Applewhites Coast to Coast Read online

  Just then Sybil emerged from Brunhilda, her phone in hand. “Family meeting!” she called. When everyone had gathered in the campfire circle she told them that Randolph would be in jail for “a few days at most.” All of the charges of suspected terrorism had been dropped when the dismantling of the Pageant Wagon revealed nothing threatening, but he was still in trouble for blowing his top at the airport security folks and the Homeland Security people and resisting arrest.

  “So what are we going to do now?” Archie asked.

  “We’ll have to get on the road as fast as we can and get out there to the Rutherford Art Center. There is no telling what she’s going to be doing—or saying—there.”

  Jake thought they ought to tell the rest of the family about Melody’s version of their video logs. “Um . . . ,” he said, but then saw E.D. glaring at him and ever so slightly shaking her head. So he bit his tongue.

  “If you find a hornet’s nest outside your back door,” she said quietly while everyone was finding a place to settle in Brunhilda for the drive, “are you gonna whack it with a stick? Or are you going to sneak up on it at night when the hornets are sleeping? Tell Hal to bring Mom’s computer and we’ll take it back to the bedroom. I don’t know how she got these videos posted, but I do know this: Anything she can do? We can do better.”

  As they thundered along the highway, Brunhilda’s engine roaring with the strain of Archie’s heavy foot on the gas pedal, E.D. and Hal and Jake worked on a video to upload to the Rutherford website. They titled it The Real Melody Bernstein. Destiny’s videos helped a lot—“I got lots of pitchers of Melody,” he said, and he was right. While nobody was paying attention, he had managed to capture Melody in all her glory. There was plenty of yelling, sulking, insulting people. There, in living color, was her withering sarcasm, her endless negativity.

  When Archie finally insisted they stop at a restaurant so he could take a break, Hal took the computer in with him and used the free Wi-Fi to upload their final product directly to the Rutherford site. “It’s done!” he said as they all piled back into the bus.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  “Wow!” E.D. breathed the next morning as Archie steered Brunhilda from the two-lane road named Rutherford Boulevard into the wide, long, upward-sloping driveway beneath a vast, spectacularly ornate iron archway that was part sign—Rutherford Art Center in looping script—and part contemporary sculpture. The grassy, shrubby hillside stretched away in front of them with ranks of hills on either side, all dotted with tall, wind-twisted trees. No buildings were immediately visible, so the grounds had to be vast. The sky beyond the hills was utterly empty in a way that suggested the possibility that the ocean lay beyond.

  “Guess this is it,” Archie said. “Not exactly what I was expecting.”

  E.D. wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting, but maybe a slightly bigger, more elegant version of Wit’s End. This place had absolutely nothing in common with Wit’s End. It could be a national park!

  “Jake!” E.D. called. “You gotta come see!”

  Archie had wanted to drive straight through from Sedona, but Sybil insisted on stopping at a motel so that everyone would be rested when they got there. “We need to be at our best,” she pointed out, “if we’re going to counteract any negative impression the Rutherfords might have gotten from Melody!” Any negative impression, E.D. thought. Little did her mother know!

  In spite of the stop, though, none of them were really at their best. The motel had been cheap and uncomfortable, with a restaurant so bad Archie said the term “greasy spoon” would have been an upgrade. Jake, who had gone to the back to stretch out on the bed, came out now, rubbing his eyes. “We’re there, huh?”

  They reached the top of a hill, and the center revealed itself—a sprawl of low, elegantly rustic stone and wooden buildings, scattered across a long, narrow valley and up the sides of other hills. Archie braked to a stop and they sat for a moment looking down at the destination they’d been pushing themselves through the long, miserable drive to reach. Hal and Cordelia scooted out of the dinette and came forward to see.

  The largest of the buildings, situated in the center of the valley, had a peaked roof rising at least three stories high, its front all glass. It was entirely encircled by decks, with tables, chairs, benches, and lounges, some of them with sheltering umbrellas of vibrant colors. Television crews, with lights and sound equipment set up, were occupying one of the decks. The other buildings were smaller, each a different shape and size, but somehow all matching with their wooden shingles and stone foundations. People were coming and going on wide footpaths between the buildings, some on foot, some on bicycles.

