by Stephen King
“Not especially. My father’s an alcoholic. My mother divorced him when I was six and married—surprise!—another alcoholic. She must have figured if you can’t beat em, join em, because now she’s an alkie, too. I miss my brother, though. Do you think he’s all right?”
“Sure,” Iris said, without much conviction, and then wandered away to the trampoline and began to bounce. Doing that so soon after a meal would have made Luke feel whoopsy, but Iris hadn’t eaten much.
“Let me get this straight,” Helen said. “You don’t know why we’re here, except it maybe has something to do with psychic abilities that wouldn’t even pass an America’s Got Talent audition.”
“Wouldn’t even get us on Little Big Shots,” George said.
“They test us until we see dots, but you don’t know why.”
“Right,” Kalisha said.
“Then they put us in this other place, Back Half, but you don’t know what goes on there.”
“Yup,” Nicky said. “Can you play chess, or just knock over the pieces?”
She ignored him. “And when they’re done with us, we get some sci-fi memory wipe and live happily ever after.”
“That’s the story,” Luke said.
She considered, then said, “It sounds like hell.”
“Well,” Kalisha said, “I guess that’s why God gave us wine coolers and Hi Boy Brownies.”
Luke had had enough. He was going to cry again pretty soon; he could feel it coming on like a thunderstorm. Doing that in company might be okay for Iris, who was a girl, but he had an idea (surely outdated but all the same powerful) about how boys were supposed to behave. In a word, like Nicky.
He went back to his room, closed the door, and lay down on his bed with an arm over his eyes. Then, for no reason, he thought of Richie Rocket in his silver space suit, dancing as enthusiastically as Nicky Wilholm had before dinner, and how the little kids danced with him, laughing like crazy and singing along to “Mambo Number 5.” As though nothing could go wrong, as if their lives would always be filled with innocent fun.
The tears came, because he was afraid and angry, but mostly because he was homesick. He had never understood what that word meant until now. This wasn’t summer camp, and it wasn’t a field trip. This was a nightmare, and all he wanted was for it to be over. He wanted to wake up. And because he couldn’t, he fell asleep with his narrow chest still hitching with a few final sobs.
3
More bad dreams.
He awoke with a start from one in which a headless black dog had been chasing him down Wildersmoot Drive. For a single wonderful moment he thought the whole thing had been a dream, and he was back in his real room. Then he looked at the pajamas that weren’t his pajamas and at the wall where there should have been a window. He used the bathroom, and then, because he was no longer sleepy, powered up the laptop. He thought he might need another token to make it work, but he didn’t. Maybe it was on a twenty-four-hour cycle, or—if he was lucky—forty-eight. According to the strip at the top, it was quarter past three in the morning. A long time until dawn, then, and what he got for first taking a nap and then falling asleep so early in the evening.
He thought about going to YouTube and watching some of the vintage cartoons, stuff like Popeye that had always had him and Rolf rolling around on the floor, yelling “Where’s me spinach?” and “Uck-uck-uck!” But he had an idea they would only bring the homesickness back, and raving. So what did that leave? Going back to bed, where he’d lie awake until daylight? Wandering the empty halls? A visit to the playground? He could do that, he remembered Kalisha saying the playground was never locked, but it would be too spooky.
“Then why don’t you think, asshole?”
He spoke in a low voice, but jumped at the sound anyway, even half-raised a hand as if to cover his mouth. He got up and walked around the room, bare feet slapping and pajama bottoms flapping. It was a good question. Why didn’t he think? Wasn’t that what he was supposed to be good at? Lucas Ellis, the smart kid. The boy genius. Loves Popeye the Sailor Man, loves Call of Duty, loves shooting hoops in the backyard, but also has a working grasp of written French, although he still needs subtitles when he looks at French movies on Netflix, because they all talk so fast, and the idioms are crazy. Boire comme un trou, for instance. Why drink like a hole when drink like a fish makes much more sense? He can fill a blackboard with math equations, he can reel off all the elements in the periodic table, he can list every vice president going back to George Washington’s, he can give you a reasonable explanation of why attaining light speed is never going to happen outside of the movies.
