Eight

Thirteen of us raced upstairs to the main floor, eight of us racing more quickly than the other five because the situation was more urgent to those eight. We raced past the open drawing-room door, past the kitchen too, arriving at the base of the stairs where the eight dogs were standing sentinel.

“Antibiotic! Dishwater! Gewgaw! Jingle! Mysterioso! Peculiar! Riptide! Zanzibar!” Mark shouted from behind us. “Out of the way!”

The eight dogs separated, four on either side of the staircase, like the Red Sea being parted by Moses.

“Honestly,” Zinnia said, sounding puzzled, “these dogs don’t appear to do very much.”

“That’s because they’re dogs!” Rebecca shouted at her.

We raced past the dogs and up the staircase to the second story. Marcia was in the lead, her head still tilted upward, because she was the only one who could keep an eye on those feet under the bed. We raced with anticipation and fear: anticipation at the thought of seeing Daddy again, or at least his legs; and fear, because what if Marcia’s vision was right and he was dead?

Achieving the landing, we were faced with a choice of doors, one on either side. Marcia squinted at each of the doors.

“This one!” Marcia cried, throwing open the door on the left.

Thank the universe it wasn’t locked, for that would have presented a stumbling block, and we didn’t need any more of those.

“There!” Marcia cried, pointing a finger at what we could all clearly see were two legs sticking out from beneath one of four beds in the room.

We could see something else now too.

“Those aren’t Daddy’s legs!” Durinda said.

“Those legs are too short for Daddy’s legs,” Georgia said. “He is a grown man, you know.”

“And a model too,” Jackie added.

“Hmm,” Rebecca said, “I wonder who the dead body is?”

“What are you doing in my room?” said an angry male voice behind us.

In our minds, we went through the voices of the boys, the male cousins we’d encountered since entering the snow globe: Andrew, Drew, George, Jack, Mark. Nope, it wasn’t one of those.

Slowly we turned until we came faces-to-face with a boy who was Rebecca’s height.

My, but he looked angry.

“I said,” he said, “what are you doing in my room?”

“You must be Roberto,” Rebecca said, stepping forward. “I’d know you anywhere.”

“Yes,” Andrew said, sounding a bit nervous. “He shares this room with the other three youngest of us.”

“Oh!” Zinnia said eagerly. “That’s kind of like our sleeping arrangements back home: four in one bedroom, four in the other, with a connecting bathroom in between. Then at bedtime, we do the Waltons’ routine, calling out to one another randomly like on the old TV show. It’s great fun. Do you do the Waltons’ routine too?”

“Er, no,” Andrew said. He shook his head as though trying to get a fly out of his ear. “As I was starting to say, Roberto, er, doesn’t usually like people entering without his permission. Roberto, these are—”

“I know who you are,” Roberto said with a sneer as though he were addressing all of us, but he kept his eyes glued on Rebecca. “You’re the Other Eights.”

Rebecca reeled back as though she’d been slapped. Well, we have to admit, we all reeled back a bit. It was that shocking, hearing ourselves referred to in that fashion.

“What do you mean,” Rebecca demanded, “calling us the Other Eights? We’re not the Other Eights—you are!”

“Oho,” Roberto said with a nasty laugh, causing us all to realize we’d never heard a human being actually say oho before. “I don’t think so,” Roberto went on. “Not from where I’m standing.”

Rebecca seethed, which was never a good thing.

“You’re out of order, Eight!” Rebecca bit off the words. “It’s Petal’s turn to be challenged after Marcia, not me.”

“Oh dear,” Petal said, “I was hoping no one would remember that and that you might just want to skip me today. I think I’ll hide under this bed now.”

A moment later, Petal’s legs could be seen side by side with the legs that weren’t Daddy’s.

We ignored Petal.

“I said,” Rebecca said in the same nasty fashion Roberto had, “you’re out of order, Eight!”

Then Rebecca reached through the space that separated them, made a circle of her thumb and forefinger, and then released the forefinger, flicking it against Roberto’s shoulder with some degree of force.

