CHAPTER 18
Outside Looking In
The door is unlocked when I wake.
I peek my head out, but the hall is empty.
Downstairs, I find Riley setting up the breakfast room, preparing for the day. He nods and says good morning, but mentions nothing about yesterday. After a quiet meal by myself of toast and eggs and tea, I wander outside. The camp is just waking up. A man stretching outside his tent yawns and waves at me. Another darts for the outhouse.
Inside the courtyard, the empty bleachers are littered with scraps of paper from yesterday’s betting. I sit and watch the pool of shadow disappear in the court below as the sun climbs in the sky, its warmth drawing a mist off the damp concrete.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
I’m startled by the voice and look up to see Bree sitting in the shade across from me.
“I like to come and see it like this,” she says. “In the morning. When it’s just a blank slate, and anything is possible.”
“Why does it mean so much to you? Winning, I mean.”
“It’s a huge honor,” she says. “The greatest honor on the island. We grow up idolizing past winners.”
“But why such an honor?” I ask. “Isn’t it just a game?”
“Just a game?” She shakes her head. “You guys must really have grown up isolated. After the fall harvest, we all gather here to pick the strongest athlete among us. The person who will be the island’s protector through the winter.”
“Then why would you help Jimmy?”
“Because I only want to win if I’m truly the best. You look like you’re feeling better today,” she adds, changing the subject.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing. Just that Jimmy was worried about you.”
“What do you care, anyway? All you care about is a stupid game. You don’t even know anything about me or Jimmy.”
“Maybe not,” she says. “But I know Jimmy was wrong.”
“Wrong about what?”
“Wrong about me liking you.”
She stands and walks away.
I sit for a long time by myself, just thinking about things. Eventually, people begin wandering in and taking seats. They avoid me, sitting as far away as possible until the bleachers are fairly crowded, leaving a wide, empty space on either side of me. I get up and walk out, brushing past Jimmy on his way into the courtyard.
“Good luck,” I mumble.
He stops and turns.
“Ya really mean it?”
I look at him, his face genuine and kind, his brows lifted, waiting for my reply, hoping I’m still on his side. He does look happy for the first time since the cove. It’s impossible to stay mad at him.
“Yeah, I mean it,” I say. “Good luck in there.”
His eyes sparkle with excitement. “Thanks, Aubrey.”
I can hear the balls cracking against the wall all day. When nobody is around inside, I try the statue room door, but it’s locked now. With everyone engrossed in the games, and Junior out running with the deerhounds, of which he quickly seems to be becoming one himself, I’m left by myself with nothing to do but think. Think and feel sad. I don’t know what to do.
The room where Riley brought Jimmy and me that first night in the castle seems to be the only place I can’t hear the cracking balls, so I sit and stare at the patterns of the rug, trying to make them fit together in my mind like puzzle pieces. Angus comes in a few times and adds wood to the fire, but he doesn’t say a word, of course, because he’s mute. Later, Riley brings in tea service and a platter of food and sets them on the table for me, smiling uncomfortably as he bows and takes his leave. But I’m not hungry, and I let the food sit uneaten.
I feel like a crazy person. Like I’m outside looking in. Like everyone is watching me from a distance, concerned but also afraid. I’m surrounded by people, but I’ve never felt so alone.
When I stand to leave, I catch my reflection in the window and realize that I look like a crazy person too. My hair is wild and unkempt, having been slept on several nights now without a bath, and my face is gaunt from hardly eating these last two days. I trudge upstairs, lie on my bed, and stare at the ceiling, watching a spider inch its way across it toward the far wall for who knows what spidery purpose.
Several hours later, the door opens, and Jimmy comes in. He flops onto the bed next to me and sighs.
“Man, am I beat.”
“What are you doing here?” I ask, sensing him looking at me, but not taking my eyes off the ceiling.
“I guess they needed my room for someone,” he says. “So now we’re bunkin’ together.”
“You mean they put us together so you can keep an eye on me?” After several minutes without an answer from Jimmy, I add: “How’d you do in the games today?”
