Earthquake?

This story should probably start with the note. There were signs even before that, though, if Jennifer had only recognized what they meant.

For instance, there was the crack in the garage wall with the corner of a piece of pearly paper sticking out of it. Pearly paper! That ought to have told her something right there. And there was the way her marmalade-colored cat, Atta Girl, had been acting. She'd been jumpy and restless for at least a week. She acted as if she were trying to talk to Jenny again, although of course she couldn't. Not in California, anyway.

As Jenny worked at her bedroom desk, Atta Girl slept at her feet in a patch of sunlight. Jenny was trying to get her act together on a special science assignment. All she'd written so far was her name, Jennifer Arthur, Science 1A, and the date, November 6.

Jenny's mom and dad were laughing in their bedroom about something her dad had said. They were getting ready to go to early dinner at Uncle Pete and Aunt Georgia's house. Uncle Pete wasn't really Jennifer's uncle, but he was Dad's favorite cousin, and Aunt Georgia was his wife. They were a fun couple, and Dad and Mom were always in good moods when they were headed there. Jenny's younger brother, Warren, would be going too, but Jenny had to beg off so she could get her homework done—just like the lesson in front of her.

It was all about space and dimensions ... depth, height, width, length, and time. Well, most of that stuff seemed pretty obvious, except for the part that said time isn't even real, that it's just some markers we make up to keep track of our lives.

Well, Jenny knew how strange time could be after the adventures she, Willa, and Atta Girl had shared in the White World. It was hard for her to believe now, but it had only been last spring when Jenny, her best friend, Willa Walker, and Atta were dragged from Jenny's backyard by a white hole in space. It eventually dropped them off on a planet where everything was white, even Jenny's own red hair and freckles. Then after all kinds of horrendous events, and lots of nice ones too, they found their way back home through the white hole again. And when they did get home, they found it not only wasn't any later than when they'd left; it was actually a minute or two earlier.

But Willa and her parents had moved to Southern California in August, and Jenny missed her humongously. Most of all she missed the great talks they used to have, especially when they were remembering their White World friends—Morgan, Nitty Gritty, Ildirmyrth, Lakeesha, and Behrrn—plus all their other friends on the White World. There was no one around to remember with now, and Willa's e-mails were full of news about some guy named Doug that Jenny had never even met.

Atta squirmed in her sleep and meowed irritably. When Jenny reached down to pet her, she touched the chrystal pendant that Nitty Gritty the Newfangler had hung on her collar. That was when they were in a whole other universe. In that entirely pale world, only Atta had kept her color. She was tremendously admired in the White World, where nobody had ever seen color before. But Terran Tuhlla the Terrible and his grim Ghanglers didn't admire her a bit. They wanted everything and everyone to conform to their rigid White World rules. They hated color, even though, like everyone else on that planet, they'd never seen it. They'd only felt it in the works of the marvelous Chrystellean masterworkers, and they'd proclaimed that all Ghanglers were forbidden to even touch those works.

Then Jennifer, Willa, and Atta Girl had been dropped into the White World, where even the two girls were all white, leaving behind Jenny's red hair and freckles and Willa's warm, chocolate complexion. But Atta Girl had somehow managed to arrive with the hue of her gorgeous marmalade-colored fur and her glowing yellow eyes intact, so of course the Ghanglers super-hated Atta Girl. The Ghangler whirlies despised Jenny and Willa too, since, even though they were also all white on this world, the girls were subtly different from the White Worlders, especially in what they wore.

Jennifer had quit trying to tell Mom and Dad about the White World. She did try at first, but then Mom would get that worried crease in the middle of her forehead when she looked at her, and Dad would look up from his book or newspaper when he thought Jennifer wasn't noticing and shake his head sadly. She couldn't really blame them. If it hadn't happened to her, she wouldn't have believed it either.

But at least there was Warren, her eleven-year-old brother. He loved to listen from the beginning. He'd sit in the wooden rocking chair in her room with his legs pulled up tightly beneath him. He particularly liked hearing about all the close calls they'd had with the ghoulish Ghanglers and the time Jenny was nearly killed by a storming star and Morgan the Wonderful, Wandering Wohtt had saved her life. Warren liked to sit and shiver with dread from his safe distance. But Jenny didn't think he actually believed her as much as he wanted to.

"We're on our way, Jennifer." Mom poked her head in the open door of Jenny's room to say good-bye. "Are you sure you can't go with us?"

"I'd like to, Mom. But I've got to get this science assignment done for tomorrow morning. Give them hugs for me, okay?"

Dad leaned over Mom's shoulder and winked at his daughter. "Hey, Funnyface," he said. "Hit those books."

