by Lynne Jonell
Leo Loompski, pottering nearby with a bit of tubing, looked up at the sound of his name. “It’s thinking that does it,” he explained. “Thinking and singing and making waves in the air. Put it all together and you’ll go ZOOM! At least . . . I think so . . .” His smile faltered. “Must keep working,” he muttered, turning back to fiddle with the tube.
Beth Adnoid watched him, smiling sadly. “You see?” she said to Christina. “His inventions never quite work, but he keeps thinking that if he makes just one more, this time things will be different. They never are, but making things keeps him happy and quiet, and that’s something.”
“But his inventions that use zoom do work,” said Christina. “At least one of them did. A little plane. I flew it myself, with thought and song.”
She looked away, embarrassed to admit the next part. “If I had it here, I could show you. But it crashed.”
Beth looked down at her daughter. She seemed about to say something, but instead she held out her hand and led Christina to the mouth of a wide tunnel that branched off from the main cavern.
Leo Loompski trotted after them. “Are we going to visit my fleet?”
His fleet? Was he making little models of boats, and playing with them in the stream?
But no. Christina saw what he meant as soon as her mother raised the lantern high. There before her, rank upon rank, was an entire fleet of little planes.
CHRISTINA sat in the plane, looked up at the moonlight streaming through the hole high above, and adjusted her helmet.
They had rolled out the first plane in line to the center of the cavern floor and filled its tank and spare canister with zoom. “We have lots,” said her mother, pointing to the rows of canisters against one wall. “Lennard sends it down for our experiments. It stays liquid as long as it’s not exposed to air.”
“Someone very smart must have discovered that,” said Leo Loompski, bobbing up.
“You did, Leo, remember? Long ago.” Beth Adnoid clasped her hands and looked at Christina worriedly. “Go ahead, dear, show us how it’s done. But be careful not to crash. Are you warm enough? Do you need another sweater?”
Christina grinned. It was a new experience to have a mother worry over her, but it was kind of nice, too. “No thanks,” she said, and sang a high G-sharp into the funnel-shaped speaker.
The zoom responded promptly, glowing a deep pink through the metal of the plane. Christina held the note. The plane began to hum.
She glanced at her mother, who looked startled.
“That’s right,” said Leo Loompski, his eyes wide and excited. “Sing! Think!”
Christina did just that. Beth Adnoid’s mouth dropped open as the plane glowed orange, yellow, green . . . then droned back a deep and powerful chord, turned a luminous blue, and with a soft whoosh rose to hover a foot in the air.
“Oh, be careful!” begged Christina’s mother.
“Fly high!” cried Leo Loompski, clapping his hands.
Christina sang the last high, resolving E. The liquid zoom turned violet in the tube that stretched from her helmet to the control panel. She thought, Up.
The little plane rose in gentle spirals, higher and higher beneath the domed roof. Below were gasps and shouts, but above, Christina could see the hole to the outside growing larger. Her heart pumped more strongly. At last she was getting closer to Taft—but maybe to Lenny, too.
She drifted slowly upward—she didn’t want to bump on the ceiling of the cave—and edged toward the opening.
Softer, she thought to the plane. And dimmer, too, if you can.
The plane’s hum diminished to pianissimo, and the bright violet muted to a soft, deep plum. Far below, she could hear the sound of two voices cheering.
Thank you, thought Christina—it only seemed polite, the plane was doing its best for her—and she inched it upward toward the opening that, she now could see, was wide enough to allow her to fly through, with care.
She didn’t fly through. She nudged the plane up little by little and hovered in the shadow of the rim, her head just barely clearing the hole. She looked around, her eyes adjusting to the darkness. Where was Taft? Where were the rest of the orphans?
She was a little higher than the flat central area where she had seen the orphans sitting around their small fire. The opening was at the peak of a rounded cone; it was as if some kind of pressure under the earth had once pushed up the rock and then drained away, leaving a hollowed hill with a hole at the top. It looked a bit like a small, round volcano, and Christina wondered if perhaps that was what it was. The caves might have been hollowed out by lava, too, once upon a time.
