8 Hours

Meredith did not have pale blue eyes or horse teeth, but she did have a good sense of humor. And she was a third-grade teacher, so she liked kids.

Odessa’s third-grade teacher had been Ms. Albright. Ms. Albright was the last person in the world Odessa could imagine Uncle Milo bringing to dinner. She also couldn’t imagine calling Ms. Albright by her first name, whatever that was.

She thought about the kids in Meredith’s third-grade class. What did they call her? What would they think about Odessa calling her Meredith?

Odessa wore her favorite outfit—her peace T-shirt, gray skinny jeans, and pink Vans. She brushed her bangless hair until it shone.

As usual, Oliver didn’t put any effort whatsoever into his appearance.

“You should change,” Odessa said.

“Why?”

“Because you look like a toad in that shirt. And Meredith is coming over. And if you act like you look—that is to say, like a toad—she may decide she doesn’t want to ever have children with Uncle Milo because maybe they’d get your toad genes.” Geez. Oliver could be so annoying. And so clueless. “Toad,” she said one more time before she slammed his door and walked away.

Odessa was glad she’d bothered with her outfit. Meredith had red hair and three piercings in each ear. She wore tall boots and a denim dress, and she looked much cooler than Ms. Albright ever did.

Meredith smiled at Milo a lot. And he smiled at her. Odessa was smiling too. It was a regular smile-fest. Except for Oliver.

Odessa felt something like guilt tug at her. Maybe she was responsible for Oliver’s mood. But what could she do? He looked like a toad in that shirt. And it was her duty as his sister to tell him so.

By the time Mom brought out dessert—chocolate mousse—Odessa loved Meredith. She was deep in an I want you to be my aunt sort of love, and because she loved Meredith this way, she felt really bad about having to do what she was going to do next.

She needed Uncle Milo’s help with the door with no handle, and she didn’t know Meredith well enough yet to know what kind of company she’d be in an alternate universe, if that was where the door led. She needed to get Milo alone.

“Can you come up to my room?” Odessa asked.

“Sure, O,” Milo said, and he grabbed Meredith by the hand. She had small fingers with perfectly manicured silver nails. “Let’s go.”

“Not her,” Odessa said. “Just you.”

Odessa knew how she sounded. But she couldn’t think of any other way to ask, and since she couldn’t come out and explain why she wanted only Milo, she was left with no choice but to come off as rude.

Uncouth.

Milo looked wounded. He turned to Meredith. She took her hand out of his and placed it on his shoulder.

“It’s okay, baby.” Baby? Meredith looked at Odessa and winked. “Sometimes a girl just needs a little alone time with her favorite uncle. I totally understand.”

Odessa didn’t know how to wink, so she didn’t wink back.

Milo followed Odessa up the stairs while Meredith used her third-grade teacher skills to try to interest Oliver in a game of Uno.

“What’s this all about?” Milo asked once they were safely in the attic. She searched his eyes for the twinkle they usually got when she and Milo were in the midst of conspiring.

No twinkle.

His eyes looked like Mom’s did when Odessa left dishes in the sink, or her shoes at the bottom of the stairs.

“I need your help,” she said. “I really, really need your help.”

Milo softened. “Talk to me,” he said.

Odessa reached for Clark Funds’s penlight and shined it on the door with no handle.

Milo got down onto his knees.

“It’s a crawl space,” he said.

“What’s that?”

It sounded fun. Like the indoor playground at the mall Mom used to take her to when she was little, before Odessa realized that there was cool stuff you could buy at the mall.

“It’s sort of like another attic. Sometimes it’s used for storage.”

Her attic had an attic?

“I need to get in there.”

Milo narrowed his eyes. She saw just the slightest hint of twinkle.

“I need to,” she pleaded.

He reached over and gave it a shove. It wouldn’t budge, but Odessa could have told him that.

“It’s painted shut,” he said. “We’ve just got to loosen up the edges.”

He reached into the pocket of his jeans, pulled out a Swiss Army knife, and ran it along the perimeter of the small square entry. White chips of paint fell onto the floor.

Milo gave it another shove. The door shifted slightly but still wouldn’t open. He worked his knife around the edges again, and this time he leaned against the door with his shoulder.

