Part 4 (1/2)

He'd tried to distract her earlier by tossing his cup on the floor and throwing his potatoes at the wall. But still, she'd looked up from her mopping of the milk-soaked potatoes-as if she had a sixth sense-just when the kids came down the hill. He'd screamed then, his high-pitched scream, and banged his head against the table. She'd taken this to be normal behavior, just part of an already bad day for him, and now he lay in bed and she sat out on the porch, smoking.

Mark could understand emotions in theory. Sad was when something you didn't want to have happen, happened. He could also understand mad and happy (theoretically). They'd given him little laminated yellow cards on a key chain when he was younger. There was a happy face, a sad face, and a mad face. He was supposed to hold one of them up to show what he was feeling, or if he understood what someone else was feeling. But he couldn't do it, and in the end his mother had taken to using the cards herself to try to make him understand what she was feeling. He needed her to be holding up a card now.

He ran through the list again: Greenland, Mozambique, Italy, Lake Superior, Amazon River, Indian chief. He had to stay awake until she came in.

She checked on him when she did, peeking her head in his door.

He feigned sleep.

His mother returned to the kitchen and dialed the phone, the rotary dial ambling back around to its origin with each number.

Mark strained to hear the words.

”It's Betty. We have some new ones. Three neighborhood kids. ... Pretty sure. ... I'll watch over the next couple of days. They'll go back. They always do.”

There was a long silence then. Mark wondered why, what the person on the other end of the phone line could be saying.

His mother resumed speaking. ”Do you want to deal with it or should I? ... Okay, I'll call you in a couple of days.”

She hung up the phone, and he heard her getting ready for bed.

It had started then. He'd waited for so long. His mother had called herself Betty, not Francis, her real name, which meant she was talking to one of them.

He wondered which one.

He had to do it differently this time. So he could pick a different little laminated yellow card for himself.

Chapter 4.

Mantis and Asparagus.

Abbey savored the feel of her velvet flannel pillowcase against her face as the house came to life around her-the furnace kicked in, the shower ran as her mother prepared for work, the spoon clanked against the pot as her dad made oatmeal. Wallace hopped around in his cage energetically, making soft peeps as he tossed cedar chips into the air with his hind legs. Her Essential Elements periodic table, with extra details about the periodicity of each element, including its cubic radius, melting and boiling points, uses, and a drawing of the atomic structure, covered the wall behind his cage. Physics and chemistry textbooks formed a tidy row of blues, greens, and yellows on her desk. Farley had already been through to thump his tail against her bed and press his head into her pillow with his vile dog breath. Soon her dad would knock on her door to tell her it was time to get up and prepare for school.

If she tried, Abbey could almost pretend yesterday's events hadn't occurred-that it had been just a dream she'd woken from, nestled in her warm, safe bed. But dream physics tended to match normal physics. Light travels in straight lines, objects are undistorted, and time travel isn't possible. Unless you got into the world of quantum physics, where events seem to occur in a chaotic and random manner, slipping in and out of time, and maybe universes. Or the world of lucid dreams, where some people apparently could slow their own acceleration as they plummeted to the ground. Abbey s.h.i.+vered. Either way, she wasn't sure if she liked it.

She wished she could just stay in her pink and orange room reading all day, instead of trudging down the hill to the aromatic stew of teenage sweat glands, chicken noodle soup, and pencil shavings. Today she'd have to sit through Chem and Physics 12 with kids three years older than her. A body at rest tends to stay at rest. A body in motion tends to stay in motion. The knock on her door came. Abbey got up, fed Wallace, and dressed.

When they had reached the bottom of the hill the night before, Simon and Caleb had made her swear not to tell their parents anything. ”At least until we figure things out,” her brothers had both said. ”We can't stress Mom out now.” They'd seemed giddy with the thrill of it all, and not really their normal selves. Still, she had sworn to hold off saying anything until at least the next day. Perhaps she'd been giddy herself, or just relieved to be once more sharing secrets with her brothers.

She, Caleb, and Simon sat wordlessly at the kitchen table, spooning porridge with brown sugar into their mouths. Fog shrouded the wood on Coventry Hill as droplets of rain tumbled past the window. Their father, Peter, drove them to school when it rained. Their mother had already departed with a press of lipsticked lips, her dark hair a cloud around her.

