Me, My Elf & I Read online

  “But you said ‘sick,’” Willow says.

  “Exhausted more likely,” says Mom.

  “But isn’t that strange?” Willow asks.

  “You know how Grandma Fawna is,” Dad says. “Always off doing something mysterious. Who knows how far she went for the perfect magical mushroom?”

  “That’s right,” says Mom. Despite her casual tone, my mom frowns as she wraps sandwiches in a checkered cloth. When the phone rings a few moments later, she grabs it and says, “Flora, is that you?” Her eyes open wide. “Oh, sorry.” She holds the phone out to me. “It’s for you.” My brothers and sisters stare.

  “Hello?” I ask, confused.

  “Hey Zeph, it’s Ari.” He’s talking fast. “What are you doing today? Mercy and I think we should go over the script and maybe add a few more things to your résumé. Plus, we were thinking of going into the city later to look for something for Mercedes to wear to the audition, and you should come with us to help her because your clothes are perfect so you’ll have good ideas, you know?”

  He pauses just long enough for me to say, “My dad just got back in town—”

  “Oh my God!” Ari shouts in my ear. “Is he there? In your house?”

  I laugh. “Of course he is, Ari. Where else would he be?”

  “Drake Addler is in your house,” Ari states as emphatically as a newscaster.

  “We’re going to the park for a picnic,” I tell him.

  “Drake Addler goes on picnics,” he says, and sounds almost dreamy.

  As Ari babbles on about the best place in the park for a picnic, I cover the mouthpiece of the phone so that he can’t hear me. “Can Ari and Mercedes come with us?” I ask my parents.

  My dad looks at my mom with his eyebrows up. “Those are her new friends from school,” Mom fills him in.

  “Ah, the coffee drinkers,” he says. My mom looks perplexed but I giggle. “It’s fine by me, I’d like to meet them,” he adds.

  “Sure,” says Mom. “We’ll pack extra food.”

  “Do you and Mercedes want to come with us?” I ask Ari, which is the only thing that shuts him up.

  Then, after a beat of silence, he asks in the most serious voice I’ve ever heard from him, “What time and where?”

  My family (including a sulking Willow) sets off an hour later looking like a band of . . . well, a band of woodland elves traveling through the forest. In other words, nothing like true Brooklynites. All of us are in tunics, boots, and hats. Mom and Willow are carrying woven rucksacks packed full of enough food to feed a small village. Dad and Grove have their guitars and blanket rolls slung over their shoulders. Bramble carries his little bow at the ready with a deerskin quiver of arrows strapped across his back. (The tips are blunted, of course, since there is no hunting in this park.) Poppy pulls Persimmon (plus almost all of their rag dolls, penny whistles, and a collection of drums and shakers) in a little wooden wagon. I’ve got jugs of Mom’s homemade sweet red serviceberry tea and wild strawberry juice in my own backpack.

  As soon as we enter the greenery of the park, we all relax. Simply hearing birds sing, watching squirrels scamper, and seeing a hawk glide in lazy circles above the trees makes us all feel more at ease. We head down a path toward the road that circles the inside of the park. Since today is Saturday, the road is filled with walkers, runners, bicyclers, people pushing baby carriages, and even a few riding horses. Out of the corner of my eye, I catch sight of a guy jogging without a shirt and I get a tingly, weird feeling as if someone cast a staring spell at me and I can’t look away or blink. Then I realize why. It’s Timber!

  At least I think it’s Timber. This guy’s legs are long and his shoulders are broad and straight. I can see the outline of muscles on his bare chest and his thighs as he bounds down the road. He has one of those little white pod thingies clipped to his arm with wires going into his ears and he’s mouthing the words to the song he’s hearing. Suddenly he looks up and I can see his face with those deep, sparkling gray-blue eyes. It is Timber! I jump behind a big bush by the side of the road, wishing more than anything that I knew an invisibility spell. It’s bad enough that Ari and Mercedes are going to see me with this group of weirdoes known as my family, but I’d die of embarrassment if Timber saw us, too.

  I peek out and see him do a double take as my parents step into the road. That’s no surprise. In a city where supposedly anything goes, we Addlers manage to look like freaks. Now that I see us in the midst of normal people, in normal clothes, doing normal things like riding bikes, running, and walking dogs, I realize that it’s worse than I thought. We are mutants on parade. I had this idea that everything would magically get better when Dad and Grove got back, but now I see that having all of us together creates a whole new set of problems.