The sound of dragging feet caught Christina’s ear, and she turned. The children were coming back from the mines. Weary, slump-shouldered, carrying their tin cans, the gray shadows filed up from the terraced pits in a silent, stumbling column.
Christina recognized the two guards herding them. When the men gave the order, the children dropped where they stood, their zoom-collecting cans clanking at their belts.
The guard with the squashed-looking face gave a sharp bark of laughter. “Learned your lesson, have you, wormlets? The next time you sing that vomit-bomb-it song, I’ll know you’re just asking for another midnight shift in the mines!”
The two men turned away from the exhausted children and walked slowly down the gravel path to the guardhouse. The other guard, Barney, shook his long bangs, looking more like a sheepdog than ever. “I dunno, Torkel. I almost feel sorry for them.”
“Don’t let anyone else hear you say that,” warned the first guard. “We’re going to get rich off those kids someday soon.”
“Huh? How?”
“I hear the scientists finally figured out how to make zoom into fuel.” Torkel lowered his voice. “Instead of barrels of oil, you only need one drop of zoom!”
Barney scratched his chin. “That’s good, right?”
“Good? That’s fantastic, you moron. Lenny Loompski is going to sell zoom for billions, and we’re going to be rolling in dough, see? And all because of Loompski’s Happy Orphans!”
Barney bent over to tie his bootlace. “They don’t look so happy to me.”
“Listen, they’re orphans.” Torkel thumped him on the back. “Nobody expects them to be happy. And anyway, people need fuel to drive cars and keep their houses warm and all that. We’re doing everybody a favor.”
Barney looked up. “Really?”
“Well, except for the orphans. But seriously, who cares if we sacrifice a few kids that nobody wants?”
Barney straightened, his bootlace tied. “What happens to them in the end, though?”
The heavy boots of the guards scuffed past the cone-shaped hill and down the path to the squat wooden building that housed the guards. Christina, in the plane with her head barely poking aboveground, strained every fiber to listen to their fading words.
“If I told you that, Barney, you’d feel even more sorry for the orphans than you do now,” Torkel said cheerfully. “Come on, let’s go find the cards and play a game of Slap ’Em.”
The silhouettes in the guardhouse window moved about, pulled out chairs, sat down. Christina turned to look farther away at the lumpy forms of the sleeping children. Taft was in there somewhere.
Did she dare fly the plane out to pick him up? Its glow was subdued but still noticeable. If the guards happened to look out the window just once, they would see it. Of course if anyone came after her, she could easily escape in the plane, but then where would that leave Taft? And she couldn’t fly back inside the cone to her mother and Leo, not with guards on her tail.
No. She would have to find him the old-fashioned way—on foot.
Stay, she thought at the plane. It gave a little dip and hummed. Good plane. She patted it absently, unstrapped the helmet, and stood up, grasping the edges of the volcanic cone. The plane rocked a little under her, but she got a knee up and climbed out with no trouble at all.
The hill was rough beneath her hands, rock covere
d by a thin layer of soil, a multitude of pebbles, and a few scrubby plants. She slid down the slope on the seat of her jeans, dusted off her scraped palms, and stood up cautiously. To the guards, if they happened to glance up, she would look like just another orphan. But she didn’t dare make any noise. Noise was something the guards would investigate. Maybe it was a good thing that her shoes had gone over the ledge with the little plane.
Sock-footed, Christina picked her way soundlessly among the sleeping forms. The orphans looked like heaps of rags, with here and there an elbow jutting, or a calloused bare foot, or a thin arm flung over a face. The smell of unwashed children rose to her nostrils, and the sound of their breathing was uneven, marked with scattered coughing and quiet, dreaming whimpers.
What had Taft been wearing? She couldn’t remember. Anyway, after a night in the mines, his clothes were probably as gray as everyone else’s.
She glanced nervously back at the hill. The plane would wait awhile, she knew. But how long would it be able to hover? That might take more fuel than just idling.
