by Rachel Shane
“Does that mean I’m not in? Even if we’re going to Whitney’s?”
He sighed. “I like Whitney and Kingston and all, but you . . . you’re different. Wholesome.” He didn’t see it, but I cringed. “I was kind of hoping we could be . . . ” He glanced at me. “Friends or whatever. Just the two of us.”
My heart raced. I hoped whatever was a synonym for making out. But as much as I wanted to explore that kind of friendship, I couldn’t shut off my curiosity about Whitney and her missions. “It doesn’t have to be that extreme. We could still be . . . friends, and I can still join your group.”
His eyes held mine. “I like a girl who can read my mind.”
He said something else, but I couldn’t hear him. I was still stuck on the word like.
CHAPTER 9
“You brought her, I see.” Whitney leaned against the conglomerate of open doors forming a pastel tunnel into her house. Her arms shook as if the doors would spring closed any moment and knock her over.
“Nothing gets by you.” Chess relieved her of doorman duty and held them open with more ease.
She gave him a dirty look, then turned to me. “Think of this like a verbal contract. You enter, you keep your mouth shut.”
Taking that vow, I stepped through the doors, then paused at the décor inside. Hats—ranging from formal top hats to the artistic creations usually found on the Queen of England—dangled from a chandelier. I spotted the trucker hat Kingston had been wearing in gym perched delicately on one of the hooks. White polka dots covered a purple wall in front of me. Curvy stripes of varying widths alternated in teal and subdued candy-apple red on a different wall. The mirror in front of me distorted my body like a fun house.
Whitney must have seen me staring because she said, “My mom’s an installation artist.”
“What does that mean?”
“It’s art you have to go see. Experience.” She gestured at the five-door concoction. “It’s really a pain sometimes, everything in the house has been remodeled into something else—something far more annoying.”
We followed her into the kitchen. Large, metal spikes poked out of the refrigerator door instead of a torture-chamber wall where they belonged.
I pointed to it. “New diet regimen?”
She flicked her eyes toward the fridge. “Obstacles for our basic survival needs.”
“It’s a bitch to open that thing,” Chess said. “You have to hold your arm at the right angle or you might end up in the hospital explaining you weren’t trying to slit your wrists.”
“That sounds like a case for Child Protective Services.”
She shrugged. “I keep essentials in the basement fridge. That one I haven’t let her revise.”
“Your house is like a museum.” I set the box of days-old cakes on her counter.
“Yep. Look, but don’t touch.”
“If you charged for tickets,” Chess said, “that would cover some funds.”
“But then what would Kingston be good for?” Whitney chuckled to herself and stopped in front of the kitchen counter. Bending underneath, she pulled a blender out of the cabinet.
Chess reached above her and retrieved cups off a tall shelf. They were repurposed from various found objects. A shellacked paper-towel roll had become a highball glass. Layers of buttons were welded together in a closed formation. He even set a conch shell wrapped in tightly coiled wire on the counter.
Whitney slid a cutting board and knife over to me. “Chop this.” She tossed me an array of herbs.
I spotted lavender and basil among a bunch I didn’t recognize. They smelled flowery and a little musky, too. “What are these?” I pointed to several unfamiliar herbs of various shapes and textures.
“The special ingredient.”
“Where’s Kingston?” Chess asked, shaking some spices into the blender.
“Finishing up a sale.”
“Does he work at the Garden Center, too?”
Whitney snorted. “No. He’ll be here in a sec. Then we’ll have a little huddle.”
I chopped the herbs until Whitney snatched them away and added them to the blender. Chess angled his body over the fridge and pulled out some kind of murky liquid without submitting himself to a bloodletting ritual. He boiled the liquid on the stove and added some other ingredients that looked like cherries and coffee beans. Then Whitney dumped the contents of the blender into the pot. I watched in awe, trying to figure out this odd recipe.
