Jake and Em worked efficiently for a while, saying little, just letting their stack of bubble-wrapped items grow.
Em moved to the shelves beside the fireplace and started wrapping carved jade figures. She stopped, though, when she came to the middle shelf, picked up one of the figurines, and brought it to show Jake. Holding out a five-inch tall horse, she said, “Look. It’s my favorite. Mom and Dad brought it back from a trip to China and let me name it.”
He took the horse from her and let his hand hold hers while he turned the green horse over to examine it in the light streaming in a window.
They were standing close now, and Jake bent his knees to bring himself to a level where he could look at her long dark eyelashes. Jake raised an eyebrow and nodded at the jade horse.
Em blushed, turning a rosy pink. “I just named it Beauty. I know, a kind of plain name for something so pretty.”
The sunlight made Em’s hair gleam like polished ebony, and Jake couldn’t look away. With a husky voice, he said, “Beauty would be a good name for you.”
Her dark eyes widened; her faint orange-spicy perfume filled him with a longing. He leaned closer, and she didn’t back off.
This was it, he thought. Just like in the movies, he was going to kiss her. It would be his first kiss of a human girl, heck, of any girl, since he’d never kissed a Risonian girl, either. He bent to her, clumsy, unsure—
“Em, how much more do you have to wrap?”
Em jerked back and turned to the trinkets on the cocktail table.
Marisa stood in the doorway. Behind her, Captain Hill towered over Marisa, and he was glaring at Jake.
Guiltily, Jake turned to the bubble wrap and cut a small strip to wrap around Em’s jade horse.
“Almost done,” Em said. “Just the jade figures to finish.”
Was she breathless? Jake wondered. Had she wanted that kiss as much as he did? But this wasn’t the time or place. Soon, he promised himself, soon.
They worked hard, and by mid-afternoon, it was all done, and the van was packed to the ceiling.
“I brought a picnic,” Easter said. Sir carried in a basket, and she pulled out sandwiches, chips, plates, forks and drinks. Jake didn’t want to be around Captain Hill, though, so he asked Easter for a couple sandwiches and drinks and pulled Em down to the shore. They sat cross-legged on large boulders and chatted while they ate, the previous tension between them gone.
“Hey, Beauty, do we have time for a walk?” Jake joked.
Em grinned. “If you call me Beauty, I might have to call you Beast.”
Jake frowned. She was probably talking about a folk tale or something, and it was probably a good thing, but Beast didn’t sound as good as Beauty. On the other hand, he thought philosophically, it was better than Shark and Mermaid.
She stood and strolled along the streambed, leading the way around a bend. He followed a couple steps behind where he could watch her graceful walk.
When they rounded the bend, she pointed. “That’s Captain Hill’s cabin. Marisa met him one day when she was wading barefoot in the river. Her feet had gotten so cold that she fell and he picked her up and carried her back to shore. Rescued her.”
Jake studied the Hill’s cabin. Unlike the Tullis’s A-frame cabin, this was a regular log cabin, with two stories. Cabins in this area were very expensive. Idly, Jake wondered what Hill’s parents did for a living.
“I’d like some answers, you know,” Em said quietly. She nodded up toward Mt. Rainier. “Is it smoking because of what Captain Hill did, because of that drone and what was in it?”
“I don’t know,” Jake said.
“Don’t tell me that! You tried to stop Cy; you know something.”
Jake was quiet, watching the smoke rise into the dazzling blue sky. Earth’s blue sky was the result of the earth’s atmosphere and how it scattered light. Rison’s sky with its slightly different atmosphere shaded more toward blue-purple. How could Jake explain everything to Em? She wouldn’t understand.
“Well,” she demanded. “I’ve been patient, and I’ve kept it secret. But you owe me some answers.”
“I really don’t know what Captain Hill did; I only have suspicions.”
Em’s lips tightened, and she had her hands on her hips in a cheerleader stance that meant she was ticked off. “So?” she said. “You suspect what?”
