Laugh with the Moon Read Free Page A

my father, information I’m sure Mom knew by heart: “News flash!” I say. “In a girl’s formative years, her whole personality gets formed.” I look around. “In a place like this, mine will get formed deranged!”
    “What do you mean?” Dad asks.
    “What do I mean?” If he doesn’t get it, I can’t begin to explain. “Can you take down the canopy, at least? It’s disgusting.”
    “Oh.” Dad chuckles. “It’s not a canopy, Clare. It’s a malaria net. You let it hang around the edges of the bed when you sleep. Keeps the bugs out.”
    I don’t see any bugs. Still, Dad insists that we leave that ugly net up. I press my forefingers to my temples. “And these lights are giving me a headache,” I say.
    “That I can fix,” Dad says. He walks out of my brand-new bedroom and rummages through his bag that’s still in the living room. When he comes back, he’s got two flashlights. He presses a switch on the wall and turns out the overhead lights.
    All of a sudden, everything powers down.
    And even though the air is heavy and the house is tiny, I can hear tons of space between Dad and me. I can hear all the emptiness left by everything that isn’t turned on—computers and cell phones and beepers—all the things that usually chop up our time together and slice it into pieces so small they barely exist.
    Dad turns on the flashlights and hands one to me. “Let’s pretend it’s night,” he says.
    “It is night,” I say, and follow him through the dark house to the kitchen.
    “It’s nine o’clock here in Malawi, but in Brookline … only one in the afternoon.”
    When you’ve been traveling more than thirty hours like I have, it’s impossible to keep track of your life. Whenyou’ve been plucked out of school right when you’re on the verge of getting your first actual kiss, you feel cheated. And when you’re glad you didn’t get that kiss because you don’t have a mother to tell about it, then you know things really are messed up.
    “Wait here. I’ve got to get something,” Dad says.
    Of course, I know he’s in the next room, so I shouldn’t be having a conniption, but I totally am. It’s scary in this place. There are all kinds of rattles, hisses, and hums. It sounds like a spooky percussion symphony. After a minute, though, the thud of my heart in my ears grows loud enough to drown out the sounds of the African night.
    When Dad returns, he’s got a package of peanut butter crackers, a bottle of water, and a white Malarone pill so I won’t get malaria. I put the pill on my tongue, but the second I take a swig of water, there’s a horrific screech. I splutter the pill onto the table.
    “If I recall, that’s the bush baby monkey,” Dad says. It’s been more than twenty years since my father’s lived in this country, but he still thinks he knows everything about it. “Bush babies usually give birth to twins.”
    “Exactly what I need!” I say. “Some monkey mother giving birth in my ear.”
    Dad chuckles and goes off to get me another pill. While he’s gone, I take three breaths in and out of my nose to try to calm myself down. It doesn’t work. I want to yell
Hurry up and get back here already!
But of course, I don’t. I can’t let Dad know I’m scared.
    At least pill number two goes down without a hitch. “Good job,” Dad says. And when I finish the crackers, hetells me to get ready for bed. “Remember to brush your teeth with bottled water. The tap water has all kinds of germs that could get you really sick.”
    I grab my water bottle off the table.
    After I brush, I go to the bedroom, where the moonlight is streaming through the window screen. I change into my pajamas and climb under the mosquito net. I’m trapped. Dad sticks his head in the doorway. “Good night, honey. Sweet dreams,” he says.
    And I decide right there and then that I’ve made a mistake by talking to him. If I have any prayer of getting back to Brookline anytime soon, I’ve got to be more