by Jon McGoran
“She was an ancient Irish saint.” The patron saint of the mentally ill, but I kept that part to myself. “Everyone calls me Jimi.”
He nodded and studied the file, like he was looking for where it said to call me Jimi. Eventually, he shrugged and closed it. “How are you doing, Jimi?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
“We’re aware of what happened yesterday. Sounds pretty intense.”
“I guess.”
“The police are doing everything they can to find Del, and the chimeras that got away.” He was looking at me closely. I didn’t say anything.
“Chimeras are bad news, you know that, right?”
I shrugged.
“I’m not just talking about the type of kids who would decide to go to a genie and get spliced with some garage-quality animal DNA. I’m talking about the end result. Those kids are changed, and not for the better. Sometimes for the much worse. They’re part wild animal, you know. They’re dangerous and unpredictable.”
I nodded, but I made it plain it was an I hear you and I understand nod, and not an I agree with you nod.
He let out a sigh. “Plus, I’m not one of them, but there are a lot of people out there who hate chimeras. You know that, right? They’re trying to have chimeras declared nonpeople, since they are not one hundred percent human. Right or wrong, that’s going to cause problems for chimeras.”
“Sure is. Seems kind of harsh, doesn’t it?”
“Maybe so,” he conceded.
“Why is it okay to have a WellPlant inserted into your head, but it’s not okay to have new genes spliced into your existing genes?” The question had been bugging me, but I don’t know why I asked him—I certainly didn’t expect any kind of intelligent answer.
He closed his eyes, but I could see him rolling them. “The two are totally different. Totally different. Anyway, I’m just saying, it’s getting more dangerous just to be near those kids. Not that you should want to be near them, anyway. Do you get where I’m coming from?”
“Yeah, I feel you.”
He looked down at his desk, trying to hide a satisfied smile, oblivious to the fact that I was mocking him.
Then he looked up and asked abruptly, “Where’s Del?”
I wondered if he thought that was some sort of interrogation technique, like he was going to trip me up and I would blurt it out.
“I don’t know,” I answered.
“No idea?”
“I went looking for him last night, but I couldn’t find him.”
“Looking for him where?”
I shrugged. “A house outside the city. Someone said he was there, but he wasn’t.”
“In the zurbs? You be careful out there.”
I snorted.
“That’s funny?”
“I’m going to be living in the zurbs.” I could feel him tense up, and I almost laughed, thinking it would be hilarious if my mom got me kicked out of school by shipping me out of the district. “Just for a couple of weeks,” I added.
“Outside the city?”
“With my aunt. While my mom takes Kevin to look at schools.”
“Ahh, Kevin,” he said. As if that explained it. “Yes, he has a bright future, that boy. Quite a talent.”
Right, I thought. I didn’t say anything at first, but after a moment I cleared my throat and Sciorra came down from his Kevin high.
“Well,” he said, “if your living situation changes for more than a few days, the office needs to be informed. And what will be your temporary address?”
“I have no idea.”
“Right. I’ll have to get that from your mother,” he said, scribbling a note to himself in his book. With that out of the way, he gave me what I assumed was supposed to be a meaningful gaze. “Jimi, you do understand that Del is in trouble, don’t you?”
I didn’t say anything.
“He stole from his father. He assaulted a police officer. That’s not minor stuff. It’s serious. You need to stay away from him. And if you see him, you need to tell someone. Your mom or your aunt or a teacher. Or me.”
I didn’t know if I would ever see Del again, but if I did, I was sure I wasn’t going to tell Sciorra about it.
“Absolutely,” I said.
SIXTEEN
I spent the rest of the day tuning out my biology and English classes by successfully imagining Del in all sorts of terrible situations and unsuccessfully trying to imagine ways of getting him out of them. When school was finally over, I was walking out the door and noticed Nina Tanaka staring at me with a concerned look. We hadn’t spoken in months. Years if you didn’t count “Hey” or “How’s it going?”
