Just Jump

8

Sarah’s mom seems friendly and throws a fuss about Paul’s hand. She doesn’t question us about where we came from, though, and that worries me a little. Right now Paul is downstairs with Ray and Darcie and Sarah is showing Sheila and me to the guest room.

“We only have one guest room,” she’s saying as we climb the stairs, “Sorry about that.” She pushes open a door and Sheila’s jaw drops.

“This room is meant for one person?” Sheila looks stunned. I can’t blame her, this room is huge.

Sarah shakes her head. “Two, really, but it’s still pretty small.”

“Small?” Sheila gapes at the room.

“This place is enormous!” I say. 

“This place really isn’t that big,” Sarah reassures us. “I mean, my parents’ room is a lot bigger.”

Sheila and I exchange looks of wonder.

“Right,” Sarah says awkwardly, “I’ll just leave you guys here.”

We wait until we hear her go down the stairs and then Sheila turns to face me.

“This place is enormous!” I repeat. “This is at least twice the size of our ward.”

Sheila flops on the bed. “Do you know what Brent gave Paul?” She asks quietly.

“Nope,” I answer as I sit down next to her.

“He gave him one of those hand crank music box things.”

“How do you know?”

She pulls a small machine from her pocket and sets it on my lap. “I took it.”

“What? How?”

“I just took it. It wasn’t that hard.”

“Sheila, that’s called pickpocketing, and it’s frowned upon in most countries.”

“He deserved it. He was in the hallway. He ratted us out.”

I sigh and sit up. “We don’t know his reasons for that.”

Sheila sits up next to me and winds up the little music crank box. The small mechanism is slightly out of tune, but you can hear the bittersweet melody underneath it. 

I wince as it plays. I’m not sure why, but I don’t like it. It’s both sweet and haunting at once. Neither Sheila nor I recognize the tune.

We both look up as the door creaks open to reveal Darcie. Her pigtails are mussed and her overall dress stained and torn. “Hi,” she says.

“Darcie,” I begin, “do you recognize this song?” I take the box from Sheila and play it slowly as Ray comes up behind Darcie.

Darcie bites her lip as it plays and her mismatched eyes look at the hardwood floor. “Play it again,” she says when it finishes.

This time she sings along under her breath. “On the day I was born said me father said he, I’ve an elegant legacy waitin' for ye, ‘tis a rhyme for your lips and a song for your…” she stops with the music and looks up at me. “Why does it stop?”

“Is that what Brent gave him?” Ray nods at the small contraption in my hand.

"Yeah,” I answer.

“Why does it stop?” Darcie demands.

“That’s all that fits in the ATM,” Paul has joined us in the room now. His left hand is bandaged and he’s limping.

“Your heart, to sing it whenever the world falls apart. Look, look, look to the rainbow, follow it over the hill and the stream, look, look, look to the rainbow…” The fact that the music ended does not seem to stop Darcie from finishing the song. “Look to the rainbow,” she says. “From Finian’s Rainbow.”

Sheila sits up straighter. “I remember that movie,” she says.

I give her a sidelong glance.

"When Darcie wasn’t in our ward, they showed us a really old movie,” she says. “Don’t you remember?”

“Then how does Darcie know the song?” Paul asks.

We look to the blonde toddler. She shrugs and clambers onto the bed with Sheila and I, flopping down on Sheila’s lap.

Darcie gently takes the music crank from me and plays it again. “We need a piano,” she says matter-of-factly.

I give her a ‘what?’ look.

“She’s right,” Paul says. 

I give him a ‘what?’ look too. “Paul, what do you know about this?”

Every head turns toward him. He doesn’t even flinch.

“It’s not in my nature to say,” he glares at me with his pitch black eyes. 

“We need a piano and a laptop,” Darcie continues, oblivious to the argument around her. “Do you think they have a laptop? Can I check?”

Ray lifts up his head a little. “Darcie, if they have a laptop, take it to 700 Bourbon Street, New Orleans, okay?”

“Okay!” Darcie hops off the bed and skips out the room.

Sheila and I turn to look at Roy.

"Don’t use Darcie as bait,” Sheila accuses.

“Never mind that, don’t steal a laptop!” I add.

Ray shrugs. “It’s more like borrowing.”

“Borrowing is when you return something, Ray,” I say.

“We’ll return it when we’re done,” he counters. 

“When will we be done?” Paul asks.

He shrugs and looks at each of us. “700 Bourbon Street, okay?”

“Sure, Ray, we’ll Jump to a random place we’ve never heard of,” Sheila replies.

“Good,” Ray says. “Now.”

“How do we know Darcie will come?” I ask.

“We don’t,” he says bluntly. “We’re just gonna wing it. We’re just gonna Jump.” He points at each of us and nods. “700 Bourbon Street.”