Finally, it gave way, and Milo tumbled forward, hitting his head on the wall with an alarming whack.

“Nothing to worry about,” Milo said as he rubbed the spot just above his right eyebrow. “I don’t really use my head much anyway.”

Odessa hesitated. She’d visualized so many possibilities for what lay beyond that door with no handle that she was suddenly afraid to look inside.

She wasn’t afraid of finding something.

She was afraid of finding nothing.

She stared into the darkness.

“Well,” Milo said. “My work is done here.”

He stood up to leave. Odessa opened her mouth to ask him to wait, because what if an alternate world really did lie beyond that darkness? What if she was about to step into a new life? She’d need Milo by her side.

But she didn’t say anything, because she knew what was inside that door. She knew it in her bones.

Nothing.

Milo started down the steps, but then he stopped. “You know,” he said scratching his head. “You really should try to be a little more patient with and nicer to your brother. I know it isn’t always easy, but … he’s your person in this world. And you’re his. You’ll need each other, all your lives.”

He closed the door behind him.

Odessa sat still for a moment before grabbing Mr. Funds’s light and switching it on. She didn’t see the point of sitting around feeling guilty.

She held the penlight in front of her. It only lit up one small patch of darkness at a time. If Odessa were more courageous, she might have climbed inside the crawl space. Instead she sat at the edge of the opening, shining the light’s small beam all around, illuminating wooden boards and cobwebs.

Just as she was about to give up and figure out how to close a door with no handle, the beam caught something.

She moved closer, holding the penlight out straight.

A small owl figurine.

Just like the ones that filled Mrs. Grisham’s front parlor.

Odessa leaned in to grab it. She didn’t disappear into an alternate world, but she did get her lungs full of dust. She took the owl out and wiped it off with the hem of her T-shirt. She held it and stared at its gold glass eyes.

Why was Mrs. Grisham’s owl in her attic? What had she been doing up here? Did she know more than she was letting on?

Odessa placed the owl on her desk, right next to her cat-of-the-day calendar. She sat down in her swivel chair and looked at it.

Owls were supposed to be wise, weren’t they? In cartoons they always had glasses and funny square graduation hats.

Please, she pleaded with the small figurine. Help me. Solve my mysteries.

And what she heard it say was: Whoooo.

Whoooo.

Whoooo do you have in this world?

She had to hand it to the owl. It was an excellent question. Who did she have in this world?

Dad was remarrying Jennifer. Mom had a new job. Sofia couldn’t be trusted. Claire was just a bus friend. Mrs. Grisham was probably hiding something from her. Milo was falling in love with Meredith.

Oliver.

Odessa had Oliver.

Milo was right. He was her person in this world.

Odessa reached for her dictionary.

She needed the soothing power of words. She put her hand on top of it as if she were swearing on a Bible. She opened it and began to flip through the pages, slowly at first and then faster. She loved the sound of pages being flipped, the rush of air they gave off. She stopped, placing her finger randomly inside, and the word she was looking for found her. There it was, underlined in purple.

Compunction: regret; the state of feeling sorry for something.

Compunction. It was different from feeling blue.

She thought of Oliver and how she’d spoken to him tonight and how he’d lost the power to smile and how he had no friends other than one dead hamster and one dirty stuffed one. How she’d stolen more than a hundred dollars from him, robbed him of his one triumphant moment.

Compunction overwhelmed her.

When Mom came knocking at her door saying “Come down right now, young lady, you’re being rude,” it was a relief. A big fist had reached inside Odessa’s chest and was slowly squeezing her heart and lungs tighter and tighter. She stood up, but that squeezing feeling held firm inside her.

Without stopping to think, Odessa marched to the center of her room, rolled up her cheetah-print rug, and jumped.

*

After her third visit to Snippity-Do-Dah and her third lollipop she couldn’t crunch through in two seconds, Odessa brushed her hair shiny and went down to Oliver’s room.

“You should change,” she said.

“Why?”

“Because that shirt is too small for you and Meredith is coming for dinner. And you want to make a good impression. It’s the first step toward making a new friend.”

Oliver smiled at her. “Will you help me pick something out?”

“Sure,” she said, and she reached over and touched his freshly cut hair.