The Loudness

by Nick Courage

  “Exactly,” Rachel sings, tossing handfuls of clothes at me, Freckles, and Conor, and then wiping her sweaty brow with the back of her dirt-streaked hand. “Out of sight, out of the Other Side. Outta the Zone. Out.”

  This time I make the catch.

  “It’s a last-minute thing,” Rachel explains. “All I know is, a friend came back this morning, and if anyone can help get your parents back, it’s him.” She puts her hand on my shoulder, squeezes, and wraps her other arm around Freckles. “Do you have someone you need to be with?”

  Freckles shrugs.

  Nodding, Rachel pulls Freckles into a quick hug. “Good,” she says, turning to Conor. “Tom’ll explain everything when he gets here.”

  “My mom,” Conor stammers, sitting up as Freckles inspects an oversized black hoodie with orange bleach stains, wrinkling her nose. “I can’t . . .”

  While Conor stutters objections, my knees start bouncing with nervous energy . . . with excitement. Even if I didn’t want to leave, the federales have the spillway completely open—if I don’t want to keep passing out, I have to go. Besides, there’s nothing to do here but wait, anyway. Grammy can scheme all she wants. She can make deals and plot to betray the Other Siders, and it won’t matter, because we’ll get help from the Outside.

  We’ll get my parents back.

  Rachel’s started taking her paintings off the wall and stacking them on the sunken, sheetless mattress in the far corner of the room, leaving bright squares of show-flyer wall paper where they once hung.

  Taking a quick inventory of the outfit she tossed me, I’m happy to see that it’s more “Other Side” than the dry clothes she gave us yesterday. Like Freckles and Conor, I got a black hooded sweatshirt; they must’ve brought these down from Baltimore, because it never gets cold enough for a jacket in the Zone. Also, a pair of black jeans with holes in the knees. I glance over to my pleated khaki shorts, still wet from last night, and smile.

  “Should probably get changed,” Rachel says, checking her watchless wrist and then shaking her head. “I don’t think we’re going to have much time.”

  “What about all your stuff?” I ask. Rachel’s paintings are stacked on the bed and there are records everywhere—the reason Dad and I came to the Other Side in the first place. Tom was supposed to start a radio station . . .

  Freckles arches her brows at me like I’m insane and says, pointedly, “What about everyone else?”

  Rachel looks at me first, and then at Freckles. For the first time since I’ve known her, there’s no trace of a smile on her face. No laughing eyes, no knowing smirk. Just a tired face, like the ones all the grown-ups end up having sooner or later. I can’t stop myself from turning my head toward her self-portrait for a comparison, but it’s already stacked with all the other paintings.

  “You’re not gonna be able to help anyone in the Zone,” she says. “Not if you’re here. And you can’t look like that out there.” She gestures at the mildewing pile of the clothes we came in. “Like you’re boarding school runaways.”

  Conor stands up and looks from me to Freckles. “I’m sorry,” he says. “I have to . . . I can’t leave her.” I want him to come with us—he’s the most athletic, the most able. The one most likely to help us pull off whatever our plan ends up being. But I understand. Conor’s all his mom has left—Mrs. Wallace in her rain-spattered wedding dress—and he knows it.

  Freckles puts her hand on his shoulder. “Conor . . .” Her voice is sweeter than usual, empathetic, and then—when Conor shrugs her hand off—she gets a steely look in her eyes. “Tell my aunt. If you see her, tell her . . .” Freckles looks at me, annoyed, and continues, “Tell her Evelyn went to get Julia back. And tell Mary and Alice. And Scott. Let them all know.”

  Conor nods and then, with one last apologetic look, runs out of the room, throwing open the door, casting the room in a warm yellow light. Freckles squints into the sun as I break the ensuing silence.

  “Evelyn?”

  “Evelyn,” she admits dismissively. “But nobody calls me that.”

  For the second time, Freckles goes over the list of people we’re missing, running their names over her fingers like beads on a rosary: Scott’s with his dad, mean old Mr. Malgré, in the Green. And Mary and Alice both left the Library with their parents last night. We didn’t see them at The Corner, so they’re probably hiding out back home, too.