Kingston arrived fifteen minutes later, wearing a cowboy hat. Whitney poured the foamy substance from the stove into the four glasses. They each grabbed one and left the last, shaped like a perfume bottle, stopper and all, on the counter with no further instructions. I clutched the delicate glass in my hands, unstopped it, and brought it to my lips.
Definitely the same stuff from the other day. Healthy but dangerous at the same time. Like them.
“Here’s the deal, Alice,” Whitney leaned against the counter. “You kept your mouth shut. Noted.”
“But you still fucked everything up.” Kingston watched me like he was trying to dissect me with his eyes. I diverted my gaze.
Whitney shot him a look. “Language.” She turned back to me. “We like to be a little more incognito than that.”
“I know. I didn’t know what I was supposed to do. I mean—”
“You think we have instructions?” Whitney scoffed. “That’s not how this works.”
I snapped my mouth shut.
“I checked with the plants. They’re against her.” Kingston plopped into a chair and put his shoes up on the kitchen table. He talked to plants. Why was I not surprised? “For the record, my vote’s still no.”
Chess met my eyes. “Well, mine’s still yes.”
“I feel like I always have to do everything around here.” Whitney stomped over to Kingston. There were only three seats around the table—a musical-chairs art installation?—so she scooted in beside her stepbrother and gestured at the empty seats.
“Really, I won’t mess things up anymore.” I plopped into one. “I respect what you’re doing. You’re making a difference.”
Kingston pointed a finger-gun at me. “You have no idea what we’re doing. You just assume you do.”
Chess kept telling me the same thing. Maybe I really was only seeing what I wanted to see.
“We each have a purpose.” Whitney tipped the cup to her mouth and took a long drink, spilling a drop on Kingston’s lap. He pushed her off his seat and more liquid sloshed over the rim. “I create the missions and provide supplies. Kingston is our security guard, and he funds our projects.” Whitney hopped onto the table. “And Chess—”
“Is the muscle?” He twisted his hands around his mug. “The brains?”
“I was going to say motivation.” She shifted her vision to me. “Anyway, Alice, we—”
“How does Kingston provide the funds?” I asked, only because I saw where Whitney was going: they had all the bases covered, so they didn’t need me. I needed to distract them until I could think of something I could offer that they didn’t already have.
Kingston coughed several times in succession. “There’s no way I trust you with that information.”
What did that mean? I pressed my lips together as I thought back to Chess’s earlier comment about catching Whitney pilfering seeds. I could easily see this group justifying stealing from corporations to fund their projects.
“Whit, we discussed giving her another chance,” Chess said.
“Did you tell them about my parents?” I asked him. Kingston rolled his eyes, like I was about to tell them this was my way of rebelling over their restrictions against having a boy in my room or something equally lame.
Whitney squinted at Chess. “No. Is there something I should know?”
“I didn’t think it was relevant.” Chess shrugged.
“It is!” I slapped the table in my excitement.
“So you do know the meaning of it. That proves it.” Kingston pointed at me.
“She’s a liar. She lied before.”
I ignored him. “This isn’t some fluke thing for me. Chess’s dad and my parents used to have a group like yours. I can prove it. I found a photo album with evidence.”
Whitney leaned forward. “I’m listening.”
I opened my mouth and shut it again. “But that’s it. I just meant that it’s . . . in my genes to be part of your group.” I held my breath and tried to keep my face steady instead of shattering from anticipation.
“No, about the photo album. I’d like to see it. And anything else you can find about the stuff your parents organized.” She pursed her lips. “Chess, you should have told me this.”
I shifted in my chair. “Um, okay, but . . . why?”
“All questions can’t have answers. Or at least ones I want to share.”
“Can I exchange the album for . . . membership?”
Kingston bolted from his chair, banging his mug down on the table. My teeth clattered together. “That’s it? You’re going to let her in because she may have some information? We already tried with Mr. Katz and got nowhere, which is exactly where this will get us.”
I contorted my eyes and lips into an expression that would best crown me as an angel, halo and all.
