No Passengers Beyond This Point

by Gennifer Choldenko

  Mouse’s voice is so small I almost can’t hear it. “What if we can’t find it, Finn? What then?”

  The guard looks at his clipboard, then down at Mouse. He squats so he can look into her eyes. “Arm bothering you, little one?” he asks softly.

  “Can you help her?” I whisper.

  “Course. Got full health coverage for citizens. Everybody’s shipshape in Falling Bird.”

  “But then we have to go back?” I ask.

  “I’m afraid so,” Manny says.

  Mouse is huddled up against the door, a crumpled heap of dirty blue corduroy. “You want me to go back with you, Mouse?” I ask her.

  “Which way is Mommy?”

  “Mommy’s that way,” I say, pointing away from Falling Bird.

  She nods. “That’s what Bing says too.”

  “You’re set to go then, little Mouse?” Manny asks.

  “Yes, Mr. Manny, sir,” Mouse says.

  “And Chuck, you checked with air traffic control? No flights coming in for you, number forty-four?”

  “Not yet, sir.” Chuck smiles his usual smile, but his hands on the wheel are trembling.

  Manny scratches his chin. His eyes are thoughtful, like my mom’s when she really wants to know what I think. “All right then. This is your choice,” he says, pushing a button in the glass booth. The gigantic door in the metal fence opens and Chuck drives through.

  The wheels had been hovering over the road, but now they connect directly to the highway on the other side and the temperature drops sharply. Chuck cranks up the heat. Flying bugs hit the glass and he turns on the windshield wipers.

  What are we doing? One hundred thousand to one, Sparky said. Who in their right mind would take those odds? Maybe India was right.

  The bugs crunch against the wipers, and the whistling wind batters the car, almost lifting us sideways. All of Chuck’s attention is on the road when the radio comes alive. “Forty-four? Dispatch here. Come in, forty-four. Forty-four!”

  “Oh no! Not Francine . . . Finn, get the radio!” Chuck shouts. He needs both hands on the wheel to keep the car on the road. “Tell her to put the call through to Sparky.”

  Sparky? This won’t count, right? This isn’t a white courtesy phone.

  “Forty-four, this is Francine. The Weather Group has requested an immediate return to Falling Bird,” she announces. “The threat level has been modified. We are now at threat level red.”

  I wiggle out of the seat belt and pull the receiver toward me. The curly cord stretches taut. “Um ma’am, could we speak to Sparky, please?”

  The wind howls. Hailstones the size of jawbreakers hit the windshield. The few bugs left are bludgeoned to death by ice pellets.

  Chuck seems to need brute strength just to keep the car on the road.

  “Mechanical alert!” Francine’s voice is panicked now. She doesn’t seem to have heard me. Did I push the right button to transmit?

  “Come in, forty-four. Vehicle Performance Group confirms your vehicle is not made to withstand the crushing forces of this storm. Forty-four! Threat level red. Return requested immediately.”

  Chuck’s neck swivels for a quick look at me. “How much time do you have?”

  “Eight hours, seventeen minutes for me. Nine hours, seventeen minutes for Mouse,” I tell him over the pounding hail pelting down on the windshield. “If we go back, will there be time to try again after the weather breaks?” I shout.

  “Doubtful. It will take time to find the black box!”

  “What about India?” Mouse cries. “We can’t leave her.”

  “Human Performance Group has their concerns about your behavior, forty-four.” Francine’s radio voice buzzes. “Please turn back your vehicle. Return requested immediately. Federal laws prohibit tampering with—”

  Chuck grips the wheel with one hand. With the other, he reaches up and switches the radio off.

  The defroster struggles to keep the windshield from fogging up. The feathers on the hood ornament are flattened straight back with the force of the gale.

  I’m panting, trying as hard as I can not to panic. I hang the radio receiver over the front seat. My heart is hammering. “Where is the black box?”

  “Near the airport, I think!” Chuck shouts, but we can barely hear his voice.

  “You think?”

  Chuck shrugs.

  “How do we find it?”

  “It emits a sound, like a radio beep.” Chuck strains to be heard over the howling wind. “The tunnel dogs can hear it.”

