by Kelli Kimble
“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.”
“Will you help me?” She sniffled.
“Of course,” Elton said.
I smiled, raising an eyebrow. “Yeah. I’ll help you.”
She sighed. “I feel so much better just having told someone. I can’t believe he’s just gone.”
We talked for a few more minutes. Elton produced a bag of crackers from his bag, and we ate it, while we questioned him some more about how he’d managed to build the treehouse. He tried to lighten the mood with funny stories, and I was struck again that he didn’t realize helping Talika find Marve would effectively cut him out of the running. He apparently didn’t care, and I wasn’t sure if that lowered my opinion of him or increased it.
After a while, we descended from the tree house, and he showed us the way back through the woods to the path. He and his brother had marked the tree trunks with a spot of paint on each of the trunks, so high that the spots would go unnoticed to the casual observer. The green spots led the way to the platform, and the red spots led the way back to the path.
When we emerged from the park, Elton noticed how low the sun was dipping in the sky. “We’d better get home,” he said. “Come on; I’ll walk you.”
Talika’s house was closer, so we went there first. Her mother was waiting on the front porch, her face sour. “Where have you been, young lady? We’ve been worried sick. What is wrong with you?” Like my parents, Talika’s mom had a scratchy voice. But, hers was made worse by the cigarettes she constantly smoked. She flicked the one she was obsessively smoking into the grass, her work-reddened hands on display for all to see. “Get inside, before I really lose my temper.” She didn’t acknowledge me or Elton, and neither of us said a word.
I nodded once to Talika. “Tomorrow,” I whispered. Talika blinked her left eye in response, a code we’d made up long ago to answer yes-or-no questions without speaking. We’d thought it was fun, like being telepaths. Now, I knew it was nothing at all like being a telepath. She straightened her spine and marched up the steps to meet her punishment. When the door opened, I could hear her dad yelling from inside, so angry and hostile that I couldn’t even make out what he was saying. Her mother slammed the door shut without looking at us.
“Geez,” Elton said. “Are they always like that?”
“Not often,” I said. “But, I’ve seen it before.”
“I guess that explains why she’d like a jerk like Marve.” He turned towards my house. “Let’s go.”
I stared after him for a moment. So, he knew Talika liked Marve, and yet . . . he still had hope. I decided my opinion of him had improved, after all.
Chapter 2
Talika was at school the next day, though she could hardly sit in her chair. I knew it was because her dad had beat her across her back and from head to foot, probably with a belt or whatever was handy. I knew better than to mention it. The first time I’d commented on her obvious stiff carriage, she’d replied, “Every kid pays their dues.” When I admitted my parents had never so much as raised a finger against me, she had become quiet and pensive. I knew she realized her beatings were not normal, but she was so deeply embarrassed and ashamed by her parents’ behavior, she didn’t do anything about it—not that there really was anything she could do about it. She could leave home, but that would only guarantee a job that would keep her scratching for life. There was nobody to tell or appeal to for help—besides maybe her other family members, and from what I’d seen her, parents were the tamest of the bunch.
The morning dragged by. At lunch, I pulled Talika aside before she went outdoors and told her I wanted to eat with Elton in the classroom. She looked beyond me to where Elton sat, staring out the window. “All right,” she said. “But, he’s got to learn to let me be. I can’t be nice about him forever.”
I nodded. We returned to Elton’s desk together. “Can we eat lunch with you?” I asked.
He looked up at us, that crazy smile filling his round face. “You bet,” he said. He moved his lunch around so that we could each set ours down on a corner, and we pulled up chairs and sat. “So, what’s Step One today?” he asked. He bit into a sandwich with what seemed like a never-ending supply of turkey or chicken stuffed into it. My mouth watered, and I withdrew a baggie of not-quite-ripe string beans I’d plucked from someone’s garden on the way to school. I bit into one, trying to ignore that it tasted more like dirt than vegetable.
“I thought we could go to his house,” Talika said. “Maybe try to get inside, look around for clues. They might’ve left something behind.”
“All right,” he said. Without looking at me, he slid the half of his sandwich he hadn’t yet touched towards me. “I’m kind of full already. You want this?”
“Sure,” I said, shrugging my shoulders. It’d been months since I’d had anything that extravagant to eat. I bit into it and closed my eyes. Mustard. Turkey. Something else. Cranberries? It was delicious. It was all I could do not to moan in pleasure.
When I opened my eyes, they were staring down intently at their food. I’d made them uncomfortable. But, I didn’t care. I was eating a sandwich. With meat, goddammit. Meat.
“What do you think we’ll find?” I asked. I bit off another mouthful. Heaven. I reminded myself to savor it; I didn’t know when I’d next get something this good to eat.
“I don’t know. Something. Anything,” she said.
Then, Elton stepped in it. “So, last night, your parents were awful mad,” he said. “Think you’ll be allowed out after school?”
If Taluka’s eyes could have spat fire, Elton would have been ashes. She set down her pathetically small—but still present—sandwich. “That’s none of your business,” she said.
