He reached inside his coat, but his hand remained there. “What is it, anyway?”
“It’s—it’s just what it looks like.”
“A metal circle?”
“Uh-huh.”
“What’s it for?”
“None of your business.”
“Why do you want it so bad?”
“It’s mine, that’s all. Now hand it over.”
“Tell me what it’s for, and I’ll give it to you.”
“. . .I can’t tell you.”
“Then I can’t give it to you.” His hand reappeared empty, his face smug.
It was a draw. She had no leverage. If she didn’t cave, it was check mate: game over, her king slain and Penelope, too. She tried to read him without looking directly into his eyes, the path to the secrets of the heart. Could she possibly trust him? He was the only one who had shown up twice for the Pet Lover’s Club, after all. And she had no choice. “Okay, then. I’ll. . .I’ll let you in on something if you promise not to tell anyone.”
“Okay.”
“Okay is not good enough.”
“Promise.”
“Full sentence, please.”
“I promise.”
“That I will not tell a single soul. . . .”
“That I will not tell a single soul. . . .”
“For as long as I live. . . .”
Gil rolled his eyes. “For as long as I live.”
“And if I do, then I, Rae, will tell the whole world. . . .”
He scratched his neck and glanced around lazily. “And if I do, then you, Rae, will tell the whole world. . . .”
“About a certain bus ride in Kindergarten. . . .”
He stared at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“I’m not.” She was absolutely bluffing. She couldn’t and would never be that cruel. He probably knew that. But she was playing her only card.
“Huh.” He looked down at his feet and shook his head. “You’re really something.”
“So are you.” But her shoulders sank, and she picked at her cuticles. “Just give it to me.”
“I suppose you forgot that I saved this stupid piece of crap for you. Huh?” He pulled the disk out from his chest. “That I covered for you and got lunch detention because of you.”
“. . .You got lunch detention? I thought—”
“Well, you thought wrong.” He flipped his hair off his brow. “Everybody does.”
“Oh.” She wasn’t even sure what he meant by that. She changed the subject. “So is Prince at the, you know.”
“No.”
It had been a rhetorical question, a convenient space filler. Every registered dog was there. “Where is he?”
His eyes reminded her of almonds. “At my grandma’s house. She lives out of state.”
“You’re lucky.”
“It’s not luck,” he corrected, “it’s money. Two thousand dollars. We bought his way out.”
There he goes again, boasting about how rich they were. But her eyes grew large with shock. “How? When?”
“Just before they closed the borders. You know, when you could pay your way out of this insanity.”
She didn’t know. Her parents had never told her. She had never seen it in the newspaper. She was back to pivoting on the swing. He had never told her either, by the way, and something didn’t add up. “Wait a second. How did you know to leave? How did you know they were going to close the parks and everything else?”
He acted like it was obvious. “My mom’s an AP. My dad’s a banker.” Brag, brag, brag. “You follow the money.” Such a smart-alecky, grown-up thing to say. “You follow school policy. They saw it coming.”
Her own father was a politician, and yet there’d been no trace of foreshadowing in the Devine home. She pictured her dad, a large man and yet so small, nearly invisible sometimes. Her dismay left her speechless. She instantly shifted her suspicions back to Gil, whose story still didn’t add up. “Why did you come to those stupid club meetings, then, if Prince wasn’t even here?” she demanded.
“Some people care about more than just themselves, you know.”
A car drove past, the only sound other than the shifting of the sand beneath her feet. She imagined Prince, so handsome with his full beard and intelligent eyes. “You could’ve at least let us say good-bye.”
“I tried. You could’ve at least responded.”
“You mean. . .” The green envelope, the uphill writing. It had never been about a date.
“What did you think it meant?” The way he glared at her, she could have been a circus freak. “Prince was leaving the next day.”
“I know that, duh. What did you think I thought?”
He was on the swing next to hers, both scuffing clumsy patterns in the dirt. How could she have been so stupid? They were eleven, after all, and no one writes letters like that. It had never been about her. It was always Penelope. And why not? Rae truly was the biggest loser on the planet.
