by Sharon Webb
"Maybe so," said the other teacher, "But, ours not to reason why-" A howl caused her to jump up and race toward an incipient battle between two small boys. "Jimmy! Stop that!" She grabbed a small hand in mid-smack. "You're not to hit. Besides, it's Michael's turn on the swing anyway."
* * *
The black eye makeup Marta Nobregas Aguilar had so carefully applied stained her tears and slid toward the shadows that hollowed her eyes. Brother and husband flanked her, their arms curving protectively around her narrow shoulders, their hands steadying, guiding.
They crossed the narrow ramp connecting Compound Hospital to the small concrete building with the faded legend- CHAPEL. When they came to the door and crossed the threshold, she stopped, then pulled back from their grasp, shaking her head as if to deny this place was where her son lay.
Her husband leaned toward her and spoke. In response, her keening cry caused the two men's eyes to meet and darken. They led her to a bench in the small lobby, giving her tissues supplied by the dark-clad man who met them.
When the first tissue was limp and stained with black streaks, she took another. Finally, she seemed composed enough to whisper something to her brother. He nodded and rose. As he did, he fished in the inner pocket of his jacket, took her hand, and closed her fingers around the rosary beads.
She ran her fingers over them, feeling the smoothness of the ebony beads, polished over many years by many fingers. The rosary was old. It had been old when Maria's great-grandmother had crossed in a storm-tossed fishing boat from Cuba, bringing to this new land only the clothes on her back and a strand of ebony beads ending in a heavy silver cross.
Her husband spoke to her again. She nodded and rose. Supported by the two men, she moved on legs that threatened to give way.
They entered a windowless room with walls bathed by hidden lights, a room that smelled faintly of roses. The center of the chapel lay in soft shadow. At the far end, next to a stand heavy with flowers, stood an open white coffin.
Fingering the ebony beads, lips moving silently, Marta Nobregas Aguilar moved on trembling legs until she reached the edge of the white-lined box that held her son.
She could not look down. Catching her breath, she searched the face of her husband, looking for an end to the awful dream. "Jorge?" she whispered.
At his slight, anguished nod, she shook her head. It couldn't be so. It wasn't so. Jorge would live forever. Forever. Hadn't they told her so? Hadn't they told her so when they took him away? She looked into her brother's face then. He would tell her the truth. He had always told her the truth. Her eyes were wide and pleading, her voice as faint, as fleeting, as the scent of pale roses in the air. "Jorge?" And when his eyes refused to meet hers, when he looked away, with pain twisting his lips, she knew with a terrible clarity that this moment was real, that every moment of the last two days had been real, would always be real.
She felt a sudden draining of emotion, a sudden hollowness that left her strangely numb. And with the numbness came a sort of strength-a strength born of detachment, a strength that came from somewhere at the core of her. Using it, she looked down into the still face of her son.
She stood like this for some time. Then, leaning over him, she kissed him once and slipped the worn old rosary into his hands.
* * *
As twenty five-year-olds filed out of the chapel into the sunlight, Margaret got up. Her group was next.
Although the children emerging from the chapel seemed unshaken by their experience, Margaret failed to share their equanimity. Her palms felt sweaty. She rubbed them together, then surreptitiously wiped them against her sleeves. "Come along, children. Line up the way we do in class."
The group of children moved from the shade of the old oak, shifted, and then fell into a ragged line.
"You're in my place, Silvio," yelled a pigtailed girl.
Not moving, Silvio smiled complacently at her.
"Move!" The girl yanked at his arm. When that had no effect, she gave him a shove. "I'm supposed to be in front of Richard."
Silvio stared at her calmly. Then he raised his voice in a whimpering "Oh-oh-oh," and turned toward Margaret. His lower lip protruded, quivering. He clutched his shoulder.
Margaret seized the little girl's arm. "Shame on you, Sally. Now, get to the end of the line." Why did they have to squabble and make things worse? "Are you all right, Silvio?"
Lip still quivering, he nodded slowly.
She gave him an absent pat and stared at the chapel door. It just wasn't right to take little kids in there, she thought. But, underneath the thought, another, only half-exposed, emerged: it wasn't right to make her go in there. Not again. She didn't want to see this again.
She blinked and looked at the line of children, "Now, we're going to go inside, and everyone is to be very quiet."
As the line filed up the side steps and into the chapel, she hesitated for just a moment before she followed them.
