“C’mon, I’ll walk you. I have web design. It’s on the way.”
Outside Marco’s classroom Bruno asked him, “Is there anything I can do?”
“Could I have a hug?” Marco said, a little sheepishly.
“Sure.” Bruno put his arms around him. He felt Marco’s chin on his shoulder.
“It’s silly, but it really does make me feel better,” Marco said. “Is this weird for you?”
“A little,” Bruno said. “Not the you part—the hugging-anyone part. But it’s okay.”
Marco let go and stepped back. “You should bottle that,” Marco said, and the familiar gleam returned to his eye. “Thanks!”
“You’re welcome! I’ll see you later.” Bruno headed to class.
Ms. Moreletii definitely was not feeling any malaise. She strode briskly around the room, ignoring clearly afflicted students who propped their chins in their hands in front of their computer screens. “I’m going to show you an important piece of code today. It’s a little tricky because how it works depends on where you drop it in among other elements. The easiest way to get started is with a demonstration, so log in and then I’ll run a short video.”
The students did their best to focus. Ms. Moreletii watched impatiently. Finally everyone was ready, and a media player appeared on everyone’s screens. “This is the last big programming element we’re going to learn before you start your final projects, so pay close attention.”
The media player didn’t expand to full size on the screen, and Bruno found himself leaning in close as he concentrated. Around him the classroom was silent, save for Ms. Moreletii’s prerecorded voice on the video. She had finished introducing the code when there was a popping noise and a short flash from the screen before it went blank. Everyone jumped and then mumbled in confusion as the computers restarted.
Ms. Moreletii looked flustered. “There . . . there must have been a surge. Bruno, I need you to go to the building mechanic’s office and tell her we’re having electrical problems in the computer lab.”
“Me?” Bruno stood up, wondering why she had chosen him. Had he looked too energetic? Most likely to actually complete the errand without giving up and lying down somewhere?
“Yes. We’ll try it again, but if there’s a problem, I need it to be fixed as soon as possible, or else we’re going to fall behind schedule.”
“But it’ll take me ten minutes to get there!” Bruno suspected everything would be fine once the computers restarted, and then he would miss most of the lesson.
“Go as fast as you can.” She turned to the class. “Is everyone’s computer restarting?”
Bruno seethed as he left the classroom. He stood in the empty hallway, a current of charcoal fog blowing over his head. He pulled his assignment pad out of his pocket, drew a map, and stepped into the janitor’s closet. In a few seconds he was pushing open the door into the mechanic’s office.
“What are you doing here?” The woman looked up from her newspaper.
“Ms. Moreletii says there’s a power surge or short or something in the computer lab. She wants you to fix it.”
“I don’t see how that’s possible. That’s brand-new wiring. The whole wing is less than a year old.”
“She says if it happens again, she’s going to fall behind schedule.”
The woman didn’t move from her chair. “Wait, again? What do you mean, again?”
“All the computers turned off and then restarted.”
“Well, that’s not a fuse, then, and all the computers are on surge protectors, so it’s not the wiring. I’d say it’s her server, and that’s not my department.” The woman leaned back in her chair.
Realizing she wasn’t going to help him, Bruno gave up and ran back to the computer lab through the liminal he’d created. He had been gone for three or four minutes at the most.
He stopped short of the computer lab. A watery radiance drifted through the window in the door. Bruno crept closer and looked inside. The entire room was washed in a wavering, sickly light, reminding him of a large, fetid aquarium. In front of the computers his classmates hunched, slack-jawed, their eyes glued to the shimmering screens. They seemed to be held immobile by the eerie light that flooded their eyes.
Through the closed door Bruno could feel the malaise push out against him like a wind, and the realization hit him. She’s done this to every class she’s had today! She’s poisoning the school! Ms. Moreletii was the crocodile, the Unkind one who Van had been on the verge of revealing to him. The growing malaise he and Celia had sensed all day was Ms. Moreletii’s doing.
