The Deceivers

by Margaret Peterson Haddix

  Find Grandma, Natalie told herself, taking a cautious first step down the stairs. That’s all you have to do. Find Grandma and . . .

  She’d forgotten the “Almost” again, forgotten that Other-Natalie’s grandma wasn’t hers. Because as Natalie kept descending into the glitter and chatter of the party below—a party that she saw as a snake pit, no matter how many tuxedos and ball gowns gleamed around her—she wanted to trick herself into imagining Real-Grandma’s arms hugging her, Real-Grandma whispering as she had when Mom and Dad fought, “This isn’t your problem. You’re going to be okay, no matter what. . . .”

  But losing Mom in this awful world was Natalie’s problem. And it was both Natalie’s problem and her fault that the Greystones’ mom and Joe were going to show up at this awful party to be caged and mocked.

  And . . . eliminated?

  Natalie gulped. There had never been a moment in the past year when she hadn’t longed for Grandma to come back—when she hadn’t been certain that that would have helped. But even if she’d been alive again and here now, Natalie’s grandmother couldn’t have done anything.

  Maybe there were all sorts of things that were comforting for little kids that didn’t work anymore once you grew up a little.

  Maybe thirteen was just the age when you had to start relying on yourself.

  But I’m not alone. I can count on the Greystones to help as much as possible. And Other-Natalie, too.

  The real question was, what was possible? Even working together, how could they save their moms and Joe and get out of this awful world together?

  As she reached the bottom of the steps, she paused for a second and pretended to need the balustrade for support. She felt the two earbuds she wore in her ears shift, tugged by her hair. The right earbud was linked to a tiny wireless microphone Chess carried in his shirt pocket, and the left earbud was linked to the microphone Other-Natalie had duct-taped inside the bodice of her orange dress, just as Natalie had taped a matching one into her orange dress. (Natalie had been impressed that Other-Natalie had two party dresses that looked so much alike—until Other-Natalie opened a backup closet in a nearby room to reveal that she had dozens of them.) But Natalie heard nothing from either earbud, so maybe it had all been for nothing.

  “Hello?” she whispered, dipping her head so nobody at the party would see and think she was talking to herself. “I’m downstairs now. Won’t talk for a while except, you know. To other people.”

  “Got it,” Other-Natalie whispered back. The two of them had decided Natalie should enter the party first and go all the way down to the basement. Or “the party headquarters,” as Other-Natalie called the transformed space that now included an add-on with a soaring glass ceiling and tiers of even lower levels. Other-Natalie would wait and then come down herself but stay on the first floor until Natalie found a good lookout post below. They figured that if anyone questioned seeing the “same” girl twice, Other-Natalie would know better how to respond.

  Other-Natalie would look for her mom and dad, even though she had very little hope that she could get them to tell her anything.

  “We won’t talk much now either.” Chess’s voice came out even fainter than Other-Natalie’s.

  But somehow just hearing his voice gave Natalie the courage to look up and peer directly out into the crowded party.

  “Ooo, is that the latest hairstyle?” someone asked eagerly off to her left. “One of those fashions that’s going to catch on like wildfire because you started it?”

  If any of Natalie’s friends had asked that back in the real world, both Natalie and the friend would have fallen over on the floor laughing. Natalie’s hair was hideous. Because she needed to hide her earbuds—and needed her hair to match Other-Natalie’s, even though Natalie’s was sweaty and gross, and Other-Natalie’s wasn’t—the two girls had settled on a severe, pulled-back bun arrangement that they’d described to each other as “what someone from the 1700s would do . . . if she’s trying to become a nun . . . and thinks it’s sinful to show her ears.” Had Natalie finished Other-Natalie’s sentence, or had it been the other way around?

  Now Natalie turned to the left, to see another teenaged girl. It wasn’t the double of anyone Natalie knew in her own world, but somehow the girl’s turned-up nose, chilly blue eyes, and ingratiating expression seemed familiar.

