by Aimee Carter
Bonnie’s flashlight didn’t provide much of a view, but in the beam of weak light, Simon spotted a row of plush red velvet seats. She headed over to the foot of an old wooden stage, where she flipped on a lantern.
“It isn’t much,” said Bonnie, “but it’s dry in the winter and there are plenty of places to sleep.”
Simon’s mouth dropped open. They stood at the front of an old theater complete with hundreds of seats and a balcony that must have held even more. Moth-eaten velvet curtains that matched the chairs hung from the rafters, and the room was dusty and crumbling from what must have been decades of disuse, but when Simon squinted into the darkness, he spotted a mural on the ceiling of a swirling sky and faded angels. Growing up in New York City, he’d been to his fair share of museums and seen enough artwork to fill thousands of theaters. But there was something surreal about seeing it like this, in the middle of a run-down building.
“Told you it’s pretty cool,” said Bonnie, perching on the edge of the stage. “Don’t go up to the balcony. You’ll fall through, and I’m not dragging any of you to the hospital.”
Speaking of the hospital, Simon set the cottonmouth down on one of the plush cushions, and Winter shifted back. Her hair was a mess, and Simon could already see bruises forming on the side of her face where she must have hit the wall, but instead of complaining, she glared at him.
“Don’t you ever question my loyalty to you again,” she said with enough venom to convince him that she would probably be all right. He slumped into the chair next to her, relieved.
“You need to stop trying to save me from Perrin,” he said. “One of these times, he’s going to kill you.”
“Then maybe you should start saving yourself,” said Winter.
“She has a point,” said Ariana, her heavy boots echoing as she walked up and down the aisles, surveying the theater. “Hasn’t Malcolm been teaching you anything?”
“A little,” said Simon. But he was so far behind the other students, who’d grown up in the Animalgam kingdoms and had been training to defend themselves their whole lives, that it was almost hopeless. The most he could really do was run fast, and because he was so short, he couldn’t even do that right.
“Here.” Jam offered Winter her purse, and she snatched it from him. “We’re only a couple of blocks from the station. It shouldn’t take us long to get there in the morning.”
“If we go while it’s still dark, we might be able to dodge any lookouts the flock’s posted in the area,” said Ariana, frowning as she peered into a dusty corner. “This place is crawling with spiders.”
“They’re nice, for the most part. As nice as spiders can be, that is,” said Bonnie as she pulled out a pot and lit a camping stove.
“Oh?” Ariana paused, turning toward Bonnie. “And how nice, exactly, can a spider be?”
Bonnie must have realized her mistake, because her grip on the pot tightened, and her voice went up a few notches. “Pretty nice sometimes. So, if you’re all Animalgams, too, then what kingdom do you belong to? Other than the snake, of course. Unless you’re all snakes, but I’ve never heard of so many traveling together before.”
“We’re—” started Simon, eager to turn the conversation back to something more neutral, but Ariana shot him a look, and he fell silent.
“Wouldn’t want to ruin the surprise,” she said, resuming her walk around the theater. “What’s for dinner?”
Suddenly the door opened, filling the space with the hair-raising squeal of rusted metal, and two boys who looked close to Simon’s age spilled through, laughing and trying to pull each other back. “I win!” shouted the first, who had dark hair and a thin cut over his brow. He didn’t seem to mind the blood dripping into his eye, however, and he wiped it with the back of his hand.
“You cheated,” said the second, who was identical to the first boy, save for the cut. “You started running on ‘two.’”
“You did the same thing,” said the first, grinning and basking in his win. “Oh, hey. You brought them back with you.”
Bonnie’s mouth puckered in annoyance. “What else was I supposed to do? Leave them on the streets to freeze?” She poured the contents of a tin can into the pot. “These are my brothers, Billy and Butch. Billy and Butch, these are—” She paused. “I didn’t catch your names.”
“Simon,” he said, raising his hand. “And that’s Jam, Ariana, and Winter. You’re twins?”
