"We have his death certificate and all our doc.u.ments."
"You can"t take the chance of getting caught for kidnapping."
"We are not leaving you."
"I"ll have another chance, Max. My family has money. I"m almost sixteen. By summer I could have my own car. I can drive myself across the border."
"Summer? Dallas, we"ve been doing this for eight weeks and we"re barely hanging on. How are you ever going to make it through another six months?"
"I can do it. I"m good at it."
"You"re falling apart! You"ll have nothing left when I"m gone."
He shoulders his pack. "I can do it, Max. I still have my thoughts. I just can"t say them out loud. I still have my feelings. I just can"t show them. I still have all the things that used to matter. They"re inside me. They can"t take that away."
I smack his arm. "Yes, they can! They can take anything away! They just took everything from Ally. They took it from Pepper and Xavier. And they sure took it from Tyler Wilkins, didn"t they? If they get their hands on you, Dallas, you will line up and ask them to take those things away."
"Shh!" Mom peeks into the living room, half asleep. "Keep your voices down. Is everything all right?"
"Fine, Mrs. Connors. I"m just leaving." Dallas waits till she"s gone, then whispers, "I"ll be caught at the border. And I don"t want to be caught, Max. I don"t want to take that chance. I cannot take the stress of hoping for something that"s not going to happen. I"d rather stay here and be hopeless. Then I might be able to hang on."
"To what?"
He doesn"t answer. He just leaves.
Mom stomps back in, ready to give us h.e.l.l for keeping her awake. She softens when she sees my face. "What"s wrong?"
"Dallas is scared to come. He thinks he"ll get caught."
She nods. "It"s risky."
She holds up her hand to stop me from interrupting, but I interrupt anyway. "Maybe we should all stay," I say. "What if things are worse in Canada? Isn"t that a theme through historya"people go off in search of a better land but they end up in some nightmare and wish they"d never left in the first place?"
"There"s also the theme of people going off in search of a better land and finding a better land."
"But if we"re the only onesa""
"You"re not." She takes my face in her hands. "There is a whole world out there full of normal children, Max. We think because we"re trapped here that this is our only choice, but it"s not. We"ll be okay. Like you said, I"m a nurse. I can find work. We can go anywhere." She kisses my forehead. "We can"t stay here for Dallas."
"You"re leaving him?"
"No." She nods as she repeats the word. "No."
"I won"t leave him, Mom. The teachers and his father? I won"t leave him to that. We"re taking Dallas or we"re not going."
Montgomery limps into history cla.s.s wearing a crisp white shirt under his gray uniform. His right arm hangs limp at his side, no rings or dangling bracelets. He holds his neck stiffly, head c.o.c.ked to the right, the muscles of his face pulled tight, partially paralyzed. I"ve seen a few kids like that since the shots. I think it"s temporary.
Mr. Reese looks up and follows Montgomery with sad dark eyes. Mr. Reese is a mess of sighs and pauses and coffee stains these days. The cla.s.sroom tiles are spattered with French roast from the door to his desk. He arrives early every morning and projects his instructions so he doesn"t have to hear his voice shake while he speaks. He used to be my favorite teacher and I guess he still is, but that"s not saying much. Every time I look up, he"s on the verge of tears, his eyes fixed on one of us, swimming in memories of better days. There"s no outrage in his gaze. No pet.i.tion, no protest, no hand up for clarification. Just a dull resignation. Like my mother must have shown when she first started drugging her patients. Sad but self-interested, waiting on a bright side.
I can"t think of a single adult that I admire.
"Please begin item one," Mr. Reese says quietly. "Keep your voices low, please." He does a lot of unnecessary begging.
We"re supposed to pair up and ask review questions. I turn to Dallas, who sits in the row beside me. He looks away from me and taps Brennan"s shoulder. "I need a partner," he says.
Brennan glances at me for a moment before he nods, rises, straddles the back of his seat. He and Dallas stare into their RIGs and murmur answers to each other. They look like they were born best friendsa"obvious ultimates, worlds away from me, rich and tall and smart.
Next thing I know, Mr. Reese is beside me, his bitter breath falling on my face. "Max, you seem to be the odd man out."
