“Don’t worry,” Constance said glumly. “You may still get your chance.”
Reynie didn’t point out that the Waiting Room might be the least of their worries. “Look, until Sticky comes back, I think we need to keep to our plan. Let’s go check out the loading area.”
The others agreed, and, with Constance riding piggyback, they left the rock garden and walked across the empty plaza. It was a bleak day, and no one, not even Mr. Curtain, was out to enjoy it. There were a few students on the path that led to the gym, however, and Reynie and the others passed them without a word. Kate had decided the hill beyond the gym would offer the best view of the loading area, so this was where they were headed now.
As the children mounted the hill, an early evening mist began to settle, and through its haze the lights of distant harbor traffic shone in blurred colors. Far to the north a foghorn groaned, reaching them less as a sound than as a trembling in their bellies, as if their bodies were pipes in a somber old organ. It was a somber evening all around.
Reaching the summit did nothing to improve their mood. Far below them, down by the bridge gate, the loading area was completely deserted. No trucks, no Helpers, no crates in sight, no point even in getting out the spyglass. The gate guards were huddled in their guardhouse, keeping warm and dry. Reynie gazed over the water toward the mainland shore. It seemed no more than a shadow in the mist, as impossible to determine as their fate.
Reynie’s gaze drifted back toward the Institute. The usual crowd of students had gathered at the gym, waiting for the doors to open. From this height they looked like insects, eagerly massed at the entrance of a bug trap. In theory the gym was open all day long, and students were encouraged to use it “any time at all,” but of course classes, meals, and studytime took up most of the day. In the remaining free minutes, hopeful students often took turns tugging at the door, which remained stubbornly closed. Just before supper, however, Jackson and many of the other Executives would appear from inside the gym and let the students in. If anyone had the gall to ask why the door had been locked, Jackson would respond that it hadn’t been locked; the students had simply been unable to open it.
Constance, too, was looking down at the little crowd of students milling outside the locked doors. “The gym’s always open, except when it isn’t,” she said, mimicking Jackson. She mopped her damp face with her damp sleeve. “What do the Executives do in there, anyway?”
Constance had only meant to express her annoyance (in fact she was composing an insulting poem in which Executives licked the gym floor clean), but Reynie looked at her as if she’d turned to gold.
“That’s a good question! I always assumed they were exercising — just keeping the gym to themselves. But what if they’re up to something else?”
Kate brought out the spyglass. “Guess what? There’s a window in the back. I could take a peek. I’d need to find a way to reach it, though — it’s a good ten feet off the ground. What do you think, Reynie?”
Several things raced through Reynie’s mind at once. It would mean going off the path, which meant risking traps, not to mention serious trouble. But maybe they were already in serious trouble and didn’t know it yet, and what they found out might be extremely important! Reynie frowned. He wished he had more time to deliberate, but there was no more time — the gym door would be unlocked any minute.
“I’ll go with you,” he said. “I can stand on your shoulders.”
Kate grinned. “Okay! Here’s the plan: We’ll drop behind this hill to be out of sight of the gym, then circle around those smaller hills and sneak up from the back.”
“Aren’t you forgetting someone?” said Constance.
“We need a lookout. From up here you can see everything, and we’ll be able to see you. If anyone heads around the building, jump up and down and wave your arms.”
“Oh, goody,” said Constance. “I get to stand here by myself and be misted on.”
But Reynie and Kate had already hurried off. They moved quickly downhill, running over damp sand and scrub brush and narrow swaths of grass, steering clear of boulders, keeping an eye out for drapeweed. Finally they came up to a low rise at the rear of the gym. Here they were hidden from view, and as Kate waited for Reynie to catch his breath, she jerked her thumb behind them, where the land erupted into a jumbled labyrinth of dunes and rocky hills. “Our escape route,” she whispered, “if we need one.”
Reynie squinted up to the high hilltop where they’d left Constance. He could just make out her small red figure against the backdrop of gray sky. He thought she might be moving, though only slightly. “Is Constance waving? Can you tell?”
