The Wrong Way Home: Chapters 19–22

At the Ranch, the days and seasons are mapped out—predictable. I didn’t realize how adrift I’d felt by not having a schedule to build my days around.

I’ve noticed that the same group of motorcycle riders comes to have coffee in the parking lot a few times a week, and they’ve started waving and saying good morning to me. They’re intimidating but friendly.

Every school day I come in to look up words. “Amish.” “Bigfoot.” “VIP.” “Tag sale.” “Marzipan.”

Sometimes I also look up descriptive words I haven’t heard used on the Ranch. Words like “irrelevant.” “Bewildered.” “Exonerated.”

Sometimes I also look up descriptive words I haven’t heard used on the Ranch. Words like “irrelevant.” “Bewildered.” “Exonerated.”

Right now we’re talking about a group of men called the Founding Fathers.

Havana laughs. “You don’t know George Washington was the first president of the United States. I’ve known that since I was, like, three. You might not be Amish, but you are kind of ignorant. I don’t say that to be mean. I just want to help you. The school offers tutoring, you know.”

For the rest of the walk, we don’t talk. Not until Mom raises an eyebrow and says, “You’d better be more polite at dinner with the Reyeses tonight than you’re being with me. Or else there’ll be consequences.”
I don’t respond. I just smolder.

“You’d better be more polite at dinner with the Reyeses tonight than you’re being with me. Or else there’ll be consequences.”
I don’t respond. I just smolder.

“So,” Eddie says, fingers poised on the keyboard of her laptop. “Tell me about your interviews.”

I recount all the things Alex and his dad told me about the Spirit of the Sea the night before.

Eddie interviewed Ms. Diaz and a person named Jared H., who Eddie says works at the Seaside Bean Café, the coffee shop I pass every day on my way to school. Eddie called him a “barista.”

According to Eddie, Ms. Diaz believes in ghosts, and says it’s possible the Spirit could be real. Jared thinks it’s a big hoax.

If I were the one taking notes, I’d jot them all down messily. But Eddie puts them into a very organized file on her computer called a spreadsheet, highlighting pieces of the interviews that are contradictory.

“What time would it be?” I ask.
“I think later would be best, so there’s less light interference. So maybe ten? Eleven?”

I don’t see why she had to get a new coat when she had a perfectly good one already.
When I say so, she says, “I know. But I saw this in the window, and I couldn’t resist. It reminded me of a jacket I had when I was younger.” She plucks at one of the buckles. “Plus, it’s secondhand. Buying used helps keep clothes out of the landfill. I could take you to the store and you could choose some things for yourself.”

And then Wren goes on to explain they go by “they,” not “he” or “she.” That it’s a gender-neutral pronoun, because they identify as gender-fluid.

“There are two boxes society tries to put you in when it comes to gender, and I don’t fit in either one. A lot of people don’t.”

I’ve read about sea animals and honeybees, and all about a beautiful piece of math called the Fibonacci sequence.

Once she’s disentangled from all her cleaning supplies, I point at the glass ball. “Is that the fairy orb? From your room?”

Even the light from the room’s dirty windows makes it sparkle. Now that I’m looking closer, this one has more bluish green hues than the one hanging in her window.

I stop to look around. The floors aren’t nearly as gritty, and the windows in the main room are now letting in almost double the light.

The wood stairs are damp and rickety, but Babs plummets down them, hanging on to the railing, occasionally calling for me to hurry.

“A whale,” Babs says. “A gray whale. It’s the beginning of their migration season. I think there are two of them. A mother and a calf, if I had to guess. See the smaller one, in front?”

“This is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen,” I tell her in a low voice.
Because it is. Their size, the way the water turns white and frothy when they come out and smack back down—it’s like magic.