This time she came over and put her hand on my arm. “You doing okay?” she asked.
“I’m fine,” I snapped. I was touched by her concern but embarrassed that people were obviously talking about me. Plus, Nina used to be friends with Del, too, and I couldn’t help thinking that maybe if I hadn’t been Del’s only friend, he wouldn’t have been in this mess. Still, I regretted my tone. I hadn’t meant to come off so harsh.
Nina stepped back. “Okay, sorry. Um . . . have a good weekend.”
“You, too,” I said, trying too late and too halfheartedly to sound friendly. I started to apologize, but she was already gone.
I hadn’t realized it was Friday. I was relieved not to have school tomorrow, but knowing I wasn’t going home and staying there made everything that much worse.
I sat alone on the bus, the way I always did if I wasn’t with Del. The other kids seemed to be making more of an effort than usual to keep their distance. Maybe they’d seen me snap at Nina.
They had never really known what to make of Del. Or me either, I guess, since I hung out with him constantly. But I was easier to ignore. Del was a weirdo. He cemented that reputation in third grade when he brought in a worm for show-and-tell, and he took it out on the bus and kissed it. The other kids—even Nina—screamed so loud, the driver almost lost control of the bus.
I smiled at the memory. Then I felt guilty for smiling while he was out there, in trouble, possibly in danger. Then I felt guiltier, because deep down, what worried me most wasn’t actually the danger. It was that if it all went fine, Del would be different once he got spliced. I’d lose my best friend. And then things really would never be the same.
My mom was sitting on the front steps, waiting for me, when I got home. She gave me an apologetic smile and I gave her a tight, noncommittal one back, letting her know I didn’t totally hate her but I was still angry. When I went inside I was assaulted by the smell of freshly baked cookies. It pissed me off, the way she thought she could play me like that. What also pissed me off was the fact that it actually did make me feel better.
I grabbed a stack and sat at the kitchen table. She came in and sat next to me. I gave her one of my cookies and she put her hand on the back of my neck and pulled me in for a hug. The feeling of her arms around me made me want to cry, but I’d been crying a lot. I was determined not to start up again.
I knew what was going to happen when I pulled away. But I pulled away anyway.
She stood up and sniffed. “I guess we better get going.”
I nodded and got up, too.
“Give me your house key,” she said quietly.
“What?” I assumed I hadn’t heard her right.
“Give me your house key.” She put out her hand. “I’m going to give it to Trudy while you’re staying there.”
“Why don’t you give her the spare? I’ll run over to Mrs. Edwards’s and get it.” Mrs. Edwards was the nice old lady on the block who kept everyone’s spare key.
“Mrs. Edwards is going to be keeping an eye on the house and bringing in the mail. But that’s neither here nor there. I want to give Trudy your key.”
It took a second to sink in. She wasn’t just giving Aunt Trudy a key. She was taking mine away.
“You’re locking me out of my own house? What if I need to get something?”
“Trudy
will let you in.”
“Are you serious?”
She didn’t answer, just stood there with her hand out, waiting.
I don’t know if I’d ever been so angry before in my life. My fingers trembled as I pried the key off my keychain. I wanted to throw it at her. Instead, I tossed it onto the kitchen table and ran out to the car. I heard the key bounce once before it hit the floor.
I sat in the backseat while Kevin brought out my bags. He and my mom got in the front without looking at me, and we drove off.
SEVENTEEN
When my dad and my grandparents were still alive, there would be these big family get-togethers, for holidays and things. Maybe it was because I had been so little, or maybe my memory built them up, but there always seemed to be more people at those gatherings than my family actually had.
But right before my grandparents died, family relations went south. Nobody told me exactly what everyone was arguing about, but now I realized it was probably money, or where Grandma and Grandpa should be living and who should take care of them. At the time, all I knew was that my grandparents had suddenly gone from “jolly”-old to “out-of-it”-old, and the rest of the family seemed to be falling apart around them.
