Most disappointing of all, I know about this, and I’m doing nothing to stop it. I have a good reason—but is my reason good enough? The Oasis is supposed to be my favorite place in the whole world! It’s like I’m being torn in two.
By the way, there is one kid here who hasn’t disappointed me even a little bit. When I first met Jett, I knew then and there that he was a loser, a troublemaker, and a worm. Well, he’s turned out to be all that and more. It’s impossible to be disappointed in a person when your opinion of him is already rock bottom. It’s too bad the boxes of fireworks he had hidden under his bed didn’t go off some night, sending him on a one-way trip to the moon.
But I can’t do anything about what’s happening because of poor little Needles, the one bright spot in this awful summer. If it wasn’t for him, I don’t know what I’d do. As the Oasis gets worse and worse for me, I start spending more time in the shed at the edge of the woods. I’d love to say I’m enjoying watching him frolic in his paint tray—except that he doesn’t move.
Jett claims it’s impossible to interact with Needles, which only goes to show what Jett knows about pets, which is zero. Oh, sure, I can’t play with Needles the way I play with Benito back home. But Benito’s a mammal and Needles isn’t. There are plenty of ways to interact with a lizard, like sitting in sociable silence. I speak to him in a quiet voice and he never takes his eyes off my face. I can say things to Needles that I wouldn’t tell anybody else. He’s a restful companion—something Jett will never be. Even standing still, you can tell that Jett is pure chaos, waiting to be unleashed on the world. Needles is the opposite of that—peace, intelligence, tranquility, contemplation. He belongs at the Oasis. He may be against the rules, but he’s as whole as any living creature could be.
Just the sight of his unmoving brownish form has the power to relax me. I sit cross-legged on the floor by the paint tray and all my conflicted feelings about this summer melt away. Sometimes I even practice a little meditation.
“When-I-breathe-in-I-breathe-in . . . when-I-breathe-out-I-breathe-out . . .”
Needles is almost as good at meditation as Ivory, because he doesn’t allow himself to be distracted. Together, we clear our minds, and I retreat into myself in the tight humidity of the shed.
I almost miss it.
A tiny field mouse scurries across the metal floor. With a splash of water, Needles explodes out of the paint tray, opens his jaws far wider than I would have believed possible, snaps up the mouse, and swallows it whole. He’s back in the paint tray faster than I can blink.
It’s all over so quickly that I can’t even be sure I really saw it. The mouse is gone, and Needles is back in his usual position, looking serene. Maybe I dreamed the whole thing. After all, I was meditating. Only—
A few blood droplets decorate the floor. And is that a stray whisker floating in the water of the paint tray? Lizards don’t have whiskers. . . .
I’m in a hot shed, but I actually feel cold all over. What I’ve just witnessed—if I really saw it—changes everything.
Oh, sure, we’ve known for a long time that Needles is a carnivore. But it never occurred to me until right now that he’s a predator. What other explanation could there be for the way he took down that mouse?
In this awful summer, where I’m disappointed in everything and everybody, now I’m disappointed in little Needles too.
It’s not his fault. He’s just doing what comes naturally. But it opens up a really sticky issue: We’ve been hiding Needles and providing him food and shelter because we believe he can’t survive in the wild. But what I just saw proves that Needles is nowhere near as helpless as we thought. Nature has given him the tools to survive.
As much as I love Needles, we have no excuse for keeping him anymore.
16
Jett Baranov
Bath update: I can now submerge myself completely for a full ten seconds. It makes my earlobes burn and my brain hurt, but I can do it. My record for going in up to my waist is eight minutes, although I’m pretty sure I can beat that. Progress.
The best time to be in the hot spring is when it’s raining because 1) there’s nobody else around to laugh at me, and 2) it’s possible that the rain lowers the water temperature by a fiftieth of a degree. Every little bit helps.
