Puppet

by Pauline C. Harris

  I stand transfixed as the man stares at me in awe, even while a part of me demands that I leave. “Pen...” I hear James’s low voice behind me.

  “Would you like a chance to really beat her?” the man asks, his eyes sparkling. “To see how much you can really do against a marionette?”

  I watch him in silence, contemplating the offer in my head.

  “I can tell you’ve never...tried your abilities against one, so to speak,” he says with a smile that barely reaches his eyes. “You’ve got nothing to lose. All I want to do is observe this genius of an experiment before my own eyes,” he adds upon my silence.

  I hesitate for a moment, biting my lip before finally narrowing my eyes, saying, “Okay,” and walking toward the stage. A wide grin stretches across the man’s face while he runs up to grab his remote control. I hear James sigh behind me as he follows me up the stairs, watching the puppeteer suspiciously the whole time.

  I sit down across from the marionette that hasn’t moved since our last arm wrestle. Suddenly it comes to life, sitting up straight and placing its elbow on the table like last time. I press my hand against the marionette’s synthetic one and on the count of three, we both begin. I feel the machine shudder underneath my hand as I squeeze and press against it. The puppet’s arm bends backward as I push it towards the table and I hear a small popping sound from within the metal arm. I push harder and in a matter of seconds, the arm is placed firmly on the table, the marionette leaning towards it in an incredibly awkward and broken manner. It was never designed to lose.

  I hear the man’s surprised yet delighted exclamation from across the stage. I stand up, pushing my chair back. “Amazing,” he mutters. “Try it again,” he declares and I give him an odd look, his marionette slumped over like a busted doll.

  “Pen,” I hear James’s warning voice from behind me, more urgent this time, but I ignore him as I watch the puppet try to get up, twitching and shuddering. “Pen!” he exclaims and I spin around to see him lifting the chair and smashing it against the male marionette from earlier; his arms outstretched, reaching for my shoulders. The chair bounces off its head and it staggers backward, but only a few steps before it comes at me again. I see another out of the corner of my eye, sprinting my way from behind the curtains.

  I see the puppeteer’s eyes flashing with hunger; greed, and I realize that he never wanted to see his marionettes tested against me, to see how well I’d perform. He wanted me. The living marionette. And before I can even blink, the puppet lunges at me again, his arms shoving against mine and pinning me to the floor with a thud.

  16

  I heave the marionette upwards, off of my body, and clamber to my feet as it rolls away. The puppet lunges at me again, clumsily reaching for my wrists, but I act before it does, grabbing the neck and lifting it off the ground. It continues to stretch toward me, jerking and kicking, but it’s a marionette, not a living being with real motor skills. Its arms and legs sputter and shake as I squeeze the neck between my fingers like cardboard, gritting my teeth as I stare up into its happily painted face. I toss the mangled machine towards the wall and spin around to glare at the puppeteer, his face painted with shock, just as obvious as his marionettes.

  “Would you like me to break all your dolls?” I ask him with a snarl. “Or should I go?” He drops his remote control and the second marionette behind me sags to a stop. “I’m not a puppet,” I mutter under my breath as I grab my bag from the floor and storm toward the exit. I can feel the man’s eyes on me as I leave the tent, anger boiling throughout my body.

  James and I hurry down the grass pathway past booths and rides until we reach the end of the carnival and begin walking down the sidewalk of the street. I sigh angrily as I reach for a sweater in my bag.

  “I’m sorry,” I say quietly, more angry at myself than at the puppeteer. “I should have listened to you.” I grit my teeth as the words come out, feeling foul and dry. I open my mouth to say that I thought he could be trusted, but bite back a groan when my burning throat informs me that I really didn’t. Apparently excuses are just lies in disguise.

  James shakes his head and sighs. “I knew you wouldn’t listen to me anyway.” His voice is slightly bitter.

  “Well maybe I will from now on,” I reply, thinking of all the bad decisions I’ve made that James had advised against.

