From his left came the sound of a rumbling motor. He turned. A snowmobile flew up the side yard and skidded to a stop beside him. Two small girls sat upon it. The passenger shivered and seemed frail. The one driving the machine was squatter, more solid, and Jamie thought she seemed familiar. Maybe from math class? She eyed him just as a huge white dog appeared and wagged its tail at him before sniffing at the passenger and licking her hand.
“Are you Jamie?” the driver asked. Her voice was like a horn, it was so loud.
Jamie was too stunned to speak. He managed a nod.
“Get on,” she ordered. “I’m Eva. Sorry I’m late. Had to rescue Annie.”
Get on? Get on the snowmobile?
“TWO!” his grandmother bellowed. “Do not make me count to three, young man! You do not want me to go up there!”
He struggled to his feet. Annie hopped off the snowmobile, put her arm around his waist, and helped him on.
“Do you know the password?” he stuttered.
Annie stared at him. Her lip trembled from the cold. “Password? Eva, is there a password?”
“Canin’s breath.” Eva’s eyes grew desperate. “Hurry up!”
“It’ll be okay,” Annie whispered as she settled him onto the snowmobile. “I think. I mean, I actually have no idea what’s going on, but I am pretty sure that—well, it’s got to be better than—”
“THREE!”
Jamie found his voice. “Go! Please … please … hurry!”
“Anything you say, partner,” Eva yelled.
With her thumb, she gestured to the rear of the snowmobile, and Annie hopped onto the back, making it all pretty crowded.
“Now, hold on,” Eva ordered over her shoulder. “We’re heading to Aurora, and sometimes this here sled doesn’t give the smoothest of rides.”
Jamie barely heard her. He was too busy staring back at his upstairs bedroom window. His grandmother’s bulk leaned out the window. She was screaming at him. In her hand were a fork and a knife. And her mouth? It was drooling.
9
Aurora
Three people are a lot for one snowmobile to carry, even if the people are somewhat small. Annie apologized to Jamie as they bumped and zipped across the lawn of the house. It didn’t seem right to be clutching a stranger, especially a boy stranger. The first time she tried to apologize he didn’t hear her over the roar of the engine, so she cleared her throat and tried to yell, even though she hated yelling.
She shouted closer to his ear. “I’m so sorry that I have to hold on so tightly.”
“It’s okay,” he said.
“Maybe not quite so tight?” she suggested, and her hold lessened as Jamie turned and gawked behind them. His face was taut with tension and worry. Annie wanted to soothe him somehow, soothe him the way she’d always imagined her own mother would soothe her. “It’ll be okay, I think. Eva’s taking us somewhere safe. At least, she says that—”
Jamie wasn’t paying attention, Annie realized belatedly. He interrupted her, his voice urgent and terrified as he frantically tapped Eva’s shoulder. “She’s chasing us! You have to hurry! Please!”
“Going as fast as we can!” Eva yelled. “No fears! We’ll beat her or my name isn’t Eva Beryl-Axe of the long line of mighty Beryl-Axes.”
Annie glanced behind her to the side lawn. A tall, strongly built woman rushed after them. She held a huge knife in one hand and a fork in the other. Her face was contorted with determination as she pounded across the snow toward them.
“Who is that?” Annie asked, fear gripping her stomach. The woman reminded her vaguely of the Wiegles, but somehow managed to be worse.
“My grandmother!” Jamie shouted.
Annie’s eyes widened in surprise. “Your grandmother?”
Jamie nodded vigorously. He started to peer over his shoulder again, but Annie yelled, “No. Don’t look!”
Jamie’s grandmother let out a roar, interrupting Annie’s thoughts.
“Eva!” Annie begged the dwarf to hurry up. “She’s gaining on us.”
“Got it!” Eva said, driving even faster as they entered the woods. Tala kept up, thankfully, and Eva veered the machine around a tree. Just then, the giant woman threw the knife. It whizzed over their shoulders and stuck into a tree trunk. Annie shuddered as the distance between them and the woman increased. They had come so close to being knifed in the back … so close … Only when she was completely out of sight did Annie face front again.
