Thirteenth Child

CHAPTER 11

ONCE MAMA’S TALKING-TO STARTED TO WEAR OFF, ROBBIE WAS pretty impressed with all the fuss his fake dragon babies had caused. Mrs. Bertelstein wasn’t the only one who’d believed the painted garter snakes were really baby dragons, so a lot of rumors got started. The college and the Settlement Office had to issue announcements, and Papa and the other professors had to spend a lot of time talking to the Mothers’ League and the police and the Firemen’s Association and a lot of other people. Most of the other boys admired Robbie’s cleverness, too, except for the ones who’d bought the painted snakes. And William.

William was almost as cross with Robbie over the fake dragons as Mama had been. I thought at first that it was because of all the extra work his father had to do on account of the snakes. Professor Graham had to go around to almost as many reassuring meetings as Papa, so he wasn’t home much for a while. I knew that having his father gone so much bothered William, but when I tried apologizing to him for my brother’s behavior, he got cross with me instead.

“You haven’t done anything wrong,” he said.

“But he’s my brother.”

“That doesn’t make you responsible for everything he does,” William shot back. “Why are you always apologizing for things that aren’t your fault?”

I stared at him, speechless. William had been my friend for so long by then that I’d clean forgotten that I’d never told him about me being an unlucky thirteen.

“Come to think of it, that big steam dragon last winter is the first thing I can think of that you didn’t find some reason to blame yourself for when something went wrong.” William gave me a long frown. “Have you got a curse or something?”

“N-not exactly,” I said, and then the bell rang for class and we couldn’t talk any longer.

I thought about that conversation for a couple of days. Mostly, I thought about how I’d never warned William I was a thirteenth child, and whether I ought to now. But it didn’t seem like something I needed to do right away, the way it had when I was stewing over whether to tell Miss Ochiba. Partly that was because I was afraid that William wouldn’t be my friend anymore if he knew I was an unlucky thirteen, and partly it was because I was beginning to think that maybe Uncle Earn had been wrong about what being a thirteenth child meant.

Until William pointed it out, I hadn’t noticed that the steam dragon had come and gone without me ever worrying that it’d come on account of me being an unlucky thirteen. It hadn’t even occurred to me that the steam dragon might have been my fault somehow. Now that I came to think about it, it still didn’t seem to me that a steam dragon turning up like that could have been my fault. I was quite sure that Uncle Earn would have blamed me for it if he’d been around to see, but for once I was just as sure that he’d have been wrong. Just thinking that felt so peculiar that I almost forgot to worry over what to tell William.

Luckily, William didn’t ask again about me being cursed. Even after thinking about it for a week, I wouldn’t have known what to say. And then it was the end of the school year, and time for the placing tests, and I forgot about it. I might have remembered again if the news about Dr. McNeil’s naturalizing expedition hadn’t come right at the end of school and thrown everyone into a tizzy.

Nobody’d heard any word from the expedition since they’d passed the last settlement boundary back in September. All the people who had friends or relatives out with Dr. McNeil had been worried sick for months, and all the people who’d been against the expedition from the start were pulling long faces and reminding everyone how nobody’d ever come back from the Far West, and they’d said all along no good would come of such a thing. Then, the day after school let out, a report arrived at the Settlement Office from one of the circulating magicians, saying that the McNeil expedition had passed through a settlement to the southwest a few days before his own arrival, heading home.

If he’d known what a fuss it would cause, I bet that circulating magician would have put more in his letter than just a couple of lines. The Settlement Office was practically mobbed by people wanting details. Finally, they printed up the whole report on broadsheets and passed them out to everybody, even though most of it was just about crops and planting acreage and weather. People still stood in line outside the office wanting to know more, but they were a lot more patient about it after that.

The Settlement Office sent out a fast rider right away. When he got back a week later with more news, even the people who hadn’t been interested got excited. Not only had Dr. McNeil done all the mapping and nature study that he’d planned on, but he had also found the camp where the Lewis and Clark expedition spent the winter just before they vanished! Along with all his own samples, Dr. McNeil was bringing back some things the earlier expedition had left behind.

The news that the expedition had lost two men out of fifteen barely dampened the enthusiasm. A lot of people thought that if Dr. McNeil could go nearly a hundred miles west from the last settlement and spend a winter with only two men lost, everybody else should be able to do it, too, and they were as excited over the idea of the Settlement Office opening up a lot of new territory for settlements as they were over the expedition coming back.

Right away, the city began planning a big welcome-back ceremony and celebration for when the expedition arrived, even bigger than the send-off had been, with fireworks and a picnic and music and a parade and speeches. This time, everybody thought there was a good chance that at least some of the speeches would be interesting, because Dr. McNeil was going to be one of the speechifiers, and of course everyone expected him to talk about the expedition.

