Chapter 6
991 Words
6
Before I could ask any of the obvious questions, like, Why would your grandmother come if she was dead? Do you believe in ghosts? Do the dead come back to life here?—Halli saved me the trouble and went ahead with her own explanation.
“Do you know my grandmother?” she asked. “Virginia Markham. Ginny.”
So that’s who Halli had been asking about when I first showed up.
It seemed like I should know her grandmother. If Halli and I were exact genetic duplicates of each other, each living in our own universes, then it made sense that our parents and grandparents and every other relative down the line should also be exactly the same. Like I told Halli, all it would take was one person in our ancestry deciding no, he or she would rather go out with this person instead of that one, and the whole gene pool would have been different, meaning Halli or I would never have been born.
So I had to assume that Halli and I had the same grandmother. I also had to assume, based on the fact that Halli was called Halli instead of Audie, that her grandmother would have a different name, too.
“Do you have a picture of her?” I asked.
Halli ducked inside her tent and emerged with a rolled up scroll-looking thing. She unfurled it and laid it flat on her lap. It turned out to be a kind of computer-like screen about the size of a sheet of paper, and practically as thin. Halli pressed the surface of it in a couple of places, then passed it to me.
The face looking up at me was definitely my grandmother’s. My mother’s mother, to be exact. A sweet old lady my mom and I both affectionately refer to as “it’s for you” whenever we see her number on Caller ID, because conversations with her can definitely be . . . less than fun. My grandmother doesn’t really approve of how we run our lives. We’re too poor for her compared to my Uncle Mike and his family, and my grandmother just can’t help bringing it up all the time.
“Did your father send his child support this month?”
“Mom, it’s for you . . .”
“Is that her?” Halli asked once I’d looked at the screen.
“Yes, but her name’s Marion Fletcher over . . . ” I gestured vaguely to my left. “. . .there.”
“But you’re sure they’re the same.”
“Yes,” I said.
A beeping sound came from the screen. The photo on it disappeared, and in its place came a swirl of lights. They lifted off the screen and twisted in the air right above it.
Halli groaned. “I shouldn’t have turned it on.”
“What’s—”
But Halli held her finger to her lips and motioned for me to get inside her tent.
A voice came from the swirl of lights. “Halli? Where are you?”
I knew that voice. It was my mother’s.
As soon as I was safely in the tent, peeking around the edge of the flap, Halli pressed something on her screen.
“What,” she asked dully.
Suddenly a head appeared. My mother’s head. Also her shoulders and a little of her upper torso. Maybe at three-quarters their regular size, but otherwise looking fully real in three-dimensional color. It looked like she was there in person—or at least her upper body was. She hovered over the top of Halli’s screen, talking to her as if they were in the same room.
“We were worried,” my mother—technically, Halli’s mother—said.
“Why?” Halli asked. “I’m sure my dot moved.”
“You shouldn’t be out there alone,” her mother said.
“I’m not alone—”
Halli glanced my way. I ducked back inside the tent. I thought I was supposed to be a secret.
“—I’m with Red,” Halli finished. Then she slowly started edging toward the tent.
She knelt down in front of the door, held the screen high over her head, then coughed. The screen jiggled and the three-dimensional image of my mother lost focus—sort of like bad TV reception. And in that moment, Halli passed the screen to me.
“No!” I whispered.
“Yes,” Halli mouthed.
She quickly skittered away from the tent. I was alone with just her mother.
“Uh. . .hi,” I said as soon as her face came back. I couldn’t resist poking my finger through her cheek—she just looked so real. But of course my finger passed right through. It was just a hologram.
“Red, relax! It’s just a holo,” Halli had said when I first showed up. Now I understood. No wonder she was so confused when that rock she threw at me bounced off.
“. . .traveling with your dog isn’t the same as being with other people,” Halli’s mother was saying. “Your father and I worry about you.”
When I didn’t answer right away, she said, “Halli, are you listening?”
“Oh, sorry, Mom. Go ahead.”
“Mom?” She seemed a little flustered by that. Halli shook her head at me. Her mother cleared her throat and continued.
Meanwhile I stared at her face.
That woman was definitely my mother. And definitely not.
She looked older. More tired. Heavier, too. Not healthy and energetic-looking like my mother. Just generally puffy and worn out and old.
“Are you listening?” she asked again.
“Yes,” I said. “Sorry. How are you?”
Halli waved for my attention and shook her head again. Apparently I wasn’t handling this right.
Her mother seemed confused by my question, too. “I’m. . . fine. I wish I didn’t have to track you down all over the world—”
Halli gestured for me to wrap it up.
“Um . . . I have to go,” I told her mother.
“When are you going home?” she asked.
“Uh . . .” I looked to Halli for the answer. She shrugged like she didn’t care.
“I might stay out here a while,” I told her mother.
“Why?” her mother asked. “How much longer?”
Halli came to my aid. She motioned for me to lift the screen high, then she rushed in smoothly and did the coughing thing again. She jiggled the screen and retrieved it from my hands. I took the hint and ducked back into the tent.
“I have to go,” Halli told her mother as soon as the screen was back in front of her and the hologram focused again. “Watch my dot. I’ll probably be up here a few more days.”
“Will you call me?” her mother asked.
Halli coughed again. “Need water. Goodbye.”
Then she pressed the screen and her mother’s head disappeared. Halli sat back on her heels and blew out a breath. Then she smiled at me.
“Very good,” she said.
“I’m sweating,” I pointed out.
“Was that her?” Halli asked. “Same mother?”
“Mostly.”
“Well then,” Halli said, “I’m sorry.”
- Writer
