Race the Night Page 4

  “You weren’t doing very much walking.”

  The tone of Teacher’s voice had made Eider’s heart pound. “I was also…looking,” she’d said. “It’s interesting to see what’s outside the desert ranch. Even if—even if there isn’t much out there.”

  “There isn’t anything out there, Eider. There’s nothing. And nobody.”

  Eider’s rattlesnake scar had twinged. “I know,” she’d said softly.

  Then Teacher’s expression had softened. She’d taken Eider’s hand in her cool, callused one. “I just want to make sure you’re looking inward instead of outward. You have so much potential, Eider.”

  After that, Eider had been a whole lot more careful. She didn’t want to upset Teacher. Or worse, get disciplined.

  Nobody knew exactly what discipline entailed. One time, the kids had sat around, speculating. Most of their guesses had been funny: a week of pickles for meals, copying the entire World Book by hand, kissing the mean dog on its stinky, slobbery lips. Jay’s guesses, however, hadn’t been funny at all. Being buried neck-deep in a red-ant pile. Spending a month locked in the shelter. Getting tied atop the spike like a human flag—at that, Linnet had started to cry, spoiling the game. But Jay’s meanness had uncovered an important truth: as long as they didn’t know what discipline was, it could be anything.

  Eider tried her best not to think about it.

  She paused at the date grove, the way she always did. Slipping into the trees for just a moment, then—when the coast was clear—sprinting for the fence. She located the gap where the nails had rusted and the old wood had splintered apart. Ducked her head. Took one step, then another…

  And she was Beyond.

  As always, Eider kept near the fence as she poked things with sticks, or nudged them with the toe of her boot. She turned over rocks and pushed aside scratchy plants. Peered into grooves of stone. Sometimes she even climbed into the ravines—just as long as she could still see the spike, rising high above Teacher’s office. The only sound to break the heavy silence was the crunch-crunch of her boots.

  Most of the junk Eider found, she tossed right back. But occasionally, she found something to keep. A roll of tape for securing her secret papers. Empty bottles with faded labels. Fabric scraps to bring Avis for her hair experiments.

  Eider also found stuff for Finch’s tinkering, though she could rarely guess what he’d find useful. He’d loved the tiny copper tube, for example, and the snarl of silver wires. He’d frowned at the tiny green toy soldier and the orange sock.

  “What would I ever do with that?” Finch had asked.

  “I have no idea,” Eider had replied. “What did you do with the broken pair of scissors?”

  Occasionally she found stuff she couldn’t bring back. Like the huge, rectangular heap of coiled springs. Or the chair with a desk attached. The chair was orange and pebbly. The desk was small, with deep grooves gouged into its surface.

  Eider had sat in the chair, pretending she was a student in a school from Before. Right away, she’d felt claustrophobic, the chair painfully stiff against her back. In her frenzy to escape, her legs had gotten stuck and the desk had toppled over. She’d had to crawl out on all fours.

  When she thought back, it was kind of funny. She must have looked so silly. But nobody had been there to see.

  Sometimes Eider wondered if there used to be a town here. Or a city. A huge city with skyscrapers and neon lights that blink-blink-blinked and fountains that spat rainbows into penny-filled pools, like the picture she’d seen in World Book F.

  But Teacher said otherwise.

  “People lived here, sure,” she’d told Eider. “Long ago, before the world ended. But the closest town was far, the closest city even farther.”

  “How far?”

  “Many, many miles west. Nearly eighty.”

  “Oh,” Eider had said. “That is far.”

  Teacher had nodded. “But that’s a good thing, Eider. Our remoteness is the very reason we’re here. The reason we’re safe. If we’d been in a city when the world had ended—well, we wouldn’t be here. We wouldn’t be anywhere. Just like the cities themselves, we wouldn’t exist.”

  That notion had kept Eider from quality sleep for days.

  It was getting late. Still, she walked and walked, zigging and zagging, never straying far from the fence. She didn’t find anything interesting. Probably because she’d covered this ground a dozen times. How far had they gone when they’d run away? When they’d thought Other People might still be out there?