He backed away from the door. How long have I been gone? As far as she knows, I haven’t even made it down there yet. Bruno wished he remembered what class Celia had now. Then he thought of Lois. He had ten minutes before Ms. Moreletii would expect him back. He loped down the hall toward the library.
“Bruno, what are—What’s wrong?” Lois followed him into her office.
“Ms. Moreletii is the Unkind! She’s been putting some kind of spell on all her classes today, some kind of negative energy. She must know about me, because she sent me on an errand to get me out of the way.”
“I’ve been in here all day. Is that everywhere?” Lois pointed up at the tendrils of fog by the ceiling, and Bruno nodded. “I knew something was very wrong, but I didn’t know how widespread it was. What did she do?”
“She’s doing something through the computer screens. But the computers crashed, and she sent me to the mechanical room to get help. She thought it would take me fifteen or twenty minutes to get down there and back, but I drew a shortcut and came back quickly, and I saw it through the door.”
“Your Kind energy must have counteracted what she was doing the first time, just by being in the room.” Lois was excited to have figured something out. “She’s probably known about you since the beginning of the year, and she’s been counting on you being a novice, since you didn’t detect her.”
“I didn’t do anything to counteract . . . I didn’t know what was happening until it was too late!”
“It doesn’t matter. She had to get you out of the room for it to work.”
“What’s happening? You must have noticed how everyone’s been acting.”
“I started noticing it this morning. Students have been coming in here looking like they were ready to crawl into a hole. And it’s been getting worse all day. The malaise probably spreads, too, so students who weren’t in her classes are catching it from the students who were. I bet plenty of the teachers have gotten it, too. I wish I had sensed the Unkind here,” Lois said, berating herself. “I should have felt her. I’ve just never had any experience with Unkind.”
“What can we do?” Bruno asked her.
“That I do know. We’ll have to get all this out of here.” Lois pointed at the ceiling again.
“What is that? Don’t we have to help the people?”
“Sure, but I don’t think this is about the students at all. Bruno, I think this is about Suburban.”
“What?”
“I’ll explain later. Have you done anything to reveal to Ms. Moreletii that you know what she’s doing?” Bruno shook his head. “Good. You’ll have to go back to class and not let on that you know what happened, or else she’ll be suspicious. Do you have any free periods before the end of the day?” Bruno shook his head again. “All right, is there any way you can get here tonight, say, eight o’clock? I know what to do to clean up the school, but we have to figure out what to do about Ms. Moreletii, and we have to do it fast. If she gets here tomorrow and the malaise is gone, she’ll know someone has counteracted her. Just because I didn’t know about her doesn’t mean she doesn’t know about me. But she definitely knows about you, so if things don’t go the way she wants, she’ll probably take it out on you.”
“She’s the skull in the technology wing!” Bruno said.
“I forgot about that! You’re right. Be careful. If she does anything threatening, get out of there immediate
ly.”
Bruno nodded nervously. “I’ll come back tonight. Is there anything I can do for my friends?”
“I think touching them probably will help. Your Kind energy should be strong enough to do it for one person at a time, though who knows, you may start to feel lightheaded if you do it for too many people.”
“Okay. I’ll see you at eight.”
Bruno went back to the computer lab. All the students were now slouched in their chairs, their faces listless and tired. No one had escaped the malaise. Ms. Moreletii stood lecturing to herself by the wipe-off board.
“Well, where is the mechanic?” she asked.
“She said it can’t be a fuse, since the power came back, and all the computers are on surge protectors, so it’s probably a short in your server,” Bruno said carefully. “She wouldn’t come with me.”
Ms. Moreletii sighed dramatically. “Fine, I’ll check the server. We’ll try this again next class,” she announced, but no one seemed to care.
Bruno went to his workstation and collected his things as the rest of the students hoisted themselves out of their chairs. He kept his eyes away from Ms. Moreletii.
