I got up—maybe a little unsteadily—put my dressing gown on and took Mongo downstairs. There was a faint breeze around my ankles that might have been Hix. I let Mongo out (with or without Hix) and groped my way into the kitchen to make coffee. Mom or I was nearly always the first one up. It was me today. It had seemed to me unfair for years now that it was like this. Ran got up cheerful but you needed a blowtorch or a jackhammer to wake him. Val was the same. Maybe it’s something to do with the Y chromosome.
I poured my first mug and chugged about half of it. I put the rest of the coffee in our big insulated pot, put it on a tray with three more mugs (although Ran was still drinking milk out of his) and brought it to the table.
Where my algebra book was lying.
I may have whimpered. I stared at it. Maybe it stared at me, I don’t know.
Mongo, who was watching through the glass for when I plunked the tray on the table, whined at the kitchen door to be let back in. So I did. Several gruuaa came with him; it wasn’t just Hix. They arranged themselves along the baseboards very like long thin shadowy dogs and . . . fell asleep? I don’t know that either. I sat down in my chair. The algebra book had sidled a little closer to where I’d left my mug on the table while I was letting Mongo in. I finished my first mug of coffee and poured my second. My hands were shaking.
Mom came into the kitchen yawning and rubbing her hair. She fell—well, sat—in her chair and started on her first mug of coffee. Halfway through it you could see the possibility of articulate speech returning. “Cramming already?” she said, nodding at the algebra book. “Is your teacher this year that bad? Poor you.”
“I—er—the book’s so huge and such a weird shape it won’t fit in my knapsack, and I’m afraid of leaving it behind,” I said, thinking fast. I was pretty sure I was supposed to have read the introduction, or else why had I hauled it home in the first place? Maybe I could do it at lunch. The introduction should be mostly words. I knew what it would say: that algebra was fun and easy and we were going to have a really good time together this year blah blah blah. Dreeping dreeping dreeping.
“It is a weird shape,” said Mom, pulling it toward her. “What on earth were they thinking when they made a textbook half the size of a coffee table?” She lifted the front cover. It opened, it seemed to me, lazily, like a cat stretching; the cover, when she let go of it, didn’t drop inertly to the tabletop the way it should, but subsided gently, and the pages started fanning themselves. They fell open, of course, about two-thirds of the way through, where the paper was silky and printed with something besides algebra. I could see x² + 6x – 8 = 3x + 7 all wound around a flowering vine: the x’s were tiny four-petaled flowerets. I didn’t know if the right answer was “ugh” or “awww.”
“How extraordinary,” said Mom, stroking one of the pages (which was stiffly standing straight up, like a cat being petted). “Whatever is the paper made of?”
I had no idea how I was going to answer that one, but fortunately she looked at the clock and said, “Oh, flastic, Ran has got to get up,” finished her coffee and went back upstairs to throw shoes at my brother (I wish. I’ve been known to do that, but it got me in trouble). I took my algebra book (and more coffee) back upstairs with me, got dressed in record time, and brought my knapsack downstairs again with the zootronic book, as camouflage. As I snapped Mongo’s lead on I was aware of Hix climbing up my arm from Mongo’s back and arranging herself around my neck in what I guess was becoming her standard position. I straightened up and glared at my algebra book. “You stay right there,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
I hadn’t noticed it in the house—maybe our remaining gruuaa had figured out how to block it?—maybe I just wasn’t awake enough. But outdoors I could still feel that creepy it’s-behind-you-and-it-isn’t-friendly new armydar. Were they still at it? Ugh. It was like finding out the playground bully was waiting for you when you’d been hoping he’d given up and gone home. Green pond scum. Smelly green dreeping pond scum.