  I crack the window and the icy air bites through my shirt sleeves. How will a dog hear the beep of the black box over this? A new sound like lawn mowers on full power roars in my ear. And then I see the Black Hawk helicopters gunning for us.

  “They’re coming down,” Chuck hollers. “They’ll take us back. Look, you have to decide right now what you want to do.”

  I grab Chuck’s shoulder. “What if you go back? Can you get India, while we find the black box?”

  “I can’t make her come with me, Finn. It’s her choice. And you and Mouse won’t last out here without the car!”

  “Leave the car then!” I shout.

  “They’ll chase the car. It’s Falling Bird property. They won’t go after you if you’re on foot . . .”

  “Mouse, you go back and convince India! I’ll find the black box,” I tell her as the Black Hawk helicopters hover over our heads like mechanical birds of prey.

  “I’m not leaving you!” Mouse cries as the hail turns to snow, which makes the highway slick and the tires slip and slide over the road.

  “This is crazy, Mouse. We won’t survive. Look at it out there.”

  “I’M STAYING WITH YOU!” Mouse shouts, her good hand clamped around my arm.

  “Find the tunnel dogs. Win them over. They’ll lead you to the box, but you’re going to need a vehicle . . .”

  “Where are the tunnel dogs?”

  “In the Bird’s Nest Passage. Get the dog first, then worry about the vehicle. That’s my best guess.”

  “Your best guess?” I cry.

  “Look Finn, be careful. Not everyone wants you to make it. Francine . . .” But the chop-chop of the helicopters drown out the rest.

  I pop my clock out of the seat. I have to take it with me, just like India took hers. It feels a part of me in some creepy way. Mouse grabs hers too as the helicopters land in a whipping rush. Snow blows through the open window.

  Chuck floors the taxi. The tires squeal and skid, then grip the ground as he drives off the road, steering between two landing helicopters, over the muddy, snow-dusted terrain to a clearing in the woods.

  The helicopters are powering down, the great engines humming at a lower octave. Now that they’ve made contact with the ground, they can’t power up again quickly enough.

  “We’ll send Bing back!” Mouse shouts in my ear over the deafening noise.

  She digs in her pocket for Bing’s wallet.

  “Mouse, stay with Chuck. You won’t make it out here with your broken arm.”

  “NO! I’M NOT LEAVING YOU!” she shouts. “Chuck, when you find India, give her Bing’s wallet.” She presses the wallet into his hand.

  Chuck takes the wallet. He opens his door and the wind blasts the freezing rain in. Big smothering blankets of snow are coming down in some places. We don’t even have jackets.

  “Are you sure, Finn?” Chuck cries.

  “Yes!” Mouse and I both shout and Chuck dodges to a tree stump. He shoves it out of the way, revealing the entrance to a tunnel. Mouse takes my hand and together we run through the driving wind to the tunnel opening.

  “Good luck,” Chuck shouts. His words sift through the storm to us.

  The helicopters have landed again, closer now. They surround the clearing. Men in blue gloves are running toward us. “Bing, get India!” Mouse cries.

  Chuck nods as the wind lifts off his cap. He waves Bing’s wallet and slips it into his jacket pocket. “I’ll try!” he calls as he r
uns back to the feather taxi, the men in blue gloves swarming in on him now.

  The last thing we see before we descend into the tunnel is Chuck being led away.

  CHAPTER 22

  BIRD’S NEST PASSAGE

  From outside, the tunnel opening looked like an oversized gopher hole. But inside, there’s a wide stairwell that takes us down to an underground passageway. The temperature down here is perfect—warm and cozy after the freezing sleet and battering wind outside, maybe because the walls are made of bits of sticks and feathers and stray fluff like a bird’s nest, insulating us from the outside.

  We don’t see anyone now, but clearly people work here. The place looks like the basement floor of an office building for bird people. Cots with bird egg–patterned sheets, tables constructed from egg cartons, feather-covered coat stands, and chairs made of telephone poles with telephone-wire line backs rest against both sides of the passage. Rain gear hangs neatly in a line up ahead; coats with badges that show lightning striking clouds hang on hooks and boots rest in a row on the floor. There’s even a cuckoo clock and egg-shaped lockers painted in colors like robin’s egg blue, speckled brown, and eggshell white.