“Well, Penelope is. At the Compound, I mean.” She paused. “And that’s what the metal circle is for.”
“Here.” He handed over the disk. “Was that so hard?” He scribbled something on a scrap of paper. “Whatever you’re up to—” he handed it to her—“call me crazy, but I happen to care about her, too.”
She watched him sail down the gravel path in his springy-tipped sneakers. She read the scrap of paper, a minty gum wrapper. It was his cell phone number.
“GOT IT,” SHE REPORTED TRIUMPHANTLY to Angie that evening at their final D-Day meeting. Yet another Gil story that she kept under wraps: The list kept growing. The metal circle fit snugly three quarters down one of Officer Quinn’s buckets, creating a perfect hiding place at the real bottom. “And here’s the address for the Welfare Society that my brother told me about.” She showed Angie her notebook. “It’s an agency that’s in charge of a bunch of things, including animal safety. He learned about it in Civics, but they don’t teach that anymore.” Lucky for her, he was a packrat. He’d stashed years of notebooks under his bed and had a nearly photographic memory of their contents. During the last visit, he’d told her exactly where to look.
She passed the D-Day test with flying colors. Angie popped a shiny star on her forehead and ripped up the index cards into teeny pieces. All evidence destroyed. They began a list called Things That Could Go Wrong, with the idea that anticipating such matters would be helpful. But they very quickly realized that the list would be endless. The fact was that more things could go wrong than right, and the consequences of a failed mission, at least for Rae, would be disastrous.
“Let’s not do that.” Angie tossed the paper aside. “Let’s do the hair!” This would be the most fun of all. In the mirror, Angie cut swatches of her ginger hair from the underside. Rae grabbed the French beret from months before and the super glue. Together they attached the locks to the front inside rim of the hat, forming a row of bangs. “Try it on!”
Raelyn twirled her masses of coarse hair into a bun and forced the beret over it. Angie jiggled the bangs until they hung uniformly over the forehead. “Wait,” she said as if she were asking a question, her hand reaching for the scissors. She snipped meticulously here and there. “Wait.” She fitted the matching beret on her own head. “Come here, Gigi—I mean Angie!” The two girls stood side by side at the mirror. Two identical faces stared back at them.
Well, not quite. Rae did not make a good redhead. Her skin tone, her thick eyebrows and lashes—it was all wrong. But it had to be good enough. She saw her “twin’s” image fade, leaving her own flawed reflection. Angie’s role was coming to an end. Friday morning, it would all be on Raelyn.
CHAPTER 13
Plan “A”
I WAS OFTEN WITH MY FAMILY on a dangerous mission. My mom or dad would be in the front passenger seat, Jack and Penelope in the back. But here is the thing: I was always the driver. I was eight, but I was the master driver, and no one thought anything of it. I knew how to downshift up steep hills
, and make sharp turns to avoid unexpected origami birds and caped demons with fluorescent eyes. I swerved skillfully around pot holes, any of which could be a Bottomless Pit from which there was No Way Out. I never crashed once.
In this particular dream, our mission was to take secret photographs while visiting an elderly couple who was out to get us and abscond with the Golden Box of Evidence. I got us all safely to the Old Folks’ Home on the Hill. They were wrinkly and all smiles, but we weren’t fooled by their false-toothed grins. Danger lurked, and everyone in my family lacked courage except me. Wearing my spy glasses downstairs, I spotted the Golden Box of Evidence in the farthest room on the second floor. It was just a matter of getting it out of the house under the Old Timers’ noses. Jack tiptoed up the winding staircase, bopping forward, then backward, on each step. A moment later, he slid down the walnut banister and delivered the Golden Box into my able arms. My spy glasses took photographs—flash! flash!—while the others exchanged goodbyes. The Devines hopped into my silver convertible, and, at top speed, I tore down the roller coaster road into safety, dodging pot holes and bottomless pits all along the way. Mission accomplished.
