Two Friends, One Dog, and a Very Unusual Week, page 3
For that matter, what would Emily’s parents do?
Emily glanced out of the window. She yelped.
Rani waved. She was right on the other side of the glass, hanging upside down. Her bright orange T-shirt and tie-dyed pajama pants made her seem like a colorful spider, and her hair fluffed out around her face.
“What was that, hon?” Emily’s father called from the kitchen.
“Nothing!” Emily flung the window open.
“Hello there,” Rani said cheerfully as she swayed two stories above the ground. Now Emily noticed the harness that fit snugly around Rani’s torso and the line that held her suspended from the attic window.
“What are you doing?” Emily asked.
“Inviting you to tea,” Rani answered. “Unless you’re like the orangutans and only drink coffee.”
“But you’re upside down!”
“Oh, I’ll turn right side up for tea,” Rani assured her. “But you’ll have to take the stairs, I’m afraid. I only have one climbing harness.”
She flipped herself over, braced her feet against the brick wall, and began to walk up the side of the building as easily as if she were strolling on the ground.
Emily leaned out of the window to watch Rani until she was safely back inside. Then she jumped up, grabbed her shoes, wrestled her feet into them, asked her father if she could visit Rani, got a yes, and ran to the attic.
This time, Rani’s door opened before Emily knocked. Otto was sitting inside.
Emily looked around and saw what all the noise had been about.
Along one wall of the attic there was now a loft halfway between the floor and the ceiling. A ladder rose up to it and a gleaming metal slide curved down from one end.
The chandelier that Emily had seen delivered hung from the ceiling. Light fell through its crystals and scattered tiny shards of rainbows across the floor.
Rani’s head appeared over the edge of the loft. “Come up!” she called.
Emily climbed the ladder. The floor of the loft was scattered with cushions—some silk or satin, some covered in white fur, some embroidered with tiny mirrors. Red velvet curtains hung around three sides, making the space feel safe and secret.
Rani sat on a fuzzy green cushion. On a tiny table next to her, only a foot or so above the floor, was a teapot, two cups, and a plate of ginger cookies.
“I’m glad you’re here,” said Rani. “Otto doesn’t drink tea.” She poured a fragrant brown stream into one of the cups. “One lump or twenty-seven?”
“Rani! Did this stuff come out of that old hotel?”
Rani nodded. “Most of it. They weren’t using it anymore.”
“And did you build all this yourself?”
“Most of it,” Rani said again. She took a sugar lump from her pocket and dropped it into Emily’s cup. Then she dropped a second lump into her mouth, poured tea into her own cup, and gulped it down before the sugar could dissolve. “Let’s try out the slide!”
The slide swung Emily into a dizzying curve and dumped her onto a thick mattress at the bottom. Breathless, she scrambled back up the ladder to try it again.
Next Rani and Emily slid down together. Then Rani showed Emily a wide canvas sling that hung over one side of the loft. She called Otto, who stepped into the sling and let Rani buckle it around his chest and across his back. Rani turned a handle that pulled ropes through a pulley and hoisted Otto up into the air.
Otto didn’t seem to mind as he rose, all four legs dangling. Once he reached the level of the loft, he stepped onto a platform. Rani, who had hurried up the ladder, unbuckled his harness.
The dog sniffed carefully all around, chose a huge pink cushion to curl up on, and gazed at Rani as if expecting something.
She gave him a ginger cookie. “But only one!” she warned him sternly.
Otto ate his cookie and watched Rani and Emily slide again and again and again.
“I wish we could do this all day,” Emily said a little breathlessly after she’d climbed up to the loft for the fifth time. She flopped back on a soft red silk pillow.
“Why can’t we?” Rani asked with her mouth full of cookie.
“Well, I have to do my homework. Reading.”
“Huh. Reading,” Rani said with a spray of crumbs.
“Don’t you like reading?”
“Never saw much point. I’d rather be doing,” Rani said. “But go on. Get your book. You can read up here.”
Emily did. “What’s it about?” Rani asked, eyeing the cover.
