"I helped Mom find her way around Toronto," Theo reported. "I also went into the basement prison, went back in time ten years, and planted a drone that gives a good view of the entire cellblock. The TiTr records we'll get from the drone are something that the Justice Team will need, so I thought I'd put the drone in place now. I started searching those records and found no prisoners in that cellblock nine to ten years ago. I'll look through more recent records tomorrow."
Yolanda took over. "Wizard gave me lots of cash for buying supplies – most of it in BC Klabooies which are accepted here. He also gave me some gold coins that are accepted anywhere. We have lots of food in the ship now. I taught Marie how to use her sling and she's very good at taking short trips. This afternoon, Marie, Nary, and I went shopping for clothes together. I prepared our evening meal with help from Marie and Nary. I don't mind doing this kind of ship work right now, but I do want to be directly involved with the team when Lucas is rescued. Marie, you can go next. Tell people what you did today."
"I received my sling like Yolanda said and practiced with it. Yolanda took me to a second hand store but I didn't see any second hands. Perhaps they were out of them. Yolanda tried to explain about buying, but I didn't understand it. Safe Haven gave us our food and clothes and we never saw any of the little things that you call money. I liked the clothes that Yolanda helped me pick. This is my favorite because it has a bright colour. Yolanda gave me a hairbrush and a comb, but they couldn't get through the tangles. So Nary sliced all my hair off with her blade. Thank you Yolanda for your gifts."
"Stand up and show everybody what you're wearing," Granny said.
Marie did. Black slacks and a fire engine red top. With her hair cut almost to her scalp, she looked younger. The Wilizy applauded.
By now, Nary was all pumped to tell them about her day. "I learned that peanut butter is a very good food and I'm learning that jam tastes good too. I'm not sure about this thing called milk. I liked the clothes that Yolanda bought for me. The clothes I'm wearing now are my favorites. Thank you, Yolanda. I am trying to be polite. I've used a spoon and know now that I'm not supposed to just stick my hand into a jar of food. I helped with dinner by cutting things called vegetables. They don't taste good. I also used the white hard open seat in your little closets. Twice."
"Stand up and show everyone the new clothes that you're wearing, Nary," Granny said with a straight face.
Nary did. Blue jeans, a black belt, and a black t-shirt with a bold streak of red on the front. She too had tried brushing her hair and had success doing that because her hair was already short. Yolanda had put two bobby pins in it to keep it out of her eyes. She too was applauded.
Mac finished. "I found no hidden exit out of that basement cellblock. I believe that we're on track to find out more about the poison and perhaps stop Mavis from poisoning Lucas. We had a successful first day, everyone. Well done."
Mac didn't say that, by her count, they had about 70 hours left before the poison worked.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 7
Saturday morning, December 28. Maddy woke up disoriented and looked around her. She was lying underneath the covers on a nice soft bed. She didn't remember how she got here. The bedroom looked nice. It was time to go exploring.
The closet was full of pretty clothes hanging on a rod that she could easily reach. She saw lots of dresses, skirts, and blouses in light colours but mostly bright pink and a light green. There was also a light pink jacket and a heavy black coat. She saw two pairs of jeans and some sweaters on a shelf above the bar holding the hangers. On the floor were some black shoes, a pair of running shoes, and some heavy winter boots with fur inside of them. Also, a pair of slippers with bunny heads on them. Her backpack was on the closet's floor too. Everything was still in it. Maddy tried on a few clothes. They all fit.
Everything that was in the bureau by the bed looked like it would fit too. Socks and underwear were in the top two drawers. The bottom two drawers were full of stuffies. Maddy pulled one out and squeezed it. She knew what it was. A bunny.
Against the wall was a big wooden chest. Maddy opened the top and looked inside. Toys. Lots and lots of toys. Standing against another wall was a cupboard with four shelves. In front of it was a little stool that she could stand on to reach the top shelf. The bottom two shelves were full of books. She pulled one out and looked at it. It had lots of pictures. The top two shelves held paper of different colours and sizes. A round metal container sitting in front of the shelves held markers and crayons. All different colours. All unused. She even had a pair of short blunt scissors for cutting up the paper if she wanted to do that.