  Oh yeah. From the poster in Other-Natalie’s room . . .

  The girl had to be secretly making fun of her. Natalie flashed her most dazzling smile and pretended to believe the girl had paid her an actual compliment.

  “Thanks! I’m not sure this style will catch on, though, because you need thick hair to make it work right—it’s not good on every face shape, either.”

  The girl recoiled and put a hand up to her head as if to hide her thin, wispy blond hair.

  Natalie could imagine her real grandmother spinning in her grave. She could practically hear her grandmother’s voice in her head: Never be mean to another female about her appearance. Especially if it’s something she has no control over . . .

  Natalie wanted to argue with Grandma’s imagined voice: Yeah, but Grandma, you never imagined a world like this one. I’m fighting back any way I can. And I don’t want this girl asking questions I can’t answer, and then figuring out I don’t belong here. . . .

  What was it about this world that made everyone mean? Even Natalie?

  Natalie sighed, and offered in a kinder voice, “Hey, want to come downstairs with me? I’m starving, and I think that’s where the food is.”

  “You mean, into the headquarters? Sure!” the other girl said, as if delighted to be asked. And . . . as if it was a big deal. The girl leaned her head close and whispered, “Why did your parents change the time for this party? My mother says it shows how powerful your parents are, that they can get everyone to show up in evening attire on an hour’s notice for a luncheon. . . .”

  Was she making fun of Other-Natalie’s parents or truly admiring them? It was hard to tell.

  “Oh, you know, my parents like to keep people guessing,” Natalie said, flashing another dazzling smile. This one was even more fake.

  She turned her head and pretended to not quite recognize someone off in the distance: “Oh, who is that? Anyone you know?”

  She hoped that Other-Natalie, listening from upstairs, would understand that Natalie was really asking for background info on the girl standing beside her.

  “Lana Devins,” came through Natalie’s left earbud. “Wants to be my best friend, but, unh-uh. I’m sure she secretly hates me. Get away from her as soon as you can.”

  Meanwhile, the girl—Lana—was turning her head side to side and asking, “Who?”

  “Oh, never mind, just someone I thought I knew,” Natalie said with a shrug. “You haven’t seen my grandma anywhere, have you?”

  “Who cares about grandmas?” Lana asked mockingly.

  You are now officially dead to me, Natalie thought.

  But she kept smiling as they went toward the stairs to the basement—smiling and nodding at the other partygoers and staring around every chance she got, searching for a glimpse of an elderly woman in an orange dress.

  Almost-Grandma was nowhere in sight. Plenty of other women in orange dresses were—everything from pale sherbet colors to slightly brighter gingers to eye-jarring carroty sheaths. The women and girls who weren’t wearing orange had navy blue dresses instead.

  “Wish I’d worn green, just to see what happened,” Natalie muttered.

  She meant it only for Other-Natalie’s and Chess’s ears through the listening device, but Lana gasped.

  “Natalie!” she exclaimed, horror spreading over her face. “I know you think you’re protected because your mom is Judge Morales and your dad is the mayor, but . . . don’t make jokes like that! Being in the party—you know that’s like, sacred!”

  It took Natalie a moment to realize that Lana meant a political party. And that she was completely serious.

  The orange and blue dres
ses—and the sparkling champagne flutes, the gleaming diamonds on women’s necks and the precisely folded ties peeking out from men’s tuxedo jackets—seemed more menacing than ever now. Somehow this scene felt scarier than the poorer-looking mob at Mrs. Greystone’s trial, with their orange-and-navy ballcaps and windbreakers and sweatshirts.

  Is it just because I know more about the evil of this world now? Natalie wondered. Or is it because these are the people with power—without being forced to act a certain way because of some chemical in the air?

  It seemed more like these people wanted to be awful.

