the two levels

by Jonathan R. Miller

  “Do I really have to take jewelry and stuff like that?” I ask. “I don’t want to.”

  Mr. Emmanuel shrugs. “If you want my help with your mum, then yes. You’ll get me what I need first,” he says.

  Chapter Six

  Wearing the backpack and hugging the sleeping bag against my chest with both arms, I jog along the first-floor walkway. Up ahead, I see Mr. Emmanuel crouched behind a bench in front of a clothing store, waving at me to come closer, to hurry up.

  Mr. Emmanuel is my lookout.

  That means his job is to go first and watch out for anyone from the retreat (like Mr. Jim) who might be walking around on the first level. If the coast is clear, then Mr. Emmanuel will wave to me. My job is to find a good hiding place where I can still see Mr. Emmanuel, then wait for his signal to move. Once I see the signal (like the one he’s making right now), I need to go to him as quickly and quietly as I can.

  If we both do our jobs really well, I should be able to sneak back into the retreat without anyone even noticing—at least that’s what Mr. Emmanuel tells me.

  I’m not so sure, though.

  In a way, what I’m doing right now is similar to a game of hide-and-seek—and I’m usually pretty good at that game—but instead of one person searching for lots of people, I feel like lots of people are searching for only me.

  Regular hide-and-seek is fun, but this isn’t.

  I’m so afraid right now that my legs are shaking.

  You’re not afraid, Jasmine.

  You’re not afraid, Jasmine.

  I rush over to Mr. Emmanuel and kneel down beside him, behind the bench. I set the sleeping bag on the tile to give my arms a rest. The sleeping bag doesn’t look very heavy—it looks like a poofy sack full of cotton—but after a while it feels like I’m carrying a bag of bowling balls.

  Without a word, Mr. Emmanuel stands up and jogs away, leaving me behind. He passes by a bunch of stores—one that sells fancy soaps, one that lets you build your own stuffed animals, and some more that I don’t recognize—before ducking behind a trash container.

  He waits there.

  The mall is completely silent—I can’t hear anything at all.

  After a while, Mr. Emmanuel stands, turns around, and waves at me to come.

  I snatch my sleeping bag and run toward him.

  • • •

  Mr. Emmanuel and I repeat this pattern—hiding, signaling, running—until I hear voices coming from somewhere up ahead.

  A lot of voices.

  A lot of kid voices, like mine.

  Mr. Emmanuel crouches behind a map of the mall, waves for me to come over, and when I get close enough, he pulls me down beside him.

  For some reason, Mr. Emmanuel is smiling. His teeth look bright white, especially next to his dark brown skin.

  “I can see your group. They are down about fifty meters from here,” he whispers.

  Oh no.

  That is terrible news.

  Now I will never be able to sneak into the retreat without anybody knowing.

  “This is a good thing for us, pikin,” Mr. Emmanuel says.

  It is?

  “Why is it a good thing?” I ask.

  “Because everybody looks busy. Focused, doing activities,” he answers. “You don’t need to sneak in anymore. You only need to blend in.”

  “Blend in?”

  Mr. Emmanuel nods. He looks excited, like he’s about to tell me all about his favorite TV show.

  “You know about monkey-see, monkey-do?” he asks.

  Of course.

  Everyone knows about that.

  “Mm hm,” I answer, nodding.

  “So that’s exactly what you do. You approach. You look at what everyone is doing. Then you do the same. Say nothing unless you have to. Understand?”

  I think about Mr. Emmanuel’s new plan, and I imagine doing exactly what he’s suggesting.

  Approaching the retreat group.

  Figuring out what they’re doing.

  Copying it.

  Staying quiet.

  Something about the idea doesn’t feel quite right.

  “But how can I just walk up to them?” I ask. “Won’t they see me?”

  Mr. Emmanuel’s forehead wrinkles and he stops smiling. He looks confused.

  “Of course they will see you,” he says.

  Now I’m confused.

  “But then they’ll know I was somewhere else,” I say. “Won’t they?”

  Mr. Emmanuel smiles again.

  “Not if I divert their attention first.”

  “What is divert?”

  “I mean I will make them look away. A distraction. And then—voila—you will be there, among them,” he says. “After that, it’s time for you to blend in. Act like you know what’s going on. Do you understand?”

  I do understand what he’s saying.

  But I’m not sure if I can do it.

  I don’t know how to act like I know something that I really don’t.

  I shrug. “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “Just remember,” Mr. Emmanuel says. “Monkey-see, monkey-do.”

  “Okay.”

  He squeezes my shoulder. “You’ll be fine,” he says. “Wait here. And when you see the crowd staring in one direction like a herd of cattle, then you walk—walk, with calm—over to them. Once you’re among them, you simply blend in.”

  Wait a second.

  He’s about to leave me alone.

