by Nic Joseph
She didn’t need to worry, though.
If the children were acting weird, none of the mothers would recognize it. Everyone was quiet tonight—that’s what happened on June 2. The air felt different, the mood tense, the mothers’ faces void of any hint of a smile.
Brat stared down at her plate. They’d been working toward this day for so long, and now that it was finally here, she felt both relieved and terrified. She couldn’t wait to get started—she was only an hour or so away from learning just what it was that took place upstairs every year.
And yet, part of her wanted to call it off, to go back to her room like everyone else and just wait until morning.
“Finish up dinner, and then head to your rooms. Remember, no library visits tonight. You’re all expected to be in your rooms by seven thirty,” Mother Ann said, walking through the aisles of the cafeteria.
Brat looked down and continued making patterns in her food. She was drawing an S when she felt a hand on her own. She looked up and saw her sister peering at her.
“You all right?” Gumball asked. “You know, we don’t have to do this,” she said. “We can just tell Jack we changed our minds. He’ll be disappointed—”
“No,” Brat said, squaring her shoulders. She wasn’t doing a great job at hiding her nerves, but she wasn’t ready to back out. Not yet. They’d all started this together, and they were all going to finish it together. “I’m okay,” she said to her sister as she put her fork down and pushed her chair back. “It’s time to go.”
7:21 p.m.
Mother Ann opened the door to the stairwell and pulled it open so that the children could walk through. She followed them and then moved ahead to open the second gate. The children remained in line as they moved through that one and then dispersed to head to their rooms. It was completely silent on the children’s wing, and the kids all moved with purpose—stepping into their small rooms and closing the doors.
As he closed his door, Jack looked across the hall at Perry’s room. Perry nodded just slightly and closed his own door. Jack was proud of Perry. He’d really come through for the team. He felt bad that he hadn’t been completely honest with Perry or any of the others.
He hadn’t told them that he was pretty sure they’d get caught.
He would do everything he could to keep that from happening, for their sakes. But what they were doing was risky, and the truth was that even if they were able to get upstairs unnoticed, it was going to be very hard to make it back down.
Jack was okay with that. He hoped the rest of them were, too.
He closed his door and then stood at the window and watched as Mother Ann walked by quickly to the end of the hallway. He waited a few seconds, and then he heard the swishing sound of her broom hitting the floor. Seconds later, she walked by, her head down as she swept long lines into the sand. Jack couldn’t see from where he stood, but the long sweeping noises sounded like she was making her signature feathers.
He could do feathers.
He walked over to his bed and sat down on the edge of it to wait.
8:02 p.m.
Jack stood up from his bunk bed. He tiptoed over to the door and reached down to pick up his warrior. He cracked the door open slightly. There was no movement at all in the dim hallway. He took a deep breath.
Exactly one minute later, Perry’s door across the hall opened. A few doors down, Gumball and Brat’s door opened, and they appeared. They were dressed exactly alike, and their hair was braided the same way. Gumball wasn’t chewing her gum, and in the dimly lit hallway, it was impossible to tell them apart.
The children all stepped out of their rooms at the same time and closed the doors behind them.
Jack looked at the kids’ faces in the dim light of the hallway. He was proud of them. Brat looked nervous but determined. Perry shifted back and forth in his spot, but he held Jack’s eye contact and actually looked excited. Gumball was standing just behind her sister, her hands at her sides, and she chewed her gum slowly.
Everything was in place.
They would meet Lill upstairs—she was upstairs helping out in the nursery tonight. She’d convinced Mother Deena to let her stay up there and sing to the children.
They were ready.
Jack moved first. He walked quickly down the hall, past the twins, and then turned back. He looked at Brat and nodded.
Brat and her sister darted away from their room, Gumball walking a foot behind her sister and taking care to step in her footprints when possible. When they got to Perry’s room, he stepped out, too.
Jack trailed all of them. Flipping his warrior over, he leaned over and began to flick the sand lightly, covering up his own footprints and that of the other kids. He could only sweep the top layer of sand—anything else would be too loud. But the top layer was enough.
In less than ten seconds, all four of them had reached the first gate, and the floor of the dusty hallway was perfectly swept, as if it had not been stepped on since Mother Ann left.
Still holding the warrior broom, Jack nodded at Brat. She had the key that Gumball had found in Mother Beth’s office in her clenched fist, and her hands were shaking—they could all see it in the dim hallway light. Brat inserted the key into the gate and turned it. There was a resounding click—and they all held their breath, waiting for any movement from the wing they’d just left behind or Mother Ann’s room in front of them. But nothing happened. They pushed the gate open and stepped through, and Jack turned around and swept the sand again. He closed the gate, and they began to walk slowly and carefully toward the second gate.
Jack nodded at Brat, and she stuck the key into the lock and turned it. This time, they all pulled up as hard as they could on the gate while swinging it open. They walked through, and they all turned back to pull it closed. Right before it clicked into place, the gate let out a loud, high-pitched squeal.