Billy and Butch exchanged a look. “No, we just look exactly alike,” said the one with the cut.
“Not anymore. You’re bleeding,” said the other as he started to dig through a cardboard box on the side of the stage.
Bonnie rolled her eyes. “Yes, they’re twins. They’re my brothers. And they’re obnoxious.”
“You haven’t ditched us yet,” said the one with blood now smeared across his brow.
“Keep this up, and one day I will. Then you’ll have no one to cook for you,” said Bonnie, waving her spatula around.
“I have a twin brother, too,” said Simon. Billy and Butch were the first pair of identical twins he’d met since discovering Nolan existed, and he studied them, curious. What would it have been like to grow up with his brother—with an exact copy of himself running around? They would have been friends, Simon figured. Neither of them would have ever been lonely or felt like an outcast, not when they had each other. Jealousy flared up inside him, even though he knew it was irrational. It wasn’t Billy and Butch’s fault he hadn’t grown up with his brother.
“Why isn’t he with you?” asked the twin with the cut. The other produced an old bandage from the cardboard box and ripped it open, sticking it onto his brother’s forehead haphazardly.
“He—wanted to stay back,” said Simon. He couldn’t feel bad about leaving Nolan behind, not when they had run into so much trouble already.
“Are you identical?” said the other boy, and Simon nodded.
“We have different haircuts, though.”
From the row of ragged seats, Winter made a gagging sound and waved her hand in front of her face. “Are you cooking rotten soy sauce? It smells disgusting.”
“No, you’re just sitting in the chair Billy threw up on when he had some bad stir-fry last month,” said Bonnie breezily. Winter yelped and jumped out of her seat, tripping as she scrambled away.
“I’m pretty sure Bonnie was kidding,” said Simon.
“Don’t care,” said Winter, eyeing the cushion like it was still covered in vomit. In a nasty voice Simon recognized as the one she used when she was upset, she added, “Why don’t you have parents, anyway?”
“Usual reason. They had the audacity to die before we grew up,” said Bonnie, unfazed by Winter’s rudeness as she stirred whatever was in the pot. It smelled like baked beans, but Simon couldn’t be sure.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Isn’t there somewhere you can go? Someplace with—beds?”
“Are you going to take us in?” said Bonnie, her voice cracking like a whip. “We don’t have any relatives, and the foster system would split us up. We’re fine here.” She dug around in her bag and pulled out a few apples. “That’s the nice thing about being raccoons. If we can’t find food, we can forage for it.”
Simon wasn’t convinced. But Bonnie didn’t look bothered by it, and the boys were shouting and racing each other around the theater now. If being with his mom and Darryl again meant living on the streets, Simon would’ve done it, too.
They ate dinner off paper plates while sitting cross-legged on the stage. Even Winter joined them, and while she wrinkled her nose at the baked beans and kept her distance from the raccoon siblings, she ate without complaint. It was a nice change of pace, Simon thought.
“What about the L.A.I.R.?” he said as he scooped up the last of the beans on his plate. “Can’t you go there?”
“The what?” said Bonnie, while one twin tried to steal an extra piece of apple off the other’s plate.
“The Leading Animalgam Institute for the Rema
rkable,” said Simon. “It’s where we go to school. I bet there’s room for the three of you.”
“Simon . . .” A pained look crossed Ariana’s face. “The L.A.I.R. is really hard to get into. There are only so many spots for each kingdom. And they’re selective about which—kinds of Animalgams they let in. Usually they only invite predators. Like bears and sharks and venomous spiders.”
“We could take on a bear,” said the injured twin—Billy, as far as Simon could tell—with his mouth full of stolen apple. “Wouldn’t know what hit him.”
“I don’t doubt it, but the L.A.I.R. is still selective,” said Ariana. “Besides, it’s November. We’re nearly halfway through the first semester.”
“There has to be something,” insisted Simon, while Bonnie stood and collected everyone’s empty plates.
