Alex put his hand on my arm.
“It’s going to be okay,” he said.
“It’s not,” I said.
All of a sudden I wanted to cry. I felt my face getting red and my breath felt like it was stuck in my throat.
“It will never be okay again,” I said.
I walked off down an aisle, kicking the broken stuff away as I went.
I looked back.
Alex was just standing there, his shoulders sagging. His thin frame bowed over with the weight of the world.
I had to pull it together. I had to take care of my brother.
I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand.
Then I walked back to him.
“I have an idea,” I said.
“What?”
“Monopoly marathon.”
“Yes,” he said simply.
* * *
Every summer our family got a house in Cape May, New Jersey (don’t think about Cape May being gone), for a week. My mom grew up there so we’d eat like kings at all the local restaurants (don’t think about Jaime’s Waffle Stop being gone) since she knew all the locals (don’t think about Jaime). But since my brother and I weren’t really beach types, we’d mostly play Monopoly (Monopoly, safe to think about).
We spent maybe an hour making our own little game-room area. We pushed aside the fallen boxes to clear a space. Then we brought over a card table from the Home Department. We took a mini-fridge and stocked it with sodas. We got a bunch of chips and snacks and what have you. We even draped some beach towels over the aisle dividers to give our game room a beachy feel.
* * *
Somewhere around early afternoon, Niko came and found us. He didn’t say anything, just took a look at what we were doing. We stopped and looked at him. His eyes revealed nothing, which was no surprise. After a moment, he turned and walked away.
* * *
It’s hard to believe you can spend a whole day playing Monopoly, but of course, you can.
My brother and I had very different strategies. I bought everything I could. My brother only ever bought the railroads, the utilities, and the light-blue properties (Vermont, Connecticut, and Oriental Avenues).
The problems with his strategy, in my opinion, were many. First of all, it was incredibly annoying to play against him. Second, it seemed like it had to be insanely boring for him. Third, it felt like his strategy to only buy the light-blue properties was really shortsighted and somewhat stupid but he would always land on them. I mean, of the maybe fifty games we’d play each summer, I’d only get the chance to buy a light blue maybe three times. But the biggest problem about his inane strategy was that he’d often win.
For example, he won the first game.
I got him on the second, however, when he hit my hotel on New York.
Game three, our big tiebreaker, was ended prematurely by the smell of pizza.
It smelled delicious and I sort of jumped up.
It had occurred to me that maybe Astrid was feeling better and had made us all lunch.
“When we come back, I’m going to destroy you,” Alex said.
“Yes, sir, Mr. Water Works.”
* * *
It was only Niko, though. He had figured out how to run the Pizza Shack ovens. He had cooked a bunch of pizzas and lined them all up on the counter.
The smells had not only drawn us—all of the little kids were there, and so were Jake, Brayden, and Sahalia.
Jake, Brayden, and Sahalia were sprawled out in one of the bigger booths. There was something in the way they were slouching and the way the little kids were looking at them that made me know immediately what was wrong.
They were drunk.
They had three big slushies in front of them and, as I watched, Jake took out a hip flask of some kind of alcohol and poured a shot into his cup.
Sahalia giggled and leaned across Brayden, putting her straw into Jake’s cup.
“Hey, girl, keep your straw to yourself!” Jake half shouted, smiling.
“It’s just a little sip,” she crooned.
“No, no,” Jake said. “It’s the last straw!”
They thought this was hilarious.
Max and Ulysses also laughed, in that dumb way kids laugh when grown-ups do, just to be in on it.
Niko looked at me and Alex pointedly.
“Dinner’s up,” Niko said. “Everyone come up and help yourselves.”
“You heard him!” Jake said with a grin. “Chop, chop! Everyone get up there!”
“Brave Hunter Man has spoken,” Brayden said.
“You’re not the boss, you know,” Sahalia said to Niko with a roll of her eyes.
“Can it, Sasha,” Jake said.
A nickname. Awesome. The senior had given the sexy thirteen-year-old a pet name.
“Come on, guys.” I tried to break it up. “The pizza’s hot. Let’s eat.”
Everyone sort of ambled up into a line for the food.
“I’m not eating sausage,” Max protested. “My mom says sausage is made of pig bottoms.”
“Your mom, your mom, your mom,” Sahalia mocked. “You little kids are always talking about your moms! Enough already with the moms. They’re not here and they’re not coming anytime soon!”
This was a dumb thing to say and she didn’t even notice.
The twins started to cry and Ulysses was right behind them with his jelly-bean tears.
Niko stepped in front of the counter and addressed the group, trying to get things back on line.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “With Jake’s permission, I have a plan for us to get some structure in place here.”
“‘With Jake’s permission,’ that’s bull,” Brayden said, his voice too loud. “You want to take over.”
“I don’t want to take over. But I do think we need some clear plans—”
“You know what, Niko?” Jake said. “I know you have good intentions, but we just, like, went through a terrible thing, you know? The world outside is a total disaster and we don’t know what’s going to happen. I think we deserve a little break. A little chance to just like, relax and, like, chill out and even enjoy what we got here. Let’s hang for a while. I mean, truly, honestly, what’s the harm?”