  He laughs. “Maybe. But I doubt it.”

  “Well then why’d you come anyway?” I ask in irritation, not so much at James, but just the situation. “If you came to keep me out of trouble, why bother if you know I’ll never even listen?” I kick a rock angrily out of the path.

  James shrugs. “I didn’t just come for that.” He says it so quietly I almost ask him to repeat it, but don’t when the words sink in.

  “Then why?” I prompt.

  James shrugs again, looking uncomfortable. “Never mind,” he mumbles quietly.

  We continue walking down the sidewalk but the air around us has suddenly become tense and awkward. I brush my hair out of my face and fiddle with the buttons on my sweater as I bite my lip.

  “I’m hungry,” I state after a moment. “Do you have any more food in your backpack?”

  James nods, looking relieved and the tension falls away as quickly as it came. We see a bench outside one of the storefronts we’re passing and go to sit down. James pulls out some fruit and one of the water bottles and I begin eating, just now realizing how hungry I am.

  “So...should we have a plan?” I ask James after awhile. “I mean, where we’re going and whatnot...”

  He grins. “I have no idea. I say we just wander for awhile.”

  I laugh. “Well what happens when we run out of food?”

  “We’ll find some.” He sounds so confident and suddenly I feel like we’ve switched sides. I’m the one worrying and anxious while James is the daring one. For a moment, I wonder what James’s mother was like. If she was cool and collected, quiet and safe like James is, because Jed is more of a risk taker; the crazy one. I wonder if she felt the same way James does about Jed’s experiments.

  After a moment, I catch myself staring at James and I look away. We continue eating, but soon the owner of the store behind us comes out and gives us a dirty look, so we grab our bags and move on down the street. We walk a ways further until we reach a large, open area, a fountain in the center with a long circular concrete bench surrounding it. James and I sit down and I pull my legs up on the bench, crisscrossing them while I finish my apple.

  The water bubbles in front of us and after a few moments of staring at it, I’m beginning to discern the water’s pattern. Birds flutter around it, waddling toward us and then away, eyeing our food hungrily. I toss the remains of my apple core onto the ground and watch as the small little birds begin to peck away.

  “How long do you think they’ll keep looking?” I ask quietly, almost surprised that I said it out loud.

  James turns to me. “What?”

  “The administrators,” I clarify. “I mean, we can’t run forever. Do you think they’ll ever give up, or is this whole thing just crazy?”

  There’s a pause. “You don’t seem to be in a very good mood,” James states and I feel a smile tug at my lips. It’s not accusatory or rude, just slightly humorous in James’s sort of way.

  I laugh. “I guess I’m just frustrated. Sometimes I wish Jed had never come to my orphanage...that I had just stayed on a dealt with everything. That’s terrible, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  I laugh.

  “But seriously,” he goes on. “I’ve heard you rant about how much you hated it there, regardless of what you did. You said you were happy once Dad came for you.”

  I nod slowly, watching as more birds begin to flutter around the remnants of my apple core. “I know it was Jed’s dream and all...but I never wanted to be a marionette...” I trail off. “I just wish I could be normal.” I laugh at how absurd and almost cliché it sounds. “Real.” I pause. “You know?”

 
; I can feel James’s eyes on me but I don’t want to turn and look at him; I already feel slightly embarrassed and uncomfortable. I look down at the frayed edges of my sleeve, pulling them between my fingertips.

  “You are real, Pen,” I hear James’s voice from beside me. “You’re the most real person I’ve ever met.” His words hang in the silence around us, forcing emotions dancing around inside of me that I can’t quite identify. I squeeze the frayed threads between my fingers and watch as it creates a small snag in my sleeve.

  There’s a long pause. “Why did you come?” I ask quietly. “I mean, why did you really come?” I force myself to look up; to turn and look into James’s face and when I do there’s an expression in his eyes that I can’t read.

