ulian woke up the next morning to the sounds of a rooster crowing and breakfast cooking. He lay still for a moment, watching the motes of dust float through the sunshine coming in from the skylight.
He was in Robin’s loft. This time yesterday he’d been in San Francisco and now he was lying on a futon in a loft at Huckleberry Ranch. If he hadn’t gone to Sibley’s office that day, he would be at math camp right now and Huckleberry Ranch would still be here, with Bob and Robin and Nancy and Jo-Jo, but he would never have met them. His mom was in China, and she was meeting other people, people he would never know, with lives just as real as his own. It was impossible to keep in your mind. Six billion people, and each of them thinking his own life was the most real life.
He sat up and stretched, then jumped back in surprise.
Three faces were staring at him. There was Snowball, crouched on the nightstand, looking like he was about to pounce. At the top of the staircase sat Jo-Jo, looking solemn despite his jam-smeared face. And holding his hand was a girl with straight, pale orange hair and pale blue eyes and a pale, freckled face. Even her eyelashes were pale orange.
“Julian!” Jo-Jo cried, only he pronounced it “Juwian.” He turned to the girl. “He’s waking! He’s not sweeping anymore.”
Julian rubbed his eyes. “Are you Molly?” he asked.
She nodded and whispered something.
“What did you just say?”
“Chore time,” she whispered a little louder.
Outside, the air was cold and fresh. Robin was waiting for him on the steps. He followed her through the wet grass.
“It’s my job to milk the goats this month,” she said, lifting the latch on a small wooden barn. Immediately, two brown and black goats started pushing against her pockets. “Stop, you greedy creatures!” She pushed their heads away firmly. One bent its horns toward Julian, and he took a step back.
“Oh, Dolly won’t hurt you,” Robin said. “She just has extremely poor manners.”
At the back of the barn, a small white goat stared mildly up at them. Her eyes were like marbles made of amber.
“Hello, Aphrodite, my little darling.” Robin bent down the kissed the goat on the nose. “Aphrodite’s my very own. I raised her from a kid. Isn’t she pretty? That’s why I named her what I did.”
“You know, Aphrodite, the Greek goddess. Of beauty.” She gave Julian a smug look, then handed him a carrot from her pocket. The other two goats came rushing toward him.
“Dolly and Gracie!” Robin said sternly. “Stop that immediately, or I’m going to lock you up.”
The goats stopped. Julian held the carrot before Aphrodite’s nose. She considered it with her trusting yellow eyes, then took it gently from his hands.
“My mom says she has the disposition of an angel. Very un-goatlike,” Robin said, holding out another carrot. Aphrodite followed her to a small stall and Robin fed her the carrot, then motioned Julian in and shut the door against the other goats. She placed a bucket of grain in front of Aphrodite, then wiped her udder with a damp cloth. Finally, she sat on a wooden stool and began to milk the little goat, who munched her grain contentedly. The jets of milk made a hard hissing sound in the bucket.
“Here, now you try,” Robin said. “There are two teats. Take one teat and squeeze, from the top to the bottom.”
The word “teat,” which Robin said so casually, made Julian blush. He reached out for the closest one, squeezed, and nothing happened.
“Wait, stop!” Robin said. “Squeeze just at the top. Harder.”
Julian squeezed.
“Now, work the milk down with your fingers. Down toward your pinky.”
He tightened his grip and a few drops of milk dribbled into the bucket.
“Excellent. Very good for a beginner. Now, let go and do it again.”
This time a small spray of milk came out.
“Oh, you’re a natural. Now a hand on each teat. Back and forth. I’ve got to go milk Dolly and Gracie. They’re more cantankerous.”
Julian could smell Aphrodite’s warm animal smell. She seemed to be studying him with one striped golden eye. After a few clumsy dribbles, the milk began to squirt out in a steady rhythm. Steam rose from the bucket. Then, somehow, he lost his rhythm and the flow of milk stopped. He sat back on the stool and waited for Robin to return.
“How’d you do?” she said, stooping close beside Julian and reaching out to rub Aphrodite’s udder. She grabbed the two teats, pulled vigorously, and more milk foamed into the bucket.
“Open your mouth,” she ordered.
By the time Julian realized what she was about to do, it was too late. The milk squirted into his mouth and dripped down his chin. The warm, goaty taste almost made Julian gag.
“That’s disgusting.” He spit the milk into the straw and wiped his chin with the back of his hand. “Do we really have to drink this stuff, Goat Girl?”
