by Joel Ross
Quick as a snake, Perry punched him in the stomach. “Don’t mess with me, bottom-feeder.”
“Chess,” Swedish wheezed. “Show ’em.”
That was my cue. I was supposed to threaten Perry with the trapdoor, but instead Loretta pushed me forward, showing everyone the knife at my back. I saw a tightening in Hazel’s eyes.
“Loretta?” Swedish stared up at her in disbelief. “What’re you doing?”
“Orders is orders,” she said.
“You work for Perry now?”
“I work for whoever feeds me, don’t I?”
He shot her a look of disgust. “I thought you were better than that.”
“I guess I’m not,” she said, and I heard a hitch in her voice.
Swedish curled his lip. “Don’t need to guess.”
“Shut up,” Perry shouted at Swedish, “unless you want to tell me about your stash. Every crew has one. Maybe I’ll ask that geargirl of yours.”
A new voice cut through the shack. “You’ll do no such thing!”
Mrs. E stepped into the main room, with one frail arm around Bea’s shoulders for support. She looked wan and sickly, but her dull white eyes sparked with anger.
“I know your uncle, Periwinkle,” she snapped at Perry. “I’ve seen him stare into the Fog and cry like a baby. Look around you, boy. Hazel runs the best salvage crew in the slum, worth a hundred times more than any raft. So why don’t the bosses keep them under lock and key, make them work for free?”
“Because they’re too ugly,” Perry squeaked.
“Because the bosses need to keep me happy,” Mrs. E said. “I’ve forgotten more about the upper slopes than they ever knew. Who do you think tells them how to deal with the Rooftop? How to hold a fork and ask a favor?” Her lips thinned. “Tell your bosses that Ekaterina says we have five days to pay our rent. Until then, you will leave us in peace.”
The spark in Mrs. E’s face seemed to kindle a blaze in Hazel. She suddenly looked a foot taller than Perry.
“Thank you, ma’am,” she said to Mrs. E. Then she nodded to Bea, who helped Mrs. E back into the bedroom, and looked at me. “Chess, come here.”
With a knife in my ribs, I was almost too scared to move, but Hazel’s confidence gave me courage. I stepped forward on wobbly legs. A moment later, I was beside Swedish, my pulse pounding in my ears.
“We’ll see you in five days,” Hazel told Perry.
Perry sneered. “I ain’t scared of a sick old lady.”
“Of course not,” she said soothingly. “Still, you should probably talk to your uncle.”
“Maybe I will.” He kicked the crates. “But there’s one thing I’ve got to tell you first.”
“What’s that?”
“Don’t even think about running. We start searching for this deformed kid tomorrow, but that doesn’t mean you’re off the hook. My uncle already spread the word, and there ain’t a coyote in the junkyard who’ll even talk to you, not anymore.”
I almost whimpered, but Hazel just said, “Why would we want to talk to a coyote?”
Perry glared at her for a few seconds and then stomped away. His thugs swaggered after him, as Loretta faded into the shadows and a sharp-edged silence fell in the shack. Then Swedish exhaled and I leaned against the table to support my wobbly knees.
“Are you okay?” Hazel asked me.
“Not really. We can’t hire a coyote now—we’re dead.”
“I was talking about the knife in your back.”
“Oh. Yeah.” I squinched up my face. “Sorry about that. Loretta’s a sneaky one.”
“She’s a gutter rat,” Swedish said, wiping his face with his hand. “I should’ve known. Can’t trust a gang girl.”
Hazel shot him a sympathetic look. “Can you believe Mrs. E, though? She was wonderful. She—”
“Come quick, something’s wrong!” Bea cried, from inside the bedroom. “She’s hot and shivery and can’t hardly breathe.”
21
I RUSHED INTO THE bedroom behind Hazel and saw Mrs. E lying on her back, her face flushed and her eyes blank. She raised her trembling hands like she was reaching for the ceiling, and her entire body started shivering.
“She’s feverish,” Hazel said, feeling her forehead. “Chess, soak a pair of socks in water.”
I grabbed a pair of limp gray socks, ran into the main room, and shoved them into a bowl of water from the rain barrel. Then I rushed back into Mrs. E’s room and stood there with the wet socks in my hands.