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” I say, cuffing my too-long black jeans and rolling up the sleeves of my borrowed sweatshirt. The outfits Rachel lent us are too hot for the Zone, but she promised that we’ll thank her when we get to the City—federale central. Freckles looks at me searchingly, worried.

  “How can you know that?”

  Rachel and Tom’s clothes are too big on her, too, but her face looks cool framed by the black hood. An amber curl streaked with blonde falls from behind her ear while I’m thinking about how to justify my optimism, and I fight a terrible urge to stroke it back into place. Instead, I take a deep breath and try to remember the poem Mr. Moonie recited; I know there must have been at least one easy line in there I could quote right now.

  But I can’t.

  I can’t even focus on Mr. Moonie, let alone some old poem.

  All I can think is that I really don’t know that everything’s going to be okay. Mouse was kidnapped. My parents were kidnapped. The Green Zone is crawling with government agents hell-bent on re-enacting the Tragedies. Grammy’s got something weird up her pastel sleeves. And it’s not like there’s any easy solution to anything, anyway. In my gut, I know that everything is going to have to get a lot worse before it gets better.

  If it ever gets better . . .

  The poem completely forgotten, I force myself to at least picture Mr. Moonie. His rusty red tie holding up twenty skinny chins, his immaculately pressed seer-sucker suits. He’s never leaving his Library. And I haven’t seen any of the other kids who go to School there on the Other Side, so I’m assuming they’re all holed up in their houses, too. Hiding, huddled in the Zone.

  The federales want to flood all of them out . . .

  “Everything’s going to be fine,” I say, slowly, making sure I sound like I believe myself. “Because . . . it just has to be fine.”

  Freckles looks like she wants to argue, but visibly bites the inside of her cheek and nods once in agreement instead. We’re sitting on Tom and Rachel’s narrow back steps while they pack up all their records and paintings, wedged next to each other so our legs are just barely touching. Tom had come sneaking back from Food Eats about an hour after Conor left to rejoin his mother. Apparently they’d crossed paths, because Tom handed me a freshly penned note from Conor as soon as he walked in the door. There was nothing on it—except for Conor’s older brother Ben’s address.

  In the City.

  I’d slipped the scrap of paper into the front pocket of my hoodie and keep touching it every few minutes to reassure myself this is really happening. I’m terrified that if I keep fooling with it, it’s going to fall out and we’ll make it to the City and have nowhere to go, but I can’t help myself.

  “That should do it,” Tom had said confidently, as if everything was settled now that we had a place to go once we got up north. As much as I wanted to believe him, Tom’s optimism seemed about as baseless as mine. Freckles and I still don’t even know how we’re getting out of the Other Side, except that some “friend” is coming for us, and so far he hasn’t showed. It’s not a stretch to think that this entire operation is just as precariously planned—but we wouldn’t know. Tom’s been too busy packing to fill us in.

  Daydreaming on Tom and Rachel’s back stairs, I secretly hope that their friend has rough, capable hands and a history of bloodshed. That he’s the kind of friend who can take out twenty federales, if it comes to that. I feel a little guilty about hoping for violence, but . . . he’ll have to be tough if we have any hope of getting out. Black jeeps might not be policing the Other Side anymore, but I have a hard time believing th
ey don’t at least have a net set up around the Zone with the helicopters from last night at the ready.

  Just thinking about it, my leg starts shaking. My knee bobbles against Freckles, our loose black jeans rubbing together erratically as I finger the address in my pocket.

  Escape.

  I turn to Freckles, wanting to share my excitement, but stop myself when I see that she’s already looking at me with searching green eyes, her pale, chapped lips partly open. All of a sudden, I’m hyper-aware of our touching legs, and try to stop mine from bouncing by gripping my knee with a trembling hand, which Freckles squeezes with slender, cool fingers.

  I stop shaking, instantly calm, and—exhaling—drift toward her.

  Our mouths are warm together, dry lips framing awkwardly-touching tongues. I’m not sure what to do with mine, but Freckles moves hers in a slow, wide circle and I just keep still so I don’t get in the way. My knee starts bouncing again, uncontrollable, as I realize that I’m breathing her breath, and Freckles tightens her grip.

  It’s different than it was with spin the bottle, in the attic. Softer, and less terrifying.

