Race the Night

by Kirsten Hubbard

  “Those are just for hair,” Avis protested.

  He withdrew a wad of papers. “These belong to the quiet one.”

  Papers? Eider’s stomach dropped—but these papers didn’t belong to her. They were striped notebook pages, with drawings on them: animal faces, intricate designs, teeny tiny flowers like the ones on the shard. Many of them were in permanent marker.

  Eider squeezed Linnet’s hand.

  The Handyman withdrew a few more handfuls of items: wires, old batteries, twists of metal. “These odds and ends in the skinny boy’s cubby, stuffed behind his nightshirt.” From the bottom of his sack, he pulled the biggest item of all. “This box under the big one’s bed. Smells kind of rank.”

  “I kept telling him that,” Finch muttered.

  “Is that all?” Teacher asked the Handyman, who nodded. “Thanks for your help.”

  After the Handyman left, the room didn’t feel any less crowded. Teacher looked inside Jay’s box, then made a face.

  “I can explain…” Jay began.

  “I don’t want to hear any excuses,” Teacher said. “I just want to know what else you’ve been hiding. Everyone, empty your pockets.” When the kids hesitated, she shouted, “Now!”

  Everybody reached into the pockets of their nightshirts and turned them inside out. Finch, Avis, and Eider had nothing. Linnet placed her shard on the table with shaking hands. Jay pulled out the World Book pages. Eider squeezed her eyes shut.

  “Where did you get those?” Teacher demanded.

  “I don’t…” Jay stammered. “I didn’t…”

  Teacher reached out to take the pages. But Jay held on, and they ripped in two. Jay winced and handed over the other halves.

  “You broke into my office. What else did you take?”

  Jay shook his head. “No! I—”

  “Don’t lie to me, Jay. You left the window open.”

  Eider’s heart plummeted all the way to her toes. The window. She’d left the window open. How could she have been so stupid? She waited for Jay to tell on her. Of course he would—it was Jay, the meanest. But he just stood there, his big mouth shut.

  Eider didn’t feel relieved. She couldn’t let anybody else take the blame. Not with so much on the line.

  She stepped forward. “It wasn’t Jay. It was me. I broke into your office.”

  Teacher stared at Eider. And then she laughed. Just a quick, short chuckle, but it frightened Eider even more than her raised voice.

  “Why am I not surprised?” Teacher said. “It’s always something with you, Eider. I think we’re long past due for a little talk.”

  A little talk. The same thing Teacher had said to Avis and Finch, right before they were disciplined.

  “I’ll speak with the rest of you later. Pick up the mess in your trailers, and then get to studying. We have weeks and weeks of S to cover.”

  Eider bit her thumbnail as the other kids filtered out, glancing back at her over their shoulders. She tried to smile. She didn’t want them to be scared for her.

  Teacher stood at the other end of the classroom, facing Eider. The distance made her seem even more intimidating.

  “Why did you break into my office, Eider?”

  Eider began searching for an excuse. But then, what was the point of lying anymore? Maybe if she told the truth, she’d get the truth back. “Because…” She swallowed. “Because I know you’ve been lying to us.”

  “Oh?” Teacher said calmly.

  “For our entire lives. Not just lying, but hiding the truth. About the whole world. About everything that’s left. That’s still left.”

  Eider couldn’t believe she was talking to Teacher this way. But this was her chance. Except her words started coming out in a jumble.

  “All the stuff you didn’t want us to know about, you took away. The books and the World Book pages. The narwhals and the puffins. The birds all came from somewhere, and the Handyman, too. Because Finch’s radio worked—we know you’re broadcasting. It’s all lies. Especially about—about—”

  “Especially about what?”

  “About Robin.”

  Teacher had just been standing there, listening. Looking mildly interested—even a little amused. Now she strode across the room, taking a seat that was way too close.

  “Oh, Eider,” she said. It was the voice she’d used when they were little, to soothe them. Eider couldn’t remember the last time she’d heard it. “You’re right that we’ve been hiding things. But don’t you think we had reasons?”