They turned to each other, their faces covered in shock.
“Hurry!” Jack whispered, and they pulled the gate closed before scurrying to either side of Mother Ann’s door. The four children stood with their backs against the wall, two on either side of the door, and they held their breath as Mother Ann stepped to the glass and peered out into the shadowy hallway.
Chapter Thirty-One
Jack didn’t know how long to wait. He’d seen movement in Mother Ann’s room just as he’d launched himself against the wall. If she came out, they’d be toast.
But her door didn’t open.
As they stood there against the wall, looking at each other across the doorframe, Jack wondered if Mother Ann was still standing there. He couldn’t very well lean forward and see. He looked over at Brat, who had her eyes closed, her head back against the wall. Gumball was standing next to her sister, and she spread her hands and mouthed something.
“Okay?”
Jack shook his head. But he knew they couldn’t stay there all night. He closed his own eyes and counted to twenty before opening them again. Slowly, he leaned away from the wall until he could see into the room.
There was no one standing there. He stepped fully away and motioned for the others to follow him. They all crept into the small elevator bank and let out a sigh of relief.
Brat lay on the floor, flat on her back, and covered her face with her hands.
Her sister leaned over her and mouthed the words, “Get up!”
Jack walked over to join them and reached out a hand toward Brat. “Come on,” he whispered.
Brat finally stood back up. She still seemed seconds away from bolting back through the gates and into her room. She fidgeted, wringing her hands together in front of her.
Gumball saw it, too, because she reached out and put one arm around her sister. “You okay?” she asked.
Brat nodded.
Jack was still shaken, too—they’d been so close to getting caught. It wasn’t the fact
that they’d get in trouble; he wasn’t worried about that. It was the fact that if they got caught, he’d lose all chance of getting upstairs and finding out what was going on.
But he couldn’t show them how he felt. They were depending on him to be the leader.
“Let’s keep moving,” he said. “Lill is waiting.”
He nodded toward the stairwell, and they all walked over to the door. Jack pushed it open and stepped inside. The others followed him, just a few steps behind each other.
Jack had known the stairwell would be dark—they all had. Still, they weren’t prepared for just how dark it would be. It was pitch-black, and somehow, that made the air feel heavier and thicker and the trek they were about to attempt even more impossible. They couldn’t possibly make it all the way up eight floors in complete darkness, could they? Jack felt his stomach flip over as the door to the children’s wing closed behind them with a resounding click. He knew he needed to keep going, to charge ahead before one of the others decided to back out.
Jack reached behind him and grabbed Brat’s hand. It was cold and clammy, and she gripped his fingers so tightly, he began to lose feeling.
“Everybody locked?” he asked in a loud whisper.
He heard a resounding yes from the group, and he couldn’t help but smile. If they were thinking about backing out, they sure weren’t showing it. Jack took a deep breath and tried to calm his nerves. Then he began walking up the stairs, concentrating on not falling over.
Left foot, right foot.
He was walking so softly that his shoes barely made a sound on the tiled steps. The others did the same. They moved in perfect synchrony, slowly and deliberately.
The first section of the stairwell wasn’t so bad. They all continued to hold hands—Jack and Perry were at the front and back of the group, and they each used their free hands to hold on to the bannister.
They kept going for what felt like forever. Jack counted the steps in his head and softly said every fiftieth step so that the others could know what was going on. He hoped no one was getting too nervous and thinking about jumping ship, but it wouldn’t surprise him if they were. Even he was wondering if there was any way they would actually get away with this.
When he reached what he knew was the third floor, he stepped up to the glass and peered out onto the floor. It was dark, like most of the others, but at the very end of the hall, he could see the light of the nursery.
Exactly ten seconds later, he saw the light in the front of the nursery go out. And then turn back on. It happened twice. He took a deep breath. Lill.
“Let’s go,” he whispered softly, and he kept walking.
They all reached the top, and he only then heard the soft wheezing from Perry. “Hey, are you okay?” Jack said. “Perry?”
“Yes,” he heard the boy say between breaths. “I’m fine. Let’s keep going.”
“We made it.”
“Oh…good.”
Jack turned to the stairwell door. There was a little green light next to the keypad. Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out the key that Mother Deena had given Lill. He used it to unlock the door before pulling it open, and they all walked through.
As they stepped into the soft glow of the eighth floor, the four children squinted at each other, their eyes still sensitive. They couldn’t believe they’d made it this far. Even if they didn’t get any further than this, they didn’t miss the significance of the fact that they were on the eighth floor on the night of the ceremony. It should have been impossible. In that moment, aside from their fear, they were proud—of themselves, and of each other.
“Okay,” Jack said. He turned to Brat. “Are you ready to go?”
She nodded. “Absolutely,” she said in what was mostly a croak. She looked over at her sister. “You ready?”
“Yeah,” Gumball said, and they hugged.
Jack and Perry walked back toward the locked supply room at the back of the auditorium as the twins headed toward the guard station.
