Stranger Things Happen by Kelly Link

Author:Kelly Link [Link, Kelly]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Fantasy, Science Fiction, Short Stories, FIC009040, FIC029000
ISBN: 9781931520997
Publisher: Small Beer Press
Published: 2001-07-01T04:00:00+00:00

SURVIVOR’S BALL, OR, THE DONNER PARTY

1. Travel.

They had been traveling together for three days in Jasper’s rented car when they came to the dark mouth of the tunnel into Milford Sound. Serena was telling Jasper something very important. What did Jasper know about Serena after three days? That she didn’t wear underwear. That she was allergic to bees. That she liked to talk. (She said the strangest things.) That she was from Pittsburgh. Listening to her voice made him feel less homesick.

Jasper was driving on the wrong side of the road, in a place where water spun down the wrong way in the drain, on a continent that was on what he thought of as the upside-down part of the globe, where they celebrated Christmas on the beach and it snowed in the summer, which was the winter. A girl from Pittsburgh was a good thing, like an anchor. Every homesick traveler should have one.

“That thing you said to me in the bar was so cute,” Serena said. “You know, when we met?” Jasper said nothing. His tooth hurt. He mimed, to show that it was hurting. “Poor guy,” Serena said.

They drove down the Avenue of the Disappearing Mountain through groves of swordlike cabbage trees. The road circled up between cracked gray boulders and the little red car went up the road like a toy pulled on a string.

“There was a guy in Auckland who had been to Milford Sound,” Serena said. “He told me it was like standing at the edge of the world. It’s funny. I’d met him before, in Tokyo, I think. Once you’ve been traveling for a while, you run into the same people everywhere you go. But I never remember their names. You end up saying things to each other like, ‘Do I know you? Were you the guy at that restaurant, that one with the huge fish tank, in Amsterdam?’ You end up writing down your addresses on little pieces of paper for each other, and then you always lose the pieces of paper, but it’s okay, because you’ll run into each other again.

“It’s not a very big world,” she said sadly.

They had been late leaving the youth hostel in Te Anau because Serena slept past noon, and then she thought she might like a shower. There was no hot water left, but she spent a long time in the bathroom anyway, writing in her journal. Jasper hoped she wasn’t writing about him. He consulted his guidebook and then the hostel manager and still managed to get lost on his way to the corner dairy to buy aspirin for his tooth, and then lost again on the way back. In the end, he had to ask a little girl wearing a red parka and striped black-and-white stockings for directions. When he came back, Serena was sitting on the bed, writing postcards. Her clothes and her books and other things were scattered all around her. She looked completely at home in the hostel room, as

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.