Chapter 8: Country Road, Paste Me Home
Naomi woke. She sat up. Her head felt heavy and she shook it to loosen the cobwebs lacing her brain. When her head cleared, she found herself in bed, in her own room, safe at home. She was even wearing her favorite purple pajamas.
How could this be, she wondered. She looked around. Her room was just as she had left it yesterday morning, or was it the morning before that? She couldn’t remember. The last thing she remembered was stealing away in the white truck with Sammy. Then she’d fallen asleep. Or had she? Maybe, she thought, that’s when I woke up. Maybe her adventure to find the horses, getting lost in the long alley, meeting Sammy and his family, and breaking into the Pastery, maybe that had all been a dream. Naomi never had such a vivid dream.
She was still tired so she shut her eyes again and pulled the covers up over her head. I wonder what I’ll dream this time, she thought. It occurred to her that she never finished her adventure. She never found out what happened to the horses. But worst of all, she never learned anything about her father.
“What a gyp,” she said to herself.
That’s when she heard it.
A quiet humming, like the buzz of a gnat, was coming from somewhere in her room. She could not tell if it was close or far away. She got up and walked around her room, trying to find the sound. She stood by the wall and listened. She put her head under the bed and listened. She even got in the closet and listened. After searching, Naomi realized the noise was coming from . . . everywhere.
How could that be, she thought. I’ve never heard this sound before in my life. And for sure, I’ve lived here forever.
She went to her dresser. She took out a pair of jeans and a shirt. In the shirt drawer she found the purple horse-flavored T-shirt that once belonged to her father. When did her mom give it to her, yesterday or the day before? And look, she thought, here is the carved wooden horse. How could this be here if the farmer’s market had been a dream?
Naomi set the T-shirt on the bed and got dressed. Oddly enough her jeans felt stiff and her shirt felt like sandpaper against her skin. It was like the clothes were brand new.
She looked out the window. There was the town in the distance and the paste factory beyond. But something strange was going on. The light from the window had a blue tinge to it. The trees and the road looked blurry, like an out-of-focus photograph. The strangest thing of all though, was that the smoke from the factory was coming out in candy pink clouds. And still she could hear that humming.
She started to hear a new sound—her stomach rumbling. Naomi took the T-shirt from her bed, pocketed the carved horse, and left her room.
Naomi’s mom was in the kitchen preparing breakpaste.
“Good morning, Naomi,” said her mom. “Did you sleep well?”
“I had the strangest dream,” said Naomi.
“Really?” said her mom. She sounded different today, like she had a cold or she was talking through a paper bag. Mom had her back to Naomi as she stirred the paste on the stove.
“Are you hungry?” she said. “I’m making you the most delicious breakpaste.” Her mom pointed at the refrigerator without looking. “Why don’t you get a glass of paste juice?”
Naomi looked at her mom’s back for a moment. Then she opened the refrigerator.
Naomi said, “Did you go shopping?”
The refrigerator was packed with every kind of paste product imaginable. There was paste juice and paste milk, pastegourt and paste. There was paste loaf and creamy paste cheese. There was paste cuts and even some paste. The refrigerator had never been so full. But her mom didn’t answer. Naomi took out the paste juice and shut the door.
“Sit,” her mom said. Naomi sat down at the kitchen table. It was set for breakpaste with a bowl, a spoon, and a glass. She poured herself some juice. Her mom came from behind her and slapped a big helping of paste in the bowl. Naomi turned to look at her mom.
“Ahhhh!” Naomi shrieked.
“What’s wrong, dear?” her mom said. The woman was dressed in one of her mom’s nice dresses and high heels. She had fine dark hair like her mom. She even wore a little flower print apron like her mom always wore. But the woman’s face was like a loaf of paste that someone had drawn lips, eyebrows, and cheeks on.
“Ahhh!” Naomi shrieked again, jumping up from the table.
“What’s wrong, dear?” the woman said in a voice that sounded like it was coming out of a paper bag.
“Who are you?” Naomi shouted.
“I’m your mother,” she said, cocking her head to the side.
“Oh, no you’re not!” Naomi shouted.
The woman set the pot of paste on the table.
“Yes I am, dear,” she said. “Now be a good girl and eat your paste.”
“No way!” Naomi shouted. She picked up the carton of paste juice and pulled back her arm. “You stay away from me.”