BRUNO CAUGHT SIGHT OF CELIA down the hall, standing to the side, immobilized and staring into space. In the midst of the shuffling crowds of what he could only think of as zombies, she looked as if she had become one of them. There were small lightning flashes in the clouds above her head, and he wondered whether it really might rain in the middle of the hall. He threaded his way through the zombies to get to her.
“Are you okay?” She nodded and pointed into an empty classroom. The lights were off, but a silhouette stood at the windows on the far side, facing out. “Is that—?”
Celia nodded. “I just happened to notice when I was passing by. I think he’s talking.” They went into the classroom and approached the windows.
Van’s eyes looked as if they were seeing something a hundred miles away. His hands hung at his sides, and his lips moved just enough for his soft, monotone words to escape.
“There are. There are things that are. There are things that are important—beyond this violin, this violence. You said, in the senses . . . you said, innocence is uneven.”
“What did he say?” Bruno whispered. Celia’s eyes were fixed on Van.
“When did my hands grasp? When did my eyes dilate? When did my hair rise? My shadow is long. Is longing too late? Why am I not useful?”
Celia whispered, “What does it mean?”
“I have no idea.”
Van’s eyes were locked straight ahead, his expression a death mask. “Did we stop admiring the things we don’t understand? My visions are bleeding into one. I am a bat, watching everything upside down. Unsafe here. Are those elephants, pushing? Wild horses? Sleepless wolves under the trees? No, they are crocodiles.”
Celia caught her breath. “Your admonition says to beware the crocodile. Cassandra used to call Mr. Sumeletso the crocodile.”
“I know who the crocodile is,” Bruno said. “Ms. Moreletii. She’s the one causing all this. She’s the crocodile.” Celia looked sharply at him. “I just figured it out last period.”
“Ms. Moreletii is the one who . . . She was here last year, but I never . . . Mariette never . . .”
“She’s the one.”
Van was still speaking. “The truth flows through me. It runs down my spine. It pulls through my veins. This imaginary garden has real lizards in it. Unsafe here. They were interested in me, once . . . Smile into these memories. The sand washes over me.”
Celia spoke in a calm but authoritative tone. “Van, do you remember what happened to you?” Van didn’t reply. “How do we stop this?” she asked him.
“There are things that are,” Van said. “There are things that are important. Why am I not useful? The truth flows through me.”
“We have to help him,” Celia said. “He’s gone. We have to get him back.”
“How? Should you draw him again?”
“Maybe.” Celia pulled her sketchbook out of her bag and opened it. She started drawing Van’s face in the blank corner of a page.
“My visions are bleeding into one,” Van said, tears escaping from his eyes. “Unsafe here.”
“His eyes closed!” Bruno told Celia, who rushed to finish her sketch. Then Van turned away from the window and opened his eyes to look at them.
“What . . . what’s going on?” The life returned to his limbs, and his voice was the familiar Van, gruff and confident even as he wiped his face with the back of his hand and tried to orient himself. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Are you okay?” Celia asked him.
“Of course. Why are we in this room?” Van stepped away from them with a look of disdain that only partially masked his confusion. “I’m getting out of here.”
Bruno and Celia watched him walk quickly out the door. “Did your drawing . . .” he began, unsure what he was asking.
“I don’t know,” she said. “It may have been a coincidence. I think there’s something lingering in him, some of his Unkind self left somewhere deep inside, and it came to the surface for a few minutes.”
“But what he said didn’t make any sense. Other than the part about crocodiles, did you understand any of it?”
Celia shook her head. “I’m not sure if there’s anything to understand. He was totally gone. I feel bad, but he’s not going to be able to tell us anything.”
“I told Lois about Ms. Moreletii. She thinks all of this has something to do with Suburban.”
“The school?”
“She didn’t explain. But she wants to do something here tonight, after everyone’s gone. I’m coming back to help her.”
“Is there anything I can do?” Celia asked.
“I don’t know. I’m not even sure what I can do. I think she’s just scared to be here by herself.”
“Okay. But be careful. If someone is going to die at Suburban, this seems like the kind of day when it would happen.”