Kate peered through her spyglass. “Just picking her nose. Let’s move.”
Quickly they climbed over the rise and scrambled down behind the gym, where the ground gave over entirely to crumbled gray stone, as if the building had shed pieces of itself onto the land around it. Good, Reynie thought. No footprints. He was worried, though, by the discovery of a back door that Kate hadn’t seen or thought to mention. Reynie pointed and frowned. They didn’t want surprise visitors. Kate was already working on it — she pointed to a large petrified tree limb lying among the stony rubble nearby. Together she and Reynie dragged it over and braced it against the bottom of the door.
Kate gave a satisfied nod and knelt down. Reynie climbed onto her shoulders. He steadied himself with his hands against the stone wall and got his feet set on her shoulders. Slowly, smoothly, Kate straightened up. Reynie’s chin came to the bottom of the window. He could just see inside . . . and what he saw was the most curious thing.
Two lines of Recruiters — there were dozens of them — stood back to back down the length of the gym floor, as if preparing for a dance. Each of them faced some kind of cut-out figure, but Reynie wasn’t sure what they were. At the far end of the lines stood Jackson, S.Q., and a great many other Executives. Jackson was shouting something Reynie couldn’t make out. Again as if in a dance, the Recruiters adopted different poses. Some spread their arms as if welcoming an embrace. Others reached out as if to shake hands in greeting. And still others raised their hands, palms forward, in a calming gesture that Reynie recognized too well. All of them were smiling, smiling. Jackson shouted again.
Reynie could see the figures more plainly now. The figures came in all sizes, from small children to full-grown adults. He shuddered.
This was no dance. The Recruiters were preparing for something. But what? Hadn’t Mr. Curtain’s journal said new children were no longer necessary? And this many Recruiters certainly weren’t required to guard the bridge gates. No, they were preparing for something else. The Improvement. The thing to come.
“All right, everyone!” Jackson shouted. “That’s it for today!”
The Executives started making their way down the lines, collecting the paper figures. The practice was over, and it suddenly occurred to Reynie that he’d never seen Recruiters leaving the gym — which must mean they used the back door. His stomach did a flip. He and Kate needed to get out of here. “Kate,” Reynie whispered, glancing down. “We need —”
He didn’t finish, for just then he glanced back through the window and saw S.Q. staring up at him.
Fear shot through Reynie like a dose of hot poison. His nerves tingled all over his body, and in his panic to get down, he toppled from Kate’s shoulders.
“Are you all right?” Kate whispered.
“Run!” Reynie cried, regaining his feet. “Run, run, run!”
Reynie was halfway up the rise when Kate overtook him and caught his arm in an iron grip. “Come on!”
The back door gave an ominous thump, then another, followed by the sound of angry curses. The tree limb had bought them a few extra seconds. Together they dashed up the rise, with Reynie half running and half being dragged behind Kate, feeling as if he’d been tied to a galloping horse. He cast one glance up at Constance — a red smudge on the hilltop, jumping up and down and waving furiously — and then he and Kate flung
themselves down the other side of the rise, out of sight.
“Tell me they didn’t recognize you,” Kate said, pulling him to his feet.
“I don’t know,” said Reynie.
“Then let’s head for the hills and hope for the best.”
And so they fled: away from the gym, away from the paths, away from the Institute — into the tangled rock-jungle of sand dunes, ridges, and crags that made up the island’s interior. Weaving among the hills, keeping low, constantly changing directions, they ran as if their lives depended upon it — which indeed they might have. In his mind’s eye Reynie kept seeing S.Q.’s disapproving, accusing eyes. Had he been recognized? Had he been?
When Kate thought they’d put enough distance between themselves and the gym, and was convinced they hadn’t been followed, the two children hunkered beneath a scraggly copse of stunted cedar trees to rest. It was just in time — another step and Reynie might have collapsed into a useless heap. Between ragged breaths he told Kate what he’d seen, right up to the part when he’d seen S.Q. frowning at him from across the gym.