  Timber slows to a walk with his hands on his hips and stares first at my father, who looks like some prehistoric caveman lost in the urban world. Then he glances at my mom, with her long straw-colored braids and big goofy grin beaming out. Timber’s eyes pass over Grove and Bramble (increasingly smaller versions of my dad), Willow (dragging her feet like a waterlogged banshee), then Poppy and Persimmon, who chatter away like crazy squirrels. Luckily, I manage to escape his notice from behind the bush, although I’m sure everyone can hear my heart pounding inside my chest like distant drums and the gulps of my loud, quick breathing. What’s wrong with me? I’ve never felt like this before. Never not wanted to be seen with my family. Finally, Timber has enough. He shakes his head, bewildered—and who can blame him? As I watch him run down the road into the woods, my stomach gurgles, my skin shivers, and my palms are moist with sweat, but I’m relieved. Crisis averted.

  Until my father calls my name: “Zeph? Zephyr!”

  I cringe. No! No! Don’t turn around, Timber! I think.

  “Which way, Zephyr?” my dad asks. “Hey, where’d she go?”

  I step out from behind the bush reluctantly, but lucky for me, Timber is long gone. “That way,” I mumble, pointing toward the meadow where we agreed to meet Ari and Mercedes. I stay a few paces behind the most embarrassing family in the whole world, hoping to the high heavens that I don’t see anyone else I know today.

  The park is already crowded with picnicking families, soccer players, and kite flyers on this warm fall Saturday morning. As we meander down the path circling the baseball fields and two main meadows, I watch people steal glances, then talk and snicker behind their hands at the sight of my bizarro family. My mom and dad, being insane, wave and smile at everyone, calling out “Hey there!” and “Hello!” and “Nice day, isn’t it?” as if they’ve just been released from an asylum. Even though I’ve gone to school for only a week in Brooklyn, I already know that people here don’t talk to strangers unless they have to. But here are my parents, acting like everyone’s new best friends. I’m almost relieved to see Ari and Mercedes beneath a large elm tree on the side of a hill. I want nothing more than to get my family off the path and into the shade where they will be less of a spectacle.

  Only that doesn’t happen because Ari is completely beside himself when he meets my dad. He pops up from his place on the blanket and charges at Dad with his hand out and his mouth running like river rapids. He’s talking so loudly that I’m sure more people are staring at us now.

  “Oh my God, hello, Mr. Addler. Hello. Or should I call you Drake? Can I call you Drake? It seems like I know you because, you know, I listen to your music all the time. Even before I met Zephyr. I have a bunch of links to your music on my Facebook page. I love your work because it’s brilliant. Some of the best music out there today. I’m a musician, too, and I have a band called GGJB. I saw you at Irving Plaza and up in the Berkshires last year. And when I met Zephyr and she said that you’re her father . . .”

  “You must be Ari!” my dad says with a hearty laugh. He claps Ari on the back, sending him stumbling for a moment, but then he regains his balance and just keeps right on talking.

  “What’s with that?” I ask Mercedes, pointing to
Ari’s crazy black floppy hair pulled into a stubby ponytail.

  Mercedes gives me a withering look. “I know. And check out the pants.”

  I look down at Ari’s legs. Instead of his usual black jeans and All Star sneakers, he’s wearing khaki green cargo pants and a pair of hiking boots.

  “Goth boy’s gone folky,” Mercedes says with a snort.

  “Because of my dad?”

  “Duh,” says Mercedes. “I’m surprised he didn’t make his mom sew him one of those long shirt-things y’all wear.” Then she shakes her head. “Dang, girl, does your whole family always dress alike?”

  I flop down on the blanket beside her and cover my face with my hands. “I’ve never been this mortified in all my life!” I groan.

  “Yeah, that’s pretty rough,” Mercy says. “You’re like the Von Trapps meet the Swiss Family Robinson.”

  “I’ve got the most embarrassing family in the entire universe,” I moan. “Just look at them!”

