“This past year, I finally realized I couldn’t keep up. When you caught me in the root cellar, I had just counted my last few kernels, figuring out just how many more days I could go.”
“But I looked! There was nothing down there but carrots.”
“Maybe you stopped looking too soon,” says Dad. I start to ask what he means, but he continues his story. “I kept cutting down, trying to wean myself off it, but already I could feel the gnawing in my gut and the aching in my head. I started sneaking out at night with a jacklight, checking for spillage outside the Sustainability Reserve gate. I walked the cornvoy routes to try and find stray kernels before the GreyDevils got to them in the light of day. But they were so few and far between, and the gnawing and the aching just got worse and worse.
“Then one night when I had been walking all night and hadn’t found any URCorn, and the gnawing was the worst it had ever been, in the gray light of dawn I came to a GreyDevil bonfire. They were all lying about unconscious and I dipped a little Partswash off the bottom of the cauldron. It was awful. But the gnawing feeling faded. I snuck out again a few nights later. And a few nights after that . . . and soon, as my URCorn dwindled down to nothing, all I could think of was how I was going to get my next dose.”
It is all beginning to make sense. Why Dad went from being the healthiest person in the family to being sickly or overtired so often in the morning. And why he was scraped up—not from a tumble off the trail but from making his way through the brush at night. Now I’m remembering the night I caught Dad up by the flagpole, staring off into the distance to the GreyDevil fires. He wasn’t just staring, he was preparing to go.
“But now you’re fine!” I say. “How . . .”
“Do you remember the day you ate the URCorn and got sick?”
“Kinda hard to forget,” I say. “I thought I was gonna yak up my liver.”
“Do you remember that I went back out to see if I could find more?”
“I remember,” I said. “You wanted to make sure Dookie didn’t eat any.”
“Well, that’s true . . . but I was also hoping I’d find more for me. And I did. Just a couple of dusty kernels. I was stuffing them in my pocket, and when I looked up I saw Toad watching me through the gate.
“He didn’t say anything, but he knew.”
“But . . . you’re getting better now, so you must be eating URCorn!”
“I am,” says Dad. “Arlinda’s been putting it in the mash.”
“But where did she get it from?” For a moment I was thinking Toad might have scooped up some of the corn from the crashed cornvoy truck, but that didn’t make sense, because he would have had no reason to do that unless he knew we were going to find Dad, and by the time we did find Dad all the URCorn had been vacuumed by the helicopter or gobbled by the GreyDevils.
“What was Arlinda doing the morning after you put me in here?”
“Baking pies.”
“For?”
“For the cornvoy truckers.”
“And do you know what she charged for each of those pies?”
“Uh . . .”
“Let’s just say those cornvoy truckers are loaded with it.”
“So Arlinda knew too?”
“Yes,” says Dad. “And your mother, of course. She knew I was getting worse. She knew the URCorn had run out and that I was sneaking away for PartsWash. There was nothing she could do but wait at home and hope I came back safe.”
For a moment we sit quietly on our buckets. Then Dad speaks.
“And then came the attack.”
37
“IT WAS COLD AND SLEETY AND WET AND RAINY ALL THAT DAY and most of the night. You remember—you were down here working with Toad.”
“Yeah,” I say, “and it was because of the weather I stayed down here that night.”
“I knew it would be miserable, and I didn’t want to go out into it,” says Dad. “But the gnawing . . . I just couldn’t take it anymore.
“When I got to the first bonfire just beyond Toad’s farm, I hung back beyond the light of the flames. I always did that, always waited until the Devils were mostly knocked out from the PartsWash. Just for my own safety. But this night something odd was happening. While most of the GreyDevils were lying around on the ground and the fire was dying down, there was a group of about ten that were still up and around. And there was something about the way they moved—it just wasn’t right. And the faces—they were gray and sooty and streaky, but the cheeks weren’t hollow enough. And the eyes . . . they were yellow, but almost too yellow.