  “Reasons?”

  “You just don’t think. Only about yourself.” Teacher sighed. “I was saving those World Book pages until you had enough background information to understand them. I was never planning on keeping them from you forever.

  “And yes, we’ve been sending out radio broadcasts. As I’ve told you, most people out there are dangerous—which means all their radio broadcasts are, too. By putting out good messages, we’re helping to dilute the dangerous ones. Helping the world begin again. The right way.”

  As always, Teacher had an answer for everything.

  But something still didn’t match up. “Okay,” Eider began. “But what about everything else? You taught us the world has ended. That nothing’s left—but it’s not true. Why are we here if the world hasn’t ended?”

  “I’m keeping you safe,” Teacher said. “I’m keeping all of you safe.”

  “From what?”

  Teacher turned for a moment, as if to stare out the window. It made Eider think of the time she’d come across her brushing her hair, with her eyes in some faraway place. But this time, there wasn’t any window. Only a wall.

  “Do you know why you’re here, Eider?”

  “Because I’m brilliant,” Eider said impatiently, “and special, whatever.”

  “Now you are. But you weren’t when I found you.”

  Eider was dumbfounded. “You…found me?”

  “I found all of you,” Teacher said. “All of you were unwanted. Unloved. If I hadn’t saved you—if we hadn’t, Nurse and I—nobody would ever have known how special you are. You’d be like everyone else, wasting your life away. You never would have realized your potential.”

  “But—but we know it now,” Eider said. “You’ve told us. Why are we still here? Why can’t we just leave?”

  “It’s not that simple, Eider. It isn’t safe.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Teacher took a deep breath. She closed her eyes a couple beats, then opened them. “Maybe there is more world left than I led you to believe. But that doesn’t mean it’s a safe place to go back to. It’s not like you think. It’s not the world from your storybooks.”

  Eider narrowed her eyes. “You mean, the books you took away?”

  “After you ran away, I had to. Don’t you see? All those stories made you silly and naïve. They filled your head with imaginary creatures, fantasies of the sea, fairytale notions of family.” Teacher scoffed. “That’s not what the real world is like, Eider. It’s dangerous. More dangerous than you could ever dream of. Maybe the world hasn’t ended yet—but it’s going to.”

  Eider remembered a fragment of Teacher’s broadcast:

  BECAUSE THE END IS VERY NEAR.

  “It’s—it’s going to?” A knot of doubt twisted Eider’s stomach.

  “It has to. Think about it, Eider. Think about everything you’ve learned in the World Book. Even in your silly storybooks. I don’t mean the lovely, thrilling things—whatever you feel you’ve missed out on. But the dangers. Murder. Wars. Famine. Tragedy.

  “That’s what the desert ranch is keeping you safe from. Before you were faced with harsh reality, we wanted to give you children a safe space to grow. To reach your full potential as the leaders you were born to be!”

  Teacher’s eyes were filled with fire and conviction. But Eider felt nothing but disbelief.

  “It’s not worth it,” she said.

  Teacher stood up. “Well, it’s for your own good. The five of you a
re just children, and we’re your guardians. That’s what guardians do: they protect children from making dangerous decisions.”

  But they didn’t get to make any decisions, Eider thought. Let alone dangerous ones. “What if we’d make good decisions?”

  “You wouldn’t know any better. You proved that with Robin.”

  Teacher had said her name.

  Eider felt it like a spark in her heart. But it didn’t make her sad or ashamed like Teacher had intended it to—it just made her angry.

  “Was that for my own good, too?” Eider’s voice shook. “All the lies?”

  “We didn’t take it lightly. But we decided giving you a clean slate was best. If you could forget your sister—”

  “I never forgot her!”

  “Because you’re just as stubborn as she was.” Teacher shook her head. “Eider, we were trying to protect you. From grief, yes. But even more from that, from guilt.”

  Eider paused. “Guilt?”

  “When you had the freedom to make choices, you made the wrong ones. You ran away into the desert. You left your little sister behind.”