“A boy whose plane crashes in the wilderness. And he has to survive all by himself. With just a hatchet.”
“Read to me.”
Emily glanced at Rani in surprise. She had settled back down on her green cushion. She seemed serious.
“Okay.” Emily opened the book and began to read about Brian hunting in the forest.
Reading went much quicker with a friend and a big dog listening and ginger cookies to eat whenever Emily was ready for a break. She got all the way to Brian’s first successful fishing expedition before her voice began to creak.
“Not bad,” Rani said. “Once my mom and I went fishing in Denali, and our jeep got chased by a herd of caribou.”
Emily closed her book. “Where’s Denali?”
“Alaska,” Rani answered. “Did you know that caribou is another name for reindeer? So Santa’s sleigh is actually pulled by flying caribou.”
Emily was tempted to ask more about the caribou, but she didn’t let herself get distracted. “Rani, were you really in Alaska?” she asked.
“Of course!” Rani flopped down on her back, stretched her feet up to the ceiling and wiggled her toes.
“With your mom?”
“Yep. You didn’t think I was driving a jeep all by myself, did you?”
“And your mom’s in Patagonia now?”
“Sure. She’s a wildlife photographer. So she has to go where the wildlife is. Didn’t I tell you that part?”
Emily shook her head.
“Well, she is. She travels all over the world to take pictures of animals. And she takes me with her. Has done ever since I was a baby. That’s me in the picture.”
Rani pointed one foot at the photo of the smiling baby that hung near her hammock. Emily glimpsed an electric kettle on the windowsill next to the chair. So that was how Rani had made the tea.
“She was tracking man-eating tigers in Bangladesh when she took that picture,” Rani went on. “Of course they eat women too. And children. They aren’t picky.”
Emily stared. “And she took you with her?”
“Sure.” Rani let her legs drop to the floor of the loft, one at a time. “I didn’t get eaten.”
“Well, I figured.” Emily took another cookie. She felt as if everything was a little more solid now. Rani’s mom didn’t seem like such a will-o’-the-wisp, a ghost that flitted in and out of Rani’s conversation. She was a real person with a real job, even if that job was a little, well, wild.
“So how come your mom didn’t take you to Patagonia?” Emily asked.
“Oh, she did! But it’s cold in Patagonia, and she’s going to be camping out for a while, so I said I’d rather hop on an airplane and head up here to stay with Mr. Armand.”
“And she just let you?” Emily was fascinated. It was only this year that her parents had allowed her to walk to school by herself. And Rani’s mom let her fly home from Patagonia?
Also, she thought, it was too bad she hadn’t known that Rani’s mom was a wildlife photographer when Mrs. Pinkney had asked about Rani’s parents. It might have helped.
Or maybe not.
“Listen, Rani,” she said. “You know Mrs. Pinkney? Downstairs? She was asking a lot of questions about you.”
Rani beamed. “That’s nice. She must be friendly. Do you think she’d like to try the slide?”
Emily’s imagination frizzled and failed at the idea of Mrs. Pinkney going down Rani’s slide.
“No, I don’t think so,” she said. “And I don’t think she’s that friendly either. I think—”
A knock came on the door.
“Emily? Your dad says you’re up here,” Emily’s mother called. “We’ve got to go shoe shopping before dinner. Come on, shake a tail feather!”
“Shoe shopping!” Rani could not have been more thrilled if Emily’s mom had said they were going to a candy factory. A candy factory in Disneyland. “I can’t wait!”
Emily’s mom was happy to meet Rani and said that she didn’t mind if Rani joined them for shoe shopping. It was a little more complicated to explain to Rani that Otto could not come.
“He has four feet!” Rani pointed out. “He needs twice as many shoes!”
But at last she had been convinced that Otto would not enjoy himself, and the big dog had been left at home.
Rani did not consider it necessary to change out of her pajama pants. She just put on her silver shoes and scampered down the stairs with Emily behind her. They piled into the back seat of Emily’s mom’s car for the drive to the SuperSmartSaverMart.
