Raindrop Parade: First Chapter

Record Keeper

I first snuck into the Grapevine house on a Tuesday after school. The broken glass was louder than I expected.

Look left, look right. Clear coast.

The Grapevine waved its ivy in the wind, pumpkin vines coiled tight. The house whistled a ghost hymn. Crawling through the broken window, my hand caught and bled.

The Day tells its secrets to those who listen.

Autumn whispered through the air, hot and tickling in my ear, a soft puff, a dandelion scattering its feathery seeds.

In my pocket, faces smiled in the fog of the crystal. Maybe they were descendants of the lemur. Maybe we all were. The shard, once gleaming in the point of the sun, was still and silent.

A bead of blood, bulging like the belly of a tick, pointed my finger toward the door. I thought I could open it from inside, but it was glued shut. The stale air made the back of my throat itch. Somewhere, microscopic spores were multiplying and invading past the filters of my nostrils.

It was late afternoon and dark inside, everything but the broken window boarded up. I flashed my light across the room which was the kitchen. The floor crunched under my feet, the musty smell permeating.

Walking forward in the dark I looked for clues but found only crumbs, debris, broken pieces of things resembling a former life. Maybe a shelf. Maybe a picture frame.

A candy wrapper. It was still silver and new looking.

I walked toward the back, heart beating. The wind blew and then: a sound. Like the grunt of a swine or the ribbit of a frog, but human.

A man.

I shined my light around but couldn’t see.

“Hello?” He called out.

I backed up toward the broken window, my only way out. But he was on his feet fast and held me in through the sound of his voice.

“Birdie? Is that you?” He was old, Dad’s age maybe, and stood in the dusty half-light of the broken window facing me.

I could jump back out if I wanted. Even if it meant another nick, another spot of blood from the glass. But seeing him made me stand still. If I left, it would almost feel rude.

He blinked several times, as if the dim light were the brightest he’d seen all year. “Birdie?”

He came closer, his arms out, and I ducked but he grabbed a hold of me, squeezing, pulling me close, and I said, “I’m not Birdie!” and pushed him away and he looked at me with strange eyes, both of us trying to make some kind of sense.

Sable A Donnellan
147 Tigertail Lane
Glorietta, CA 92118

JULY 10, 1986

Please note the following schedule for the 1986-87 school year. Classes begin on September 3, 1986. There will be a brief assembly in the Main Auditorium at 7:30 AM. Please bring all appropriate books and materials to school that day. Go Tikis!

Student: Sable A Donnellan
Status: Sophomore Class of 1989

Before school started that fall, I found something. A spark, a gem twinkling for me in the water. I heard it calling and my eyes followed its bob. If the rocks weren’t there to block, the waves would’ve left it in the sand long ago. I crouched on one of the smooth, flat boulders warmed by the sun and stuck my hand in. It was hard at first. I eased it over and then snatch!

I set the bottle on the flat rock. It looked like something was inside, but I didn’t want to crack it. The glass was old and fogged, the metal cap stuck. I worked my fingers around the cap, twisting, sand grinding, salt water stinging my tiny cuts. I took the knife from my inside pocket, flipped the pliers out and worked the bottle top until it budged. Just a little more and I could finally see inside, a crinkled piece of newsprint. I took the tweezers and pried it out. It said:

I turned it over in my hands and then looked around. No one. The sun spread its gold all over, starting to dip. I stuck the message and bottle in my pack and hopped on Whiz to go home. My first clue.