  I can tell.

  “But where will you be?” I ask. “Where are you going?”

  “Quiet your voice down.”

  “I’m sorry,” I whisper. “Where are you going?”

  Mr. Emmanuel doesn’t answer.

  He carefully gets on his feet, making sure to stay hidden behind the map of the mall.

  “Where are you going?” I ask again.

  “Up and around,” he says, pointing toward the second floor. “It will be fine. Don’t worry.”

  Without another word, he runs in the opposite direction of the retreat group, heading back the way we came.

  • • •

  I stay crouched behind the map of the mall, waiting for what feels like a long time. I hold the sleeping bag in my arms so I’m ready to move as soon as Mr. Emmanuel makes his distraction happen.

  Every once in a while, I peer around the base of the map to get a look at the retreat group.

  The kids are spread out across the tile floor, using magic markers to draw on big, colorful rectangles of construction paper. It seems like an arts-and-crafts project. All of the kids are wearing white masks over their noses and mouths.

  I see five or six grownups standing off to the side of the kids, talking to each other. They’re all wearing white masks on their faces too.

  I study the kids closely, trying to figure out whether they’ve gotten distracted yet, but they always seem completely focused on the projects in front of them. Every once in a while, one of the kids stands up to get more supplies or raises a hand to ask a question. But other than that, nothing about them ever seems to change.

  I remember what Mr. Emmanuel said—to wait until they look like cattle.

  Do they look like cattle yet?

  Maybe. Kind of.

  Like maybe when the cattle are all eating grass at the same time, staring down at the ground. The kids kind of look like that right now.

  As I watch the group of kids and try to decide what to do, I hear a sound like a bell ringing. Not a school bell—more like a church bell. The sound goes bong, bong, bong. It’s coming from somewhere far away from me, on the other side of where the kids are gathered on the floor, and it seems to be coming from above us, from the second level.

  All at once, the kids stop working on their arts-and-crafts projects, turn their heads away from me and look upward. The grownups do too.

  That’s it.

  Now they’re distracted. And they do kind of look like cattle.

  Gripping the sleeping bag tightly, I walk as fast
as I can—calmly, like Mr. Emmanuel told me to do—toward the group of kids. I choose a path that takes me close to the line of stores on my left. It seems better than being out in the middle of the walkway, where I would be totally obvious to everyone.

  Ahead, I see the group of grownups walking together in the direction of the sound, looking up toward the second floor. One of them points and shouts something that I can’t understand. Some of the kids stand up also—to get a better look at whatever is causing the sound, I think.

  I’m close now—only about as far as the length of my classroom at school.

  It’s not very far at all. But my legs are shaking so much that I’m worried I might collapse before I get there. My heart feels like it’s trying to find a way to escape from my chest.

  Soon I enter the open area where the people from the retreat are gathered. All of them—both the kids and the grownups—are looking the other way, toward the sound. As I pass by a folding table set up near the edge of the open space, I pick up a piece of white poster board from a stack. I find a space on the floor nearby, quietly put down the sleeping bag and the paper, and sit cross-legged directly behind (but not too close to) a group of three older boys.

  I carefully take off the backpack and set it down.

  No one turns around to look at me.

  I think I made it.

  I can’t believe that I’m actually sitting here.

  I quickly arrange the poster board in front of me so that it looks like everyone else’s. I lean over to grab a nearby magic marker that someone either dropped or let roll away. I uncap the marker and hold it over the paper like I’m about to draw something—I have no idea what, though.

  Soon after that, the bell stops sounding, and the kids gradually go back to whatever they were doing. The grownups go back to their gathering place, and once the excitement of the distraction wears off, everybody seems to go back to talking about whatever they were talking about before.

  Nobody says a single word to me.

  As far as I can tell, nobody even looks at me.

  I sit for a while, watching what everyone else is doing, just like Mr. Emmanuel told me to do.

  I watch the kids working on their arts-and-crafts projects. At first, I thought they were drawing pictures on the poster board, but now I know that they’re not—at least, not most of the time.

  They’re mostly writing words, using big, block letters.

  Now that I understand what the kids are doing—writing words—I know what my next task is.

  Monkey-see, monkey-do.

  I need to start writing some words too. The only problem is that I’m not sure what they’re writing—I can’t get a clear look at anybody else’s project.

  Maybe I can write whatever I feel like.

  That would be okay with me.

  Then it would just be a free-writing exercise, like we do at school.

  But no.

  I don’t think that’s what I’m supposed to do right now.

  During a free-write at school, we use a regular sheet of paper, not a giant piece of poster board.

  “Jasmine?” a voice says.

  I almost jump right through the skylights.

  I look up and see Miss Trina with her long black hair and her light brown skin. She’s smiling down at me—at least, I think she is. She’s wearing a mask, so I can’t see her mouth, but her eyes are smiling. That’s for sure.