I almost laugh. "That is true, sir. That has always been true."
Mr. Reese frowns on me. "I"ll do the review with you if you like. Come up to my desk."
I hate the murmur of voices in the room. I tug on my ears and fold the cartilage against my skull so all I can hear is a dull drowning rush. My face tingles and burns. It launches into spasms I can"t control. My eyes blink and tear. My nose itches. My tongue travels inside my mouth, pushing over my teeth, under my lips, against my cheeks, poking around like something trapped and desperate.
"Are you all right?" Mr. Reese asks.
It feels like bugs are living in my eyebrows. My skin crawls with them, and I have a sudden compulsion to peel it off. I rub my face, and the itch spreads up through my hair and down the back of my neck, across my shoulders, along my forearms, between my fingers. I can"t stop clawing at myself.
Mr. Reese grabs my wrists with his pale sweaty hands. "Stop, Max, stop!"
I can"t stand the smell of him. I yank myself out of his grip and jump to my feet. "Don"t touch me!"
He reaches out like he wants to hug me.
I shove him away, and he slams into the wall. "Don"t touch me!" I shriek.
I stumble between the crowded desks, out of the cla.s.sroom, down the empty hallway. The only sounds are my heels. .h.i.tting tile and my breath coming sharp. I pa.s.s lockers, cameras, corridors lined with photos of previous graduating cla.s.ses. I walk by the receptionist and the guard and out through the doors of the school. My skin chills and trembles in the cold air, but I"m hot and throbbing inside. I need to run.
I tear away from the school into a maze of gray suburban streets. I run them hard, trying to focus on my breath and the soothing swing of my arms and legs. When I reach the Spartan my legs tremble, my gut rolls, my cheeks tingle. I double over and vomit on the dead gra.s.s beside the entrance. Milky puke burns through me and splatters onto my shoes. I retch again and again until my gut aches and my eyes stream and screaming gobs of phlegm are all that come out of me.
I hork and spit. I can"t stand the smell of myself. I"m sour and rotten and shaking with cold. I straighten my spine and look around. I"m alone, brown and gray in a brown and gray landscape.
I break three branches off a cedar shrub and lay them over my vomit in a damaged attempt to cover the sight and smell of it. I wipe my hands on the soft creases of my pants and walk into the Spartan, up the stairs, down the stale hallway to my door.
I shower for twenty minutes and brush my teeth twice, then lie down in bed, naked under the covers. It feels too exposed, so I get up and dress. It"s so quiet. I might be the only person in the whole building.
I empty the pockets of my uniform and stuff it in a laundry bag. I check my RIG.
Already there"s a message from the princ.i.p.al about my outburst, a copy of an official letter to my mother. It informs her that I"m suspended for two days and that "any more unexceptable behavior will lead to expulsion." Seriously, that"s how he spells it. A kid could choke to death on irony.
Mom hands me a large black wallet. "This is Cheyenne Connors, your new half-brother."
A sixteen-year-old boy with long black bangs and big blue eyes scowls from a pa.s.sport. He"s six-foot-two, one-hundred-and-seventy pounds. I know the kida"he"s a footballer from New Middletown Southeast Secondary School, home of the Blue Mountain Devils.
"He doesn"t look much like Dallas," I say.
Mom s.n.a.t.c.hes the pa.s.sport from my hands. "They"re the same height, same weight. We can ask Celeste to make up Dallas"s nose and mouth."
"And the birth certificate? Can we put Dad"s name on it?"
"I don"t have a birth certificate. It wasn"t in his wallet. We"ll have to take Daddy"s pa.s.sport and death certificate and be prepared to lie."
I"m in suspended isolation for the next two days. No one posts anything anymorea"no journals, gossip, news, snapshots, nothing but school announcements. I don"t want to return to cla.s.ses but I hate being disconnected. Dallas won"t answer my coded messages. We"re supposed to leave on Sat.u.r.day.
