The One Safe Place (18 page)

“We have to wear socks,” complained Kit. “And if you have long hair you have to keep it tied back.”

“And you have to keep your room tidy,” Malloy chimed in. “They come around and check.”

They’d also heard from Vanessa that the Administrator wasn’t happy with the group activities. Vanessa claimed to have heard the Administrator lecturing Mrs. Babbage about arranging a better one, a scavenger hunt with objects for the kids to find all over the Home. Since then, Mrs. Babbage had been scurrying around frantically, trying to set it up.

“Complete waste of time,” Luke commented. “It’ll be pathetic . . .”

At lunch Devin was glad to find he was hungry. He heaped his plate with macaroni and cheese and sat down with the others. He didn’t want to talk much. It was enough just to sit there and listen to the chatter.

“Mac ’n’ cheese is such a useless food,” Missie announced.

“You don’t have to eat it,” Kit informed her.

“That’s not the point. The point is . . . Karen, why are you sitting so close? I can’t move my elbow . . .”

“Sorry about that, sorry.” Karen hunched her shoulders and shifted away.

“The point is that it’s boring. Mac ’n’ cheese is boring. It’s a boring, boring food.” Finding no agreement, Missie glanced at Pavel sitting silently at the other end of the table.

“It’s boring, right, Pavel?”

Pavel, of course, said nothing.

“Can’t you say anything at all?”

Malloy flicked a drip of cheese at Missie. “Sure he can,” he said. “He’s just waiting until there’s something worth saying.”

Missie pushed some food into her mouth with an angry gesture. “All I’m saying is that it’s dull.” She chewed and swallowed. “It’s the food equivalent of watching paint dry. No, it’s worse than that. It’s the food equivalent of a jigsaw puzzle, one of those huge ones with nothing but sky.” Her voice quivered with indignation. “Or nothing but sky and windmills.”

Devin wondered why nobody told her to be quiet. He could tell she was annoying everyone. But perhaps Missie’s endless grouching was simply her way of getting through the day, her way of surviving. And perhaps the others knew this, whether they realized it or not. He gazed at the faces around the table.

Look at the way Malloy stuck up for Pavel just a minute ago, he thought. Everyone’s got a weakness, but we cover for each other and we make allowances, for Pavel, for Missie, for poor Jared who wants to stay a little boy forever . . .

He suddenly saw that they were a team. And that he would never feel lonely again, because he was one of them now.

Mrs. Babbage made her pattering way to the food table.

“If I could have everyone’s attention,” she bleated. “Attention . . . everyone . . . ?”

It was a while before the chattering died down, but finally there was quiet in the room. Mrs. Babbage looked around and gave a big smile. “I have wonderful news to share with you,” she said. “Ansel Fairweather has been adopted!”

There was a second of silence and then a sigh rippled around the room, half of pleasure, half of envy.

“In a little while,” Mrs. Babbage continued, “you will be able to see the photograph of Ansel with his new parents in the common room. I’m just on my way now to pin it up.”

Someone started clapping, and in a second all the children had joined in. Devin glanced at Kit. She was clapping harder than anyone else, her lips bunched up and her eyes shining.

The others had finished lunch. Only Devin and Luke were left at the table. Without being asked, Vanessa came over and sat down with them.

“You were weird,” she announced, staring at Devin.

“What do you mean?”

“In the Dream. You were so immature.”

Devin felt his hands begin to tremble.

“Hey!” Luke interrupted. “You’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s the rule.”

“It’s not my rule,” Vanessa retorted. “I’ve got my own rules.”

“What . . . what did I do?” Devin faltered.

Luke gave him a nudge in the ribs. “Don’t ask!”

Vanessa smiled a small, superior smile. “You touched everything and you smiled and your breath went all gaspy and you stared at the sky like you’d never seen it before.”

“I did?”

“You licked the grass. You ate some dirt. I saw you!”

Luke stood up suddenly and shoved his dinner tray at her. “Shut up! Shut your mouth!” he yelled.

The tray slid across the table and hit Vanessa in the chest. She stood up at once, brushing herself off in an exaggerated way.

“You are so pathetic,” she said.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with her,” Luke said as she marched away. “I don’t know why she’s so mean. It’s like she thinks she’s better than any of the kids here and doesn’t want anything to do with any of us.

“Don’t pay any attention to her,” he added. “Don’t listen to a word she says.”

Devin nodded, but it was hard not to feel disturbed. His uneasiness of the morning had returned, seasoned with a new feeling of shame. It wasn’t his fault that he’d acted “weird,” as Vanessa had put it, but he couldn’t help wishing he’d been able to have more control over himself.