“The group was milling around, and as I watched I realized they weren’t drinking PartsWash. Then, almost as if there had been some silent command, they all left the bonfire, headed toward the trail leading to Skullduggery Ridge.
“And then my blood went cold, because I realized: these weren’t GreyDevils, they were people who wanted to be seen as GreyDevils! And that could mean only one thing: they were with the Bubble Authorities.”
I sit up straight, and my eyes widen. “Dad! That day! That day on my way down to help Toad, I met a GreyDevil on the trail! I remember thinking it was strange to meet one that far up, especially traveling alone. And its eyes were bright yellow!”
“Colored contact lenses, probably,” says Dad. “Part of the disguise.”
“Must have been scouting our place,” I say. “Looking for you.”
“Yes,” says Dad, “if you want to skulk around, why not dress up like a skulker?” Then he takes a deep breath, and when he speaks next, his voice is soft. “When they all set out, and I realized they were heading up Skullduggery Ridge—toward our shack, where Henry and your mother were sleeping—I knew I had to follow. Try to get ahead of them and warn your mother, then turn myself over to the Bubble Authorities—it had to be me they were after. But there was still some PartsWash in the cauldron, and I had to have some. For courage, I told myself.
“I took one drink. And then another . . .
“When I woke, it was well into the next day. I stumbled up to the Ridge. I was in such bad shape. It took me a long time. I lost the trail. I stumbled off course. When I finally came to the shack . . .”
He stops. His voice cracks and tears rise in his eyes.
“No one was around. I saw what you saw. I found Henry’s little boomerang by the Shelter Tree. I found the drag marks where you pulled him out. I saw your tracks, your boot heels deeper from carrying his weight. I stumbled up to the flagpole and looked down with the old binoculars just in time to see Toad let you through the gate. And I saw Ma wasn’t with you . . .”
I was remembering that day now. How frightened I was, how Dookie felt in my arms, how Toad took us in. I grab Dad’s shoulders, make him look at me. “You knew? And you never . . .”
Now the tears are streaming down Dad’s face.
“I was so ashamed. I had failed my family. But I knew you and Henry were safely with Toad and Arlinda. And the gnawing . . .”
“COWARD!” I jump to my feet and scream the word, my arms iron-straight at my sides, my hands clenched in fists.
Dad just sits there, tears falling off his jaw.
“You did nothing!”
“I became a GreyDevil.”
Have you ever felt like someone took all your breath and your insides and every part of you and left you emptier than empty and like nothing you ever knew was true?
I sit back down. My knees are too weak to hold me up. Dad is crying. I can’t say anything.
I don’t know how much time goes by before he speaks.
“Maggie.”
I can’t look at him, let alone talk to him.
“Maggie,” he says again, his voice just a croak. “Your mother is alive. I believe it with all my heart.”
I am staring at my boots.
“If it was the Bubble Authorities—and it has to be—they took her UnderBubble. To the capital, where the government and CornVivia have their headquarters. And there is only one way to get her back.”
/> Still I say nothing. I have no feeling left in me.
“I have to turn myself in. They have your mother, but it’s me they want. Me, and my biggest secret. I have to go UnderBubble.”
Now I yell at him again. “Your biggest secret? If those other secrets were tiny . . .” I let my words trail off, then very quietly I ask, “What is the biggest secret?”
“I can’t tell you.” Dad’s voice is barely a whisper.
“What?”
“I can’t tell you. I haven’t even told your mother.”
And now I’m really yelling. Everything comes out. All my anger. All my fear. I yell at him about all the times he was gone at night. I yell at him for getting us into this trouble in the first place. I yell at him for abandoning Ma. I yell at him for being an awful father. I yell and yell until I just have no energy left. I stand up, and look down at him sitting there. I stare at him for a long, silent time. Then I step backward through the feed room door and gently close it. I refasten the lock and double-check it.