  “Honey,” Mercedes says. “You don’t know embarrassing until you’ve walked down the street with Rico Loveras, my eighth-grade crush, followed by my abuela yelling in Spanish to pull down my shirt, pull up my pants, and stop hanging around Dominican boys because in her crazy mind, I’m allowed to date only Puerto Ricans. And even then, not until I’m eighteen.”

  “But that’s just your grandmother,” I protest. “My entire family is certifiable. Your family isn’t like this.”

  “You think you’re the only person in the whole world to think your family is loco? Heck, everybody’s family has their own craziness. You act like this is the first time you’ve ever been embarrassed by them.”

  “But—” I start to protest. This is the first time I’ve ever been embarrassed by them. In Alverland, my family doesn’t seem crazy at all. Then again, as I keep reminding myself, we’re not in Alverland anymore. Before I can explain this, Poppy runs over and plops herself between Mercedes and me. Persimmon is right behind her and she plunks down in Mercedes’s lap.

  “Hi! ” Poppy yells. “Do you remember us? We’re Zephyr’s little sisters! ”

  “Really?” Mercedes says in a tone that I now recognize as sarcasm.

  “Yes, really,” Poppy says seriously. She fluffs Mercedes’s curls with her fingers. “My name is Poppy and this is Persimmon and you’re Mercedes. I like that name. It’s pretty. My name is a flower. Are you named after a flower, too? ”

  “Nope, a car,” says Mercedes.

  Poppy’s eyes are wide. “A car? ”

  “That and my grandmother,” Mercedes says.

  “Your grandmother is a car? ” Poppy asks, still amazed.

  “Duh, Poppy! Of course her grandmother isn’t a car! ” I say.

  Mercedes laughs. “It’s okay, Zeph. I have little sisters, too. Remember? ”

  “Are your sisters named after cars? ” Poppy asks, giggling.

  “Yeah, Beemer and Caddy,” says Mercedes.

  “Those are pretty, too,” says Poppy kindly.

  “She’s just like you, Zeph. All nicey nice.” Mercedes pokes Poppy in the ribs. “I’m just fooling with you, mami! That’s not really their names. Their names are Nellie and Marisol. They’re twins about your age. You’d like them. They could be your friends.”

  Poppy jumps up with her hands pressed over her mouth, barely suppressing wild giggles. Then she runs to my mom with Persimmon following. “Mommy! Mommy! Mercedes says I can be friends with her sisters! ”

  “Are you really named after a car?” I lean over and ask Mercedes now that my sisters are out of earshot.

  “Naw,” she says. “Virgin Mary. You know, Our Lady of the Mercies. My grandparents are very Catholic.” She touches her forehead, her chest, her left shoulder, and her right shoulder. “At least they like everyone to think they are, but really my abuela is back in the bedroom with her little Santeria altar to the spirits with all its candles and beads and statues and fruit. You want to talk about embarrassing? That’s embarrassing!”

  “I don’t think that sounds so bad,” I say, thinking of my own grandmother and the little altars she builds from rocks and sticks and berries for all the spirits in the woods.

  Mercedes elbows me hard in the side. “Oh my God,” she says. “Look who the cat dragged in.”

  “What cat? ” I ask, confused.

  She points to the path, a few feet away from our blankets. “It’s your boyfriend.”

  “I don’t have a boyfriend.” I look to where she’s pointing. Immediately my skin goes hot, then cold, then hot again, and my mouth goes dry. There’s a tremor in my chest and my stomach climbs up into my throat. Timber is walking straight toward us.

  “I thought that must be you,” he says with a smile big enough to swallow me in one gulp. “I saw this whole group of people dressed like you back there but I didn’t see you.”

  I can’t say anything. Nothing will come out of my mouth. It’s as if my mother has hexed me again and I’m mute. I just sit there, staring at him like an idiot. Staring at his bare chest and his long strong legs. I want to shrink. Turn into a little mouse and scurry away into the woods.

  Timber drops down on the grass beside me. “Is this your family? ” This is awful. The worst thing ever. He’ll tell Bella and her horrible friends about us and then they’ll say terrible things on their berry blogs. But obviously I can’t deny that this is my family since we all look exactly alike. “Yep,” I sort of squeak, then I add dumbly, “we’re having a picnic.”

  “Cool,” says Timber, nodding. He looks at Mercedes. “How’s it going?”