Unbelievably, or almost unbelievably, Kate made a joke of it. “Well, if he recognized you, he’s probably wondering how you got to be so tall.” She chuckled. “The poor guy, he’s not the brightest —”
Reynie groaned. He’d just realized something. Having only just sat down, he struggled to his feet again. “We need to split up.”
“Why? I thought we’d just circle back up to Constance —”
“Listen, Kate, they’ll know it took two people. The window’s too high for one person to have looked through without help, remember? You go back for Constance. If S.Q. recognized me, at least you can claim you were miles away when it happened.”
“Gosh, you’re right,” Kate said, adjusting her bucket on her belt. “You head that way, then, and I’ll fetch Constance. If we’re lucky we’ll be laughing about this over supper.”
“If we’re lucky,” said Reynie, who was not feeling lucky at all. In fact he had the awful feeling he wouldn’t see Kate again. If Mr. Curtain knew the truth, by tomorrow Reynie might become someone else entirely — a mixture of mysterious pain and forgotten purposes, forgotten dreams. His friends’ faces would blur, like photographs somehow being undeveloped, then disappear entirely. The mission would fail. All would be lost.
Suddenly, Reynie felt compelled to grab Kate’s hand. “Thanks for helping me get up that hill back there. I never could have made it in time by myself.”
Kate waved him off. “Oh, good grief. Just do me a favor. If you get sent to the Waiting Room, tell Sticky I said hello.”
Reynie’s face fell. “It’s not funny, Kate.”
For a moment — a fleeting moment — Kate looked desperately sad. “Well, of course it’s not funny, Reynie Muldoon. But what do you want me to do? Cry? Now get going, will you? And make sure I see you at supper!” She turned and hurried into the gloom.
And so, in the darkness and mist, Reynie picked his way alone through the forbidding hills. In half an hour he arrived, weary and wet, at a path on the far side of the Institute. Nobody accosted him in the student dormitory, where he slipped into his room and changed. And no one looked askance at him as he crossed the plaza. He had yet to meet an Executive, though. Reynie hesitated a long time at the cafeteria door. Then telling himself he must at least pretend to be brave, he went inside.
He saw the girls right away. They sat in damp clothes at a table to themselves. Constance resembled a wet hen — same shape, same dour crankiness, and only slightly larger — but Kate smiled when he came in, and the sight of her sunny face gave Reynie a pinprick of hope. He reminded himself Kate was capable of smiling in dire circumstances. He shouldn’t assume good news. Still, nobody seemed to be paying him any attention, and the Executive on duty only gave him a bored look and turned away. So perhaps Kate really did know something.
Kate really did. The moment Reynie sat down, she told him he was safe.
Reynie thought he would die of relief.
“They were questioning students when Constance and I came down the hill,” Kate said. “Nobody saw you. Jackson asked us and we told the same story. He was yelling at S.Q.: ‘Is that really the best you can say? An average-looking boy? An awful lot of boys are average-looking, S.Q.!’ And poor S.Q., he just kept arguing that this boy was especially average-looking. Jackson seemed ready to strangle him.”
Reynie couldn’t believe what he was hearing. He was safe! Really safe! And then, just as suddenly as the weight had lifted from his shoulders, it returned. For now that one worry had passed, others quickly crowded in to take its place. Sticky was still in danger. And if Sticky was, they all were.
“Are you okay?” Kate asked. “You look terrible.”
“At least he’s dry,” said Constance, who was blotting her hair with a napkin.
“You haven’t seen Sticky, have you? Or heard anything?”
The girls shook their heads. They all grew very solemn, then, and finished their meal in silence.
The Waiting Room
Reynie sat alone in his room. It was after nine o’clock, and Sticky had still not shown up. A message broadcast had just ended, and Reynie, worn out, was making himself go over the day’s notes one last time. For once he was glad to be studying his lessons — studying helped take his mind off worse things. He’d even been grateful for the message broadcast, which was so irritating and made it so difficult to concentrate that he’d had no space left over in his brain to worry about Sticky. Even so, Reynie felt awful, and now to make matters worse, he smelled something awful, too. His nose wrinkled with disgust. What was that? Had something crawled under the floor and died?