His own fists tightened from tension. If only he could tell her. But the life of every Risonian depended on him keeping his mouth shut. He couldn’t tell her anything; he regretted that she’d been there to see him try to stop the drone.
“Captain Hill is blaming all this on the Sharks—the Risonians. I’ve seen him on TV news talk shows,” Em insisted. “Is he right?”
This time, Jake got mad. “First you say that Captain Hill put something in the volcano. And now, you say that the Sharks caused this. How can it be both of those at the same time?”
Em sighed in exasperation. “Of course, it can’t be both. So help me out here.”
“The Brown Matter may have caused the mountain to wake-up, yes. If that’s the cause, it’s Captain Hill’s fault. If.”
Em sucked in a sharp breath. “Brown Matter?”
Jake whirled away and started walking back to the Tullis cabin, furious with himself. Em hadn’t suspected Brown Matter, and now he’d slipped up and mentioned it, and she’d never let it go.
Em trotted alongside him, trying to keep up with his longer stride. “Jake, listen. Are you saying Captain Hill put Brown Matter into the volcano? We have to tell someone.”
Jake stopped abruptly and turned to her. “Let’s get this straight. I don’t know what Captain Hill did that day. I don’t know if it was Brown Matter or just—well, just sugar. But HE dumped something into the volcano. If anyone gets blamed, it should be ELLIS Forces. But I’m not saying another thing.”
Without waiting for an answer, he strode away, reached the steep bank, where he started to climb. A clatter of gravel rushed down on him and Jake looked up. Captain Hill stood above him, scowling. Jake glared back.
Hill bent to scramble down the stream bank and past Jake without saying a word. Jake heaved a deep sigh, barely controlling his anger against the man. He finished the climb and went to lean against the van. When everyone was ready to leave a few minutes later, he climbed into the front seat of the van without looking back to see where Em sat. He leaned against the van’s window and closed his eyes, pretending to sleep. But all he could think was that when he got home, he would have to look up the story of Beauty and the Beast.
Statesman vs. Politician
Mt. Rainier started smoking on October 10, and it smoked all that month. Surprisingly, life went on. Jake got up, went to school, came home, slept, and then got up the next morning to repeat the process. Like on Rison, one quickly got used to living in the shadow of a volcano.
After the trip to the Tullis cabin and their argument, Em avoided him. It was easy to do, what with her swim team and work at the coffee shop. That made the civics and biology classes even more important for Jake. They were the only times when he could watch and listen to her, and maybe even talk to her.
In civics class, they were covering American politics.
“Would you vote for a politician or for a statesman?” Coach Blevins challenged.
David shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
“A statesman does what’s best for the country; a politician does what’s best for himself, which may or may not be good for the country,” Coach Blevins said. He rolled a marker between his palms.
“You imply that it’s bad to look out for yourself,” Jake said.
“Is it?” Coach Blevins said.
The arguments swirled for a few minutes, and then Coach Blevins raised his hands for silence. “Let’s do a test,” he said.
Coach Blevins set up two old Coke bottles, the old glass kind with a narrow neck. He looked around. “Jake and David come and try this.”
“I’ll give you each ten glass mar
bles. You must close your eyes, and without looking, see how many you can drop into the Coke bottle.”
Immediately, Jake’s competitive streak surfaced: he wanted to win. He stood over the Coke bottle so that the tips of his shoes just brushed it.
“Ready? Go.”
Jake didn’t hesitate: he positioned his arms with elbows out, centering his hands right over his feet. He let the first marble drop. It bounced noisily on the floor, and the students roared in laughter. It was soon too noisy to monitor his progress with sound. He’d either get his marbles in the jar or not. Quickly, he dropped his next nine marbles. When done, he raised his hands in surrender and looked. Zero. He had zero marbles in his jar!
David had two. He won.
Blevins said, “Sit. And let’s talk about what just happened.”
