What a difference a day made.
Somehow, in the hot, hazy August sunlight the -next morning, Mary-Lynnette couldn't get serious about
checking on whether Mrs. Burdock was dead. It was just too ridiculous. Besides, she had a lot to
do-school started in just over two weeks. At the beginning of June she had been sure summer would last
forever, sure that she would neversay, "Wow, this summer has gone by so fast." And now here she stood
in mid-August, and she was saying, "Wow, it's gone by so fast."
I need clothes, Mary-Lynnette thought. And a new backpack, and notebooks, and some of those little
purple felt-tip pens. And I need to make Mark get all those things, too, because he won't do it by himself
and Claudine will never make him.
Claudine was their stepmother. She was Belgian and very pretty, with curly dark hair and sparklingdark eyes. She was only ten years older than MaryLynnette, and she looked even younger. She'd been
the family's housecleaning helper when Mary Lynnette's mom first got sick five years ago. MaryLynnette
liked her, but she was hopeless as a substitute mother, and Mary-Lynnette usually ended up taking
charge of Mark.
So I don't have time to go over to Mrs. B.'s.
She spent the day shopping. It wasn't until after dinner that she thought about Mrs. Burdock again.
She was helping to dear dishes out of the family room, where dinner was traditionally eaten in front of
the TV, when her father said, "I heard something today about Todd Akers and Vic Kimble."
"Those losers," Mark muttered.
Mary-Lynnette said, "What?"
"They had some kind of accident over on Chiloquin Road-over between Hazel Green Creek and
Beavercreek."
"A car accident?" Mary-Lynnette said.
"Well, this is the thing," her father said. "Apparently there wasn't any damage to their car, but they
both thought they'd been in an accident. They showed up at home after midnight and said that something
had happened to them out there-but they didn'tknow what. They were missing a few hours." He looked
at Mark and Mary-Lynnette. "How about that, guys?"
"It's the UFOs!" Mark shouted immediately, dropping into discus-throwing position and wiggling
his plate.
"UFOs are a crock," Mary-Lynnette said. "Do youknow how far the little green men would have
to travel-and there's no suchthing as warp speed. Whydo people have to make things up when the
universe is just just blazing with incredible things that are real-"She stopped. Her family was looking at
her oddly.
"Actually Todd and Vic probably just got smashed," she said, and put her plate and glass in
the sink. Her father grimaced slightly. Claudine pursed her lips. Mark grinned.
"In a very real and literal sense," he said. "We hope."
It was as Mary-Lynnette was walking back to the family room that a thought struck her.
Chiloquin Road was right off Kahneta, the road her own house was on. The road Mrs. B.'s house was
on.It was only two miles from Burdock Farm to Chiloquin.
There couldn't be any connection. Unless the girls were burying the little green man who'd abductedVic
and Todd.
But it bothered her. Two really strange things happening in the same night, in the same area. In a tiny,
sleepy area that never saw any kind of excitement.
I know, I'll call Mrs. B. And she'll be fine, and that'll prove everything's okay, and I'll be able to laugh
about all this.
But nobody answered at the Burdock house. The phone rang and rang. Nobody picked it up and the
answering machine never came on. Mary-Lynnettehung up feeling grim but oddly calm. She knew what
she had to do now.
She snagged Mark as he was going up the stairs. "I need to talk to you."
"Look, if this is about your Walkman-"
"Huh? It's about something we have to do tonight." Mary-Lynnette looked at him. "What aboutmy
Walkman?"
"Uh, nothing. Nothing at all."
Mary-Lynnette groaned but let it go. "Listen, Ineed you to help me out. Last night I saw something weird
when I was on the hill...." She explained as succinctly as possible. "And now more weird stuff with Todd
and Vic," she said.
Mark was shaking his head, looking at her in something like pity. "Mare, Mare," he said kindly. "You
really are crazy, you know."
"Yes," Mary-Lynnette said. "It doesn't matter. I'm still going over there tonight."
"To do what?"
"To check things out. I just want toseeMrs. B. If I can talk to her, I'll feel better. And if I can find
out what's buried in that garden, I'll feel a wholelotbetter."
"Maybe they were burying Sasquatch. That government study in the Klamaths never did find him,
you know."
"Mark, you owe me for the Walkman. For whatever happened to the Walkman."
"Uh..." Mark sighed, then muttered resignedly."Okay, I owe you. But I'm telling you right now,
I'm not going to talk to those girls."
"You don't have to talk to them. You don't evenhave to see them. There's something else I want
youto do."
The sun was just setting. They'd walked this roada hundred times to get to Mary-Lynnette's hill-the only
difference tonight was that Mark was carryinga pair of pruning shears and Mary-Lynnette had pulled the
Rubylith filter off her flashlight.
"You don't reallythink they offed the old lady."
"No," Mary-Lynnette said candidly. "I just want to put the world back where it belongs."
"You want what?"
"You know how you have a view of the way theworld is, but every so often you wonder, 'Oh,
myGod, what if it's really different?'Like, 'What if I'm really adopted and the people I think are my
parentsaren't my parents at all?' And if it were true, it would change everything, and for a minute you
don't know what's real. Well, that's how I feel right now, and I want to get rid of it. I want my old world
back."
"You know what's scary?" Mark said. "I think Iunderstand."
By the time they got to Burdock Farm, it was full dark. Ahead of them, in the west, the star Arcturus
seemed to hang over the farmhouse, glittering faintly red.
Mary-Lynnette didn't bother trying to deal withthe rickety gate. She went to the place behind the
blackberry bushes where the picket fence had fallen flat.
The farmhouse was like her own family's, but with lots of Victorian-style gingerbread added.
MaryLynnette thought the spindles and scallops and fretwork gave it a whimsical air-eccentric, like Mrs.
Burdock. Just now, as she was looking at one of the second-story windows, the shadow of a moving
figure fell on the roller blind.
Good, Mary-Lynnette thought. At least I know somebody's home.
Mark began hanging back as they walked down the weedy path to the house.
"You said I could hide."
"Okay. Right. Look, why don't you take thoseshears and sort of go around back-"
"And look at the Sasquatch grave while I'm there? Maybe do a little digging? I don't think so."
"Fine," Mary-Lynnette said calmly. "Then hidesomewhere out here and hope they don't see you