Once they got there and were walking across the black parking lot, something buzzed loudly inside Emily’s mother’s purse. She sighed and dug her phone out of her bag.
“Oh, hello. No, I can’t, it’s my half day, I’m not at work, I’m—oh. You’re kidding! Don’t tell me that. Please don’t tell me that. How? Please tell me how, no, don’t tell me!”
Emily’s mother turned away from the girls and covered one ear while holding her phone to the other. She groaned. “Well, then I have to, okay, all right, thirty minutes. All right!”
She ended her call and stuffed the phone back in her purse. “I’m so sorry,” she said, turning back to the girls. “Work crisis. Some idiot mangled the mainframe and I’ve got to go in. Emily, I’m sorry.”
“Why can’t Emily and I shoe shop together?” Rani asked.
Emily’s mom blinked. “Well, but…” She took out her phone again. “You’re only nine years old. I don’t think…”
“Oh, don’t worry, Mrs. Robbins!” Rani said cheerfully. “One time I went to buy sandals in a street market in Rajasthan and someone was selling camels there too. They didn’t need shoes. The camels. But I decided I’d rather have a camel than a pair of sandals. I named her Matilda. I thought we should probably go on a tour of a desert so she could visit with some friends. They were also camels. And I didn’t get back for about a week. But it was fine. Absolutely fine. This store should be no problem at all.”
Emily was not sure how Rani managed it, but she did. Somehow this story of Matilda the camel resulted in permission for Emily and Rani to go into the SuperSmartSaverMart and look at shoes until Emily’s dad could come on the bus and take them home.
This was…exciting.
Emily thought it was, anyway.
She did need new shoes. She was tired of having scrunched toes.
And she’d never gotten to go into the SuperSmartSaverMart by herself. Usually she was with her mom or her dad or both. And they were always hurrying her along or bustling her into line or warning “We’re not buying that!” if Emily slowed down in the candy aisle.
Grown-ups never understood how nice it was just to gaze on rows and rows of silky-smooth chocolate bars in bright wrappers or buckets of gumballs, all rainbow colors. Just knowing there was all that candy in the world was a wonderfully satisfying feeling.
Now she and Rani would be able to go down the candy aisle as slowly as they pleased. They could stop to stroke fuzzy sweaters or hug squishable teddy bears. All on their own. With no one telling them to catch up or shake a tail feather.
It should be great. It would be great.
But Emily realized that it would be a little worrying too.
What would Rani do once they were inside the SuperSmartSaverMart? Emily had already figured out that Rani did not do things the way most people did.
In the attic, that was fun.
On the school playground, it had been kind of strange.
What would it be like in a store? Emily was still wondering about that as her mom took them to the entrance and hugged them and hurried back toward the car. She already had her phone up to her ear.
“Rani,” Emily asked. “Have you ever been to a SuperSmartSaverMart before?”
“Nope!” said Rani. “I’ve been snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef, though. Does that count?” The big glass doors whooshed open and she stood wide-eyed, gazing at the scene inside. “Oh. My. Do you think they have camels?”
“No,” said Emily. “I’m pretty sure they have everything else, though.”
Shoppers hurried past, pushing bright orange carts loaded with clothes, groceries, toys, and pet food. One woman had a lamp and a potted plant in her cart. Another had three turquoise vases, a badminton racquet, and a giant box of toilet paper.
A clown in an orange polka-dot suit was standing just inside the doors. “Hello and welcome to the SuperSmartSaverMart,” he said and thrust a turquoise balloon in Emily’s face. He had a bright red smile painted across the lower half of his face. Underneath it, his real mouth was set in a flat line.
“Thank you for choosing the SuperSmartSaverMart. We want you to have whatever you want,” he told the girls.
When Emily was little, she’d been scared of the SuperSmartSaverMart clown. Now she took a balloon every time because she felt sorry for him. She always let her balloon go as soon as she was out of his sight. The high ceiling of the SuperSmartSaverMart was crowded with balloons that had lost half of their air, bobbing listlessly among the rafters as if they wanted to get out but didn’t have the energy to try very hard.