Then they died and Aunt Trudy moved away. I didn’t see her again until my dad’s funeral a few years later, where she and my mom spoke about two words to each other. My mom tried to mend fences by inviting her over for dinner last year, but she only tried once.
Apart from whatever other issues she had with Aunt Trudy, Mom clearly just didn’t know what to make of her decision to live outside the city, off the grid and away from everything. Now that she was driving me there, however, she tried to make Aunt Trudy’s situation sound great.
“It’s right by the Levline, just two stops from your school. She’s got all the solar power you could want and fresh vegetables growing out back.”
Kevin snickered at the ridiculousness of it, earning a smack on the arm from my mom and a smidgen of respect from me, which he would undoubtedly squander at any moment by being a boneheaded jerkface again.
“She’s an artist, but she’s also a homesteader,” my mom said, as if Aunt Trudy were a rustic romantic. “That takes a lot of courage.”
Kevin snorted. “You told me last week she was nuts to be living out there.”
“Kevin!” she said, flashing him a glare.
“What? You did! You said that’s why you didn’t want Jimi staying out there in the first place, because of that and what happened—”
My mom silenced him with a look, but in the awkward quiet that followed, I realized two things: My mom had let me stay on my own not because she trusted me, but because she was afraid of me being out in the zurbs. And that fear stemmed from something that happened a long time ago.
We had gone on a daytrip to visit the Davidsons, who were family friends. Mr. Davidson had worked with my dad, but he got laid off. They sold their house in Oakton and moved out to the zurbs, a place called Rockland that was already a little sketchy, flooding-wise, and where the houses were getting cheaper by the second.
We had a full van heading out. The Davidsons’ sons, Trent and Tristan, were more Kevin’s friends than mine, so Mrs. Davidson told my mom I was welcome to bring some friends of my own. Nina’s folks wouldn’t let her go. Leo’s parents weren’t crazy about it either, but ultimately they said okay, as long as Leo brought his water bottle and inhaler. Del’s mom was already struggling at that point, and Stan was happy to have Del out of his hair.
My mom made me wear this knee-length party dress that Mrs. Davidson had sent for my birthday. I liked it okay, but I remember thinking, Don’t blame me if it gets messed up.
We sat around the Davidsons’ house with the grown-ups for a while, eating pretzels, making faces at each other, and pretending not to notice the mildewy smell that permeated the entire neighborhood. When we were being enough of a pain, the grown-ups said we could play at the rec center around the block.
It was lame: a rusted-out playground in one corner and across from it an overgrown baseball diamond with a dilapidated dugout. Kevin and Trevor and Tristan ditched us as soon as we got there to go throw rocks at the slide.
Del and Leo and I started playing tag on top of the dugout, running back and forth on the roof and laughing like idiots, when out of nowhere, this huge hand reached up from underneath and grabbed my ankle.
I fell over hard, shocked at first, and then scared as the hand started dragging me over the edge. I was halfway off the roof before Leo grabbed my wrists and started pulling me back. Then Del began pulling, too. I could feel the rusty metal on the edge of the roof cutting into the backs of my knees.
Suddenly, the big hand let go of my ankle and we all went sprawling. Before we could get to our feet, three guys, sixteen or seventeen years old, climbed up onto the roof. They were snickering and mumbling, like they were on drugs or something.
“What are you little shits doing here?” said the biggest one. I was pretty sure he was the one who had grabbed me.
“We didn’t know you were down there,” Leo said. “We didn’t mean to bother you.”
Del shouldered Leo aside. “We’re allowed to be up here. Why don’t you just . . . go to hell!”
The big kids thought that was hilarious. When they stopped laughing, the biggest one took a step forward and looked down at me, a strange smile on his face. “That’s a pretty dress,” he said. Then he turned back to Del. “You can’t be up here unless we say so. People think they can come out here, do whatever they want. Like this place don’t count anymore.” He forced a laugh, then stopped. “Well in this park, we do whatever we want. Got it?”