“There are other schools,” said Jam, holding open a dingy trash bag streaked with old gravy. “The L.A.I.R. is the only place that accepts Animalgam students from different kingdoms, but the mammal kingdom has schools all over the place. If we can find the nearest group of mammals—”
“Did you or did you not hear the part where we’re fine?” said Bonnie, shoving the paper plates one by one into the bag. “We’ve been on our own for two years, and we don’t need anybody else. I’m sorry we’re not good enough for you or your precious school, but we like it here.”
Awkward silence permeated the air, lingering with the stale smell of old food, and Simon slouched. “I’m sorry,” he said at last. “I was just trying to help.”
“Go help someone who needs it,” said Bonnie. “We’re fine out here on our own. And even if we weren’t, the instant we start trusting adults again, they’ll split us up, and I’m not interested. End of story.” She nodded toward the velvet chairs. “If you want to leave before dawn, you should get some sleep. We don’t have any spare blankets, so tough luck. I’m sure you’ll find some way to survive.” Snatching the garbage bag from Jam, she tied it shut. “Good night.”
Simon climbed off the stage and headed to the chairs, finding one with most of the stuffing still inside the cushions. He made himself as comfortable as he could with the armrests in the way, and as Ariana passed him, she gave him a small, sympathetic smile. He tried to return it as he propped his head up on his backpack, Felix settling in beside his ear, but it felt more like a grimace.
The others curled up in the chairs as well, and soon enough, Bonnie turned off the lantern. Simon closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but all he could see was Perrin’s face lingering an inch in front of him, and despite Jam’s soft snores, he could still hear the sickening crunch of a cottonmouth hitting a brick wall. Sliding his hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt, he ran his fingertips over the slight indent his mother’s handwriting had made in the postcard. A million things could’ve gone wrong today, and a million things could go wrong tomorrow. But he was doing this for the right reason. Bonnie might not have thought he understood the lengths she would go to in order to keep her family together, but he did. Maybe more than anyone else in that theater.
He wasn’t sure when his thoughts turned to dreams, but a piercing shriek jolted him awake, and he sat up, his heart racing. “Winter?”
“Where is it?” Somewhere behind him, he could hear her frantically searching. “It was here when I went to sleep, and now it’s gone.”
“Where’s what?” Simon tried to climb over the rows of seats to get to her, but in the darkness, he stumbled and fell to the floor, knocking his knee against worn-out rug and concrete.
“My purse,” sobbed Winter. “It’s gone.”
Raccoon Bandits
Light flooded the theater, and Ariana stood beside the lantern. “That’s not the only thing that’s disappeared,” she said. “The raccoons are gone, too.”
“And my shoes,” said Jam in a sleepy voice. He popped his head out from another row, his glasses askew and his blond hair sticking up at all angles. “That wasn’t very nice of them.”
“Forget about your stupid shoes,” snapped Winter, who was tearing down the aisles in a panic, ripping off tattered cushions and checking underneath the seats. “Orion gave me my purse. He made me swear I’d never lose it, and—” She choked on another sob. “It has everything in it. My pictures, my books, my credit card—”
“Of course.” Ariana pulled herself onto the stage while Simon joined Winter to help her look. “Orion gave you that credit card, too, didn’t he?”
“Y-yes.”
“Then it’s a good thing the raccoons stole it,” she said. “That’s how Orion followed us here. All he had to do was look up the records, and he’d know you bought four tickets to Chicago.”
Simon straightened from his spot halfway down an aisle. If Ariana was right, then he owed Winter a huge apology. “Winter—”
“Don’t,” she said through her tears, searching another row. “I just want to find my purse.”
“We need to get to the train station. It’s almost dawn,” said Jam as he gingerly walked down to the stage in his socks.
“I’m not leaving until I find it,” said Winter, wiping her cheeks. “Will you two please help us?”
“It’s not here,” said Simon, ducking down to look underneath another seat. “And the raccoons won’t be back until they know we’re gone. We have to go, Winter. We need to make that train.”