“We’re going to fall apart,” Niko said calmly.
Jake threw up his hands and took an unsteady step back as Brayden pushed forward.
“Screw you, Niko!” Brayden said. “We don’t want be told what to do by some freakish outcast!”
Brayden pushed Niko and Niko stepped back.
“I don’t want to fight,” Niko said.
“No, you just want us to take your orders. Like you even know what you’re doing!”
Brayden pushed Niko again. Now Niko was backed against the counter. Niko tried to step away but slipped on a paper plate someone left on the ground and fell.
Niko scrambled to his feet but Brayden pushed him down again.
“Stop it!” Alex shouted.
The kids started to totally lose it, screaming and screeching in alarm, like a pack of monkeys.
“Cut it out, Brayden,” Jake said.
Brayden was standing over Niko.
“What? You don’t fight? You too ‘Zen master’? You too ‘Brave Hunter Man’? What is it with you?”
“I just want to be prepared,” Niko said. “So that—”
“Oh my God!” Brayden yelled. “Oh my G-A-double dog-D, I just got it.” He looked triumphant. Menacing and victorious. “You’re a Boy Scout! A Boy Scout! Aren’t you?”
Niko shrugged. Brushed his hair out of his eyes.
“Yes. I am a Boy Scout,” Niko said.
Brayden doubled over in violent laughter.
Jake chuckled, too, and the little kids started laughing, mostly, I think, to relieve the tension that was building.
“‘Be prepared,’ that’s your motto. A friggin’ Boy Scout. He wants us to take direction from a friggin’ Boy Scout.”
“I don’t know what’s so funny
about it,” Niko said.
The little kids were laughing on, oblivious, as Niko went red around the ears.
“I’m glad Niko has Scout training,” I said loudly. “If he didn’t, I’d have died on the bus. He pulled me out of there. I’m glad he’s a Scout.”
“No one cares what you think, Geraldine,” Brayden snarled.
“I’m glad Niko is a Scout, too,” Alex offered. “He knows how to get stuff done.”
“Okay, you guys, shut up,” Brayden spat at me and Alex.
“Brayden, settle down,” Jake said.
“Unless maybe… Oh, I see. I get it.” He motioned at me and Alex. “You and your brother want in on Niko’s little gay Scout thing. You guys wish you could be up in the woods, huffing on each other’s campfires…”
Brayden started making a humping motion.
He was facing me so he didn’t see Niko launch at him. Niko drove his head into Brayden’s side.
Jake was on them in an instant, trying to separate them, but Niko reared back, slamming Jake’s head into the metal cabinet, by accident I’m sure, but it sent Jake over the edge.
Jake started whaling on Niko. Punching.
Brayden already whaling on him, too.
The kids went totally berserk. Batiste ran off. Max was screeching. The twins, wailing and clutching at each other. Chloe, screaming and clawing at her head. It was insanity.
Niko was doing his best to fight back, but he was outmanned and overpowered. I stupidly scrambled over and tried to pull Jake and Brayden off Niko.
Brayden turned and smiled, like he was happy to see me, then he punched me in the side of my head.
I meant to just try to pull him off Niko but instead I started punching him. He had my head in a one-armed grip but that didn’t stop me from landing punches to his side and then—
BWRAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!
An air horn.
So loud.
BWRAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!
Everyone stopped fighting.
We looked up.
Josie had the air horn held high. She was standing on the counter.
She was in her grimy, stained clothes. Blood still crusted behind her ears, where Mrs. Wooly had missed. The cruddy gauze bandage stuck to her forehead by gore alone.
She looked like she had risen from the dead.
And she was totally in command.
“This fight is over,” Josie said.
Her voice was quiet, but you could have heard it a mile away.
“Tomorrow we are going to have a ceremony to honor the dead.”
We took that in.
“And then we’ll have an election to pick someone, just until Mrs. Wooly gets back, to be our leader.”
And that was that.
We had a plan.
CHAPTER TEN
MAMA DUCK
After dinner, which we ate with hardly any fuss and hardly any talking, really, Josie got up and put her plate in the trash.
Then Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline got up and put their plates in the trash.
Then Josie walked out of the Pizza Shack area.
And Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline walked out of the Pizza Shack area.
Josie walked to the Children’s Clothing section.
Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline followed.
She asked them their sizes and picked out pajamas for them.
She handed each child a new pair of pajamas and they hugged the pajamas to them like they were a precious treasure. Like the pajamas were a dream come true.
Then Josie walked back toward the Media Department and they followed her. In a single-file line.
It was astounding.
“I think I’m gonna puke,” Sahalia said, breaking the calm Josie had left in her wake.
* * *
Alex won the last game of Monopoly, with his darn railroads and utilities and hotels on Connecticut, Vermont, and Oriental.
And when we went back to the Media Department, here’s what I saw:
Six little kids in new sleeping bags on new air mattresses with new pillows in new pillowcases. All in a circle around Josie, who was sitting on the floor. Josie had a candle in front of her, and it cast a warm, golden circle of light on their clean, scrubbed faces.
Why hadn’t I thought of an air mattress?