Toad is standing on the porch. The feed room walls are thick, and I can’t tell if he heard me yelling, but he can tell by the look on my face that I know things now that I didn’t know an hour ago.
“Keep him in there,” I say.
And then I walk away.
38
LEAVING DOOKIE WITH TOAD AND ARLINDA, I HIKE UP TO THE FORD Falcon and spend the rest of the day alone. I just can’t face my father. Can’t face anyone. Not even Dookie.
When I stepped out of that pig house I felt like I’d been up and down Skullduggery Ridge fifty-seven times with rocks in my pockets. Now my anger is gone and replaced with numbness. I have no idea what to do.
So I sit beneath the Shelter Tree with Emily.
At first I just page through the book, not sure where to begin. I find a poem called “Childish Griefs.” It is only two tiny verses. I read it twice. It seems like Emily is writing about how the things that make us sad when we are little children become almost sweet after we experience real trouble. Some people would say I am still a child—and there are certainly times when I can be childish—but I am living through troubles now that most grown-ups never face. I think about the red balloon, and how sad I was when it floated away, and yet now I realize that grief was nothing compared to the grief I am feeling now.
I close the book and let it rest in my lap. I miss Ma so much.
I walk down to the Falcon. I stow Emily’s poems in the glove compartment, then climb up on the hood to watch the day drain away. The sun is going down behind me, and the horizon to the east is already darkening. I can see just the faintest hint of the Bubble City glow.
Ma, I think. And because it has been so long, I say it out loud: “Ma.”
Gone three months now. Vanished, like that final semaphore flash from Skullduggery Ridge.
Three months since I’ve seen my mother’s face. Three months since I felt my mother’s arms around me.
She is out there, I think, as I stare into what is now nearly complete darkness.
Or UnderBubble, I think, turning my eyes back to the growing glow. I don’t know for sure, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. As if any of this makes sense.
Dad says he still has one more secret. But he’s already told me what I need to know: whoever took Ma had actually come to take him.
And then I decide.
It is time.
In the morning, I am going.
I am going to trade my father for my mother.
39
BACK DOWN IN HOOT HOLLER THE NEXT MORNING, I CARRY THE usual bucket of fake slop to the pig shed. Dad is in the feed room waiting. As if he had a choice.
“I’m going after Ma,” I say. “I’m going UnderBubble. To the capital.”
He shakes his head. “No, Ford. No. She is my wife. I am the father. I am the man. This is my responsibility.”
When he says he is the man, a nasty answer jumps to my throat. It makes me think of Ma telling me how men changed Emily Dickinson’s poems before they published them. It makes me think of Daniel Beard and his dumb “pretty store bows.” I manage to swallow the nasty answer and instead I say, “How do I know you’ll make it, Dad? How do I know a group of fake GreyDevils isn’t out there just waiting to grab you? How do I know they won’t just haul you off? Or what if they just snuff you on the spot? Either way, I’ll never see you or Ma again. And how do I know you won’t use up the URCorn Arlinda got with her pies and get the craving again? How do I know in three weeks you won’t be right back at the GreyDevil fires, guzzling PartsWash?”
Dad looks away. I know I’m hurting him, but I have to speak the truth.
Now I speak more gently. “Besides, you are our only leverage. If your secret is as powerful as you say, it’s the only thing we have. Without the promise of getting you, they have no reason to give up Ma. If you go alone, they’ll just grab you—and then I won’t have any cards in this game.”
“So now I’m a card in your game?”
I wait a moment, carefully arranging my words.
“I did a lot of thinking up on Skullduggery Ridge yesterday. I came to understand some things. I know now you were under terrible pressure. Pressure I probably can’t begin to understand. I’m still angry and sad about parts of it, but I don’t blame you. I think you’ve done the best that you could, in the best way you knew how.
“But, yes: right now you are a card in my game.”
It is quiet in the pig shed. Inside, I’m thinking I don’t really have a game. I don’t even know for sure if Ma is being held UnderBubble. Or how to get to her if she is. That’s the part of this game that is a gamble.
