As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins Read Free Book Online

lava trickles and the steam, and try to remember those diagrams of volcanoes everyone had to draw in fifth grade, and wonder how dormant a volcano could be if it still had glowing lava coming out of it? Here it was, geology in real life (though geology was really every where; it was real life), and it was all pretty incredible, but it was also a relief to get back to the bottom and eat one of the sandwiches that the guide had packed, even if giant ants had found their way inside the bag and had to be brushed away.
    Meanwhile, back up behind them, the thick heat of the tropical afternoon settled around the mountain. Twitters and chirps and squawks punctured the heavy stillness here and there, but it was siesta time.
    The perky ringtone of a cell phone sang out into the cloud forest. No one was there to notice how the narrow rectangular window on its face lit up.
    Five minutes after its Answer button went unpressed, it emitted a musical burble.
    By the second burble, a small monkey with a greencast to her fur had located the smooth silvery object. She waited for it to speak again, and it did. She touched the small bumps along the edges, and it peeped and glowed at her. And it vibrated, like a bee trapped under a leaf, tickling the palm of her hand. Foot. Whatever. She squeaked, then carried it off to show her family and friends.

BETTY, BETTY, BETTY
    I n the booth at the New Pêche Skillet, Del and Pete were having a discussion.
    “I like to fly under the radar,” Pete was saying.
    “So, what happened to your eye?” asked Beth. She was talking to Ry.
    “I just let them know where I stand,” said Del. “I don’t have anything to hide.” He was talking to Pete.
    “I walked into something,” said Ry. “A big metal cable. It was in the shadow, and it was coming straight at me. I didn’t see it.”
    “I’m not hiding anything,” said Pete. “But I’m not going to broadcast it, either.”
    “Ow,” said Beth. “You’re lucky you didn’t poke your eye out. Where was this cable? What were you doing?”
    Bit by bit she pried it out of him. It was surreal to besitting in the same booth, in the same restaurant, telling the same story he had told the night before to Del. But he was awake this time. And Beth was so interested. She kept asking him questions and listening to the answers. And there were the breakfast smells and the friendly hubbub of voices and clattering dishes and clinking silverware and the sunlight pouring through the windows…. Ry found he was chattering away, and when he ran out of things to say, he realized that everyone in the booth was now listening to him.
    “Are there any other people you could call, any other relatives?” Del asked. “Besides your grandfather?”
    “Maybe a neighbor, someone who could go see if your grandfather’s okay?” This was Beth.
    “We just moved,” said Ry. “I don’t actually remember anybody’s last name. There’s a lady named Betty.”
    “Betty,” said Pete. “Betty, Betty, Betty. Let’s call Betty.”
    “I don’t know her last name.”
    “I know, I was just—tell me again, what is the deal with your parents?”
    “They’re sailing around the Caribbean. I think they’re revitalizing their marriage or something.”
    “That sounds nice,” said Beth. “I’d like to do that. How long do they think it will take?”
    “Take?” asked Ry.
    “Do they have an itinerary?” asked Arvin. “Or are they just blowing in the wind, wherever love takes them, skipping over the ocean like a stone?”
    “Arvin’s kind of a mystic,” explained Beth.
    “Almost a monk, really,” said Pete. “He’s a Buddhist.”
    “It’s words to songs,” said Arvin. “The stuff they play on that radio station you people listen to.”
    “Oh, sorry,” said Beth. “I thought you were being poetic.”
    “Not me,” said Arvin. “Delwyn’s the poet.”
    Ry didn’t want to picture his parents letting love take them where it would. He wanted to picture them