“She’s gone now,” she announced.
Annie still didn’t loosen her hold, not for the rest of the ride. Luckily, Jamie didn’t seem to mind.
“Almost there!” Eva bellowed as the snowmobile roared out of the woods and across a blueberry barren, heading straight for the intersection of two small roads. “Hey! Look! They’ve got signs out and everything.”
Annie squinted into the setting sun. They were heading straight for a pack of people clustered together in the middle of the road.
Jamie screamed out a warning. “Watch out!”
“Perfect.” Laughing, Eva slammed on the brakes, and the snowmobile skidded into a sideways stop just seconds before it would have slammed into the strange-looking crowd standing there in the road, staring at them. Extremely tall people huddled with people as short as Annie’s waist. Bright, purple-haired people clustered around a man who seemed to have painted his skin blue. For some reason, they all seemed to be smiling.
“I can’t believe we didn’t hit anyone,” Annie whispered to Jamie as she tried to take in all that she saw.
“I know!” He wiped at his forehead with shaking fingers.
Eva kept talking, addressing the strange crowd assembled in the road. “HEY! I’ve got the girl! Annie! Annie Nobody! She’s alive and here! Right here! And I got her! Me, Eva Beryl-Axe, the dwarf!”
Giant hands yanked Annie off the seat and clutched her in a gigantic hug. A bright-yellow parka was mashed into Annie’s face. She couldn’t see anything—nothing at all. Hands petted her back. She tried to wiggle free.
No good.
“Eva!” She tried to yell. “Tala!”
She couldn’t tell if the yellow-parka person was trying to burp her, hug her, or give her the Heimlich maneuver. If it was a hug, well then, it had to be the strangest hug that she’d ever had in her whole entire life. Although, to be honest about it, she hadn’t really had all that many hugs to compare it with.
She tried to pull her head away from the big puffiness and find Eva or Tala or Jamie. She pushed her hands against the coat.
“Eva!” she yelled, wondering why she couldn’t hear Eva’s rough voice over the din of all the other voices around her. “Eva!”
Annie’s heart tightened. Eva had left her. Like all the others. A big breath escaped Annie as she moved her head to the side and could finally see around the yellow parka. The snow-mobile’s lights flickered, and its treads were firmly planted on the cracked old road. Eva was not on it. Neither was Tala or Jamie.
“Eva!” Annie called.
The dwarf’s little face popped into view. She frowned. She bashed the yellow-parka person in the side. “Will you stop hugging her? Vamp dung! Troll spit.”
Yellow-parka man spoke. “Eva, watch your language.”
“You’re freaking suffocating her.”
The two hands stopped patting Annie’s back. Instead they hoisted her high into the air. They placed her atop the shoulders of a man—she thought it was a man—wearing a red parka. She felt like a football hero, or maybe a veteran returned from war. She peered down. The world spun. She was no good at heights. She squeaked, “Eva?”
Eva waved from far down below. Tala wagged his tail and then spun around in a delighted doggy circle. Jamie seemed as confused as Annie felt. He was sort of walking backward, away from the crowd.
Eva ordered her, “Don’t freak out. Don’t faint or anything. It’s cool. We’re just happy you’re here, Annie. Everyone’s happy, and I’m a hero ’cause I brought you back. Me! Eva, th
e dwarf! Dwarfs rule!”
Some low-voiced person in the crowd repeated her boast. “Dwarfs rule!”
Annie shook her head, trying to figure it all out. It made no sense. No one was ever happy to see her. And yet, here she was, surrounded by shouting, cheering people bundled in winter clothes, all beaming up at her.
From her new position, not only could Annie breathe, but she could see a lot more. The man was super tall, professional-basketball-player tall, and from his shoulders Annie spotted several old-style wooden and stone houses. They leaned toward the ocean and away from the forest and the barrens. Porches teetered along the tops of the houses, the way Annie teetered on the giant man’s shoulders.
“Sir? Sir?” she asked. “Could you please put me down?”
He didn’t answer. He was too busy clapping his hands and cheering.