  “Hey,” she says back, but all the warmth has drained from her voice.

  Timber stretches out in the grass. “Man, I just ran around the park twice. Six miles. I’m beat.”

  Mercedes looks at me and does one of her trademark eye rolls.

  “Most guys I know can run around three or four times, but me, I’m a total wuss,” Timber says with a laugh. “All I think about the whole time is a big fat Red Bull with chicken wings.”

  “You don’t look like you have trouble exercising,” I say, trying to imagine why he’d think of a bull with chicken wings, especially a red one, to help him run. But then after I say this, I blush. “Uh . . . um . . . uh,” I stutter and stammer because I sounded like I was checking out his body. Which, of course, I was, but I don’t want him to know that.

  Timber smiles broadly at me. “Thanks,” he says, and props up on his elbow to face me. “It’s all in the genes.” He pauses. “I only wear Sevens.” He waits with a silly smile. “That was a joke. Seven jeans, not human genes.”

  “Yeah, we got it,” Mercedes says, but of course I’m lost as usual.

  “Never mind.” He shakes his head and almost looks a teeny bit embarrassed. But then he recovers and asks me, “Do you work out?”

  “Work out what?” I ask, and both he and Mercedes laugh.

  “You’re so deadpan, Zephyr. It kills me,” Timber says.

  “You think she’s kidding,” Mercedes leans over and tells him.

  “I don’t know what she is,” Timber tells her. “Except funny.”

  Just then my mom saunters over, carrying a big basket of food. Timber immediately stands up. “Hello, you must be Zephyr’s mother. I’m Timber Lewis Cahill, a friend of hers from school.” He sticks his hand out.

  “Freaking Prince Charming,” Mercedes whispers to me.

  For some reason, my mother just can’t get the whole erdler handshaking thing. Instead of sticking her hand out, too, she opens her arms and wraps Timber in a big, stupid hug. “Welcome,” she says kindly. “It’s so nice to meet the people Zephyr knows. Please join us. Have some food.” She places the basket on the ground in front of us.

  “Great!” Timber says. “I’m starving.” He sits back down beside me and digs in.

  Somehow things actually get better once we start to eat. Ari even drags himself away from worshiping at the feet of my father to join Mercedes, Timber, and me. We all munch on fresh fruit and cu
t-up veggies, and sandwiches made with hunks of cheese, smoked fish, or venison jerky on my mom’s homemade brown bread. Ari, Mercedes, and Timber talk about which classes at school suck and which ones are good. Then Mercedes gets us all cracking up with her impersonation of some of the teachers and other students. Thankfully, no one ever mentions Bella and her friends.

  Finally, when we’re all stuffed, Ari says, “Anybody want to play Frisbee?” He reaches into his bag and pulls out a flat, orange plastic disc.

  “Since when do you play Frisbee?” Mercedes snatches the thing from Ari’s hands.

  “Since forever.” Ari snatches it back.

  “Since never,” she says, and grabs for it but he holds it out of her reach.

  “God, you guys fight worse than me and Bella,” Timber says, shaking his head.

  Mercedes gives him the look of death. “Only we’re not boyfriend and girlfriend, pendejo.”

  “You act like you are,” Timber tells her.

  I see Mercedes rearing up, gathering a storm of abuse to unleash on Timber’s head, so I grab the orange thing from Ari and quickly ask, “What’s a Frisbee?”

  All three of my friends look at one another then at me.

  “Are you serious?” Ari asks.

  “She’s clueless!” Mercedes shouts happily.

  “For real, you don’t know? ” Timber asks. I shake my head. He tosses his arm loosely around my shoulders. “It’s cute the way she’s so out of it.” He takes the Frisbee from me and waves it in front of his body. Ari runs down the hill, then Timber zings the thing through the air. Ari jumps and catches it. “Come on,” Timber says to me. “We’ll show you how to play.”

  “I want to play, too!” Poppy jumps up and follows us.

  “No, Poppy,” I say. “You can’t come.”

  “Yes, I can,” says Poppy.

  “They’re my friends,” I tell her.

  “Mercedes is my friend, too. She said so.”

  “She’s not, Poppy. She said you could be her sisters’ friend. You’ll be in the way. Stay here and play with Persimmon.”