  There are no dogs down here. No dog hair. No dog dishes. No dog leashes and no dog smell.

  I don’t bring this up to Mouse, though. I don’t want to worry her. She’s already walking too slow. I check my clock. Seven hours and fifty-three minutes to find the dogs, find the box, and find India.

  “Do you think they’ll hurt Bing?” she asks, sitting down on a chair with faded cloud-patterned fabric on the seat by a display of brightly-colored bird houses.

  We’re in a weird underground world hoping to get help from a pack of strange dogs. We may never see Mom or India again and Mouse is worried about her imaginary friend? As smart as Mouse is, I don’t think she gets how important this all is.

  “They won’t hurt Bing.” That is actually the one thing I’m sure about. How could they hurt him? He’s imaginary.

  “But Mouse, we need to keep walking.”

  She doesn’t move.

  I stare at the scuffed brown bird’s nest pattern on the linoleum. “Bing will be okay. India will take care of him.”

  “You don’t believe that,” she says, her chin jutting out, her shoulders slumping down.

  I have to admit she’s right, I don’t believe it. I try again. “Maybe Bing doesn’t have to be gone . . . Why don’t you call him back?”

  She looks at me incredulously. “He does what he wants, Finn. I can’t make him do anything.”

  “Yes, you can, Mouse, you made him up.”

  She shakes her head emphatically. “I did not. He just came to me. It was his idea.”

  What do I say to that? I push my hair out of my eyes, and try again. “You told him to go with Chuck to find India. That was the right thing to do.”

  She nods. “Finn?”

  “Yes, Mouse.”

  Her eyes well up with tears. “I miss Mommy and India.”

  “If you love India that much, why do you bug her all the time?”

  “I have to,” she says, “or she forgets about me.”

  “I’m not sure that’s the best strategy.”

  Mouse nods as if she’s considering this. “Some things are hard to understand.” She sighs a grown-up sigh. “That’s Bing’s job. He thinks about things that don’t make sense. I think about things that do.”

  “Does Bing have a brother? Maybe his brother can come help you, because really, Mouse, we have to keep moving.”

  “Bing’s a private person. He doesn’t talk about his person life.”

  Just my luck. My sister’s imaginary friend is a hermit.

  I’m about to try another tack when a bell rings in the distance and the sound of approaching footsteps echos through the passageway.

  “Someone’s coming,” Mouse whispers.

  Our eyes skitter around the long twig-covered hallway. The lockers? I try several until I find two that are open.

  “Here,” I whisper to Mouse. She slips inside and I close the door as quietly as I can behind her. I slide into the locker next to hers. My locker bangs when it closes. Could they hear? I wait, sweat dripping down my sides.

  The voices are closer now. “I still say this is overkill, Francine,” a man’s voice says. “Code seventy-three is very clear. People make their own choices.”

  “We lost Chuck. We can’t afford to lose anyone else because of them,” the woman says. Francine?

  Uh-oh. Chuck didn’t want to talk to her on the cab radio. I don’t think he trusted her.

  “I just don’t understand why you’re devoting so much energy to tracking down a couple of kids . . .” the man says. “I saw what you did with that India. I don’t think she would have made that decision without assistance.”

  He said India. They’re talking about us.

  I can see them through the locker vents now. A short woman wearing a silvery vest that glistens like a hologram. She has brown hair that swings like a pendulum when she walks and bright pink glasses. The man is in the traditional blue security outfit. Oh! It’s Manny, the guy at the border crossing. I thought his voice sounded familiar.

  “Don’t be such a purist, Manny. She just needed a little help is all. I want to get these kids settled. The boy worries me. When was the last time Sparky offered anyone a job?”

  “He’s twelve, Francine,” Manny says. “I don’t see how he could be a threat.”

  “You didn’t answer my question.”

  “I don’t ever remember Sparky offering anyone a job.”

  “Exactly. And the little one is a loose cannon.”