And there were still soldiers at the end of our road. Bugsuck. Shimatta. We turned around. At this end Station butted up against what was kind of the edge of the barrens. There was a jagged hedge of little trees between the last of the houses and the scrub that gave way pretty soon to the barrens. You could make your way along the far side of the trees (it was pretty rough going but all the local dog walkers did it), and then duck back in again when you got to the next street. We went up Singh Lane. There were no soldiers at the end of it. We stopped on the corner and looked around. From there you could see five streets dead-ending into Ramage, this side of town’s main avenue through Station: Jaboli, Singh, Jenkins, Korngold, and Drisk. Only Jaboli had soldiers on it.
When we got back, Ran was eating cereal and my algebra book was still lying next to my knapsack. Mongo, who knew perfectly well what my school knapsack and rushing around in the morning meant, was doing his, You-don’t-mean-you’re-leaving-me-again-you-call-that-a-walk? and getting in the way. It seemed to me a little more intense than usual, but if he and Hix were now great friends, he probably knew she was coming with me, and I don’t suppose a dog gets it about semi-visible and mostly intangible being easier to sneak past the teachers.
I was stuffing a piece of toast in my mouth when I heard Jill’s wheels crunch on the driveway. “I will see you this afternoon,” I said, getting down on my knees to give Mongo a hug. When I stood up, Val was standing in the hallway. I hesitated. I didn’t really know what terms we were on with each other. Even remembering Takahiro—and the conversation coming home in the car—it was still really hard to stop thinking of Val as a villain and start thinking of him as a hero, like turning a page in a book. In books that kind of thing really annoys me. Even when the person who was wrong about the other person who is really a hero has been being a creepazoid, which I guess was me.
He gave me a little nod, as foreign as his shrug.
“Morning,” I said. “Sorry. Jill’s waiting.”
He stood aside immediately, but said, “How are you?” His voice was furry with sleep, and it seemed to me his accent was stronger than usual, like it took him a while to fit back into his Newworld life in the morning. I could relate to the fitting-back-into-reality problem. But I’d spoken to him yesterday morning too. I guessed I’d better get used to it.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Still kind of freaked out. Worried about Takahiro.” I paused. “You?”
“I am well, thank you,” he said, alien as a Martian. “You will see Takahiro today?”
“I’d better,” I said, picked up my knapsack and algebra book, and headed for the front door.
• • •
“You’ve got soldiers at the end of your road,” said Jill. “What’s up? This whole area is making my hair stand on end. It feels like invisible things with legs crawling on you. Ugh. It’s much worse near you than over where we are.” She’d got the short straw in the family vehicle lottery that day: she was driving the Mammothmobile. It had probably started life as a muscle car fifteen years ago for you and your eighteen closest friends to intimidate the locals in. You could get several kegs of beer in the back seat and maybe a small buffalo or the basketball team.
I glanced guiltily at Hix, who was a slightly odd pool of shadow in my lap. “Um—Val says it’s some kind of hyped-up armydar. Because of the cobey.” I’d put the algebra book on the floor, leaning against the wall of the footwell. When Jill turned out of our driveway it tipped over so it was leaning against my leg. It might just have been centrifugal force. (Yes. I know about centrifugal force. Yaay me.)
“Val says, eh?” said Jill. “So, you didn’t punch him out for talking to you, did you?” I didn’t say anything and she went on: “Where were you last night? I tried to call you but your phone was turned off. We all went to P&P again. Casimir was there and he asked after you. He said he’d seen you yesterday afternoon.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound casual.
“We ran into each other at the park. He gave me a ride home.”
“At the park?” said Jill, slightly distracted from the fascinating topic of Casimir. “There was a really big whizztizz at the park yesterday. Army all over the landscape. Steph lives in the street opposite the main gate, you know? She saw like forty units all rushing through the gate at once. She was afraid it was another cobey but there haven’t been any announcements or anything, and school’s not canceled—dreep it. I don’t know, I suppose it wouldn’t really be worth a cobey in the park to have school canceled.”
I tried to smile. “Yeah, we saw them arriving as we were leaving. I don’t know what they thought was happening.” Which was true enough. Although I knew it wasn’t what they were expecting. I wanted to tell Jill about yesterday but I didn’t know where to start. Or what I could say. I couldn’t tell her about Takahiro. Not even Jill.
