Zoe in Wonderland (12 page)

By the next evening, Quincy and his dad were on the road back to San Francisco. Kendra was staying behind for a few days with her sister to pack up the house, and I'd promised to help. Every day after school, instead of going straight home, I went to Kendra's. Some days my mom, dragging Jade along, came to lend a hand. By the end of the week, everything was packed and ready to go.

And all week long, I didn't cry. I just kept saving my tears.

Saturday morning, the moving van was parked in front of used-to-be-Quincy's house, and in no time, everything was loaded.

Alongside the Reindeer parents I stood on the sidewalk. My mom had her arm curled around my shoulder. During the past week, Mom had been incredibly nice to me. Nicer than ever. Before bedtime,
we'd started reading books together again, and twice, my mom had even brought me hot chocolate with whipped cream and tiny marshmallows. When we were watching TV, instead of snuggling with Daddy, Mom curled up next to me. My daddy had even let me trim one of the bonsai trees, and this time, when I made a small mistake, he didn't have a fit. I supposed my mom and daddy felt sorry for me.

“Gimme a hug, girl,” Kendra said before she climbed in her sister's car. They were driving to San Francisco together.

I reached for her and clung to her tightly—almost as tightly as I'd hugged Quincy in the greenhouse the other day. My mom and daddy hugged her too.

Kendra sighed and climbed in the car. “See you real soon, Zoe,” she said through the open window.

“Bye, Kendra,” I told her.

Kendra winked. “This is not a good-bye, Zoe.”

Everyone waved and then she was gone.

The Reindeer parents seemed as sad as I was.

“I can visit anytime,” I reminded them, “and it's not that far away.”

Finally, there must not have been any more room for my saved-up tears, because they rolled down my cheeks.

Mom took out a tissue and dried them.

And together we strode home.

In the middle of the night, I woke up.

Zoe G. Reindeer's eyes were powerfully telescopic. They could see for hundreds and thousands of miles. Her eyes zeroed in on San Francisco and focused. The window to Quincy's room was open. There he was, curled up in his bed. Kendra would be there soon. Zoe zoomed in for a closer look and thought she saw Quincy smile.

The Boy Comes to the Wonderland

Two Good Things That Happened Because Quincy Moved Away

1. I instantly wasn't grounded anymore.
   
2. Adam got to come to the Wonderland.
   

Which started me believing Nana's claim that sometimes good stuff can come from bad or sad things.

“Hi there, Zoe Angel,” Mrs. Warner said as Adam and I walked past her house on the way to mine. She was holding a gnome statue in her arms like it was a baby. She didn't have her false teeth in, but she was smiling just the same, showing nothing but her pink gums.

Every time she sees me since that day when she told me about the tornado, Mrs. Warner has been calling me Zoe Angel, and because I like it, I've been letting her.

I smiled and waved. “Hi, Mrs. Warner.”

“Why'd she call you Zoe Angel?” Adam asked.

I shrugged. “She thinks I'm nice.”

“She's right,” he said.

“This place has all kinds of amazing stuff,” Adam said when we arrived at the Wonderland.

The list of people who came to visit me at the Wonderland and thought it was cool that I lived in a place with so many trees that you could barely see our house had so far been a very short list—Quincy and one other kid named Sophie Wong, who'd moved away in the third grade. Now Adam's name was added to the list. A short list of three.

Zoe G. Reindeer was about to feel sorry for herself when she thought about people like Mrs. Warner, who had no list. No people who came to visit, not even one friend, maybe no one to love them.

Even a short list was better than no list at all, I decided. I smiled at Adam and led him to the pond.

Some orange butterflies fluttered around, and the
blue sky had a few fat fluffy clouds. Two wild ducks were in the pond.

“You have ducks?” he asked.

“No, they just come here every year about this time,” I said, then had a thought. “Do you think they get bored?” I asked. “Coming back to the same place over and over?”

Adam stared at the ducks. “I think it's just animal instinct. Plus, when they're flying, it has to be different every time. Sometimes it's windy . . . sometimes it might rain. And once they land here after being away for a whole year, it probably looks different.”

He was right. The Wonderland was always changing and stuff was always growing and sometimes stuff just sprouted up in strange places. Like people, everything that's alive is always changing inside or out or both, I decided.

I looked at Adam. Even I was changing. I had a new friend.

I had a question I'd been dying to ask since the first day he sat down beside me in the cafeteria, and now seemed like the perfect time. “How come your mom and dad named you guys Adam and Eve?”

Adam chuckled. “Everyone always asks that.”

I opened the door to the greenhouse and we stepped inside. “So, what's the answer?”

“They said it was because my sister and I were their first creations.”

“Oh, I get it.”

Then it was his turn to ask a question he'd most likely wanted to ask me for a while. “Is it weird to have the last name Reindeer?”

I cocked my head to the side. “What do you think?”

“I think it'd be cool. Adam Reindeer.”

Right then, he reminded me of Quincy, which started me wondering what he was doing right now. Even though I had a new friend, I still missed my old friend. After Adam left, I would send Quincy an e-mail, I promised myself. Maybe he'd be able to use his dad's cell phone and call me. I really wanted to hear his voice.

How many years have to pass before a new friend becomes an old one? I wondered.

“Amazing!” Adam said when he saw the flytraps. He peered, examining them closely, like they were the superstars of the greenhouse. “I read that they mostly catch their own insects, usually flies, and that they don't eat a lot during the winter.”

“Yeah, they get dormant.” I'd learned that from Daddy.