  “Why do you think?” he asks. My heart freezes in my chest as I stare at James, everything else forgotten but at the same time, every part of me alert. I can’t tell what feelings run through me; confusion, surprise, fear? Something like adrenaline seems to pump through my veins and my hands are shaking so I clench them together. My mind seems to stop as if on overload, rejecting anything new and trying desperately to hold on to whatever it had before.

  “Are you in love, Pen?” James asks me, his voice a whisper I can barely hear, but the words almost seem shouted at me, loud and apparent.

  I turn away from him, startled. More than startled; shocked. I stare down at the few birds picking apart what’s left of the mangled apple core, unwanted seeds strewn across the pavement like confetti. I feel like that’s what my mind must look like right about now. Picked apart and left to die; utterly confused and hopelessly malfunctioning. I open my mouth but realize I have no idea what I’m about to say.

  “You know I can’t lie,” I reply so quietly I almost don’t hear it myself.

  “I know.”

  I want to turn and glare at his cruelty, but there’s really nothing humorous about the situation. Or even remotely comfortable. I shrug, refusing to open my mouth, afraid of what might come out.

  “Are you?” I eventually ask. I turn to see James watching me, his eyes searching mine, hunting for the answer to his question that even I don’t have. His hands are clenched together like mine are and I want to shout at him for bringing up such an awkward situation when there really was no need. But part of me, all of me, wants desperately to hear his answer.

  Because a part of me already knows what it is.

  James looks down at his hands, the ghost of a smile playing across his lips as a piece of hair falls across his forehead. “I’ve always loved you, Pen,” he admits quietly, although he doesn’t sound embarrassed or uncomfortable. “I’ve loved you since the moment I met you.”

  His declaration rings in the stillness around us. My hands unclench and I release a breath of air I hadn’t realized I’d been holding in. Dozens of unhinged thoughts flit across my mind, too distracting, too fast, too loud.

  “I love you too,” I say quietly, shocking myself in the process as the words slip freely from my throat as if they’d been waiting to escape for a long, long time. I wonder why it’s taken me so much time to realize how true it is.

  James looks up from his lap to watch me, and although his eyes are smiling, his mouth isn’t. He leans towards me but I don’t lean away. I sit still, unable to move, transfixed with James and this, whatever it is. And suddenly, before I have time to think, to register anything, James’s mouth brushes against mine and every other thought darts from my head like balloons being cut from their strings. The kiss is soft and hesitant, like James is afraid I might turn away, but then I feel his hand clasp around mine, and our fingers entwining as I lean towards him.

  But that’s when I hear the shout. My foggy mind tells me that it’s no big deal, that it really doesn’t matter, but another part of me, the sensible part, demands my attention. I pull away from James the same moment he hears it as well, this time accompanied by a gunshot. James’s hand is still in mine and he pulls me down behind the concrete bench just in time to hear the bullet hit the foundation of the fountain behind us.

  My heart is thrumming wildly in my chest although I can’t tell if it’s from the gunshot or from kissing James. Probably a combination of both. And anger that they had the audacity to break up our moment. How rude.

  I hear someone I know must be an administrator shout as James reaches up to grab the bags and I can hear them coming our way.

  “Not yet,” I hear James whisper so quietly I’m not sure if I really hear it. I turn to him and am just about to ask him what he means before he gestures for us to crawl across the ground, staying behind the safety of the concrete. I can hear the approaching footsteps and yelling of the administrators. Suddenly we reach the end of the bench and James and I spring to our feet and dart off across the square. We sprint behind the back of an old damaged building just in time to hear another gunshot whiz by. We continue on our way, dashing in between houses and streets, trying desperately to be lost, to be unseen.