Dad speaks. “But what is your plan?”
“I’m just going to walk up and knock on their door. If they want you as badly as we think, they’ll let me in.”
“One card,” says Dad, shaking his head. “You’ve only got one card.”
“Yes. It’s a gamble. The biggest gamble of my life. But, Dad? The stakes in this game? The stakes are our family.”
Now there are tears in both of our eyes.
“Our family—together again.”
This time before I leave with my empty slop bucket, I hug him.
“You cannot go alone.”
I have just explained my plan to go to the capital. Arlinda is standing in front of me with both hands on her hips, her feet wide apart.
I frown and stick out my chin.
“Affirmer-ized,” says Toad. Him, I ignore.
“There is no courage,” says Arlinda, “in simple-minded stubbornness.”
I cross my arms and push my chin out another quarter inch.
“Maggie, bravery ends where blockheadedness begins.”
“But . . . ,” I say.
“Do you remember when you stumbled and fell during the GreyDevil battle?” asks Arlinda. “One silly little accident, and there you were, at their mercy. If you had been fighting that battle alone, if Toad hadn’t been there to grab your collar and drag you toward the house, you would have been stomped, maimed, or dead—not brave or courageous. Toad and I—as much as we love you, as much as we depend on you—can get along without you. But Dookie? Dookie needs you. And he needs your mother even more. Even with help there is no guarantee you will make this journey safely. But going solo would be silly and selfish.”
During this entire conversation, Arlinda hasn’t raised her voice. She is speaking firmly and quietly and that tone doesn’t change as she passes her final judgment, but she lays each word down as solidly as if it were a brick.
“You take Toby.”
Toad is no longer looking at me. He is staring at Arlinda and silently nodding.
I stalk out of the farmhouse without saying a word, but I know Arlinda is right.
So. Me and Toby then.
40
FOR THE NEXT FEW DAYS, I PLAN AND PREPARE. TOAD SAYS THAT, depending on weather and trouble, we can walk to the capital Bubble City in a week. We will take only what we can carry on our b
acks. Actually, that’s not true: if Toby really did bring what he could carry on his back, we would be packing two Whomper-Zookas and half the Scary Pruner.
That boy is massive.
But we’ll be traveling light. We can’t cover that much country on foot while wearing all the gear we use on our trading trips to Nobbern. We’ll take our weapons, of course (Toby has attached a bayonet to the end of his fight-stick), and I’ll wear my breastplate and gauntlets but that’s it. We pack fish jerky and dried vegetables and salt, basic cooking utensils, and water flasks. We have knives and rope, a first aid kit, and a sewing kit. In addition to our jacklights, we pack several pitch-sticks, which we make by wrapping string around the forked end of a stick and then soaking the string end in pitch. We got the idea from Daniel Beard’s book. He called his version Wick-torches. They’re quicker to light and burn much brighter than a jacklight.
It would be simplest to follow the old interstate that loops up around to the north, but it would be much too risky. Too many other travelers, too much chance of running into Bubble Authorities, or GreyDevils attracted by the cornvoys. And even more than any of those things, too much chance of attracting attention. Instead, Toad draws maps of old hunting trails and deer trails that will lead us away from Skullduggery Ridge with the least chance of being observed. Then he gives us a tattered road map with what is now the capital Bubble City marked by a red X. Once we reach what is left of the roads and highways, we’ll use that map for the rest of the trip.
The day before I leave, Dad says, “I would like you to bring me the Emily Dickinson poems.”
“Dad, you’re not the word nerd of the family,” I say. “You’ve never read a poem in your life.”
“The poems in that book are as close as I can be to your mother now.”
I hadn’t planned to hike up to Skullduggery Ridge today because Toby and I will be leaving that way tomorrow morning, but when I look at my father, so alone there, the decision is easy. When I leave the next morning he has Emily by his side.
The Scavengers Page 14