“It’s good, City Boy,” Robin said. “You’ll get used to it. None of the city kids like it at first. Soon you’ll be eating goat cheese, goat yogurt, goat ice cream . . .”
Goat ice cream? What would Danny say to that? Julian had a moment of nostalgia for the mint-chocolate-chip ice cream at the Toy Boat Dessert Café.
When they came out into the yard, Molly was sitting with a tiny goat in her lap, feeding it with a glass bottle. It drank eagerly, paused for breath, then turned its little tan face toward the bottle again.
“That’s Molly’s baby,” Robin said. “She named her Bunny. Have you ever heard a stupider name for a goat?”
“Do you want to feed her?” Molly asked.
Julian sat down on a stump in the yard, and Molly placed Bunny in his lap. The little goat crossed her delicate legs and tugged at the rubber nipple. When she’d finished guzzling down the milk, she lay her head on Julian’s knee, and he traced the soft fur on top of her head. Beneath his fingers, he could feel the outline of her tiny skull.
By the time they had finished with the goats and gathered the warm and slightly dirty eggs from the chicken coop, Julian was starving. He wolfed down five of Nancy’s blueberry pancakes before he remembered about the goat milk. But the pancakes were free of that unpleasant, sour taste. She must have regular milk stashed away in her gigantic refrigerator, he figured.
After breakfast, Nancy announced it was lesson time.
“You don’t have summer vacation?” Julian asked.
“No. We work like slaves all year long!” Robin grumbled.
“We do take breaks,” Nancy said, wiping the table with a sponge. “But we don’t follow a regular school schedule. Exchange students don’t have to do lessons, though. You’re free to wander around.”
Julian spent the morning exploring. He found a cluster of apple trees and, beneath them, a deer with a spotted fawn, perhaps the same pair he’d seen from the road. The deer looked at him unafraid. Silently, he sent her a telepathic message saying, “I won’t hurt you” and she seemed to nod her head. Very slowly, he picked a small green apple off a low branch and held it out to her. The fawn took a few steps back, but the doe stretched her neck toward him. Her chin tickled his palm as she delicately lifted the apple and crunched it between her teeth. Julian wanted to touch her rough fur but was afraid of frightening her. Even though he was careful not to move a muscle, she suddenly startled, bounding off into the forest with the fawn close behind.
Julian continued down the trail and found Bob by the vegetable garden. He was crouched down on his long legs, his face shaded by a wide-brimmed hat.
“Do you need any help?” Julian asked.
“We seem to have more weeds than vegetables so far. Did you ever weed a garden?”
Julian shook his head.
Bob looked Julian up and down. “Well, there’s a first time for everything. This is lettuce.” He pointed to one row of the garden. “And that’s chard. Everything else is weeds. Weeds are bad. Crops are good.”
The lettuces had pale green, wrinkled leaves, with a purple trim around the edges. They were no bigger than Julian’s fist. The tall, grassy plants growing around the edges, Julian thought, must be the weeds. He knelt in the dirt and broke a few off.
“Don’t break them. Pull them up by the roots,” Bob said. “Keeps them from coming back so fast.”
Julian tried again. He grabbed another tall weed, but it too broke off at the base. On the next try, he wiggled the plant slightly, and lifted the spidery clump of roots easily out of the damp soil.
“That’s better.” Bob crouched beside him and they worked together under the warm sun. After a while, Julian could look down the row and see each bright head of lettuce sitting in a clearing of brown soil. Ahead, the tiny lettuces were still choked in weeds. He finished the entire row and stood up to admire his work.
“Not bad,” Bob said.
Julian started on his second row. He worked a little faster now, but still couldn’t keep pace with Bob, who moved tirelessly down one row after another. The sun began to burn on Julian’s neck and he was relieved when he heard the happy sound of the bell, calling them to lunch.
“Let’s get these weeds into the compost,” Bob said. They carried the tangle of uprooted weeds over to a large black plastic canister. “That’ll be good dirt in a few months. In good farming, nothing’s wasted. A family can work the same land forever, if they do it right.” They began walking toward the house.
“You’re lucky to live here,” Julian said. “It’s so green. Not like the city.”
Bob looked toward the ridgeline on the other side of the river. “I’m a lucky man. Sometimes it’s like the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. My parents bought this land before I was born. A hundred dollars an acre. I helped my father build our house when I wasn’t much older than you.”
“Robin said you’re going to build her her own house.” Julian was nearly running to keep up with Bob’s giant strides. “Down by the river.”
