The Night Children

by Kit Reed

  These two, on the other hand, are runaways, and tough ones at that. Jiggy and Nance are older than most of the lost and abandoned children Tick shepherds here in the echoing Romanesque-themed sector of the tremendous mall. Nance is thirteen, and Jiggy’s almost as old as Tick.

  They have changed everything with one stupid act.

  Until tonight, Tick’s little band was safe in their sector of the sprawling complex. There are other gangs, he knows, in outlying areas, but they keep to themselves.

  Until tonight, he and his Crazies lived quietly, far below Security’s radar; nobody knew they were here.

  Now Jiggy and Nance have brought the Dingos down on them, and Security? It’s only a matter of time.

  The two of them weren’t being malicious, lacing the lobby of the sector’s 3D/360 Megaplex with loops of monofilament—after all, the place is supposed to be deserted, right? They stuck their heads into the biggest movie house, yelling, “FIRE!” The Dingo Tribe came boiling out. Two dozen Dingos hurtled into the lobby and got fouled in yards and yards of transparent fishing line. Flailing Dingos tripped and crashed on the marble, all but Burt Arno, who took out after Jiggy and brought him down. Instead of beating the salt out of the pair, he rubbed crank case oil in Jigg’s hair, sawed off Nance’s braids and sent them home with this note.

  “You know what this means.” Scowling, Tick shakes out the red blanket that signals: WAR COUNCIL.

  Where they had been jabbering and laughing, excited to go out and play in the nighttime mall, the Castertown Crazies drag bedrolls and pillows into the circle and sit down facing Tick. Scruff y in T-shirts and baggy jeans, ragtag outfits assembled from mall castoffs, they wait. They watch Tick with white, white faces. It’s been years since anybody here has been out in the sun. Nobody who lives here and wants to stay here without getting caught goes out in broad daylight in the Castertown MegaMall. It’s Tick’s job to keep his people fed and safe and out of sight, and now Jiggy and Nance have put everything at risk.

  “War,” kids mumble uncertainly.

  Tick says, “Not if I can help it.”

  “Look what they did to me.” Jiggy’s voice zigzags. “We have to fight!”

  “No. We have to make a plan.”

  A war council is the last thing Tick wants to have right now, but here they are. The little band is his to take care of because he’s the oldest. He’s lived in the MegaMall from the beginning. He was here even before Opening Day. Ask Tick Stiles what happened and he’ll say it’s none of your business, when the truth is, he doesn’t exactly know. He was five, he came in with his mom and dad for the Employee Preview Party, the big gold card from Zozzco got the Stiles family into the pre-opening celebration because his parents did some of the most important blueprints for the MegaMall and this was the mysterious Mr. Zozz’s way of saying thanks.

  There was silver lettering and Mom read it aloud. As a special thanks for all their hard work on the project, designers, builders and their families would have the run of the mall.

  Before it opens. Dad’s face was shining. Mom beamed. They loved him. They were pleased and proud. What an honor. What a treat!

  THIS IS HOW TICK got a seat in the Tiny Train for the inaugural ride. Grownups were too big for the caboose so Mom and Dad stood back, smiling and waving as the attendant strapped him in. When the train stopped after the first circuit of the amusement plaza and Tick got out, both of his parents were gone. First he thought it was a mistake. So many other children were getting off and going home with their families that nobody noticed one leftover boy. Tick called and hunted and hunted and called. Then he wandered the plaza until night fell and the place emptied out.

  Dad had taught him, If you get lost, stay in one place so we can come back and find you, so Tick settled down in the MegaMall to wait. He never guessed it would be years. How did he know to stay out of sight? He couldn’t tell you. He only knew that Zozzco Security was not here to help him. He saw what they did to a couple of kids who went crying for their parents. They caught them in nets and dragged them away. These people are bad. Small as he was, he hid out in a furniture store near the food court; there were so many half-eaten dinners and abandoned pizzas that he never went hungry.

  Over the years Tick ate, he read, he looked at videos and listened in on the grownups talking in the MegaMall, a hundred thousand strangers with a million ideas—interesting!—and the more he looked and listened, the more he learned.

  Tick Stiles hasn’t spent a day in school since he got lost but unlike Burt Arno, he is sharp. Things that kids like Burt can spin out lifetimes not learning, Tick knows.

  Mom and Dad have been gone for so long now that he’s forgotten what they look like. He misses them, but in a strange, abstract way, like a wonderful idea he used to have and forgot.

  The MegaMall is his home and family now. It’s been ten years. Over time Tick has found others—children who were lost or accidentally left behind or quite simply ditched by grownups who were sick of taking care of them; runaways, like Jiggy and Nance. He works hard to keep his little band well fed and comfortable and safe, but now . . .

  The meeting is over. James, who’s been here almost as long as Tick, says, “So, we have to lie low for a while.”

  Tick says uneasily, “I hope that’s all we have to do.”

  The small ones shift and grumble because they know what’s coming. It’s what they have to do every time they’re threatened with exposure, and the Dingos present a huge threat. They like this hideout. Nobody wants to move.

  Willie Haskell, who in the lineup of old-timers in the Crazies living under cover has been here almost as long as James, asks, “What are we going to do?”

  “Not sure,” Tick says. “Depends. Nance, were you guys followed?”

  She shakes her head.

  “Jigg?”

  “No!”

  “You sure?”

  Jiggy’s voice rises. “I told you, no!”

  Somebody says, “Yeah, like you’d even notice, you’re so dumb.”

  Somebody else says, “You never should have showed yourself in the first place.”

  “We didn’t show ourselves.” Jiggy says, louder, “We didn’t! It happened. I’m sorry, OK?”

  “Quiet,” Tick says. “Keep it down.”

  Somebody else mutters, “Like he even knows how.”

  A girl says, “What ever happened to Lie low?”

  This is the story of their lives here.

  Lie low? It’s the rule.

  The Castertown Crazies don’t go out in the daytime. Go out when there are shoppers and clerks around and you start looking maybe a little too familiar. Clerks and daytime Security men see you and after a while they start to remember: What, you here again? Once they recognize you, somebody’s going to figure out just exactly who you are.

  No. That you are here too often. Like, all the time.

  That you don’t have a home they can send you back to; you live here, in the Castertown MegaMall. When you’re living on your own in a place where nobody is supposed to be living at all, you can’t afford to attract attention. If grownups find you they will come at you with social workers. The State Home.

  The night children sleep in the day and play after hours. By night they can do anything they want in the halls and courtyards, as long as they take care. Avoid the cameras. Keep it down. They can have footraces over the bridges or run their bikes down the marble stairs, but even the most disciplined kids get restless.

  Long, quiet days in the hideout get on their nerves.

  Somebody decides on the spur that he’s hungry or she needs something: “I’ll only be gone a minute.” “It’s almost closing time.” “Come on, Tick, it’s a big mall. Who’s going to notice one more kid?”

  Then they come skidding back into headquarters with mall Security on their tails and Tick and the others have to grab what they can and scatter until it’s safe.

  The colony is always on the move.

  In a place where businesses o
pen and close overnight and new businesses take their time moving in, this isn’t hard. For now, the Castertown Crazies are living in the big empty space left by Sligo Sporting Goods, a store that went bankrupt overnight. There wasn’t even time for a clearance sale. Management left behind a rack of fleeces, some tents and an entire case of sleeping bags. It’s the best place Tick and his colony have found so far, and the most comfortable he’s been since he was five years old and living at home.

  Like all defunct businesses, the shell of the sports store is protected by a false front, so passersby won’t see what’s inside. The false front is painted to look like just another wall, instead of a store that has died. As long as the front is unchanged, Tick’s colony is safe, but they’re never comfortable anywhere for long.

  One of these nights he’ll go out and find a fresh sign:

  COMING SOON

  NEW BOUTIQUE/MUSIC STORE/

  INTERNET CAFE

  He always does. It always happens sooner or later, and Tick and his people have to move. The Dingos have just pushed up the deadline, is all. This, as far as Tick is concerned, is the downside of living here in the MegaMall. They never stay anywhere for long.

  Still, it’s little enough to pay for freedom. The freedom is intense.

  From 10 p.m. when the cleaning crews leave until 8 a.m. when they come back, this endless tangle of escalators and balconies and bridges and food courts and marble courtyards is dead empty, except for Security guys sleeping in front of their monitors and the restless colonies of night children like this one, roving the Mega-Mall in sectors far from the one where the Castertown Crazies play.

  There are no adults around to complain about roughness or language or razor scooters on marble, and nobody to tell them what to do. The Crazies can dance in the galleries and go wading in the fountain if they want to. They can do everything but flap their arms and fly. Tick has the guards’ schedules by heart and as long as they do no damage and avoid the surveill cameras, the MegaMall is theirs. It’s like being king of the world.

  At this point Tick would want to make clear to you that the Castertown Crazies live off the land but they earn their keep. They scavenge, yes, but they never steal. If you live in a place where too many people come with too much money, you can make plenty feeding deposit bottles to the return machines. The big kids pick up a little money sweeping out various establishments for a few dollars at the end of the day as long as they’re careful not to work for the same person twice. There’s the occasional tip they get for helping overloaded shoppers carry their purchases to a monorail port and making sure all the packages make it on board. The rest they make up by collecting crumpled bills that fall out of distracted tourists when they have too many shopping bags and lose their grip on their change.

  The money goes into a pot to buy milk and other necessaries for the smalls. Tick knows it’s better to travel light but when you run into a lost child you do what you can, particularly when it’s somebody too little to take care of himself.

  Right now he and the others are looking after tiny Doakie Jinks and Jane, at least until their parents come back for them.

  It’s a good life. All they have to do is avoid the cameras; no problem. After closing the Security guards hole up in glass booths. They make one round of the corridors at the final bell. Then it’s back to the booth. They love to doze in front of their monitors, munching curly fries, half-watching their dizzying banks of TV screens.

  Dodge Security and the cameras and the Crazies can do anything they want—or they could until the Dingos moved in on them a few months ago, disrupting everything. They came roaring out of their lair the first night they moved in here and brought out Security.

  After the Crazies yanked them off the scene, Tick and Burt faced off in the service corridor. “You can’t stay. You almost got us all caught.”

  “Why should we go?” Burt was too stupid or too lazy to colonize a new place. He set his meaty jaw, snarling, “You go.”

  Tick knows when to push and when to lay back. He asked, “You think you know where the surveill cameras are, what brings Security out, all that?”

  “Um.” Burt blinked. No idea. “Um.”

  “OK. Keep down, keep your people quiet and you can hang in until you learn. Deal?”

  “Deal.” And it was, until tonight. Now he wants to force Tick out in the open so he can have his stupid confrontation and, right. Bring Security down on them.

  Studying the circle of faces, Tick considers. Stay in this hideout they’ve grown to love, or go before Burt catches up with them? His head lifts. There’s a sound outside—too slight to be noticed by anybody but Tick. With a wave, he silences the others. He goes to the opening and slips out. In seconds, he’s back. He is holding something, but the others are too stirred up to notice.

  Jiggy whines, “So are you going to fight the Dingos or what?”

  James asks in a low voice, “Are you going to do this meeting?”

  “I have to. After we get everybody safe in a new place. Look.” Tick is holding a red cardboard arrow. “The Dingos nailed this to the door.”

  James groans. “To bring Security down on us.”

  Tick nods. “Pack it all up. We’re moving out.”

  So the sad little procedure begins. Kids deciding how much they can carry. Kids making piles of things they can take and sighing over things they will have to leave behind. They shrug on favorite clothing—knitted caps, extra shirts, stuffing their pockets with necessaries like soap and underwear and favorite toys.

