Rachel loved puzzles. Jigsaw puzzles. Thousand-piece clear-blue-sky and flowery-meadow puzzles. Cute little puppy-dog-face puzzles. Any kind of puzzle suited her fancy. She loved the challenge of putting one together, piece by piece. Discovering the piece that fit was always thrilling and a small victory over the manufacturer who had labeled the puzzle “difficult.” For her thirteenth birthday, Rachel received a package in the mail from her Aunt Lola, who shared her passion for puzzles. When she ripped open the box, she found a one-thousand- five-hundred-piece puzzle with a painting of a colonial farm and the surrounding forest on it. It was very detailed, with a mother working in the garden while two girls hung up the wash and a boy led the cows out to pasture. A farmer worked in the fields and a large wooden barn stood off to the left. At the edge of the field was a forest and a gravel road running through it. The farmhouse and various animals were also included in the busy scene. Rachel sat working on her puzzle: “Colonial Farm: A Painting by George Smits.” She put together most of the puzzle pieces and was working on the forest. Being the imaginative type, Rachel thought the girls didn’t look like they were having much fun. She wondered if those colonial girls could ever have fun like she had, perhaps in the forest. She thought, That would make a good basis for a novel. I wonder if Kathryn Lasky has written anything like that. I should go to the library and find out. As she gazed into the scene, she drifted off to sleep, right on top of the unfinished puzzle She checked her watch and realized that the library wasn’t open. Anyway, she thought, I’m too tired to walk to the library. I’ll go tomorrow. Rachel stared at the puzzle again, searching for the place where a piece with trees on it would fit. As she gazed into the scene, she drifted off to sleep, right on top of the unfinished puzzle. When Rachel woke up, she fumbled around for the puzzle piece she was trying to fit in. Once she found it, she examined it to refresh her memory. It was a clothespin! Not a puzzle piece! Rachel rubbed her eyes. A clothespin? Why, it was. She turned around and found herself facing a girl she had never seen before. “Nan,” said the girl, “why are you staring like that? You look as though you’ve never seen a clothespin before.” My name’s not Nan, Rachel thought. It was then that it dawned on her, though she could scarcely believe it, that she was in the puzzle. Rachel stood up and walked around. Yes, there was the barn and there was the field and there was the mother in the garden. Yes, she was in the puzzle. “Nan, where are you going? We have to finish hanging up the wash!” the girl cried. Rachel decided that the girl was talking to her and she would answer to the name Nan until she got out of the puzzle, if she ever did. She walked back toward the clothesline to join the girl to hang up clothes. After they had finished, the mother called them over to help in the garden. The girl and her mother were soon engaged in a lively conversation about the upcoming quilting bee with some of their friends. “Nan, dear,” said the mother, pausing in her conversation, “it is unlike you to be so quiet. Just yesterday, you were talking up a storm about how a patchwork quilt is just like one of those jigsaw puzzles in John McGregor’s store. You and Cathrine stared at them all morning the last time we were in town, before the world fell apart.” OK, Rachel thought, this is odd, the mother must be my mother and the girl must be Cathrine. My sister, maybe? I wonder . . . Her mother interrupted her thoughts, exclaiming how time did fly and telling her to go help her sister take the wash off the line. Their working in the garden, while holding up a decent conversation, had taken all afternoon! The phrase “time flies when you’re having fun” came to Rachel’s mind, but fun wasn’t the exact word to describe it. Now she knew why the girls in the puzzle weren’t smiling. * * * Dinner had been interesting for Rachel, meeting the farmer who was supposedly her father and the boy with the cows who was her brother. Having onion soup and brown bread to eat instead of lasagna was also different. Now she and Cathrine were talking up in the loft where they should have been sleeping. Actually, Cathrine was doing most of the talking. She kept referring to fun times they had enjoyed together before the world had fallen apart. Rachel, of course, had no idea what Cathrine was talking about and nodded her head in agreement, as Cathrine fondly recalled trips to town and Independence Day celebrations. “Cathrine,” Rachel asked abruptly, “what is this about the world falling apart?” “Oh, Nan, don’t be dense,” Cathrine replied. “You were the one in tears over not being able to go to McGregor’s store because the world was broken. And call me Cath; you always used to. What’s wrong with you? You’ve been so mindless lately.” Rachel shrugged, rolled over, and went to sleep. * * * All the next day Rachel was kept busy with endless chores: working in the garden, sewing, and cooking. As she labored, she pondered what everyone meant by the world “falling apart.” That was the reason for no trips to town, and why they were isolated on the farm. Then she realized that she was in a puzzle, and what did people do to puzzles after they had been put together? They took them apart, of course! That was why her puzzle-family couldn’t go off the farm; the puzzle wasn’t fully put together. But how could