Today’s schedule was supposed to be breakfast, Awakening, Bath, meditation, lunch. But because of the storm, the rest of the kids are in arts and crafts, making indoor tornadoes in jars. I’m fine to ditch so long as I rejoin the group in time for meditation. Nobody ever ditches meditation except Brooklynne. As much as I’m considered the rebel around here, she’s the one who actually is one. It’s not that she has a bad attitude, like me. Instead, she has this uncanny ability to treat the whole Oasis like it’s something that doesn’t apply to her. I wish I could figure out what her deal is. Oh well, it’s probably not that interesting anyway.
I stay in the Bath as long as I can, the rain on my upper half compensating for the scalding water on my lower. It’s surprisingly not terrible—relaxing, almost. I’m kind of grooving on the cool/hot contrast, and for a moment, I can see what Grace likes so much. But when I hear a few rumblings of thunder, I scoot out of there.
Toweled off and dressed, I catch up with the others scampering through the rain to the meditation center. I ignore Grace’s glare and focus on a couple of meaningful glances from my candy bar customers. I flash them thumbs-up—yes, we’re open for business—and quickly jam my hands in my pockets when Ivory arrives to greet us.
“Stick around after class, Jett,” the meditation pathfinder tells me as she ushers everybody in out of the rain. “There’s something I want to run by you.”
I notice an envious look from Grace—one that asks how come I’m getting singled out for special attention, when I stink at meditating and she’s the teacher’s pet?
I say, “Sorry, Ivory, but I really have to go and—” That’s where my usually brilliant creative mind lets me down. I can’t think of a single thing at the Oasis that I “really have to go and . . .”
She beams at me. “I only need a few minutes of your time.”
Class is even more awful than usual. When you’re facing one-on-one time with Ivory, the last thing you want to do is clear your mind. She’s the kind of person you want to stay alert with. Nimbus can be annoying, with his goofy philosophies, and his pillars of wellness, and his being whole, but he’s basically a nice guy. His number two, on the other hand, creeps me out. What’s this about?
When Ivory dismisses us, I burrow into the center of the group and try to shuffle out the door with everybody else. But an iron grip on my wrist holds me back.
As soon as everybody else is gone, so is Ivory’s cover-girl smile. “Follow me.”
To make sure I go with her, she half drags me out of the group meditation room and into her office.
I’m getting nervous. “What’s up?”
Wordlessly, she shuts the door. I’m surprised at how dark it gets, and I realize that there are thick curtains over the windows. She pulls something out of a desk drawer and holds it under my nose. It’s a Snickers wrapper. “Explain this.”
“Hey, you’re not supposed to have that,” I say disapprovingly. “There’s no candy at the Oasis.”
That just makes her madder. “Wrappers like this one are all over, both in the woods and here at the center. I see lackluster appetites, poor concentration, sluggish behavior. Someone is providing candy to the young people here. My money’s on you.”
Deny everything. That’s Vlad’s motto when he gets dragged in to testify before Congress.
“I don’t know anything about that,” I reply with as straight a face as I can manage.
In answer, she produces a pen and begins to draw it back and forth in front of my face. Then, in her melodic meditation voice, she says, “You’re not fooling anyone, Jett. The truth, please.”
I start following the movement of the pen. I can’t explain it. What do I care about her stupid pen? And yet
, when something is tracing a path right before your eyes, you’re almost compelled to go with it. Ivory thumbs a switch, and the pen lights up with a bluish glow.
“What are you . . . doing?” I ask. My voice sounds strangely far away.
“Where are you getting the candy?” Ivory probes, her tone growing deeper.
Here’s where things start to get strange: I really, really want to tell her. It makes no sense. Why would I ever spill my guts to Ivory?
“I—”
“Tell me!” Ivory urges. “It’s a great weight pressing down on you. Let me take some of your burden. You’ll feel so much lighter.”
And I actually experience the weight. It’s crushing me! I’m so lucky to have a wonderful friend like Ivory, who’s willing to save me. I can’t believe I ever thought she was a jerk. . . .
“I—I—” The story forms on my tongue: the motor launch, the trips to Hedge Apple . . .