So why is he just sitting here and feeling sorry for himself?
What else can I do?
Luke decided to take that as a real question instead of an expression of despair. Escape was probably impossible, but what about learning?
He tried googling the New York Times, and wasn’t surprised to get HAL 9000; no news for Institute kids. The question was, could he find a way around the prohibition? A back door? Maybe.
Let’s see, he thought. Let’s just see. He opened Firefox and typed in #!cloakofGriffin!#.
Griffin was H. G. Wells’s invisible man, and this site, which Luke had learned about a year ago, was a way to get around parental controls—not the dark web, exactly, but next door to it. Luke had used it, not because he wanted to visit porn sites on the Brod’s computers (although he and Rolf had done just that on a couple of occasions), or watch ISIS beheadings, but simply because the concept was cool and simple and he wanted to find out if it worked. It had at home and at school, but would it here? There was only one way to find out, so he banged the return key.
The Institue’s Wi-Fi munched awhile—it was slow—and then, just when Luke was starting to think it was a lost cause, took him to Griffin. At the top of the screen was Wells’s invisible man, head wrapped in bandages, badass goggles covering his eyes. Below this was a question that was also an invitation: WHICH LANGUAGE DO YOU WANT TRANSLATED? The list was a long one, from Assyrian to Zulu. The beauty of the site was it didn’t matter which language you picked; the important thing was what got recorded in the search history. Once upon a time, a secret passage beneath parental controls had been available on Google, but the sages of Mountain View had shut it down. Hence, the Cloak of Griffin.
Luke picked German at random, and got ENTER PASSWORD. Calling on what his dad sometimes called his weird memory, Luke typed in #x49ger194GbL4. The computer munched a little more, then announced PASSWORD ACCEPTED.
He typed in New York Times and hit enter. This time the computer thought even longer, but eventually the Times came up. Today’s issue, and in English, but from this point forward, the computer’s search history would note nothing but a series of German words and English translations. Maybe a small victory, maybe a large one. For the moment, Luke didn’t even care. It was a win, and that was enough.
How soon would his captors realize what he was doing? Camouflaging the computer’s search history would mean nothing if they could do live look-ins. They’d see the newspaper and shut him down. Never mind the Times with its headline about Trump and North Korea; he ought to check the Star Trib before that could happen, see if there was anything about his parents. But before he could do that, the screaming started out in the hall.
“Help! Help! Help! Somebody help me! SOMEBODY HELP ME, I’M LOST!”
4
The screamer was a little boy in Star Wars pajamas, hammering on doors with small fists that went up and down like pistons. Ten? Avery Dixon looked six, seven at most. The crotch and one leg of his pajama pants were wet and sticking to him.
“Help me, I WANT TO GO HOME!”
Luke glanced around, expecting to see someone—maybe several someones—coming on the run, but the hall remained empty. Later, he would realize that in the Institute, a kid screaming to go home was par for the course. For the moment, Luke just wanted to shut the kid up. He was freaked out, and he was freaking Luke out.
The kid in question stared at Luke with white-ringed eyes, but Luke wasn’t entirely sure the kid was seeing him. His hair was sweaty and sticking up. His face was wet with tears, and his upper lip gleamed with fresh snot.
“Where’s Mumma? Where’s Daddy?”
Only it wasn’t Daddy but DAAAAAADY, like the whoop of an air raid siren. The kid began to stomp his feet. He brought his fists down on Luke’s shoulders. Luke let him go, got up, and stepped back, watching with amazement as the kid fell to the floor and began to thrash.
Across from the poster proclaiming this JUST ANOTHER DAY IN PARADISE, a door opened and Kalisha emerged, wearing a tie-dyed tee-shirt and gigantic basketball shorts. She walked to Luke and stood looking down at the newcomer, her hands on her mostly nonexistent hips. Then she looked at Luke. “I’ve seen tantrums before, but this one takes the prize.”
