Outside In by Sarah Ellis Read Free Book Online Page B

opinion. Well done.” She turned to Lynn. “We don’t have many visitors, so Larch and I practiced. How are we doing?”
    At this point Larch turned his face to Lynn, not quite meeting her gaze. His eyes were blueberry blue. His face was scrubbed — not just clean but scrubbed of cool, scrubbed of any mask. He looked like an angel on a Christmas card. Not a cute angel but an art angel.
    â€œYou’re doing great. I feel very welcomed. Here are two more things about visitors. Usually everybody sits down and shares the food.”
    â€œOh, good,” said Larch, reaching over to grab the cream puff and launching himself into a chair. Artdog jumped into his lap. The cardboard must have been stronger than it looked. He licked his fingers and declared, to some corner of the room, “Larch loves cream puffs.”
    Blossom held up one finger. “Who loves cream puffs?”
    Larch gave his head a shake. “I love cream puffs.”
    â€œGood,” said Blossom. “Come on, Lynn, pick a chair.”
    Lynn fell into a sea of cushions and plucked one question from the mystery that settled around her.
    â€œWhere are we? What is this place? I mean, what was it before it was your house?”
    â€œIt’s one of the forgotten places. Fossick says it was some kind of construction storage area when they were building the reservoir. It got walled off.”
    â€œHow did you guys find it?”
    â€œFossick discovered it, before I was born. He likes to look around behind things. He says that even in a city there are many places unaccounted for. I’ve lived here my whole life.”
    â€œSo what about your other brother? Tron, was it? How old is he?”
    â€œHe’s seventeen.”
    Larch’s face darkened. “He’s seventeen and he’s bad! He’s not doing his work.” He started to flap his hands.
    Blossom leaned over and put both hands on the top of Larch’s head, making a cap with her fingers. “We can talk about that later.”
    â€œWhat do you do about … I mean, do you have a bathroom?”
    Larch giggled. “Of course we do!”
    â€œWhat’s with all the doors?”
    Blossom rattled some raisins into Lynn’s hand.
    â€œDoors are an easy find. Doors and beds and couches and books and ties. Citizens leave them in an alley or on the street. Also exercise bicycles. Why do citizens make bicycles that go nowhere? Tron takes them apart for good pieces. The other left-outs are always plastic toys and those magazines with yellow covers.”
    â€œThey have pictures of every place in the world,” said Larch. “Deep sea exploration, Shangri-La, crop circles in Switzerland. That’s what Larch is working on now.”
    Lynn had a vision, a kind of old-fashioned cartoon, of two space aliens — green, big eyes, head boppers, from separate planets — meeting beside some asteroid and trying to explain their ways to each other. She was responsible for making sense of exercise bikes and the tons of National Geographics that must be out there somewhere. Blossom was responsible for explaining angel-boy and his “work” and “finds” and if they weren’t growing marijuana down here how were they making a living but, more to the immediate point, where was that bathroom?
    The bathroom had a shower, a sink, and an odd toilet that she had to climb up to. There was a complicated tangle of plastic pipes like a plate of noodles and some stiff, scratchy towels. There was a cat asleep on one of the larger pipes.
    When she got back to the hodgepodge room, cat shadowing her, Larch had fallen asleep in his chair with Artdog curled up at his feet, smiling even as he slept.
    â€œCatmodicum found you,” said Blossom. “I should tell you. She doesn’t know she’s a cat.”
    Lynn spoke softly. “What’s with Larch?”
    â€œOh, he naps all the time. It’s his way. All the