The doors opened to reveal a woman who, if she had been a man, would have been the identical twin of the concierge downstairs. She wore the exact same outfit, and her smile was equally blinding. The only difference was that her eye twinkle was at sixty-eight degrees.
“Welcome to the Explorers Society,” she said as they stepped into a gleaming white marble foyer. “Please follow me. Alejandro would like to see you.”
Catherine exchanged a quick glance with Benedict, and then Sebastian traded one of his own with Evie. He obviously couldn’t read her mind, but for some reason it felt like she’d been able to read his concern. “Yup,” she seemed to say. “Here we go.”
Here we go indeed.
*1 Interesting to note, I’m currently attempting to drive out of an airport at this moment, and it’s been three days. I may have to live here now.
*2 By which I mean smelling like lemons and oranges and stuff. Not like Vaguely Citrus, the indie band from the early 1990s. That wouldn’t be pleasant-smelling at all.
*3 My school projects from two years ago are all about Alberta, Canada. And they’re all in my parents’ garage.
*4 Even I am blinking right now, and I’m just writing about it.
Evie took a deep breath. She couldn’t help but remember the society board members yelling at her and one another when it had been revealed that the person Evie and Sebastian wanted to save was her grandfather Alistair Drake. She knew her last name made explorers kind of freak out, and she wasn’t really in the mood to have it happen all over again in LA, especially when they needed to get to the Kid as fast as possible.
She exhaled with determination, and the four of them nervously followed the woman. The woman led them down a white hallway full of natural light, undecorated except for one giant femur bone displayed at the far end on a chrome pedestal. They made a right at the bone and entered an equally gleaming and minimalist white dining room with floor-to-ceiling windows along the far wall. It was full of sounds of clinking, sparkling cutlery on pristine white plates, and murmuring explorers in hushed conversation. Their water glasses shone in the brilliant sun. None of the patrons turned to look at them, but Evie could tell they were still being watched. She held her head high. She would not be intimidated, and she would get her answers.
The woman took them over to a man sitting by himself at a table on a platform raised maybe a foot off the floor in the corner where two walls of windows connected. He had thick black hair, graying at the temples, and a pair of the most exuberant-looking eyebrows Evie had ever seen. In fact she’d never before even considered that eyebrows could look exuberant. The man was wearing a deep red shiny suit with a gray T-shirt beneath and seemed altogether relaxed and content. When they stopped in front of his table, he looked up at them thoughtfully for a moment. Then, after wiping the corners of his mouth with a surprisingly clean napkin, he folded his hands in his lap and spoke with a rich voice tinged with a slight accent.
“Forgive me for not standing, but I only rise for people I respect. Please have a seat.”
It was the least-gracious gracious welcome Evie had experienced so far in all the welcomes she’d had during this adventure. And for a moment she didn’t know what to do.
And then she noticed that the other three had sat rather awkwardly, so she did too, perching herself on the edge of her pristine white seat.
“Mr. Mendoza, we want to thank you for your hospitality,” said Benedict in his indifferent tone of voice. It came across as kind of rude, actually, as if he wasn’t thanking the man but rather quite the opposite. Evie thought about it. Benedict’s tone rarely reflected his level of interest, passion, or intent. Meanwhile Catherine was downright flummoxed by humans, even more so than Sebastian was, which was saying something. Neither Catherine nor Benedict was really the right person to express the level of gratitude needed to help calm the general level of, well, hate that most society members felt for the team.
Evie realized in that moment that there was only one person here who maybe could express the proper gratitude. She smiled brightly.
“Yes! It’s so lovely of you to help,” she said quickly, eyes wide. She reached out her hand, and Alejandro, being a polite sort of person just as she’d thought, had no option but to take it and shake. “It’s so tricky, I know, and I get that there are complicated feelings, and feelings should be complicated, but it’s still super-nice of you to let us stay here and use your resources.”
The adults stared at her for a moment. So did Sebastian. She really didn’t care. Someone had to take charge of this situation.
“You must be the granddaughter. You have passion, like your grandfather. It got him into trouble. Be wary,” said Alejandro, though not unkindly. “But you are most welcome. Your access will be limited. You do understand, of course.” He said the last bit turning back to Catherine and Benedict.
“Of course,” said Catherine.
“What does ‘limited’ mean?” asked Sebastian.
For the first time Alejandro made eye contact with the boy. He managed to make a simple look in Sebastian’s direction seem somehow elegant. “Limited. Ah, it means—how to say it?—it means ‘restricted in size.’ ‘Small.’ ‘Less than.’ ”
Sebastian stared at the man for a moment. “What?” he said. “No. No, I know what the word means. I meant, what does ‘limited access’ mean in practical terms?”
“Ah.” Alejandro leaned back in his chair and tented his fingers together, tapping them thoughtfully against each other. “You will not be allowed to use any of the public spaces—the archives or this dining room, for example—or, quite plainly, leave your suite aside from entering and departing the building. In general you may not wander through the society. Meals will be provided as room service.”
