by Sarah Porter
Contents
* * *
Title Page
Contents
Copyright
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Epilogue
Middle Grade Mania!
About the Author
Connect with HMH on Social Media
Copyright © 2017 by Sarah Porter
All rights reserved. For information about permission to reproduce selections from this book, write to [email protected] or to Permissions, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 3 Park Avenue, 19th Floor, New York, New York 10016.
www.hmhco.com
Cover illustration © 2017 by Kate O’Hara
Cover design by Christine Kettner
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Names: Porter, Sarah, 1969– author.
Title: Tentacle and wing / Sarah Porter.
Description: Boston ; New York : Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017. | Summary: “Twelve-year-old Ada is a Chimera, one of a number of children born with human and animal DNA thanks to a genetic experiment gone wrong. When she is shipped off to a quarantined school for other kids like herself, she senses that the facility is keeping a secret, which, if discovered, could upend everything the world knows about how Chimeras came into being.”—Provided by publisher.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016058460 | ISBN 9781328707338 (hardback)
Subjects: | CYAC: Genetic engineering—Fiction. | Quarantine—Fiction. | Prejudices—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction. | Secrets—Fiction. | Racially mixed people—Fiction. | Science fiction. | BISAC: JUVENILE FICTION / Family / Orphans & Foster Homes. | JUVENILE FICTION / Science Fiction. | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Prejudice & Racism. | JUVENILE FICTION / Nature & the Natural World / General (see also headings under Animals). | JUVENILE FICTION / Social Issues / Self-Esteem & Self-Reliance. | JUVENILE FICTION / Fantasy & Magic.
Classification: LCC PZ7.P8303 Ten 2017 | DDC [Fic]—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016058460
eISBN 978-1-328-82897-2
v1.0917
for Leah
MLTTCT
Prologue
THE MOMENT Ada ran into the room, she noticed it: a soft ruby glow fuzzing through the dropped newspaper on the sofa, like the red smears left at the end of sunset.
“Ugh,” her father said. “I put my glasses down two seconds ago . . . I was just holding them . . .” He twisted around, his mouth pursed in confusion, and Ada laughed. He was looking right at them!
“There, Daddy!”
“Where?” The glow was dimmer now, starting to fade out, but it was still obvious. She could hardly believe he didn’t see it.
“Right there!” She flicked the newspaper aside. Silver frames gleamed against the flowered cushions.
He looked at her, startled. “How did you know? You weren’t in the room when I put them down, were you?”
How could he ask such a silly question? She shook her head hard, baffled at having to explain, and her black pigtails swung out like wings. “I saw them!”
“You saw them. Through the newspaper?” He shoved his glasses on at a haphazard angle and stared at her through the winking lenses. “Are you sure?”
“I saw the glow where things are warm,” Ada told him. Her voice squeaked with impatience. “The red glow!”
He looked from her to the newspaper and back again, his brows pinched together. Then he lifted the paper and let it hang down like a curtain with his other hand hidden behind it. “Ada, sweetheart. This might be serious. How many fingers am I holding up?”
It seemed like a stupid game; she’d known how to count for years. He must realize that. The cloudy shape shone clearly through the paper. But she’d play if he wanted her to.
“Three.”
“And now?”
“One finger.”
“And now?”
“No fingers! You’re making a fist.”
He’d started nodding vigorously to himself. “Infrared vision. It has to be. And there might be more. Oh, God. We’ve been so focused on studying the obvious ones that we never even thought to check—But of course, of course there might be variations that aren’t visible!” The words didn’t make any sense to her, and she was getting bored. She wandered to the window and he followed, then knelt beside her and put his arm around her shoulder. They both looked out on a sky of flat, featureless blue above the shingled houses lining the street. “Ada? Can you describe the sky for me? Try to tell me exactly what you see.”
Another crazy question. Why should she describe it when he could see it too? If Ada hadn’t loved him so much, she might have turned sullen and refused to keep playing. “It’s like peacocks.”
“Peacocks?”
“Like a million peacocks with big curls spinning around. And there are blue waves that try to be purple, but they can’t. And there’s the net over everything, with gold points that go on and off. And—”
His hand clenched so sharply on her shoulder that she broke off with a gasp. His eyes were wide and he was biting his lip. “Oh, Ada. Oh, no. My baby. Listen. Listen to me. You can’t say that. You have to say, ‘The sky is blue.’”
“Why?”
“Because it looks blue to other people. And you can never, ever talk about seeing a glow where something is warm, either. In fact—oh, how are you supposed to know what we can see?—maybe it’s best if you never talk about how things look to you at all. Not even to your mother. Do you understand me?”
“But why not?” His urgency was getting to her, making her blood throb in her head. Her eyes felt hot and slippery.
“Because . . .” He hesitated. This was something he badly wanted not to say, she could tell. “Because, Ada, people might think you’re a kime.”