“I don’t know what Harrison is thinking,” Professor Graham grumbled to Papa. “Asking a man to make speeches the day after he comes back from a long, dangerous journey is unreasonable, in my opinion.”

“I don’t think it’ll be a problem,” Papa told him. “Dr. McNeil knew what to expect when he left, and even if he didn’t, he’s surely had enough notice by this time. The Settlement Office has had message riders going out and back every day, it seems.”

Papa and Professor Graham were in the middle of the planning right from the start, because the expedition was bringing back live specimens, including two swarming weasels, a baby mammoth, some rocketflowers, and a couple of other things that the Great Barrier Spell had been specifically designed to keep out. That meant that the college magicians had to open a hole in the barrier, long enough for the expedition to get everything across to our side of the Mammoth River. Papa had all of his students down to watch while they did it, and all the boys, too, from Jack right on down to Lan. Mama took some convincing.

“It will do very well for your young men…” That was what Mama called Papa’s students from the college. “…and perhaps for Jack, but I’m not so sure about Robbie and Lan.”

“It’s an excellent chance for them to watch the practical application of team spell casting,” Papa told her.

“I’m of the opinion they’ll be far more interested in watching the baby mammoth,” Mama said. “And perhaps more than watching, if you take my meaning.”

In the end, she let all the boys go, with Nan along to keep an eye on them. Rennie sulked all afternoon because she thought she should have gone, being older, but Mama said the boys wouldn’t mind her as well as they would Nan. Then Mama kept all of us busy for the rest of the day. There was plenty to do—besides regular chores, we’d been asked to make up three dozen little cloth figures of mammoths and wagons and dire wolves and other such things, to use for table favors at the celebration.

When Papa and the boys got back, Rennie insisted on hearing about the whole afternoon in detail, even though all the boys wanted to talk about was the baby mammoth and the magic. “It’s as tall as a man, even though it’s just a baby,” Robbie said. “They had to give it a whole barge just to itself, because it didn’t much like crossing the water. Or maybe it was the barrier spell; we couldn’t tell from away off where we were.”

“I don’t see why Father wanted us there at all, if he wasn’t going to let us close enough to see anything,” Lan complained.

“We were supposed to be watching the magic,” Jack said, as if he hadn’t been just as interested in the mammoth and the swarming weasels as ever Robbie and Lan were, before they left.

“Well, we couldn’t see that, either, from way up on the bluffs where we were,” Robbie grumbled.

“I could see it,” Lan said. “The spells, anyway. Well, not see it, exactly, but I could tell where they were and what they were supposed to do.”

“Oh, that,” Robbie said. “Anybody could do that. I meant the casting.”

“You shouldn’t need to see it,” Jack told him. “You can look up the words and ingredients and gestures anytime you want. It’s the actual magic part that’s important, and the way everybody’s pieces have to fit together just so.”

“Did Dr. McNeil and his men help with the spells?” Rennie asked.

“No, they were too busy with the mammoth,” Robbie said. “It didn’t want to get on the barge, and then it didn’t want to stay on. It almost went over the side twice.” He sighed. “I wish I’d gotten to see it up close.”

Rennie rolled her eyes, and went on trying to get a proper story out of them. I could see it was no use, but Rennie never could let go of a thing once she’d decided on it. She spent the rest of the evening working at them and getting crosser and crosser, to no purpose.

Three days later, they had the official welcome-home celebration. Dr. McNeil gave a dandy speech, all about the importance of exploration and great discoveries, and following in the footsteps of Lewis and Clark. That last wasn’t right, strictly speaking, because Lewis and Clark went up the Grand Bow River in boats from just north of St. Louis, while Dr. McNeil went straight west from Mill City in wagons, so you couldn’t really say he followed Lewis and Clark. But it sure sounded good.

Dr. McNeil talked a lot about the trouble the expedition had encountered, and the two men who’d died. Then he introduced all eleven of the men who were left. The very last one was Brant Wilson, wearing his squared-off hat with the crow feather so everyone there knew him for a Rationalist straight off. Not too many people had known that there was a Rationalist on the expedition, so there was some puzzled murmuring in the crowd.

Dr. McNeil said in front of everyone that Brant was a hero, and that if it hadn’t been for him, they’d have lost more than just the two men. Everyone cheered, even the people who’d been too far back to hear, and that was the end of the speech and the start of the picnic. After the picnic, there was stick ball and other games, and then dancing and fireworks in the evening.

There was a crowd around every member of the expedition the whole time, because everyone wanted to know more about what had happened to them. Most of the folks had no business asking but curiosity and wanting to be first with a good tale, Mama said. They didn’t get what they wanted, though. Dr. McNeil and the Settlement Office had agreed in advance to do a series of broadsheets with the whole story laid out neatly in order, and no one on the expedition was to talk about what had happened beforehand, so as to keep wild rumors from starting.

