All Good Children Part 21

She's much stronger than I expect. It's like trying to hold a baboon. She writhes and kicks and screams. "Peanut! Peanut!" She throws her head back into my face and smashes my teeth with her skull. She kicks her legs up and over the fence and falls to the other side. She screams and stumbles across the poisoned ground.

"Quiet, Ally, please!" I look around frantically to make sure no one's watching.

She drops to her knees beside the nearest squirrel. She runs from carca.s.s to carca.s.s, touching them, turning them over, whimpering.

It takes me thirty seconds to climb the fence. The plastic stretches and sways beneath my feet. I flip and land on my shoulder. "Stop it!" I whisper when I reach her.

She's at the bottom of the oak tree, wailing like a siren, holding a dead squirrel in her hands. Snot hangs from her nose to her chin and her whole body shudders. I drop beside her, hug her, shush her.

The squirrel's eyes are open and glazed. Its mouth is twisted, a hardened cadmium ooze collected in the corners. Its belly is bloated, its front paws locked together like it tried to push something away. It didn't die easy. "Is that her?" I ask.

Ally looks at me desperately, and I know she can't tell one squirrel from another now. Whatever made Peanut recognizable is gone. "Yes," she says because she needs that much to hold on to. "It's Peanut. Poor Peanut." She leans her face in like she's going to kiss the thing, but I yank her head back. She can hate me, I don't care, but she's not going near that yellow ooze.

"She's poison, Ally. You can't keep touching her."

She pets the squirrel's head and cries.

"We have to get out of here." I pull her up beside me and she drops the squirrel. It falls straight and stiff from her hand to the ground and bounces on the dirt. She screams.

I hug her to my chest, hard enough to cover her mouth. "It's okay," I whisper. "Just leave her."

"No," she moans. "We have to bury her."

"No way. The ground's too hard."

"We have to!"

"Okay. We'll take her home first. I'll get her." I cup my hand under the dead squirrel. It's so soft and light, it feels hollow. I never realized how small Peanut was. Her whole body almost fits in my hand. The tail falls softly across my wrist.

"Is she dead?" Ally asks.

"Yeah. Yeah, she's dead. We'll find a box to bury her in tomorrow when it's light." I boost Ally over the fence and scramble after her. I tuck the squirrel in one arm like a football and keep my sister close with the other, trying to block her sorrow from the eyes and cameras that surround us.

Ally sleeps with a dried string of snot across her cheek, her hands bandaged, her hair flattened against her temple, her teddy bear stuffed in an armpit.

I walk to the lobby to tell Lucas that my sister is ill. I stop cold when I see Xavier waiting. Watching him beat up a teacher didn't unsettle me half as much as seeing him in a group of throwaways.

He stares at the ceiling, moves his head left and right like he's comparing acoustic tiles. His hair is pulled back. There are purple bags beneath his eyes and red nicks and sc.r.a.pes along his jaw as if he shaved with his fingernails. He's lost weight. He's lost intensity. He's so dim he's almost a ghost.

"h.e.l.lo, Max," Lucas says. "I'm pleased to see your ankle is better."

For a second I don't know what he's talking about. I look at my foot. "Oh. Yes. My mom's a nurse," I say, like she can cure sprains instantly. "I'm sorry to tell you that Ally's sick today with a bad cold so I'll be staying home with her."

"That's a shame," Lucas says. "Especially since your mom's a nurse."

I avoid his eyes. "h.e.l.lo, Xavier," I say. "I have a belated birthday gift for youa"I'm almost done it."

He smiles in my direction, unfocussed, unhealthy.

I turn around and head for the stairs.

"We'll see Ally tomorrow!" Lucas shouts. I don't answer.

I read my sister stories until she falls asleep. Then I sit in my tent under a blaze of colorful children. I spray-paint the exterior walls with one word repeated in capitals, wrapped around the corners without any breaks: WITHSTANDWITH STANDWITHSTANDWITHSTAND.

Celeste comes over the next morning to stay with Ally. Xavier clings to her hand with both of his. His hair hangs in wet waves and smells of strawberries.