“Put them on her feet!” Hazel snapped, looking up from washing Mrs. E’s face.
“How come I always get her feet?” I grumbled.
I wrestled the cold, wet socks onto Mrs. E’s knobby feet despite her pitiful whines. We bathed her hands with moist rags, massaged her scalp, and finally, by late morning, the fever subsided.
With the crisis over, we gathered, exhausted, in the main room. Suddenly famished, I emptied the last bag of dried locusts onto the table. Hazel sighed and Bea wrinkled her nose. Swedish offered to soak them for a while, then mash them into paste, but that only sounded worse.
“In the old days,” I said, trying to distract them from the locusts, “people ate gross stuff, too. Like mud and string and sticks.”
Swedish squinted at me. “They did not.”
“They did! They just called it ‘mud pie’ and ‘string cheese’ and ‘fish sticks.’ Trying to make it sound better.” I looked at the locust in my hand. “Maybe we should call these ‘bug nuggets.’”
“Or sky candy,” Swedish said.
“Candy doesn’t have hairy legs,” Bea grumbled, rubbing her eyes.
We crunched in silence until Hazel said, “She’s dying. She can’t survive another fever.”
“How long does she have?” Swedish asked.
“Maybe a week,” Hazel said. “And now I can’t even talk to the coyotes.”
Bea started crying. “So what’re we going to do?”
Swedish wrapped his arm around her narrow shoulders, and I asked, “How did the bosses know we were going to run?”
“They’re mean,” Hazel told me, “but they’re clever. And tomorrow they’ll get a description of the kid they’re looking for. Even Perry might realize he’s never seen Chess’s eye.”
“There are plenty of one-eyed kids,” Bea said, wiping tears from her face.
“And they’ll check them all,” Hazel said. “We have to leave today.”
“What?” Bea asked, sniffling. “Leave for where?”
“The Rooftop.”
I choked on a locust leg. “Today?”
“This morning. We need to sneak onto the lower slopes, find a jeweler, and sell the diamond. The bosses scared off all the junkyard coyotes, so we need a Rooftop coyote to smuggle us to the Port.”
“Why sell the diamond?” I asked. “Why not just give it to the coyote?”
“We’ll need money when we reach the Port.” Hazel rubbed her eyes. “The trouble is, I don’t know any smugglers on the Rooftop.”
“What about Mrs. E?” Bea asked.
“She’ll sleep for days,” Hazel said. “We’ll come back for her once we hire a coyote.”
“And, uh, how do we even get to the Rooftop without passes?”
“We bribe the guards,” Hazel said with a sudden glint in her eyes.
Hazel loaded the leather cord of her necklace with dyed feathers, fused-glass gems, and colorful nanowire twistys. She tucked the diamond ring in the middle, hidden amid all the brightness and sparkle, and hung the whole thing around Bea’s neck.
“I don’t want it!” Bea said, her green eyes wide with alarm.
“It’s safest there,” Hazel told her. “You won’t call any attention to yourself.”
Plus it made sense to keep the two most precious things together: Bea and the diamond. Of course, nobody would notice Bea, not with Hazel wearing a shimmery tank top, flowing skirt, and gauzy half veil. And Swedish looked dangerous with his hair in a thuggish topknot.
>
I wore what I always wore: scuffed boots, patched cargo pants, and a worn jacket, but Hazel made Bea change into a patchwork dress and striped stockings.
“Dresses are stupid,” Bea said, wrinkling her nose.
“You look more like a maid now,” Hazel explained.
“How about me?” I asked. “Do I look okay?”
“Perfect. You’re a natural.”
“I am?”
“Yeah, you always look like a downtrodden servant.” She laughed as she dodged the plastic carton I threw at her. “Bea, cut a hole in the wall so we can slip out without Perry seeing.”
While Bea snipped the chicken wire, Hazel wrote a letter on a sheet of fancy paper she’d been saving for a special occasion. We checked on Mrs. E one last time, then squeezed through the hole into the garbage-strewn alley.
Bea glanced at the letter Hazel was tucking into her sleeve. “Is this going to work?”
“It’ll get us killed,” Swedish groused. “Kodoc’s searching for Chess, and we’re running toward him? I’m starting to think this whole thing’s a—”
“Conspiracy?” I asked, slipping into the maze of alleys.