  Not they, Eider reminded herself. She’d been Beyond too long—it was time to go. Shielding her eyes from the sun, she faced west one last time.

  And saw a paper.

  EIDER TOOK A FEW STEPS TOWARD THE PAPER. Then she stopped, her stomach sinking. It was only a bird. Flapping low across the desert, glossy-winged, nearly silent.

  But wait—birds weren’t that glossy. Or rectangular, for that matter.

  A glossy rectangle? Definitely a paper! “Wait!” Eider called.

  Whatever it was, it was getting away. Should she go after it? Had two hours passed? Maybe. Probably. If she was late for Extrasensory, Teacher would be disappointed. And if she realized Eider had been out Beyond the fence again…

  She glanced toward the desert ranch.

  Then she looked back at the paper, now a tiny dot in the desert sameness.

  She threw out all caution and chased it. The paper dipped and whirled in the wind. It let her catch up, nearly grab it, then swirled away again, as if taunting her.

  Finally, the paper got stuck in a patch of sagebrush. Eider grabbed it and stuffed it inside her overalls. As she sprinted toward the gap in the fence, she could feel the paper fluttering against her chest. Alive with possibility.

  Eider found the rest of the kids gathered behind the classroom. No sign of Teacher yet, to her immense relief. She skidded to a stop beside Avis, trying to control her panting.

  “What took you so long?” Avis demanded. “You’re all sweaty.”

  Eider wiped her face with her arm, which was just as sweaty. “I know. I—”

  “You went out too far. What if there’d been an alarm? And a real danger?”

  “Shh,” Eider said, even though the other kids were out of earshot. Avis was only a few months older than Eider, but sometimes she acted like her big sister. “I got here in time, didn’t I? I always make it back.”

  “One time you didn’t,” Avis said.

  It was the closest she’d come to bringing up—well, not Robin, because Robin only existed inside Eider’s head. But the time Eider had run away. And everything that had come after. Eider’s defensive feeling faded. She knew Avis was just being protective. “That’s not going to happen again.”

  “Promise?” Avis asked.

  Eider hesitated, then nodded without speaking. If she said it out loud, it would be real. She tried to save that for things she was one hundred percent certain about.

  Teacher came around the corner then, already smiling. “This lesson’s going to be a fun one,” she said, opening a cloth bag. “Is everybody ready?”

  The kids all nodded eagerly.

  Teacher’s eyes lingered an extra moment on Eider, still patting down her messy braid, before she continued. “Good. Our second Extrasensory lesson is about”—she pulled out a stack of cardboard squares—“mazes.”

  Mazes? Eider glanced at Avis, who looked confused. Jay raised his hand. “What have mazes got to do with seeing in the dark?”

  “Nothing,” Teacher replied. “And everything.”

  She passed out the cardboard squares. Each held a different, intricate maze, drawn with permanent marker. Using chalk, Teacher explained, the kids would have three chances to master the mazes while she clocked times with a stopwatch.

  Jay and Linnet did all right. Better than Avis, anyway: “Those dead ends come out of nowhere,” she muttered. Or, “I swear that wall wasn’t there before.” Eider thought she was doing pretty well herself. Th
en Teacher pulled out a blindfold.

  “Now let’s see how well you do.”

  Most of the results made the kids laugh. Avis’s line was basically a scribble. Jay’s, not much better. Linnet’s slow, careful line made it two-thirds of the way through her maze, then fell off the cardboard. Teacher seemed less amused.

  When it was Eider’s turn, she concentrated hard. Pictured the maze behind her blinded eyes. She knew she was good at imagining, but even she was startled by her results—she’d only crossed the maze’s walls a handful of times.

  Finch went last. To nobody’s surprise, he did best of all.

  “Very good, Finch!” Teacher said. “You just might be a natural.”

  Finch grinned, so everyone else did, too. Even Avis, who’d been battling hard to maintain a scowl. “He was totally peeking,” she muttered.

  “Avis,” Teacher warned. “Now, does anybody know what our first two Extrasensory lessons had in common?”

