Grace said, “She uses another name.”
“Pardon?”
“You’re Bluestone, she’s Muller. Is that because she wants to remember her family in a special way?”
Malcolm blinked. “Grace, I am privileged to know you.”
Again, the branding iron. Why couldn’t she accept nice things?
Grace’s eyes shot down to the table, fixed on the orange cover of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology. The articles inside were listed there and the first title she saw was about randomly truncated variable interval reinforcement in a sample of neurologically enhanced hooded rats.
This was going to be the essence of dull.
“Yeah, I know,” said Malcolm, smiling. “Still, you’ll probably get more out of it than my grad students.”
Two months after Grace’s eleventh-birthday bash, three new fosters arrived at the ranch, in a strange and different way.
The first odd thing was they came at night, when everyone except Ramona and Grace was asleep. Ramona would probably have been sleeping, she’d been going in earlier and earlier, keeping medicine in her apron pocket, muttering about needing to get off her feet. Grace had been studying her intently, trying to figure out when the ranch would close and she’d end up exiled to a place she wouldn’t like.
Grace was up because she tended to wake in the middle of the night, feel alert, and read herself back to sleep. That’s what she was doing when she heard Ramona descend the stairs.
She went to check, found Ramona at the front door, looking nervous and glancing at the big Hamilton man’s watch she always wore, the one Steve Stage had worn when he was alive.
Ramona turned to see Grace. “Got some new ones checking in, Grace. You’d best be heading back to slumber-land.”
“I can help.”
“No, you go to your room.” Speaking more roughly than usual.
Grace obeyed and climbed the stairs. Opening her window, she perched on her bed with a clear view of what was happening down below.
A big dark-green car and a white-and-black police car were parked in front of the house.
Out of the police car stepped two policemen in tan uniforms. Out of the green car stepped a man in a suit with a badge clipped to his breast pocket. All three were big men, with mustaches. They formed a half circle facing Ramona. A conversation Grace couldn’t hear lasted for a while, everyone looking serious. Then one of the uniformed policemen opened the rear door of the police car and made a waving motion.
Out came three kids, two boys and a girl.
The smaller boy was about Grace’s age, the taller one older — thirteen or fourteen. The girl was the youngest, maybe eight or nine, and she stood in a way that made her seem even smaller than she was.
All three were blond, really light blond, just as light as Sophia Muller. Their hair was like straw in the wind, wild and sticking out all over the place.
Long hair, reaching below their waists, even the boys.
Their clothes looked strange: too-large, loose-fitting black shirts with no collars and baggy, too-long black pants whose bottoms collected on the dirt like accordions.
As if the three of them were members of a club that you needed a uniform for but the uniforms hadn’t come out right.
The girl stood close to the younger boy, who was biting his nails and tapping his foot. Those two had round, soft faces and looked almost like twins, if she hadn’t been so much younger. He moved his shoulder so it touched hers and she began sucking her thumb. His foot began tapping faster.
The older boy had a longer face. He stood away from them and seemed relaxed, slouching and bending one leg as his eyes moved all over the place. First he stared straight at the house, then past the house and out to the desert, followed by a quick swing toward Ramona.
Then his face tilted upward. Aiming himself directly at Grace. She realized she’d left her light on, was framed like a picture.
The older boy locked in on her eyes and smiled. He was handsome, with a firm jaw and a crooked smile. His look said he and Grace shared a secret. But there was nothing friendly about the smile.
Just the opposite, a hungry smile. Like he was a coyote and she was food.
Grace backed away from the window and drew her curtains.
She thought, but couldn’t be sure, that she heard laughter from down below.
The following morning, as usual, Grace was the first to get up and Ramona entered the kitchen as she was pouring herself a second glass of juice.
“Morning, Ms. Blades.” Ramona began fiddling with the coffeemaker.
“Who are they?”
Ramona’s hands stilled. “I figured you’d be curious. But trust me, Grace, don’t be.” She kept her back to Grace, as if she and Grace didn’t know each other as well as Grace thought they did.
When she’d loaded coffee into the urn, she said, “I’ll tell you their names because obviously you need to call them something. But that’s it, okay?”
It’s not okay at all, it’s stupid. “Sure.”
“They’ll be gone soon, anyway. It’s a favor I’m doing for social services because they need a...” Head shake. “That’s all you need to know, young lady.”
Walking to the fridge, Ramona pulled out eggs and butter.
Grace said, “Their names...”
“What... oh, yeah. Okay, the big one is Sam, his brother is Ty, the little sister is Lily. Got that?”
“Yes.”
“Sam, Ty, Lily,” Ramona repeated. As if Grace needed to memorize a lesson.
Sam. That smile remained in her head, like a bad smell. Ty and Lily had acted like scared babies and she didn’t want to spend time with them, either.
Ramona began frying up a clump of her tasteless eggs. The coffeemaker burbled. She looked at her man’s watch. “Oops, better check on Bobby.”
She went upstairs and returned looking exhausted as she eased Bobby into the kitchen. He was walking on two canes that fit around his elbows, moving slowly, with jerks and starts. In the middle of his trek to the table, he stopped and flashed Grace one of his confusing smiles. Or maybe he wasn’t smiling at Grace, just at... being there. But it was better than Sam’s smile so she smiled back and helped Ramona seat him and strap him in and filled his special cup from one of the cans of nutritional shakes in the fridge.
During Ramona’s absence, bumps had begun sounding from above. The three new fosters were awake but they hadn’t come down.
Grace fed Bobby his shake. He gurgled and rolled his head, worked hard at sucking up liquid, finally succeeded.
Ramona kept frying. Her reaction to Grace being helpful with Bobby had changed over three years. She’d started out insisting Grace didn’t need to work, she was a kid, not a caretaker. When Grace kept up her chores, anyway, Ramona began thanking her.
But that had stopped, too. Nowadays, Ramona said nothing, expecting Grace to be part of the ranch routine.
As she placed a plate of eggs in front of Grace, the bumps from the second floor grew louder and faster and moments later they transformed to the rhythmic thump-thump-thump of feet on stairs. Six feet made a lot of noise. To Grace it sounded like stampeding horses in one of Steve Stage’s old movies.
Sam appeared first, swaggering into the kitchen as if he’d always lived there. Sharp eyes took in the room, settled on the fry pan. “Thanks so much, ma’am, but I don’t eat eggs. None of us do. It’s animal matter.”
Ty and Lily hid themselves behind him, yawning and rubbing their eyes. Ty was even softer-looking up close, all boy, no man. Sam, on the other hand, had muscles in his arms and the beginnings of facial hair: oily-looking smudges on his chin and above his upper lip.