  “But I…I didn’t mean to.”

  “Whether you meant to or not, the damage was done.”

  Eider’s anger had dulled to a painful ache. “That doesn’t mean we couldn’t have looked for her….”

  “We did look for her.”

  “You did?”

  “Of course we did. We searched for days, but we couldn’t find her.”

  Eider’s heartbeat quickened. “So she made it!”

  “Made it?” Teacher shook her head sadly. “I doubt it. That’s a big, big desert out there.”

  Now Eider felt like her heart was escaping. She clutched it with both hands. “No…”

  “I’m sorry, Eider. But Robin was a child. With a child’s legs. The closest town is eighty miles west. Even the closest highway is a dozen miles away. With unimaginable dangers between. An adult couldn’t make it across, let alone a child—”

  “Charles made it.”

  For the first time in Eider’s life, Teacher seemed caught completely off guard. “Who?”

  “Charles the Hiker. I met him when I was exploring. He’d made it all the way out here. And he wasn’t dangerous, like you said Other People are. He was a father. He had a family. He was good.”

  Teacher opened her mouth and closed it. The color had left her face. It made her look almost…scared.

  But scared like a rattlesnake. Frozen, but tail still twitching. Dangerous in its fear.

  “Do the other children know about this…Charles?”

  Eider hesitated. She didn’t know which was safer for her friends: a yes or a no. In her moment of hesitation, Teacher made a grab for her.

  She bolted.

  She threw herself across the classroom, pushing open the door before Teacher could catch her. Just as suddenly, she was flat on her back. The mean dog barked in her face, slobber splattering onto her cheeks.

  “Down, boy,” the Handyman said, and the dog slunk away.

  “Let’s take her to the shelter,” Teacher said from the classroom doorway. “I don’t trust this child, not for one second. I should have disciplined her a long time ago.”

  “So what?” Eider cried, reckless now. “Who cares? What else can you take away?”

  “You have no idea,” Teacher said.

  She grabbed Eider’s arm and hauled her to her feet. Eider tried to twist free, but it was no use. She was forced to follow Teacher. Like they always had.

  They’d never had a choice at all.

  IN THE DAYTIME, THE SHELTER WAS DIM. But once the sun set, the darkness was complete.

  Eider didn’t have her penlight. All she had was her boots, her nightshirt, and herself. She sat against the door, hoping her eyes would adjust. But she was too scared to concentrate the way she’d been taught.

  The wind outside didn’t help. It coaxed up all kinds of sounds and swirled them together. It mixed up all the scents, too. For a moment, Eider thought she smelled the sea. Not the clear blue sea with huge, crashing waves. But the sulphury, dead-fish sea.

  It made her chest tighten, remembering. The sea had been dead for real—just like Teacher had said.

  But…maybe just that part of the sea was dead, not the whole thing. The sea was huge, wasn’t it? So big it covered almost the entire world. The desert ranch, and the desert itself, was only one tiny speck of it. A planet in a universe of space.

  But not empty space. Eider knew that now.

  There was a whole wide world for her to see—and she was a prisoner here. Or maybe she’d always been a prisoner, but now she was even more trapped. Locked in the shelter from the outside.

  What would happen to her?

  The real world was dangerous, but Teacher was dangerous, too. The shelter wasn’t a safe place. The desert ranch wasn’t a safe place.

  Maybe it had never been one.

  Eider was still slumped against the door, half-asleep, when she heard the lock twist above her. She crawled away, scrambling to her feet right as it opened.

  It was Jay.

  He was the greatest thing she’d ever seen.

  Behind him, the darkness was already lifting. It meant Eider had spent almost an entire day and night in the shelter. As if on cue, her stomach growled. “Where’s—”

  “Hurry up,” Jay said, interrupting. “They’re not paying attention. Linnet’s throwing a tantrum. The way Robin used to.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Jay exhaled loudly. “Nothing’s the matter! She’s distracting them.”

  “Really? Linnet?” Eider shook her head in amazement. “Wait—how’d you get the door open?”