  Jay raised his hand. “Not seeing?”

  “Well, yes, but I want you to think deeper than that. The answer’s in the word.”

  Finch raised his hand. “Extra senses!” he exclaimed. “Of course. Using senses other than the ones we ordinarily would.”

  “Exactly right.” Teacher tousled his pale hair. “Extrasensory is all about discovering new abilities—but abilities you already have inside you. During each lesson, we’ll test a different ability. Like we did with navigation and memorization today. That way, we’ll determine which ones you’re a natural at.”

  “What’s a natural?” Avis asked.

  “When you have a natural ability for something, and it doesn’t take much training to master it. Think of it like learning languages—but languages you speak in your bones.”

  Suddenly, Eider felt very aware of her bones. She crossed her arms.

  “You’re the most brilliant and special children ever to have lived, after all.” Teacher tucked the mazes back into her cloth bag. “And I’ll bet you’re hungry after all that concentrating. You’re dismissed.”

  As she lay in bed, Eider wondered if she’d ever been a natural at something. The way Linnet was with art, or Finch was with building stuff. She couldn’t think of anything. What about Before, when there’d been more options? Maybe Eider would have been a tuba prodigy—but tubas didn’t exist anymore, so she’d never know.

  She wondered if Finch could build her a tuba.

  Unfortunately, she wasn’t a natural at anything that counted now. Not Physical or Practical, that was for sure. Was that another reason she found it hard to care about them?

  What activities did she care about?

  She’d cared about dancing, before she’d lost her slippers. Reading stories in her fairytale book, and in the old books, when they’d had them. Exploring outside the fence. Finding things…

  Like secret papers.

  Eider sat up in bed. She felt around in her cubby for today’s overalls. The rectangular paper was still in the pocket. Somehow, she’d forgotten about it.

  She switched on her penlight and pushed back her covers.

  “What’s going on?” Avis murmured.

  Eider switched off her light. “Oops. Sorry.”

  Unless she mastered seeing in the dark before morning, she’d have to wait until later. But for now, the promise was thrilling enough. With the paper under her pillow, Eider counted stars behind her eyes until she fell asleep.

  FINCH WAS UNREASONABLY EXCITED ABOUT the letter R.

  “Let me guess why,” Avis said, skipping in front of him on their way to the classroom. “Radishes? Royalty? Rabbits! You really do look like one.”

  “I do not,” Finch said, trying to sound gruff. But his eagerness was still apparent in his bunny-like twitching.

  “Rattlesnakes?” Linnet suggested, then instantly turned purple. “Sorry, Eider! I didn’t mean to bring up rattle—” She slapped a hand over her mouth. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s okay.” Eider forced a smile. She was already feeling antsy, with her secret paper in her pocket. She’d had no alone time to read it yet.

  “S is going to be real good,” Jay said. “Spiders! Scorpions! And snakes—all the snakes, not just the ones with rattles….”

  “Knock it off, you creep,” Avis said. “Everyone knows about your weird collection.”

  Jay scowled at her.

  Teacher wasn’t in the classroom when they arrived. But two things were waiting. First, five pieces of cardboard were pinned to the wall. Each had one of their names written on it in Teacher’s spiky, all-caps handwriting.

  Second, the World Book Q–R waited in the middle of the table. The R pages were free from the binder clip. Before anyone else could touch the book, Jay grabbed it and pulled it close to him. “Come and get it!” he hollered at Finch.

  “Like you know how to read,” Avis said.

  “Jay, come on.” Eider tried to tug the book from Jay, who wouldn’t budge. “Please?”

  “Please?” Linnet echoed in her tiny voice.

  Jay exhaled loudly, then surrendered the book to Eider. She handed it to Finch, who accepted it with enthusiastic hands.

  He flipped the first few pages. Then a few pages back. A couple forward. Then one back. One forward. His frown deepened. “Oh.”

  “Oh?” Eider repeated.

  “The page is missing. The one I wanted.”

  “Oh.” It was a familiar letdown: flipping through the World Book and discovering a gap. “That’s too bad. What were you looking for?”