* * *
Inside the chapel lobby, the children listened as the psychologist finished his short talk, "…and now, you're going inside to see Jorge one last time and say goodbye."
Margaret watched the line of children file past. It wasn't right… not right. She twisted her hands together and tried to look calm and competent. It wouldn't do to have the psychologist think that she was nervous. It was just that they were so young… It wasn't right.
She walked by the casket first, quickly, glancing away almost at once. The smell of the place-the flowers-the smell was always the same. She stepped aside, standing in the center of the room, as the children each walked by the casket and stared in frank curiosity. It wasn't right. The odor of her sweat mingled with the faint scent of roses.
It had smelled like that when Stevie died. He lay in a little casket so much like that one. He had been five-and she was only nine. She had loved him so much. More than just a half-brother. She had adored that little boy, who looked so much like Daddy. It was amazing how much she had felt for him, especially since she hadn't known him very long at all. Not until Hank moved in, and Mama sent her to live with Daddy and Charlotte at the lake.
And she took such good care of Stevie. She was very grown-up for nine. Still… they shouldn't have expected her to watch him every minute. Not when she was only nine…
A small table stood against the wall. She moved toward it, pulled a tissue from the box there, and wiped her hands. Then, taking her place in the center of the room, she seemed to watch the children, but instead, she stared at a point above their heads at a picture of a pastoral scene of a child and a lamb. The tissue turned to shreds in Margaret's hands. Outside. They'd be outside soon.
Distracted as she was, she failed to notice that one of the children passed the open coffin and then circled back to the end of the line behind the pigtailed Sally.
First into the lobby, Margaret counted heads as the children emerged. Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen… Some
one was missing. She stared at the inner door. Maybe she'd counted wrong. She was halfway through her second count when Silvio stepped out and slipped into the group.
Breathing a sigh of relief, Margaret stepped outside, "Come on, children. It's time now for juice and cookies. Move right along." Juice and cookies-and then, thank God, she could turn them over to the dorm parents and go home.
* * *
During the afternoon free-play period, the kindergarten dorm parents gathered in the shade of MacDill's Park pavilion for coffee and gossip before the evening rigors of feeding, washing, and bedding their small charges began.
Hidden from their view by a clump of young Australian pines, Silvio knelt at the grassy edge of the concrete strip that had once been a runway. The main strip served as a highway for an array of children racing battered tricycles. Further down, a group of slipskaters circled, screaming with laughter when one of them fell. But here, near the fence, hidden by the pines, he was quite alone.
He scrubbed an object back and forth across the pavement. He had worked diligently for over an hour with a patience unusual in a child twice his age. Occasionally he stopped to examine his work and then began the scrubbing motion again. Sweat ran from his brow and, dropping on his hand, trickled in grubby streaks into the furrow he had gouged in the concrete.
Completely absorbed in what he was doing, he failed to hear the footsteps in the grass behind him. "Sil-vee-o," came the girl's mocking voice. "Dumb old Silvio hiding again."
Instantly on guard, he dropped the object and swung a leg over it as the branches of the pine parted and Sally looked through. "Sneaky snitch. Dumb donkey-ass." She seized her pigtails and hoisted them into waggling donkey ears, a supreme insult. "Dumb donkey-ass."
He eyed her evenly, then slowly smiled.
She glared back and took a step forward, swishing the low branches against her bare leg. She repeated the donkey ears and, for emphasis, added a stuck-out tongue.
When the smile, gentle and ingenuous, stayed on his face, uncertainty spread over hers. "Donkey-ass," she said again, but this time with less enthusiasm. When that got no response she said, "I hate you, Silvio."
"Why?"
"You're a sneak snitch and I hate you."
He looked up at her. "I don't hate you. I was going to give you a present."
Her eyes widened, then narrowed. "What? Show me."
"I don't know… now." He looked away as if the group of skaters had become of immense interest.
Sally squatted beside him. "What? What were you going to give me?"
He caught his lower lip between his teeth. Then, tenting his fingers, he stared at them intently for a moment before he gave her a sidelong look. "Something special… for a friend." Again the smile, "Are you my friend?"
She looked at him speculatively. "Well… I guess so."
"You gotta be my best friend, because it's magic."
"What is?"
His hand traced a pattern on his thigh. "What I got."
She sat down beside him on the warm grass. "I'm your friend, Silvio. What is it?"
"Code's honor?"
She circled her chest with a finger. "Code's honor."
"Well… I don't know. It's a secret."
"I won't tell. I promise."