  “Teacher didn’t take the Locks section.” He held up a page from the World Book, torn out jaggedly. “Finch helped explain it.”

  “Why didn’t he unlock the door himself?”

  “He was busy unlocking Teacher’s office. Now he’s waiting at the slabs with your stuff. Are you gonna keep asking questions, or are you gonna go?”

  Eider grinned. “You’re all right, Jay.”

  Then she ran for the slabs.

  All around her, the wind lifted milky beige dust into the sky. She avoided the rise and took the long way, past the date grove. The Handyman had fixed the fence, she remembered. She’d have to figure out a way to climb it—

  A hand grabbed her arm. Eider almost yelled, then realized it was Avis. She must have been waiting in the trees.

  “Don’t go, Eider,” Avis begged. Her shaggy red hair blew wildly around her face. “Please. You know how angry Teacher’s going to be when she finds out. Remember what happened last time? Everything got so much worse.”

  “It’ll be different this time,” Eider said. “I won’t let her find me.”

  “How do you know she won’t? And even if you get away, things will still be worse for the rest of us. You’re being selfish.”

  “I won’t let that happen, Avis. I’ll find help.”

  “How can we trust that?”

  “Because I’m me, not Teacher.”

  “I know, but…” Avis’s eyes were wet. “I wish you wouldn’t. Where are you going to go?”

  “West. Toward the sea.” Eider remembered what Teacher had said. The closest town is eighty miles west. “And the closest town.”

  Avis nodded. “Okay.”

  She reached out and squeezed Eider’s hand. Then she turned and ran away.

  Eider sprinted for the slabs. She didn’t know if Avis had changed, or if she’d always been this person. Bold, but also scared. The way Linnet could be timid, but also brave. Jay could be trustworthy. Eider could be strong, and fast.

  And Finch was smart—but not always. Like right now. He was hiding behind the slabs, but not quite enough. His hair practically glowed in the dark. “Are you okay?” he asked Eider.

  She nodded. “Get down a little lower, will you?”

  Finch crouched all the way down. “I grabbed your overalls and
your jacket. And other things in a pack. Some cans of food and an opener. Two bottles of water.”

  It wouldn’t be enough, Eider knew—she was already so thirsty. But it was better than nothing. “Wow! Thanks, Finch.”

  She crawled around the corner to change into her overalls. As she pulled them over her nightshirt, she felt something in the pocket—the housing-development pamphlet! Was that a sign?

  “I promise I’ll send help when I find it,” Eider said as she tightened her boots. “I’ll go as fast as I can—”

  “I’m coming with you,” Finch said.

  “Really?”

  “Of course. I wouldn’t let you go alone. You’re my best friend.”

  Eider almost felt like crying. “You’re sure?” she asked, crawling back beside him. “They’ll come after us.”

  “The others are going to keep distracting them. I took the rest of the World Book pages and all those important-looking papers in Teacher’s binders, and I gave them to Jay.” He grinned. “Too bad it’s windy out, huh? It’ll take an awfully long time for her to get them all back….”

  Eider grinned, too. “Let’s go.”

  THE SEA WAS JUST LIKE Eider remembered it.

  She had kept hoping she’d gotten her memory wrong. That the sea wasn’t as bad as she recalled. Or that Teacher had led her to some rotten part of it, and the blue crashing part was just a little farther.

  But just the like desert, the sea had a sameness all its own. The same patchy browns and muddy blues. The same fish-bone sand sinking their boots.

  Then she saw the birds.

  Five of them: great white birds, just like the one she’d seen soaring overhead. Not flying this time, but wading in the water on tall, skinny legs. The birds didn’t seem to mind the ugly colors, or the stink in the air.

  “Wow.” Finch’s eyes were huge. “I just can’t believe this was in walking distance the whole time.”

  “A long walk,” Eider said, since it had taken them all morning to get there. “But yeah.”

  As they watched, one of the tall white birds dipped its head in the water. It emerged with a live fish, flopping wildly in its beak.