She grabbed onto his hat as the wind bashed against her. She tightened her lips against the cold. Store signs proclaiming World In Store and Full Belli Deli banged against the peeling paint. A Ferris wheel waited in a far clearing, surrounded by carnival construction.
“A carnival. I’ve always wanted to go to a carnival,” Annie murmured.
“She likes carnivals!” the man yelled.
“Of course she does.” Eva laughed. She jumped up and down and then strutted in a little circle, boasting, “I found her, you know! I rescued her. Me. Eva.”
People cheered again and clapped their hands. They started chanting, “E-va. E-va. E-va.”
Eva took a bow. Annie thought Eva’s face might split from smiling so big. It was nice to see her so happy. A gray cat with white paws rubbed up against Eva’s leg, while little dogs scampered all around her yipping out their joy.
The dogs from the Wiegles? How had they made it here? And what about Jamie? People should be making just as big a fuss over him, Annie thought. He shouldn’t be left out. She tried to wave him over, but he shook his head. He was standing by a girl whose beautiful, shiny hair peeked out from beneath her pink wool cap. She was frowning, and her cheeks were perfectly white—not reddened by the cold at all. Two women huddled beside her. Their hair flew wildly about their shoulders. They reminded Annie of the kind of witches you would find in Halloween cartoons.
“I don’t see what’s so fantastic about her. She appears absolutely normal,” the girl sneered. “If she’s even really Annie Nobody at all …”
Annie’s heart sank. Someone already hated her. She was barely there, and someone already knew she was boring and normal and absolutely unfantastic and barely worth the checks the fosters got for keeping her.
Eva pounded over to the grumpy girl, hands in fists. “What? Are you doubting me? You think I got the wrong Annie or something?”
The girl lifted one pretty shoulder and didn’t answer.
“I got the right Annie, Megan.” Eva shook her fist, glowering.
Megan didn’t move. “I’m sure you did, but she doesn’t look like a Stopper. She seems norm to me, hideously, boringly norm, and we can’t have that here.”
The crowd started muttering.
Norm? Stopper? Annie’s head hurt, she was so confused. “Excuse me, what’s going on?”
The people below her stared up, their breath making clouds in the cold.
“She wants to know what’s going on,” the giant man boomed.
People cheered as if this was some sort of amazing accomplishment. Annie spotted Jamie again. She shot him a questioning glance. He shook his head like he was just as clueless as she was.
“We’re welcoming you to Aurora, Annie,” the man said.
“Oh … Okay …” Nervousness raised Annie’s voice, and she wiggled a little bit. The world spun again. She really, really wasn’t the best at heights. She tapped the man on his head. “You’re a very friendly town, which is really super nice and everything, but, um, I’d like to get down now, please. And also, could you welcome Jamie, too? And Tala, the big white dog? He has a wound. Someone needs to help him.” She felt a bit bossy saying it like that and added, “Please.”
The man ignored her request, but turned around so that they faced a different direction. He pointed. “See that house, Annie?”
Up on a hill overlooking the town was a large, grand house five stories high and at least seven windows across. It had a circular tower and gray siding, and it loomed over everything as if it were an overprotective mother, watching her mischievous children as they played.
Annie closed her eyes, trying to not be dizzy. She opened them again. “I see it.”
“That’s Aquarius House. You’ll be living there. Thank the Stoppers, you’re here!” The man’s shoulders bounced up and down as he clapped his hands. Annie leaned backward, then forward, grabbing bits of parka between her freezing fingers.
“Whoa!”
The wind picked up. The bite of it forced Annie’s heart to speed up, and she shivered from both the cold and her fear.
“Do you see the signs, girl?” the man bellowed.
People hoisted handmade signs written in black permanent marker on big pieces of cardboard. Pastel swirling letters filled other poster boards. Annie liked those signs better.
WELCOME, ANNIE.
YIPPEE FOR ANNIE!
HERE’S TO HOME, ANNIE!
One, written in a young child’s hand, simply said HI.
Annie gulped, and something a little bit happy filled her heart. She couldn’t believe it, though. Maybe it was all some kind of joke. “Are those signs for me?”