“This is the wrong path,” Kingston continued. “The right one’s not even visible. It’s covered with leaves and twigs.”
“You do realize we’re inside, right?” Whitney kicked him with her foot.
“Only temporarily.”
Whitney nodded as if that made sense. “Well, it’s not just the information. There are some bigger things we’ve wanted to do that we could use an extra hand on. Like that parking lot that used to be the nuclear-power plant?”
I expected Kingston to whine about that with some lame excuse, but he sighed melodramatically like a little kid who didn’t get his way. What could have possibly made him give in all of a sudden?
“All right, Alice.” Whitney drummed her fingers on the table. “We’re going to do something tonight. We could use you, but we can’t get caught and we can’t mess up.”
I swallowed hard. Perfection and I weren’t exactly cohorts in our endeavors. Usually I lagged behind someone else’s lead. Second in the class. Third wheel in friendships. Fourth in their group.
“You get info on a need-to-know basis.” Kingston shot me a smile that revealed a thin, blue line above his gums. He coughed again and took a sip of green liquid.
“It’s a probationary period,” Whitney clarified.
I chugged my foamy, green drink, hoping it would give me some kind of liquid courage, like spinach for Popeye. I knew something interesting was sure to happen if I drank this liquid. “I’m in.”
Whitney pushed herself off the table. “I have to get some supplies upstairs. Want to start loading the car, guys?”
“Send Alice to get the supplies.” Kingston flicked his wrist at me.
Whitney swirled her mug along the glass table, leaving behind streaks of green. “Yeah, it’s probably good if you’re out of the way for a few minutes.”
“Whatever you need.”
“Fetch me my gardening gloves. There’s also a fan somewhere; get that, too. Then wait there until we’re ready.”
“Where are they?” I stood up.
Whitney shrugged. “I can organize missions, not myself.”
The three of them led me to the foyer and disappeared around the bend without another word. Upstairs, several closed doors lined the hallway. A picture of a skull and crossbones hung from the first door. How unoriginal. Must be Kingston’s; he didn’t strike me as a burgeoning well of creativity. I opened the only unpainted door in the hallway, the one going against the status quo.
A floral, earthy scent attacked my nose. Palm trees shielded Whitney’s bed in a canopy. Flowers sprung from open drawers, nestled into soil instead of clothes. Above her bed, an enlarged architectural drawing took up the length of one entire blue-painted wall. A blown-up blueprint. Pushpins of varying colors stuck out in specific spots with tiny, almost-illegible handwriting scrawled beneath. Symbols that looked like crude hieroglyphics marked info I couldn’t decipher beside each pushpin.
Curiouser and curiouser. A secret code for a secret society.
I climbed onto the bed. Each of the pushpins identified a target. I recognized some of the red ones from Lorina’s information file. Large blocks of black marker censored whatever information Whitney had written under the location titles. My finger traced from the red pin by the school creek to the green one marking the school itself. Paragraphs of text remained visible and untainted.
Ideas to cut off power supply: flood school so water damages wire. Maybe with creek?
My skin tingled. These words had been crossed out with a single pen stroke. So the creek mission had nothing to do with irrigating the land? If so, why did that seem to be checked off with a red pushpin?
New plan. Cut wires? How to do w/out getting fried or caught? No access in teachers’ lounge. K checking other areas.
That was why she’d snuck into the lounge that day? Not to steal supplies but to look for a power source?
Outside, a car door slammed, and I jumped. Last thing I needed was to get caught snooping. I headed over to her messy desk and rifled through some of her papers. My fingers traced over math problems and AP chemistry lab reports. Underneath one stack, I found the battery-operated fan Whitney’d been using the other day, like the kind I used on hot summer days outside in the garden. Fan down, gloves to go.
The sounds of hushed voices, a car trunk opening, and a few sharp thuds provided guidance to the others’ progress. My hands dangled at my sides as I looked around, trying to think like Whitney. Finally, I spotted a pair of mud-encased gloves hanging from the back of her door as footsteps stomped on the stairs.