  Natalie got turned around in the crush of partygoers; the crowd carried her and Lana not toward the basement stairs Natalie knew, but to an open, grand stairway leading down into the part of the basement that took up a full two stories, with the soaring glass ceiling overhead. Nothing in this part of the house looked familiar. It was too big, too showy—too scary. Soldiers stood at the top of the stairs, checking names and scanning fingerprints, but they waved Natalie through. Lana held out what looked like an engraved invitation with a shaking hand.

  Perversely, Natalie found herself arguing, “She’s with me. You don’t need to check her identity.”

  Lana shot her such a grateful look Natalie almost admitted, Really, I just think I might need your help figuring out how to behave down there. . . .

  They descended the stairs together. Natalie had to hold back a gasp when she took in the full transformation of the “basement.” The heavy velvet curtain that had once hidden the fancier half of the room was now at the completely opposite side, blocking off everything even vaguely familiar. The whole room sparkled and glowed; all the carpet had been pulled back to reveal shimmering marble floors below. Even the heavy, twisting pillars were embedded now with lights that threw off eerie shadows.

  Just look for Grandma, Natalie reminded herself.

  “I’m heading down the stairs now into the first-floor section of the party,” Other-Natalie said through the earbud in Natalie’s left ear. Natalie nodded, even though Other-Natalie couldn’t see her, of course.

  Natalie heard footsteps—amazingly, the listening device worked well enough that she could hear the tap-tap-tap of Other-Natalie’s heels on the stairs. Then the footsteps stopped.

  “Um, Natalie, Chess—somebody,” Other-Natalie whispered. “What exactly do Mrs. Greystone and Joe look like?”

  Natalie waited for Chess to answer, but he didn’t. So she turned to Lana and pointed at the gleaming gold cages centered at the front of the basement, before the velvet curtain.

  “I bet I can predict what the scapegoats will look like tonight,” she said, trying to sound as if she liked seeing people mocked, as if she were excited about the scapegoats arriving. “It’ll be a white woman with dark hair, and a really tall, dark-skinned man.”

  “Your parents told you that ahead of time?” Lana gasped. “You are so lucky! Did they tell you what the scapegoats’ crimes were and how long they’ll be on display? Or how many things we’ll be allowed to throw at them?”

  “You’ll see,” Natalie said, trying to smile mysteriously even as her stomach dropped and she fought the urge to retch.

  How horrible did people have to be to enjoy mocking other people? Even criminals?

  “Oh no!” Other-Natalie whispered in Natalie’s ear. “That’s what I was afraid of! The prison guards just brought two people who look like that through the front door. Something’s happening! They don’t usually bring in the scapegoats until later in a party, after people have had more to drink. . . . Where are you, Natalie? And—”

  Natalie missed the rest of Other-Natalie’s words. Because just then someone tugged on her arm—a man in a dark suit with an earpiece of his own. He had close-cropped hair, bulging muscles, and a look in his eye as though he were constantly scanning the room looking for threats.

  “Yes.” He spoke into his collar, even as he shoved Lana aside. “I’ve just located the daughter, and I’m taking her to the front of the room so she’ll be with her parents for the announcement.” Then he lifted his chin and spoke directly to Natalie. “Miss, come with me.”

  “I’m supposed to stand up front?” Automatically, Natalie recoiled. Then she tried to think of a way to explain her behavior. “You mean, close to the scapegoats?”

  “Don’t worry,” the man said. “The rest of the security detail and I will protect you. So will the soldiers here tonight. And you’ll be in plain sight of everyone in the room, everyone at the party. Nothing’s going to happen to you.”

  Except I’ll be in plain sight of everyone in the room. So if Other-Natalie does come downstairs, everyone will know that one of us is an impostor. . . .

  Had Other-Natalie heard what the security guard said? Would she know to stay on the first floor—or, even better, to dart back up to her room or into a secret passageway?

  Natalie wanted to lean down and scream into the microphone hidden in her dress, “Hide! Now!” But she couldn’t do that with the guard watching her so carefully—or with everyone at the party now watching her progress up to the front of the room.

