“I’ll go with you,” I decide.
“Wait up,” Grace orders, running for her towel.
“I thought you didn’t believe in bug killing,” Jett reminds her.
“Well, it’s dead now,” she shoots back. “Your violence might as well serve some purpose.”
They argue all the way to the shed.
Needles may be a cute little guy, but I have to say that watching him dismantle that giant insect is the most nauseating experience I’ve ever had. Even Jett has to turn away.
Only Grace has the stomach to watch the whole disgusting thing. “It’s the miracle of nature!” she proclaims with love in her voice.
His feast complete, the lizard splashes back into the paint tray and resumes his usual position, standing stock-still with only his eyes and nostrils out of the water.
I once read that, for every human on Earth, there are over two hundred million insects. So you’d think it would be pretty easy to find dead bugs to feed to Needles.
Nope. Turns out we’ve got the healthiest bugs on the whole planet right here, thanks to Magnus and his philosophy about the sanctity of all life, even the gross kind. There are no bug zappers, no roach motels, not even a fly swatter on the whole property. If a mosquito wants your blood, you’re his for the taking. Trust me, I speak from experience. I’m allergic to mosquito antibodies, so when I get a bite, it swells to the size of a major league pitcher’s mound.
I step in through the screen door onto the wood floor of the welcome center. In addition to the place where you have to surrender all electronics, this is also where you go to pick up your snail mail. Here at the Oasis, that’s the only way to keep in touch with the outside world.
The mail desk is usually manned by one of the buddies, or sometimes Janelle, when it’s too rainy for water sports. But this afternoon, I’m surprised to see Magnus himself standing there, his smile almost as bright as his highlighter-yellow warm-up suit.
“Be whole, Tyrell!” he greets me.
“Be whole,” I mumble. Unlike Grace, I’m never totally relaxed chitchatting with the Oasis bigwigs, Magnus and Ivory. They look at you too hard, like they can read your mind. Nowadays, my mind can’t withstand inspection. It knows too much about a certain lizard hidden away in the corner of the property.
Magnus pulls a stack of mail from a cubbyhole and drops it in my arms. It’s mostly magazines for Mom and Dad—Nutrition Weekly, Eat Yourself Slim, and Dieter’s Digest. There’s also a letter for Sarah from Landon Almighty. I feel like flushing it down the nearest toilet—except that hearing from Landon is the only thing that makes Sarah semi-human. How unfair is that? I can’t take revenge on her for being mean because that will only make her meaner.
Magnus holds one more envelope. “It’s for Jett,” he explains. “If you wouldn’t mind passing it along. I’ve noticed you two are becoming good friends.”
“Really?”
He smiles that all-knowing smile of his. “Perhaps you can help him see the positive transformation the Oasis has to offer him.”
“Uh—right.” I feel my face twisting into what’s probably a goofy grin. Me? Good friends with Vladimir Baranov’s son? I mean, sure, I get along with him better than, let’s say, Grace or Brooklynne do. He only spends time with those two because of Needles. But still, I find myself standing a little taller now.
The Oasis founder hands me an airmail letter. The return address is Orthodontists Without Borders, so it must be from Jett’s mother. There’s a colorful stamp in the corner with butterflies on it. The cancellation reads: BURKINA FASO.
“Thanks—uh—a lot.” I can’t bring myself to call him Magnus. I’ve got so much Jett on the brain that it might come out “Nimbus.” How would I ever explain that?
I exit the welcome center and head straight across the property for cottage 29, walking so fast I’m almost running. Jett and I get along well, but we don’t really hang out together like friends. Delivering this letter is a reason to knock on his door. It could even be an excuse to hang out.
It takes a long time for him to answer. But when he finally opens the door and sees me there, a look of concern appears on his face. “What’s wrong? Is everything okay with the lizard?”
“No, no—Needles is fine.” I hold out the envelope from Burkina Faso. “I was just at the welcome center. This came in the mail for you. I think it’s from your mom.”
He unfolds the letter and begins to read, leaving me standing awkwardly on the welcome mat.
“Is your mom all right?”
“Fine,” he replies absently, without looking up. “The usual stuff. Palate expanders in Pakistan. Braces in Bolivia. Retainers in Rwanda.”
“She sure travels a lot,” I comment. You think of Jett’s dad as the famous one, but his mother is just as accomplished in her own way. She’s a major globetrotter.
“You’ve got a lot of mail,” he points out, indicating the stack in my arms.
I shrug. “My parents’ diet magazines. And a love letter from my sister’s boyfriend.”
Jett seems interested. “Love letter?”
I nod. “They come every day, sometimes two or three together. It’s the only thing that keeps Sarah off my back.”
“What does the guy write?” he asks.
“How should I know? She doesn’t show it to me. Love stuff, I guess.”
He plucks Sarah’s letter from the pile and holds it up to the light. “We should read it. It could be very instructive.”
“Are you crazy? It’ll be destructive when Sarah sees I’ve opened her letter! She’ll cut my head off and use it as a soccer ball!”
“She’ll never know,” Jett explains reasonably. “We’ll steam open the envelope and glue it shut again.”
I feel myself turning pale. “Where are we going to get steam at the Oasis?”
He beams. “Are you kidding? We’ve got the greatest natural source of steam right here!”
The next thing you know, we’re standing at the edge of the Bath, holding Sarah’s letter over the rising vapors. As the envelope slowly steams, Jett works at it with a butter knife from the dining hall. The adhesive melts away and he gently opens the flap with such a light touch that I suspect this is not his first rodeo.
Once the letter’s out, we sneak back to cottage 29 and spread the page on the kitchen table between us to see what we’ve got.
“Wait a minute!” I exclaim. “Is this in code?”
It says Dear Sarah at the top and there are a handful of real words sprinkled here and there. But the rest of it is made up of clusters of numbers and letters that don’t seem to mean anything.
Jett, of course, understands perfectly. “Fuego put out a guide for this last year,” he explains. “Like here: ILY 4EAE—that means ‘I love you forever and ever.’ And here: DORBS GF—‘adorable girlfriend.’ And it says CRZ because it makes him crazy that they can’t be together. He signs off with a dinosaur hug—DHU.”
I’m stunned. “Is Sarah going to be able to understand this?”
“Of course. These two probably spend all day texting each other. They can’t do that while she’s here, so he writes his letters in the same way. She’ll understand perfectly—except maybe this.”