  “Nothing important.”

  Eider didn’t believe him. But then Teacher entered the classroom, and there wasn’t time for any more questions.

  Instead of taking her seat at the head of the table, she stood by the cardboard names on the wall. “Before we get started,” she said, “I wanted to make sure you’ve seen the results of yesterday’s Extrasensory lesson.”

  The results? Eider glanced at the names again, now paying attention to their order:

  FINCH

  LINNET

  EIDER

  JAY

  AVIS

  “As you know, I’ve always documented your progress in lessons. But from now on, I’ll be sharing it with you. That way, you’ll see how you compare to everyone else. How much you need to improve at each skill we practice.”

  So Eider was third best at mazes? That didn’t seem fair—she thought she’d done better than Linnet, anyway. She glanced at Finch, expecting a grin, but he only looked confused. Jay was seething. Avis slouched so low in her seat, all Eider saw was red hair and squinty eyes.

  “Sit up, Avis,” Teacher said. “I’m sure you’ll do better next time.”

  Eider didn’t know whether it was the rankings, or Extrasensory itself. But by Quiet Time that evening, she was still feeling irritable. She hoped the paper in her pocket would improve her mood.

  As she hurried past the classroom, she saw Linnet sitting alone on the Circle Time rug, her penlight between her teeth. It was aimed at her notebook, where she was scribbling enthusiastically.

  Curious, Eider crept up behind her. On the illuminated pages, she saw lines and squiggles. Something four-footed—a jackrabbit, maybe, or a fox. Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t World Book notes.

  “Are you drawing?” she asked.

  Linnet whirled around, wide-eyed. Her penlight fell into her lap. “No!” she said. “I’m only…” Her half-sentence hung in the air.

  Eider smiled reassuringly. “It’s okay.”

  “I’m not really supposed to.”

  “Because of the paper?”

  Linnet shrugged. “I only use the backs of my notes, but…I still don’t think Teacher would approve.”

  Eider didn’t get it. Drawing seemed like the silliest thing in the world to disapprove of. But maybe Teacher disapproved because it was silly? A waste of time, like the stories in the old books? “Well, I’m not going to tell,” Eider said.

  “It doesn’t matter. I’m tired anyway.�
�� Linnet scooped up her penlight and notebook, hopped to her feet, and hurried away.

  Eider watched her go, then continued toward the date grove. The palm trees rose from the desert sameness like a bouquet of flowers, almost as tall as the spike. During hot days, they provided welcome shade. There wasn’t much of that at the desert ranch, other than the shadows cast by buildings and the occasional scrubby mesquite. But at night, the date palms made the darkness darker, and that was exactly what Eider needed.

  Carefully, she stepped into the grove. She headed for the thickest part, where the fat, toothy trunks hunched closer together. The palm leaves drooped low, forming a sort of room where Eider could switch on her penlight and escape notice. She’d checked multiple times, leaving her penlight on and walking out, looking for the glow.

  She sat with her back against a tree. Took a deep breath. Then she aimed her penlight at the glossy rectangle.

  It was more than one paper; it was several sleek pages stapled together into a little book. A pamphlet, she thought it was called.

  The first page read

  Welcome Home!

  in happy, swirly letters. Below the happy headline, there was an image of a family standing in the doorway of a big, peach-colored house. The family was waving. They had yellow hair, light skin, and the whitest teeth Eider had ever seen.

  Her heart beat faster.

  People. She was looking at pictures of Other People. Not illustrations, but actual people who had existed Before.

  Eider flipped the page and found an image of another family: a different one, sitting on a sky-blue couch. A mother, a father, and two daughters. They had black hair and brown skin, like Eider’s. That was their only resemblance to her, but for some reason, it gave her the chills.

  She continued to read.

  Your brand-new house awaits at Forest Gardens Housing Development! We work with banks to finance any budget! Come home to Forest Gardens, where your family’s dreams will come true!

  Eider turned the next page. “Features,” she read. Below, there was a list with tiny dots next to each line: