“I just feel . . . If Lois—she’s the librarian, the one who”—Cassandra was nodding, so he skipped ahead—“if I could convince her Celia wasn’t dangerous. I wish they would talk to each other. I’m not making any progress with my admonition.”
“They can’t help you with your admonition. If something is worth doing, it is usually difficult, and often you must do it by yourself. Your labyrinth keeper knows this, because she has been through it many times herself. Don’t blame her for not understanding Ambassadors. Most of your Kind never meet one their entire lives.”
“Why did you call her a labyrinth keeper?”
Cassandra stared at him, amusement in her eyes. “Think about it.”
Bruno decided to puzzle over that description later. “So why have I met two of you? Two Ambassadors?”
“That is a good question, and possibly the best one you have asked me so far.” Cassandra grew serious. “You have realized I don’t always share everything I know. But in this case I don’t have anything to keep secret. It is unusual enough that so many of you have gravitated toward your school recently—on both sides, good and evil, Kind and Unkind. And it is particularly unusual that an Ambassador was called to be in attendance there. Without knowing for sure, I believe this: A conflict has begun, one that will take on a size and a scale much greater than one person’s admonition or another person’s desire for power. It is very early, but our world is a sentient one, and it senses what is coming and works to maintain equilibrium.”
“What does that mean?” Bruno braced for a quixotic answer.
“Last year at Suburban there was a Kind—Mariette— an Unkind—the crocodile teacher—and an Ambassador—Celia. A tidy balance, right? This year there are two Kinds—you and the labyrinth keeper—plus the specter of a Kind, and an Ambassador. If you have been assembled to maintain a balance, doesn’t that suggest there is probably also at least one Unkind lurking around there?”
“Oh . . .” Bruno’s eyes widened. “Of course.” Unkind were hiding at Suburban! Who could they be?
“So you have two challenges, don’t you? Actually, I think you have three. First, you must decipher your admonition and fulfill it, so you will grow stronger. Next, you must be very careful not to be surprised by an Unkind, and you must do whatever you can to discover who they are.”
“And third?”
“You must work with your Ambassador, who is learning her role at the same time you are learning yours.”
“You can’t help us?”
“It is not a question of whether I can help you. It is a question of whether I should. If I was supposed to play that kind of role, I would have been summoned to Suburban myself. Since I haven’t, I must be careful not to do things for you that you— and Celia—must rightfully do yourselves. Believe me, that was difficult enough for me with Celia last year.
“You should go. Patrick is about to play ‘Everywhere’ by Cranes, and Celia will be dancing. You don’t want to miss a moment like that, do you?” Cassandra put her hand over Bruno’s on the couch between them, then laughed when Bruno shifted uncomfortably. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have touched you!”
Bruno mumbled goodbye and made his way back to Patrick’s room, but before he reached it, a figure stepped out of the darkness under the stairs.
“There you are.” It was one of the St. Dymphna boys, broken away from the flock, looking exotic and slightly sinister. He was only a little taller than Bruno, and he made eye contact with Bruno in a way few boys did. In his black faux-horsehair pants, houndstooth check shirt, and closely cropped hair, he might have been Bruno’s brother.
“What? Who are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. We find you interesting, and when I saw you leave I thought it might be a good opportunity to talk to you alone.”
“You’re from St. Dymphna’s?”
“Tomasi told you. I’m Turlington.”
“Bruno.” He felt awkward shaking Turlington’s hand. “What do you want to talk about?”
“Anything, really. Do you know Tomasi well?”
“Kind of, yes. Don’t you? You go to school with him.”
“We do, but he keeps to himself. Barely talks to anyone. The stunning tall girl is his girlfriend, right?”
“Yes.” Bruno hated saying it.
“That makes sense. We hoped he might be flexible, but it didn’t seem likely.”
“Flexible?”
“You know.” Turlington put his hand on Bruno’s shoulder and let it wander down his arm. “How about you? You’re pretty friendly with the gay one.”
“No, no. I mean, I am friendly with—How did you know he’s gay?”
“C’mon, it’s not that hard. There’s nothing wrong with that. You are straight, aren’t you?” Turlington’s hand left Bruno’s arm. “Well, we won’t hold that against you. Several of us are more flexible on one side than the other. If you ever want to talk—if you ever want to freak your friends out—come over to our side. That other girl and boy don’t seem to like you very much anyway.”
“That’s my brother,” Bruno said.
Turlington shrugged. “See you around.” He turned to the stairs and went back up.
As if this place isn’t strange enough, Bruno thought, following Turlington at a safe distance. And did he just come on to me?
8
doubts even here
“WHERE ARE WE, THEN? Just a continent will be fine.” Geography class was the worst. If he paid attention, it was information he already knew. If he let his thoughts wander, it only provoked Mr. Williams.
Bruno hadn’t been daydreaming that long. “South America.”
“Are you as well versed in, say, the rivers of Chile as you are in European mountain ranges and the Pacific Rim?”
“You want to know the rivers in Chile? There are a lot . . . I don’t know if I’ll say them right, but there’s the Baker, the Loa, Bio-Bio, Maipo—”
Mr. Williams cut him off. “So with all those rivers, Chile must have a very strong agricultural output, right?”
“Well, in the south, I think so, but the north is all desert—the Atacama.”
“Mr. Perilunas, I thank you for bringing us up to date. If you had been paying attention, you would have heard me say exactly that, thirty seconds ago. See me after class.”
Mr. Williams allowed the class their moment of amusement and then moved on. Bruno stewed in his seat. When the class was over, he went up to Mr. Williams’s desk.
“I won’t say that I’m not impressed with your knowledge of geography, but I’ve already told you I am not keen on you just being a warm body that doesn’t pay attention in my class. What are we going to do about this?”
“I don’t know. I don’t mean to. I try to pay attention.”
“You don’t pay attention because this material isn’t challenging you. My job as your teacher is to teach you something. If you already know this material, I’ll teach you something else. Do you have any ideas?”
Bruno looked around, unsure what to say.
“My guess is it would have to be something that doesn’t have to do with maps, since you seem to know those like the back of your hand,” Mr. Williams offered. “Do you know how to draw buildings? Like, floor plans?”
“I’ve done some drafting. Perhaps something like urban planning, then? It’s not exactly geography, but there’s a connection.”
“I’d like to learn about that,” Bruno said.
“All right. Give me a couple days to come up with a lesson plan, and we’ll do it. But you understand, you have to keep an A in geography, and this is over and above that.”
This proposal from Mr. Williams was a surprise, and as Bruno headed to his next class, he got nervous. What was the warning in his admonition?
Beware the walking crocodile
Who finds you guilty with no trial
Be sure to travel in short steps
What that one thinks will take a mile.
Mr. Williams didn’t quite fit tha
t description, but ever since Cassandra had convinced Bruno that Unkind were hiding at Suburban, he suspected everyone. Was he gaining a resource to help with his admonition, or was he straying into a trap he had been warned to avoid?
THE WAIL OF AN AMBULANCE disrupted second period, and by lunch everyone had heard how a girl had been found in the bathroom and taken to the hospital to have her stomach pumped. There were different stories about the pills, but the version Bruno believed was that she hadn’t taken anything that would have killed her, only large quantities of things like aspirin and cold tablets. Everyone blamed Mariette, even though the depressed girl hadn’t said anything about receiving a note from her.
Marco found him in the hall between classes. “Poor girl. It’s sad, right?” He threw his arm around Bruno’s shoulder. “Who knows if Mariette had anything to do with it. It’s not like teenagers don’t ever get depressed.”
“How do you help someone like that?”
“I don’t know. We could start by being happy ourselves. For example, we need to find you a girlfriend. C’mon, you’re in high school!” Marco added when Bruno started to protest. “What’s keeping you?”
“I’m just thinking about other things,” Bruno said weakly.
“You’re an adolescent male—there is nothing else! You’re still hooked on Celia, aren’t you? You have great taste, but dude, you have to let that go.”
“I don’t . . .” Bruno couldn’t muster a defense.
“There’s no one else around here? Just keep your eyes open, okay? Do you even talk to anyone in your class?”
“Sure,” Bruno said, struggling to remember the last time he had. “Wait, do you talk to your classmates?”
“Well, I guess not,” Marco admitted, laughing. “I’m friendly enough, but old habits die hard. Most days last year I only really talked to Brenden, Celia, Liz, Ivo, and Regine. Now Regine and Silver are always off whispering to each other. I do miss the way it used to be.”
“Well, I don’t know music like you guys do, but feel free to talk to me about it.”
“Okay then, let’s see . . . How about favorite alternative love song?”
“Hm.” Bruno thought. “‘Lovesong’ by the Cure is too obvious, isn’t it?”
“Yes!” Marco laughed. “Regine would say ‘The Last Beat of My Heart’ by Siouxsie and the Banshees. Brenden would say ‘This Love’ by Craig Armstrong and Elizabeth Fraser. What would I say? How about the Smiths’ ‘Please, Please, Please, Let Me Get What I Want.’”
“‘Somebody’ by Depeche Mode,” Bruno said.
“Oh, yeah, good call. You’ve been listening to them?” Bruno nodded. “Their old stuff is absolutely brilliant. Have you heard ‘Get the Balance Right!’ yet?”
“No, I’ll have to find that one.”
“See, I miss this! This is why I don’t bother to talk to other people around here. I can’t have these conversations with anyone else.”
“You don’t seem unhappy.”
“You don’t seem unhappy, either. But it wouldn’t hurt you to have a romantic life. How about at Diaboliques? Is there anyone there?”
“When did you turn into a matchmaker?” Bruno asked.
VAN WAS TRAILING BRUNO down the hall. No matter how firmly he’d resolved to not be intimidated by him, Bruno felt his internal organs rearrange. He broke into a run.
“Hey!” Van thundered behind him down the hall and into the stairwell. He was only half a flight back when Bruno turned down to the basement level and rounded the corner by the mechanical room. Van hurtled down the stairs after him, calling triumphantly, “There’s nowhere to go down there!”