  The driveway ahead of Brunhilda plunged down the hill and looped in front of the main building around a garden with a collection of flagpoles, their large, brilliantly colored flags waving in the wind, and then branched to either side, to encircle the whole collection of buildings. Golf carts moved on the drive between the series of broad, paved parking lots that stretched out wherever the ground was level enough for them.

  “Well,” Sybil said, “we’ve come to the right place!” The biggest parking lot held a flotilla of weird and colorful expedition buses. All around the buses TV vans sporting satellite dishes and cherry pickers for filming from above were circled. Like hyenas around a herd of zebras, E.D. thought.

  “Looks like the expeditions are all here,” Archie said. “There’s Pisces down there, and Starry Night and the Green Machine.”

  She’d be seeing Tyler soon, E.D. thought. The beautiful boy the whole world had seen her kissing.

  Destiny, who had been sleeping in his hammock, was now peering over the side and out through the windshield. He pointed to the left, where two hills made a kind of greenish-brown V, which was filled in to the horizon with a deep, sparkling blue. “Is that the other ocean over there?” he asked. “Is it as big as the one at Haddock Point?”

  “Bigger, I think,” Jake said.

  “Do we gets to go to the beach? I wanna go to the beach.”

  Archie stepped on the gas and Brunhilda started downward. “There’s the biggest, fanciest motorhome in the known universe by the main building, and the Art Bus beside it.”

  “The Art Bus, the Art Bus! I wanna blow the big horn,” Destiny said.

  “I don’t think so,” Archie answered. “Jeremy’s not there anymore.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  “Nobody knows. He’s been off the grid.”

  “I worry about him,” Sybil said.

  Archie drove around the flag garden and stopped in front of the main entrance, and what was left of the Creative Academy’s expedition team climbed wearily out. Moments later, a lanky guy in khaki slacks and a turtleneck, wearing aviator sunglasses and a backward baseball cap, strolled out through the big double doors and down the steps, followed by a man and a woman E.D. recognized from the television interview back at Haddock Point. Larry and Janet Rutherford.

  “Hail to the leaders!” the man in sunglasses said, raising a hand that held a glass. “Welcome, Applewhites. I’m Hector Montana, the producer. Glad you managed to get here. Quite a little tempest you’ve got going on.”

  “Tempest?” Sybil asked. “What sort of tempest?”

  “Not to worry,” the man said. “It’s getting more buzz than anything about the Expedition so far! Practically viral! The world loves a good villain. My interviewer is out on the south deck with the ‘Real Melody Bernstein’ as we speak.”

  Sybil and Archie looked puzzled. Jake winked at E.D. So they got our video, she thought as Hal gave her a thumbs-up. She wondered what Melody was saying in this interview.

  The Rutherfords came down to the bus and shook hands all around. “I understand there’s been a small glitch with your Pageant Wagon,” Mrs. Rutherford said.

  Small glitch. Apparently, E.D. thought, unlike everything else about their lives recently, that story hadn’t gotten out to the whole world yet.

  “My brother’s working on it,”
Archie said. “It’ll be taken care of in no time.”

  “Since you’ll be a bit crowded with only one bus,” Mrs. Rutherford said, “we’ve arranged for lodging in one of our cabins where Miss Bernstein is already in residence.”

  “That’s awkward,” Jake whispered to E.D.

  Mr. Rutherford clapped his hands together. “I hope you’ve been considering the details of the Creative Academy charter-school franchise. Not that we’re making any promises. No one can know for certain until the award ceremony tomorrow night when the judges announce their decision.”

  “It’s looking very good for you,” Hector Montana said, whipping off his ball cap and smoothing his lustrous black hair. “You guys have been climbing straight up the charts. Keep doing what you’re doing, and . . . well. Enough said. Right now we’re filming the human-interest stuff for the award ceremony broadcast. So once you’re all set up, we’ll send a crew over.” He waggled his eyebrows at them. “We’re eager to get the view from the other side, so to speak.”

  “So,” Archie said, “where should we take Brunhilda to set up?”