Josie had also (finally) cleaned herself up. She was wearing white pajamas and a pink robe and slippers. And her hair was back in its customary giraffe knots on top of her head. Her brown skin looked soft and glowing in the candlelight. The only thing that broke the spell was the big square of gauze taped over the gash on her forehead. But at least it was fresh gauze.
Josie was weaving an outrageous, preposterous, totally absurdist fairy tale. It went like this:
“When Mrs. Wooly comes, she’s going to have a big, new yellow school bus. And she’s going to open up the door and say, ‘Come on in, guys, time to go home!’ Henry and Caroline will get on first, of course, because they are the youngest.”
“I’m older by fourteen minutes,” Henry volunteered.
“Yes. Caroline will be first, then Henry. Then Max, then Ulysses, Batiste, and then Chloe, because she is the oldest of all of you. And then Mrs. Wooly will drive down the road. The sky will be so blue and the sun shining. She will drive on down the road to your house. Yes. And your parents will be there waiting.
“Oh! Imagine how worried they have been. No matter. Now you are safe. Now you are home. And Mrs. Wooly will take you by the hand and lead you up the front walk and in you will go.”
“And will you be in the bus?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Of course!” Josie said. “It’s my job, too, to make sure you get home safely.”
“And will you come in?” asked Caroline.
“Yes. If your parents invite me, then I will stay for dinner. Won’t that be nice? I wonder what we will have.”
“My nana makes a lasagna that’s out of this world!” Chloe proclaimed loudly. “Everyone says so.”
“If we go to my mom’s, she’ll gets us Popeyes,” Max conceded. “If we go to my dad’s, he’ll get Mickey D’s. Wendy’s is his favorite, but he don’t go there anymore because one time, my dad, he went through the drive-through at Wendy’s in the middle of the night and you’ll never guess what happened because this lady was working there and he says to her, ‘You’re too pretty to work the graveyard shift,’ and she goes, ‘You bet your sweet ass I am,’ and he puts his arm out and she grabs on and he pulls her right outta the window, through the opening and she gets in his truck. And now she’s my auntie Jean. She sleeps over. And she has a gold tooth.”
“My goodness,” Josie said.
Then there was a pause.
I imagine Josie was trying to compose herself.
“Is it real gold?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Yep,” Max answered. “But it doesn’t come out. Anyways, I like Popeyes better, anyway.”
“Whether it’s Popeyes or McDonald’s, I think it will be a great feast,” Josie said, smoothing down Max’s unruly hair. “We will all be so happy, when Mrs. Wooly comes to take us home. And now it is time for rest and sweet dreams.”
Josie tucked Henry’s sleeping bag in around his shoulders and kissed Caroline on the forehead.
Josie was a natural.
Where Astrid had that kick-ass camp counselor thing, Josie was a mom. A sixteen-year-old, middle-aged mom.
* * *
Her story just about put me to sleep, too.
Alex was snoring.
We had followed Josie’s example and gotten ourselves those self-inflating air mattresses.
The difference was mighty. Mighty comfortable. Settling onto it, I realized how sore and tired my bones felt. The adrenaline and the shock of, well, everything had had me flying high.
Now I was starting to feel my body again. And it was a wreck. Also I had a bitch of a headache from Brayden’s punch.
Josie came over and knelt down next to
my bed.
“Can you write something to say tomorrow?” she asked me.
“At the ceremony?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a good writer.”
“How do you know?” I said.
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s just… I’m not a public writer. What I write is just a record. For me,” I told her.
Josie sighed. The endless patience and gentleness she had seemed to have with the kids was gone. She rubbed her eyes agitatedly.
“We need a ceremony, okay? They need it. And it needs to feel like it’s coming from everybody. Not just me. Do you see what I mean? It can’t just be some dumb thing that I’m making everybody do. If it’s going to work, to actually help us, it’s got to come from us all.”
“Okay, okay.” I gave in. “You’re right, Josie. I’ll write something. I’ll do it.”
I had some thoughts already, to tell the truth.
“And thanks for organizing it,” I said. “We do need to do something. For them.”
She got up and stepped away from me, then turned back.
“No,” she said. “It’s me who should say thanks. So… thanks.”
For the company, I guess.
“Hey, Dean, can I ask you something else?”
“Sure,” I answered.
Josie looked down, as if she were inspecting her slippers.
“What day is it?” She laughed self-consciously. “I mean… I lost some time there. Everything was sort of fuzzy. It feels like we’ve been here for a long time, but I don’t think so.”
“It’s Thursday.” I said. “And we got here on Tuesday.”
“Three days?” she said in shock. She started to laugh. “Three days?! That’s totally insane.”
“What’s insane?” Niko said, approaching us silently, as usual. His left eye was swollen shut and though he was tidy in general, I could see the faint outline of nose-blood crusted in his nostrils.
“Wow. You okay?” Josie asked him.
“I’m fine,” he said. The stoic Niko. Brave Hunter Man. “But thanks for asking.” Polite, too.
“Did you know it’s Thursday!” Josie said. “We’ve only been here for three days. Doesn’t it seem like a lifetime?”
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