an ocean breeze and the concrete slab they stood on became a raft, bobbing and floating on an endless sea.
“I see it,” she said, grinning up at him.
“That’s the ocean,” he said.
“It’s lovely,” she said.
“Lovely? Yes, it is lovely, isn’t it?” he said, laughing. “That’s where I live, you know. On the ocean.”
“In a boat?”
He laughed again. “No, in a house. But the house is right on the beach and you can see the ocean from almost all the rooms.”
Allison couldn’t imagine that. She never even looked out the windows in this house. Nothing to see but dirt out the back windows and other sand-colored houses out the front.
“Can you swim in it?”
He stroked his beard. “You can swim in it. Might not want to. It’s kind of cold, but my son swims in it a lot.”
“You have a son?”
“I have two sons,” he said, smiling with pride. “And a daughter. They’re all kids like you. Some bad things happened in their lives so now they live with me in my house by the ocean.”
“Is it pretty?”
“The ocean?”
“The house.”
“If I told you it looked like a dragon, would you believe me?”
“No,” she said, laughing. That was the silliest thing she ever heard. “Dragons have wings. They have fire in their noses.”
“I promise it looks like a dragon.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” he said, and looked hurt. Then he grinned. She liked him so much when he smiled like that. “It’s a sea monster, I swear.”
“I know a water poem,” she said. “Do you want to hear it?”
“I want to hear your poem. Go for it.”
Allison recited for him.
“The sun was shining on the sea,
Shining with all his might:
He did his very best to make
The billows smooth and bright—
And that was odd because it was
The middle of the night.”
The man laughed heartily, a Santa Claus laugh, though he didn’t have a Santa Claus belly.
“That’s wonderful, Allison. Did you learn that in school?”
“I taught it to myself,” she said. That was true but she didn’t tell him why she’d taught it to herself. He’d probably laugh at her. “Can I come to your house and see the ocean for real?”
He squatted down low again so they were the same height, and while he wasn’t smiling with his mouth, he was smiling with his eyes.
“I would take you to see it,” he said, “but we have a rule at my house—everybody has to eat every single day.”
She gave that a good long think and then made up her mind.
“If I could see the ocean, I would eat,” she said.
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
“Every single day?”
“Every single day.”
“Good,” he said. He stood up again. “It’s a deal. Let’s go get you packed.”
“You mean it?” She couldn’t believe it, but she couldn’t believe this smiling man who wore pajamas to work would lie to her, either.
“I mean it.”
She raced to her room and found her suitcase. She didn’t have much to pack but one suitcase of her clothes and one bag of her books. Miss Whitney hugged her for a long time and kissed her cheek and told her she was a lucky little girl, because she was going to a wonderful home. Over Allison’s shoulder, Miss Whitney winked at Dr. Capello. When Allison started out the door, her small hand in Dr. Capello’s big strong hand, the other girls did nothing but wave half-heartedly from the couch where they sat playing a dumb video game on a too-small television.
The next thing Allison knew, she was sitting in the shiny smooth back seat of a big black car. A fancy car, fancier than any one she’d ever seen, and they were driving through the desert.
The big black car started up a hill, except it wasn’t a hill because hills weren’t nearly this tall. The man with the beard—he told her to call him Dr. Capello for now—told her it was actually a volcano named Mount Hood, but she didn’t believe him. She’d seen volcanoes in her science book. They had fire coming out of the top and they didn’t have trees everywhere. Then they were going down the other side of the big mountain and it was green, green, green everywhere she looked. The desert had turned into a forest so green and big she expected to see the Jolly Green Giant from the TV commercials wander onto the road and wave as they passed by. She was looking for him when something hit the car window hard enough to make her jump.
Water, a big fat drop of it.
“Just rain,” Dr. Capello said. “It’ll be raining at home, too.” That morning she’d woken up in a desert and now she was being taken to a place where it rained so hard it rained on the ocean.
“What’s your son’s name?” Allison asked.
“Which one?” Dr. Capello asked from the front seat.
“The one you said swims a lot.”
“That’s Roland. He’s twelve.”
“Is he nice?”
Dr. Capello kept his face forward but even looking at his profile she could see him smile.
“Let me tell you a little something about my son,” he said. “Roland Capello is the nicest boy in the world.”
* * *
“You’re smiling again,” McQueen said as he quickly dressed. Allison was still in bed, still naked. Let him leave her this way. Let this be the last image of her in his memory. “Told you that would help.”
She rolled onto her side and watched him put on his shoes.
“It helped, all right,” she said, and kept it to herself she’d been lost in the past the entire time he’d been inside her. He stood up.
“You’ll be okay?” he asked.
“I’ll