"Is he sick?" I ask. "I mean, with a cold or something?"

She shakes her head. "He got in a fight at school and ran away. We're home-schooling him now. It's either that or an inst.i.tution for the uneducable."

"Uneducable?" I've seen Xavier build robots and hack into government networks.

She walks her brother to the couch and helps him sit.

He holds his neck at an odd angle and wears a pained expression that smoothes into emptiness when she turns on the big screen.

"Where's your tent?" she asks.

I point to a huge pile of canvas beside the door. "I have to take it in for the exhibit. I'm giving it to Xavier afterward."

"Really? Why?"

I shrug. "I don't know what else to do."

We run laps in the bitter sunshine during gym cla.s.s. Coach Emery asks for volunteers to clean out the football trailer at lunch. Every student raises a hand. He chooses me, Dallas and Brennan.

The trailer is a reeking mess, with discarded clothes smelling up the corners and busted pads wedged under the benches. The walls are smeared with dirt and sweat and unidentifiable body fluids. The coach gives us a garbage can, a bag of rags, and three bottles of disinfectant. "Do a good job." He nods toward the surveillance camera in the corner. "I'll know if you don't."

They installed cameras in the change rooms a few years ago. There was some concern about privacy, but a damaged a.s.sault during a football game hushed it up. It's hard to imagine public safety without surveillance. So somebody sees you naked. If it keeps people from raping and murdering you, what's to argue? At least that's what I thought before the treatments.

I act like a zombie janitor in the trailer, partly because of the camera and partly because Dallas and I haven't had a real conversation with Brennan since the vaccinations and I'm scared this is a trap. When we've scrubbed the place clean, Brennan checks the time and says to me, "Why don't you go outside and ask my father if anything else needs to be done?"

The coach is waiting for me around the back of the trailer. "Good work, Connors," he says loudly. He pulls me close and whispers, "I advise you to get out of town as soon as you can."

It's just not right to hear a football coach whisper. I squirm away.

"I'm serious," he says. "Arlington Richmond doesn't think you were properly vaccinated. He says there's something wrong with the way you laugh."

"I didn't know I laughed anymore."

"He recommended revaccinating you. Graham is hedging because overdoses are dangerous. He'll probably do it after the holidays."

He talks like that's just around the corner, but three weeks is an eternity these days.

"Suffice it to say that your teachers are going to keep a close watch on you until then," he says. "And you're not going to pa.s.s scrutiny. Feelings pa.s.s over your face all the time. You mutter to yourself when you think you're alone. Your eyes gleam from ten yards away."

"Should I wear contacts?"

"It's no joke, Connors." He takes my head in his hands and shakes it like he's trying to rattle a ball of truth into the right hole. "They'll never let your mother give you the next shot. They are suspicious. There won't be any warning. You understand me? You have to get out before the decision is made."

"We are getting out. But we need a car."

"So buy one from the carpark. I know your mother's not rich, but she must have something tucked away. A small car that works is cheaper than a van that doesn't."

"Are you going? Are you taking Brennan?"

"We're holding tight for now."

"Is it true that the top student in each cla.s.s didn't get the treatment?" I ask.

He lowers his eyes and mumbles, "They don't know how permanent the effects might be. They know they're going to need some critical thinkers once you kids are in college soa""

"So they saved the cream of the crop," I finish.

"This is not a policy I agree with, Connors," he whispers.

"We're taking Dallas with us," I tell him.

I expect him to say that we're sentimental, that times are tough and we'll need our resources for ourselves, it's a dog-eat-zombie world. But he says, "Then you better head for Canada or Mexico. Because starting January first, every child in this country will need to show their id whenever anyone asks for it, and there's no way that boy is going to be able to hide from his father."

I'm called to the office at two o'clock. My name blasts over the intercom. Dallas stiffens in the row beside me. I plan to make a run for it.

Mr. Reese looks up at the speaker and back to me with a worried frown. His face relaxes when he checks his watch. "It's time to take your work to the art exhibit, Max."