“No other Annies here.” The man laughed.
“But …” She turned around, confused. “But … I’m just … I’m not a big deal.”
“That’s for sure,” Megan huffed.
“And what about Jamie? Eva saved both of us. I think we should probably cheer for him, too,” Annie suggested again. Guilt seeped into her stomach. They were making such a fuss over her, and poor Jamie was standing there, totally ignored. She knew exactly what that felt like.
A strong voice came from the back of the crowd. It said in a low rumble, “Speech, Annie. Give us a speech.”
“Yes, yes,” the crowd responded. “Give us a few words, Annie.”
She didn’t know what to do. She’d never given anything like a speech in her life, except maybe for book reports in language arts class.
She cleared her throat, but it just tightened up.
A blond boy wearing a dark-green cloak gave her the thumbs-up sign. He smiled at her.
Why would he smile at me? Why would they want a speech? Or make signs? Or actually be happy that I’m here? I’m nothing special. Don’t these people know that?
“You can do it, Annie!” The boy cupped his hands together over his mouth to make his voice carry. “It’s okay.”
Eva nodded. She held up a small turtle that nodded, too, and drooled a little bit. “Just do it, Annie. No fears.”
No fears.
“Ahem,” she finally started, voice squeaking. “It is—umm—it’s—umm, good to be here?”
The people gathered around her gave a great, joyous roar. The red-parka man clapped. His shoulders bounced and she wobbled. She wrapped her arms around his head because she came close to falling the good seven and a half feet to the ground. This made the claps turn into laughter and then claps again after a woman in the back yelled, “She’s got an angel’s balance, she does.”
“Let her speak.”
“Yes, quiet, everyone.”
The people stared up at her, waiting eagerly. Some seemed to have hair on their faces, even on their noses. Some stood shorter than she did, even though she could tell that they were grown-ups. And what was that flitting around a man’s shoulders? A fairy? And there … in the store’s window was a reflection that resembled a man, a man with thin lips and short blond hair and little horns. His eyes met her eyes. The cold inside her suddenly burned.
“This is not normal,” Annie whispered to herself. Maybe she had hit her head hard enough to imagine things or Walden put some sort of hall
ucinogenic drug in her toothpaste. It was possible. He wasn’t above that.
Even more anxious now to get down and figure things out, Annie tried to slouch backward off the shoulders. Big hands caught her and steadied her. She gulped.
“Um … ,” she said. “Um, thank you so much for the very nice welcome and um …”
She didn’t have to say more because they were cheering again. She searched for Tala. He just sat there on the ground wagging his tail. She breathed out and felt a bit better. He wagged his tail harder and panted as if he were hot despite the freezing air. He flashed her a lopsided doggy grin. It was reassuring. She closed her eyes and tried to think.
“An-nie. An-nie. An-nie,” the people started chanting at her. One of them sneezed.
“More!”
“Yes, more, Annie.”
“More speech!”
Annie tried to get her frozen lips to move again. The wind had dried them out. “Um,” she began. “My name is Annie. My friend over there is Jamie … Um … Ah … Yeah … I’m nothing special, and I really don’t know why—”
“No!” a sharp voice called out, and a thin older woman broke through the crowd. “No more speeches. For goodness sakes, she’s just arrived, chilled to the bone, and you all are having a rally. Mayor, let her down!”
10
Eva the Protector
Jamie didn’t mind that Annie was the center of attention in Aurora because it gave him a chance to scope things out. He pushed back to the edge of the crowd and tried to see where Eva had taken them.
At first glance Aurora seemed like every other small town across America. But in many ways, it wasn’t the same at all. The buildings were mostly made of white bricks or clapboard, dyed pastel colors and decorated with all sorts of stars and moons and glitter. Some were stone. One shop had a picture of a unicorn jumping over a rainbow. The sign above it said it was the Moony Horn Café. It smelled of sweets. Jamie’s stomach rumbled. He backed a bit closer to the building. Maybe he could buy something somehow, or trade for food. He could work for a piece of cake. That might be it.