To Bruno’s great relief, the mysterious second stairwell awaited him, and as he sprinted up it, he wondered what Van would see when he rounded the corner—a dark cul-de-sac of tiled walls? Bruno imagined him stopping short, probably swearing, then retreating, unsure of what had happened.
Bruno slowed his pace when he turned on the landing up to the ground floor, trying not to draw attention as he came up from the basement into the new wing. His heart still pounded and he made a beeline for the water fountain in the hall.
When he straightened up from the fountain, Van was there. They stared at each other. All Van’s bluster was gone, and he looked at Bruno in shock.
Then Van walked away. He didn’t go back into the stairwell. Bruno wondered where Van was supposed to be, and if it was on the other side of the school. So anyone can use the supernatural shortcut? How am I supposed to keep that a secret, then? Couldn’t anyone have wandered down to the basement and found it? Why hasn’t anyone else found it before now? Like the janitor?
IN THE LIBRARY BRUNO leaned in to Lois and said, “I need to talk to you.” Celia would have been his first choice, but he wasn’t sure how soon he’d be able to speak to her alone.
“What is it?” Lois asked him in her office.
“Something happened, and I think it’s bad. I told you about the secret shortcut I found between the Chancellor Wing and the new wing, through the basement? Well, someone just followed me through it.”
“Really?” Lois sat down.
“It’s a senior guy who likes to pick on me. He was chasing me, so I went down the stairwell and through the secret passage to get away from him. But he came out the other side behind me.”
“He saw you go through?”
“He was still coming down the stairs when I went through, and I figured when he turned the corner there wouldn’t be anything there.”
“So it’s not like he was right next to you and you took him through.” Bruno shook his head. “He went through by himself, then, separately. I’d say that means he’s Kind. I don’t think a citizen would be able to do that.”
“You think he’s Kind? I was thinking he was Unkind.”
“Oh—that could be, too.”
“I know you thought Celia was Unkind. Aren’t you supposed to be able to sense them or something?”
Lois put up her hands. “Bruno, I have to tell you. You know I’ve been Kind for about fifteen years. I got started later than you, but it’s been a while. And for fifteen years it’s been a very quiet, very solitary experience. I haven’t really known anyone else who was Kind. I’ve met one every once in a while, but I always had the sense that this was something people did by themselves. Everyone’s power is so different, and there are so many risks of exposure. I’m not looking to do anything amazing with my powers; I just like that I can clean things, move things around, keep things organized more easily.”
“That’s it? Keep things organized? But then why do you have so much trouble finding things in the library?”
“If you figure that one out, please tell me!” Lois smiled helplessly. “Everywhere else I am completely on top of it. A place for everything and everything in its place. But that only illustrates what I’m trying to tell you, though: The moment I arrived at Suburban, my whole experience of being Kind began to change. And that’s almost entirely because of you. Things are happening to you that have never happened to me in fifteen years. How to explain?” Lois looked around. “I had heard about the Ebentwine, Ambassadors, the Unkind, but after a while, when I hadn’t come into contact with any of those things myself, I just figured they were myths, fantastic embellishments on something that was pretty fantastic in the first place. But you keep coming in here and telling me things . . . I believe you, but I’m having trouble. I can’t be much help because you seem to know more than I do.
“It scares me a little. I’ve never been so nervous about being exposed. And being in this place, where I just feel off all the time . . .” Lois looked lonely and sad.
“I’m sorry,” Bruno said.
“Oh, don’t be. Whatever happens, I’m sure it will be interesting!” She managed a smile. “Just understand that it’s different for me, okay? In some ways we live in the world with everyone else. In other ways, though, this world is not made for you and me. And the alternate worlds we inhabit, just a few degrees left or right of t
he real world, may be as different from each other as they are from the ordinary world of the citizens around us.”
“I understand.”
“I want you to keep telling me all these things, because it’s fascinating, and I’m learning so much. And I do hope a time will come when I can help.”
“You have helped me. If it weren’t for you, I would have thought I was crazy.” They grinned at each other.
“Well, good, then. Now, about the Unkind senior. I really don’t know what the Unkind feels like, but I will pay attention. Who is it?”
“Van Mefferdy. You remember the day you found me outside the library and a guy was talking to me? That was Van.”
“Vaguely. His name is Van?”
“Somebody told me it’s actually Van Cliburn because his mother is a classical pianist or something. I don’t know if that’s true.”
“And he’s bullying you?”
“It’s not that bad. It never even crossed my mind that he could be Unkind, until he followed me up the stairs.”
“Maybe he isn’t, then. But I can’t imagine how he would follow you if he weren’t Kind or Unkind. Be careful. I don’t like this. I feel like I should do something.”
“I think I can handle it. But I’ll let you know if that changes.”
IN THE CAR ON THE WAY home Sylvio put on Kraftwerk and excitedly tapped the steering wheel in time with the music. “Did you have coffee or something?” Bruno asked him.
“No. I’m just thinking about this weekend. It’s fall break at Metropolitan, and Liz and Brenden are coming home. Ivo has to stay to work on a project or something. But Regine thinks after I meet Liz and Brenden, she’ll be able to convince them to let me officially join the Rosary.”
“Why does that matter so much to you?”
Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) Page 12