Then the door opened. It was Sticky.
He was covered in slimy, black stinking mud, and he walked into the room like a zombie. From his red, hugely swollen eyes it was obvious he’d been crying for hours. But it wasn’t the eyes themselves that caught Reynie’s heart — it was their look of total despair.
Reynie leaped up and threw his arms around Sticky. “You’re out!”
Sticky pulled away without speaking. He removed his spectacles, studied their mud-spotted lenses, and set them on the desk without bothering to clean them. Then, still not saying a word, he went out of the room. Reynie grabbed some of Sticky’s things and ran out after him. In the corridor he squeezed past two Helpers already mopping up Sticky’s muddy footprints in weird silence. A couple of boys were leaving the bathroom, holding their noses and trying not to step in the muddy spots on the floor. Reynie ran into the bathroom.
Sticky had stepped into a shower stall without undressing and was trying to grip the faucet handle, but his slimy hand kept slipping off. Finally he grabbed it with both hands and wrenched on the hot water. He flinched when the spray struck his face, then stood impassively, eyes closed, as black water swirled at his feet.
Reynie watched him anxiously. “I’ve brought you some soap, Sticky. And a towel and clean clothes.”
Sticky made no reply.
“Hey, get undressed and use this soap, all right?” After Reynie had repeated this several times, Sticky gave a dull nod and reached for the soap.
Reynie washed up at the sinks — he was filthy and rank from hugging Sticky — then went to their room, changed clothes, and waited. He stared at the door, afraid of what was coming. Afraid to have his suspicions confirmed. He’d been doing his best to remain calm, but he was trembling all over. He felt sure Sticky had been brainswept. And Mr. Curtain wouldn’t erase Sticky’s memories just for cheating, would he? If not, then why had this happened? What crime would call for such terrible action? There seemed to be only one answer: Sticky had told Mr. Curtain everything.
When Sticky finally returned, he dumped his wet clothes in the corner, put on his muddy glasses without cleaning them, and then, without once looking at Reynie, he pulled his suitcase from beneath the bed.
“Sticky, what’s happened?”
No reply.
“You have to talk
to me, Sticky! I’m afraid something terrible has happened to you. Not just the Waiting Room, I mean, but something even worse.”
In a dull tone just tinged with anger, Sticky said, “I don’t suppose there’s anything worse than that place. What would you know about it?”
Reynie caught his breath. Sticky remembered the Waiting Room — and come to think of it, he remembered where his suitcase was. There was still hope! “You’re right, Sticky. I don’t know anything that’s happened. Can you tell me?”
“I don’t want to talk about it,” Sticky said, opening the wardrobe with trembling fingers. “And I don’t intend to go back there. I’m running away. They told me Mr. Curtain couldn’t see me today, that S.Q. will come for me again in the morning. I’m to meet with Mr. Curtain ‘if he’s available.’ So either I’ll have to go back to that . . . that nightmare, or else I’ll have to face Mr. Curtain, where I’m certain to go to pieces, Reynie, where I’m certain to lose control and tell on you and everyone else —”
The more Sticky spoke, the more emotion crept into his voice, until at last, shaking, he covered his eyes and dropped to his knees. “I can’t do it, Reynie. I can’t go back there, and I can’t face Mr. Curtain without failing you. I just can’t. I have to leave. I have no choice.”
Reynie’s eyes suddenly filled with tears. “Listen to me, Sticky. I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through. Really I am. But I can’t tell you how glad I am you’re still in there. I thought they’d taken your memory! But it’s still you in there, Sticky — still my good friend!”
“Not for much longer,” Sticky said miserably. “I’m going to crack, Reynie. You know how badly I handle pressure. I’ll flub it tomorrow, and you’ll all be caught. What kind of friend will I be then?”
Reynie closed the suitcase. “You’re not going to flub anything.”
“How can you know?”