It didn’t work very well. Maybe there weren’t quite so many rumors as there might have been, but there were plenty of them, and they were plenty wild. They kept circulating even after the broadsheets came out, and some still get told to this day.

We got the real story straight from Dr. McNeil, the day after the celebration. He and Brant came to see Papa, and naturally ended up in the front parlor having biscuits and jam and talking to the whole family. The very first thing the boys wanted to know was what really happened.

“I heard you saved the whole party from a nest of sunbugs!” Jack said.

“I heard you wrestled a spectral bear that caught you bathing in the river!” Robbie put in.

Brant rolled his eyes and groaned. “Don’t be daft,” he told them. “Do I look like I can wrestle bears?”

“Boys,” Mama said in a warning tone. “You know these gentlemen aren’t supposed to talk about what happened until the official account is published.”

Robbie and Jack and Lan all looked over at her and then sat back in their seats, scowling. Nan and Allie and Rennie had been leaning forward, too, though not as eagerly, and they straightened up quick, hoping Mama hadn’t noticed. Dr. McNeil laughed. “It’s not so strict a ruling as all that, Mrs. Rothmer,” he said. “In fact, I think there’s more harm being done by letting these tall tales run wild.”

“You shouldn’t have made me out a hero,” Brant said to Dr. McNeil. “Anybody could have shot those pests.”

“Perhaps, though I don’t think many men would have kept their heads under the circumstances,” Dr. McNeil said. “But you were the man who did, and it saved the expedition.”

“If you don’t intend to tell the whole story, you had better stop now,” Papa said, smiling.

“If he didn’t intend to tell the whole story, he never should have begun,” Mama said sternly, but there was a hint of a curl to her lips, so all of us knew she didn’t quite mean how she sounded.

“That is the whole story,” Brant said.

Lan gave Brant a sidelong look. “What kind of pests were they?” he asked. “The ones you shot?”

Dr. McNeil laughed again. “That’s the thing in a nutshell,” he said. “They were swarming weasels. Our campsite was nearly on top of one of their burrows, and naturally they picked the exit closest to us to come boiling out of. The spells we’d cast weren’t intended for such numbers or such close range, and there wasn’t time to cast more powerful ones. Fortunately, Wilson here kept his head and had his revolver handy.”

“You shot a whole swarm of those weasels with just a revolver?” Jack said, plainly awed.

“No, I shot the two leaders,” Brant told him. “As soon as they were dead, the swarm fell apart and the other weasels dove back underground. That was all.”

“Leaders?” Papa said.

“Exactly,” Dr. McNeil said, nodding. “Nobody has ever gotten such a close look at a weasel swarm and survived—nobody with the training or the sense to observe the way they work. Wilson not only saw that the swarm had a center, but he was able to pick out the critical pair and shoot them before we were overrun. If he hadn’t, we’d all have been eaten alive.”

Rennie, Allie, and Nan shuddered. “How brave!” Rennie said.

Nan nodded agreement and added, “How did you know?”

“My mother keeps bees,” Brant said. “The swarming weasels were moving around the leaders the way a swarm of bees moves around their queen, and I thought it looked familiar, that’s all. Then, when I realized what it reminded me of, I looked for the center. The two leaders were larger than the others, and had lighter coats. So I shot them. It was just luck that it didn’t send the whole swarm into a frenzy instead of making it fall apart.”

“You had the brains to see what was happening, the sense to have worn a loaded revolver, the skill to hit what you aimed at, and the nerve to stand and shoot when the first dozen swarming weasels were within a yard of your feet,” Dr. McNeil said firmly. He looked at Papa and shook his head. “I’ve offered him a permanent position at least a dozen times, but he won’t take it.”

“I’m much obliged to you, Dr. McNeil,” Brant said, “but I’m going with my uncle to found a new settlement as soon as he gets an allotment from the Homestead and Settlement Office. After this, I don’t see how they can continue to insist that we have to have a settlement magician.”

“Well, if you change your mind, the offer will remain open,” Dr. McNeil said, and went back to talking about the expedition. He didn’t tell as many stories as the boys wanted; mostly, he talked about the things they’d seen, like striped antelope and a new species of saber cat they’d named a chisel lynx, and something he called a chameleon tortoise that used magic to look like rocks when there was danger near. Nan and Allie left after a while, but the boys stayed until the biscuits and jam ran out, and Rennie and I stayed right up until Dr. McNeil and Brant said their farewells.

I dreamed that night of saber cats and mammoths and insects like tiny flying stars, and when I woke I thought for just an instant that I was in a tent on the endless plains instead of in my bed at home. I couldn’t help wishing Dr. McNeil had brought back more of the strange animals he’d found, so I could get a look at them for myself.

Maybe, I thought, he’d go on another expedition someday, and catch more creatures, and I could see them then.