barbecue than in people. Right, Dad?”
“Wait just a few minutes too long and the coals cool off,” said Mr. Carrillo with his back to them. “Then the meat doesn’t cook right. That’s science.”
“Our father, Hector Carrillo,” said Steve. “Props for the mad barbecue genius.”
They drank lemonade and played Ping-Pong, and it was so normal and pleasant that for a while Tyler almost forgot about the mysteries of Ordinary Farm. Mr. Walkwell hobbled out to discuss the fine points of barbecue with Mr. Carrillo. The old man had said yes to red wine, and now he seemed to be enjoying himself. More Carrillo relatives arrived, aunts and uncles and cousins, everybody putting food on the picnic table until it seemed there wasn’t enough room left for people to sit and eat. Casserole dishes and salad bowls started to fill the Ping-Pong table too.
“Oh my God,” said Lucinda. “There’s enough food here for an army!”
“Yep,” Tyler said happily. “There sure is.”
A little old lady so short and round she might have been a Munchkin from the land of Oz, with hair the shade of red Lucinda was used to seeing on lead singers in punk bands, smiled and said, “I hope you brought your appetites, children.”
“This is Lucinda and Tyler, Grandma,” Carmen said. “From next door. This is my Grandma Paz.”
“Ah.” The tiny old lady now looked at them more carefully-maybe even a little suspiciously, Tyler thought. “You are the ones from the Tinker farm, yes?”
They both nodded.
She sighed. “So young! Well… enjoy yourselves.” She smiled sadly and headed back to the kitchen.
“Is it my imagination,” said Tyler quietly to his sister as they got into line to fill their dinner plates, “or was she acting like we were going on some kind of suicide mission?”
By the time Tyler had emptied his third plate he was seriously considering finding some place to lie down and die, but he knew he’d be dying happy.
What had been most surprising about the day was how comfortable Mr. Walkwell seemed. He drank his wine, teased the Carrillo children, and talked at least a little bit with almost everybody-it seemed like an entirely different person had come to the party in a Mr. Walkwell costume. Tyler even saw him flirt a little with Grandma Paz, which made the old lady whoop with laughter and cover her mouth with a chubby hand.
Little Alma had been standing near Mr. Walkwell for a long time, her hands behind her back. When he had finished talking to one of the Carrillo uncles, she stepped up and handed him a long something the size of a pencil case, wrapped in yellow tissue paper. Mr. Walkwell opened it up, but in such a way that Tyler couldn’t see what was in it. Mr. Walkwell looked at it for a moment, then looked at Alma, who was stepping from one foot to the other as though she wanted to run away. He said something quietly to her, laid his big brown hand on top of her head, then put the package into the pocket of his overalls. She blushed furiously but looked very happy.
“What’s that all about?” Tyler asked.
“She’s trying to learn now to carve wood like Mr. Walkwell,” Carmen said, “so she probably made him a present.”
“She’s getting pretty good,” Steve said. “She made me a T. rex out of soap, but I left it in the shower and now it’s kind of a half rex.”
“You must be very, very careful,” said Grandma Paz.
Tyler and Lucinda put down the dirty dishes they had carried into the kitchen.
“They’re doing fine, Mama,” Silvia Carrillo said.
“I don’t mean that.” The old woman shook her head. “I mean where they stay. That Tinker farm. rdquo; Silvia Carrillo said.
“I don’t mean that.” The old woman shook her head. “I mean where they stay. That Tinker farm. It is a dangerous place- tierra peligrosa .”
“Don’t start with the stories, Mama, please,” begged Mrs. Carrillo.
“Everybody knows! My own abuela, my grandma, she was Yaudanchi-an Indian. She told me the stories. Back then, when the Indians lived here, a man went to find his wife who died. He followed her track all the way to that place, that valley. He found a big hole in the ground that led to the underworld, the Place of the Spirits. When he got there he found all the ghosts of all the people that ever were.”
“Mama, quit trying to scare these poor children.”
“Not scare! Warn!” the old woman said stubbornly. “My abuela, she said that one day the ground would open up and all the world would fall into the Place of the Spirits! That the ghosts would come out, ghosts and monsters!”
“Oh, cool, Grandma’s telling a story,” Steve said, walking into the kitchen with a stack of salad bowls. “Carmen, come on!”
“Monsters?” asked Tyler. Lucinda looked really worried, but whether it was about the story or Tyler’s questions, he couldn’t tell. “What kind of monsters, exactly?”
But before the old lady could answer him, Mr. Carrillo popped his head through the door. “It’s just about dark,” he said. “Anybody want to see some fireworks?”
“You kids go,” said Mrs. Carrillo. “My mother and I are going to finish the dishes-and have a discussion about how to treat guests.”
Mr. Carrillo had a big family-sized box of fireworks-the kind that Lucinda and Tyler had always been told were too dangerous to use. As he and the other men set them up on the wide expanse of dirt in front of the house, Mrs. Carrillo emerged. She uncoiled the garden hose and handed it to Steve. “If any sparks go up, then you put them out,” she told him.
“But I want to do some of the fireworks!”
“Honey, there’s no wind and the things are fifty feet from the house,” protested Mr. Carrillo, but Silvia Carrillo was unmoved.
“Yes, that all sounds good until the house catches on fire,” she said. “Steve, you stand there with that hose.”
It was half an hour after the last True Volcano Blossom had sputtered out. Everyone had run out of things to do except sit around the back patio, stuffed and content, listening to the returning noise of the crickets and Mr. Walkwell blowing quiet tunes on a simple wooden flute-the gift, Tyler realized, that Alma had carved for him. He could tell because of the enraptured way Alma sat at his feet watching the old man play. The tune was so strange and the evening so warmly magical that he didn’t even notice the large approaching shape until Ragnar stepped from the driveway into the soft light of the back porch.
“Sorry I am so late come,” he said. “A lot to do.”
“Do you want anything to eat?” said Mrs. Carrillo. “There’s plenty left.”
“I thank you, but no,” he said, smiling. “I think I will carry this group back. Tomorrow is not a holy day like today, so we will be early to work.”
“Let me send some back with you, then,” she said. “We have plenty of leftovers.”
While she dragged Ragnar into the kitchen to load him down with chicken, potato salad, and black beans, Steve sidled up to Tyler. “Quick, dude,” he whispered. “Just show me how to do the Bubble Cave.”
They hurried into Steve’s room and fired up Deep End, and Tyler gave him a quick tutorial on how to pick out the nonexploding bubble to ride through the cave and onto the next level, then left the other boy struggling with the Grotto of Ghouls and went looking for the bathroom. Through the open bathroom window he could hear Mr. Carrillo and Mr. Walkwell talking. The word trouble caught his attention, and instead of turning on the water to wash his hands he moved closer to the screen.
“… That’s all. I know he likes to keep his business to himself, but he needs to know about this.”
“What kind of men?” Mr. Walkwell asked. “They did not come to the house.”
“Men in suits. They said they were with the agriculture bureau, but Hartman said they were in town the day before and bought gas with a Mission Software credit card. That’s that guy Stillman’s company, you know, the guy who’s in the news all the time. Do you think they’re trying to find a place around here to open a factory or something?”
“Who knows?” Mr. Walkwell was doing his best to sound like he didn’t care, but Tyler could hear something strange in his voice-was he a little drunk? “But if they come spying around the farm, I will teach them a lesson.”