Jimmy props himself up on his elbow and looks at me.
“You really wanna know?”
“I asked, didn’t I?”
“I did it,” he says, smiling. “I made it into the finals for tomorrow. Check out my hand.”
His palm is swollen, a puss-drenched piece of string threaded through an enormous blister.
“Bree used a needle to pull the string through. She said it’ll help drain it overnight without tearin’ the skin. Smart, huh?”
“Pretty smart,” I say, hating to admit it.
“Will you come watch tomorrow?”
“Come on, Jimmy ...”
“It’d mean a lot to me.”
“We came here to get the encryption key, remember? Not to compete in their silly island games. Geez. I can’t figure out if it’s me who’s gone crazy or everyone else.”
“I know, I know,” Jimmy says, rolling off his elbow onto his back. “You’s right to be mad at me, too. How ’bout we make a deal? You watch the match tomorrow, then I’ll help ya find that hand, and we can see if there’s even anythin’ inside.”
“What do you mean: if there’s anything inside?”
“I jus’ dun’ see how you hide anythin’ in a marble statue.”
“Well, how hard would it be to drill a hole in it and insert a chip or something and then seal it up again? Think about it?”
“Jus’ come watch the games, and then I’ll help you.”
“Will you leave with me once we get the hand back?”
He takes a deep breath.
“I cain’t promise you that, Aubrey. But I ain’t made up my mind yet, neither. But you’s right about your people underground. They deserve to be set free. So after the tournament I’ll help ya get that key. Then maybe we can send the professor back with it and both stay here.”
There’s no way I’m doing that, I think. But I decide to take the small victory and worry about convincing Jimmy to come back with me later.
“Okay. I’ll watch tomorrow, but as soon as it’s done, you gotta help me get the hand. Everyone around here is watching me like I might hurt myself or something.”
“Would you?”
“Would I hurt myself?”
“Yeah.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
“Hey, ya did it once before.”
“You mean the river?”
“Yeah.”
“That was different.”
“Okay,” he says.
“Hey, what did Finn say after he caught me?”
“What’d he say?”
“Yeah, what’d he say about me breaking off the hand? I mean, did he seem to know that something might be hidden in it? Did he appear to know about the encryption key?”
“I dun’ think so,” Jimmy says. “When I got there, he was jus’ looking at the statue. shakin’ his head. He asked me, ‘What in hell’s got into that kid?’ He has Angus workin’ on fixin’ it now, but that ain’t gonna be easy the way you tore it up.”
“I hope Angus doesn’t work too hard,” I say. “Because I’m going to get my hands on it and smash it to pieces anyway.”
A long time passes with us lying side by side, loo
king up at the ceiling.
Then Jimmy says: “Ya want me to take the floor?”
“No, we can share the bed. It isn’t like we haven’t spooned before. To keep warm on the mountain. Remember?”
“Yeah,” he says. “I remember. Seems so long ago.”
“You ever wish you could go back?”
“Go back where? Why?”
“I don’t know. Just go back and do things differently.”
“Sometimes I do. Mostly when I think about my family.”
“Yeah, me too,” I say. “Me too.”
CHAPTER 19
The Champion and the Truth
I’m not sure who’s more nervous, Jimmy or me.
He’s shadowboxing with Bree to warm up for his first match of the day, against a real monster they call “Ralph the Mouth,” apparently because he gets in his opponents’ faces and yells every time he scores a point. Ralph might be a few years older than us, but he’s twice as big—although a cold look from Finn shuts his mouth in a hurry as he descends the ladder into the court. Jimmy scrambles down after him.
Finn tosses the ball in, and Jimmy jumps and snatches it before it even bounces. So he’s up to serve. Jimmy winds up, bounces the ball, and aces a hook right past Ralph.
“Go, Jimmy!” I shout. The crowd cheers, too.
“They like him,” Bree says, squeezing in beside me.
“He’s easy to like,” I reply. “Sorry about the other day.”