For the first time, Bob laughed. “We’ve got the blueprints and everything. State-of-the-art solar panels, water wheel. Every piece of timber in Robin’s house will come from this land. Same for Molly and the boys, if that’s what they want. My parents passed this land on to me, and when I’m gone I’ll pass it on to my kids—maybe a little better than I found it. That’s all the legacy I want.”
His father hadn’t had time to leave much of a legacy, Julian thought. All he had of his father’s was the ivory pocketknife and a white conch shell from Hawaii. The inside was glistening pink and smoother than glass. People always said if you held it to your ear, you could hear the ocean, but when Julian listened, all he heard was the sound of emptiness.
At lunch, Julian had his fork nearly to his mouth when he realized the rest of the family was sitting silently with their heads bowed down. Even Jo-Jo had his hands folded in his lap and his little eyes scrunched shut. Julian stopped, his fork clattering down on his plate. He waited nervously to see what they would do next, until, at some unseen signal, they all looked up and began passing around the food.
All through lunch, Julian was quiet. Maybe, he thought, the Elders could adopt him. But why would they want him? They already had three sons, although there was a gap just where he would fit in. Of course, he realized, he already had a mother. Maybe he could just be a hired hand, like they had in the old Westerns, one of those tough, quiet guys who was like a member of the family and ended up killing the rattlesnake in the nick of time or saving the child from a runaway horse.
“We do math after lunch,” Nancy explained, when everyone had finished eating. “We really should do it first thing in the morning, but like I said, Robin and I are procrastinators!” She raised her voice to be heard over Jo-Jo, who was holding a small plastic truck and making loud zooming noises. “I’m sorry to leave you on your own again, but Robin will be free soon.”
Julian stared at the bookshelves lining the living room, filled with serious-looking volumes: The Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening, The Solar Home, Applied Silviculture and Forest Ecology, Small-Scale Aquaculture.
The girls had settled down at the kitchen table with worksheets and pencils, but Jo-Jo kept holding the truck up to his mother and shouting, “Mommy, Mommy, I’m broken!” and when no one responded, he called out, “I’m crying ’cause no one will fix me.”
“If you want, I can take him out so you guys can concentrate,” Julian said after a minute.
“Oh, that would be great!” Nancy smiled with relief. “You know, he used to just play quietly while we did our work, but now he’s getting bored. Actually, he should be taking his nap, but he woke up later than usual this morning.”
Julian knelt down in front of Jo-Jo. “Hey, Jo-Jo, want to go down by the creek?”
“You can bring your truck and dig a hole in the dirt,” Robin coaxed. She brought him a pair of tiny bathing trunks covered with green frogs. “I’ll put on your swimsuit!”
Julian followed Jo-Jo down to the pebbly bank. He sat on a log while Jo-Jo happily pushed his bulldozer around and made beeping noises. Jo-Jo made a few holes with his bulldozer and then stood up and put his toes in the water.
“Can I go in?” he asked with a grave face.
“Um. Sure,” Julian said. The afternoon sun was warm. “Don’t go in too far.”
Jo-Jo walked along the side of the bank, laughing and splashing. He found a stick and banged it on the water. Then he cried “Charge!” and started running all about. “I’m charging the monsters!” he yelled. He rushed wildly into the creek and crashed facedown into the water.
Julian sprang up and grabbed him by his slippery shoulders. Jo-Jo was crying loudly, and water streamed down from his hair into his contorted little face.
“Don’t cry, Jo-Jo. It’s OK. Don’t cry,” Julian said.
“I’m bweeding!” Jo-Jo sobbed.
“Let me see. Show me. Come on, show me. I’ll fix it.”
“There!” Jo-Jo pointed to his knee. Underneath the mud, Julian could see that the skin was broken and there was a small speck of blood. Julian looked back at the house, but nobody was coming. Maybe they hadn’t heard the cries.
“I want my mama!” Jo-Jo wailed.
“Mama’s inside.” Julian was determined to show Nancy that he could at least handle a three-year-old. “We’re going to wash off the blood. And then we’re going to make a dam with your truck and dam up the creek with mud.”
The words “truck” and “dam” and “mud” worked like magic. Jo-Jo stopped crying. Julian took him to the creek and splashed water on his knee until the mud and the blood were gone.
“OK,” Julian said. “Let’s get started.”