  “C’mon Francine, this is the natural order of things and you know it. This isn’t about you and Sparky not getting along, is it?”

  “Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous,” she scoffs. “Time is on our side, anyway. All we really have to do is throw a few obstacles in front of them.”

  “That isn’t honoring the spirit of the law, Francine.”

  “You’re going to report me to Headquarters? Please. All they care about is their precious vehicles. Wait, check those lockers.”

  Uh-oh. Our lockers?

  Manny walks back to the start of the bank of egg-shaped lockers and begins lifting the handles one by one. Click-squeak-bang. Click-squeak-bang. The unlocked lockers get opened and banged shut. Clic-cric . The locked lockers make a constricted sound.

  He’s almost to Mouse’s now. I think I can jam the mechanism on mine, so he won’t be able to open it, but Mouse won’t know to do this, will she? I don’t dare say anything now.

  Click-squeak-bang. Manny opens and shuts the locker next to Mouse on the other side. I hold my breath, my heart beating like a basketball on pavement.

  Clic-cric. Mouse’s doesn’t open.

  I hold the lever down hard. Clic-cric. Mine doesn’t either.

  “Let’s walk to the end.” Francine’s voice again. “Then we’ll double back.”

  I wait for their footsteps to recede, for their voices to fade away.

  “Good work jamming the locker, Mouse,” I whisper when the passage is silent again except for the low rumble of the heating system.

  “Can I come out now?” she asks.

  “Yeah,” I say, lifting the handle on my locker, only it doesn’t move. I must have jammed it too hard. I wiggle it, knock it, shove my weight against it. But it won’t budge. I can’t get the door open.

  “Finn,” Mouse asks. “Can you get me out, Finn? Can you?”

  CHAPTER 23

  MEMORY LOCKER

  I try to control the waver in my voice. “There has to be a way to spring it open,” I tell her. It’s dark in the locker and a tight fit. There’s light in the hallway, and some filters through the vents, but not enough to see the mechanism clearly.

  The lock mechanism looked like the kind they have at the Y—the ones where you bring your own lock. They shouldn’t have jammed this way.

  Are the hinges bent? Did we bre
ak the lock somehow? I try to kneel down so I can get a good look, but there’s no room for that. The only way I fit is standing up. I let my hands be my eyes, feeling how the lock works.

  My fingers explore the lever to trip the door. Why would Mouse’s locker and my locker get jammed at the same time? What are the odds of that?

  “Finn,” Mouse calls. “I found something. It’s a sign!”

  “Inside the locker? Can you see what it says?”

  “How to open the locker. One: Remember what you want to forget. Two: Ask yourself a question you can’t answer. Three: Remember what you wish more than anything you hadn’t forgotten.”

  “What?”

  “How to open the locker. That’s what it says, Finn. Right here.”

  “No locker opens that way.”

  “Yeah, but the sign says it, Finn,” Mouse says emphatically.

  “How can you remember what you forgot? It’s impossible. If you’ve forgotten it, then how can you know what it is?”

  “If Bing were here, Bing would do that part. He would know what I’d forgotten that I want to remember.”

  I’m about to say that’s crazy, but then I realize there’s something to this.

  “Hey, I know,” Mouse says, “you can do that part. You can think of something that I forgot. And I have to think of something you forgot.”

  This is why Mouse is amazing. Just when you think she’s completely Looney Tunes she comes up with something like this. “That’s a good idea, Mouse!”

  “Do I just say it out loud, Finn? Will the locker hear?”

  “I don’t see how that’s possible, but let’s try it.”

  “One: Remember what you want to forget,” Mouse says. “That’s easy. How much I miss Mommy. I try to forget this, but every minute I remember again.”

  “Good. That’s good Mouse, keep going.”

  “Two: Ask a question you can’t answer. Why doesn’t India play with me anymore?”

  “That’ll do,” I say.

  “Now you gotta help me with three. Remember what you wish you didn’t forget,” Mouse says.

  “You never forget anything, Mouse,” I mutter. But I’m six years older than she is. There has to be something I remember that she doesn’t. Something when she was little maybe. “Where did the name Bing come from?”