Jumper:Griffin _s Story j-3

by Steven Gould

  "Bueno?"

  "Hola, Tia. i Quieres tomar el sol en la play a mahana?"

  I didn't know if they were listening. Consuelo had several nephews so calling her aunt might throw them off. It would at least leave it in doubt. And she liked to sunbathe on the beach, or at least walk up and down the shore with the water washing over her ankles.

  "Nopuedo ir. Volamos a casa mahana." So, they were being watched. The bastards might have checked the flight manifests into Huatulco and not found Sam and Consuelo.

  Anyway, they were going to fly home and not risk meeting up with me again. Not in Oaxaca.

  "Que lastima. Vaya con Dios."

  "Debes tener cuidado."

  "Usted tambien."

  Yeah, we'd all have to be careful.

  Henry came back from the hols and brought me a little wooden horse, rearing, six inches high. "Merry Christmas and all that. It's olive wood. Didn't really know what you'd want."

  I was touched but of course I couldn't show it. "Thanks. Didn't have to. I've got something for you, but it's back in me Hole. Bring it to class Thursday." I went to class most days, but for Henry it was Tuesday, Thursday, and odd Saturdays.

  I didn't really have something for him. I'd bought something for Sam and Consuelo, and for Alejandra (mailed by Consuelo), but the season depressed me and I'd avoided the shopping crowds, the decorations, and the songs.

  In Thailand, mostly.

  In Phuket I was doing the same thing I did in Huatulco- I'd picked a remote jump site, in this case a little island called Ko Bon off Rawai. A resort on Phuket proper considered it their "private" island but I'd arrive on the south end, away from their salas and loungers and the honeymoon suite (though I watched some skinny-dipping once) and put my dinghy in the water and sail a half hour over to Chalong, avoiding the resorts.

  I brought Henry a Thai Buddha head carved from rain-tree wood, gold leaf on the headdress thingy, pendulous earlobes and slitted eyes over a smiling mouth. It was the smile that made me buy it. Unlike the others, it was practically jolly.

  He blinked when he opened it. "Very cool. How'd you know?"

  "Know what?"

  "I've got a shrine in my room. I'm not really Buddhist, but it's how I get out of Sunday chapel."

  "You bleeding hypocrite!" I laughed.

  He shrugged and smiled. "Yeah, well, you haven't had to listen to those bloody sermons on those bloody benches, have you? I'm all bony."

  I shook my head. We were having our regular cuppa after but instead of walking, we were sticking to a corner table at the Expresso Bar. It was sleeting outside.

  He opened his backpack to wedge the Buddha down inside with his gi. He pulled out a book to make room and I flipped through it. "Ugh. Exponents and polynomials. That was an ugly two weeks. Nearly ate me head."

  "Was? Are you past this? I'm in advanced math, my form!"

  "Uh. Did that last year. I'm homeschooled, you know? Work at me own pace. Do okay with the math." I reached up to touch his hair, a foot above me. "Over your head?"

  "Oh, very funny." He licked his lips. "Give a guy a hand, could you? I was supposed to work on it over the hols and I spent all my spare time, uh…" He blushed.

  I sat up. "Oh, this has got to be good. Let's guess-there's a girl involved."

  He punched my arm. "Well, it wasn't a boy, that's for sure."

  "Jordanian?"

  "Nah. Tricia Peterson-known her for years. Her mother is the protocol officer at the embassy, longtime friend of my parents."

  "So you didn't do the math because you were snogging in the bushes."

  He blushed redder. "Going around to see the sights. She doesn't live there, either. Visiting for the hols. Her school is out in the wilds of Oxfordshire. Girls' hell, she says."

  I nodded. He had a girlfriend. I was thinking about Alejandra and I could sympathize and even be a little jealous.

  "Show me what you're having trouble with. And I don't mean the snogging bit."

  We did simplification of fractions with exponents until he had to run for the Tube. "Don't slip," I said. "It's like glass out there."

  "Thanks for the help. Maybe you could help me again Saturday? I could ask for extra leave. We could do it at your place."

