by Kelli Kimble
She moved the statue from the desk of the boy who’d earned it yesterday by reciting the words of our city’s anthem. His name was Venyu, and as the statue was whisked away, he humped up his back and scowled. Mrs. Darit doted on him and the statue rarely moved away from his desk.
Mrs. Darit plunked the statue onto Elton’s desk without ceremony. I glanced sideways at Elton. He was inching a finger forward to touch it. I couldn’t recall him ever having had it for himself.
Mrs. Darit returned to the front of the classroom. “All right, back to what I was saying. One of your classmates has developed a remarkable—uh, natural ability to hear and speak to others with his mind, just like anyone else with an implant. So, I’m sure you understand why he isn’t here today.”
Wait a minute. He? She wasn’t talking about me. My shoulders melted away from my ears—where they’d been hunched since Elton had announced what he’d overheard that morning. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Talika stiffen.
I looked around the room. Of course. The person missing was the boy she had a crush on: Marve.
“He graduated to telepath school?” asked Elton. He didn’t bother raising his hand, and Mrs. Darit noticed.
“Elton, I can take away the gold star just as easily as I gave it,” she said.
“Sorry Mrs. Darit,” he mumbled.
“But, yes, he did graduate out of our classroom.” She glanced down at the podium. “Ah, it’s time for lunch, so you’re excused until one. Please, no running, and push in your desk chairs.”
The room exploded in sound and movement as most everyone—cut free from the bindings of their desks—pushed their chairs in and headed outside to eat their packaged lunches. I had only a stale roll from last night’s dinner in my bag, so I wasn’t as eager to eat as everyone else.
“Wow,” Elton said. “Nobody’s ever moved up to telepath school before.”
Talika paled. Not knowing how to comfort her, I patted her arm. I really didn’t think Marve was worth any kind of mooning over, but she was my best friend, so I thought I should offer something.
“What?” Elton asked, finally noticing Talika and I weren’t overjoyed for our lucky classmate.
“It’s nothing,” I said, trying to shield Talika from his usual level of nosiness.
“You guys are actually going to miss that jerk?” Elton said. “He was always picking on me. He called me names and stuff. My mother says he’s no good.”
Talika normally tolerated Elton’s attentions fairly well, but today, she didn’t want to hear any more of his blathering. She grabbed her lunch, didn’t bother to push in her chair, and rushed from the room.
“Boy, what’s with her?” he said.
“She liked Marve,” I said. “She’s upset because he’s gone.”
“Ew,” he said. “But, it’s not like he disappeared from the city. He’s still around. We just won’t see him in class anymore.”
I wanted to point out that Talika’s interest in Marve meant she had no interest in Elton—or his opinion. But, it seemed like it would only cause trouble. “See you after lunch,” I said.
“Yeah, see ya.” He opened his lunch bag and produced a veritable smorgasbord of food as I was standing up. It was really hard not to stare. My stomach growled. Reluctantly, I pulled the hard dinner roll from my bag and began trying to break through the toughness of the stale crust. I didn’t move, unable to move away from such a tempting amount of food.
“You want an apple?” he asked. He plucked it from the pile and reached it out to me.
“Um, thanks,” I said. It was all I could do not to snatch it away. I accepted it as gracefully as I could and took a bite. It was delicious. “Wow, it’s so good. Thanks.”
He shrugged. I realized he never went outside to eat with the others. Through the window, I saw Talika drifting aimlessly. In her present mood, she would want to be alone, anyway.
“Mind if I stay here with you?” I asked.
He brightened. “Really? I mean, no, I don’t mind.”
I took my seat and finished eating the apple, spitting the seeds into an envelope I had in my desk so that I could take them home and plant them. “So, what did you hear Mrs. Darit tell your mom, anyway?”
“She said one of the boys developed an ability the doctor can’t explain. They were just gossiping. You know. Stuff adults say.”