  While Archie and the boys were getting Brunhilda hooked up next to the Art Bus in the lot by the main building, a young woman came in a golf cart to show them where the cabin was. “Mom and Cordelia,” E.D. said, “why don’t the two of you—and Destiny—take the cabin with Melody. Jake and I can stay here. I’m pretty used to the dinette, and Jake can take the couch.”

  Her mother frowned, considering this. “I assume there are private rooms in this cabin,” she said stiffly to the young woman. “We will need private rooms!” That, thought E.D., was how Melody had managed to make her mother look cold and aloof in the videos. Even if the others didn’t know—yet—everything Melody had done, E.D. felt a little guilty about sending them off to stay in the cabin with her. But there was no way on earth she herself was going to share a space with Melody, private rooms or not!

  Chapter Thirty

  While Archie was finishing Brunhilda’s hookup, and Hal, with Destiny’s “help,” was putting up his tent, Jake sneaked away past the Art Bus and around the main building toward the deck where the TV crew was interviewing Melody. He wanted to hear what she was saying, preferably without anybody noticing he was listening.

  The south deck was high enough off the ground and had enough bushes planted around it that Jake could get close without being seen if he crouched a bit. Melody and the woman who was interviewing her were seated at a table beneath a canopy, with lights positioned on their faces, while two videographers filmed the interview from different perspectives. The air was too chilly for Melody to get by with one of her skimpy outfits, but she was wearing the brilliant silk blouse and black jeans she’d bought in Valley View, with a warm scarf draped artfully over her shoulders. As he inched closer, bending down and pretending to tie his shoes, Jake could hear voices but couldn’t make out what was being said.

  One of the crew members had an electronic “clapper board,” which he clacked as Jake moved in even closer. “Bernstein interview, take three!” he shouted. Moving very slowly Jake crept close enough to the railing to hear what they were saying as the interviewer spoke.

  “As the people of America know, Melody,” the interviewer said, “you aren’t just a pretty face. Your videos have told the story of the Creative Academy’s expedition powerfully enough—and, it has to be said, entertainingly enough—to edge out all the competition. Across the country people have been following your story. You have certainly become an . . . artful editor. But as we learned last night, there may be reason to believe you haven’t been entirely fair, or truthful. What do you say to that?”

  The interviewer paused, waiting for an answer, but Melody didn’t respond. Jake raised his head long enough to see her staring off into the distance, as if she were composing her thoughts, then he ducked back down again and began pretending to tie his other shoe.

  “We were there last night when you watched The Real Melody Bernstein video the other members of your team sent in, and you seemed upset. Would you like to tell America what you were feeling as you watched?”

  Another pause. When Melody spoke, her voice had a tone Jake had never heard before. Apologetic. Contrite. Very nearly tearful. “I mean, I was devastated. These are the people who took me in and brought me along on this incredible trip. To see what they thought of me? It forced me to take a hard look at myself. They really feel like I betrayed their trust.” There was another pause. A sniff. “It’s just that . . .”

  Pause.

  “Yes?” the interviewer said.

  When she spoke again, Melody was fighting back tears. “My middle name, my Japanese name, is Aiko.” Her voice was trembling but got stronger as she spoke. Jake had never heard her sound like this before. “It can be interpreted to mean ‘beloved.’ And I guess . . .” There was a choked sob. “I guess I’ve just never felt beloved! I’ve never felt like anyone truly saw me, and loved me for who I was.”

  There were some sniffles, and a quiet “thank you.” Jake guessed someone had handed her a Kleenex.

  “I know how it sounds, really I do, and I don’t want to seem arrogant after everything that’s happened, but I’m really, really smart. I always have been. It made me a target. I was gifted, I guess you’d say, and a girl, and that makes it hard to be taken seriously. You must have experienced that . . .”

  “Well,” the interviewer said, “I suppose I have.”

  “That’s what’s killing me about this whole thing,” Melody said, her voice growing louder. “I’ve been so hurt in my life—so hurt—that I didn’t recognize kindness when I saw it. I never even gave them a chance. I turned against the only people who have ever understood me, believed in me, the only people ever to give me a chance to use my talents to the fullest. I want to apologize to the Applewhites and to Jake, and to the people of America for deceiving them. I am so, so, so sorry!”