“That’s so nice of you!” Rani gave the clown a beaming smile. “I’m Rani. What’s your name?”
She took a purple balloon and shook the clown’s hand energetically.
“Uh…Rich.” Rich the clown stared down in surprise at Rani’s hand shaking his. “Most people don’t ask.”
“How funny!” Rani let his hand go. “We certainly will enjoy your store, even if you don’t have any camels. It was very nice to meet you!”
She waved and strolled into the SuperSmartSaverMart. Emily followed.
It was perfectly fine to shake the hand of the SuperSmartSaverMart clown, Emily thought. Of course it was. There wasn’t anything actually wrong with it.
She’d just never seen anybody do it before.
“This is a very friendly store,” Rani said as they walked past a giant display of umbrellas and a bunch of mannequins in ponchos.
“The shoes are this way.” Emily pointed to the far corner of the store, where she could see a tower of shoeboxes stacked up halfway to the ceiling.
She glanced back to make sure Rich the clown wasn’t watching and let her balloon go. Then she tugged Rani down an aisle lined with snack food and candy. She didn’t feel like lingering, after all. It seemed important to get to the shoes as quickly as possible.
She almost told Rani to shake a tail feather.
A fussy toddler was sobbing in a cart as her mother scanned the snacks. Rani reached up to pluck a sparkly orange pinwheel from the top of a display of jelly beans. She handed it to the baby. “There, that will cheer you up!” she declared.
“Oh…thank you.” The toddler’s mother lowered her gaze to Rani in her orange T-shirt. “Do you…work here?”
“It’s not work. It’s fun!” Rani said, striding ahead. She snagged a package of caramels off a shelf. “I’ve never been to a store where they just want you to have anything you like. It’s so nice of them!” She handed her purple balloon to Emily, tugged the bag open, and grabbed a handful of caramels.
“You can’t eat those!” Emily yelped.
Rani stared at her in bewilderment.
“I can’t?” She handed the open bag to Emily. “Oh, you’re right. Caramels really aren’t good for your teeth. I fed some to a beaver once and he got all his teeth stuck together. Do you know how hard it is to convince a beaver to brush his teeth?”
Rani jumped up to snag a big red bag of popcorn on a shelf just above her head. “This is better. Don’t you think?”
In dismay, Emily clutched the bag of caramels in one hand and the string of Rani’s balloon with the other. “No, Rani, I mean you can’t eat anything!”
She was too late. Rani had already ripped the bag of popcorn open. She started walking again. “What do you mean? Rich said he wanted me to have everything I want. Right now I want some popcorn.”
Emily scurried after her. “Yes, I know, but he meant he wanted you to buy everything you want. You still have to pay for stuff!”
Rani chomped and swallowed. “Oh, well, that’s no problem. I have plenty of money.”
“Really?” Emily’s panic ebbed a little. If Rani could pay for the popcorn and the caramels, they wouldn’t get into too much trouble.
“Course I do. You didn’t think my mom would go off to Patagonia and leave me with nothing, did you?” They’d left the snack aisle by now. Emily was relieved about that. They were walking by a display of cleaning supplies, and Rani was not likely to snatch a mop or a box of wet wipes off the shelf.
Emily hoped so, anyway.
“So there’s nothing to worry about. Here, have some popcorn.” Rani stuffed another handful into her mouth and tossed the bag to Emily.
Emily wanted to explain that you had to pay for things first and eat them afterward, but she was distracted by the open bag of popcorn flying through the air. She dropped the caramels to try to snatch it. Popcorn sprayed up and fountained down around her like snowflakes in a movie.
Emily heard herself make a sound like yeep!
“Oops,” Rani said. “Oh, but look—it’s no problem.” She darted up to a display of vacuum cleaners and tried to switch one on. “Rats, it’s not plugged in. There!” She’d found an outlet and was crawling to it, holding the vacuum’s power cord between her teeth.