  We round a corner and begin to race down an alleyway, turning left and right to create a maze of a path. But then I hear the next gunshot echo throughout my ears and body and I feel the pain envelop my upper thigh, sending me spinning, head over heels, into the pavement. I make a sound of surprise as I skid to a stop and try to get up but grit my teeth together as my leg buckles under me in pain. James is by my side, trying to help me to my feet, but that’s when I notice the warm, sticky feeling enveloping my upper leg, coating the pain in a warm, fresh liquid. Blood. I stare down at it. Blood soaks through my pants, distorting the already dark fabric even darker. Blood everywhere. So much blood. It drips down to the ground below me and I feel my arms beginning to shake, my breathing beginning to quicken, my eyes beginning to blur. Suddenly all I can hear is the sound of my beating heart from within me and my labored breathing. My vision begins to turn dark and I can no longer feel my legs. I look up at James and I know he’s saying something to me as he squeezes my hand in his but I can’t hear him and I can’t decipher his words. “Don’t let them...” I hear as his voice slowly fades and seconds later, everything is gone.

  17

  I wake up to a dull ache. My lower back and right leg throb lightly, as if I’ve been medicated. I can feel something soft beneath me and when I open my eyes I see the blinding white walls of a hospital room. My head throbs and when I bring a hand to my forehead, I notice an IV shoved into the veins on my wrist.

  I can feel myself begin to panic as I stare down at the needle, then out across the room, the shut door, my injured leg. My heart pounds in my ears and I wonder where James is. I wonder if they shot him too. I wonder if he’s dead. I silently pray that he’s not and that he got away, but then I remember him sitting next to me as I blacked out and I know that he hadn’t planned on going anywhere.

  Suddenly the door swings open and an administrator walks in, his eyes turned sharply toward me. I watch him suspiciously as he walks over to my bed and stares down at my bandaged leg.

  “Hello,” he greets after a pause.

  I don’t reply.

  “I’m Administrator Edelin.”

  I continue my silence.

  He smiles slightly, although it isn’t a friendly one. “And you’re Penelope Trump.”

  “Where’s James?” I ask, intending my voice to come out angry and commanding but am surprised when it wavers and cracks.

  The man smiles again. His teeth are perfect; too perfect. And his lips seem to stretch too far across his face like some weird, plastic doll. “He’s fine,” he says slowly.

  His smile unnerves me and sends my heart beating faster. “Where is he?” My voice sounds too desperate and although I try to hold it back, it clings to every word and every movement.

  “He’s home,” the administrator replies. “Where he should be.”

  Relief floods me as I think about James back with Jed, home; safe. But then a frown surfaces. “Where am I?”

  “Head Devere’s...shall we say, facility for criminals?” He sounds much too happy ab
out the name and his smile stretches farther, making me shudder.

  “I’m not a criminal,” I spit.

  He raises his eyebrows.

  “I haven’t done anything...against the law,” I change the phrase when wrong won’t slide off my tongue. How many wrong things have I done in my lifetime? Most likely too many to count. I think about stealing how I probably deserve to be incarcerated for what I’ve done. But not for this. Not for being made into something I can’t control.

  “You lied to the administrators and you dismantled a car door – not to mention your history. It proves you aren’t trustworthy and that you’re also capable of much more than we previously thought,” he states calmly.

  I glare reproachfully at him, slowly looking past him to the triple locked door, bolted from the inside out and the two guards I can see through the window. My heart sinks as I realize how prepared they were for me. Being a marionette won’t help me now. Frustration trickles through me as I think of how close we were to getting away. How close I was to the second bend in the road before the administrator shot me. How close James was to pulling me to my feet. So close to running away together.

  “What are you going to do?” My words sound hollow and dead.

  The administrator pauses as if enjoying my misery, cocking his head to watch me with a creepy smile.

  “Kill me?” I prompt, because saying it before he does somehow seems better, less of a shock.

  There’s a long pause before the administrator shakes his head, and I look up at him in confusion. “We were going to,” he tells me with a supercilious gaze. “But we thought up a better idea. One that you’ll have to agree to, of course.”

  “What are you talking about?” I ask, breathless and terrified.

  “We won’t kill you,” the administrator repeats. “But...if you’ll forgive the pun...” he trails off, smiling to himself at some internal joke. “There will be strings attached.”

  Book 2:

  Strings

  “A boy who won’t be good,