I nodded, again trying to bite into my bread. It was too hard, and my jaw was beginning to ache from the effort.
“Here,” he said. He held out a small butter knife he took from his bag. “Just cut it open. You want some butter?”
He produced a tiny container and opened it. There was, indeed, butter inside.
“Your lunch has a lot of stuff in it,” I said. I cut open my roll and smeared some butter inside. It was still difficult to eat, but the butter improved it greatly.
He smiled a lopsided smile. “My mom equates food to love,” he said.
“Oh.” I knew I wasn’t the only one in class who often went hungry, but Marvin’s mom worked at the grocery store.
He gave me a few more things out of his lunch, and we ate in silence. I glanced out the window a few times, looking for Talika. She continued to wander around the schoolyard. She’d likely get in trouble this afternoon for not paying attention during lessons.
When it was almost time for lunch to be over, Elton pulled two chocolate chip cookies from his bag and handed me one. “Thanks for eating here with me,” he said. “I’ve never had someone eat lunch with me before.”
“You can eat with us anytime you want,” I said, crumbs flying out of my mouth as I stuffed the cookie in and talked at the same time. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d had a cookie.
He nodded in response. Just then, the door opened, and students began to filter back in. Talika wasn’t among them. At one o’clock, Mrs. Darit looked out the window.
“Nimisila, where’s Talika?” she asked me.
“I don’t know, Mrs. Darit,” I said.
“Didn’t you eat lunch with her?”
“I ate with Elton today,” I said.
I might as well have said I ate slugs for lunch. The entire room turned to stare at me. Elton grinned, like he’d won the city prize. I slumped down in my chair a bit.
“How very unlike her, to leave school without telling me,” Mrs. Darit said. “I’ll be in touch with her mother, then. Back to our lessons.”
She droned on, but I made no attempt to listen. Where had Talika gone? She couldn’t go to the telepathic school. Actually, she could. But, nobody there would talk to her—except maybe Marve, but he’d never bothered to talk to her while he was at our school, so he’d likely not talk there, either. Had she gone home? Was she really that upset?
When Mrs. Darit finally called the day to a close, I collected my things as quickly as I could and darted for the door.
Elton stepped into my path. “Where you going in such a hurry?” he asked.
“I’m going to look for Talika,” I said.
“Oh, right. To warn her she’s going to get in trouble?”
She was going to be in trouble, of course, but my concern was deeper than that. What would possess a girl who never broke the rules to leave school?
“Uh, yeah,” I said, trying to move around him.
He stuck with me, though. “Can I come? Maybe I can help.”
I thought back to the cookie at lunch. I didn’t want to endanger future offers of food. “Sure,” I said. “But, we’ve got to get moving. Fast.”
“Right,” he said. He walked along beside me, pumping his arms with an awkward gait.
“What are you doing?”
“I’m coming with you,” he said.
“No, I mean, why are you walking like that?”
“It’s speed-walking,” he said. “Haven’t you ever heard of it?”
I shook my head—partly in answer, and partly because I couldn’t believe he was speed-walking. “Why don’t we just run?” I said. I broke into an easy
jog, and he started to run, too. He quickly began to pant, then he was breathing hard. I slowed back to a walking pace when he started to gasp for air. “Are you okay?”
“Fine,” he said, between pants. “Where are we going?”
“Talika’s house,” I said.
“Great,” he said. His award-winning grin appeared. I wondered if visiting her house was something he’d fantasized about.
When we got to her house, I didn’t go to the front door. Talika never answered it, anyway. But, her parents wouldn’t be home from work yet, so I could just go knock on her window. We went around back, picking up an old crate from the side yard that I often used to climb through her window.
I put the crate down and stood on it, peering through the glass into her room. The sun was hitting the glass just right, and I had to press my face to the glass with my hands cupped around my eyes so that I could see inside. She wasn’t there.
I tapped a few times anyway, in case she just wasn’t in her room.