  “Where have you been, Jasmine?” she asks. “I was looking for you earlier, kiddo. And where is your mask, hon?”

  I don’t know how to answer either of those questions.

  Eventually I shrug.

  “I’m not sure,” I answer.

  Miss Trina keeps on eye-smiling at me. “You’re not sure where you were or where your mask went? Well, that’s pretty silly,” she says. “You must’ve gotten trapped in another dimension or swallowed up by a wormhole or something. Is that what happened?”

  Now I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  I nod.

  “Wow. Well, then. I’m glad you’re back on the planet with us again,” Miss Trina says. She fishes around in the pockets of her sweater until she pulls out a white mask with an elastic band, just like the ones everyone else is wearing.

  Miss Trina hands the mask to me. I put it on.

  She looks down at my blank piece of poster board for a few seconds. “Hmm,” she says. “It looks like you might have a case of writer’s block. Do you know about writer’s block?”

  I shake my head.

  “That’s when you’re trying to get one of your ideas onto paper, but it just won’t come out. It’s like it got blocked somewhere in your brain,” she says.

  I nod.

  “That’s what I have,” I say.

  “Aww. That’s always tough. Is there anything I can do to help?”

  I nod. “Can you explain one more time what we’re supposed to do?”

  • • •

  Miss Trina spends a lot of time with me, working on my sign.

  As it turns out, that’s what we’re making with the poster board—signs. That’s the reason why they’re mostly made of words, with only a few pictures.

  While we work, Miss Trina explains that the signs are going to help us get out of the mall as quickly as possible. Our big ol’ tickets to freedom, she calls them. The plan is to take the signs, hold them up to the big windows by the mall exit doors, and hope that the TV cameras outside take lots and lots of pictures. After that, we’ll be part of a huge news story, and that will make everyone in the world want to help us.

  And help Momma.

  So, together, Miss Trina and I make the best sign I’ve ever made.

  It has a picture of two stick-figures playing with a ball underneath a cloud and a yellow sun. The words say, “We are healthy” in big block letters, just like everyone else’s letters.

  This is probably the most fun I’ve had ever since we got trapped inside the mall.

  When I’m all finished, I hold up the sign for Miss Trina to see.

  “Look,” I say, smiling.

  “It’s amazing. Great job.”

  I set the sign down on the folding table with the other finished signs. Almost all of the other kids are on their feet, walking around, playing games, or talking with each other.

  “Um. Jasmine?” Miss Trina says from somewhere behind me.

  I turn around.

  I see Miss Trina holding my backpack and sleeping bag, one in each hand.

  “Did you bring all of your stuff along with you?” she asks. “You know we’re not camping out here tonight. Right?”

  She doesn’t seem mad at me for having the sleeping bag and backpack.

  It seems like she’s just curious.

  I don’t think she knows the real reason I brought my stuff with me.

  “Yeah. I guess so,” I answer.

  “So why, then?”

  “So why what?”

  “Why do you have all of your stuff with you?” Miss Trina asks.

  I shrug.

  “I don’t really remember,” I answer.

  • • •

  When we reach the mall exit—the place where we’re going to put our signs up in the windows—I realize something.

  This is the same exit that Momma, Miss Christiana, and I tried to use before.

  I recognize the police officers standing outside, talking to people gathered behind metal barriers on the sidewalk. Even the girl policeman is still there.

  I recognize the news reporters with their cameras and microphones.

  I recognize the long silver chain that runs through the door handles, keeping us locked inside.

  I recognize the water fountains that I hid under when Mr. Jim came and yelled at my mom.

  Without any warning, our group stops walking.

  I almost bump into the back of the girl ahead of me.

  “Okay. Let’s quiet down, folks,” a voice says. “Come on.”

  I look over and see Mr. Jim. I hadn’t
noticed him until now.

  Mr. Jim lifts the mask off his face and rests it on top of his head, like someone might do with their sunglasses if they’re not going to use them for a while. His hair looks so spiky that I think it could poke holes through the white fabric.

  “All right, boys and girls,” he says. “For this last part, we’re going to take the masks off. Yes. All the way off. But only until we can get our pictures taken by the paparazzi outside. Once we’re out of the camera’s view, the masks go back on. Immediately. Keep them on until we get back to Home Base. You understand?”

  “Why?” a voice asks. It sounds like Kevin, that smart-aleck teenager boy, but I can’t see from where I’m standing.

  “Why,” Mr. Jim says. “Because the image of a bunch of masked children isn’t exactly going to help our case, is it. I mean, the whole point of this exercise is to show that we’re healthy, right? To show that the first floor is clean, and that we’ve got a bunch of healthy children trapped in here without good cause. I don’t think the masks are going to help us make that point.”