The election was in November, and for the first time it looked like the Environmental Coalition might win. ”Just a few weeks longer,” their mother kept saying about her long days at work as the Environmental Manager at the Granton Dam-even longer now that the Dam was undergoing expansion-and her late evenings of campaigning and strategy meetings. ”Then we'll return to normal life again, I promise.” Abbey had her doubts. She expected that being mayor would prove to be as all-encompa.s.sing as trying to become mayor. Her mother fought for important issues-the environment, the eradication of poverty, and a sustainable local economy. The balance of doing societal good and caring for her family always weighed on her. Which was more important? Who needed her most?

Abbey's parents would often discuss this late at night. Abbey's mother would fret about her choices. ”The kids are fine. They're teenagers now. They need their freedom and responsibility,” Peter Sinclair would say over and over. ”You're doing critical work, Marian.” Then they'd talk about the importance of setting an example for Abbey that women could do anything they wanted. After all, Marian Beckham had given up ten years of her career to stay home with Abbey, Caleb, and Simon when they were young, and now she had to make up for lost time.

Abbey knew her mother's work was important, but she just seemed so distracted and distant all the time now. And when she wasn't, she would look like she wanted to say something, but instead would reach out and hug Abbey with a fierceness that Abbey found a trifle disconcerting.

”I don't know what you're worried about,” her friends Kimmie and Becca would say when Abbey mentioned the problem. ”We don't tell our mothers anything. They're crazy.” And then they'd whisper and giggle about their latest crushes, Kimmie's sleek brown hair pressed against Becca's blond curls. Abbey knew she was supposed to be more like Kimmie and Becca, disdainful and embarra.s.sed of her mother. It was part of an evolutionarily driven rewiring of the teenage brain that was supposedly already underway, a rewiring that would render Abbey more independent and her parents more inclined to let her go into the world alone. She knew it was happening. She knew it had to happen. She just hadn't expected it to feel so lonely.

”Meet under the bleachers at ten-minute break,” Caleb murmured as they exited the van and went their separate ways. ”I have a plan.”

Abbey doodled n.o.ble gas valence sh.e.l.ls through first-period English 9-helium, neon, argon, krypton, xenon, radon. At ten-minute break, she pulled the hood of her purple sweats.h.i.+rt over her head and went to meet Simon and Caleb in the rain.

Simon scowled from beneath his black skull toque as he approached the bleachers. He stopped a few meters away from her and thrust his hands into his pockets, his face an etch of wary indifference. His school expression. Coventry High wasn't generally kind to quiet computer geeks who disdained sports. Abbey tried not to be hurt. He'd started to seem like her brother again for a little bit yesterday.

Caleb arrived with a book under his arm and his usual quiver of excitement. ”I had computer cla.s.s this morning.”

”So?” said Abbey.

”So,” said Caleb, ”ever heard of Google?”

Abbey squinted at him. ”What did you Google? 2036? Nostradamus?”

”Very funny, Ab. You're not the only one with a scientific mind in the family. I made a list.” Caleb pulled a sheet of paper out of his pocket and unfolded it.

”Of?” asked Simon, coming a bit closer.

”Of what we know.”

Abbey leaned over Caleb's shoulder. In her twin's tight careful script, it read: Newellay 2036.

Greenhill kid = Fly kid SS = S Systems = Sinclair Systems or Salvador Systems Twinkle Free Air Crazy hailstorm Alice Sh.o.r.eline Abbey wrinkled her nose. ”What are the last two?”

Caleb smiled. ”Alice is what we picked up in Newellay. I asked when I was up front.”

”Alice?” asked Abbey. ”Was she in pieces and suspended in saline?”

”Dunno, but it's a clue.” Caleb paused. ”On the 'SS' or 'S Systems,' I was thinking that Max kept thinking we were with 'Sinclair.' What if 'S Systems' is 'Sinclair Systems'? Possible, yes?” Caleb did a little almost-tap-dance routine and spread his arms wide in a gesture of 'ta-dah'.

Abbey reluctantly nodded that, yes, it was possible.

”But get this,” Caleb continued, ”I Googled 'SS'-you know, the initials-on the computer. And once I got past the records about Hitler's police and boats, I found a computer company called Salvador Systems run by a guy named Sylvain Salvador in Granton. And Max said Salvador. Remember? When he was talking about that new OS, whatever that means. Maybe it's the same guy.”

”That's quite the leap, Caleb. We don't even know if we were on Earth, never mind if it was real. It could have all been a dream,” Abbey said.