A kime. A monster, a horror: children born with insect eyes or tentacle fingers or twitchy, hairy flippers. Kimes were rejected by their disgusted parents as soon as they were born and sent Somewhere. Ada wasn’t very clear on where, but she pictured a place halfway between a prison and a zoo. Kimes were dangerous; whatever made them into monsters might be catching. She knew, vaguely, that her father went to the Somewhere occasionally to study them.
“I’m not a kime!” How could she be, when she looked exactly like other people? She didn’t have antennae! Tears were brimming in her eyes. She blinked them away, but the rainbow fringe still radiated, as it always did, from her father’s golden skin, and ruby flames surged from his heart. Even through his plaid shirt they were clear to her, racing out and retreating at a quickening beat.
“Of course not, sweetheart. You’re my beautiful, perfect girl. No one could ask for a lovelier daugh
ter. But people might make a mistake. They might think you were a kime, if they heard you say . . . the things you said to me. And that wouldn’t be safe. Not safe at all. Do you understand? You can’t talk like that. Not even—especially not—to your mother.” He was squeezing her and stroking her hair to calm her down. “Tell me you understand.”
“But . . .” The thought of never being able to mention anything she saw was closing down on her like a lid. It seemed impossible. She had a sense that there were obscure rules she was expected to follow and she couldn’t guess what they were. “Never say anything I see?”
He chewed his lip. “Yes. I suppose that would be too hard.” He thought a minute. “Then keep it general, keep it bland. Ada, we have to practice.”
She keened and tried to pull away from him, but he held her tight. Fury spiked through her; everything he was saying seemed so horribly unfair. “No!”
“Please, sweetheart. Just for a minute. Please. For me. Say, ‘The sky is blue.’”
For a long moment she fumed in silence, but he wouldn’t stop gazing at her with wide, worried eyes. Ada dropped her head and muttered, “The sky is blue.”
He pointed to the flowers bursting under the window, to the climbing roses shaking on the trellis. “‘I like flowers. They’—yes, yes, that’s safe—‘they have a lot of pretty colors.’”
“They have a lot of pretty colors.”
He beamed. “That’s very good, that’s safe. You see? You don’t even have to lie. Just keep it—okay, now say, ‘Purple is my favorite color.’”
“Purple is my favorite color.”
“Beautiful! Now, Ada, most people, they can’t see a thing if something else is in front of it. The way the newspaper was in front of my hand. Do you understand? Can we practice that next?”
Ada gave a loud, protesting whine.
“Practice one more thing, and I’ll take you to feed the ducks. And we can have cupcakes by the river.”
She loved ducks. She loved to watch the light spinning off their heads until it turned into a waterfall of more-than-green, falling straight into her eyes. There was a quick stitch of pain inside her at the thought that maybe he couldn’t see ducks that way.
“Okay.”
He got up and swept the dropped newspaper off the floor, then sat and draped it in front of his hand again. “Now. Tell me what you see. How many fingers am I holding up?”
Four, of course. Four fat sticks of red light with a softer brilliance around their edges.
But suddenly the truth was the wrong answer. She wavered. “I can’t tell?”
“That’s right! That’s right! That’s safe. You can’t tell!”
“Because I can only see the paper? Because it’s in front?”
“Oh, that’s my smart, smart, wonderful girl!” He jumped up, scooped her into his arms, and spun her, and his enthusiasm melted her resentment. She nestled her face against his shoulder. “Oh, you’ll be safe! We’ll be just fine. You can only see the paper!” It seemed to be the cleverest thing she’d ever said. “I suppose that’s enough for today. To the ducks, my duck! We’re off to the ducks!”
She’d thought he was so happy, but now tears overflowed and spilled down his cheeks.
I can’t see your hand behind the paper. I can’t see your heart inside your chest. It felt sad to her, too. The sky was blue, he said, and that was a tiny part of the truth. It was such a tiny part that it made her ache.
“What can I say about ducks?”
“About ducks?” He used the back of his hand to dash the tears away. “You can say, ‘I love ducks. They have pretty feathers.’”
“They have pretty feathers,” Ada repeated dutifully. She wanted him to feel better.
Chapter One
I KNOW HOW to keep a secret. I know how to lie better than anybody. My dad has drilled me about a million times on what to say, so I’ve had plenty of practice.
It’s June, almost the end of the school year. Our room has air conditioning, but the summer heat blazes in scarlet waves on the windows. Prismatic snakes of light pulse in the red. But if we were writing poems about summer, I would say, The sun is bright. It looks pretty on the grass, and then shut up.
The problem is that my body could still tell on me, any time. There are two nurses from the local government at the front of the room, and our teacher, Ms. Holleman, is twitching, she’s so angry. One of the nurses looks nice, a nerdy guy with big teeth and floppy light brown hair that keeps spilling over his glasses, but the woman nurse has a nasty sharpness in her voice.