“Go knock on the back door,” I said, pointing towards the porch down the length of the house. “See if she answers.”
I checked her room once more as he went off to knock on the door. She still wasn’t there, and none of her school things were in their usual places. I climbed off the crate. “Anything?” I said to Elton.
He shrugged and shook his head.
“Come on,” I said. We went back through the side yard, leaving the crate in its spot as we passed through.
“Where are we going now?” Elton asked.
I thought about it as we walked into the street. More people were around now, as it was getting close to dinnertime, and telepath school had just let out. “Let’s go over to telepath school,” I said.
But, she wasn’t there, either. We lingered as long as we could, getting occasional glares from the teachers who were leaving, now that the students were gone. They were probably lecturing us, but we couldn’t hear them.
“I guess I’m going to go home,” I said. “I don’t know where else to look for her, and anyway, my mom is going to be wondering where I am.”
“Can I walk with you?” Elton asked.
I wondered if the way I’d treated him today had resulted in a transfer of his crush from Talika to me. On one hand, it could be nice, because he’d probably give me food as gifts. But, the memory of the semi-disgusted looks I’d gotten from the other students when I’d said I had lunch with him was fresh in my mind. Either way, I didn’t really have it in me to tell him to bug off, so I shrugged and said, “Sure.”
We walked together, not saying much. Maybe he wasn’t crushing on me; he was normally quite vocal with Talika. But, when we rounded the corner to my house, I saw it with fresh eyes.
Since Elton didn’t have an implant, it was clear his parents were not high-level people. So, I knew he likely lived in a small place, as well. But, was his place leaning slightly to one side, with peeling paint, a broken front window, and overgrown with weeds, like mine was? I doubted that very much.
Suddenly, even though I’d thought it didn’t really matter what Elton thought of me, I didn’t want him to see where I lived. “You know, I’m good from here. You don’t have to walk me all the way home.”
“Hey,” he said, pointing in the vicinity of my shabby house. “There’s Talika.”
He was right. She was in the backyard, swinging on the swing I’d shown to Arisa. The scruffy, half-dead trees and shrubs in my neighborhood couldn’t mask her from this vantage point.
“Oh, yeah. Well, we found her. I guess you can head on home now,” I said. I put a hand on his back and tried to steer him to my left, towards the direction I knew he lived in.
“No, I want to hear this,” he said. “I didn’t spend my whole afternoon looking for her, just so I could miss the story.”
“All right.” I willed my feet to move towards my house. I’m not sure why it was a problem anymore; he had surely figured out by now that the swing was in my backyard, and therefore, he had already seen which house was mine. After another moment of hesitation, I finally got myself moving.
She spotted me and raised a hand in greeting—though she seemed to stop the motion when she noticed I wasn’t alone. Even from this distance, I saw a brief scowl pass over her face. Like I said before, she was usually pretty understanding of Elton—and his unwanted attentions. But, today was different.
We tromped through the grass, wild and overgrown because we’d eaten our last goat. Elton didn’t seem to notice. He didn’t really look around at all, which I was thankful for. He kept his gaze laser-focused on Talika. “There you are,” he said as we came into the backyard. “Mrs. Darit is really pissed, Talika. She’s going to call your parents.”
“Uh, hi, Elton,” she said. “Thanks for the update.” She looked at me. “Can we go somewhere to talk?”
“I’ve got the perfect secret hideout,” Elton said. “Come on; I’ll show you.”
Talika glanced at me. I shrugged. “Okay,” Talika said. “Lead the way.”
We struck out down the street, Elton jabbering the whole way. He spent a good 10 minutes telling Talika how Mrs. Darit discovered she was missing, and what she said, and how she’d questioned me. When he got to the part about everyone turning to stare at me, he didn’t say it. I hoped that was because he hadn’t noticed. I mostly felt neutral about Elton—except when he was extra intent on badgering Talika—but I didn’t want him to know the rest of the class found him odd and obnoxious. He went on, telling how he’d come with me to look for her at her house and telepath school. But, before he got to the walking-me-home bit, he darted into a forested park. “This way,” he said. “We’re almost there.” We went off the path, then through dead leaves and underbrush, some of it thorny. My forearms got scratched, and my hands somehow got sticky sap on them.