Mystery
Edward’s Treasure
It was only a quick walk to Murphy’s Woods from Anjeli’s backyard where Heather and Anjeli had been enjoying the hot July day, so they soon reached the edge of the woods. Instinctively, Heather grabbed her friend’s hand as they stepped onto the dirt path that led through the woods. It was considerably cooler under the shade of the tall oaks. The two girls kicked through the clumps of dark, damp leaves while chattering to each other. Soon, Heather forgot her first fears and joined Anjeli in skipping in between the trees and turning over the many rocks that lined their path. “Anj, I bet I can do fifteen cartwheels in a row!” “Let me see you try, girl!” Heather proceeded to try, but on the seventh, she slammed hard into the trunk of two oaks that had grown together. “Ow!” “You OK, Heather?” asked her friend, hurrying to her side. Heather pulled herself up on a branch of the tree mass. But before she could even dust the leaves off her shorts, Anjeli pushed her aside. “Hey!” said Heather indignantly, from the ground. “Oh my God…” “What, Anj?” “Heather, come here, quick! I found something!” “Heather, come here, quick! I found something!”` Heather scrambled to her feet. Slowly, Anjeli reached down into a tiny crevice under the tree and pulled out a package about the same size and shape as a book. It was wrapped in what looked like an old, yellowed newspaper. “Oh my God, Anj, what should we do?” asked Heather with a note of panic in her already-trembling voice. “I’m gonna open it.” “Be careful, Anjeli, it might be a bomb or something!” Anjeli scoffed, reached into her pocket for her Swiss Army knife and started to slit the ends of the package where they seemed to be waxed together. Heather couldn’t stand the suspense. She closed her eyes and counted to ten. But before she had even reached four, Anjeli’s deft fingers had the package open, and the treasure lay in her hands. From the cease of paper crackling, Heather knew that the secret was unveiled. She slowly opened her eyes and read the cover of the blue book with gold trim: A STAMP COLLECTION FOR YOUNG BOYS There was a long silence, a very long silence. Finally Anjeli spoke. “Stamp collecting?” Heather tried a bright smile. “It’s not so bad. My cousin used to collect stamps, and they were really . . .” she swallowed hard, and finished, “. . . valuable.” Anjeli almost dropped the book in excitement and hurry to look inside. And lo and behold, there was page after page of yellowed paper, covered in neatly placed stamps. Anjeli read some of them aloud. “U.S., eight cents. England, five pence. Mexico, ooh, Heather, look at this beautiful flower!” The girls paged through the book. Each stamp had its own special square that was exactly the size of the stamp. Underneath each stamp were two lines where the country and cost were neatly penned. “I wonder who owned this,” mused Heather. She flipped to the inside front cover, where, in the same painstakingly tidy cursive, was written: Edward Williamson, 1943 “We’ve got to try and find him, no matter how valuable these are.” “It doesn’t say where he lived or anything.” “Well, he must have lived close to these woods, if he hid it under this tree. I wonder why he had to leave it here,” said Anjeli, almost to herself. They sat down under the cooling shade of the oak, each quietly running down the list of possibilities. Maybe he was running from the police and had time to bring only one thing with him, thought Heather, and he had to leave it behind when he knew they were about to catch him. At the same time, Anjeli thought, Maybe he knew a thief was after it because it was so valuable. Maybe he was planning to come back for it one day, but something happened so he couldn’t . . . “Heather!” “What?” “Remember last year, during that elective ‘How to Use the Library,’ when we had to search that guy who used to live in Brevitown in 1976 on the computer that keeps all the records at the library? I’ll bet that will work with Eddie here if we can get the librarian to let us use that computer!” Heather gasped. “We’ve got to get to the library!” Heather and Anjeli stopped their bikes in front of Brevitown Library. The two girls dashed inside, with Anjeli carrying the book in one hand. Left, then right to the children’s department. “Excuse me, ma’am,” Heather panted, “we need your help.” “Of course,” said the librarian, looking worried. “Um, it’s not an emergency or anything, but we found this book”—Anjeli held it up—”in a tree in Murphy Woods. We were wondering if you had any information on Edward Williamson’s family. They lived in Brevitown around 1943.” The librarian looked much less worried. “Of course, dear. Let me check our records for 1943.” She got up (her name tag read Judy) and moved toward the room behind her desk. The girls eagerly followed her. Sitting down at a computer, Judy said, “This is where we keep all our records for past years. They date back ever since the library was built in 1889.” She typed in 1943, then Williamson. What appeared looked like this: WILLIAMSON, Lloyd His wife Muriel His daughter Mary His son Michael His son Edward Moved in 1941. Moved out 1943. Edward and his wife Alicia moved back 1995 and reside at 1284 Copper Street. “Thanks so much gotta go have a nice day!” said Heather and Anjeli in one breath, grabbing the book and dashing back out the way they had come. They jumped back on their bikes and raced through town till they came to the turnoff for Copper Street. “1134 . . . 1168. . . 1192. . . 1258. . . 1284!” the two chanted