“It’s a routine check, Ms. Holleman. Ears, eyes, throats. Don’t panic.” Eyes. My heart starts drumming so fiercely I wonder if everyone can hear. I might have to slip into a bathroom and hope against hope that no one says anything. My parents take me to see doctors a lot—they’re kind of paranoid about my health—but eye checks are absolutely off limits. The nurse smiles in a tight pucker. “No need to go hiding any of the children in broom closets.”
“Well, if it’s routine—we have three students whose parents have opted out of routine medical checks. I trust they’re exempt?”
For a second the woman nurse’s eyes flash and her lips give a little squirm, like she thinks this is exciting news. “Of course they are. Which students are you referring to?”
I pretend to read. I prop my hands on the desk to stop them from trembling and hold my book in a tight pinch.
“Well.” Ms. Holleman is poking through some papers; I watch her from the corner of my eye. “Well, we have Aidan Matthews, Josiah Simms, and Ada Lahey. Your father has some kind of religious objection—isn’t that right, Ada?”
I barely glance up from my book, nod. My ancestry is such a crazy mix of Greek and French and Eritrean and English and Persian that no one can begin to guess where my parents are from, or what we would believe, so people will accept anything we say. It’s a perfect lie.
“They can wait on the benches outside the gymnasium while the others are checked, then.” The nurse has a tense smirk on her face that stops me from feeling completely relieved.
“Can’t they wait in here? It’s so hot out!”
“No. We’ll need you to come with us, Ms. Holleman. The students who have opted out can’t be left unsupervised.”
Ms. Holleman doesn’t look thrilled about this, but there’s not a lot she can say without seeming like she’s trying to get away with something. I start to wonder if she suspects about me. I can’t imagine how she would. I’m very careful.
We all get in line and file out, first down the hallway and then out into the blazing heat. It’s almost a hundred degrees today. The woman nurse waves toward a bench in the sun for Aidan, Josiah, and me, and she manages to make it look like an obscene gesture. No one will be supervising us here either. All that’s in front of us is a bright swoop of lawn surrounded by the U-shaped school. The nearest trees are all the way across the street, off school grounds, and we’d get in big trouble if anyone caught us over there.
So we sit, and read, and sweat. Sweat trickles down my ribs and pools in the small of my back. The white pages of my book glare into my face.
I read twenty pages, then forty, then seventy. Whatever they’re doing, it’s taking forever. No one comes for us. Aidan and Josiah try running around for a while, then give up and wilt on the bench. It’s so hot that I’m starting to feel dizzy. My dad says it never used to get this bad so near the ocean; he says it’s the climate changing so quickly that evolution can’t keep up, and people can’t, either. Sea levels are rising fast, ready to engulf Long Island. I imagine all the houses across the street under water, with fish swimming out of their windows and coral fanning off the mailboxes.
The nerdy male nurse walks toward us and then stands dithering in his white lab coat. Hair falls in his face, and he juts out his lower lip and tries to blow it out of the way. It flutters and flops back down. Oh, he does that because his hands are full: a clipboard in one and three Popsicles in the other
. My mouth waters.
“You must have thought everybody forgot about you. Right?” He gives an awkward laugh. “No, no, it’s just taking longer than we expected. Here. I brought you Popsicles. It’s such a hot day!”
We’re already reaching for them. “I call the orange one!” Josiah yells. I get cherry. Already dripping, the cellophane droopy with sticky red syrup. So sweet and cold that when I start slurping, I feel better right away. Bright dots splat onto my book.
The nurse doesn’t go away. He sets his clipboard on the grass and stands there looking gawky, smiling at us through his limp hair and saying pointless things. “It’s a nice school. I went to school near here, just over in Riverhead. But I bet you’re looking forward to summer vacation, right?”
“Sure,” I say. It was nice of him to bring us Popsicles, so we should be polite. The boys grunt and nod. Cherry ice flakes off in my mouth. It’s melting so quickly that I can barely swallow fast enough.
“Summer! Me and my friends, we never left the beach. Oh, but now I’m a grownup, I just have to keep working, like it or not. Too bad for me, right?”
Josiah crunches his way down the stick and gulps, orange dribbles sliding down his chin. He glances around for the garbage, but the nurse reaches for his stick.
“Here, now. I’ll take that.” Then he just holds the stick between his pinky and ring finger. He’s starting to give me the creeps. “Your name is Josiah, right? Josiah Simms?”
“Yeah.”
“And how about you two? Almost done there?” His voice keeps getting friendlier, doggier. “I’ll take those sticks now. Thanks a bunch.”
Why should he thank us? We hand our sticks over, and he fans them between the other fingers of his left hand. Like he’s making sure to keep them separate.
A sick feeling starts gathering in my stomach, even before he reaches with his free hand and pulls a glass vial out of his pocket. It has a label reading Josiah Simms. He pops Josiah’s stick into it and shoves on a plastic cap, then slides it back into his pocket.
And all at once I get it. They can use spit to test your DNA. They can put it through a machine and see every gene in your body, read you like a book. Which would be fine, except that my DNA holds the biggest secret of my life. My heart lurches.