“We’re not going to do anything bad,” said Evie. This all sounded rather unfair. They weren’t toddlers stumbling about knocking into things. It was really judgmental of him, quite frankly, to treat them with so much suspicion.
“No one ever thinks they are going to do anything bad. And yet bad things happen, do they not?” He looked pointedly at Benedict and Catherine.
Evie huffed and sank back in her chair, arms folded across her chest.
“Your stay here is not about wants but about needs,” continued Alejandro. “We will provide you what you need. Your wants you will have to satisfy elsewhere.”
“Yes, thank you, Mr. Mendoza,” said Catherine quickly. “We understand. We won’t wander. When we’re here, we will stick to our rooms and our common area.”
“Yes, and of course the pool,” added Alejandro.
“Wait, the pool?” asked Evie skeptically. How was that not a public space?
“We may be untrusting, but we aren’t uncivilized.” At that, Alejandro made an elegant sweeping motion with his hand, and the woman in brown tweed reappeared, her teeth reflecting brightly in the silverware on the table. “Take them to the East Coast suite.”
She gave a nod and extended her arm, and the four of them rose to follow her. Evie looked at Alejandro as they walked away, but he was already deeply immersed in the view outside. She turned and had to rush to catch up to the others.
“Do you think we’ll ever meet a not-weird explorer?” she whispered to Sebastian when they’d returned to the bank of elevators.
“Unlikely,” replied Sebastian. They both watched as a large, imposing man in the tallest cowboy hat she’d ever seen sauntered past them toward the dining room, the spurs on his boots jangling at every step.
Once more they entered the elevator, and with a similar wave to Alejandro’s, the woman disappeared as the doors closed and the group was whisked up yet farther. But only for a moment. The elevator abruptly stopped, causing Evie a tiny moment of weightlessness. The doors opened, and she expected once more to be welcomed by a perfect-looking human in a brown tweed vest. But there wasn’
t one.
Instead they were greeted by a small pug in a teeny brown tweed vest.
“This is silly,” said Sebastian.
The dog seemed to agree, and far from sharing the happy disposition of its human counterparts, it seemed soulfully forlorn as it waited for them all to step out of the elevator.
“Hello,” said Catherine, her voice soft and warm. She crouched down and offered her hand for the pug to sniff. It did, and then, though still with the same mournful expression, it rubbed its face against her hand. Then it bit her finger and held on.
“Stop it!” said Evie, immediately rushing over.
“No, Evie. It’s fine. It doesn’t hurt,” replied Catherine quickly. “He seems to want to drag me somewhere.” And sure enough, they watched the pug tug on her finger, attempting to pull the over-six-foot-tall animal expert after him.
He released the finger and with head held high began to trot down the hallway. The humans followed obediently and were eventually led to a door with a plaque that read EAST COAST SUITE.
“But how did he know?” asked Evie as Catherine gave the dog a solid pat on the head.
Benedict didn’t wait for an answer, probably because he knew the dog couldn’t actually explain himself, and pushed through the door. They entered another brightly lit modern room, this one with white walls and Danish minimalist brown teak furniture. Again there was a complete wall of windows, this bank obviously facing east, away from the water. The room had a sitting area, a little desk and computer nook, and a small kitchenette—all set down a few steps, sunken from the door.
“Very nice,” said Benedict, casually removing his dark green jacket but keeping his camera on and tilting his head slightly to crack his neck. “Everyone choose a room. And once we’re settled, let’s meet out here to deal with the next step.”
Evie looked around, and sure enough there was a hall to her right, along which were several doors. She picked up her bag and gave Sebastian a smile. He looked a little concerned.
“Are you okay?” she asked as the adults passed them and chose their rooms.
“I don’t have a bag,” he replied.
“Well. I mean, you were kidnapped, you didn’t have time to pack.” She laughed a bit, imagining a kidnapper actually giving their victim time to pack and maybe feed the cat, grab a few books. It seemed very silly.
Sebastian didn’t laugh.
“I’m an accidental adventurer,” he said.
“The best kind!” she replied. But nothing she said seemed to shake him from the strange faraway-ness she’d noticed lingering about him since they’d gotten into the car. Since he’d spoken with his parents.
She probably shouldn’t pry. Even though she really wanted to.
“Let’s choose our rooms,” said Sebastian suddenly. And he turned and walked away before she could say anything else.
She shrugged and followed him and watched as he slipped into a room and closed the door behind him. She made her way to the last door in the hall and went into a small white room with more Danish furniture and more windows. Evie put down her bag, crossed over to the windows, and placed her forehead against the cool glass. Positioned like that she almost seemed as if she was floating in space, above the noisy Los Angeles streets.
The accidental adventurer.
She supposed he was.
But so was she. All of this was just a means to an end—a means to rescuing her grandfather. Her only known living family member. The only person she could call family. He was her home. After that, well…After that maybe they would go on chosen, deliberate adventures together.
That would be nice.
Being on-purpose adventurers together.
That would be nice.