We couldn’t be absolutely certain, but we were certainly fairly certain: This was not a good idea.

“Oh yeah?” Roberto said, looking a peculiar mixture of outraged and thrilled as he returned the flicking favor. “Well, let’s see what you’ve got . . . Eight!”

Rebecca and Roberto flicked each other in an increasingly fast round of flicks.

Flick!

Flick!

Flickflickflick!

And then they flew at each other.

Rebecca’s hands locked on to Roberto’s elbows in a steely grip as Roberto’s hands locked on to Rebecca’s elbows. They did it with such force, we fully expected to see one of them fly through a wall or something, knocked through it by the sheer will of the other.

But that didn’t happen.

They remained locked in position, and yet we had the sense that something very powerful was tran­spiring.

“It’s an impressive show of joint strength,” Annie whispered, as though we were witnessing a heavyweight boxing match.

“I’m sure it must be incredibly intense,” Durinda whispered.

“And yet it also really doesn’t look like anything at all,” Marcia said.

“Maybe if we stepped closer, we could see something actually happening,” Jackie said.

“I wonder what the dogs are doing,” Zinnia said. “Or the cats back home.”

“Pjsdhfawoieyf,” Petal said from under the bed.

“Am I the only one who finds this dull?” Georgia said.

And still, Rebecca and Roberto remained locked in frozen combat.

“All right,” Annie said, “break it up, you two. It’s not like this is getting any of us anywhere.”

Surprisingly, Rebecca and Roberto listened to Annie and broke apart.

Rebecca glared at Roberto.

Roberto glared back at Rebecca.

Slowly, without taking their eyes off each other, they backed up until they were in opposite corners.

Then Rebecca raised her hands and pointed all ten fingers straight out at Roberto, and Roberto did the same, pointing his fingers at Rebecca.

Uh-oh.

We’d seen this position before and we knew it couldn’t possibly end well.

“Hit the deck!” Annie cried, and eleven of us did exactly just that.

We watched from the floor, amazed, as fire flew from Rebecca’s fingertips toward Roberto and from Roberto’s fingertips toward Rebecca.

Hiss!

Crackle!

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz!

It was like fireworks, like the invention of electricity, like two bolts of lightning that had somehow been released on the horizontal crashing against each other in the center.

As smoke began to fill the room from all that sizzling, it occurred to us that we were very lucky that Rebecca’s and Roberto’s fingers were pointed directly at the other’s fingers. Otherwise, the whole house within the snow globe would have burst into flames.

“I think you can both stop that now.” Annie spoke from her position on the floor.

“She’s right, you know,” Marcia said. “It’s worse than when an irresistible force meets an immovable object. You’re both irresistible forces and you’re both immovable objects, so you cancel each other out.”

“I’m not usually the agreeable type,” Georgia said, “but suddenly I find myself agreeing. This power struggle and fire contest is hopeless.”

“I’ll stop if you stop,” Rebecca called across the room to Roberto.

“Only if you stop first,” Roberto called back.

“We’ll both stop,” Rebecca said. “On the count of three.”

“One, two, three!” we all shouted.

Phew. That was much better. With all that sizzling, we’d barely been able to hear ourselves think.

“That got us absolutely nowhere,” Durinda said.

“But it was delicious fun,” Rebecca said, her eyes flashing darkly.

“And how,” Roberto said.

“You know, I ate all your blue frosting,” Rebecca said.

We waited for the flames to start flying again, but Roberto merely shrugged.

“So?” he said. “If it had been anyone else, I’d have to do something . . . drastic about it. But you, my dear cousin, are a worthy adversary.”

“Thank you.” Rebecca nodded her head in her version of humble. “I do love having adversaries.”

Then Rebecca crossed over to one of the beds, the one that had four legs sticking out from under it, and began yanking on Petal’s legs.

“Come on, Petal,” Rebecca said, “it’s your turn. It’s time for your moment in the sun.”