THEY WERE SUCH A SAD LOT, waiting listlessly by the cars at the end of the day. Regine must have cried recently, and Sylvio leaned against the car, his chin on his chest. They still stood as far away from each other as possible, as they had done ever since the breakup. Bruno saw that Celia’s Ambassador status had not made her immune to the malaise; sometime after their encounter with Van in the empty classroom, it had gotten even her. Her shoulders caved forward over the books in her arms, and she stared at the asphalt.
Marco was still the biggest shock to see. His spirit was so constant; Bruno realized now how much he had taken that for granted. The cloud Bruno thought he had cleared away from Marco after lunch had returned, making him look forlorn and lost.
“What’s wrong?” Bruno asked them all.
“Today just sucked,” Marco said, and Celia nodded.
“Come here,” Bruno said, and opened his arms for a second time to Marco, who willingly accepted his hug.
“Seriously? Do you guys need a room?” Sylvio grimaced.
“C’mon, it’s sweet,” Celia said.
Bruno released Marco and saw how quickly his Kind energy had affected Marco again. “I have no idea how you do it, but I really needed that.” Marco smiled gratefully. He turned to Celia. “You should get a magic hug from Bruno.”
“Can I have a hug?” Celia asked Bruno. Her body was slim but strong in his arms, and as expected, she straightened up in his embrace. “You’re right,” he heard her murmur over his shoulder to Marco. “That was just what I needed.”
Bruno stepped back and she gave him a smile. “Thanks!” She turned to Regine. “You should really take a Bruno hug.”
“Seriously?” Regine tried to scoff. “Are we really doing this?”
“I just want to help,” Bruno said. He opened his arms and waited.
“Fine,” she said, and walked into them. Bruno hugged her close and rubbed his hand across her back just once. “Wow,” he heard her say. “You should have a hugging booth or som
ething.” When he released her, her entire countenance had changed. “I never would have believed it, but I really do feel better. You’re a sweetheart.”
Sylvio gave him a look. “Don’t even think about it,” he grumbled. Bruno shrugged and said goodbye to the others.
In the car, Sylvio brooded. “What was that about?”
“I don’t know. It felt like the right thing to do,” Bruno said. He was trying to decide: Should he let Sylvio stew in his own malaise or do the right thing and lift the invisible weight off him? When they got out of the car at home, Bruno grabbed Sylvio from behind and hugged him.
“What are you—” Sylvio didn’t finish. Bruno felt his brother relax in his awkward grip. “Okay, let go of me!” Sylvio gave him a confused look, but by the time they got into the house he had begun to ramble about the strange day, and how out of it everyone had been.
AT EIGHT O’CLOCK BRUNO emerged from the janitor’s closet in the hall at Suburban. There wasn’t a closet in the library, so the janitor’s closet was the closest space he knew that he could use as a liminal. He ducked his head when there was a flash. Lightning darted about almost continuously in the thick clouds that obscured the ceiling. The floor was damp and slick, but he couldn’t tell whether it was condensation from the foggy air or if it had rained since he had left that afternoon. He carefully made his way to the library. Lois was there already.
“All right, this is going to be quite the experience for you, and I’m only sure of that because it’s going to be quite the experience for me!” Lois sounded a little nervous but excited. “For the life of me, I had no idea what ‘push back the storm’ meant until today. Crazy admonitions . . . I swear to you, I have spent my entire Kind life doing quiet, private things with my powers—nothing like this!”
“What do we do first?”
“I have to get started, but that’s kind of the easy part. We need to be thinking about Tina Moreletii.” It was the first time Bruno had heard her first name.
“Do you have any ideas?”
“I don’t think we’re supposed to kill her, or even strip her of her powers. That would have been in at least one of our admonitions. But we have to prevent her from doing this again, and we have to be prepared if she retaliates against us. If we could just weaken her somehow . . . at least to give us time to come up with a plan.”
Pull Down the Night (The Suburban Strange) Page 23