“No worries. I’m glad you’re here for Jimmy.”
Jimmy runs Ralph all over the court. He’s so exhausted from chasing Jimmy’s balls, he doesn’t even mouth off when he finally scores a point. But Jimmy quickly wins back the serve and finishes him off, to wild cheers from the audience. Finn reaches Jimmy a hand and helps him up the ladder. Papers fly as people line up to place bets on the next match.
I turn to ask Bree how many matches there are before the final, but she’s gone. When I look back, she’s scaling down the ladder and dropping into the court for her first matchup.
Jimmy joins me in the bleachers, unable to contain a huge smile, his bare chest still heaving from the match. I notice that his palm is bleeding.
“You all right?”
“Never felt better,” he says.
We watch as Bree battles a red-headed boy, finally winning fifteen to twelve. Both of them are so spent when the game is over that they have to be hauled up the ladder by the crowd.
“Let’s go eat,” Bree says when we go to congratulate her.
“Shouldn’t we stay and watch?” Jimmy asks. “Get an idea how the winner plays in case we end up goin’ against ‘em.”
“Nah,” Bree says. “You know Quinn’s gonna win, and if you play him this afternoon, just push to his left. He’s weak there. I’m beat and so are you. We need energy.”
Jimmy agrees, and we gather in Bree’s tent and sit down for a meal of cold meat and cheese, a hunk of dry bread, and some warm tea. She doesn’t say anything about what a jerk I was to her yesterday, and I even catch her smiling at me a few times. She actually seems kind of cool.
“Make me a promise,” Bree says, looking at Jimmy with a very serious expression. “Aubrey, you’re a witness. If we play each other in the final, you have to do your best to beat me.”
“But Bree,” he protests, “this means more—”
“I said promise me, Jimmy. I don’t want to win it that way. I want to earn it. Winning isn’t winning when you cheat.”
After hesitating, he nods.
“Okay, I promise.”
We sit quietly eating, the sound of our chewing interrupted only by the distant cracking of the ball. After a while, Bree asks:
“So where’d you two come from again? It’s hard to believe you know so little about the games, since it’s all most people on the island can even talk about.”
“We come from a long ways away,” Jimmy says.
“It can’t be that far,” she says. “The island isn’t that big.”
“We’re not from—”
“We’re from Ayre, in the north.” I cut Jimmy off.
“Figures,” Bree says, biting off a hunk of bread.
The handball players compete all morning into afternoon, eliminating competitors match by match until Bree advances to the championship by winning her semi-final round against a small but fierce girl named Cordelia. The crowd cheers Bree as she climbs from the court, but boos Cordelia when she refuses Bree’s offered hand. Nobody likes a poor sport, I guess.
Jimmy’s up next against Quinn. If he wins, it will be him and Bree fighting it out for the title. There’s a brief pause in the excitement, and I watch as Bree hugs Jimmy and wishes him luck, holding up her left hand to remind him of Quinn’s weak spot. Then she works her way through the crowd toward me as Jimmy climbs down into the court. Quinn follows him. He’s an odd kid. He’s a year or so younger than we are, and he looks completely harmless, his thin shoulders slumped, his pale face void of any expression. But once the ball’s in play, he turns into a madman, scoring four quick points against Jimmy.
Bree sits beside me and drains her canteen.
“Looks like it’ll be Jimmy ’n me after all,” she says, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
“He has to beat this Quinn kid first.”
“He will,” she says. “He will.”
I know she’s right. Quinn has a massive serve, but Jimmy plays it smart, letting the ball slow down and bounce off the back wall, then returning it to Quinn’s left. They battle it out for nearly forty minutes, with long, exhausting volleys, until Jimmy hits a short pop low and scores the winning point. Quinn’s face shows its first expression as he sadly shakes Jimmy’s hand. They climb up and head for their canteens.
Finn stands and thanks all the competitors, announcing a brief break before the championship match. Then he gathers Jimmy and Bree and walks them toward the castle, presumably to have a talk. The crowd disperses as people run to outhouses or jog to their tents to freshen up. I hang back and watch as workers descend into the court and scour the ground for scraps of paper or bits of trash that might have fallen in.