ON D-DAY MORNING, the girls doctored up their sick stories to the parents. Angie didn’t really lie because, in fact, she did have an awful stomach ache. They timed their separate arrivals perfectly, Rae arriving by bike and hiding in the woods by the Front Gate, and Angie dropped off by her father shortly afterward. It was late March, the air crisp and heavy. They conferred briefly in their frost-covered hideout, where Rae adjusted the beret with the phony bangs.
“You’ll never guess what happened,” Angie exclaimed. “I almost didn’t make it here. Of all days, today my dad decides I’m old enough to stay home alone. He said it didn’t make sense for me to be here when he wasn’t.” She found herself having to argue against her own self-interest; how ironic. “Imagine arguing that you’re not mature enough and you need a grown-up. But, Gigi, I was so convincing! I’m seriously thinking about acting school.” Flickers of confidence gleamed as she spoke, and Rae saw that she wasn’t joking. “I mean—” Angie winced—“you know, some day.” She fiddled with the row of bangs on Rae’s forehead. “Good luck—Angie!”
“Thanks, Angie.”
Angelica made the foolish heart shape, but Rae’s arms remained at her sides. For her, childhood had ended that day. Angie gave her a nervous hug. They both recognized it for what it was: the kiss of death. For beyond this point, Officer Quinn’s daughter would throw her friend under the bus to protect herself if need be, and both of them knew it.
Rae walked alone to the Front Gate. She took a deep breath and pushed the buzzer.
“Who’s there?”
“Me, Angie. Umm, Pip.”
“Be right there.” A short man in uniform approached and unlocked the massive gate. “You’re Pip?” He stared at her. Then a gold tooth showed as he smiled. “I’m Officer Budd. Not feeling well, huh?” Rae coughed. “Your dad says you know the deal.”
“Yeah.”
“Pockets.”
She flipped her pockets inside out.
“Lunch.” She opened her bag, and he poked around with his fingers: the important sandwich, an apple, carrots.
“Shoes.” He inspected the insides and she wiggled her stockinged feet.
“Hat.”
She froze. Already! They had not thought of this, but of course! Instinctively, she pulled the sides of the beret down in an effort to preserve the bangs and her life. “Um,” she said, “my—my hair is. . .really dirty.”
“Not to worry.”
“No, really. Can I please not?”
To Officer Budd, she was one more self-conscious pre-teen with panic-stricken eyes. The last thing he wanted was to embarrass his brand-new boss’s daughter. “Listen, never mind.” His spot of gold showed. “I don’t make these crazy rules. Come on in,” he added, and winked. Another grown-up winker.
She followed him down a dirt path, identifying everything around her thanks to the impeccable map. There was the Groom Room to her left. They passed the Storage Shed next. The large Barracks I was up ahead, with Barracks II behind it. A pungent odor hung in the air. For as much planning as they’d done, nothing in her life experience led to any identification of the foul odor. She squeezed her nostrils closed.
“Sorry,” he apologized. “You get used to it. Damn canines, stink something awful.” His head was entirely flat on top from a buzz cut. “I only work here.”
Usually the real thing is more spectacular than any artistic rendition. But in that place, Angie’s pretty little drawing trumped reality. It was all dull shades of brown and gray: the fences, the buildings, the dirt road. Even the sky was dismal. The place appeared empty. It was inconceivable that hundreds of dogs lived there. Where were they, and how would she ever photograph them?
Lastly, there it was in the distance, shielding the forest beyond: the tall smoke stack slicing through the fog like a dagger.
“This way,” he said. “You know.”
Had she been looking around too much, she wondered; how did Angie’s hair look? she worried. She followed him through the front door of the SS and up a flight of stairs. To the left sat a cluttered desk with a computer screen; a large window overlooked the grounds, and there was a clock on the wall. A cigarette was slowly burning in an ashtray. Posted to the side was the daily schedule, marked in ten-minute increments. She knew that the scribbled note next to 10:00 a.m. would say “Groom” and at 10:30 would say “Feed.” She made a mental note of where the bathroom was.
Officer Budd grabbed a key from a wall hook and escorted her to the right of the stairs. This was Her Room, exactly as Angie described it: two cots with sheets and blankets, a lamp, a footstool, and a small window behind a sheer curtain.
