Read Online The Cabinet of Earths by Anne Nesbet - Free Book Online Page B

someone dragged all over the world all his life. Even if he was losing his native Bulgarian. Which was kind of a scary thing, when you thought about it. Let’s say you get dragged off to France, and then your parents for some reason just plain forget to go back home. When do your ordinary English words for things start to disappear? And what does that feel like, when you notice they’re gone?
    â€œHey, and how’s your little brother doing?” added Valko. “He never even had any French before, right?”
    â€œOh, he’s doing great,” said Maya. “He always does great. The teacher has already sent a note home practically thanking my parents for bringing him to France. He had tons of friends by the third day. That’s just the way he is.”
    And then, to her surprise, she felt almost guilty. She really did love James, of course, with all her heart. After all, from a purely objective point of view, he was probably the most lovable child in the world. Really. But then she opened her mouth to compliment him, and a whine slipped out instead. How pathetic was that?
    â€œJames really wants to climb up the Evil Tower,” she said in a rush. “That’s what he calls it. Mom’s still too tired, so I should probably take him. Maybe Wednesday after school.”
    On Wednesdays the collège got out at noon, and the little kids had no school at all.
    â€œHow about I come along, too?” asked Valko. “I’ve been under the tower about a million times, but I’ve never actually gone up.”
    Maya was still feeling slightly bad about James at the end of the day, so she spent five euros on a windup clown figure with a flashing nose that she had seen him admire in the toy store around the corner. Something about the packaging intrigued her, to tell the truth. One of those rounded plastic containers that resist your scissors to the death. She carved the toy clown out of its plastic casing very carefully and kept the shell.
    And on Wednesday, Valko turned out to have been totally serious about the expedition to the Eiffel Tower.
    â€œCheck out my sturdy tower-climbing shoes!” he said, showing Maya his sneakers. Whether they were any different from the shoes he wore every other day, however, Maya couldn’t have said.
    James was practically floating with happiness and excitement when they picked him up at the apartment after school. Maya couldn’t help but notice the relieved look on her mother’s face, too. Looking forward to some quiet rest time, probably, while her kids were off climbing iron stairs: normal. The way any mother might feel. Right?
    She looked again. It is one of the terrible things you start doing, when you get older and wiser: You can’t help yourself; you look again.
    Her mother was listening very intently to Valko at that moment, her cheek propped up on her thin, delicate hand. She must have just asked him a question, because her eyes had that interested flicker in them, very dark and alive in her too-pale face.
    â€œSo in some ways, I don’t know what I am,” Valko was saying, almost wistfully. “Half this and half that, by now. It’s so bad I only dream in Bulgarian on, you know, odd-numbered days.”
    Then he laughed, and Maya’s mother’s eyes laughed, too, but that wasn’t the terrible part. The terrible part was that even while he was laughing, Valko turned toward Maya, just for a second, and on his face were still etched all those things he hadn’t yet had time enough to squirrel away properly: how surprised he was by what he couldn’t help but have noticed about Maya’s mother, how surprised he was and how sorry. But, Maya, you never told me your mother was sick. That’s what his face said in that very short slice of time.
    When your mother has been ill for a long, long time, your own eyes get used to it, the way callused hands have gotten used to their oars. You keep rowing