Just Under the Clouds by Melissa Sarno

Author:Melissa Sarno
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 2018-06-04T16:00:00+00:00

We’re only three stops from Willa’s place, and I sit on the subway train, facing into the car, while Adare kneels backward on the seat, her nose pressed against the window. Strips of light scan her face, the way the chimes did, and I watch her reflection. Her shape sways and shifts with the train.

I map everything in my Tree Book—the cherry blossom at school, the sky above Adare while she waited at the steps, the brushwood in the canal, and the flowers hanging from Sabina’s houseboat. Then I sketch the tree of heaven, whose trunk I draw to the edge of one page but whose branches disappear past it into the wide-open space of the subway, through the windows, out the tunnel, and back into Brooklyn, where it started.

Then I close the book and hold it at my chest.

I wonder how I’ll tell Mom all we saw. I sift through my bag for an inky pen and press it to my palm, trying to steady it against the bump of the train. I draw the eyes of an owl and flap my fingers over its gaze.

But it turns out Mom’s not back yet. It’s Willa who stands with her elbows slumped at the kitchen counter and shoots up like a daffodil when we toss the door open.

“There you are.” It surprises me. She says it like she has some kind of stake in us, like we’re hers. She eyes my muddy sneakers. “Where have you been?”

“Nowhere,” I say quickly, letting the lie drip out. The tree feels like a secret no one else can know.

She folds her arms, as if she can’t decide whether to believe me, and I know we don’t belong here. Not with Willa, who stands as tall as her windows, who has stacks of pillows and sheets in neat folds, whose fridge is always full, and whose view of the sky, behind her, spreading along the wraparound glass, is bigger than any I’ve known.

For a moment, I wonder if I can tell her the truth. Then I think of the empty warehouses and the strays and the lingering old houseboats and know that Willa won’t like that even a little. If I want to go back—and I have to go back—there’s no way she can know.

“Do you like staying here?” she asks, like she can read my mind.

I’m about to nod, flap my mouth about the cupcake shop and the snack fridge. But I stop myself, fast.

I don’t know how to answer Willa with her folded arms and her long legs, ankles crossed over each other, one foot tapping out her question. It’s something Mom asks when we end up somewhere new. Do you like it here? And I never answer straightaway. I look to see Mom’s face. I look to see if she thinks we should go or stay.

I can always tell whether Mom can picture us in a place. I watch how she circles it, walks it. Whether she takes her hair from her face, giving her pink cheeks air, or leaves it hanging limp down her back.

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