  "That's a thought," I said, stalling. "Take us for ever to get out there, though. Can you have guests in at your school? Never seen a boarding school-not outside a movie."

  He looked at me like I was crazy. "Well, if that's your idea of fun. Sure. We'll go back there."

  "Right."

  I took a westbound train and transferred to a southbound at Earl's Court. Somewhere between Southfield and Wimbledon Park I jumped away to the Hole.

  It snowed again, Friday night, very odd for London. Walking to the Tube station after class, Henry said, "'When men were all asleep the snow came flying, in large white flakes falling on the city brown.'"

  I looked at him blankly.

  "Robert Bridges. 'London Snow.'" He kicked at the snow on the sidewalk. "You know… poetry?"

  "Ah. Me, I'm more of an 'As I was going to St. Ives' kind of guy. The bloody over the beautiful. Though I'm quite fond of Coleridge. And Green Day."

  "But look at the snow!"

  I scooped up a handful. "You look at it," I said, and flung it in his face. Much icy cold violence ensued and we had to shake the snow out of our clothes and hair while we waited on the platform.

  St. Bartholomew's Academy is in an old Georgian mansion south of Russell Square. "But, of course, since Prisoner of Azkaban came out, we call it St Brutus's."

  I looked at him blankly. The book had only just come out.

  Henry explained. "His uncle pretends that Harry attends St. Brutus's Secure Centre for Incurably Criminal Boys."

  I laughed. "Ah. Very good. Only read the first one so far."

  "You could go blind! Look, I'll lend you two and three, okay?"

  I nodded. I had odd feelings about it. Harry was an orphan, after all, whose parents were killed by someone out to kill Harry. A little too close to home, that.

  We had to sign in with the school porter, a friendly man in a cardigan, in a room off the main hall.

  The interior of St. Bart's was all polished wood and fusty old portraits staring disapprovingly at everyone. The students' rooms were somewhat better and you were more likely to see Manchester United or band posters instead.

  Henry took me around to the dining hall and pulled some fruit ("All healthy snacks here-enough to make you croak") from the kitchen, then introduced me to a few people on his floor: "Griff, here, in my karate class. Helping me with my algebra."

  His roommate, being a weekday boarder, was off with his folks in Ipswich, so we sat in there, the door open. I got to see his shrine, a shelf with a cotton meditation cushion before it, and some souvenirs from all over the world.

  We did an hour of polynomials, then took a break. He showed me the gym in the basement, complete with boxing ring and some gymnastic equipment and balls and rackets and cricket bats. "Weather allowing, we use the green over at Brunswick Square for football and cricket. And the phys ed teacher's a right bastard about running. In any weather."

  We did another half hour of math, then he lent me his copies of Chamber of Secrets and Prisoner, and saw me down. On the stairs, he got asked, "Who's your girlfriend, 'enry?" by a large youth sitting on the landing with two others, all older than Henry.

  Henry kept walking, his face still. When we were down in the main hallway and out of earshot he said, "That bastard is the reason I started karate."

  "You turned your back on him."

  "But you didn't. I noticed." Henry tilted his head. "Watters is the kind who'd go for your back, too, but not in front of witnesses. Last time he gave it a go I bloodied his nose. I got in trouble but so did he. He does petty things like pinching one's classwork or putting porn in your room and reporting it."

  "That's why you locked your room."

  "Yeah, had to start last year. Honor among gentlemen, my arse."r />
  "Your parents know?"

  "My dad went to this school. In his time, the odd bit of involuntary sodomy happened, so he thinks this is all just good, character-building experience. I mean, no danger of hemorrhoids, after all." Henry saw my face. "Hey, it's not that bad. My roommate's quite decent though his math is worse than mine, if you can imagine."

  I shook my head. "I'll never bad-mouth homeschooling again."

  I spent Sunday at Hogwarts. Well, reading on the beach in Oaxaca, really, but the books were good. I tried to get together with Sam and Consuelo but the code phrase "No la conozco" let me know they still thought they were being watched.

  So I read. I'd finished both books by Monday night, so, having neglected my own schoolwork, I did an essay comparing the evolution of the magic use in all three books, in French. That's what I do when I miss Mum the most. Work in French.

