The One Safe Place (19 page)

Kit was staring raptly at something in the palm of her hand when Devin came in. She held it out for him to see. It was a tiny box with a glass lid, containing several rows of real shells, none larger than the head of a pin.

“Can you believe it?” she said. “It’s a collection inside a collection . . .”

Devin wondered why she’d taken so many things. After all, she could have played with them in the dollhouse whenever she wanted. He sat down on the bed, rubbing his head. He hadn’t slept much the night before.

“Kit,” he said. “When you . . . came back . . . did you worry you’d have the same dreams? That they’d follow you even though you were back to normal?”

Kit shrugged slightly. She lowered her head so her chin was resting on the floor and her eyes were level with the dollhouse furniture.

“My granddad said if you want to dream of something good, you just think about it really hard before you fall asleep. I’ve been trying to do that, but I’m worried it won’t work and instead I’ll dream about—”

Kit interrupted him. “You know what’s amazing? If you get down low like this and kind of squint your eyes, you can almost imagine all this stuff is life size. You can see how it would be if it was real, if you lived in a house with it all around you. And nobody would punish you if it got lost or broken because there was so much of it.”

“I guess so,” Devin said uncertainly. He looked down at his hands. “It’s just that if I can’t stop thinking about the bad dreams, then I’ll dream them again, won’t I? Even if I’m trying to think about good stuff like the farm and Granddad . . .”

Kit jerked to her knees abruptly. “Stop talking about it, then!” Her face was pinched with anger. “The trouble with you is that you need to grow up!”

Devin stared at her. Kit got to her feet and smoothed her dress down, her hands agitated. “Sorry for telling the truth,” she said furiously, catching sight of his wounded expression. “But it’s not about sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. It’s about doing what it takes.”

“What it takes?”

“To get adopted.”

“To maybe get adopted,” Devin said.

“Why maybe? It happened to Ansel. You saw his photo, didn’t you?”

Devin nodded. They had all been to the Common Room to look at the photo of Ansel. In the picture he was sitting at a table with two women who, although old, were still beautiful. One had silvery hair that fell to her shoulders in luxurious waves. The other was wearing a white skirt and held a tennis racquet. Behind them, slightly out of focus, there was a shelf with what looked like several trophies, large and golden.

Lucky Ansel, Devin had thought. He’s gone to a sporting family.

But as Devin had looked from Ansel’s face to the faces of the women and back again, something tugged at the back of his mind, a vague sense of oddness. He frowned—he couldn’t decide what it was. Perhaps it was simply that the last time Devin had seen Ansel, he’d seemed so dazed and shattered. But in the picture there was no sign of it. He looked strong and happy again.

“It happened to Ansel,” Kit repeated. “And it will happen to us too. But you’ve got to get tough, Devin. You’ve got to do what it takes.”

Mrs. Babbage was in the dining room at breakfast with pencils and paper and a bunch of cloth bags slung over her arm. She stood by the door with a frazzled look on her face.

“I’ve worked very hard on this . . . it’s all set up . . . ,” she muttered as she distributed the bags and papers.

Malloy was busy demolishing a plateful of French toast as Mrs. Babbage passed by and handed him a bag.

“Thanks, Mrs. Cabbage!”

She stopped uncertainly. “I don’t think I heard that,” she said.

Malloy chewed and swallowed. He grinned. “I just wanted to say thanks, but my mouth was full. Sorry to be rude, Mrs. Cabbage.”

Mrs. Babbage looked even more uncertain. She glanced around. Luke, Devin, and Kit were staring at her with completely straight faces.

“My hearing must be going. Never mind,” she said, and went on her way. Devin couldn’t help grinning, although he thought it was perhaps a little cruel to mock Mrs. Babbage. She couldn’t help it if she wasn’t very clever.

Luke was looking at the paper Mrs. Babbage had handed him. It was a list of all the things they were supposed to go find on the scavenger hunt.

“Three stars, a four-leaf clover,” he read. “Five things with eyes (humans not included!), six blue objects that are also circular, something beginning with the letter
Q,
something that rattles, three yellow things that are rectangular or square . . .” He groaned. “This is going to take hours.”

He was interrupted by the clap of Mrs. Babbage’s hands as she called for order.

“You will do the scavenger hunt in pairs,” she announced. “Partners have been assigned. I have the list here.”

Devin’s heart sank. He knew it was too much to expect he would be paired with one of his friends, and sure enough, he wasn’t.

“Luke and Karen,” Mrs. Babbage announced, going down the list. “Malloy and Megs, Missie and Pavel, Kit and Jared . . .”

He was going to get a kid in the Dream, he knew it. A whole day spent trying not to look at or hear or even notice some kid acting strange. Now that he’d been in the Dream himself, now that he’d gone through the whole awful thing, he could barely glance at someone else going through it without feeling sick. Please, anyone but a kid in the Dream, he thought. Anyone . . .

It wasn’t a kid in the Dream. It was worse.

“Devin and Roman,” Mrs. Babbage said.

Everyone trailed out of the dining room except for Roman and Devin.

“You going to carry the bag or should I?” Roman said.

“You carry your own bag,” Devin said.