  I feel my heart beating in my temples and wonder if she can feel it, too. Either way, we don’t hear Tom until he’s almost on top of us, jangling the handle of the rear door that’s pushing insistently against our backs.

  “Hey,” Tom calls through the door as Freckles pulls slowly away from our kiss, locking eyes. “Ride’s here.”

  My face breaks out in a lopsided grin, and I try to fight it—to stay cool—but the smile wins out. Freckles wipes her mouth with a baggy sleeve, wrinkling her nose. “No buzz,” she murmurs, and I can’t tell if she’s disappointed or relieved.

  Back inside, Rachel slouches languorously amid the wreckage. The apartment is turned upside down, the carefully curated maze of their belongings flattened on the floor. Leaning against the front wall is a small stack of milk crates and an overstuffed duffel bag. “No telling how long we have,” Tom says, grease-streaked and sweating. The overstuffed crate of books he’s straining to drag out the front door litters yellowed paperbacks in his wake as he calls over his shoulder: “Truck’s out front. Gotta get a move on.”

  I follow his lead, grabbing the fraying fabric handles of a deceptively heavy duffel and staggering after him. Parked on the front lawn is the front cab of a rusted out semi-truck. It’s enormous—the balding wheels are easily as tall as me—but without the trailer, it looks stubby and sad; more trash than truck. The passenger side door is open, and Tom’s fitting his crate into an already crowded back seat with some difficulty.

  I drop the duffle and pick absentmindedly at the peeling metallic paint on the dented hood as he wedges everything in, wondering how we’re all going to fit. A sliver of once-glittery red catches beneath my thumbnail. After a minute of concerted chewing, I manage to get it out, but Tom’s still rearranging.

  “I don’t think we’re all gonna fit,” I say, trying to make it sound like a question. The rear of the cab is almost all boxes already. “Unless there’s a trailer or something.”

  Tom sighs, more out of agreement than frustration. “It’s just you two who are going,” he says. “The rest of this stuff—I’m not trying to save everything, just the basics for now.”

  I try not to let any panic creep into my voice as Tom shoves his duffle into the truck. “You’re not coming with us?”

  “Just y’all and the dog,” he says. “Everyone else is just gonna have to hold tight, for now.”

  “Dog?”

  “She’s getting a last walk in,” Tom says, jumping down from his elevated perch. The cab of the truck is so stuffed that I really don’t see how even just Freckles and I are going to fit—much less with a dog—but I keep that observation to myself. “Should only be a few minutes.”

  We all stand awkwardly on the front lawn, waiting for the driver and his dog. It doesn’t help that Tom and Rachel aren’t coming, and I wonder with a growing fear if maybe we should stay with Grammy and the rest of the Other Side after all.

  If it’s crazy for me and Freckles to be striking out on our own.

  If it is, no one admits it.

  It’s Rachel who breaks the silence. “We’ve done this sort of thing before,” she says, unable to hide the stress that sounds so unfamiliar in her voice. “So don’t worry too much.”

  “I’m not worried about me,” I lie. “It’s you guys I’m worried about. When Gram finds out I left . . .”

  Tom winces, but quickly shrugs it off. “Listen, we have a plan. For Conor and anyone else who stays. For your Gram, too . . . if she wants.”

  “I don’t think she’ll want,” I say, and Tom nods in sad agreement. “And if there’s a plan . . . shouldn’t we stay, too?”

  Rachel and Tom shake their heads simultaneously as Rachel pokes Tom in the ribs, an unsubtle prompt. “The plan works best if you’re . . .” Tom starts, then hesitates.

  “The plan works best if you can get your parents back down here,” Rachel interjects, her voice strained and overly sweet.

  Freckles doesn’t look convinced, but she holds her tongue, choosing to glare pointedly at me instead of pressing them for more details. Shrinking under Freckles’ stare, I’m about to ask for specifics when a squat, muscular dog with a square head bounds into the yard and, panting, stares at each of us in turn.

  “Oh, good,” Tom says, visibly relieved as he scratches the dog behind the ears. “Go time.”

  Jogging after the dog is a red-faced, fire plug of a man—also panting—with rough-hewn tattoos circling his neck. He’s looks vaguely familiar, except . . .

  “Carel!” I shout, recognizing him despite the smoothly shaved space where his heavy handlebar mustache used to hang. He stops jogging and rests his hands on his knees, breathing deeply.