Another door opened and Helen Simms appeared, clad—sort of—in what Luke believed were called babydoll pajamas. She had hips, plus other interesting equipment.
“Put your eyes back in their sockets, Lukey,” Kalisha said, “and help me out a little. Kid’s buggin my head like to give me a migraine.” She knelt, reached out for the dervish—whose words had now devolved into wordless howls—and pulled back when one of his fists struck her forearm. “Jesus, work with me here. Grab his hands.”
Luke also knelt, made a tentative move to grab the new kid’s hands, pulled back, then decided he didn’t want to look like a wuss in front of the lately arrived vision in pink. He grabbed the little boy at the elbows and pressed his arms to the sides of his chest. He could actually feel the kid’s heart, racing along at triple time.
Kalisha bent over him, put her hands on the sides of his face, and looked into his eyes. The kid stopped yelling. Now there was only the sound of his rapid breathing. He looked at Kalisha, fascinated, and Luke suddenly understood what she’d meant when she said the kid was bugging her head.
“He’s TP, isn’t he? Like you.”
Kalisha nodded. “Only he’s a lot stronger than me, or any of the other TPs that have been through here during my time. Come on, let’s take him down to my room.”
“Can I come?” Helen asked.
“Suit yourself, hon,” Kalisha said. “I’m sure Lukey here appreciates the view.”
Helen flushed. “Maybe I’ll change first.”
“Do what you want,” Kalisha said, then to the kid: “What’s your name?”
“Avery.” His voice was hoarse from crying and yelling. “Avery Dixon.”
“I’m Kalisha. You can call me Sha, if you want.”
“Just don’t call her Sport,” Luke said.
5
Kalisha’s room was more girly than Luke would have expected, given her tough talk. There was a pink spread on the bed, and frou-frou flounces on the pillows. A framed picture of Martin Luther King stared at them from the bureau.
She saw Luke looking at it, and laughed. “They try to make things the same as at home, but I guess someone thought the picture I used to have there was taking it a little too far, so they changed it.”
“Who did it used to be?”
“Eldridge Cleaver. Ever heard of him?”
“Sure. Soul on Ice. I haven’t read it, but I’ve been meaning to get around to it.”
She raised her eyebrows. “Man, you are wasted here.”
Still sniffling, Avery started to get up on her bed, but she grabbed him and pulled him back, gently but firmly.
“Nuh-uh, not in those wet pants.” She made as if to take them off and Avery stepped back, hands crossed protectively over his crotch.
Kalisha looked at Luke and shrugged. He shrugged back, then squatted in front of Avery. “Which room are you in?”
Avery only shook his head.
“Did you leave the door open?”
This time the kid nodded.
“I’ll get you some dry clothes,” Luke said. “You stay here with Kalisha, okay?”
No shake and no nod this time. The boy only stared at him, exhausted and confused, but at least not doing his air raid imitation anymore.
“Go on,” Kalisha said. “I think I can soothe him down.”
Helen appeared at the door, now wearing jeans and buttoning up a sweater. “Is he any better?”
“A little,” Luke said. He saw a patter of drops tending in the direction he and Maureen had gone to change the sheets.
“No sign of those other two boys,” Helen said. “They must sleep like the dead.”
“They do,” Kalisha said. “You go on with Luke, New Girl. Avery and I are having a meeting of the minds here.”
6
“The kid’s name is Avery Dixon,” Luke said as he and Helen Simms stood in an open door just past the ice machine, which was clattering away to itself. “He’s ten. Doesn’t look it, does he?”
She stared at him, eyes wide. “What are you, TP after all?”
“No.” Surveying the poster of Tommy Pickles, and the G.I. Joes on the bureau. “I was here with Maureen. She’s one of the housekeepers. I helped her change the bed. Other than that, the room was all ready for him.”
Helen smirked. “So that’s what you are—teacher’s pet.”
Luke thought of Tony slapping him across the face, and wondered if Helen would soon be getting the same treatment. “No, but Maureen’s not like some of the others. Treat her right and she’ll treat you right.”
“How long have you been here, Luke?”
“I got here just before you.”