Jo-Jo seemed to understand that Julian was committed to entertaining him. He demanded that Julian use the tiny truck to move all the mud and dirt and that he build the walls of the dam higher and higher. When the water began to spill over the dam, Jo-Jo would shriek “Julian, the water’s coming! Hurry!” and Julian would rush to reinforce the crumbling wall.
After what felt like hours, he heard Nancy’s laugh behind him. “Well, you’re a sight!” she said. Julian looked at Jo-Jo. His blond curls were already dry and the scrape on his right knee was barely visible. Julian, on the other hand, was a mess. His shirt was soaked, his pants were filthy, and he was muddy up to his elbows.
“I think you’ve found a friend, Julian,” Nancy said. “Now he’ll never leave you alone.”
She rewarded his efforts with chocolate-chip cookies, then led him to the outdoor shower.
“It’s solar heated,” she said. “There should be plenty of hot water. We usually shower outside, except in the coldest months.”
Julian had never taken a shower outside, with the sky and the trees all around. At least there were wooden walls on all sides. The only part of him that would be visible from the outside would be his feet. When he finished, he wrapped a towel around his waist and, still dripping, hurried up to the loft where he discovered Robin lying on his futon reading.
“Hey!” Julian said.
“Aah! A naked intruder!” Robin cried.
“Get out of here!”
Robin scooted, laughing, down the spiral stairs and Julian quickly pulled on his clothes. A minute later, her face reappeared at the top of the stairs, eyes shut tight.
“It’s OK,” Julian said. “You can come up now.”
Robin threw herself back on the futon. “Thank goodness you’re decent!”
“How was school?” Julian asked, to change the subject.
“OK, except for having to listen to Jo-Jo scream like somebody was torturing him!”
“I was not! He fell in the creek! If you guys heard him, why didn’t you come get him?”
“Mom thought you could handle it. It wasn’t what she calls his bloody-murder scream.”
So much for impressing Nancy. Julian looked over at the computer, sitting on a desk in the far corner of the loft. Lowering his voice he said, “Maybe I should check in with Danny. I told him I’d let him know I got here OK.”
“This is the only computer,” Robin said quietly, turning it on. “Mom and Dad hardly ever use it. They let me get my own e-mail account so I could write to Ariel. She’s my best friend. She used to live down the road, but then she moved to Phoenix.” They waited for the computer to warm up, then Robin clicked into her e-mail. “Looks like there’s a new message from Lopez.”
“Danny seems like kind of a crazy guy,” Robin said.
Julian shrugged. “No, he’s OK. He just likes to be funny. Can I write him back?”
Robin stood up and Julian took her seat. He wrote:
“What are you talking about?” Robin asked, reading over his shoulder. “What’s the ‘Plan’ and what’s ‘Operation Redwood’?”
“Well, the Plan was getting me here instead of math camp—getting away from Sibley, figuring out where you live, finding the right bus schedule, the whole exchange-student thing. Operation Redwood isn’t really a plan yet. We were just trying to figure out if there was some way to help you, to keep my uncle from cutting down Big Tree Grove.”
Julian paused. “I don’t get it. In school we’re always studying the rain forests in Brazil and Africa. And people are always trying to get you to sign petitions to save the rain forest and buy special rain-forest nuts. And we never learned anything about people cutting down redwoods in California. I mean, can my uncle really just cut down all those trees? Isn’t it illegal?”
Robin looked at him in disbelief. “Obviously, it’s not illegal. Where do you think all the trees went that used to grow on Huckleberry Ranch?”
“But that was a long time ago!”
She shook her head. “I showed you those stumps by the road. All you need to log is a timber harvest plan—a THP—and your uncle’s already got that. There are some rules you have to follow. Like you have to replant and maybe there’ll be certain trees they won’t let you cut down. But it’s private property. You can pretty much do what you want.”
That night, Julian read Jo-Jo his bedtime story. In return, he received a slightly spitty good-night kiss.
As he lay in his futon in the loft, Julian felt that he had somehow traveled farther that day than he had on the long bus ride the day before. He’d milked a goat, explored Huckleberry Ranch on his own, walked along a river, and even fed a deer.
It wasn’t even nine o’clock and he lay awake for a long time, looking up at the stars through the skylight. In San Francisco, the sky was usually hidden by thick fog or clouds. On clear nights, there might be a handful of indifferent stars scattered in the sky, some of which would turn into airplanes homing in on the San Francisco airport. But here, the brilliant stars shone out of the black night like the glittering eyes of some watchful spirit. Julian had never seen stars like this. He hadn’t known this was how stars were supposed to be.