The tank was full, Christina reminded herself, but all the same it made her nervous. She quickened her steps. No one heap of rags looked any different than the next. She would have to roll every one of the orphans over to check.
“Taft?” she whispered, bending low over a sleeper of about the right size. “Wake up!”
The boy rolled over and looked up. He had a snub nose and freckles underneath the dirt on his face, and his eyes were dark and lost looking. “Mama?” he murmured thickly.
Christina shook her head.
“Go away then.” He flung an arm over his eyes.
The next one was a girl with short hair, and the one after that had a scar on one cheek. One by one, Christina checked them, but none of them were Taft. The last boy she tapped gave a loud cry and flung out his arm, hitting another orphan, who cried out, too. Christina sank instantly to the ground and pretended to be asleep, her heart pumping like a piston in her chest.
After long minutes, when she was sure the guards weren’t coming, Christina’s heart slowed enough to allow her to think. And suddenly she had it.
“Go-Go,” she sang softly, “Chickie-Chickie, Chickie-Go Math.” She knew the irritating little tune by heart, it had played across her computer screen for interminable years. “Chickie-Chickie, Go-Go—”
Five yards away a gray-clad figure sat up abruptly, tossed the hair out of its eyes, and stared at Christina with an extremely dirty face.
“Taft?” Christina peered at him.
“Of course it’s me, you doofus. Did you bring the plane?”
Christina nodded. “Come on,” she whispered, “hurry. And be quiet!”
Taft glanced over his shoulder and seemed to hesitate.
“We’ll come back for Danny and the others later. I can only rescue one at a time. Hurry!”
Two stealthy figures crept up the cone-shaped hill. If a guard had glanced out at that moment, he would have been mystified to see them drop suddenly out of sight. And had he followed them up the hill and looked down through the hole that appeared at his feet, he would have seen an enchanting, glowing, beautifully violet plane circling down and around with two filthy children inside, and two anxious faces watching from below.
“CHRISTINA, you shouldn’t have gone so high!” Coughing, Beth Adnoid put a hand to her chest as if it pained her. “It’s much too dangerous!”
“But, Mom, there are all these orphans up there—Lenny’s working them like slaves—”
“Orphans?” Her mother glanced up at the hole in the cavern. “Above us, now?”
“They’ve been there for years, Mom—”
Beth Adnoid’s eyes were dark and troubled. “Just before the cave-in, I’d been asking questions . . . Lenny worked aboveground, while we were below, and I’d begun to suspect he was using children in a way he shouldn’t.”
“He probably caused the cave-in,” said Christina hotly, “just to stop you from finding out!”
Her mother nodded. “But I had no idea the children were right above me all these years.” She reached for her daughter. “It was good of you to try to help them. All the same, what if Lenny had caught you? I just want to keep you safe, sweetheart.”
Christina glanced at Taft, who was standing in the shadows, unnoticed. How did it feel to him, she wondered, to know she had two parents who were desperate to keep her safe, while he and the rest of the orphans had no one at all? It hardly seemed fair.
All at once Beth Adnoid was bent double, coughing violently. Christina stepped back. What was wrong? Was her mother sick?
Taft was on her other side, now, and Leo hurried to the far end of the cave, where trickling water ran over rock and out through a crack in the floor, and cupboards made of packing cases stood braced.
He came back at a trot. “Here,” he said, holding out a flat glass bottle and a spoon. “Her medicine.”
Christina looked at the bottle’s contents and then at Leo. Behind her, Beth Adnoid was wheezing.
“Come on!” cried Taft. “Why don’t you pour it?”
Christina handed the bottle to Taft without a word.
Taft shook it, held it upside down over the spoon. A few dried flakes of something brown fell out. He looked up.
“Here, like this.” Leo took the bottle, poured an imaginary dose, and pushed the empty spoon at Beth Adnoid. “Take your medicine, my dear.” He leaned in, agitated. “It will do you good! Take it, take it, take it!”
Christina’s mother reached out blindly for the spoon and tipped it against her mouth, as if swallowing.