“We’ll be waiting for you,” Jack said.
• • •
Brat braced her shoulders and walked over to the guard station. She’d been so nervous when they were getting through the gates and up the stairwell. But now she felt different. They’d gotten this far, and she felt ready.
She had a job to do, and she couldn’t let her nerves get in the way.
She peered around the corner at the guard station. Her sister was right on her heels, and Brat reached back and squeezed her hand. She could see Mother Beth there alone. Brat wished that there was anyone else there today—Mother Beth was going to be a hard sell. But there was no going back now. Brat knew she was going to have to put on the acting performance of a lifetime.
Giving her sister’s hand a final squeeze, Brat took a deep breath and moved quickly toward the station.
Mother Beth saw her almost immediately and jumped up out of her chair.
“Brat!” she hissed, her nostrils flaring, eyes open wide. “What in the world are you doing up here?”
“I’m sleeping in the nursery tonight, and I was having a bad dream,” she said, like they’d practiced. “I was looking for Mother Grace. And I didn’t want to wake any of the babies up.”
“That’s still no excuse,” Mother Beth said. “Mother Grace is busy. I hope you know you’re in a lot of trouble.”
“Okay, sorry,” Brat said. “I’ll go back downstairs.”
“I’ll come with you,” she said.
Brat had expected it, but she pretended to be surprised. “Oh, you don’t have to,” she said. “I’m just going back down to the nursery. I was helping out there overnight. I’m really, really sorry,” she said, her eyes welling up. “Please, I’ll go right back down.”
Mother Beth broke, just a little. “Brat, you know better,” she said. “I’m so disappointed in you.”
“I just wasn’t thinking. I’m really going to get it, aren’t I?”
Mother Beth sighed. “Look, let’s just get you back downstairs, okay? Come on.”
Brat trailed in front of her slowly, her head down, hoping she could pull this next part off. As they moved past the eighth floor bathroom, she slowed down.
“Could I go to the bathroom really quick?” she asked. She saw Mother Beth’s eyes widen.
“No!” she said. “You need to get back downstairs, right now.”
“But the thing is, they don’t like us going to the bathroom down there once the babies are asleep because it can wake them up. I mean, we can, but… It’ll be real quick, Mother Beth, I promise. Please?” She hopped back and forth a little. “I really have to go.”
“Oh, Brat,” Mother Beth said. “Okay, two minutes, and I’m serious.”
Brat nodded, turned, and raced into the bathroom. When the door closed behind her, she leaned against it and let out a deep breath.
Two minutes.
Her sister had two minutes.
Brat walked down to the last stall and stepped inside, closing and locking the door behind her. Then she looked up at the wall above the toilet.
Just as Jack had said there’d be, there was a metal grate covering an air vent.
Now she just needed her older sister to come through.
• • •
Gumball had trailed her sister and Mother Beth, ducking behind corners as she watched her sister’s performance. She smoothed her hair down. It was braided exactly like Brat’s, but she still didn’t know if she was going to be able to pull this off.
She watched as Mother Beth stood outside of the bathroom door, tapping her foot as she waited for Brat to emerge.
Gumball inched closer until she was just a few feet away from her. She knew she had to time it perfectly.
She waited for an opening, for Mother Beth to turn her head just slightly, and Gumball rushed toward her back. Mother Beth spun
around and looked down at her, then back at the bathroom door.
“You’re done?” she asked.
Gumball nodded. “Yep,” she said, raising her voice high to match Brat’s. “Thanks.”
Mother Beth stared at her for a moment and then nodded. “Let’s go.” They walked toward the elevators and got in. Mother Beth pressed a button for the third floor.
When they got out, they walked down the hallway toward the nursery. As they opened the door, Lill came out from the back. She was holding Hiccup in her arms, and the small boy swayed back and forth, watching her intently.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“Nothing,” Mother Beth said, frowning at the boy. “Why is he awake?”
“You know hiccups,” she said, and she turned and nuzzled his cheek.
“Huccuppp,” the boy said, the giggle escaping his small body.
Lill hummed softly, but as she did, she locked eyes with Gumball.
Mother Beth cleared her throat, and Lill stopped. “Lill, I’m counting on you to make sure that any other children in the nursery with you stay here for the entire night. And make sure he gets to sleep.”
Lill nodded, frowning at her friend. “Yes, of course,” she said.
Mother Beth returned to the elevator, and the girls went into the nursery.
“Everything go okay?” Lill asked as she placed Hiccup back in his bed. He stirred and stared up at her, and Lill hoped he wouldn’t start crying when they left.
“Yeah, everyone is in place.”
They walked back out in the hallway and then to the stairwell and crept up to the eighth floor. When they got there, they peeked through the glass. Perry was standing there, and he opened the door to let them in. All three of the children crept back down the hall toward the locked storeroom where Jack was still waiting. He let out a sigh of relief when he watched them walk up.
“Any sign of her?” Gumball asked.