Eleanor jumped up. “In the freezer. I’ll get him.”
As she left, Eleanor’s mom said, “Rafael. . . .” She spoke in the same kind of voice Owen’s mom used when his dad one time used up all their butter to make muffins. And Eleanor’s dad said, “I triple-bagged him. What else could I do?” And then Eleanor’s mom shook her head and smiled, just like Owen’s mom did when she took a bite of a buttery muffin.
Eleanor came back with the fish in a shoe box (and in its baggies). The shoebox said COFFEN on the side. She said, “Dad, you should start with singing, like in church. And then poetry. And then Owen and I will fence.”
“Like in church,” murmured Alicia. Eleanor’s mom gave Alicia a Look.
“Sounds good,” said Eleanor’s dad. He sang something in Spanish. And even though Owen was learning Spanish and already knew ¿Cómo estás? And Me llamo Owen, he didn’t understand the words. But the music was nice, and all of Eleanor’s family joined in on the chorus. Owen nudged Eleanor and gave her a questioning look. She translated, “The chickens say pío pío pío.” He nodded, even though he didn’t know what that meant. Chickens said cluck cluck cluck—didn’t they?
Also, it wasn’t a song about a fish. But everyone seemed to like it, and by the end, Owen could sing pío pío pío too.
Then Owen’s dad read a very short and sad poem. It compared Scrumpy to a butterfly.
Then it was time to fence. Owen was a little nervous because he didn’t think he liked doing shows. Also, when Eleanor got excited, she didn’t always remember the routine. But they made it through with only one mistake, where she twirled instead of blocking and Owen accidentally stabbed her. She fell to the ground and pretended to die, and she was really good at dying, so it was all okay. She even said, “Scrumpy . . . I . . . am . . . your . . . father” at the very end, before she rolled her eyes back in her head and clunked her sword to the ground.
Everyone clapped. Owen was glad it was done.
Eleanor gave a speech. It was hard to follow, but mostly she said there were four Scrumpies, and she didn’t know if there would ever be another one like the ones who had already lived. And she said this was a memorial funeral with no burying and not a funeral funeral with burying. And all the Scrumpies needed to be buried together so that they could go to heaven together. When she said that, her parents did not look super happy. And then she said that Scrumpy died of sadness because he had to move. That also did not make her parents look happy. And she said that Scrumpy was a good fish—a golden fish—who God loved.
“The End,” said Eleanor. “The funeral is over. You can go now.”
Alicia jumped up.
“Maybe we could sing again?” said Eleanor’s dad. “One last song.”
Alicia sat back down. Slowly.
Eleanor’s dad said, “In memory of Scrumpy.” He strummed again, and it was a tune that Owen knew, and this time they all sang in English, as much of the words as they could remember: “All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small, all things wise and wonderful, the Lord God loves them all.”
Then the funeral was really over. Owen realized that from now on, if anyone ever asked him if he’d gone to a funeral, he could say he’d been to two of them. And he could say that he remembered one of them very well. And it was a good one.
As they put the chairs away, Eleanor whispered in his ear, “The Plan. Tomorrow.”
Suddenly Owen was sorry the memorial funeral was over so soon.
Chapter 9 Eleanor
After the funeral it was time for bed. Eleanor lay in her old bed in the strange new room. Alicia had to read in the living room so Eleanor could sleep, and Alicia was grumpy about it. Eleanor thought about how happy her sister would be when she had a room all to herself again.
Eleanor’s mom read to her from the second Narnia book, which is about two kids who run away from home and live on a ship and sail around the world. Eleanor lay back on her pillow and listened.
Eleanor’s mom closed the book at the end of the chapter. “You know, what you said in your funeral talk . . . ?”
“My sermon?” Eleanor waited for a compliment. It was a great sermon. She would definitely become a preacher when she grew up. A preacher part time and Darth Vader full time. Or the other way around. Good Vader, she reminded herself, thinking of what Owen had said.
“What you said in your sermon,” her mother said, “wasn’t quite right. Not all the way. Scrumpy doesn’t need to be with his family in order to go to heaven. In fact, lots of people are buried far away from their families.”
“Like soldiers?”
“Sure. And other people too. Immigrants. Refugees. Or just people who’ve moved far away from where they were born. God knows where they are, even if they’re a long way away from home.”
Eleanor nodded. That meant God knew where she was too. She thought of God maybe having a phone with a Google map and she was a blue dot moving from the old house to the duplex. God knew where she was, even at the new house. She was always the blue dot, and God could always find her.
But that didn’t mean she should stay at the new house.
Her mom brushed back her curls and kissed her forehead. “Good night, sweetie.”
“Good night, Mom.” Eleanor fell asleep imagining herself as a blue dot looking for a path back to her old home.
The next day Eleanor’s mom stayed home from work again, so they unpacked and put things away