Swedish glared at me. “A bad idea.”
“Of course it’ll work!” Hazel told Bea. “We don’t need the guards to believe what the letter says. We only need them to believe that their bosses will believe them.”
“Oh.” Bea wrinkled her nose. “What?”
Hazel shot me a sidelong look, amused by Bea’s confusion. “The letter gives them an excuse to take the bribe, that’s all.”
We followed the alleys for a while, then skirted a hill of packed garbage, ignoring the squawks of seagulls and the mutters of the trash pickers.
As we passed a gloomy alley, a memory sparked in my mind. “Hey,” I said, stopping. “That’s where Mrs. E found me. Down there.”
Bea peered into the darkness. “Yuck.”
“She found me on the other side of the Spew,” Hazel said, chewing on a braid.
Mrs. E had plucked Hazel from a crew of child soldiers, she’d snatched Swedish from a work gang, and she’d bought Bea from a factory. We’d all lost families before she adopted us. Swede’s mom had gotten a job on the Rooftop and never come back for him. Bea’s parents had had too many kids to feed and sold her to the factory. Hazel’s dads had died in a refinery, after they couldn’t pay rent. Mrs. E had done more than save our lives when she’d taken us in. She’d given us a reason to live—a family.
Twenty minutes later, we’d almost reached the Rooftop . . . but we couldn’t just stroll from the junkyard to the mountains. A wide gap separated the floating slum platforms from solid ground, and roof-trooper checkpoints stood sentry at the bridges that spanned the distance.
None of us had ever set foot on the mountain, but between slum-dwellers who worked on the lower slopes and rich toughs who slummed in the junkyard, traffic flowed across the bridges pretty steadily. A marketplace had sprung up around the checkpoint, and when we got closer, I watched the crowd shuffle past bored-looking roof-troopers.
Bored looking, but heavily armed. I suppressed a shiver of worry. What if they were checking kids’ eyes? Would a letter and bribe really work?
I watched for a few seconds, and didn’t see any of the troopers stopping kids. Maybe the search hadn’t reached the slum yet—or maybe they didn’t think I was stupid enough to head straight for a checkpoint.
Well, I’d show them. I was plenty stupid enough. “Chucklebutt” was my middle name.
“Something’s wrong,” Bea said suddenly.
“What?” I asked, scanning the street. “Where? Who?”
“It’s the ground.” Bea stomped on the floor. “It feels solid. It’s all . . . weird.”
“You’re weird,” I said, exhaling in relief.
Hazel laughed softly. “The slum platforms don’t move much this close to the mountain, honeybee. That’s what you’re feeling, the lack of motion.”
“Yeah!” Bea said, wrinkling her nose. “The ground’s all stiff and funny.”
“Because it’s supported by stilts and columns,” Hazel told her. “They run through the Fog into the ground.”
“But there are balloons, too, right?” Bea looked worried until she spotted a blimp not too far away, attached to the slum with massive ropes. “Oh, there’s one! I don’t how anyone can sleep at night without balloons nearby.”
“Soon,” Hazel said, her brown eyes bright above the veil, “we’ll sleep every night on solid ground—on the Port.”
“I don’t know,” Bea said dubiously. “Solid ground is so . . . groundy.”
Hazel took her arm and started toward the bridge. “Once we get through the marketplace and past the checkpoints, we’ll be fine.”
“As long as nothing cockeyed happens,” I muttered.
She shot me a look. “Everyone ready?”
“Ready to die,” Swedish said.
“This is going to be so purple!” Bea squeaked a little nervously.
“Let’s go,” I said, and started across the road toward the marketplace.
“There they are!” a voice called out. “Get them!”
Five gang kids jogged toward us, with Loretta in front, leading the pack.
22
“GO!” SWEDISH BARKED AT us. “Get out of here!”
Hazel and I exchanged a glance. “We’re not leaving you,” she said.
“There’s five of them and three of us.” I squared my shoulders. “We’ll steam their butts.”
“No, there’s four of us!” Bea said, like she was going to start brawling.
“Do as I say,” Swedish snarled, his eyes fierce. “Now! Get Bea out of here.”
Without another word, Swedish stalked toward Loretta’s gang. He looked so angry that pedestrians quickly stepped aside. I’m not much of a fighter, but I started to follow him, because win or lose, I had his back.