“I’m sorry,” Elton said, looking as if she’d slapped him. “I was only trying to make sure—”
“Make sure what? That you took care of me? You can’t save me from them. Nobody can. So, forget you ever saw it, okay?”
Elton gaped at her.
“I said, okay?”
Under the desk, I poked Elton’s foot. “Uh, yeah. Okay,” he agreed.
We ate in awkward silence. Talika chewed aggressively, and Elton pushed cubes of cheese around inside a small container. I continued to chew my sandwich with gusto.
Right before the other kids came in, Talika turned to me. “Nim, I need you to ask your aunt about Marve. She knows something. Maybe she’ll tell you.”
Fear ripped through me. I wanted to throw up. I was spared from having to answer when the classroom door banged open, and the other kids entered.
I shoved the rest of my sandwich into my mouth, pretending I couldn’t answer. I returned to my desk, just as Mrs. Darit came in and called for our attention.
Like yesterday, my afternoon passed in internal thought. How could I evade Talika’s request without revealing my reason? If I asked my aunt about Marve, it would only remind her that, just last week, she’d suspected I had the same ability.
Had she known about Marve then? Of course. Why else would she have jumped to such a conclusion? She was alerted to my behavior because she’d already been told of his.
I wondered how long Marve had been able to use his abilities. How had he been found out? Had his parents proudly presented him at telepath school, hoping he could hammer out a better future, now that he wasn’t destined to ape out his words with his mouth? Maybe he’d gone to a doctor to ask what was wrong with him. Or maybe he’d spoken to Mrs. Darit, and she’d reported him to the man in grey.
My mind whirled with possibilities. I had the sense something awful had befallen Marve, and maybe even his family. For as pitiful as our existence was, I didn’t want to be dragged away
from it to God-knows-where. What more could the more powerful people take from us? We had little food. We had crummy houses, patchy old clothes, and barely any dignity. I couldn’t be responsible for my parents surrendering their freedom, too.
I started to dread the end of the school day. Mrs. Darit’s voice was grating on my nerves, but I’d rather that than have to tell Talika no. She’d surely demand a reason, and I didn’t trust anybody with the truth.
But, when the day was done, Talika either assumed I’d do it, or she forgot to mention it. We gathered our things and went outside. Elton caught up to us as we were leaving the schoolyard, and Talika didn’t stop him from coming with us. I could at least be grateful for that; my stomach was so full, I’d not have to ask for anything at dinner.
Talika led the way to Marve’s house. We’d been by it many times before, when Talika had convinced me that if she could just get his attention, she was sure he would like her, too. We never once encountered him on the street outside his house. If he was home, he stayed inside, uninterested in the girl craning her neck to get a look inside his dusty, old curtains—or the scrawny girl who accompanied her.
His house was only one story and made of dirty, mustard-yellow bricks. The roof sagged, and the grass was even more overgrown than ours was. We walked around to the back, feigning an interest in taking a shortcut through his backyard—though anyone with eyes in their head could see we went straight to the back door and tried to open it.
It didn’t budge. Talika pressed her ear to the door, listening for movement. “Nothing,” she said.
I looked through a small window to the right of the door. Inside was a small bathroom with only a pink toilet and sink. It was visibly dirty; hair and grime coated the sink, and except for a rather moldy toothbrush, there were no other possessions. The window didn’t seem to open, and I stepped back to look for another entry point.
There was another window to the right of the back porch, maybe six or seven feet off the ground. I jumped off the porch and went to it, grabbing the windowsill and pulling myself up to see through the glass.
It was more of the same; encrusted filth with a few obviously cast-off possessions here and there: A broken glass was on the counter; a fork was stuck in the workings of the stove, in place of a missing knob; an unopened box of rat poison stuck partially out of an open cabinet.
“Here,” Elton said, coming over to stand next to me. “I’ll boost you up.” He wove his hands together into a step and stuck them out for me to step into. With that leverage, I was able to pull myself up so that the sill was at my waist, and I could see the window’s lock was broken. I pushed the top of the lower pane up with my fingers. I glanced to either side, hoping nobody was around.
“You’re all clear,” Talika said. “Go in and open the door, okay?”
I shimmied through the window, careful not to step in the especially dirty sink. It smelled bad, like rotting food and dead cats. I suppressed a gag and climbed off the counter, pulling the collar of my shirt up over my nose before going to the back door and throwing open the bolt. The door practically fell off the hinges, and I had to catch it before it could fall from the casing.
Talika and Elton came inside, and we pushed the door back in its place, jamming against it until the bolt was able to slide home.
“Wow,” Elton said. “This is horrible.”
It made me wish again that he hadn’t seen where I lived. Though my house was at least fairly clean inside, he’d only seen the exterior—which was pretty reminiscent of this house’s state of disrepair.
“Spread out and see what you can find,” Talika said.
I went through the kitchen, opening drawers and cabinets. The view through the window had been pretty accurate; only insignificant bits of daily life were left behind. I started to open the fridge, but Elton stopped me. “Trust me; if the smell in here is bad, the smell in there will be a thousand times worse,” he said.