A girl raised her hand, “David cheated. His eyes were open a little.”
Blevins nodded, and a grim smile played across his face. “Yes. And in fact, that is the test. We didn’t blindfold either one. We just asked them to keep their eyes shut. So who won? Jake got zero marbles in his jar; obviously he kept his eyes shut. David, however, got two marbles in his jar because he did open his eyes. Who wins?”
Jillian said, “Jake. He followed the rules.”
Em said, “David. He got results.”
Blevins spread out his arms and said, “Politician or statesman?”
Jake frowned. “It’s not that easy!” Swann was a statesman. He was working for the good of Rison, for the good of the whole planet. But what if they allowed the Southern hot heads to rule, and they attacked Earth and forced them to yield the oceans to Rison? Surely, they were desperate enough, and generations from now, they would be praised for making the choices that let their species survive.
What did it matter if a person acted on his moral principles such as “Do not cheat”? Did the stakes matter?
But look who was talking! Blevins had cheated on his research papers by not citing the Risonian scientists. What had he accomplished?
“Does it matter,” Jake asked, “if you get caught cheating?”
“Did David cheat? Some would say the end justifies the means,” Blevins said.
“He broke the rules. Let’s call that cheating. Does cheating matter? Should you break rules any time you want, if it gives you some advantage?” Jake said.
Em glared at him, “Maybe results are what matter the most.”
Blevins said, “Would you vote for a politician or for a statesman?”
Jake realized that Blevins wasn’t going to answer. He was enjoying setting up the moral question, then letting them struggle with it. In his previous life as a volcanologist, Blevins had acted like a politician—and suffered the consequences. Pragmatic, he didn’t care what rules he broke if he came out ahead.
Jake wished again that he’d been able to see the aged-up photo that Captain Hill had of him. Jake had recognized Coach Blevins from the old photos—even with the nose job—but that was because he had found that old black-and-white photo at Blevins’s house, and that had given him context. For Blevins to recognize Jake, though, would be harder because of two things: Jake had grown from a child to a teenager, and the context was all wrong. They expected the Ambassador’s son to be in some fancy school, or in New York.
But it was only a matter of time.
Sooner or later, paparazzi or not, Coach Blevins would look at Jake and know the truth. And when he did, there’d be no chance to explain anything. Blevins would act like a politician, at best. At worst—well, maybe it was time to transfer out of Blevins’ class. It meant no classes with Em, but stories about Beauty and the Beast didn’t always end happily.
Science Project
If civics class left them arguing about statesmen and politicians, Biology class threw Jake and Em together.
“You must do a research project with a partner. Something about animals and ecosystems, preferably something in the Pacific Northwest,” Coach Blevins said. He paired off students and told Jake, “You’re new on the Island, so I’ll put you with Em, who’s lived here all her life.”
Jake slouched in the too-small desk chair and doodled on his paper while Em verbally went through some options. She’d pulled a desk over but made sure it was far enough away so they wouldn’t touch.
While she talked, Em stared out the window. “We could do something, you know, on how salmon find their way back to their home streams. Or something. But I don’t know how you’d research that.” She shrugged. “Or something about lung capacity of swimmers versus non-swimmers.”
“Swimmers?”
Glancing at him, Em returned to gazing out the window. She nodded solemnly. “Humans are animals. And the Pacific Northwest is our ecosystem.”
Jake grimaced at the bad joke but said nothing else, just doodled on his paper. She was supposed to think of something, not him. That’s what Blevins had said.
“Cloning?” Em asked. “Although, I don’t know what we could do on that because it’s so complicated. Maybe we could clone a grasshopper or something simple. Maybe a flat worm, what do they call them? Planaria?”
Jake started drawing a happy face, over and over, cloning the thing across his paper. In all the discussion of how to survive their planet’s implosion, cloning was one thing Risonians discussed widely. The idea was that each person who was evacuated from Rison would bring along the cell tissue from a hundred other people, and when the time was right, they could clone that person. The arguments never worked, though, because of the environment versus genetics debate. Just because you had the ability to clone someone didn’t mean they’d turn out to be the same person because they’d grow up on Earth instead of Rison. That environment would create a very different Risonian.
