"Is this a friend of yours, Arrietty?"
It was the third time Sadako had asked. She had been so unnerved by Spiller's appearance that she kept forgetting what Arrietty had said, or couldn't quite believe it, as though the thought kept slipping away between the tea cups and the saucers.
"Yes," Arrietty said stoutly, for the third time, though her ears burned. It was embarrassing, but she wasn't going to disown a fellow Borrower. "His name's Spiller."
"Aha, so this is Spiller." Sho and Spiller had already been eyeing one another in a way that worried Arrietty.
"He's my friend too," Sissy insisted, hopping in place. This was all the more impressive considering she was seated and holding a cup of tea. Spiller had refused to come inside, so Sadako had tied on an apron and served a light breakfast outside on the back porch; if she had any reservations about the two newcomers, the shine in Sho's eyes overcame them. They were all clustered around the table there. Spiller, it seemed, preferred an upturned bucket to a chair, but at least he'd accepted some food. "I found him in the loft this morning. My horse likes him."
"My dear." Sadako looked shocked. "Is he homeless? He doesn't look like it... exactly... Arrietty, is he really a friend of yours?"
It was true; Spiller looked healthy and reasonably clean and smelled like hay and wild grass. Arrietty wondered if Sissy had thrown him in the shower, but no; he was wearing his own clothes, and Carol had reportedly refused to even open the door to him. At least, not after she'd slammed it in his face. Poor Spiller.
Sissy grabbed his elbow, making him drop a cracker; unfortunately for Spiller, she was sitting next to him. Niya left rubbing against Sho's ankle to pounce on the cracker. "He's not homeless - he's a traveler!"
"Er, you mean like a, ah, a cosplayer?" To her credit, Sadako was trying to cross the generational gap somehow. But it wasn't the only gap she had to contend with.
"No, he's not a cosplayer," Arrietty confessed, playing with her bacon. She knew this because she had seen cosplayers at the mall, at the ice cream shop, and Sho had explained - with limited success - what they were. Arrietty understood enough to know that Spiller was not one; he wasn't playing any role except his own. "He's always like this. Um, I think he lost his parents when he was little, but he doesn't talk about it."
"It doesn't look like he's adjusted too well," Sho remarked.
"I think he's done okay, considering..." Arrietty argued.
"He's right here, you know," Sissy huffed.
"Well, you get him to explain himself then." Sho crossed his arms and sat back with a smug smile. It was an expression that, Arrietty was learning, made her want to pound his face in.
"He's the strong silent type," Sissy argued. Arrietty was busy grinding Sho's foot under the table.
"Spiller Spiller," Spiller said finally, and went back to his crackers.
"Sho, don't make funny faces while you eat. It's rude." Sadako began gathering up the breakfast dishes, smiling at the four younger people as they argued. It was good to see Sho so animated, so interested in what was going on around him for once. "I had no idea you had even - err, I mean, this - I mean, ah, so many acquaintances." She stammered, then said something she immediately regretted, since there was no way of keeping it from becoming a blanket invitation. "You know what I think? I think we should have a picnic. It would be good for you."
And, Sadako thought guiltily, a picnic would at least get this strange person named Spiller off her porch, which would be good for Sadako. And for Haru, if she could be convinced to come back. Sadako would have called her cell phone, but Haru didn't have one.
Sissy couldn't help hearing. "Ohh, a picnic!" She jumped up so fast that her chair fell over. Niya yipped in surprise and shot off across the grass, a white and blue streak between the flowers. "I know just the place."
X X X
"Mama?" Arrietty snuck a glance over her shoulder. So far, so good; Spiller was keeping Sissy occupied looking for blackberries by the stream, and Sho was making sure Sadako didn't look over this way. Not that she could see anything at this distance if she did, not without her glasses. Sissy's horse cropped grass near the blackberries, keeping one ear cocked on Sissy and the other on Sadako's basket of strawberries. The white and red striped picnic blanket seemed to jump out from the green, a concentration of unnatural colors among the grass and flowers.
The place hadn't changed. It was still a field with a blackberry-choked stream running through it, flowers popping up to spread their petals above the green pastureland, grasshoppers rasping away in hoarse dry arcs when you walked too close by, grass up to the knees (Human Bean knees), trees forming a wind break at the sides, one fence facing a faint trail that ran near a cow shed. Sissy had already been in and out of the cow shed three times, slamming the door until tar shingles peeled off the roof. Arrietty thought about the phone, the phone and the calf that had started all this trouble. She wondered if Beauty had been in this pasture lately. There were cow prints enough, so some herd or other had been grazing.
"Mama." Arrietty tried again. "Papa."
The grass rustled. Her heart leaped. Homily appeared first.
"Arrietty? Is that you? Oh, it is!"
She was so glad to see Arrietty that she actually ran forward and embraced Arriety's extended fingers, two at a time. She was as thin and active as ever. Her clothes, Arrietty thought, looked more worn; there was a patch on her left sleeve that hadn't been there before. "I'm so happy! We were afraid you were never coming back!"
"How could I do that?" Arrietty sniffed. She'd missed them.
Pod came after, with his slower, gentler smile. Though less expressive than Homily, he was just as glad to see Arrietty. "Welcome back," he said, and laid his hand on her thumb. "Are you all right? I see you have a new dress."