I still didn’t know what was going on, but I knew it was time to get out of there. I shot to my feet and tried to run, but he grabbed my head, palmed it like a basketball, and pushed me down. This time my head hit the roof, hard.
The next thing I knew, I was in the back of an ambulance with ice on my head. A couple of paramedics were cleaning the scrapes on my legs and taking my blood pressure. My parents were looking on, Mom silently crying and Dad trying not to. I kept asking about Del and Leo, but everybody kept shushing me and telling me everything was okay.
When we got to the hospital, a nice doctor examined me while Mom held my hand. I had a bump on my head and cuts on the backs of my knees. Other than that, and the fact that the whole ordeal was scary as hell, I was fine.
When I got home, Del was waiting for me on our back steps. He had a bandage above his eye, and I couldn’t help but think how heroic he looked.
I sat down with him and asked him what had happened. Del’s recap was short. After I blacked out, he had drawn the big kids away from me, goaded them into chasing him and Leo. They both got roughed up, then the big kids bolted when Kevin and the Davidson boys saw what was happening and ran over yelling.
Del and I went inside the house and told my mom we wanted to see Leo.
“They took him to the hospital, too, sweetie. He’ll be okay, but they’re keeping him a little longer for observation. Mr. and Mrs. Byron just want to make absolutely sure.”
I wasn’t too surprised—Leo’s folks had always been protective, but until that week, I didn’t realize just how protective. When Leo got out of the hospital two days later, his parents sent him straight to his grandparents’ for the rest of the summer.
It was weird not having Leo around. Del and Nina and I missed our foursome and looked forward to him coming back. But one day, toward the end of August, a moving van showed up in front of the Byrons’ house, packed up all their stuff, and left. Mr. and Mrs. Byron left with it.
I was stunned, but my parents didn’t seem surprised. One of the neighbors said she heard the Byrons had moved into one of the big new towers on the other side of the city. I pestered my parents mercilessly for a while to find out which one. But they said we needed to respect the Byrons’ privacy.
I now recognized that Leo’s parents had probably been furious at mine for letti
ng him get hurt out in the zurbs. It hadn’t been their fault, really—they obviously didn’t know just how dangerous Rockland had gotten, and sometimes stuff just happens—but I didn’t think the Byrons ever spoke to my parents after that. And none of us ever saw Leo again.
Over the years I realized what could have happened to me if Del hadn’t drawn away those kids who’d been harassing us that day. And what an incredible friend he was. I’d always tried to be there for Del because of that, apart from anything else.
But now, thanks to my mom, I was going to be stuck at my aunt Trudy’s house when he needed me most.
EIGHTEEN
As we turned off the Avenue to leave the city, my mom took manual control of the car. Autodrive could be a risky proposition on the crumbling roads of the zurbs. The street we were on curved along a creek, past the Perkins Park Levline station and a couple of acres of parking spots enclosed by a ten-foot security fence. We turned onto another street and descended into a vine-covered flood zone, the street lined with big old stone houses decaying into the mud.
A handful of squirrels skittered about, and there were probably rats in the houses. My dad told me that when he was a kid, there were deer and raccoons and possums and skunks and even foxes and coyotes around here, but they were pretty much gone now—poisoned by one thing or another.
Finally, we came to a fence like the one at the Levline station, surrounding neat rows of crops. Halfway up the block, there was a gate with a security panel. As we pulled up, the gate swung inward. We drove onto a dirt driveway that curved around to a small, dusty-looking ranch house. The front porch dangled with wind chimes and whirligigs. An old Volvo was parked on the charging pad.
The front door opened and Aunt Trudy came out, drying her hands on a dish towel. She looked pretty much how I remembered her from a year ago, but somehow more normal. She wore jeans and a loose white blouse, and her long, curly blond hair was losing the fight with gray. She waved as we pulled up. I raised my hand in response and put it back on my lap.