“Here, put this on.” Whitney tossed me a black hoodie with a white-flowering vine crawling up the back. “It’ll conceal your hair.”
I lifted the hood over my head. As we walked toward the car, I snuck a glance at the foyer mirror. No longer would I be mistaken for a goody-goody. I looked like I belonged with Whitney and her friends.
As I slipped into the back seat of Kingston’s truck, I caught a glimpse of the clock and immediately tried to forget what I’d just seen. I told myself I was already in enough trouble with Lorina; a little more wouldn’t make much of a difference. Kingston caught me looking. “Now who’s angry with time?”
“It’s later than I thought.”
“Of course it is.” He tapped the digital numbers. “This clock is precisely two days late.”
Chess filed in beside me. I scooted an inch toward him. “What are we doing?”
“We like to call it reforestation. Opposite of deforestation.”
“Clever. Another drive-by planting at an abandoned warehouse?”
“Something like that,” Whitney said from the passenger seat. “Not a warehouse this time.”
“I love what you’re doing. Taking all these dead and lifeless places and giving them new life.”
“That’s not the point of this.” Chess shrugged in an offhand way.
“If only it were,” Kingston said. “Then maybe I’d wake up.”
My knee rested against Chess’s denim-covered leg. So casual, he probably didn’t even notice, but somehow it felt close. It took all my willpower not to press my knee harder into his and see if he registered it.
We passed by LEGO building after LEGO building in the sprawling landscape of Wonderland, pressed so close together they were almost attached. The farms that had once existed here were now fairy-tale myths. The site of the old nuclear-power plant Whitney had mentioned was now just vast pavement, littered with a few stray cars. As we drove to our destination, my knee bounced up and down. This high was greater than any triple-espresso shot. “Thanks for letting me come.”
“You might think differently if the police show up.” Whitney tugged the cords of her hoodie tighter to conceal her hair.
“Jail? Not fun.” Kingston gunned the engine. “All those jokes about not dropping the soap bar? I didn’t even get a freaking soap bar.”
I swallowed. I had been hoping his mug shot was Photoshopped. “Why’d you go to jail?”
“Botched mission,” Whitney said.
“I took one for the team.” His voice contained more pep than a can of Red Bull. “Maybe next time you’ll be the one who has to sacrifice.”
Was that why they had let me in? Chess nudged his leg against mine to stop it from shaking.
“Kingston, stop trying to scare her,” he warned. But it was too late. My heart raced and my throat felt tight. I was officially terrified.
CHAPTER 10
I had expected the mission to take place in a dilapidated part of town. Warehouses with broken windows, and asbestos seeping into the air. Some dead place we could bring to life. It had never occurred to me this mission might be the opposite. Some newborn place we would destroy.
We parked in front of a set of brand-new houses, each with construction stickers plastered in the windows. “Sold” signs sprouted out of the manicured lawns. This particular cul-de-sac was a replica of several others we had driven by. A virginal development, not yet broken in by the living.
“What’s wrong with this place?” Even my feet hitting the pavement couldn’t disguise the panic in my voice. “I mean, I was happy when they built it.”
Three sets of eyes narrowed at me.
“Because of the solar panels on the roofs?” My head volleyed back and forth between them. “It’s environmentally friendly!”
This was Wonderland’s answer to the energy problem. Citizens fed up with living like vampires in their houses were snatching up the new properties in less time than it took to build them. Since housing prices in the rest of Wonderland had dropped so low, I’d heard rumors that a lot of young, fresh-out-of-college families were bidding as soon as they went on the market. The social class was always greener on the other side.
“Not even six months ago, this place,” Whitney stabbed her finger toward the houses, “used to be a farm.”
“A fucking great farm with a lot of land that provided crops to several cities in the area.” Kingston unloaded a plant from the back of the truck and set it on the ground.