They weren’t getting very far in choosing a research topic. His mind wandered: tomorrow was Saturday, and he’d be out on the water with Bobbie Fleming, and wouldn’t have to worry about class for a while and—that was it!
Leaning forward, Jake explained to Em about meeting the wildlife biologist and the sick harbor seal pup. “We can talk to the vet,” he said, “and see what he found out. Even if it’s just one pup, maybe there’s something that would work for this project. I bet he took blood samples and stuff.”
“Wow, good idea.” Then, as if she remembered she was supposed to be mad at him, she sobered. “Let me ask Coach Blevins if that’s okay.” She stood and went to the front of the class to talk to the Coach.
She came back, nodded curtly, and stared out the window again. “He says okay.”
Jake ran a hand through his hair. “Well, um. I don’t know the vet’s name. Dr. Fleming talked to him. I could call her, but it would be better if we went tomorrow morning and talked to her in person. We need her permission, too. If this idea doesn’t work, maybe she’ll have another idea.”
“Sure,” Em said.
“I’ll bike around to your house at 5:45.”
“A.M.?”
“Yes.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Em groaned.
Before Jake met Em the next morning, he stopped at a coffee shop and bought her a venti latte with one sugar and a touch of cream, just the way she liked it.
Jake rang the doorbell and waited, latte in hand.
When Em answered the door, though, she just frowned at him.
“What?” he asked.
“My stomach is upset. I don’t need coffee. You drink it.”
“You coming? Or are you sick?” Jake tried to pat her back in sympathy, but she shrank back.
“Coming,” she said. “I just don’t want to eat or drink much right now.”
When they arrived at the marina, the tide was out, leaving a large boat beached, leaning now against the concrete dock, protected by several bumper floats. The boat’s owners were probably scraping the hull because turquoise paint gleamed in a couple streaks, but the rest of the boat was covered with barnacles. Jake and Em parked their bikes and stretched.
The sculling crews were j
ust pulling up, getting ready for practice—crazy on a Saturday morning, Jake thought, but they were doing well in competition this year and wanted to keep their season going.
David called a hello to Jake, so Jake went to help carry some oars while David and another guy carried their scull to the water’s edge. David straightened, looking like a pocketknife unfolding, suddenly doubling his height. “What are you doing for Halloween tonight?”
“Nothing,” Jake said.
“Come over. A few of the guys and I aren’t doing trick-or-treating, but we’re listening to ‘War of the Worlds.’”
“Interesting,” Jake said. In Earth Culture class, his Risonian teachers discussed the famous 1938 radio drama that scared half the population of the United States into believing that aliens were really invading. Anything that culturally touched on how humans treated or viewed aliens had been presented in his Risonian class. But Jake had never heard the actual radio drama, had only heard of it. “Are you listening to the whole thing?”
David grinned. “The You-Tube video is an hour long. We’ll have snacks and stuff.”
“Sure. Sounds like fun,” Jake said.
Em was talking to the girl’s sculling team when Fleming drove up. Jake trotted over to help Fleming with the kayak and explained the biology project.
“I’ll call the vet,” Fleming said, “when we get back. If he agrees, I’ll cooperate with you. Who’s your partner for the research project?”
Jake gestured to the group of girls. “Em Tullis.”
Fleming’s brow furrowed. “Emmeline Tullis?” She turned to the car and undid the strap of the kayak. Suddenly, though, she stopped. “You know what? I’m not feeling very good; my stomach is queasy. I think I’ll pass on the trip out to Blakely Rock this morning.” She pulled the kayak’s straps, cinching it tight again.
Em said, “I’m not feeling very good, either.”
Sleepers (The Blue Planets World series Book 1) Page 14