As she opened the meticulously taped box, the smell of bananas and smoke exploded through her nose like a swarm of yellowjackets. Olivia stumbled backwards for a second before looking into the box. Inside sat a single red barrette. It looked old. Very old. Tiny gems encrusted its delicate surface in the pattern of miniature flowers and a single bumblebee. As soon as her fingers picked it up, Olivia swore she saw a pink spark zip above her head and out the screen door. Her little brother Gnat was standing next to her — his own hands twitching as she opened the present — and he didn’t say a single peep so, at the time, she figured the banana smoke made her see stars.
“Who sent me this?” Olivia wondered aloud. “It’s . . . it’s beautiful.” As she turned the barrette in her hand, the sparkling bumblebee flew from one flower to another.
“My little one . . . all grown up . . . soon to be married,” Dad wailed, rubbing pretend tears from his cheeks.
Gnat chuckled and wiped his nose with the back of his hand.
Olivia slipped the barrette into her brown hair and turned sideways in the mirror to see it glowing up there like a hazel berry. That should have been the end of it. Life should have returned to normal.
But disturbing things started happening. For one, deer started sleeping in the yard. When Olivia walked outside, the deer nervously pawed the ground, but they didn’t run away. One even followed her from the front yard to the back. When Dad or Gnat went outside, they all leapt over the fence and clattered down the neighborhood streets.
Because the deer ate all of their hedges, Dad became very interested in making aluminum pie pan scarecrows. He even bought all of the wind chimes from the hardware store and hung them from the trees, hoping the wind would blow.
Someone also started leaving corn muffins in their mailbox.
“Don’t you dare touch or bite into any of those muffins,” Dad ordered Gnat, who already had a muffin halfway to his mouth. He called the police, but they said “no crime had transpired.”
Olivia started dreaming horrible dreams: dead frogs dropping from the trees, little eyeless dolls made of cactus spines, faces in her window, long fingers scratching words into the glass like “acu pira,” “hurry up,” and “I await you.” That sort of thing. She soon learned that keeping the barrette in her hair while she slept would keep the nightmares away.
When she woke up the first morning of summer break three weeks later and shuffled downstairs for breakfast, she knew right away that something else was wrong. Something changed. Something worse than nervous deer and nightmares. Dad didn’t pour himself a cup of coffee. He didn’t pop his head through her door to wake her by saying “Time to get up, Butterfly.” He didn’t even walk out to the end of the driveway for the morning paper. He just stood in front of the kitchen window, looking out at the enormous cottonwood tree in the backyard. The leaves twitched with every slight breeze. Fawns stretched in the dappled light. It would have been a perfect morning if her life wasn’t about to be ruined.
He tried to make it sound like a summer vacation, but no one packs all of their clothes and toys for a vacation, do they? Besides, he wouldn’t look her in the eyes when he told her, “I did my best. I just need this.” He didn’t look like her father at all when he said it. His eyes were blanks, his mouth, even his skin looked different. He looked like a stranger.
“But why? I don’t want to go. I can stay at Katie’s,” Olivia begged, giving her best gimmie-face that always worked on Dad. Only this time she wasn’t faking it.
“I’m sorry, but you have to understand. I will come get you as soon as I can,” he said.
“Can’t we call Mom? In an emergency?”
“You know we can’t do that,” Dad snapped.
Mom was overseas in Iraq fighting in the war. The 147th Aviation Battalion. Mom had served in Iraq almost half of Olivia’s life, most of what she could remember. Olivia had a cloth patch stitched with a red and tan hawk holding an arrow. The patch meant she was an honorary member of The 147th.
They were only allowed to talk on the phone the first of each month. Today was May 5th. They talked just a few short days ago and Mom had said nothing about anyone getting kicked out of the house. Olivia wished hard that it was the first of June so she could put an end to this craziness, but that seemed like years away now.
She listened to her father calling Aunt and Uncle Milligan from around the hallway corner. He covered his voice as he talked into the phone.
“Please come as soon as you can. The kids are excited. No . . . they don’t know . . . Yes. We are still in the same place.”
“Who said you get to decide?” Olivia screamed before Dad hung up the phone. “We’ve never even met them. They are probably freaks.”
“That’s enough,” Dad sighed.
She stormed upstairs.
Gnat sprawled upside down in bed wearing his headphones and playing a video game. He happily believed Dad about their “surprise” vacation. Olivia certainly wasn’t going to tell him the truth. He was only six years old. He was short, annoying, and almost always had candy in his mouth. His brown hair sat loosely high above his huge forehead. Gnat played video games constantly. He rarely spoke, but when he did, it was something like “Level Three!” or “Mega-blaster!” causing the adults around him to simply shake their heads and stare dumbly at him. Occasionally, he stood up and screamed at the top of his lungs with the most incredibly loud, whining sound — and for no apparent reason.
A few days later, Olivia was peeling the crust off a bologna and ketchup sandwich when she heard a crash outside. She ran to the front door. A long, turquoise car pulled into the driveway. It looked forty years old. The tires smoked, and something definitely burned under the hood. Olivia read some faded lettering that had been removed from its side years ago. It said, “Milligan’s Exotic Citrus.” The back of the car was jammed to the roof with tools, pillows, and clothes. Deer scattered in all directions.
A tall man with a graying beard jumped out of the driver’s seat and yelled like he was mad about something. Out of the passenger door emerged a bright red woman. Various cups, napkins, pens, coins, magazines, maps, sunglasses, and what looked to Olivia like a brass trumpet fell out onto the driveway. That old car was so stuffed with junk that it exploded out of every door and window. Olivia heard the red woman screaming, “I told you! I told you!” Olivia ran to her room and slammed the door.
When she saw them next, they had obviously resolved their fight. Aunt in particular had a very kind, round face. She had the same curly brown hair as Olivia. And the same brown eyes. But she had freckles. Lots of freckles. She leaned over Olivia. “Are you ready to move . . . I mean visit Florida, Olivia? I’m your aunt!” she said with a gravelly voice.
Olivia turned over in her bed. “I’m not going anywhere in that piece of junk.”
“Come on. We’ll have fun.”
Olivia didn’t respond.
“We can go to the beach whenever you want. And Disney World is just a short drive away. Don’t you looove Florida?”
“Ugh,” Olivia grunted.
Uncle came inside to get her bags. Olivia snuck a peek. He looked like a ferret on hind legs. The top of his ungroomed head almost scraped against the ceiling. His tiny eyes darted around the room. His gaunt cheeks were wrinkled by something other than time. Maybe too much sun. Or too much worrying. He picked up almost all of her bags in one armful.
“We’ll give you a few minutes,” he said, signaling Aunt with his head to leave.
“You can give me a few years for all I care.”
Uncle frowned.
Olivia suddenly missed her house very badly. Her closet was empty. Her