  I gave Henry a printout of the essay when I returned the books to him at Tuesday class. "Well, you're right about my vocabulary. Have to hit the Dictionnaire Francais-Anglais for this one. Probably be good for me. Yuck." But he folded it carefully and tucked it into Prisoner before packing the books away in his bag.

  We did the cuppa after and he said, "You know, I've got February half-term holiday coming up. Going to camp at my cousin's in Normandy. Think you could talk your folks into letting you go with me?"

  I stalled. " Normandy? Where? Cherbourg?"

  He shook his head. "Nah. Little village called Pontorson- less than ten kilometers from Mont-Saint-Michel."

  I'd seen pictures of Mont-Saint-Michel. Who hasn't?

  "Pretty. How do you go?"

  "Train to Portsmouth. Night ferry to Saint-Malo. Cousin meets me at the ferry in his Citroen and takes me back to his cottage."

  "There's no problem because of your age? Traveling, I mean?"

  "Ah, there's more of a hassle coming home, so my cousin usually crosses back and gets me through passport control, does a bit of shopping, and then heads back."

  "What's he do, your cousin?"

  "Retired-really my grandmother's cousin, what, mine twice removed? Something like that. He likes his wine. Likes to garden. Was a civil servant before. Transport, I think."

  "Sure he'd be all right with it?"

  "Oh, yeah. Suggested it before. Not you specifically- bring a chum, he said. He pretty much turns me loose when I'm there. I mean, if there's any heavy work in the garden, I pitch in, but there's woods and a river and there's a ten-minute bus you can take to the coast-the tide comes in like thunder, just miles of sand and then, whoosh, in it comes."

  "Well, it sounds brilliant. Tell you what, I'll run it past ma mere et mon pere and see what comes of it."

  "I can have my mum call, if it'll help."

  "Noted," I said. "If needed."

  I should've said no.

  Chapter Eight

  Incursions The smell woke me up, carrion-rotten, retch inducing. I followed it back through the cave toward the battery rack, a faint breeze in my face. Something odd about that, since the airflow was usually the other direction-through the rubble that closed my little branch and up. It's two things-the water brings a bit of air in but also a network of cracks near the spring. The other thing is that the sun heats the rock around the upper end of the shaft, sucking up air from below.

  But today, something else was happening and it really stank.

  It had been so long since I'd been at the mouth of the mine that I couldn't remember it well enough to jump there. I finally had to jump to the pit toilet at the picnic area where I dumped my bucket toilet. It was overcast and surprisingly cold, unusual for here. That explained the airflow issue. The cold air was flowing down into the shaft. I jumped back for a jacket before I started the three-mile hike from the picnic area to the mineshaft.

  When I got there I found the gate in the grate was wide open, the lock missing, the hasp mangled and streaked with copper. I looked at one of the depressions and realized someone had shot the lock off-the metallic streaks were from copper-jacketed bullets.

  But the stench was up here, too.

  I thought they were dogs, but realized after a moment that they were coyotes. Someone had shot them, shot the lock off the grate, and dumped them down.

  It was illegal to hunt in the park, I was pretty sure. Even if a ranger had killed a coyote for some reason-rabies control, maybe-he wouldn't have shot the lock off and dumped them in the shaft.

  Bastards.

  I still had some rubber gloves from doing the concrete work in the Hole, but I jumped to San Diego and visited Home Depot for a paint-and-pesticide respirator mask and some heavy-duty plastic bags. The three coyotes were rotten with maggots and fell apart as I shoved them into the bags. They'd probably been there for days, but the change in the weather brought the smell in. Don't know how I could of stood it without the mask.

  I left a note under the door at the rangers station telling them about the lock. It was after seven by then and the park had officially closed. It was better, as far as I was concerned, that the note be anonymous. If I started talking to the rangers, they might start wondering where I lived. The park had a residential ranger, but his quarters were way over by the park entrance, a good ten miles away.

  I dumped the bags in their Dumpster.