Then I felt Hazel’s hand on my elbow. “He’s right,” she said. “We’ve got to go.”
I tore my arm from her grip. “But he’s crew.”
“Yeah,” she said, her eyes angry, “so why don’t you try trusting him?”
I glared at her but followed as she dragged Bea through the marketplace toward the bridge. Behind us, someone yelled: “Hey! What’re you kids doing?”
A sick feeling coiled in my stomach. “We can’t just leave him there. What if he needs us?”
“Now you know how we feel,” Hazel told me, “every time you dive.”
I stopped short. “I never thought of that.”
“Because you’re a dunderbunny,” Bea explained.
She was kind of right. Whenever I dove, I left them on the raft to worry about me. “Okay,” I said. “Well, let me take a peek, at least?”
“Quickly,” Hazel said.
I clambered over a quilter’s table in the marketplace, then pulled myself onto a rickety roof. I shaded my eyes, scanned the snarls of foot traffic, and—there!
Swedish was circling a gang kid in the middle of a crowd near a gambling tent. The mah-jongg players from inside had gathered to watch the fight. And gamble on it, of course. I couldn’t see clearly, but the thug he was facing looked short and spiky-haired. Like Loretta.
“Is he okay?” Bea asked after I hopped down.
“I don’t know, it looks like he and Loretta are talking.”
“That doesn’t sound right.”
“Keep moving,” Hazel said with a weak smile. “If Swede can’t cross, we’ll meet him at home later.”
We trotted through the marketplace, and ten yards from the roof-trooper checkpoint, Hazel bowed her head. When she straightened, she looked different, with a soft smile and dull eyes. She strolled toward the checkpoint, while Bea and I trailed behind like drudges. I kept my head down and my hair over my freak-eye, suddenly thankful for all the years of practice.
One of the roof-trooper guards eyed Hazel. “Papers?”
“My pleasure, sir.” Hazel handed him the letter. �
��We have jobs lined up.”
The guard scanned the letter. “Says that this fellow needs a scullery maid, a shoeshine, a doorman, and an entertainer.”
“That’s right, sir,” Hazel said in a breathy voice. “This is the maid and the shoeshine boy. And I’m—”
“The doorman?”
“Oh, no, sir!” Hazel fluttered her eyelashes, which almost made me laugh. “I’m the dancer!” She spun, and her skirt flared. “I dance.”
“I mean, where’s the doorman?”
“Oh! He’s behind us. A tall boy with a topknot. Impossible to miss.”
The guard scratched his cheek. “Is this all you have for me?”
“No, sir! I also have this.”
Coins clinked as she handed the guard a pouch containing all the money we’d saved in the past three years. “Looks fine,” he said, weighing it in his hand. “Go on, then.”
“Thanks so much!” Hazel gushed. “And the doorman? You won’t forget him?”
“We’ll see,” the guard said.
Hazel’s jaw clenched, like she was going to argue, so I cleared my throat, still looking at my boots. After a tense moment, she exhaled. “Well, we can’t keep our new boss waiting.”
Hazel lowered her eyes demurely as she stepped onto the bridge. Bea bustled along, looking young and overwhelmed.
We paused in the middle of the bridge and glanced backward. Still no sign of Swedish. After a minute, Hazel shook her head.
We continued across the bridge, twenty or thirty feet above the terraced fields on the mountainside just over the fogline. The freshly plowed earth smelled so rich that it made my stomach rumble.
“Look at that,” Bea gasped.
At first I thought she was staring at the stone building on the other end of the bridge, but then I realized she was looking at the trees. She dashed over to one that was growing alongside the bridge and strummed her fingers across the bark.
“It feels like a cat’s tongue,” she said, “but a thousand times rougher!” Her eyes shone. “Look at the leaves! There are so many of them, and they’re all juicy and green and purple!”
She’d never seen a tree this close before. Sometimes I forgot that the others had never walked on the solid earth, never splashed in a stream or sat in the grass. So after we crossed the bridge, I took charge, leading Hazel and Bea past the stone building—another roof-trooper checkpoint—toward a neighborhood of cramped houses with plastic-thatched roofs. Chickens clucked, goats bleated, and pushcarts rattled across cobblestones.