"Okay, Dad." She grinned back. "Right away!" One of Dad's favorite jokes was ordering Jenny to do things she was already doing.

"Well ..." Mom hesitated, that little worry crease showing on her forehead again. There Jenny was, in high school and practically a grown woman, and her parents still worried about letting her stay home alone, especially since she had tried telling them about the White World.

"Well," Mom repeated, "Warren will be with us, so you won't be disturbed. Call if you need anything."

Jenny was glad she wouldn't be disturbed. The house did feel a bit hollow and echoey after they'd gone, though. She focused back on the chapter on dimensions in her science book. Knowing what weird tricks time can play doesn't mean you understand it—any more than you could understand the part in the book that explained, "In the fifth dimension, a cube would have countless corners."

"Hey," she muttered disgustedly to herself, "if it had all those corners, it wouldn't be a cube—would it?"

And there was the part of the lesson that told about a theory that there really isn't any gravity; it's just matter making space bend around Earth. It also said if the atoms in something got mashed horrifically close together it would be ginormously heavy, and it would wrap space around it so hard that it would suck everything nearby right into it. Like black holes and, she supposed, maybe white holes. Or maybe white holes would do the opposite, like blow everything away? But Jenny didn't believe that because she already knew something about white holes and how they behaved. And she couldn't see why she needed all this other stuff. Now that she was back home, all she'd ever need to know about time was how to read clocks and calendars and how to know which way was up or down or right or left, for pity's sake.

Outside some kids were playing one-on-one in the street, and a car door slammed. The outside noises made the inside of the house seem even emptier. Jenny stretched her mind through all the empty rooms, enjoying having the house to herself.

Scritt! Something automatic turned on or turned off. Jennifer put her chin in her hands and stared blankly at the hungry hippo stain on her wallpaper where she'd knocked over her paint water a few summers ago. Back when she was in the White World, she'd been afraid she'd never see this room with that silly hippo stain again.

Bong-bong-bong. The clock in the front hall—the one with the stars, moon, and sun chasing each other around a little window—chimed insistently. She sighed. She knew this much about time. If she didn't start this paper now, she'd never finish it on time.

Click-snick. The house settled its rafters around her aloneness, and Jennifer snuggled into it comfortably.

Then something ... something like a silver wind ... slipped warmly into the room to lift the hair from the nape of her neck. Even then she didn't have a clue about what was about to happen. There had been times when she'd known something was wrong ahead of time, times when she got all spooky and bristly and she didn't realize why until later. But that's the trouble with intuition—you can't count on it.

She shook her head and forced her eyes back to the lesson, but her mind would have nothing to do with it. There was a wrinkle in a corner of her paper where her elbow had leaned on it. She tried to smooth it with her fingers and then pulled out a fresh sheet from the desk drawer and started again: Jennifer Arthur, Science 1A, Novem—

Snick—crack—thwannng!

Jennifer gasped and Atta yowled as the air around them twisted violently. Earthquake? Jennifer thought, panicked. She'd lived all her life in Northern California where people were always talking about earthquakes, but she'd never actually felt one. And she was puzzled when she heard the game going on outside the same as before.

Then she heard something else through the crackling and sparking of the air around her. It sounded faintly like far-off chimes, like a distant doorbell rung by welcome visitors. Her mind reached back. Where had she heard those chimes before?

Jennifer shook her head to clear it. It definitely was an earthquake, she decided. It had to be. What had happened when the chimes had sounded before was something gentle and easy, not wild like this. Besides, that had happened in a whole other universe and it could not ... possibly ... be ... happening ... again.

She stayed sitting on the floor of her room for a minute, rubbing the place on her arm where she'd bumped it against her desk when she fell. Things were settling down, but Atta's back fur was still ruffled, and Jenny's heart was still pounding.

The air smoothed around them, though, and the spitting, sparking static that had come with the scary, crumpling air faded to nothing. It was an earthquake, Jennifer decided again as she looked around. Even though everything was exactly as it had been before, her mind insisted it had to have been at least a tremor. Even though her stuffed animals were still tossed together on her bed in the same positions, and her bulletin board still hung straight on the wall. And even the things pinned to it—a party invitation, a picture of her and Willa grinning and squinting at the sun, and a metal T square—didn't look any more crooked than before. Her hot pink alarm clock told her it was 3:11 p.m. It hadn't missed a tick.

"No harm done," she told Atta, her voice coming out strange and cracked. "This is earthquake country, you know," she said proudly, as if it were something brave and special to live their lives on that slippery section of the planet.