  There was a water spigot outside the station and I'd rinsed the gloves and was wiping them on a bit of turf near the station, preparatory to jumping back to the Hole, when I heard a gunshot.

  It wasn't near-I didn't jump away or anything-but it did come from up the ridge, back toward the mine.

  I jumped back up to the shaft, where I felt cold and exposed. The sun was going down and the wind was picking up. I walked back to one of the old surface buildings, a roofless rock-and-mortar shell, one wall tumbled down into a pile of its component rocks, and sheltered from the wind.

  After a while, I heard another shot, loud, but still not so loud that it made me nervous. A motor started up in the distance, and then another.

  Sounded like motorbikes. I started to leave the old building, trying for a vantage point where I might see them, when I realized the sound was getting louder.

  They weren't motorbikes-they were four-wheeled ATVs, camouflage painted, two of them. They roared up the canyon scattering rock and dirt and what little grass there was and I wondered why I hadn't seen their tracks before. They each had another coyote on the back rack and telescopic rifles on a rack in front.

  The gloves in my hand were still wet from washing, pretty clean, but the smell or the memory of the smell was still in my nose.

  They pulled right up to the grate, flipped open the gate, and tossed them down. Just like that, not even looking around.

  "Miller time!" one said to the other.

  "Miller time," the other agreed.

  I thought about tossing them down the shaft, but they hopped back on the ATVs and roared back down the canyon. Off-road vehicles were also illegal in the park.

  I jumped back to the Hole and took the binoculars from the dinghy gear. I jumped to the ridgetop above the canyon, using the binoculars to pick my destination. They were easy to spot-they were in the long shadows of the Fish Creek Mountains and they'd turned their headlights on. I had to move once, as they moved behind a ridge, farther down the hills, but I tracked them all the way to the park's edge, to a light that showed through the gathering dusk.

  I jumped back to the Dumpster by the rangers station and retrieved the plastic bags full of rotting coyote and left them, for the time being, in the old stone building I'd sheltered in, near the mineshaft.

  I said yes to Henry about the trip to France. That is, I said it was all right with my parents.

  "Do they need to talk to Harold? Or my mum?"

  I shook my head. "They're cool. Tell you the truth, I suspect they can't be arsed."

  He got this look on his face, like maybe he should be sympathetic, but then said, "Be a relief, that. Every permission thing I have to do involves faxes and international phone c
alls and crossing my i's and dotting all the t's. Your passport all in order?"

  I nodded. "Oh, yeah. Old picture-hate it-but it doesn't expire for another three years."

  "Right. I'll arrange the tickets."

  "How much do you need?"

  "Oh, no, Dad's treat. Thinks it's good I've got a friend outside of St. Brutus's. But I also think he wants cousin Harold to vet you since they can't themselves, not until summer."

  "Oh, they coming home?"

  "July after summer term. Three weeks. You going anywhere?"

  "Too far in the future, mate. Anyway, I don't really pay much attention to term holidays, what with the homeschooling. Better to travel when everyone isn't." Or so I heard.

  In daylight, I used the binoculars and jumped, ridge to ridge, out to the edge of the park. There was a barbwire fence-not the park's-stretching along the boundary.

  There were coyote carcasses, some old, some fresh, hung every thirty feet along the wire. Some of them were tatters of skin caught on the barbs and bones below.

  On the other side of the fence, the ground was stripped bare, no vegetation, nothing, but there were sheep. Lots of sheep.

  I moved down the fence, to the north, the direction the ATVs had seemed to go the night before. The fence turned a corner and there was a stretch of land that looked just like the park-it hadn't been grazed to nothing, but there were tire tracks-the kind with deep pockets from the tire lugs, designed to grip in mud and sand. I turned and followed them.

  They went as far as a county road, dirt but graded smooth, then headed south, back along another fence. The coyote carcasses continued all around the property. The house was set back from the road, the only spot of vegetation on the entire ranch.

  A mailbox at the road had "Keyhoe" painted crudely across it. The ATVs were parked near an outbuilding and there were four dogs lying on the porch that came for me, tearing across the ground toward the fence, growling and barking.

  These were not friendly dogs.