Roman pushed back his chair and stood up. He looked at his watch.

“Better get started. It’s going to take a while.”

“Not really. It’s obvious where everything is.”

Curiosity flickered in Roman’s pale eyes.

“Are you going to be like this all day?” he asked.

“Like what?”

“Like you’d rather die than talk to me.” He paused. “I know what the other kids call me. They call me Traitor. Is that what you call me too?”

Devin had heard Roman called that and worse. The kids at the Home shared a passion in their dislike of him. Vanessa never failed to stare at him as he passed, her eyes narrowing malevolently. Devin had seen one boy actually spit at him. Even Malloy joked about feeding him to Fulsome, though as Luke pointed out, Fulsome would probably turn up his snout in disgust. Nobody could forget that it was Roman who had lured them there with his talk of good food and endless play. The worst of it was that Roman himself knew what it was like to be in the Dream. He’d been there himself. Vanessa had told Devin all about it.

“Roman’s been five times. That’s what I heard,” she had said. “I keep count.”

“Of everyone?”

She nodded. “Yes. Five times for Roman. Megs is fourteen times. That’s because she looks so babyish.”

“Really?”

“Oh, yes, didn’t you know? The younger you look, the more times you have to go.”

She paused, brushing her curled hair away from her face with a careful, ladylike gesture. “I seem older than I am,” she told him. “Don’t you think so?”

Luke had wondered why Vanessa always acted so mean. Now Devin thought he knew.

“Yes,” he said kindly. “Yes, a little.”

“A lot,” she corrected. “In fact, I don’t look like a kid at all. I don’t act like one, either.”

Roman had been in the Dream five times. So he knew how bad it was. But he kept bringing kids back from the city. Maybe he’d made a deal with the Administrator, Devin thought. Maybe if he brought enough new kids in, he wouldn’t have to go to the Place anymore himself.

In that case, he really was a traitor. Not that Devin would ever say it out loud.

He looked away. “I don’t call you anything at all,” he said truthfully.

Roman’s mouth twisted. “No,” he said. “No, you wouldn’t. You’re too good for that.”

Devin wondered whether he was making fun of him, but Roman wasn’t smiling.

“Come on,” Devin said, a little roughly. “Let’s get this over with.” He looked at the list Mrs. Babbage had given him and then closed his eyes. It was easier to see the map in his head when his eyes were closed. He waited and sure enough, the colors and shapes swam into view, growing clearer as his mental gaze ranged over the intricate pattern of the Home. At last they were all in focus.

“There’s a soccer ball with stars on it in the shed . . . ,” he told Roman, “blue plates in the dining room . . . plus a blue Frisbee also in the shed, a pack of yellow playing cards in the common room on the shelf under the books . . . Needles have eyes, don’t they? There are some in the drawer also in the common room.”

Roman let his breath out in a soft whistle of surprise but said nothing.

After half an hour, although all the other kids were still searching, Devin and Roman had found almost everything on the list. The only thing left was the four-leaf clover. Roman said there was a big clump of them on the hill in the small meadow.

“I know because she told me once.”

Devin knew without having to ask, who “she” was. No doubt “she” and Roman had many little cozy chats, he thought. He walked faster, longing to be done with the hunt and Roman’s company.

There must have been thousands and thousands of four-leaf clovers growing in the clump on the top of the hill. In fact, there was nothing but four-leaf clovers there. Devin bent down and picked one and thrust it into his bag. Done. He turned to leave.

“She wanted them so she had them planted,” Roman said in a low voice. He plucked a handful, closing his fist tight around the green sprigs. “Kind of misses the whole point of finding one, doesn’t it?” He glanced at Devin. “Four-leaf clovers are only lucky because they’re rare. Plant a whole clump and they’re just weeds.” His fist opened and the clovers fell.

“I’m going back,” Devin said. “We’ve found everything.”

“I was a bit like you once,” Roman said abruptly. “People thought well of me. I used to go to school. It wasn’t a great school but it had a baseball team.”

Devin didn’t know why Roman was telling him this or why he should stay to listen. But there was a strange look on Roman’s face. At first Devin thought he was angry.

“I played catcher,” Roman said in a tight, hard voice. “You know what a catcher is?”

Devin shook his head.

“The catcher has to have a lightning arm and an even faster mind,” Roman said. “He has to know the whole game inside and out, and he can never relax because he’s involved in every single play. The pitcher might get more attention, but it’s the catcher who’s the true leader. He’s got everyone’s back, and from where he stands, he can see the whole field.”

He paused. “I was the best catcher that school had ever had.”

He spoke so seriously and so sadly that Devin almost felt sorry for him.

“Why did you do it, then?” he said sharply. “Why did you become a traitor?”

Roman’s face lost all expression. His pale eyes gazed blankly down the little slope.

“I guess everyone has their price,” he said.

Seventeen

DEVIN AND KIT HAD
been at the Home for nearly two weeks now, although it seemed much longer. The days blurred into each other and it was hard to keep track of the time. Some of the kids knew how long they had been there, others appeared to have lost all sense of the weeks and months. Luke didn’t seem to think that anyone had been there much longer than a year, apart from Roman and Megs. Nobody knew when they’d arrived.