Leo nodded happily. “She’ll be better soon, you’ll see.” He fished a wrench out of his back pocket and trotted off toward the wide tunnel that branched from the main cavern. In a few moments, a gentle clinking could be heard and a tuneless whistle.
Taft’s eyes slid sideways to meet Christina’s. “Who was that?” he whispered.
“Leo Loompski.”
“No kidding?” Taft nodded toward the sound of clanking metal. “He’s gone a little nuts, though, hasn’t he?”
“More than a little.” Christina looked worriedly at her mother, who was gasping for breath. “Come on, Taft. She needs to lie down, maybe.”
The cavern was lined with flat couches made of the same red leather that was used for the plane seats. Christina helped her mother lie back, and Taft found a blanket that he mounded into a pillow.
Beth Adnoid had stopped coughing at last, but her breathing was raspy. She raised her shoulders as Taft tucked the makeshift pillow underneath and looked a question at her daughter.
“Mother,” said Christina, “this is my friend Taft.”
Taft stood in the light of the wall lantern. He looked strangely old and gray—his hair dusty from the mines, his face gray with smudges and fatigue. His eyes, too, were gray, with their unusual rim of thick lashes, and when he turned his gaze on Beth Adnoid, she reared back on her couch, visibly startled.
Taft took a step back into the shadows. “I know I’m dirty,” he mumbled, swatting the dust from his pants.
Beth Adnoid held out her hand, smiling faintly, and after a moment’s hesitation, Taft leaned forward and grasped it.
“I’m very glad to meet you,” Christina’s mother whispered. “Taft—surely that isn’t your whole name?”
Taft flushed. “I’m from the orphanage. They only use our last names there. Or our numbers,” he added, looking away.
Beth Adnoid gazed at him, her eyes thoughtful. “Tell me about yourself, Taft. Do you have a favorite subject in school?”
Taft kept his head down. “Math,” he mumbled. “But I haven’t gotten very far.”
“Don’t believe it,” Christina interrupted. “He helped me, and I learned more from him than I ever did from the dancing chickens.”
Beth Adnoid raised an eyebrow.
“It’s a computer program,” said Taft. He looked up once more. “I just taught her some of the basics. She learned fast.”
Christina’s mother raised herself on one elbow. “And what is your first name?”
Taft blinked. “I’m pretty sure—I mean, I think it might be Peter.”
Christina’s mother nodded, as if she had expected this. “Do you remember your parents at all, Peter?”
Taft rocked a little, back and forth. “I remember someone tossing me up and catching me. He was big—he had black hair—”
“That was your father.”
“—and someone who sang me a song about a little white duck, sitting in the water—”
“That was your mother.”
“—and I remember falling in a lake and someone got me out. And bright-colored stars. And some little kid was crying.”
“That was the picnic on Mossy Hill. You would have been about four, I think. You wandered too close to the lake, and your father fished you out, and there were fireworks when it got dark. Christina wasn’t quite three, and she cried at the noise when they went off.”
Taft’s eyes were dark and unbelieving in his grimy face.
“I remember your parents very well,” said Beth Adnoid gently. “John and Andrea Taft were scientists and our good friends. When they died in a car accident shortly afterward, Lenny Loompski made arrangements to take you to your nearest relatives. He said that’s where he had taken you.” Her face grew stern. “We had no reason to disbelieve him . . . then.”
“But how can you be sure? How can you be sure it was me?”
Christina saw with dismay that one of his shoulders was beginning to hunch. She cast a pleading look at her mother.
“You have your mother’s eyes,” said Beth Adnoid firmly. “Those gray eyes and thick, dark lashes are unmistakable. And your parents were both very good at math. I would have known you anywhere, even”—she paused and took out a handkerchief—“even with a dirty face.” She wiped at a bit of wetness that had just appeared on his dusty cheek.
“You made it worse,” said Christina, watching with a critical eye.
“I probably did,” said her mother. “You’ll both need to wash. Go on—you’ll find a bucket and soap and a place for washing behind the cupboards over there.”