It was evening. Devin and Malloy were at the gates of the large meadow, watching the horses and talking. Malloy was wondering whether it would be possible to get past the laser posts on horseback if the rider lay very low. That way, the posts might fail to detect the presence of a human. Devin thought it sounded far too risky, although he had his eye on the largest of the horses, a piebald mare that looked strong and eager. She reminded him a little of Glancer.

“I’ve gotta get out of here, I’ve just gotta,” Malloy said. “My mom and dad, they’re not very . . . Well, to be honest, I don’t think they’ll find me without some help. Luke’s sure they will and I always agree with him, but I kind of only do that because I can tell it cheers him up. The truth is, my mom and dad couldn’t find their way out of a paper bag.”

Devin didn’t say anything. He watched the sun dip behind the trees and the golden rumps of the horses and the long, whistling grass.

“Luke says there’s a control box in the Administrator’s office,” Malloy went on.

“He told me about that,” Devin said.

“She wears the key for it around her neck. I bet it controls the laser posts.” Malloy paused. “We’d have to get that key, but how? And even if we did, Luke says for sure there’s a code we’d need to know before we could disarm the posts . . .” His voice trailed off.

Devin had never seen him so serious. He’d thought Malloy couldn’t be serious to save his life.

“Guess I’m just gonna have to fly out of here,” Malloy said, grinning suddenly. “Have to lose some weight, though.” He patted his stomach. “Never going to get liftoff with this belly.

“I tell you what,” he went on. “When I do get out of here, I’m taking that bird with me.”

“Bird?”

“That parrot of hers.” Malloy clenched his fists. “Poor thing. Poor tatty old thing. Why does she have to treat it like that?”

“She hates failure,” Devin said. “She told me that when I saw her on my second day here. I think she keeps the bird to scare us. To show us that she’s never going to stop punishing anything or anyone who disappoints her.”

“Nah,” Malloy said. “I think she just likes hurting things. When I get out of here, I’m taking that bird and I’m going to the jungle where it came from and I’m letting it go free. Won’t that be great?”

Devin nodded, smiling.

“I can just see it now,” Malloy said. “Me and that bird in the jungle . . . all the animals everywhere . . . kind of like heaven.”

“But where is the jungle?” Devin asked.

Malloy paused in his reverie. “Not sure,” he admitted. “But wherever it is, I’m gonna find it.”

Malloy had left, and Devin stood alone by the gate, watching the sunset. He was so still, the piebald mare grew curious and wandered over, pushing her head toward him. Devin stepped onto the first rung of the gate and leaned over to pet her nose. She was wearing her bridle, and without thinking, moving automatically, he took it in one hand, climbed to the top of the gate, and slipped quickly and easily onto her back. She startled slightly and half wheeled, and he leaned forward to pat her neck, whispering to her. He nudged his heels against her sides and she took off at once, with a long stride that in seconds had become a gallop.

They raced around the large meadow, the wind whipping Devin’s hair. Faster and faster they went. He thought if he went fast enough he could outrun the memory of his bad dreams and that terrible word
spoiled
and all that it meant. And for a while, with the blurred trees roaring as they flashed past and the sky ringing golden and his heart thundering to the beat of the mare’s hooves on the dry earth, for a little while it really felt as though he might.

Sixteen

THERE WAS A NEW
sense of tension in the Home. Perhaps it was all the recent rules or perhaps it was the sight of the Administrator herself. Before, she had mostly kept to herself in the tower, but now she seemed to be everywhere, checking the work of the gardeners, inspecting the kitchen, circling the courtyard with a narrowed eye as if judging the angle of the buildings themselves. She had also started carrying Darwin around on her shoulder. Darwin looked worse than ever, more like a clot pulled out of a filthy drain than a bird. Perhaps, since her father’s visit to the Home, it was even more important to remind everyone what would happen if they failed her. Or perhaps Malloy was right and she simply enjoyed tormenting the creature.

Mrs. Babbage tagged along behind. She kept nodding, her hands fluttering with anxiety as the Administrator issued orders.

“This is not up to standard, Babbage!” the Administrator said, her words carrying the length of the dining hall. “I simply won’t have it. Sort it out!”

Kit had also changed since Devin had been in the Dream. She was quieter, her fierceness turned inward, and Devin noticed that she no longer asked as many questions as before. He found her in her room the next day before breakfast. She was lying on her stomach on the floor. Arranged around her were items from the dollhouse. There were a lot of them; Devin had no idea that she’d stolen such a vast hoard.

In addition to the tea service, her collection now included three lamps; a table; a vase of flowers; a harp which, though tiny, still had all its strings; a perfectly formed, real crystal chandelier; two oil paintings no larger than a fingernail; a desk; a trunk with a minuscule lock; a four-poster bed; a violin with a bow the size of a needle; and eight chairs with velvet seats and curly wooden backs.