“Give a holler if you need anything. Like I said, sorry, but I don’t make the rules.” He locked her in.
She stood completely still. She couldn’t believe she was actually in the inner sanctuary of the SS, breaking laws, being someone else. There was no clock. She tiptoed to the window and gently pushed the curtain to the side. Sure enough, in the upper corner was a tiny patch. Angie had chipped away at the black paint with her fingernail, clearing a portion of the glass. Rae moved the footstool to the window, stepped up, and peered through. She watched and waited. She found herself strangely calm one minute and trembling out of control the next —no rhythm, no reason, just a senseless ping-pong of random reflexes. It was only about nine in the morning, she guessed, yet it already had felt like an entire day. She began scraping the paint with her nail to expand her view, careful not to overdo it.
She remembered she had a job to do: Somehow, she had to convince Officer Budd to leave her door unlocked. She tapped on the door. “Hello?”
“Yeah, Pip?”
“I’m gonna throw up!” she moaned. Her door was opened instantly, and she ran past him to the bathroom. She groaned and gagged. She flushed, ran water in the sink, and gargled. She adjusted Angie’s bangs in the mirror, practiced a pallid, sickly expression and exited.
“Stomach bug?”
“I guess,” her voice was weak. He locked her back in. Who needed acting classes?
For a time, the only sounds were a squeak of the chair and a manly clearing of the throat. She guessed he would be finishing another cigarette. When the phone rang, she pressed her ear to the door and listened: something about “efficiency” and working “like magic.” She repeated the vomit scenario. The plan was that, after the third trip to the bathroom, she would ask him to keep the door unlocked. Third time’s a charm, they say.
“Groomer here.” It was a woman’s voice on speaker.
“Roger,” Officer Budd replied.
“Infestation duty.”
“Tell me about it. My application’s already in for the night shift. They get to sleep instead of deal with this crap.”
“Roger, my man.”
A buzzer followed. At the window, Rae saw a uniformed woman headi
ng toward Barracks I. She opened the door, and a group of dogs exited. How thin and mangy they were! There were ten or fifteen of them, all sluggish and slow. Some were limping, and there were no wagging tails. The groomer closed the barracks door halfway on one of them, and a piercing yelp shot across the yard. “Stay, you mutt,” she shouted. To the others, she ordered, “Come, flea bags!” chasing them toward the Groom Room. It would be impossible to know whether Penelope was among them. They followed the woman inside. After quite a while, the door opened and they marched out. To her horror, she saw that they were even more emaciated than before. She realized instantly that they’d been shaved of all their fur. Their coats had given them more bulk, the illusion of mass and weight, but they were scarcely more than bone.
Her third trip to the bathroom was not an act. The vomit was real, the stabbing ache in her gut real—the cold sweat, dizziness, watery eyes, all real.
“Wow. You alright?”
“No!” She glared at him. “I mean, I’m just. . .sick, okay?”
“I’ll tell you what,” he offered. “I’ll leave this door unlocked for you. The bathroom’s there if you need it.” He added helplessly, “No need to mention this to your dad. He’ll be here in about forty-five minutes to take you home.”
He saw the groomer out and returned to his desk. Raelyn pulled off another minor bathroom trip in order to see the clock: 10:28. Bucket Time had come.
As soon as she heard his footsteps down the stairs, she perched herself at her watch post. He was planting the pails in a row in the Food Area and pouring a small amount of dog food in each. Next, he would take them to the barracks several at a time. As soon as his back was to her, she fled out of her room and down the stairs. She sprinted across the dirt road to the buckets and scanned them for the small heart she had marked at the bottom of the special one, all the while glancing obsessively in the direction from which he’d be returning. She searched one pail after another. Halfway down the line, an awful thought occurred to her: What if hers was among the ones he’d already delivered? Another thing the girls hadn’t contemplated. Then she saw it: the tiny scribble in permanent marker. She grabbed the prized container, ran back to the SS building, and crouched behind the door in the foyer. Officer Budd appeared in the distance.
The Thing at the Edge of Blundertown Page 11