I"m unsettled in the apartment by myself. I hear noises in the hallway, creaks and murmurs when no one is out there. Yesterday a woman laughed so loud I thought she was in the kitchen. She stood across the hall rummaging in her handbag for a key. I watched her through the peephole. Middle-aged and sagging, with dyed blond hair and a black suit she must have bought when she was thinner. She spoke to a younger woman projected on the wall. "Oh my G.o.d, what a b.u.g.g.e.r!" she yelled, indifferent to the camera and my eyes. "No kidding. They"re all the same."
I"ve looked and listened for her today. I don"t know why.
I check out the Freakshow tryouts, but there"s no one who interests me. I wish they"d bring back Zipperhead.
I do homework and lift weights until I"m bored senseless. I work up the nerve to visit Xavier.
He answers the door himself.
"Xavier? I almost didn"t recognize you."
His hair is cut short. He wears white jeans and a blue shirt with a Western motif down the chest. He looks twenty years old, serious, handsome, clean-cut and well rested.
"Hey, Max!" Celeste calls from the living room. She sits on a couch covered in throw blankets, a RIG in her hand. "It"s so nice to see you. I"m in a meeting, but come and keep us company."
Xavier steps aside to let me pa.s.s. He smells like cheap hand soap, a dusting of baby powder over lye. "It"s good to see you," I tell him.
"Thank you." His eyes zoom in on me. He doesn"t smile, doesn"t sparkle.
"You know who I am, right?"
"Yes, of course. You"re Maxwell Connors."
"Good. Royal. You"re doing all right? You look healthier."
"Yes, thank you."
"You cut your hair."
"A man should wear short hair."
I smile. "You"re sixteen, Xavier."
"Yes. I had a birthday recently."
I nod. "Mine"s on Sat.u.r.day."
He couldn"t care less. "I need to do my homework now," he says. He leaves me on my own, sits at a little white desk in the corner, posture perfect on a tall pine chair.
"Xavier"s going back to academic school after the holidays!" Celeste shouts over her RIG. "His body chemistry just needed time to harmonize. Thank G.o.d. We were so worried. But the new patch works great."
I lean on the sagging back of the couch and look over her shoulder. A color wheel and four faces float above her RIG. "What"s your meeting?"
"College yearbook club." She points at me. "You could help with the design! You"re such a good artist."
I straighten up, unsure if she"s serious, unsure if she"s been treated. She gabs to her friends about the color of stars and spirals in the yearbook sidebars. I stand there, awkward and ignored, hands in my pockets, smiling for no reason.
The room is furnished with odds and endsa"gla.s.s coffee table, pine end tables, black plastic cabinet in the corner. An abstract art print hangs, black and pink, on one wall beside a huge brown Leonardo in an ornate frame. The place smells like bacon grease and disinfectant. It"s crazy, like their family.
Xavier"s eyes and fingers whip across his screen twice as fast as a normal person"s.
"What are you working on?" I ask.
He stiffens, unhappy with my interruption. "It"s a translation."
"He translated a whole book last week from English to Russian," Celeste boasts. "Now he"s doing it in Spanish. It"s his new obsession."
"What book?" I ask. "Can I see?"
Xavier sighs.
I hover over his shoulder. When he looks around, I hop to his other side just to bug him. I lean into his RIG. "I never knew you read poetry."
He shifts his chair away from me. "It"s an English poem from a Sumerian text. I"m translating it into Spanish."
"Gilgamesh?"
He"s surprised I know it. He looks from me to the screen and back.
I shrug. "How many Sumerian poems are there?"
"There are many Sumerian poems."
I laugh. "I didn"t know that. But Gilgamesh is famous. Pepper rewrote it in Communications last year. What part are you at?"
"I"m half finished."
"What part in the story?"
"It"s a poem."
"Is his friend dead yet? I liked his friend better than him." I read the English half of Xavier"s screen. "Oh, this part. This is sad." Gilgamesh is in a tunnel, without a friend in the world, and he has to crawl for hours in total darkness to get to the other side. He"s lonely and scared and he wants to give up. I sigh, shake my head, mutter, "I"ve been there."
"No you haven"t," Xavier says. "It"s from the Middle East."
I smile. "Yeah, but we"ve all been there."
He squirms on his chair. "No, we haven"t."
"Don"t agitate him!" Celeste hisses at me.
"Sorry. It"s a metaphor."