It’s 5:59 when Ronnie decides to close. Tess and her brothers are still arguing over the display games, but their tired mother will be here soon, apologizing and promising to be on time tomorrow. It’s a gentle little fiction, and the gratitude in her face warms him. It’s been a heavy January.
He crutches out to the door and sees first that the frost has melted, second that the sun is just barely still up. Ronnie flips the sign and remembers the picture of Solstice in his almanac: every day, from here on out, it’ll be bright a little bit longer.
Tuesday, January 13, 2004
Rikki shucks out of the jumpsuit, which won’t help if things go badly. She pops an ampule and spills yellow silt into one hand. If Canard’s wrong, she’s dead. If he’s right, it’ll dice her pheromones into something resembling a spineback’s: a label saying Don’t Eat, Not Worth The Trouble. She starts smearing.
Up a tree, over a wall–easy, but Rakshasa’s got better defenses. One long limb bows and suddenly Rikki sees them. Orange. Black. Shimmer like heat haze.
The first one notices her, scents the air: here’s the test. Rikki holds her breath, a strange Daniel, naked among tigers.
Wednesday, January 14, 2004
Connor can pick out gray in Angelique’s hair as she tugs on jeans: it’s the only clue to her age. He’s still intrigued by the receptivity of her conversation. He took it for youth or naïvete, once, but he’s since found layers of perception and emotional control in her that he can’t yet approach.
She’s eight years his senior. He tries that phrase out–it sounds strange, inapplicable. Eight years his señorita. His señor. Connor watches Angelique’s back by lamplight and remembers bilingual Mass with her, italic verses in the hymnal, his surprise at calling God the word that means Mister.
Thursday, January 15, 2004
Funny, thinks Amy, how “scrubby” has come to mean “unscrubbed.” She really has no business among humans right now–no shower, no shave, IU sweatpants, hair yanked through a hat and feet in dusty thongs. Oh, and commando.
She holds it together, though, through the day’s two lectures. Leaving, she snags in a traffic jam near the gym’s entrance. Somebody’s holding a green towel, somebody else a peeled orange.
Memory. It’s 1995, dark outside, he’s a towel an orange and she feels dirty–wrong–excited–
Amy’s sweating, suddenly disconcerted; she hurries on, uncomfortably aware of the brush-brush of her secret thighs.
The door slams, the light goes, and Kipeli turns to swing the weighted end of the chain straight. He’s actually paying it out, link by link; it’s far too fast for him to count, but easy for his fingers. They’ll tell him when it’s far enough.
Half a second later, they do. Kipeli stops the pay of chain, snaps a wrist and sends a spiral wave down its length. The spinning weight hits something with terrifying speed, and there’s a muffled scream. He jerks it back: another one.
One ninja down, he thinks, smiling in the dark. Probably six to go.
It’s been an odd week but still he’s known Aunt Drew (“not really but we’ve always called her”) since forever and it was good to see her, after all. She’s memories of museums and cats, books on long car rides.
She hugs Grey, then Mom, waves from a window. Her mouth is set in a thin line as the train pulls away. “She always cries,” says Mom, sighing, “whenever one of us leaves.”
Grey understands, suddenly, that Aunt Drew is in love with his mother. That she has been for years. That Mom knows. That neither will ever say a word.
Wednesday, January 21, 2004
“We must be in Scranton,” says Rick urgently, “in half an hour.” It’s a two-hour trip. They all know this.
“Be ready in five minutes,” says Slone, calm through static.
Two minutes later Rick and Carey are out the door; Thom kicks it shut behind him and lunges out into the road, where he barely halts himself in time. A roaring Alpine White Eldorado whiptails a U-turn around him and brakes. Thom stares through the windshield as an expressionless Slone whips off his sunglasses, revealing another pair of sunglasses underneath.
Thom feels a sudden wild hope: they just might make it!
Thursday, January 22, 2004
Curtis rakes with a sullen determination, enjoying the way his hands blister on the handle. Stupid orthodontist. Stupid Mom. Stupid no money, stupid retainer, stupid deal, what are they trying to teach him? He can’t help losing things.
Doctor Rubin’s house is really too big, and hollow inside. There’s not enough stuff to go around. Curtis knows stories from other braces-bound kids, about how Mrs. Rubin sat down in the bathtub two years ago and dropped the hair dryer in too. He wonders where that bathroom is. He kind of has to pee, but he decides, on balance, to hold it.
“No,” says Cassie, “I’m keeping it. I still want to teach–I’d rather not be Professor Stoner.”
They share a laugh, and Clara thinks it’s going fine when she says “Well, you could hyphenate them, then you’d be–”
And freezes. Cassie’s last name. She can’t remember it. Every microsecond she spends panicking makes this more obvious, which makes her panic harder. She desperately wants an out, a blatantly dumb one-liner like you’d hear in a movie directed by Bob Saget. Bob Saget in a canvas chair, wearing glasses, honestly, who’s he think he’s kidding?
“Penrose-Stoner!” she gasps, saved by distraction.
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
Hawser says something Brie can’t understand. “What?” she asks impatiently, tired of carrying the pack. “Help me up!”
She takes the hand he offers, kicks up the side of the ledge, and as her head comes over the rise she sees splintered light. The sun glitters on a thousand yards of plastic, glass and steel.
“That’s–is that?” she gasps. “It is!”
“The Secret Telephone Booth Burial Ground,” says Hawser gravely. “And we found it, Brie.”
“So many still look intact,” she whispers. “Just think. You could fit twenty-five people in each one…”
“And then,” says Hawser, nodding, “to outer space!”