Free Lucy by Laurence Gonzales Page B

be trouble,” she said. “I’m afraid I’ll bring you grief somehow.”
    “How? No one will know.”
    But Lucy had a sinking feeling. She heard the squirrel calling. The hawk. The hawk is always out there, circling. “Maybe. But then what if someone does find out?”
    “That’s what we have to plan for.” Jenny seemed to be gathering her inner strength. “I have to think. Think this through. But for now we’ll just live.” She took a deep breath and Lucy could see Jenny trying to think things through logically. “There’s no reason that you can’t have a normal life. You’ll go to school and make friends. I will adopt you. You’ll become an American citizen. We’ll go to the beach and have parties and take trips and see new places.” And then more enthusiastically: “Let’s take a trip before the school year begins. That’ll give us time to think. We’ll go up to the Boundary Waters. It’s old forest. Not like Congo, but I think you’ll like it.”
    “I’m certain I will if you say so, Jenny.”
    Jenny took Lucy’s hands and gave her a hard look. Then a look of surprise crossed her face. “Oh, no. I just had a thought.”
    “What?”
    “Harry has your blood. He’s got your DNA.”
    “What will he do with it?”
    “Nothing, I would think. He has no reason to. Anyway, he’s a dear friend. But it’s over there in the hospital. I’d better get it back just in case.”
    Jenny picked up the phone and paged Harry. Outside the window silence had fallen. The hawk had taken the squirrel. The only sound was the ticking of the clock on Jenny’s desk. Then the phone rang, and Jenny asked Harry to bring the blood samples to her, saying, “No, no. She’s fine,” and, “I’ll explain later.” Lucy noticed the photograph on the desk and picked it up. She remembered the day it was taken. One of the men who brought supplies upriver took it with a new digital camera. He had brought them the print on his next trip. Lucy felt a wave of love for Jenny for having the presence of mind, the heart, to salvage it for her.
    That evening the doorbell rang. Lucy watched from the stairs as Jenny opened the front door. Harry came in carrying a red motorcycle helmet and a plastic bag.
    “So what’s this all about?” He seemed too large for the entryway, a broad handsome man in disheveled clothes.
    “I’ll explain later.”
    “Is she okay?”
    “She’s fine, Harry. Let’s talk later.”
    “Jenny, come on, it’s me, Harry. What’s going on?”
    “Harry, love, be a dear and let me tell you about this later, okay?”
    “What-ever,” he said in an odd, high voice as he turned to leave.
    “Hey.” Jenny grabbed his coat sleeve. Harry turned back, stared down at her, and then they embraced. “Thanks,” she said.
    When he left at last, Jenny leaned against the door, threw her head back, and rolled her eyes at the ceiling as if shutting out a storm. Then she climbed the stairs past Lucy and went into the bathroom. Lucy followed her and came to the door just in time to see Jenny washing her blood down the sink with trembling hands.

7
    ONE MORNING , they were eating breakfast at the wrought iron table on the patio, beneath a green umbrella in the shade of the maple. The sun was high, and a contrail was growing longer in the eastern sky. Another squirrel was screaming in the trees.
    “You talked about The Stream and the squirrel warning you about the hawk,” Jenny said. “Tell me about that.”
    “It’s just our language. How we communicate. All the animals. We’re all in The Stream.”
    Lucy recognized that in some ways she was a scientist’s dream come true. Her father had told her that this might put her in grave danger if she fell into the wrong hands. Lucy didn’t mind the questions. Indeed, she had as many questions for Jenny as Jenny had for her.
    “Why do the people have grass around their houses?” Lucy asked. “You can’t eat it. And those men come and cut it down so that it never grows