Before long, the crowd is packed back into the bleachers and buzzing with excitement as they wait impatiently for the athletes to return. They cheer when Finn leads Jimmy and Bree back into the courtyard, each of them now wearing a red sash tied at their waist. Finn sees them to the ladder, shakes their hands, bows, and returns to his seat as they climb down into the court. Jimmy looks up and scans the bleachers and locks eyes with me and smiles. I give him thumbs up.
Finn removes the ball from his pocket and holds it up, as if truing its shape against the high winter sun; then he lobs it into the court. Bree nabs it, but Jimmy hardly seems to move. I see Bree glare at him, as if reminding him of his promise. She lines up and serves a rocket to his right and scores. The crowd goes wild. Jimmy backs up for the second serve and returns it, starting a long volley that he ultimately wins. Back and forth, they trade serves for a long time, but hardly scoring at all. I notice Jimmy is favoring his right leg, probably from his old wound that I stitched shut in the cove. But true to her word, Bree shows him no slack and works the ball hard toward his right side. Her hand is a pistol, firing serves with blinding speed and returning them with deafening cracks. Jimmy has a difficult time winning the serve, and when he does the score is 11 to 6. But Jimmy isn’t licked yet. He switches things up and serves with his left hand. Bree scrambles to modify her game, but not before Jimmy’s evened the score.
As Bree lines up to serve, Finn calls down: “Eleven all.”
Jimmy sends back a hook, and Bree dives for it but misses, falling and scraping her knee. Jimmy helps her up and pauses to make sure she’s okay before serving. Three aces and it’s game point, 14 to 11. The crowd falls quiet, anticipating Jimmy’s win. But Jimmy serves a soft one, and Bree easily streaks it past him to the corner wall. She eyes him suspiciously as she sets up her serve. She scores. I get the feeling Jimmy’s letting he
r win. I think she does too, because her next serve blasts straight at Jimmy’s head, forcing him to duck and giving her the point.
“Thirteen serving fourteen,” Finn calls.
But this time Jimmy manages to send back her serve and they volley for several minutes before Bree collapses trying to rush to the forward wall for a short ball. Jimmy lines up the serve from his left again.
“Game point serving thirteen.”
Jimmy sends a clean serve hard against the wall, and Bree easily returns it. Jimmy slaps the ball back, soft and short, and I’m certain it won’t even make the front wall. But it does. It hits the corner where the wall intersects the ground and rolls out across the court, coming to rest at Bree’s feet.
The crowd goes wild, leaping to their feet screaming: “Roller! Roller! Roller!”
I don’t even think Jimmy realizes that it was a legal shot, because he looks confused when Bree walks up and shakes his hand. Then she hurriedly climbs the ladder and exits the court. The crowd descends on Jimmy, dropping from the bleachers and rushing to congratulate him. Slapping his back, crowding him, touching him. The court fills with rowdy fans, and they hoist Jimmy in the air on a hundred hands and pass him across the court and lift him up like a prize to Finn, who pulls him onto the bleachers and hugs him. Jimmy is suddenly a star.
I try to make my way over to congratulate him, but there’s no chance. The crowd is just too thick. Bree appears at my shoulder.
“We’ll be lucky to even get a chance to say goodbye,” she says, looking sad. “They’ll be celebrating him all night.”
“You played really well,” I say, realizing too late that it’s probably little consolation to hear.
“Thanks,” she says, graciously. “But Jimmy was the better player. Maybe next year it will finally be me.”
While the crowd sweeps Jimmy away to the castle, Bree and I wander around the quiet camp, alone except for a few mothers nursing crying babies. We sit on the back of an empty wagon and swing our legs, watching the late afternoon dissolve into evening. I can tell she’s down about losing, and I figure we both could use some company.
“So tell me about this book you read on your birthday.”
Isle of Man Page 20