Two girls wait in the backseat of the princ.i.p.al's car, clutching black leather portfolio cases. I lean my rolled-up tent against the trunk.

"What on earth is that thing?" Mr. Graham asks me.

"It's my exhibit."

He stares at me, scowling, but eventually he opens the trunk.

I sit in the front seat, empty-handed and open to scrutiny.

I stare out the pa.s.senger window as we drive south along the city spine. It's so efficient, New Middletown's core of office towers and hospital wards and agricultural warehouses. Nothing's ever wasted here, not a drop of water or a moment of time. It's beautiful in its way, and I know I'll miss it if I get the chance to leave, but for the first time in my life I feel like this is not my town.

Every moment I'm in this car, my tent seems more ridiculous. I can almost feel the weight of it behind us. It was a mistake, painting it the way I did. I should have submitted a small still lifea"fruit in a bowl or some naked beauty.

Mr. Graham drops us at the pedestrian conveyor closest to City Hall and drives away to park underground. I consider running home, but the tent's too heavy to carry far, and there's no way I'd leave it here. I step onto the conveyor and let it take me forward.

I raise my eyes to the shining columns of colored gla.s.s that reach into the sky. It's still the most premium building I've seen in my life. But I understand what that taxi driver meant when he called it cold as ice.

I drag my tent across the threshold.

A man rushes up and asks my name. "Connors. Yes. I expected a sculpture." He frowns at me and leads me to my station.

"Excuse me?" I ask the kid unfolding an easel across from me. "When you're done there could you give me a hand with this?"

"Yes. Certainly. I'd be pleased to."

He doesn't ask any questions, just follows my directions, holds the tent poles while I wrench the canvas overtop. I hang two flashlights from the ceiling and turn them on. The kid looks at the dim walls and says, "It's stuffy in here." He walks back to his still lifea"red tulips in a gla.s.s vase.

It's a long afternoon. People arrive at three thirtya"parents, teachers, judges, citizens. They walk through the exhibit with polite curiosity, making small talk with the artists, nodding and smiling. I sweat beside my military surplus.

They stare at my tent, baffled. They open their mouths to speak but close them again before anything comes out, walk away shaking their heads.

I think I might get through this with embarra.s.sment as my only damage, but at four fifteen a big black woman in a floral dress brushes open a tent flap and sticks her head inside my metaphor. "Oh my G.o.d," she whispers, catching a few ears. She grabs a flashlight and lights up the walls. She snaps photos, leaning in and backing up. She nods her head, smiles, frowns, gasps, mutters, "Amazing." Other adults peer through the windows or stick their necks through the front flaps but they don't enter. They take one glance and step away, like unwitting performance artists.

"Marvelous work," the flowery woman says when she emerges. She smiles and pats my shoulder. "You have an exciting career ahead of you."

The princ.i.p.al hurries over to shake her hand.

"I'm Rosemary Seawell," she says.

"From the New Middletown Monitor?" Mr. Graham asks.

She laughs. "No, sir. I'm up from Pittsburgh."

I want to call Xavier and tell him the free media is in town, but I don't know if he'd still care.

"Pittsburgh!" Mr. Graham scoffs. "Why would you cover an event like this?"

She smiles. "Great artists are discovered at events like this."

Mr. Graham stares at my work, revolted. "Stand with what?" he asks.

"Withstand," Rosemary corrects him. "Have you been inside?"

He cautiously nudges the tent flaps apart, but he doesn't pa.s.s through. He lingers in the doorway, canvas draped over his bald white girth.

"Use a flashlight," Rosemary says. She turns to me and smiles. "They're a nice touch."

Mr. Graham backs out without bothering. He walks up to me, stands far too close, and stares down into my eyes. "When did you make this, Connors?"

"I don't remember, sir."

"What does it mean?"

"I don't know, sir."

"It doesn't make any sense to me. Does it make sense to you, boy?"

"Nothing makes sense to me, sir."

He nods like that's a good answer. "Pack it up, and I'll take you home."