She watched the cars zoom about the streets beneath her and thought of the Kid. So many cars and he might be driving one of them right now. But in a stunt-car way. Maybe with other stunt-car drivers even. Like as part of a club or a…
That’s when she had the idea.
Sebastian didn’t much feel like leaving the quiet comfort of his room once he’d chosen it. Interacting with people was difficult enough on a day-to-day basis. But interacting with people when you were so conflicted on the inside, when you didn’t even know what you wanted, when you had lied to the person closest to you…that was the opposite of easy. One could even call it hard.*
But he knew he’d hear a knock on his door soon, someone wanting to know where he was, what he was doing, why he wasn’t with them. The anticipation of the knock was probably worse than the knock itself, and so he stood and wandered over to the door, and opened it before anyone could get there first. Just as Evie had her hand hovering before it.
“Oh!” She laughed. “I was just about to knock.”
Sebastian nodded. “Yeah.”
They returned to the sitting room, where the adults were waiting for them. Sebastian pulled out one of the kitchen chairs and dropped into in. A little too hard. It hurt. But he didn’t say anything because it was embarrassing.
“Okay. So the next step in finding the Kid—” started Benedict, getting down to business.
“Yes!” interrupted Evie with a great deal of enthusiasm. “I’ve been thinking about it. Since we don’t necessarily have access to the resources we’d hoped for, but we are where we are, and I was wondering if there was a society or something, kind of like this one, but for cars. Like a stunt racing association or society…for cars…?”
“You mean the SRAC?” asked Benedict.
“Okay,” replied Evie.
“The Stunt Racing Association of Car-drivers. Yes. I was thinking that too. I think you’re right. That’s our first stop,” said Benedict with a soft nod. Then he blinked for a moment, thinking. He leaned forward and added, “I would like to say that I hope I’m right that the Kid is actually a stunt-car driver, and that I’m sorry if I’m not.”
“Oh, I think you’re right,” said Evie. “It definitely all makes sense, and you have an eye for pictures, after all. You see things the rest of us don’t. If you saw the Kid in a movie, I believe that you saw the Kid in a movie. ‘Trust your gut,’ I always say. Or at least I’m saying that now.”
Benedict gave her a small smile and then glanced at Sebastian. Sebastian wasn’t sure why, so he simply nodded in agreement with everything because, yeah, it did sound like the best option, of course.
“Great,” said Catherine. “Benedict and I will go visit SRAC now, if everyone’s on board with the plan.”
Sebastian’s brain suddenly went from all over the place to a singular focus. Evie.
“What do you mean…you and Benedict?” asked Evie slowly, each word sliding out of her mouth as she squinted at Catherine.
Catherine wore an expression that Sebastian could finally understand. It was a kind of fear—but more like a worry—of letting someone down. Like letting Evie in particular down. Benedict, meanwhile, stood up, started putting on his green jacket.
“It makes the most sense if only a couple of us check it out, now that we have a home base. I’m sure you agree that the journey here was tricky enough, organizing four people—” said Catherine.
“Great, so you and I can go, then,” said Evie, once more jumping in.
“Evie, please,” said Catherine.
“Come on, Catherine. We should get going,” said Benedict. Catherine turned, made her way toward the exit, and joined Benedict at the door.
“You can’t just do this,” said Evie, standing too. “Sebastian, say something!”
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” said Sebastian.
“I know you’re upset, but trust me that this is better in the long run. It’ll be faster this way, and don’t you want things to go faster?” asked Catherine.
“I want things to be done right, and you need us. And how do you actually know it
’ll be faster without us? We have a lot of good ideas and are super-useful.” Evie was practically shaking, and Sebastian got it. Not so much the degree of her anger, but the frustration made sense. She made a lot of good points.
“We’re wasting time. We’ll talk about this when we get back,” said Benedict, opening the door. In short order they had passed through and closed it behind them. Leaving the kids alone.
There was a silence. A terrible, tension-filled, waiting-for-the-dam-to-burst silence.
And then: “Are you kidding me?” said Evie, whirling around to Sebastian. “How can they leave us behind? This is our adventure, not theirs!” She started pacing back and forth so furiously that Sebastian was sure she would dig a groove in the floor.
“It’s not really mine either,” said Sebastian quietly. Evie kept pacing but looked at him. “Well, it’s not! It’s yours, and I’m helping, and they’re helping, and they should be allowed to help,” he said, trying to be helpful. “Isn’t the most important thing that we find Alistair as fast as possible?”
Evie sighed hard. “Of course it is. But help is one thing. Taking over, saying we’d make things take longer…that’s another. I mean, who’s to say this will make it faster? And I mean, they knew that they were doing something wrong. Otherwise why would they leave like that? Not respecting us enough to listen?” Her voice was rising in pitch and volume.
“Well, maybe because of—” Sebastian stopped.
Evie also stopped. “Because of what?” she said, standing still and placing her hands on her hips.
“Your reaction.” He was now scared of her reaction to that statement.
There was a long pause, and then Evie shook her head. “No. They felt guilty.”
“Maybe,” replied Sebastian.
The Quest for the Kid Page 3