  They are lined up to move out when Willie says, “Wait!”

  Alarmed by his tone, Tick turns.

  “I just counted noses.” Willie grimaces. “Doakie’s gone.”

  THREE

  CURLED UP IN HER glass capsule halfway between the ground and the sky, Jule drifts between sleep and consciousness while memories flicker like movies on the back wall of her head.

  High above, far below and all around her, the Mega-Mall sprawls where there used to be nothing but empty prairie and a dying town. With Aunt Christy gone, she’d just as soon be here as anywhere, safe in the heart of her second home.

  There are weird things about the MegaMall, she knows, but in addition to being the brightest spot in the flat prairie landscape, the tremendous shopping compound with its domes and spires saved the citizens of poor old Castertown.

  In the old, old days people used to flock to Castertown to buy cedar chests. Everybody was happy and everything was fine. Then cedar chests went out of style. They kept rolling out of the factory all the same, but Castertown sold fewer and fewer every year. Unwanted cedar chests piled up in the warehouse by the river until there wasn’t room for even one more. Workmen piled the extras on a giant bonfire. The factory closed. Overnight, the whole town was out of a job.

  Jule lived at home with a real mother and father back in those days. Mommy and Daddy designed cedar chests. After the factory closed, they patched their clothes and ate what they could afford. They didn’t have much but Jule had Mommy and Daddy and everything was fine. Then a black Learjet landed in the middle of the bleak prairie and changed history.

  On the anniversary of the Grand Opening, they still show the Zozzco documentary in all the Castertown schools.

  In the video, a frame comes up: THE FIRST DAY.

  First there is nothing but the prairie. Then the Learjet lands. A white limousine and four black ones roll down ramps into the open plain. They are bringing officials of the Zozzco Corporation to City Hall.

  There is a drumroll. Isabella Zozz steps out of the white limousine. The high collar of her white uniform is studded with diamonds. There are six wide gold stripes on the right sleeve. The cameras follow her into the mayor’s office, where she makes a speech. She brings an offer from her father, the rich and mysterious Amos Zozz.

  It will make the city rich.

  How could we refuse?

  The grownups won’t say exactly what Amos asked for in return, not even today. Well, there wa
s rights to the entire prairie, but that isn’t the whole thing. Nobody will say how, but the whole town is involved. The Town Council went to night meetings that nobody talked about. They signed secret papers. The Casterown MegaMall popped up on the prairie like a great glass city. Now everybody is rich, or most people are.

  Nobody has ever seen Amos Zozz, and people say there are good reasons. Instead, a portrait of swanky, energetic Isabella, his famous daughter, hangs in Town Hall.

  Suddenly Jule’s parents had all the money they needed. They were happy, making new designs for something that was a lot bigger than a cedar chest. They were in charge of a very special project for the MegaMall. They bought her a bunny fur coat with a matching muff. Every night they came home from work with presents. Aunt Christy moved back from New York City to look after Jule while Mommy and Daddy went off to their new jobs. Every grownup in Castertown was working around the clock, getting ready for the Grand Opening, which was on April sixth.

  She remembers exactly because on April fifth her parents disappeared.

  Noise woke her in the night. Outside, car doors were slamming, boom, boom, boom. The front door rattled. People came in. She heard them muttering in the front hall. Later she heard shouting. She woke up the next morning and Mommy and Daddy were gone. She kept asking where were they, what happened, what happened, until Aunt Christy cried, “Don’t, honey. Please don’t.” She was fake-smiling, but Jule thinks Aunt Christy was afraid. Her eyes were red and weird. “Please stop crying.”

  Jule sobbed and sobbed. “I can’t.”

  “Well, try. I’ll take you someplace wonderful, I promise.”

  “I want Mommy.”

  “You’ll love it. You’ll see, if you’ll just hush.”