"Father," she said lightly, "you do realize that you're talking to a Human Bean, right?" And touching one, too.
"It doesn't matter how big you are. You're still a Borrower at heart."
"True, true." Arrietty's smile was so big that her cheeks hurt. "We came back to Borrow the pasture for a picnic."
"We?" Homily craned her neck, looking this way and that way. "You mean you and Spiller?"
"Ah yes... Spiller. About that." Arrietty's smile became plastic. "I'll, ah, send him over in a minute. But I want to talk to you first."
"What's there to talk about except THAT!" Homily wiped her eyes and pointed up, accusingly, at Arrietty's immense height. "Now, when are you going to stop this being big nonsense and really come home?"
Arrietty sighed. Now for the not so fun part. "Mama, I'm not sure I want to stop being big, even if I can."
Homily's eyes went so wide that a raven, seeing the glistening whites, swung in for a closer look. Arrietty waved him away with an impatient hand.
"See, Mama? I don't have to be so... afraid all the time. It's okay if I'm Seen. I've been Seen lots of times, just this week - and I'm still okay! Nobody caught me or put me in a jar, because I look like a Human Bean. I went to a store. I bought new clothes." With Sho's money. The details were unimportant, really.
Now Pod looked shocked. "But, Arrietty! We... we must survive! We need you to come back. What about Spiller? What's he going to do without you?"
Arrietty sighed again. Not that Spiller wasn't a fine person in his own way, but... "Father, have you thought that all the way through? Say we somehow survive the winter in this field - we can't, and you know that, and we'll have to move soon - but say we make it through all that and I did marry Spiller - which I'm not saying I will, but just suppose. Say we had children and they didn't get eaten by frogs or ravens or cats or stepped on by a cow. Who would our children marry? Each other?"
Homily recoiled, shocked, but "I'm just being realistic," Arrietty said. It was a lot easier to argue with her parents when they were the size of her hand. "We have to survive, right? That means we have to be realistic. I have choices this way. I like having choices. I like living out in the sun. And," she swallowed hard, "I like hot water and lights and electricity..."
"But Spiller said there are other Borrowers in the barn," Homily argued, recovering. "And something about sane cats."
"Tame. Tame cats. Yes, Mama, but I don't know how many or how old or what. It could be just two or three old people for all we know." She took a deep breath. "Father, hiding isn't working. It hasn't been working for a long time. I think you know that. Things are changing. There aren't enough Borrowers any more. There's no future in creeping around the edges and hiding in the shadows. If we keep on this way... there will be no more Borrowers. Not for long. I'm sure of it."
And she would eat a lemon whole before she admitted any of that to Sho. He was so annoying when he was right.
"But Arrietty, you're not a Human Bean." Homily wrung her hands. "Don't they need papers, and cards and such, for everywhere they go and everything they do?"
"There was a tsunami last year, and a lot of people who survived lost everything - all their papers, too. Sho has a cousin who works for the government, and his job is to replace those papers. Sho thinks he might be able to slip me in." Arrietty's eyes shone. "I could have papers, Mama. I could get a job. I could have a house of my own, where I wouldn't have to Borrow anything - it would all be mine!"
"Arrietty, dear, let's hear no more of this." Pod looked solemn. "Send Spiller over. I want to talk to him. We'll find a way to get you small again."
"Um... okay. I'll do that." She got up, slowly, so as not to scare Mama, and backed away carefully a few steps before turning around and making her way over to the picnic blanket and basket. She nodded to Sho, who got up and switched places with Spiller. Arrietty held out a napkin.
"Would you get this wet in the stream and bring it back for me, please, Spiller?" At the same time she tilted her head in the direction of the dugout burrow. "I'm so hot."
Not that he needed directions; he knew where her parents were better than she did. He'd brought them here to begin with, after all, that terrible time when they'd had to flee...
Spiller grunted, took the napkin and trudged off in the direction she'd indicated, grasshoppers scattering every which way under his feet. Not surprisingly, he had absolutely refused to get in the car, so Sissy had taken him on horseback, just as they'd come. He was still mad at Arrietty for not coming with, for she had traitorously excused herself on the grounds that the horse shouldn't have to carry triple. Secretly, she preferred the car. It was nice not to have bugs buzzing about one's face.
"He has a good heart, hasn't he," said Sadako generously, even while she breathed a sigh of relief as he walked away. She was trying.
"He does." Meanwhile, Arrietty counted silently. At fifteen, she heard her mother's piercing shriek. She hoped the shock hadn't made her faint. She felt bad, but honestly, how could she have prepared them?
"Oh, what was that?" Sadako stopped fishing for lemonade in the picnic basket and looked around. "I thought I heard... something. Like a cry."
"A bird, maybe!" Sho called from his spot in the blackberries. He and Sissy were well downstream of the dugout burrow. They were muddy up to their knees from slipping on the stream bank. It was the first time Sadako had seen him with dirt on his face, like a normal boy. The sight warmed her heart even as she shuddered for her carpets. "I heard it too."
"Oh yes." Arrietty closed her eyes and smiled. With solutions to most of tomorrow's problems rattling around in her head, she hadn't a care in the world. Next week was forever, too far away to think about right now. "It did sound like a bird."