addresses at school.
“What’s your password?” Jed asked.
I shrugged again.
“Try his birthday,” Barbie said.
“Eureka,” Jed said. “Sebby, you’ve never checked your email! You have pages of unopened messages from Adele Byron. Isn’t that your teacher?”
“Um . . . ,” I said. She may have said something about that a few times.
Just then the phone dinged. “New message coming in,” said Jed. “From dogstarcluster.”
“She lives!” I stuck the fishing pole between my knees and grabbed the phone away from Jed. The Shish jumped up and tried leaning over my shoulder to read the message too. The boat tipped wildly. Barbie teetered all over the place. Pa laughed from the shore.
“Sit down before you fall, Shish, I’ll read it to you,” I said.
Dear Sebastian,
I hope this message finds you feeling upright and unshaken by the recent earthquake in Kokadjo. As you have probably ascertained by now, my family has left the Love Shack and transferred ownership to the Odum Research Corporation. I regret that I could not inform you about our situation and say good-bye in person.
The good news is, Goldenrod and Marigold have finally discovered that computers are very groovy. Therefore, they have decided to start a new community called Breezy Acres Ecovillage, where we will operate a wind farm for electricity so we can enjoy technological advances without contributing to global warming through the exploitation of fossil fuels. Currently we are traveling around the country seeking an appropriate location.
Zensylvania would have been ideal, but alas, there is no water there anymore. Our spring ran dry. That is why we moved so suddenly. G & M will not tell me the details of their confidential discussion with Mr. O, but I have a theory. My theory is that the mining in Kokadjo Gore disturbed the aquifer and caused our spring to drain.
GtG! M wants me to help her look for her HS friends on facebook. SIT!
Clstr
It took like ten years to read through the message because Barbie and Jed kept making comments. Well, I did, too. It’s always something with Boots Odum. Anyway, at the end of the ten years I was pretty happy to know that Cluster was okay and finally able to have a computer like she wanted.
The next day, something else made me even happier. No, I didn’t catch a big fish. On the way home we stopped at the store to buy me red canvas high-tops. And as if that wasn’t happiness enough, the sun came out on our way home. So it was shining when we rounded the corner and got our first sight of the new Kokadjo Gore. What had once been beautiful rolling wooded land, and then an ugly hollowed-out