I’m about to tell her everything when another voice comes to me. Not Ivory’s—this one belongs to my father, heading up the portable stairs to the Gulfstream for his trip to Washington: Deny . . . deny . . . deny . . .
I bite down on my own tongue hard enough to taste blood. The sudden spasm of pain jolts me from my trance. I lash out and smack that pen from Ivory’s hands. It hits the floor and skitters across the room.
“You will remain in that chair!” Ivory thunders.
But I’m free of her now. Her words don’t sound reasonable any longer. Just the opposite—she’s dangerous, and the more distance I can put between us, the better. With my tongue on fire and blood dribbling down my chin, I throw the door open and take off like a gazelle.
I blast out of the meditation center and make a beeline for our cottage. I glance over my shoulder, fully expecting to see Ivory coming after me. But she’s not. Maybe she doesn’t want to explain to the whole Oasis why she’s tackling a twelve-year-old kid. The nature of her true attack was different. I’m not sure I understand what it was. I just don’t want to be in range of it anymore. It scares me, and I don’t scare so easily.
I burst into the cottage, where Matt is sitting in the lotus position on the carpet, deep in meditation. There’s a mini vaporizer in front of him, and that fake-incense mist hangs heavy in the room. I hate that smell—sewer gas mixed with perfume.
“Wait till you hear this!” I blurt.
Without glancing up, Matt says, “Shhh. I’m concentrating.”
“Yeah, well, concentrate on me for a second! Your girl Ivory just tried to attack me!”
That gets his attention. But when he opens his eyes, I realize he’s staring at the bloody smear on my chin.
“Not that!” I exclaim. “I did that to myself. This was different. There was this pen . . . and I felt sort of woozy . . . and it’s like everything she said was so reasonable—” The events in the darkened office tumble out of me, and I’m aware that I’m not making any sense. But the feeling is so close I can almost reach back and touch it—wanting to do anything, say anything that would please Ivory. Ivory, who I can’t even stand. What was happening to me?
When I stumble on the answer, it bubbles right out: “Matt, I think Ivory just tried to hypnotize me!”
“You were meditating,” Matt explains patiently. “Ivory must have guided you to a new and deeper plane. That’s great.”
“It wasn’t meditation,” I insist. “It was after class. She wasn’t guiding or pathfinding or anything. It wasn’t friendly!”
Considering how rattled I am, I’m managing to stay pretty calm. That ends when Matt closes his eyes and resumes meditating.
“Are you listening to me?” I demand. “Do you even care that Ivory was messing with my mind?”
“You’re misreading things,” he murmurs.
“You’re not here to meditate or be whole!” I snatch the vaporizer off the floor. “Your job is to look out for me!”
He reaches for it. “Hey, I need that!”
Enraged, I cock back my arm and heave the thing full force against the wall, where it shatters.
“No!” With a gasp, Matt falls on the pieces like Brandon Bucholz’s dad jumping on a fumble during his NFL days. “Ivory entrusted me with that!”
I take in the sight of him, lying on the floor, cradling the shards of plastic and metal as if they’re something beyond precious. This used to be Matt Louganis, the most promising young programmer and engineer at Fuego, who was being groomed by Vlad himself for big things. How did this happen to him?
I think back to myself in front of that glowing pen, champing at the bit to tell Ivory everything she wanted to know before Vlad’s voice chimed in and rescued me. If the meditation pathfinder can make me want to spill my guts, what can she do to the dozens of people like Matt, who she meets with one-on-one? I can summon up my father when I need him. Everybody else is a sitting duck.
Maybe it’s time to learn more about Ivory and these “special” meditation sessions.
17
Brooklynne Feldman
I’m spending more time with the other kids than I have any summer. Maybe it’s a mistake. Okay, it’s definitely a mistake. I see the probing looks as people try to connect me with a family in the dining hall, or figure out which cottage I’m living in. I’m smart about not giving anything away—I’ve been doing this for a long time, after all. But Jett worries me. He’s really sharp and he clearly doesn’t trust me. With the two of us on Team Lizard, it’s just not possible to avoid him. It’s almost interesting to me to have a worthy opponent like that.