  The Judge and Mayor emerged from behind the curtain at the front of the room—the curtain that now hid the furnace and the closet and everything else Natalie might have recognized. The Mayor had his arm around the Judge’s shoulder; both beamed out at the crowd as if they were the happiest couple ever. It did something to Natalie’s heart to see them like that, even though she knew it was only an act.

  “Liars!” she wanted to yell at them. “Fakes! Deceivers!”

  She wanted to yell at the crowd, too: “Nothing you see is real!”

  But all she could do was let the guard keep tugging her toward the front of the room, past even more soldiers and toward Other-Natalie’s parents.

  The Judge and Mayor stepped up to a microphone located between the two scapegoat cages. A second later, Almost-Grandma came from behind the curtain and joined her daughter and son-in-law. The guard gave Natalie a shove, and she found herself beside the microphone, too.

  Almost-Grandma’s eyes widened at the sight of Natalie—was she that distressed to see her? But she draped her arm around Natalie’s shoulder and steered her around to face the crowd. And the microphone.

  Natalie had found Almost-Grandma, after all.

  But there wasn’t a single word she could say to her without everyone at the party hearing.

  Fifty-Eight

  Finn

  Finn stood in front of a keypad deep in the heart of the secret passageways. He rose on his tiptoes and sniffed.

  “Are we sure this is the right one?” he asked. “It smells more like cat pee than spaghetti.”

  While the two Natalies went down to the party, the Greystones had grabbed all the backpacks to cover their tracks, and were now headed for the Judge’s office. That way, they could watch the security camera footage and make sure the Natalies stayed safe. Other-Natalie had said about a million times, “Make sure the office is empty before you go in there.” And she’d drawn them a quick map showing routes through the secret passageways, along with the keypad codes they’d need along the way.

  Finn was really glad Emma and Chess were good at reading maps. The least he could do was help by using his nose. But all the secret passageways and hidden keypads seemed to smell bad.

  “It’s probably just because my hands stink from touching so many keypads,” Chess said, reaching past Finn to punch in a string of numbers. The door clicked open.

  “Everything in this house stinks now,” Emma said. “Everything in this world stinks.”

  “You don’t think anyone’s using a smell again to try to change how people think and feel, do you?” Finn asked. “Like the leaders did at Mom’s trial?”

  Emma sniffed thoughtfully, then shook her head.

  “No—that was all fake,” she said. “This seems more real. And I can still think while I smell it. It’s real cat pee, real garlic, real . . . evil.”

  Chess pulled a tiny micr
ophone out of his T-shirt pocket, muttered, “We won’t talk much now either,” and seemed to be switching it off.

  “Did you just cut off contact with the Natalies?” Emma gasped.

  “I can still hear them, and I’ll turn this back on when we have something important to say,” Chess said, gesturing at the earbuds in both of his ears. “Natalie’s in the middle of the party now, and I don’t want to distract her talking about cat pee.” He reached over and ruffled Finn’s hair. “But it kind of helps me to think about other things besides . . .”

  Besides danger, Finn thought.

  He felt proud that he could still think and talk about cat pee. He could still draw hearts. But, really, that was mostly to keep himself from thinking about danger.

  “We should be quiet anyhow now, until we’re sure the Judge’s office is empty,” Emma whispered, pointing toward the open door before them.

  Chess nodded. All three kids tiptoed back into the narrow space they’d hidden in before. The Judge’s broken laptop still lay on the floor where they’d left it.

  Finn picked up the laptop, because shouldn’t they put it back on the Judge’s desk?

  Or maybe he could use it as a weapon, to swing at any bad guys who might be hiding in the Judge’s office. . . .

  Chess stepped up to yet another keypad and opened another door. Now the three Greystones found themselves at the back of the Judge’s office closet, where Finn had seen election flyers that morning. It felt like an eternity ago.

  “Shh,” Chess breathed, pushing the closet door open a crack, to peer out. Then he said, a little too loudly, “What?”