Near the side of the bed, Maddy saw a door. She opened it to find a bathroom with a big tub, a shower, a sink, a towel and a face cloth hanging on a rack. Also, a toilet.
Maddy had lucked out.
Pililiani's friend had warned her not to talk to any men at the grocery store and she hadn't. Maddy had waited until a woman walked by wearing boots and a heavy coat. Those clothes must have kept her warm in the freezing cold. Maddy was wearing both of her blankets and still shivering. She figured that the woman would be nice like Pililiani because she was very big in the sideways direction. "Could you give me some food, please?" Maddy had asked. Just like Pililiani's friend had said she should.
The lady looked down and saw a frail, cute little blonde girl shivering inside two ratty blankets. "Why are you out here in the cold? Where are your parents?" She had a nice voice. Not a yelly voice.
"I lost my mommy and daddy. I'm trying to find them."
A few minutes later, Maddy was sitting inside a four-seater copter that was parked in a flat open space with lots of other copters. The lady made sure that she was still bundled up in her blankets even though there now was no wind making her cold. "I'm going to buy some food at the store," the lady said. "Then we'll go to another store and I will buy you some warm clothes and other things. I'll take care of you until I can sort out how I can help you. You'll meet some people who will ask you some questions, but they'll be nice people."
Maddy didn't remember much more. She did remember somebody climbing into the copter, looking at her, and saying that the woman who was buying food had asked him to keep an eye on her. Maddy fell asleep shortly afterwards and woke up here. The big lady must have bought all these clothes and toys while she was asleep.
It was almost the perfect bedroom for a little girl. Only three things were missing. A window to see outside, a door knob that would allow her to leave the bedroom, and a tool that Maddy could use to take off her dog collar.
Back to the Table of Contents
Chapter 8
Saturday morning, December 28. Another girl woke up disoriented and looked around her. She was lying underneath the covers of a nice soft bed. She didn't remember how she got here. Granny was there, waiting for her to wake. "How do you feel, Nary?" she asked.
"OK."
"Do you have any pain at the back of your head?"
Nary used her right hand to feel. "Something is sticking out. It hurts."
"That's your brain-plug. Do you remember talking about that last night with Doc?"
"Marie was going to put me to sleep and then Doc was going to stick it into my head."
"That's right. Why don't you get out of bed slowly? Let's see how you feel."
Nary jumped up instead. "The room is fuzzy."
"Just wait." Granny noticed that Nary was still wearing her new clothes. Last night before the operation, Yolanda had suggested that she could wear a pair of new sleep shorts to bed instead, but Nary refused. She had always slept in the same clothes that she wore during the day.
"Are you ready for breakfast now?" Granny asked.
"Will there be meat?"
"How about a peanut butter sandwich and a different kind of jam this time?"
# # # # # # # #
Granny said that Nary's neck was still inflamed and so flying in a sli
ng would have to wait. Yolanda offered to take Nary on a tour over the city and then they'd stop in at the courthouse. Nary showed no hesitation in stepping into Yolanda's sling; she showed no hesitation in urging Yolanda to go faster and faster either.
Lucas' cell was crowded when they arrived. Winnie was sitting behind Lucas again, but this time she had her hands on his bare chest. He was still unconscious. Doc and Granny were both there and Doc immediately went up to Nary, pulled up her hair, looked at the brain-plug, and touched the skin around it. "Is this sore?"
"A little," Nary said.
"You heal fast," Doc said.
Theo was flying above the courthouse looking at the TiTr tapes from the cellblock. Yolanda was sitting on the edge of Lucas' bed, holding his hand, and telling him what everybody was doing. Nary caught the scent of something and followed it to the corner of the cell where a thick bag was lying on the floor.
"Careful Nary, that bag had poison in it," Doc warned. "Don't touch it."