“Now, dear, eat your paste.” The woman lunged at Naomi slowly, like she couldn’t control her body. Naomi threw the paste juice. It struck the woman right in the middle of her forehead. Juice exploded from the carton, drenching her. The carton knocked the silky wig off the woman’s head and the juice washed away her makeup. The woman left standing there was a white person with very fine, almost translucent hair.
Naomi screamed again. She turned and raced through the house. She pulled open the front door, jumped outside, and headed down the road.
Wham. A sudden pain shot through her face. She fell backwards in the dirt. It felt like she had been hit in the nose with a frying pan. Dazed, she blinked her eyes a few times. She reached up and felt her nose.
“Ouch,” she said. It hurt when she wiggled it but there wasn’t any blood. She looked up. The tree-lined road stretched out in front of her.
Naomi stood and she reached out her finger and it touched something solid like the air was hardened in front of her. The air was solid and flat, but spongy and warm to the touch. Naomi pushed on the air and all the color faded out of it. When she pulled her hand back, the color seeped in again. She put both her hands on the air. She spread out her arms. She realized the air was not air but a wall covered with a giant television screen that she had just smashed her face into.
She looked up. Above her was a plain old ceiling. So, she was in a big room where all the walls were covered with television screens. Naomi realized that not only was that woman not her mom, but the house behind her was not her house. Instead, someone had built a replica of her house inside of this big room with its TV screen walls. Someone was trying to trick her.
“I have to get out of here,” she said to no one at all. Still she could hear the dull humming.
She picked the T-shirt up off the ground and tucked it in her belt. She touched the spongy wall and walked around the room. She touched the road and the grass and the trees. After twenty steps her hand hit another wall. She was in the corner of the room. She turned and ran her hand over the new wall. She felt a tiny crack. The crack ran through a huge tree that was bigger than anything in her real yard at home. A wooden doorknob stuck right out of the tree. She turned it. The door swung inward.
There was a hallway on the other side. Bare light bulbs hung from the ceiling. She didn’t know where she was, who had brought her here, or how to get out of this place. But she did know that she did not have many options. So she walked. As she passed under the bulbs, each cast a stark, flickering shadow under her feet. The light gave her no comfort. To the contrary, Naomi felt the cold light penetrate her, illuminating her loneliness and fear.
After walking for what seemed like an eternity, Naomi heard a new sound. She stopped. It was hurried footsteps. Someone or something was running towards her.
She panicked. There was nowhere to hide. The image of the makeup-covered white person floated in her mind. She could almost feel the mushy embrace of her fake mom. Naomi ran as fast as could.
The footsteps grew louder. Whoever was chasing her was catching up. Her lungs
burned and her legs jiggled like Paste-O dessert gelatin. The footsteps grew louder still. Naomi came to a fork in the hallway. Without thinking, she turned left. In a flash something came at her. She realized she had been running towards the footsteps. She screamed. Arms folded around her. She fought with all her might to pull herself loose but the arms were too strong. She fell and something heavy fell on top of her.
“Whoa, now,” a voice spoke. The arms let go of her. Naomi jumped to her feet and started running again.
“Wait,” the voice yelled. “It’s me!”
Naomi stopped. Her heart was thumping like a drum and she could barely breathe. She turned. Kneeling on the ground was Sammy.
Naomi couldn’t believe her eyes. “You scared the heck out of me!” she yelled.
“Sorry,” he said.
Naomi put her hands on her knees, struggling to catch her breath. “Where were you?” she said, a little calmer now.
“I was in the Farmer’s Market,” he said. “Well, it looked like the market.” He ran his hand over his head to smooth out his blond hair. “There were way too many people there, and they were all working. That ain’t right because my people are lazy.”
She felt much better now that she had found Sammy again. She wanted to hug him, but instead asked, “Where do you think we are?”
Sammy got to his feet, dusted off his overalls and said, “I reckon we’re in the factory. That’s where we were headed when I fell asleep, anyway. Somebody must have found us. I told you, you can’t trust no gypsies.” He smiled at her. “You alright?”
“Yeah,” she said. “But what are we going to do?”
“Well, if you came from that way,” he said, pointing down the hallway. “And I came from there.” He cocked his thumb over his shoulder. “Then we got to go that way.”