“So how do you know who’s nice and who isn’t?”
“Maureen’s okay, that’s all I’m saying. Help me get him some clothes.”
Helen grabbed some pants and underwear out of the dresser (not neglecting to snoop her way through the rest of the drawers), and they walked back to Kalisha’s room. On the way, Helen asked if Luke had had any of the tests George had told her about. He said he hadn’t, but showed her the chip in his ear.
“Don’t fight it. I did, and got whacked.”
She stopped dead. “Shut up!”
He turned his head to show her his cheek, where two of Tony’s fingers had left faint bruises.
“No one’s whacking me,” Helen said.
“That’s a theory you don’t want to test.”
She tossed her two-tone hair. “My ears are pierced already, so no big deal.”
Kalisha was sitting on her bed with Avery beside her, his butt on a folded towel. She was stroking his sweaty hair. He was looking up at her dreamily, as if she were Princess Tiana. Helen tossed Luke the clothes. He wasn’t expecting it and dropped the underpants, which were imprinted with pictures of Spider-Man in various dynamic poses.
“I have no interest in seeing that kid’s teeny peenie. I’m going back to bed. Maybe when I wake up I’ll be in my room, my real room, and all of this will just have been a dream.”
“Good luck with that,” Kalisha said.
Helen strode away. Luke picked up Avery’s underwear just in time to mark the swing of her hips in the faded jeans.
“Yummy, huh?” Kalisha’s voice was flat.
Luke brought her the clothes, feeling his cheeks heat. “I guess so, but she leaves something to be desired in the personality department.”
He thought that might make her laugh—he liked her laugh—but she looked sad. “This place will knock the bitch out of her. Pretty soon she’ll be scurrying and flinching every time she sees a guy in a blue top. Just like the rest of us. Avery, you need to get dressed in these things. Me and Lukey will turn our backs.”
They did so, staring out Kalisha’s open door at the poster proclaiming this was paradise. From behind them came sniffling and rustling clothes. At last Avery said, “I’m dressed. You can turn around.”
They did. Kalisha said, “Now take those wet pj pants into the bathroom and hang em over the side of the tub.”
H
e went without argument, then shuffled back. “I did it, Sha.” The fury was gone from his voice. Now he sounded timid and tired.
“Good f’you. Go on and get back on the bed. Lie down, it’s okay.”
Kalisha sat, dropped Avery’s feet on her lap, then patted the bed next to her. Luke sat down and asked Avery if he was feeling better.
“I guess so.”
“You know so,” Kalisha said, and began to stroke the little boy’s hair again. Luke had a sense—maybe bullshit, maybe not—that a lot was going on between them. Inside traffic.
“Go on, then,” Kalisha said. “Tell him your joke if you have to, then go to fuckin sleep.”
“You said a bad word.”
“I guess I did. Tell him the joke.”
Avery looked at Luke. “Okay. The big moron and the little moron were standing on a bridge, see? And the big moron fell off. Why didn’t the little one?”
Luke considered telling Avery that people no longer talked about morons in polite society, but since it was clear that polite society did not exist here, he just said, “I give up.”
“Because he was a little more on. Get it?”
“Sure. Why did the chicken cross the road?”
“To get to the other side?”
“No, because she was a dumb cluck. Now go to sleep.”
Avery started to say something else—maybe another joke had come to mind—but Kalisha hushed him. She went on stroking his hair. Her lips were moving. Avery’s eyes grew heavy. The lids went down, slowly rose, went down again, and rose even more slowly. Next time they stayed down.
“Were you just doing something?” Luke asked.
“Singing him a lullabye my mom used to sing me.” She spoke barely above a whisper, but there was no mistaking the amazement and pleasure in her voice. “I couldn’t carry a tune in a bucket, but when it’s mind to mind, the melody doesn’t seem to matter.”
“I have an idea he’s not exactly too intelligent,” Luke said.
She gave him a long look that made his face heat up, as it had when she caught him staring at Helen’s legs and busted him on it. “For you, the whole world must not seem exactly too intelligent.”