Jill finished backing out of the driveway and turning around, and stopped so she could look at me. I tried to look at her steadily but it was hard. Sometimes it’s a big flastic pain to have a friend who sees more than most people. “Maggie—” she began, and stopped. She looked away from me, down at the steering wheel, as if only just noticing that she was driving the Mammothmobile. She sighed. “Okay, whatever,” she said, and put her foot back on the gas.
“There they are,” she said. “The soldiers.” I looked warily out the window. I didn’t know if they had my scan profile from last night on their ’tronic or anything—or what my algebra book might be giving off. Two of the soldiers were looking toward us but nobody tried to stop us. I didn’t mean to be holding my breath, but I let it out as Jill crossed the intersection. “No, I don’t like them either,” said Jill. “Although some of them are probably cute and nice and everything and joined the army because they needed a job.”
There was something about the atmosphere in the car I didn’t like, and I didn’t think it was the armydar. I glanced at Jill’s profile. Tentatively I said, “Casimir says that his mom is—um—a foreseer. That in Ukovia the magicians use foreseers so they’ll know where to be, ready and waiting, to shut down a cobey as fast as possible.”
Jill was silent for a moment. “I live in Newworld, and I want to be a historian. And if you’re asking me, I’d’ve said that it was a cobey in the park yesterday, and if something that isn’t a cobey could make me feel that crazy and off the planet then if I ever am near a real cobey opening I’ll probably start running around on four legs and howling at the moon or something.”
I shivered. I wondered if there was any particular reason why that metaphor had occurred to her. I wished there was a way to tell her about the park yesterday—and Takahiro—without telling her. Abracadabra or something. Ha.
“I think I’ve just decided I want to study the history of science,” she added grimly.
We weren’t any later than usual, and the bell hadn’t rung, so we stood around with our usual group. Steph was full of what she’d seen yesterday and everyone else was listening. Eddie was trying to catch Jill’s eye and I could see by the way she had her lips pressed together that it was taking some effort not to let him. Although it might have been the armydar—or the cobey. It wasn’t quite as bad here as it was outside at home but it was pretty bad. It was making me feel a little pressed-lips too. I put my arm through Jill’s and she gave me a sidelong smile.
Then the bell did ring, and I realized I hadn’t seen Takahiro. My stress level instantly soared. Jill was glad enough to drop to the back of our gang because Eddie was at the front—his homeroom was on the other side of the building. I looked around. My heart was thumping unpleasantly hard. There were three silverbugs in the trees beyond the edge of the parking lot. Three. Not a good sign. The arm that wasn’t through Jill’s was full of algebra book; someone else had probably reported them by now anyway.
It was Hix who told me. I felt that whisper of air against my cheek, the darkness at the edge of my vision that was Hix, and I looked in her direction, the way you turn toward someone putting their hand on your shoulder. I almost didn’t see him, the gruuaa were wrapped around him so tightly, but once you had seen him you had to notice how off he looked, like he was walking in a forest in bright daylight: lots and lots of leaf shadows with little twinklings of light, almost like miniature silverbugs. Suckfest. There were no shadows on the big paved courtyard outside the high school, or beyond the first row of cars in the lot. But it shouldn’t matter—I hoped. Almost nobody could see the gruuaa; I hoped the armydar didn’t mess with that.
“Oh, there’s Taks,” said Jill, sounding relieved. “I’ve been having one of my feelings that he might be in trouble. I’m tired of having—feelings. Gods. Does the armydar mess with your eyes? He looks all, I don’t know, patchy.”
I remembered that she’d seen the gruuaa on the shed, the day of Mom and Val’s wedding. “Oh, Jill,” I said, or rather wailed, “I have so much to tell you.”
“And none of it is good, is it?” said Jill. “I’ve been hoping that it’s just the armydar screwing up whatever it is that I do, but I’ve been having . . . Maggie, I don’t think Takahiro is very well.”
