Part 25 (2/2)

”That would be nice,” said Fang. ”East or west?”

”I don't know.”

”Did you see anything else?” he asked patiently.

”Well, a bunch of numbers,” I said again. ”And a tall, kind of greenish building.”

”We should just walk all the way down Thirty-first Street,” said Nudge. ”The whole way, looking for that building. Right? I mean, if that's the building you saw, maybe it was for a good reason. Or did you see a whole lot of buildings, or a whole city, or what?”

”Just that building,” I said.

Nudge's brown eyes widened. Angel looked solemn. We all felt the same: twitchy with nervous antic.i.p.ation and also overwhelmed with dread. On the one hand, the Inst.i.tute might very well hold the key to everything-the answer to every question we'd ever had about ourselves, our past, our parents. We might even find out about the mysterious director the whitecoats had mentioned. On the other hand, it felt like we were voluntarily going up to the School and ringing the doorbell. Like we were delivering ourselves to evil. And those two feelings were pulling us all in half.

You never know until you know, my Voice chimed in. my Voice chimed in.

100.

”So do we have money? I hope?” the Gasman asked as we pa.s.sed a street vendor selling Polish sausage.

”Maybe,” I said, pulling out the bank card. ”What do you think?” I asked Fang. ”Should we try this?”

”Well, we need money, for sure,” he said. ”But it might be a trap, a way for them to track where we are and what we're doing.”

”Yeah.” I frowned.

It's okay, Max. You can use it, said my Voice. said my Voice. Once you get the pa.s.sword. Once you get the pa.s.sword.

Thank you, Voice, I thought sourly. Any hopes of you just I thought sourly. Any hopes of you just telling telling me the freaking pa.s.sword? Of course not. G.o.d forbid anything should come easily to us. me the freaking pa.s.sword? Of course not. G.o.d forbid anything should come easily to us.

We had to have money. We could try begging, but we'd probably get the cops called on us ASAP. Runaways and all that. Getting jobs was out of the question also. Stealing? It was a last resort. We weren't to that point yet.

This bank card would work at any number of different banks. Taking a deep breath, I swerved over to an ATM. I swiped the card and punched in ”maxride.”

No dice.

Next I tried our ages: 14, 11, 8, 6.

Wrong.

I tried typing in ”pa.s.sword.”

Wrong. The machine shut down and told me to call customer service.

We kept walking. In a way, it was like we were deliberately slowing ourselves down, to give us time to buck up for the Inst.i.tute. Or at least, that's what my inner Dr. Laura thought.

”What about, like, the first initial of all of our names?” the Gasman suggested.

”Maybe it's something like 'givememoney,'” Nudge said.

I smiled at her. ”It has to be shorter than that.”

Beside me, Angel was walking with her head down, her little feet dragging.

If I had money, I could get her another Celeste.

In the next block, at a different ATM, I tried the first initials of all our names: ”MFINGA.” Nope.

I tried ”School” and ”Maximum.”

It told me to call customer service.

Farther on, I keyed in ”Fang,” ”Iggy,” and ”Gasman.”

In the next block, I tried ”Nudge” and ”Angel,” then on a lark I tried today's date.

They really wanted me to call customer service.

I know what you're thinking: Did I try our birthdays or our Social Security numbers?

No. None of us knew our actual birth dates, though we had each picked a day we liked and called it our birthday. And the nut jobs at the School had mysteriously neglected to register any of us with the Social Security Administration. So none of us could retire any time soon.

I stopped in front of the next ATM but shook my head in frustration. ”I don't know what to do,” I admitted, and it was maybe the second time those words had ever left my lips.

Angel looked up tiredly, her blue eyes sad. ”Why don't you try 'mother'?” she asked, and started tracing a crack on the sidewalk with the toe of her sneaker.

”Why do you think that?” I asked, surprised.

She shrugged, her arm moving to hold Celeste tighter and then falling emptily to her side.

Fang and I exchanged glances, then I slowly swiped the bank card and punched in the numbers that would spell out ”mother.”

WHAT KIND OF TRANSACTION DO YOU WANT TO MAKE? the screen asked. the screen asked.

Speechless, I withdrew two hundred dollars and zipped it into my inside pocket.

”How did you know that?” Fang asked Angel. His tone was neutral, but tension showed in his walk.

Angel shrugged again, her small shoulders drooping. Even her curls looked limp and sad. ”It just came to me,” she said.

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