The Anybodies by N. E. Bode Read Free Book Online Page A

couldn’t get the tail or the muzzle. And it took three days to get even that far. Oh, well. Important thing is that we got him back. It took all of our concentration, mine and your mother’s. He could have stayed that way, you know. Odder things have happened.”
    â€œThey have?” Fern had trouble believing that there were odder things than turning yourself into a dog and getting stuck that way.
    â€œThe Great Realdo could turn into a dog in three seconds,” the Bone said. “But you know what I mean, Fern. You’ve seen it happen, right? Remember the swimming pool?”
    Fern didn’t respond. She wasn’t ready to admit to anything, not yet. You see, she was very well trained by now not to mention such things. She sat there, clamped down, eyes narrowed, as Drudger-like as possible. Somethingloose in the car rattled, a few things actually. Fern held onto the door handle to see if the rattle would stop. One rattle did, but others jangled on.
    â€œI have to say, Fern,” the Bone continued, “it was at the pool that things became clear. The bat? Remember?”
    Fern stayed perfectly still.
    â€œIt wasn’t planned. I don’t know why it was there. But it was remarkable.”
    It was remarkable ! Fern was thinking. She squirmed in her seat. She thought of the whistling kettle. Finally she blurted, “I saw it too. How it changed into a marble and rolled away!”
    â€œI know you saw it,” the Bone said calmly.
    â€œYou do?”
    â€œYep. You denied it. That’s what made it clear to me that you’re mine. Any other kid would have been shocked, would have had a million questions about how a bat could become a marble. Any other kid wouldn’t have been able to shrug and go on with their lesson as if nothing had happened, as if that kind of thing—”
    â€œHappens all the time,” Fern finished. “Well, not all the time, but often enough. And why is that?”
    â€œYou’re being watched over,” the Bone said. “I don’t know why.” He didn’t dwell on it. But Fern wondered if it was the good kind of being watched over or the bad. “We had to figure a way to get you out. At least for a summer! I’m hoping you’ve got your mother’shead on your shoulders, just like you have her eyes.” The Bone said it, but then he blushed. “I don’t mean anything by that! The eyes are nice enough. I didn’t say they were beautiful or anything.”
    But for the first time, Fern thought that someone actually meant that her eyes were beautiful. She felt shy all of a sudden. She sat back and buckled her seat belt again. She fiddled with the key that hung from the string around her neck. Fern wondered if the circus was in her blood, if she could be an Anybody, if she could turn other people into better versions of themselves. Could she turn the Drudgers into being something other than dull? She wanted to ask questions about the Miser, but didn’t. There was one thing that needed to be very clear. Fern didn’t want to ask, but she had to. “My mother is really dead?”
    There was a pause. “Yes,” the Bone said.
    Fern closed her eyes. Howard had been right. He hadn’t fooled her. She missed her mother now, deeply, and it was strange because she’d never known her, had never known that she existed until just that evening. The missing was more painful than anything Fern had felt before. The image of her mother in the photograph holding her belly appeared in Fern’s mind. It was all she had of her. “And the book?” Fern asked. “Her book, The Art of Being Anybody ? Where is it now?”
    Marty humphed and shook his head. “Funny thing,” he said. “No one knows. It was in their house before the Bone went to jail. But things were packed up after, well, after, you know…The bank came in and took everything out to sell. It could be anywhere,