There was nothing else to see in the kitchen, so I trailed behind him as he moved through an empty room that might have been for dining, then through a living space. An oval rug was in the center of the room. It might have once had a pattern on it, but time and abuse had turned it a dirty shade of grey.
There were rectangular, clean spots on the walls, where pictures had once hung, demonstrating clearly that the previous occupants had been heavy smokers. The nicotine stains were concentrated in one corner, where a couch or chair must have been, but coated everything in its greasy film. We went around a corner, and there were two bedrooms. Talika was in the first bedroom, and I guessed it to be Marve’s. I tugged Elton into the next room, and we looked around in there.
It was just as shabby as the rest of the house. The closet was empty, except for a few hangers and an old shoe. Dirt and dust bunnies had collected in the corners. We went back to the first bedroom.
“Anything in here?” I asked.
Talika shook her head. She was sitting on the floor, right in the center of the room, her head bowed. I went to look in the closet, and as I turned back to say something, movement out the window caught my eye.
The window faced the neighbor’s house but had a clear view of the street. Aunt Rue was standing there, looking at the house.
“Oh no,” I said, ducking to the floor. “My aunt is outside.”
Talika perked up. “Great,” she said. “You can ask her about Marve. She has to know something. She has to.”
But, asking her about Marve was the last thing I wanted to do. “We can’t go talk to her,” I said, crawling towards her. “We broke into a house! We’re criminals. If we went out there, she might see us come out.” I paused for a moment. “She might have already seen us. We could get in big trouble.”
Talika chuffed at me. “She won’t know we were inside. Just go out the back and around the front. She won’t know.”
“Talika,” I said. “She’s an adult, not an idiot.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Elton said. “You’re already in so much trouble, and anyway, what would she be doing here if she knew Marve moved out?”
“Well, then, how do we get out of here?” Talika asked, her lip curled in annoyance. “Someone has to check and see if she’s still there.”
I poked my head up slowly, just until I could see the street. She was no longer visible. I moved closer to the window and was just reaching out to grab the sill, when Rue’s head popped up right at the window, staring inside. I yelped and fell backwards, and we locked eyes. Nimisila! she shouted in my head.
Elton and Talika had more presence of mind than I did. They each grabbed one of my arms and half-dragged me out of the room, back to the living area. Elton unbolted the door and threw it open. We ran out and away from the house, just as Aunt Rue cleared the side of it. She shouted for me again, but I didn’t stop. None of us did; they couldn’t hear her, and I wasn’t supposed to be able to.
I knew I’d been caught. There was no explanation for what I was doing inside an unoccupied house after school—at least, there was no explanation that would satisfy my parents.
We ran to Talika’s house. She opened the front door and hollered, but nobody answered. She pushed us inside. Her house was moderately clean—except for the smell of cigarettes and cats. Her mother cleaned houses, and even though she cleaned all day for people who she felt didn’t appreciate it, she wouldn’t abide by any clutter in their house. Talika was well-practiced at keeping her things picked up; anything not in its place was liable to find its way to the trash can—even though they could rarely afford to replace things thrown out on a whim.
Talika took us to her room and shut the door, then put her back against it. “I found something,” she said. She held out her hand. A small, round, metal object was in her palm. I made a move to touch it, but she closed her fingers around it and drew it back to herself. “It’s a coin. One of his coins. Did you know Marve collected coins from before the winter?”
I shook my head, and Elton shrugged.
“He left it beh
ind,” she continued. “It was just lying there, right on the windowsill, when I went in. It’s got to be a clue.”
Elton and I exchanged a glance. “A clue to what?” I asked. “Maybe he just dropped it.”
“No. I know it’s important.”
A door slammed somewhere in the house. “Tal? Where you at, Tal?” It was her father.
“Time to go,” she said.
I was well-rehearsed at the sneaky exit from Talika’s house. I opened the window and hopped out, not even thinking twice about it. There was a bit of a drop, sure. But, I just bent my knees and rolled with it, and it was fine.
Elton didn’t think so. He dangled his legs, but hesitated.
“Come on,” I hissed. “He’ll be going into her room any minute.”
He eased out a little further but still didn’t drop. Talika couldn’t wait any longer, and she gave him an ungraceful shove, just as I heard the bedroom door slam open.
Elton crumpled to the ground in a heap.
“What are you doing, Tal? Can’t you hear me calling you?” her dad asked. “What’s that window doing open? We don’t need the neighbors hearing all our business. Close it, goddammit.”
“Yes, sir,” Talika said. She slid the window shut, and the voices became muffled enough that we couldn’t understand the apparent tongue-lashing Talika was receiving for daring not to answer him when he called her.
I gestured to Elton. We needed to go. He nodded, and we ran off, Elton limping slightly.
“Are you all right?” I asked, when we’d gotten a few blocks away.
“I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said. We weren’t yet in sight of my house, and I definitely didn’t want him to run into Aunt Rue.
I started to walk away, but as I did, he let out a yelp and fell. “What is it?” I turned back.
He winced, holding his ankle. “Okay, it’s a little worse than I thought.”
“Can you walk?”