He reached in his pocket and brought out something he clutched in a grubby fist.
She caught his hand, and he let his fingers be pried open. In his palm lay three small black beads. "They're magic," he said. "If you tell, then the magic turns to bad and hurts you."
She stared at them with eyes as round as coins. "How do they work?"
"You save them 'til you want something real bad. And then when you want it bad enough, you swallow one and then the wish comes true."
"Really?"
He nodded solemnly. "You get a magic wish for each one. But, if you tell, you might get sick. You might even die… like Jorge did."
She blinked at that. "Oh, I won't tell."
One at a time, he placed them in her hand and watched as she stared at them for a moment, then stuffed them in her pocket.
"You better go now." He leaned toward her and lowered his voice to a whisper. "If you don't somebody might guess."
Hands on knees, she pushed herself up, and then stood there uncertainly for a moment. She caught a small branch of the pine and ran it through her hand. "Well… goodbye then."
Smiling to himself, he watched as she walked away and joined a group of children playing some distance away. Only then did he retrieve the object hidden under his leg; only then did he begin again the scrubbing motion that slowly, very slowly, reduced the crucifix to a gleaming silver T.
Chapter 4
Kurt had no idea where they were. First there had been the short hop to Jaxport, then the transfer to a WorldCo craft. It had flown high and fast, crossing an expanse of water. Then an unbroken cloud layer far below obscured his view. Shortly afterward, the sky darkened to shades of purple; and as the craft banked, he caught a view from the port window of the last blazing pink of the sunset behind them.
Although his stomach had not yet sent its distress call for dinner, a meal came. It was surprisingly good. He managed to consume it all, and Hallie's dessert as well.
Their section was filled with young men and women, all about his age. There were at least ninety of them, and no one-at least no one he or Hallie talked with-seemed to know where the craft was headed-or why.
The attendants, each wearing WorldCo insignia, were courteous and helpful, but they could not-or would not-answer pointed questions.
Hallie twisted in her seat next to Kurt. "Wherever it is we're going, I wish we'd hurry up and get there."
Kurt turned it over in his mind once more, trying to understand. They had flown east, then northeast, over the ocean. That much he knew. And he knew something else: each of the people around him were students who were taking college courses identical to his and Hallie's. That meant they were all within the same score range. He looked around, guessing that if he questioned everyone in the section, he would get the same answer. If that were so, he could come up with only one conclusion: WorldCo was gathering them together for a project that required people from a rather narrow score range, people with certain skills and certain interests. What the project could be, he couldn't imagine.
Suddenly the craft stalled, and then began a controlled vertical drop through the darkness. As they broke through the clouds, he saw a fog-shrouded bank of lights off to port.
They deplaned on movers that took them quickly through a wide hallway. As they came to a waiting area, the movers slowed to a creep. To the right, a clear, convex section of wall opened, as a woman's voice from an unseen speaker announced in one-tongue: "Please board the cars at once in an orderly fashion… Please board…"
He stared at Hallie, who grinned and shrugged, "You heard the lady."
They got on, taking seats next
to each other at the front of the car. As soon as his weight touched the seat, a speaker at his ear whispered: "Engage the lever to your right… for your protection, engage the lever to your right…" He touched it, felt it slide under his grasp, and discovered that the movement had locked him firmly to the seat.
Hallie had done the same. She turned toward Kurt and simultaneously gave a little gasp that turned into a giggle. "It's not a seat. It's a swing!" The seat pivoted slightly with her movement.
Before he could comment, the curving wall-section slid shut and the car doors sealed. He heard a far away whooshing sound and a green READY light came on. Kurt found himself looking through a clear, curving window at glowing lights illuminating a featureless, cylindrical tunnel ahead.
The car began to move, accelerating rapidly. Suddenly, the tunnel fell away at a steep angle. He gasped involuntarily as they plunged downward. Hallie squealed and grabbed his arm as their seats tipped backward to compensate for the incline.
The tunnel gave way to a shaft. Their seats tipped sharply again, as the car shot into a downward plunge so rapid that Kurt felt himself rise slightly against the restraints.
"Who-o-o!" Hallie clung like a vise to his arm. "I didn't know we were going to an amusement park."
The shaft began to bend, decreasing the angle until the car rode the horizontal again and began to slow.
When the doors slid open, they followed directions and found themselves on another mover that took them past other, divergent movers and came, eventually, to an enormous rotunda that seemed to be a sort of hub.