chapter 25

ZAVION

“No, Zavion,” said Papa, from his chair in the dining room where he was still painting little landscapes. “No, no, no.”

“But Papa—”

“And no.”

He was so calm when he argued. No yelling, no sweating, no jumping up from his chair.

“I have to repay the store.” Zavion rubbed the marble against his palm with his fingers. It was warm, tucked in his new jeans pocket. Zavion could only hold what fit in his hands now. The marble and chocolate bars.

“I can say it again, if you really want—”

Zavion did not want.

“No.”

Clearly, it didn’t matter what Zavion wanted. It didn’t matter what he knew—he knew—was the right thing to do. Zavion felt a renewed sense of hope with the magic marble in his pocket. He had already wished on it. Just like he’d done with the wishing rocks. He’d even found a windowsill to sleep near, and he placed the marble there. Just where his wishing rocks had sat. He was hoping it would make him sleep better.

“Let me call the market,” said Zavion.

“We don’t even know its name. We can’t just look up ‘market with broken window near the convention center,’ ” said Papa.

“Luna Market,” said Zavion. How did Papa not know that? “On Chartres Street.” Until that moment, he hadn’t realized that he knew the street name too.

His brain had been functioning that day whether he had known it or not.

“Please, Papa,” said Zavion. “Can we try to call?”

Papa put down his paintbrush. “You are bullheaded, boy, do you know that? The phone line at the market is probably down.”

“Probably.”

“Most likely.”

“Maybe, but maybe not,” said Zavion.

Papa smiled. “Bullheaded. Just like your Mama.” He indicated over his shoulder to a desk with a computer on it. “Use that. See if you can find the number. Then you can call.” He pulled a cell phone from his shirt pocket. “I borrowed Skeet’s phone to call Gabe. I left him a message.”

Zavion walked over to the desk. The computer screen had a map up. He looked at it closely. Point A was Baton Rouge. Point B was Topeka, Kansas.

Zavion needed to act fast.

He typed Yellow Pages into the search box and then typed Luna Market, 311 Chartres Street, New Orleans, Louisiana.

It was there!

“I found it,” said Zavion.

“Here’s the phone,” said Papa.

Zavion stood behind him and punched in the number. He squeezed the marble with his other hand. For luck. He swallowed hard. What would he say? He hadn’t thought about that.

He glanced over Papa’s shoulder. The sunlight, streaming in from the side window, lit up a corner of his painting. A purplish-blue color shimmered there. Zavion leaned forward to get a better look. A tiny marsh under a full moon.

Papa seemed obsessed with these landscapes he could hold in his hand. There was something reassuring to Zavion about that.

“Well—” said Papa, startling Zavion.

The phone! Zavion had forgotten that he was on the phone.

No ringing. No sound. Silence.

“Nothing,” he had to admit. He handed the phone back to Papa.

“Phone lines have to be down,” said Papa. He squeezed his eyes shut and opened them again. “It’s too soon.”

And the way he said it made Zavion think that he meant it was too soon to even think about New Orleans.

“Go on, Zav,” said Papa. “You need to go for a run—”

“I need to repay the store,” said Zavion.

Papa sighed. “How about you send money later when we get some?”

Zavion couldn’t wait until later. He didn’t trust that the mail service would get the money to the market. He couldn’t risk that. This was something he had to do in person. He had to look the cashier in the eyes. He had to make sure he was understood.

“Please, Papa.” He was going to try one more time. “Please take me to New Orleans.”

“No.”

Zavion knew he would say no.

If Papa wouldn’t do it with him, then he was going to do it alone.

“Then I’m going to go by myself.” There. He had said it out loud. He felt his heart beating in the wrong place, up against the bottom of his throat.

Papa looked up from his painting. He stared at Zavion without blinking. Zavion had the same wide, long eyelashes—he had Papa’s eyes and cheeks, but he had Mama’s nose and mouth—and his eyelashes fluttered furiously as he blinked and blinked and blinked while Papa’s sat frozen above his eyes.

Zavion knew that Papa usually, eventually, let him do things his way. Even if Papa had more control over his eye muscles and knew how to hold a paintbrush for hours at a time, Zavion was the one who controlled everything else.

Or he used to.

“It’s the right thing to do, Papa. So I’m going to do it,” he said.

“You will not go back into New Orleans,” said Papa slowly.

“But—”

“Do. You. Understand. Me?” Papa spoke even more slowly.

Zavion willed his eyes to stop blinking. He widened them and kept them still even as they dried and he had to fight the urge to blink.

“Why?” He spoke the one word as slowly as he could.

“Because—” Papa looked down then. He closed his eyes. He put down his paintbrush and flexed his fingers and closed them into a fist. He opened his eyes again and opened his fist and shook his hand back and forth. “Because,” he finally said again, “I don’t want you…I can’t have you…back in that…drowned…monster of a city…” He gripped his hands together, interlocking his fingers, and leaned forward. “That…place…isn’t…safe—”

Zavion knew about safe. He had made it his job to keep Papa and his own self safe for all these years.

He bent his head down to the floor and finally blinked his eyes. They were wet, but he wasn’t crying. He had messed up something huge during the hurricane. He rolled the marble from one finger to another in his pocket. It sounded kind of silly, but he believed he had a touch of magic, now that he had found this marble.

He would find some money.

He would find a way to get to New Orleans.

He would find Luna Market.