  Jake’s stomach had been clenching up more and more as Melody went on. She made it sound so real—he had to fight to keep from believing it himself. Could it all have been a big misunderstanding? Had Melody attacked them—used them—because she was afraid of being hurt? No way, he thought. No way.

  He couldn’t help himself—he had to see how she was managing to keep a straight face. He stood up and turned toward the interview. Melody spotted him immediately.

  “Jake!” she cried.

  “Quick!” the interviewer said to the crew. “Get this!”

  One of the videographers turned quickly to focus his camera on Jake, while the other stayed with Melody, who had jumped up, throwing her chair over backward. “Oh, Jake! Jake, Jake, Jake!” She ran across the deck and down the stairs toward him. By the time she reached him, she was sobbing giant, heartrending sobs. Before he could back away, she flung her arms around his neck and started weeping piteously into his shoulder.

  Now both videographers had managed to get their cameras off their tripods and were closing in on them. Jake hunched his shoulders, doing his best to dislodge Melody’s grip. She clung like a leech. She went on crying for one long, agonizing minute. She was shaking with tears and holding him with such intensity that, in spite of himself, he thought it had to be real, it just had to be. Then she paused to catch her breath. “Thanks,” she whispered directly into Jake’s ear, calm and cool as a cucumber. “You guys are geniuses!” And then she was sobbing again.

  There was an enormous aaah-oooo-gah from the direction of the Art Bus, which startled everyone. “Cut!” shouted the guy with the clapper.

  “Got it!” the ones with the cameras both said.

  “Perfect!” the interviewer said. “Good work, everyone.”

  Destiny came running around the building, then. “Hi, Melody!” he said. “Didja hear the horn? I gots to do it again, even without Jeremy here.” He stopped then, and looked at the scene in front of him. “Wha’cha been cryin’ about, Melody? Did Jake tell you they ‘dismantled’ the Pageant Wagon?” One of the videographers had his camera tr
ained on Destiny now, Jake saw. “Daddy’s pretty mad at you for stealing it, don’cha know? I guess everybody’s really, really mad!”

  As soon as the crew announced that the interview was finished and they were free to go, Melody latched on to Jake’s arm and dragged him off to a secluded corner of the center’s coffee shop. He could have broken loose, he knew, but something in him wanted to hear her story. He figured it would be at least half fiction, but he had to admit there was something true about what Hector had said. Jake might not “love a good villain,” but he was intrigued. How did she get so very, very good?

  “Listen,” Melody said, when she’d swallowed her first sip of mocha and wiped the whipped cream off her lip. “I’m not much at admitting I screwed up, but I did when I took off in the Pageant Wagon. Besides nearly totaling it—and me—on that awful curvy, steep road up to Flagstaff!” She paused, shuddering as if reliving that trip. “Everybody here was really suspicious when I showed up without the rest of you. I tried to make it seem like I’d had enough of the ‘crazy Applewhites’ and just had to get away, but I don’t think Hector, at least, was buying it. It was starting to look, once the Organics got here with all their brilliant video stuff and the cute kids and the beautiful Tyler, that they might just win this thing after all. Nobody seems to care if the kids are all brats and hellions, as long as they can bat their eyelashes and flash their dimples and look adorable on camera! And then you sent in that video that made me look like a total creep. You told the whole family, I guess.”

  “Just E.D. and Hal. Nobody else knows you’re a total creep, they just think you’re a thief and a vandal.”

  Melody chuckled.

  “So how come you called us geniuses?”

  Melody look a long, slow drink and swallowed. Then she smiled her most electric smile. “Art saves the bad kid! That was the Creative Academy’s edge from the start—the whole reason Uncle Jeremy convinced my parents to let me come along on this little adventure. Not that they needed much convincing! They were plenty ready to have me out of the house.” She took another sip of her drink. “I have to admit I was pissed when I saw your video—nice work, by the way, you guys did better than I would have thought. But then I realized. All I needed to do was be saved. Piece of cake! The Creative Academy is for sure going to win this thing! And here I am in California, like I wanted from the start. Better yet, without Uncle Jeremy! Happy ending all around.”