He stopped and looked around—checking for other people, I suppose. Then, he climbed onto a low, sturdy branch, followed by another. Out of nowhere, a ladder seemed to appear, and he climbed to a platform that had been invisible before. “Come on,” he said. “It’s easy.”
Talika climbed after him, and I followed. Somehow, he’d built a platform from discarded fruit crates, so high up in the branches that it wasn’t visible from the ground. There were no sides to the platform, and it felt dangerous. I crawled to the middle, unwilling to sit on an edge, where I might lean backward and fall.
Elton was standing near the edge of the other side and scanning the woods. Like me, Talika was huddled near the center.
“This is really impressive,” I said. “How did you do it?”
“My older brother and I built it,” he said. “He’s not around much anymore, though. Not since he started working at the power plant.”
I hadn’t known he had an older brother. If he worked at the power plant, he must have had an implant. “Do you have any other siblings?” I asked.
“Nope. Just me and Weasel,” he said. He came to the center and sat beside us. “It’s real sturdy; you don’t have to be afraid,” he said. “Weasel and I have even had wrestling matches up here. Nothing’s coming apart.”
“I’m more afraid of falling over the edge,” I said.
“Oh,” he said. “I never really thought to be afraid of that.”
Talika rolled her eyes. “For Heaven’s sake, Elton. We’re a good 40 feet above the ground. If you fell, you’d be dead.”
“Well, sure, now that you put it like that,” he said.
The conversation had fallen off-topic, so I tried to get things moving again. “What did you want to talk about?” I asked Talika.
“You were right to look for me at telepath school,” she said. “I went there and waited outside for them to finish. I wanted to see Marve, to tell him I didn’t think he was a freak or anything. You know? He can still be one of us.”
Elton snorted. “Why would he want to? If he can do what a telepath can, he’s got it made.”
Talika glanced at Elton but didn’t answer him, just kept tel
ling her story. “So, I waited, and school finished, and everyone came outside. I waited and waited and never saw him. I was about to give up, when I saw your aunt. I didn’t think she’d remember me or anything, but I figured she would be more willing to communicate, being related to you and all. I waited until she was alone, and I approached her. I told her I was looking for Marve, the new kid who was a telepath without an implant. She looked at me like I was crazy. Then, she took out a piece of paper and scribbled on it. The whole time, she was looking around, like she thought someone was watching her.” She produced a crumpled piece of paper from her pocket. It had a scribble in smudged, red ink that read: Go home and don’t ask again.
“She folded it in half and handed it to me,” Talika continued. “Then, she grabbed me by the shoulders, turned me around, and pushed me away.”
Tears welled up in her eyes, causing Elton to move closer and put an arm around her. “There, there,” he said.
“Would you cut it out?” she said, leaning away from him.
“Sorry,” he said, retreating to his previous position. “I just thought you needed a hug.”
She turned to me. “After that, I went by his house.” She touched the tips of her fingers to the center of her forehead, a gesture she always made when she was feeling hopeless. “Nobody was there,” she said thickly.
“I’m sure someone will be home soon,” I said. “We could go see if anyone’s home now?”
“No,” she said, shaking her head. “You don’t understand. Nobody was there. The house was empty. I looked in a window, and all their stuff is gone. They’re all gone.”
“Wow,” Elton said. “That’s crazy.”
Talika balled her fists at her sides. “You don’t believe me? Let’s go. We’ll go now, and I’ll show you. It’s not just him; it’s his parents, too.”
I put a restraining hand on her arm. “Okay. There has to be a reasonable explanation. Right? We just need to stay calm and look for one.”