I was thinking the same thing, and was already moving toward him. I was beginning to feel that the gruuaa were holding him together somehow—like a mummy’s bandages.
“Taks, you should have stayed home,” I said. “You look awful.”
He almost smiled. “Thanks.”
“You know what I mean.”
He stopped trying to smile. “Yeah. But it’s worse at home. I think it’ll be better here—lots of other people. Distraction. I’m not . . . you know.” I’d been sniffing cautiously, and there was no wolf smell. “It’s just the armydar makes me feel like I’m being pulled apart. We haven’t even had a scan in this town in years.”
“And they weren’t this bad and they didn’t go on this long,” I said. “I know.”
“If it isn’t better here, I’ll go home,” said Takahiro, but he looked as grey as the cement-block front wall of the school entry as he said it. There were shadows draped around his chest and shoulders. Black was not a good color for him today.
“No,” I said. “If it isn’t better, I’ll take you to Val.”
Jill was looking at each of us in turn, frowning. “Tell you later,” I said, but I looked at Takahiro. He gave a tiny nod, and then went limping on toward the front door.
We were the last ones inside. It was suddenly a lot darker after the glare of the courtyard and we paused, and didn’t notice immediately the last of the kids ahead of us going through a big arch thing set up in front of the double doors into the school from the entry hall.
There were soldiers standing on either side of it. They waved us forward.
“Oh, gizmos and dead batteries,” murmured Takahiro.
“The gruuaa,” I murmured back. “They’ve got you.” I hoped. I could feel Hix tightening around my neck. It tickled, but it wasn’t funny.
Jill said under her breath, “The what?”
“Later,” I said. “We don’t want to look like we have anything to hide.” I was rearranging my algebra book like that was the only reason we’d stopped. I marched forward, thinking, What are they looking for? I reached up and found what I hoped was a trailing end of Hix and draped it/her over my algebra book. What would happen if the archway didn’t like me? Portcullis? Boiling oil? Or would they just arrest me? I thought I might prefer to take my chances with boiling oil.
“Morning, miss,” said the soldier on the left. “Just walk on through. This is only a formality, don’t worry.”
“Good morning,” I said, trying to sound as if I believed him.
There was a funny swipe against my skin as I walked through, like walking through a spiderweb. It should have been kind of like walking through trailing gruuaa but it wasn’t. Gruuaa aren’t sticky and don’t leave a nasty feeling behind them that you can’t wipe off. I disliked eve
n more the sensation of Hix bushing out like an angry cat, and the algebra book cringing back against me. Also, oof. It was a big book and it was pressing my stomach into my backbone, which wasn’t leaving much space for the three mugs of coffee and a piece of toast that were there first.
The machine beeped. I stopped. My heart was beating way too hard and my mouth was suddenly so dry I couldn’t swallow.
The soldier on the left sighed. “That machine is a total waste of electricity and palladium.”
“Shut up,” said the soldier on the right. “If you’d come back through again, miss.”
“May I put my algebra book down?” I said, laying it on the hall monitor’s desk. “It weighs a ton.”
“Sure,” said the soldier on the left.
“No,” said the soldier on the right.
“Get a grip, Sherston,” said the soldier on the left. “It’s a textbook.”
“Keep your knapsack,” snapped the soldier on the right. “And come back through.”
Hix seemed to have unwound or unrolled or something, like she’d done yesterday in the park. I could feel her against my face and hands, but I was pretty sure she had taken a loop around my waist and was brushing against my legs too. Unless that was one or more of Takahiro’s gruuaa. No, I thought at them. If any of you are his, don’t. Go protect Taks. I walked back through the archway, turned, and came through it a third time. The machine remained silent. My heart was still hammering away and I felt a little ill. One down and two to go. I put my hand on my algebra book.
Takahiro was next. I swear the archway turned black with shadows as he went under it. But the machine didn’t say anything.
Shadows Page 20