Lightning Rod
I love storms. Especially electrical storms. The only downside is that I can’t use the computer. I still love storms. This was a big one. I watched the lightning reach down with long, slim fingers. I counted the seconds until the thunder came. It was still far away. I was sitting on the back of the couch with my hands pressed up against the window. My breath fogged the glass. It was so dark outside. I’m glad we live in the country, so the streetlights could not take away from the glory of the storms. There was a flash, and my crude shadow was cast back into the living room. In the brief light the sky seemed purple. It was gone so quickly, leaving the image jumping on my retina. The darkness was all the blacker for the brief illumination. It was coming closer with every strike. The wind raged around the old house and drove the rain hard against the window. One . . . two . . . three . . . fo- . . . the thunder rattled the windows. Soon it would be directly over the house. I was waiting for it. I could not have waited more than twenty seconds, but each second was an hour. And then it came, bright and blinding. The purple light filled the house, pouring in the windows. I savored the adrenaline that washed downward to my feet. The crash deafened me. Then the lights went out. I got a flashlight from the closet. It was dim, but I couldn’t find any new batteries. I checked the woodstove, and added some old two-by-fours. I like power outages. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship, power outages and me. They prevent me from using the computer, the so-called “love of my life.” An accurate description. There is something about the loss of electricity that appeals to me. I have heard it is that way with many people. I sat down at the keyboard and clicked the mouse Lightning lit up the house like a strobe light. Thunder made my teeth rattle. It rang in my ears and made me dizzy. The storm was stationary. I wondered why. The human mind can become accustomed to almost anything it encounters, if exposed to it long enough. The thunder and rain became background noise. I walked down the hall, thinking about my computer game. Only twelve levels to go until I entered the chamber of the warlord Zanegus. I had been thinking to try a new strategy tonight. But my plans were overthrown by the forces of nature. I pushed open the door to the computer room, aka “Raquel’s lair.” Nero, the white cat my mother named, shot out the door. I wondered how he got in. The computer was on. Its bluish glow filled the room. It was on screen-saver. The one called “Mystify Your Mind.” I flicked the light switch on and off. Nothing happened. Too weird. I sat down at the keyboard and clicked the mouse. The screen showed that I was online. An instant message filled the screen. It was blank. I typed, “Hello? Anyone there?” “Yes.” There was no screen name. “Who is that there?” “Not who, why.” “OK, why, then?” “To show you.” “Elaborate.” There was a roll of images on the screen. A spiderweb laced with dew. A drop of water falling on a still pool. Sunlight through green leaves. “I don’t understand.” “The world is old. It dies. See?” “No.” “It is like yourself. It can only live for so long. It will die, like you.” “When?” “Eventually.” “When exactly?” “Long after you die.” “So why do I matter?” “Everyone matters.” “Why are you telling me?” “Because you have a job to do.” “And what is that?” “Learn. Learn about the moon and the stars and the breath of the earth. Know the parasite and the host.” “The parasite. What is . . . ?” “The human race is the parasite to the earth. The galaxy is the host to the earth. The universe is the parasite of something much grander.” “What?” “That is not for you to know.” “Then what am I to know?” “The earth.” “Everything about it?” “Yes.” “I can’t. It’s too much.” “You will find it is not.” “Why?” “Somebody has to know.” “But why me? I have a life. I go to school and play computer games and watch TV. I can’t just become a recluse and cram my head with facts day and night. It won’t work.” “Just try. It will come.” “Who are you? How is the computer on when there is no power? I don’t understand.” “I am the sun and the moon and the planets, and I am you.” “Wait a sec.” “You are looking in a mirror. You are speaking to an echo. You know me very well.” “And how?” “That is not for you to know.” “Why not?” “As the human brain cannot comprehend infinity, so you cannot understand certain facts. I am the host of the universe and the parasite of a quark and the soul of your body. Good-bye.” The computer had kicked me off the Internet. I sat in the darkness and stared at the screen. The thunder moved off, becoming a distant growl. The rain slackened. Nero meandered into the room and jumped into my lap. The power came back on. Valerie Gill, 13Pocatello, Idaho Abram Shanedling, 13Minneapolis, Minnesota