  “How . . . you . . . know . . .?” he manages, spitting and coughing between words. Tongue lolling, the dog looks back at him as if she’s laughing. Carel raises his heavy head just long enough to shoot her a dirty look and curse gutturally in a language I don’t recognize. I do manage to catch her name, though.

  It’s Julia.

  “It sounded like you were going say that your plan works best if we’re gone,” Freckles finally says, her voice quavering with determination as Tom and Rachel share an uncertain look.

  I kneel, introducing myself to the dog, letting her sniff and lick my hand and then scratching her behind the ear. She’s brindled—black and brown and white all mixed together—with stiff, dirt-caked fur. She turns to look at me as I scratch her, white froths of saliva dripping from loose red lips as I work my way down her back, massaging. Behind me, Tom and Rachel reluctantly explain their plan to Freckles, who listens critically with her hands on her hips. I pretend not to listen as the dog thumps her tail in the grass and rolls onto her back.

  “It’s gonna sound bad,” Tom says, “but it’s all we have right now. We think Hank’s gramma is planning on double dealing with the federales, right? She thinks they’ll barter for Mayor Long; that she’ll get her daughter back if she gives the rest of us up.” Freckles nods skeptically while I keep scratching the dog, trying to find the sweet spot that’ll make her legs kick. “So,” Tom continues, picking up steam. “While Carel helps you guys bring Henry’s parents back, we’re gonna make Milly think we have Henry. That way, we can be sure that Milly won’t make any deals while we’re trying to get Mayor Long back. We’ll have a . . .”

  Tom rolls his hands, searching for the words. “A united front against the federales, no double dealing, nobody turning anyone in,” Freckles says matter-of-factly. Tom and Rachel nod, obviously embarrassed by the implications of their plan.

  Freckles looks at me, mock-amused.

  “Do you mind being a hostage, Henry?”

  It wouldn’t be a bad idea if it worked . . . but I know it won’t. No one’s going to believe the artsy Other Siders are the hostage-taking types, especially not Grammy. And even if she does, Grammy isn’t so easily manipulated. She’ll
still make the trade with the federales and chalk it up to growing pains . . . she just might feel worse about doing it.

  And yet, even though we’re talking about holding me hostage, I feel bad for Grammy.

  For everyone.

  But I need to go—and as soon as possible, if the federales have the spillway open like Rachel says. Otherwise, I might as well just check myself into the Hospital now. Besides, if there’s a chance we can save Mom and Dad, Grammy and the Other Siders’ plans won’t matter, anyway.

  I should feel scared, or something, but I don’t. I don’t feel scared, and I don’t feel the buzz I’ve come to expect from my overworked heart. It’s strange. I know I should be grieving for the Green Zone and crippled with fear; frightened for Mouse, my parents, and myself. But, despite everything, I’m just . . .

  Not.

  I hadn’t believed it when I’d told Freckles, not totally, but now it really does seem like everything’s going to be okay. Like it has to be. It’s just suddenly so obvious that we’re fated to be together: the electric kid and his freckled girlfriend, the foodie eco-bomber, the Other Siders. And Julia-the-dog . . . a living, drooling sign that even if we don’t know what we’re doing, we’re on the right track.

  The realization makes me so unexpectedly happy that I touch two fingers to my neck and, finding a pulse, check to make sure I’m not having another episode. My pulse seems normal, though; better than normal, even. It makes me wonder if Dr. Singh was wrong back in the Library . . . if the best thing for my heart is for me to be living in the chaos, not protected from it.

  “I wanna go,” I finally say, more to myself than to anyone else. Freckles, hearing me, looks up from a smiling, panting Julia and nods in agreement. We lock eyes for a second. Her face is dwarfed by the hood of her borrowed black sweatshirt, so her serious expression looks more cute than stern. I blush and turn away suddenly, bumping into Rachel.

  Rachel must have heard me, too, because she squeezes my arm reassuringly. “You’ll eat better there than here,” she says, gesturing toward Carel, who’s ready to get the show on the road. Her voice is bright and cheerful, but there’s a sadness beneath it. I drape an arm around her shoulder in a one-armed hug while she jokes that she’s going to miss Carel . . . but she’s going to miss his biscuits more.