“Who’s in charge?” asked Nick.
“Mary,” she said. “You oughta go and see her. She loves Greensouls.” Then she added, “We were all Greensouls once.”
Nick tapped Allie on the shoulder. “Look,” he said.
By now their presence had been noticed by most of the kids around the plaza.
Many of the games had stopped, and the kids stared, not sure what to do. Out of the crowd a girl stepped forward. She had long blond hair that nearly touched the floor, wore a tie-dyed shirt, and bell-bottoms so big, the cuffs practically trailed behind her like a bridal train. A ’60s hippie girl, if ever there was one.
“Don’t tell me,” said Allie, “your name is Summer, and you want to know if we’re groovy.”
“My name’s Meadow, and I don’t say groovy anymore, because I got tired of people making fun of me.”
“Do you have to insult everybody you meet?” Nick whispered to Allie, then turned back to Meadow. “I’m Nick, and this is Lief. The rude one is Allie.”
“I wasn’t being rude,” Allie insisted. “I was being facetious. There’s a difference.”
“No sweat,” said Meadow, which was almost as bad as groovy. “C’mon, I’ll take you to Mary.” Then she looked down. “What are those on your feet?”
They looked down to the bundles of sticks extending from the soles of their shoes. “Road-shoes,” said Nick. “Kind of like snowshoes, so we don’t sink, you know?”
“Hmm. Clever,” said Meadow. “But you won’t need them anymore.”
They took off their road-shoes, and followed Meadow across the plaza toward Tower One. Behind them, the rest of the kids returned to their games.
They passed a fountain in the center of the plaza, and Meadow turned to them.
“Would you like to make a wish?” Meadow asked. A closer look revealed the fountain to be full of coins beneath the shimmering water.
“Not really,” Allie said.
“Mary says every Greensoul who comes here has to make a wish.”
Nick was already reaching into his pocket.
“I don’t have a coin,” Allie said.
Meadow just smiled. “Sure you do.”
And so to prove it Allie reached into her pockets, and turned them out. “See?”
“What about your back pockets?”
Allie sighed and checked her back pockets, knowing full well they were empty—she never used her back pockets. So it surprised her when she found the coin. Not even Johnnie-O’s goons had found it. But then, she had given them such a nasty look when they had reached for her rear, they never actually checked her back pockets.
“Weird,” Allie said, as she looked at the coin.
“Not really.” Meadow gave her a hippie love-fest smile. “With all the money living people spend, everyone has at least one coin in their pocket when they cross.”
“I once had a coin,” Lief said, dejectedly, “but it got stolen.”
“Make a wish anyway,” said Meadow. “Mary says all wishes have a chance of coming true, except one.”
Nick threw his coin in, then Allie threw hers. She made the wish every Greensoul made. The wish to be alive again. The one wish that didn’t come true.
Once their wishes had joined the others in the fountain, Meadow led them toward Tower One. Lief was the ultimate tourist, staring heavenward to where the towers touched the sky. He bumped into other kids again and again, for he refused to look down. “How do they stay up?” Lief asked. “Wouldn’t something so tall fall down?”
Allie was not a girl quickly given to tears, but she had found herself crying at least once a day since her arrival. Sometimes it was the revelation of just how drastically her existence had changed that would draw tears to her eyes. Other times it was the depth of how much she missed her family. Today the tears were sudden and unexpected.