Outside, the game was over, and skateboarders were doing stunts in driveways, but that was all. There were no sirens or unusual noises. The phone wasn't ringing, either, so Mom and Dad probably hadn't even felt it. It would just be something to talk about in school Monday, she thought.

"Did you feel the earthquake yesterday?"

"Yeah, did you?"

"Where were you when it hit?"

Jenny pulled herself up, set her chair upright, and then sat in it again, squarely in front of her desk. The excitement was over. She wasn't trembling because she was still scared, she told herself. It was only that she hadn't stopped shaking yet. This was normal. This was California. This was now. She picked her paper and pen up off the floor where they'd fallen, placed them on the desk side by side, and jumped a foot when an envelope appeared just a few inches in front of her nose.

Its pearly paper and silver lettering shimmered in the afternoon light as it floated over her desk. She couldn't believe her eyes.

"No, Atta," she said firmly, as if her cat had been arguing with her. "No, it can't be from Nitty." How could Nitty Gritty Newfangler just drop them a note, all the way from another universe? Atta sprang up into Jenny's lap to see what her mistress was carrying on about.

"See here, though, Atta?" Still not touching it, Jenny pointed out the silvery writing on the envelope. "It's addressed to all of us—to you, to me and to Willa. Oh, if only Willa were here now!" She was beginning to let her excitement loose. She remembered the chimes and began to let herself believe.

"Maybe—maybe it wasn't an earthquake after all, Atta." It was hard on Jenny that Atta couldn't answer her anymore. And it must be terrible, she realized suddenly, for Atta Girl! Absently, she rubbed the favorite furry place behind her cat's ears, still puzzling things out as the wonder of it washed over her. She whispered then, as if to speak out loud might break the spell. She wouldn't rush this. It would be like unwrapping a package that you're sure holds exactly what you want, but unwrapping it slowly, a ribbon here, a piece of tape there—folding the paper carefully and setting it aside before opening the box, to make the lovely expectation last.

Impatiently, Atta butted her head against Jenny's hand, demanding she get on with it. The girl's hands were damp with excitement, and she rubbed them on her jeans before she reached to touch the envelope. It dropped into her hand as if it belonged there, and Jenny supposed it did.

She opened it carefully. "It is! It's from Nitty Gritty," she squeaked. "Oh Atta, a note from Nitty, all the way from the White World." She'd have known it was from Nitty when she read it, even without the sprawly silver signature at the bottom. It was written in Nitty's own mixture of Pilgrim English and outdated slang:

Methinks 'twould be a zowie treat,
If the three of thee—and we—should meet.
We'll kick up our heels and have a hoedown,
Then rest, and catch up on the lowdown.
We'll chat about now and of days gone by,
When the three of thee came from out of the sky.
If thou'lt choose to be there (thou'lt not be sorry)
Then go today, and not tomorry,
To stand beside your lilac tree.
Then wait right there 'til half past three.

"She's coming to see us, Atta! I don't know how it's possible, but she is clever." Atta purred and rubbed against her, as excited as she was. "It says for us to wait by the lilac tree, Atta. Today at 3:30. Oh, whoa! It's 3:18 already!"

Scooping Atta up, she rushed outside, careening through the narrow hallway, the crowded dining room, the tidy kitchen and the cluttered porch. The back door squawked a protest as she yanked it open and squealed a warning as it closed behind her.

Jenny didn't even slow down. Who pays attention to screen doors anyway?

Waiting

Jennifer was nearly to the lilac bush when she stopped abruptly. She and Atta Girl were the only ones there. Well, the note said three thirty. "There are still a few minutes to go," she said out loud.

"And Nitty said 'we,' Atta. Maybe Morgan will be with her." She grinned, remembering the soft, starry fluff that covered their Wohtt friend from head to hips, the silver bells that tipped his delicate antennae, his squared-off spectacles, his super fancy way of talking, and his plain, comfortable way of being a friend. "Or maybe Ildirmyrth the Masterworker," she went on, guessing out loud. "Or even Behrrn!" Her heart flip-flopped at that thought. "He probably can't leave Chrystellea, though," she cautioned Atta. "His people need him there." She didn't want to get Atta's hopes, or her own, up too high.

She put Atta on the ground and began to pace back and forth, making plans. Atta headed for her favorite spot on the back fence. "We'll serve them pizza, Atta," Jenny exclaimed, waving her hands excitedly. "We'll order out for pizza with everything. I'll bet they have never tasted anything like pepperoni pizza!"

Atta seemed unimpressed, and Jennifer was beginning to feel anxious. It must be three thirty by now, she worried. Where are they?