Part 20 (1/2)
Then: knocking on the door. ”Kaila,” Mike called. ”You might have a cold, but you're not too sick to get your a.s.s up and help with the horses.”
Oh, thank G.o.d. This was more like it.
SOS, Melissa texted the next morning. Exhausted. Woke up in bed this morning wearing someone else's pajamas. Saw a ghost last night. Scared. PLEASE HELP! Something FREAKY going down.
Kaila dialed Melissa's number. This required more than texts. No answer.
Her mother stood at the kitchen table cutting fresh strips of Velostat plastic to wear inside their caps. The black plastic material lay on the table, reflecting the globe light of the ceiling fan.
”Mom,” Kaila said, fingering the plastic, making a note to slip some to Melissa and Pia. ”Can we talk about this?”
Her mother instantly stopped cutting, jerked her capped head at Kaila.
”What do you want to talk about?”
”This stuff. The Velostat. Like, why do we wear it?”
”We've been through this a thousand times.”
”And you never answer,” Kaila said. ”I want you tell me in words, out loud, why we have to wear this stuff.”
Nan stood in the doorway, her chubby arms folded over a gingham smock ap.r.o.n. ”Kaila. Leave your mother alone.”
Her mother looked pale as a mummy, her dark eyes shadowed beneath the baseball cap visor's shadow.
Still, Kaila persisted. ”I want to talk about this. No one else in school wears a stupid wig and this creepy plastic.”
”You must trust and believe in us,” Nan said. ”We love you.”
”I know that, Nan!” Kaila cried, exasperated.
”We may approach this when you are of age,” Nan stammered. ”Not before.”
Good G.o.d, why was her family so old fas.h.i.+oned? It was the stupid Southern thing, where people always had to smile and act polite even if contorted with constipation, or if someone in the family had just been s.h.i.+pped to the mental hospital. They never said what was real. Just like polite zombies.
”I'm going to be seventeen tomorrow,” Kaila said. ”What do you consider of age? How long are you going to treat me like a nose-picking toddler?”
”We shouldn't talk about this,” her mother said.
Kaila knelt down before her mother. ”Why shouldn't we talk about it?”
Her mother refused to look at Kaila. She pursed her lips.
Kaila grew frightened. ”Mom, look at me.”
Lee stared at the black sheets of plastic. ”We shouldn't talk about this,” her mother intoned.
”Mom,” Kaila gripped her mother's elbow. ”Are you programmed? Is that why you can't talk?”
Kaila was jerked upright by her grandmother. ”You stop this foolishness!” Nan shouted. ”Stop it now.”
When Kaila looked at Nan, she expected to see anger, but what she saw was fear.
There was a long silence. Kaila knew something was seriously amiss. But to probe her mother and Nan would do no good. She realized how deeply frightened they were, and that like Melissa and Pia, they probably didn't understand.
Kaila hugged Nan. ”I'm sorry, Nan. I love you.”
Nan's eyes watered as she pressed Kaila to her bosom. Nan pulled Lee up and drew her close. Nan petted Lee's curly dark hair escaping from her baseball cap.
”You're both my good girls,” Nan said. ”Everything will be all right.” Her face artificially brightened. ”Now Kaila, how *bout you help me make that barbecue sauce for tomorrow? We have a lot to do for your party. Go fetch the ketchup out of the fridge.”
”I found something,” Kaila whispered on the phone in her room. She was on a three-way call with Melissa and Pia. ”Listen.” She squinted at the computer screen. ”This Velostat stuff is used to make thought screen helmets.”
”What stuff?” Melissa asked.
”Velostat,” Kaila said. ”Get online now. Google it.”
Kaila read from the computer screen, ”The thought screen helmet scrambles telepathic communication between aliens and humans. Aliens cannot immobilize people wearing thought screens nor can they control their mind or communicate with them using their telepathy. When aliens can't communicate or control humans, they do not take them.”
Silence. Kaila knew Melissa and Pia contemplated their computer screens too.
”I bet this dude just put this up to make money,” Pia finally said.
”Yeah,” Melissa said. ”It's probably a scam. I don't believe it.”
”You asked me for help and here it is,” Kaila retorted. ”You even asked me to get some for you.”
She paused. What if they were programmed to scoff? She believed that a mind-screen had been put over the entire planet to ridicule and make fun of anything having to do with extraterrestrials. It had to be true. People loved vampires, werewolves, ghosts, zombies. But aliens. No.
Still, Melissa and Pia went on how scared they were. Melissa related that she woke wearing a long flowered gown, something she would never wear, and two sizes too big. Kaila let them voice their fears.
”Look,” Kaila finally said. ”You have my word I'm going to do everything I can to get to the bottom of this.”
”I hope so,” Pia said. ”I can feel this monster moving in me already. I don't want it!”
”I'm so tired,” Melissa said. ”Please help us.”
”But hey,” Pia interjected, ”tomorrow's Kaila's birthday. So just for tomorrow let's flush all this down the toilet. Tomorrow we'll have fun.”
”Pia, thanks,” Kaila said. She could barely imagine the horror of being pregnant and knowing you hadn't caused it. And worse, what might be growing inside her belly.
”Tomorrow we'll have fun,” Melissa agreed. ”Time out.”
”Okay,” Kaila said. ”But day after my party I'm going to go down into the bas.e.m.e.nt and face the monster.”
In southern Louisiana, there were no bas.e.m.e.nts. They understood that in horror movies, someone always went down into the bas.e.m.e.nt when they shouldn't. But the time had come for Kaila to stop pretending everything was all right. Everyone she knew and loved was affected. Deep down, she was terrified, for this was something far-reaching and huge, something so far down the rabbit hole that even in the most vivid of imaginations, one knew instinctively that to step down into that bas.e.m.e.nt meant your mind would be irrevocably blown.
The Sat.u.r.day of Kaila's party the sky was blue and clear, the sun s.h.i.+ning, the temperature idyllic. Kaila observed a bee pollenating a rose in her mother's garden, so colorful with blooming roses, marigolds, and petunias. All the talk of Velostat and secrets and monsters seemed like a dream. Last night held fear; today held hope. Why was life so riddled with contradiction? Kaila looked up when she heard car tires crunching on the clam sh.e.l.ls over the long driveway to her house.
Her extended family traveled to her birthday party from all over Louisiana: Houma, Raceland, New Orleans, Cocodrie, and Covington. Uncle John hugged her in his overalls; her Aunt Jackie, in a sky-blue polyester pantsuit and kerchief, pecked her cheek and slipped fifty dollars into her hand. Her cousins' children ran squealing in delight through the gra.s.ses, popping balloons. Nan rolled out the plastic runner and turned on the hose so they could run and slide.