Anyway, Needles is the main reason why this year is so different. I never minded being alone before. I was good at it. That was my life every summer as long as I can remember. I did a lot of reading. I took walks in the woods. I enjoyed my own company—mostly because I didn’t have any choice.
But now that I’m on Team Lizard, looking after Needles and making trips to Hedge Apple, I realize something: I’m happier. I like having people to talk to—even if the subject is refilling a motor launch with diesel, or cleaning lizard poop out of a paint tray.
My best friend on Team Lizard is Tyrell—mostly because he doesn’t act suspicious around me the way the other two do. He’s a nice kid—too nice to deserve a perma-rash and a sister who wipes up the floor with him on a regular basis.
I give him my behind-the-scenes Oasis tour, because—let’s face it—I know this place better than even Magnus. I could draw a map and not miss a single blade of grass. That’s how much time I’ve spent wandering around avoiding people. For example, I bring Tyrell to my favorite tree trunk in the woods. It’s four feet wide and must be hundreds of years old. Bugs have hollowed it out to the point where it’s practically a tunnel. And I show him my favorite spot half a mile downriver. You can step out into this broad flat rock in the Saline. To reach it, you have to walk across the wreckage of an old boat that’s wedged against the shore.
I wind up the unofficial tour at the water sports shed, about fifty yards from the lake.
“What’s so special about this?” Tyrell asks. “It’s where they store the spare oars and fix the canoes that spring a leak.”
“Shhh. Listen,” I tell him.
Sure enough, as we approach the metal building we hear a sharp crack, followed by several loud bangs and maniacal laughter.
Tyrell frowns. “What’s that?”
“You’ll see.”
It happens again: Thwack! Bang-bang-bang! And more raucous mirth. And a third time: Thwack! Bang-bang—
“Ow!” comes a cry of pain along with more laughing.
I lead Tyrell to a corner of the shed where an opening in the metal provides a view inside.
Amid the stacks of life jackets, oars, and paddleboards, three of the buddies stand on a square of Astroturf in the center of the space. One of them raises a driver over his shoulders and takes a wild swing at a golf ball at his feet.
Thwack!
The thing takes off like a bullet, and the three men drop to the turf and cover their
heads while the ball ricochets around the metal walls.
Tyrell is amazed. “What are they doing?”
I shrug. “The pathfinders are true believers in the Oasis way of life. But the buddies are just ordinary workers to keep the place running. They’ve got no TV, no phones, no internet. So they get creative.”
“I wonder what Magnus would say,” Tyrell muses.
“He knows. Last year, one of the dining hall staff got knocked unconscious.”
Tyrell’s eyes widen. “It was pretty cool. Ivory picked him up and carried him to the healthfulness center.”
He nods. “Ivory could pick up the healthfulness center.”
“And one of the Range Rovers too,” I add. “You know, with her free hand.”
We can still hear the clang of golf balls bouncing off metal as we start back toward the cottages.
Tyrell points at an approaching figure. “Isn’t that Grace? What’s eating her?”
Even from a distance, I can sense her agitation. Her cheeks are flushed and her body is so tense that she’s walking with jerky steps, like a chicken.
“Grace!” I call. “What’s the matter?”
She hustles up to us, her expression tragic. “Needles killed somebody!”
“What?” Tyrell is horrified. “Who?”
“A mouse,” she announces sorrowfully. “A poor little brown field mouse.”
“You scared the heck out of me!” Tyrell exclaims. “For a second there, I thought he might have gone after Jett’s throat with those needle teeth!”
Crazy as it sounds, that was my first thought too.
“It was almost that violent,” Grace tells us mournfully. “He struck like a cobra. The whole thing was over almost before it started. At least the poor mouse didn’t suffer.”
Tyrell looks a little queasy.
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