Nary leaned over it, smelled it, and said "Bad smell." She put her nose in the air and followed a scent to the bed, leaned over sniffing, and then knelt by the bed sniffing. Yolanda backed away to let her get closer. Nary sniffed up and down Lucas' body. Putting her hands on his chest, she said, "The smell is strongest here. There is no smell in his feet or in his hands."
"That makes sense," Doc said. "He has had this dose for eighteen hours; it would be strongest in his core; weakest at the ends of his body. Granny, try moving his feet; see if there's any resistance. I'll work on his hands."
Everybody in the cell was looking at Granny and Doc manipulating Lucas' body, so they didn't see Nary leave the cell. Nor did they see her look up at the ceiling of another cell, go in it, wander down the corridor into another cell, come out, go in another cell, come out – all the time gazing steadily at something and sniffing. When she reached the end of the corridor, Nary went into the little box that moved and stared up at one of its corners. She tried jumping at something in the corner. Disappointed, she backed up against a wall of the little box that moved and, in doing so, her hand touched a button. The door closed. She paid no attention, but took a step forward instead and jumped. Whatever she was jumping at, it was out of reach. Or it had moved.
Seconds later, a large black panther stood on her hind legs, put her two front paws together, and then slid down onto the floor of the moving box. The panther's front two paws formed a sort of cage. The panther opened her paw-cage a bit and peered in.
"My mom will have a slimy kangahoopdedoodle if you eat me," a girl's voice said. "I won't be any too happy about it either."
The panther disappeared and Nary was lying on the floor, something cupped in her hands. She was holding the something so that it couldn't escape. "What did you say?"
"I asked – Do you have a license for that beast? If not, some animal control officers will be having a serious talk with you."
"Huh?"
"Would you mind letting go of me? You've damaged my wing."
# # # # # # # #
A minute later, Nary was sitting cross-legged on the floor of the elevator. The voice's body was standing in front of her. Nary couldn't see the tiny body too well, but it gave off the same smell as the sling that Theogun used. The voice's smelly suit was very small – about the length of Nary's pinky finger. She knew that a person was inside because the suit had two legs, two arms, and a head.
Nary didn't think this small suit was anything unusual, at least not anything more unusual than what she had already encountered. Flying invisibly in the air was normal for these people. Why wouldn't a tiny body that spoke in a girl's voice be normal too? Nary had captured it; now she wanted to make sure it wouldn't escape. "Do you promise you won't run away?"
"I can't run away. You've closed the door and I can't push the button to open it. Not with what you've done to my wing. How'd you see me?"
"I didn't see you at first. I smelled you. Then when I caught you, I was able to see you. I went after you because I thought there might be some meat that I could eat."
"That's so pathetic. I leave this world as a mid-morning snack."
"I won't eat you."
"Thank you."
"You don't have enough meat on you."
"Now you're getting all mushy on me."
"Huh?"
"What's your name?"
"Nary nary quite contrary, how does your garden grow."
"Ah. I know who you are now. I didn't recognize you."
"Who are you?"
"Azure. I'm Lucas' guardian angel."
"Shango."
"Him too."
"What's a guardian angel?"
"A sort of person who protects somebody else from harm."
"Were you asleep when the bad people poisoned Shango?"
"No, I was there. Watching."
# # # # # # # #
"Let me get this straight," Azure said. "You're going to let the panther eat me now because I'm a bad person."
"You let Shango get poisoned. That makes you one of the people trying to hurt him."
"I'm not a bad person. I let him get poisoned because I had to. But I pulled him out of the wheelchair and made sure that his head hit the floor hard."
Black eyes turned to red.
"Whoa, girl! Red eyes are not an attractive feature for you. I put Shango to sleep so that he wouldn't be able to think about dying. He doesn't know what's happening right now and he's peaceful. He's not frantically trying to escape from a poisoned body."
Back to the black eyes. "Why didn't you just kill everybody trying to hurt him?”
"Because that's not what happened. Shango went into the cell. That's what happened. Now he'll be rescued. Hopefully."
