When we got inside, I noticed that Sam’s hand was a bright red from how hard Millie had been clutching it. She and I exchanged a glance, and I didn’t like what I saw in her eyes.
There are only a few houses left on our street before the Cloud gets to ours. One of them is Michael Kowalski’s, though. I hate to say that’s where I’m hoping it’ll stop, but, well, I’m just being honest, and besides probably no one will ever read this diary.
My parents, of course, already knew when we told them. Since my dad’s a meteorologist, clouds are practically his middle name. I was hoping he’d reassure us and make everything seem fixable like always, but he looks even more tense than Millie.
The thing is, Dark Clouds are the most obscure branch of meteorology and—Dad explained to me once—few scientists choose to study them because they are an unsolvable mystery. Those scientists who have spent their lives studying them haven’t figured anything out. We know that Dark Clouds, unlike other clouds, keep their shape in any kind of weather. They’re always a dark gray, but they never give off rain. You can’t see into them, and where they take people when they die is a complete mystery. My dad, more than anyone I know, can’t stand unsolved mysteries.
Anyway, Sam, for the moment, is blissfully unaware of it all and has been running around the house despite his cold, stripped down to his underwear, with another pair of his underwear on his head, yelling that he’s the Undie Bandit and to give him all our money.
* * *
Some yellow leaves are falling past the window, lit up by the floodlights, and I’ve been staring out at the dark silhouette of Bear Mountain, which I’ve said good night to every night before I go to bed ever since I can remember. I used to imagine it was a real giant bear, but a friendly one. Now telling it good night is just a habit.
A while ago I went downstairs and no one even told me to go back to my room—I guess everyone’s forgotten I’m grounded. Millie and I flipped through Jeopardy! and The Biggest Octopus (a boring fishing show) and landed on the news. There were shots of the city of Chicago, showing trees and roots growing up through the sides of buildings. The city, over the past ten years or so, has become a forest again. Most of the people have left, and wolves and bears live in Millennium Park. These things happen, especially the farther west you go. The wilderness is always pushing back.
Finally, unable to distract myself, I came upstairs and now here I am writing again. There’s something about putting things down on paper that helps me feel a little less lost in my head.
Now I can hear Mom and Dad’s muffled voices arguing in their room, and I think they must be arguing about the Dark Cloud. Dad has his swamps, and he’s been kicked out of the society and people think he’s slightly crazy, but he’s also been voted Best Meteorologist by the Cliffden Herald three years in a row because he’s always right about the weather. If anyone knows what to do, it should be him, shouldn’t it? I keep telling myself not to worry, but it seems like when you do that you worry ten times more.
* * *
Years ago in the sky over LA there was an outbreak of guardian angels. The angels started pouring out of the clouds like rain, and then they just scattered to the four winds. Most of them stayed in LA, but some of them went into hiding in the national parks and some flew off to other continents.
I like to imagine that one of the angels who headed north flew over Cliffden, saw me sitting on the grass out front, and thought, That girl is special. She’s worth protecting. I can just picture my angel somewhere up in the sky or hiding on the roof, secretly watching over me. Sometimes I even whisper to her at night in case she can hear me. Tonight before I go to sleep, I’ll whisper to her to please protect Sam instead.
I just looked out the window, but it’s too dark to see any clouds now, and the sky is filled with a million clusters of stars that hang low over the hills. The lights of Cliffden in the valley below are like stars in a sky of their own.
I just dozed off. I guess I’m too sleepy to keep writing.
September 18th
Oliver was absent from school today. Arin is talking to me again, and she said she’s pretty sure he was taken by sasquatches. She said she heard the ones who killed his mom and dad had some kind of vendetta against his whole family (sasquatches are excellent trackers, so if she’s right, it wouldn’t be much trouble for them to find Oliver), and I can’t tell whether she’s just being dramatic or not.
Also, the doctor’s office called, and I guess it must have been with Sam’s test results, because after Mom hung up the phone she held her hand to her eyes and then disappeared into the bedroom with Dad.
I’m usually nosy, but not right now. I know this sounds weird, but I don’t want to know what the doctor said. And it works out, because apparently Mom and Dad don’t want to tell any of us. At dinner tonight we all just ate quietly, and now there’s more arguing coming from the bedroom. I have my pillow squished around my head to make sure I can’t hear what they’re saying. It’s hard to write while trying to hold the pillow, so I’ll stop.
September 19th
Just home from school. I now know what my parents have been arguing about, and it isn’t what I thought. I saw it in the yard when I got home from school today. My dad has bought a Winnebago.
The Dark Cloud has passed the Kowalskis’ house and is now in front of the Liptons’. They have an old basset hound named Dinky, and I’ve suddenly just had the thought that that’s who the Cloud’s coming for. Oh joy! Wouldn’t that be the best news of all time! Dinky is the worst dog anyway—all she does is bark and fart. Please let it be Dinky. Please please please, Dinky, die die die.
I’m wondering if I should cross the last bit out, since it’s so awful. But the truth is, I really do want it to be Dinky, and I’m superstitious that if I cross it out, it won’t be.
LATER THE SAME NIGHT
I wish I could go back in time to this afternoon when I didn’t know why Dad bought the Winnebago. My whole life has changed since then.
Dinner started out quietly enough—nobody was talking about the Dark Cloud or the Winnebago. Sam the Mouse was hiding under the table, pretending to be our pet cat and asking to be fed milk in a bowl on the floor. Dad was sitting in his usual spot but clearly far away in his mind (not unusual). I was seeing how many peas I could fit in my mouth, when Mom said, in a serious tone she hardly ever uses, “We have something to tell you, kids.”
At the tone of her voice even Sam got up off the floor and sat on my lap to listen.
“We’re putting the house up for sale.”
If only there was one word you could write to capture the feeling of the world falling from beneath your feet. I think it would probably sound like thkkkuddge. A sudden heaviness landed on me, and I think Millie and even Sam felt it too.
Dad sat by her silently while Mom went on, saying stuff about “expanding our horizons” and “seeing new places” and “having new experiences.”
“Not that the house will sell quickly. It’s a down market,” she went on jibberishly. I knew without her saying it that this had something to do with the Cloud. And that Dad was behind it all even though he wasn’t the one talking. He always avoids talking to us when things are unpleasant, and it makes me want to scream.