Adam and I were looking around at this and that when he spotted the old coffee cans where I'd planted
the baobab seeds. He stuck his finger into the soil, which, because I'd just watered them yesterday, was wet. He drew his dirt-covered finger out and wiped it on his jeans. “What's planted in these?” he asked.

“Oh. I planted some baobab seeds, but they didn't grow yet.”

“What's a baobab?” he asked.

“It's a tree from Madagascar. It's endangered.”

“Endangered? Cool.”

“My friend Quincy was planning to make a movie about them, but . . .” I sighed loudly.

“He migrated . . . I mean moved,” Adam said, taking over where I'd left off.

Suddenly, from out of nowhere, like a magician who knows how to instantly appear or vanish, the snox showed up. He was wearing a straw cowboy hat that was so big for his head that it almost hid his eyes. “Hi, guys. Whatcha doing?”

“Just showing Adam the greenhouse.”

“Hey,” Adam said to Harper.

“Hey,” Harper replied.

Since I'd been letting Harper read the book and he'd been helping me in the greenhouse, we'd kind of been getting along better, but I didn't want him to say or do anything annoying. I stared at Harper, thinking, Please don't say anything to embarrass me. BQ! BQ!
BQ! For once, I hoped that he could really read my mind.

Apparently he could, because Harper simply said, “See you later, guys,” and headed out the door.

“Was that your brother?” Adam asked.

“Yeah,” I replied, “that's
just Harper
.”

After we left the greenhouse, we walked through the rows of plants and trees in the Wonderland, and when we wound up at the pond again, Adam caught a frog and held it in his palm. He laughed as he ran his hand along its bumpy skin. But when a hawk landed nearby in the birdbath, eyeing the frog like it was dinner, the frog leaped away and disappeared under the water lilies.

Adam smiled. “Amazing!”

And then the boy said it was time for him to leave and we headed toward the entrance to the Wonderland.

Daddy was standing near the nursery in the driveway, talking to a man I recognized as one of the land developers who'd been bugging Daddy to sell. Daddy stopped talking when he saw us and grinned. “Howdeedoo, Zoe.”

“Hi, Daddy. This is Adam . . . my friend.”

Daddy made a fist and stuck out his hand. “Howdeedoo, Adam. Call me Darrow.”

Adam butted knuckles with Daddy. “Hey, Darrow.”

The land developer's cell phone rang and he excused himself to take the call.

While Daddy Reindeer quietly examined Adam from head to toe, I nervously picked at my nails.

“Adam has to go now,” I told Daddy.

“Maybe I'll see you again, Adam,” Daddy told him.

“Yeah . . . maybe.”

The man had finished his call and so stole my daddy's attention again. Adam and I slowly made our way to the front gate. “Bye, Adam.”

He slung his backpack over his shoulder. “See you tomorrow, Zoe.”

I watched him as he walked down the street. He turned around twice to look back at me. Once, Adam waved and I waved back.

“Seems like a nice young man,” Daddy said to me at dinner that night between bites of macaroni and cheese.

“Who?” Jade demanded to know.

“Adam, Zoe's new friend,” Harper answered.

Jade turned her attention to me. “So that's why you've been wearing lip gloss and matching your clothes.”

I hadn't realized Jade had noticed.

My tongue felt like it was tied in a knot. “But . . . but . . . but—” I stuttered.

“But what? 'Bout time you ditched Quincy,” Jade said, then added sarcastically, “but . . . oh yeah, I forgot, he wasn't your boyfriend.”

“I'd never ditch Quincy. Plus, Adam's not my boyfriend either,” I insisted. “He's just my friend.”

Jade rolled her eyes. “Stop feeling guilty, little sister. There's nothing wrong with having more than one boyfriend. I have three. Well, four, if you count Aston James, but he's such a geek, I don't really count him unless I need his help with homework.”

I shook my head. “He's not my boyfriend, I swear.”

Jade clicked her tongue. “You are such a dork.”

I scowled at her. “Am not.”

Harper chimed in. “Are so.”

“You two leave Zoe alone,” Daddy demanded.

Harper opened his mouth to say something, but it looked like Mom nudged him under the table. He glared at her. “What? So you and Daddy are suddenly the Zoe protectors?”

“Enough!” Mom shouted.

After that, no one said a word. We finished eating and I helped Daddy with the dishes.

On the way to my room, I grabbed the portable
phone. Then I opened my laptop, plopped on my bed, and e-mailed Quincy to please call me. I waited and waited until it was after ten o'clock, but he didn't call. He didn't even e-mail me back. It was a school night, so maybe he was already asleep, or if he was really lucky, maybe he was out somewhere having fun with his mom and dad. Or maybe he had a new friend too.

I slipped into my pj's, slid under the down comforter, and continued reading the book Ben had given me. I was on the last chapter. Creative people and inventors really did change the world, plus they sometimes had fun doing stuff that somehow didn't always seem like work. I stopped reading. Their stories were beginning to make me want real adventures, not just my imaginary ones. I closed the book and turned out the light.

Tonight, the candles over at Mrs. Warner's house sent glimmers of light to my room. I stole a look at my digital clock. It's really getting late, but maybe he'll call, I hoped. Where is he? Maybe he's forgetting about me.

Zoe Angel used her wings to fly to San Francisco. Before long, she'd located her target, Quincy Hill. He was sitting in front of the television, watching a
movie, of course, munching on popcorn. Zoe Angel made herself invisible, landed beside him, and whispered in his ear, “Call Zoe. She misses you.”

I was cradling the phone when it rang.

It was Quincy. “Hey, Zoe.”

Zoe Angel had the power.