"Nary? Where are you?" Yolanda's voice was at the far end of the cellblock.
"Nary, do you know what the word secret means?"
# # # # # # # #
"Nary? Where are you?" Yolanda's voice. Coming closer.
"I'm a secret, right? You don't tell anybody about me. Plus you hafta hide me because I can't turn invisible or fly until my wing heals."
"OK. Where will you hide?"
"Your jeans are too tight; you have no shirt pocket. I'll go in your hair."
Nary put a hand out and the smelly suit ran up to her hair and buried herself in.
"Did you ever consider using hair conditioner, Nary?"
"Nary? Where are you?"
Nary let out half of a panther scream.
"Yeesh, Nary. You want to warn me the next time you let loose with one of those? Otherwise, next time your hair will need more than conditioner."
"There you are." Yolanda said as the door opened.
"I got locked in," Nary said.
# # # # # # # #
The physical part of learning to use the sling came naturally to Nary. She even asked if the sling could fly faster and Yolanda had said "Perhaps next week."
However Nary had difficulty understanding when she was visible and when she was invisible. "Everything still looks the same," she said.
"It will," Yolanda said. "The invisibility power doesn't block your eyes from seeing out. But when you're invisible, the sling will be tight all around your body. Try it. Switch back and forth. Think the command."
...
"What happens if I'm in the sling and the panther comes?"
"The panther will probably be invisible. Do you want to try it?"
"OK."
"We'll do it right here on the deck of the ship. Turn yourself visible. Then, call the panther. Then, try to turn the panther invisible. Then, try to turn the panther visible. Then, change it to you."
Yolanda watched as Nary sat on the floor, became the panther, disappeared, reappeared, and then switched to Nary.
"You can change bodies that quickly?"
"I can when the panther is right here. It takes longer if I have to call her."
"Where would she be when she's not with you?"
"I don't know."
&
nbsp; "Does your panther have a name?"
"I don't know. She doesn't speak to me. She just pulls me inside her body when I call her."
"Why don't you give her a name so that you don't have to keep calling her the panther? Momaka named her companion Bob."
"I can give her any name I want?"
"I don't see why not. She's your companion."
"Yolanda, what does the word contrary mean. Marie told me once but I forgot."
"It means being stubborn; always doing the opposite of what you're supposed to do."
"I'll call her Contrary then, because that's what she is."
# # # # # # # #
Nary found mind messages difficult to send because she didn't know very many people and she had trouble visualizing faces when she didn't know their names.
"Let's try Theo. Picture his face in your mind. Then think of what you want to say."
Hi Theo.
Hi Nary.
It worked!
"Did it work?" Yolanda asked.
"I just said that it did."
"But you were thinking your message to Theo. I can't hear what you're thinking unless you want me to."
"How do I do that?"
"Picture both of our faces in your mind and think your message."
Hi Theo. Hi Yolanda.
Hi Nary.
It worked, Nary. I heard you in my mind.
The two of you have different sounding voices in my head. I can tell who said what.
Try messaging Marie.
She's sleeping, Yolanda.
Bye, Nary
Theo said goodbye to me, Yolanda.
Yes, it's polite to say goodbye when you've finished talking with somebody whether you're talking with your voice or with your mind.
Goodbye, Yolanda.
"You did well. Where's Marie? You said she was sleeping. I didn't see her in the bedroom."
"She's sleeping somewhere else. She'll be back in a couple of days."
"She'll be sleeping the whole time?"
"It's her way."
# # # # # # # #
"Yolanda, do you think Contrary would be able send a mind message?"
"I don't know. Bob doesn't. I believe the wolves do, but only Winnie can hear them. Would you like to try?"
"OK."
Contrary appeared on the deck and looked at Yolanda. Then an image appeared in Yolanda's head. A deer. A second deer joined the first. This deer was bigger. Yolanda didn't know how to get Nary back, so she tried a finger shoo at the panther. The panther yawned and a big pink tongue emerged as did some very nasty looking fangs. Yolanda decided to back up a bit. Actually, quite a bit.