She shook her head and wandered up and down the rows, looking more lost than Simon had ever seen her before. Her face grew splotchy and her hands trembled as she knelt down. The Winter he knew would have never touched the dirty floor, but she barely seemed to notice.
Simon stepped between her and the row of seats, blocking her view. “Winter. It’s not here,” he said as gently as he could.
“If they’d taken your precious postcards, we’d all be looking,” she said through her tears. “But because you don’t think my purse is important—”
“It’s not important,” said Simon. “The fact that Orion gave it to you—that’s important. And your pictures, and your books, and what they mean to you. That’s all important, too. I get that. But holding on to that purse was never going to bring Orion back.”
Winter’s lower lip trembled, and she sat back against her heels, her shoulders slumping. “It’s the only thing I have left of him,” she whispered, her eyes spilling over with tears.
“I’m sorry.” Simon knelt down and wrapped his arms around her. He would have been destroyed if he’d lost his postcards or his pocket watch, and he wanted nothing more than to hunt down the raccoons and get Winter’s things back. But the three siblings were long gone. He knew that, Winter knew that, and all they could do now was get on the train and keep going.
Their trip to the station didn’t take long, even with Jam walking around without his shoes. They all kept an eye out for Perrin, but either he was lying low or looking for them elsewhere. Simon hoped with all his might that that was the case.
While he purchased tickets to Arizona with the money he and Ariana had left, she disappeared, returning fifteen minutes later with a brand-new pair of sneakers. “Don’t ask,” she said, handing them to Jam, and he put them on without a word.
By the time they boarded the train, Simon still hadn’t spotted Perrin, and he began to breathe easier. With their new tickets bought with cash and the raccoons undoubtedly using the credit card in Chicago, they might gain a day or two on the flock. It wasn’t much, but it was better than nothing.
This time they didn’t have enough money for a room, so they found four seats facing each other and settled in for a long trip. While Jam played with the lock picks and Ariana napped on his shoulder in spider form, Winter stared out the window. More than once, Simon thought about trying to talk to her, but he knew nothing he said would make her feel better. So for now, he stayed quiet.
The train stopped every now and then, but for the most part, they kept moving southwest through the country. As soon as they reached Kansas, the trees and hills disappeared, replaced with flat plains tha
t stretched as far as Simon could see. All that empty space made his insides squirm, and he busied himself by making sure Felix was comfortable in his backpack.
Simon spent most of the day thumbing through his mother’s notebook and reading up on Arizona, but even that didn’t help calm his nerves much. The closer they got, the heavier the weight on his chest felt. He had no idea what he was doing. His mother was depending on him, and he couldn’t even outrun a single Animalgam without help. How was he supposed to rescue her?
He would find a way. He had the Beast King’s powers, and no matter how badly he wanted to keep it a secret, he knew that if it became a choice between remaining quiet or rescuing his mother, he would choose his mother.
By the time the sun was setting, Jam disappeared into the dining car, returning a little while later with several wrapped sandwiches. Winter was fast asleep opposite Simon, so instead Jam sat down next to him.
“Turkey or tuna?” he offered to Simon. Simon chose turkey, and after dropping a piece into his backpack for Felix, he noticed Ariana was still sleeping on Jam’s sweater.
“Aren’t you tired, too?” said Simon. After their night in that musty old theater, Simon had been fighting exhaustion for hours, but he couldn’t bring himself to nap. There was too much to think about and too much that could go wrong.
Jam shrugged. “I’ll sleep when we reach Colorado. We’re not far—fifty miles away, maybe.”
Simon shook his head, amazed. “How do you do that?”
“Do what?” said Jam through a mouthful of tuna and bread.
“Know exactly where we are all the time.”
Jam’s cheeks flushed, and he swallowed. “I don’t know. I just do.”
Simon let it drop for now, focusing on his sandwich instead. Eating helped ease the fatigue from his body, and he peered out the window as the sun dipped below the endless horizon, leaving a smear of pink behind. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”