“Let’s go on,” Jazzberry said.
She led them through the jungle, on neat, wide pathways made of the same rubbery floor as the corridor. Annie was awe-struck at first as they passed all the strange, alien plants, but after a few minutes she lost her wonder. It was just a woods, after all, like the Haunted Woods, except these plants were from another planet. By the time they reached the far side of the conservatory, almost an hour later, she was tired and a little bored.
They left the jungle and entered a tube that smelled like jasmine, colored bright yellow that, as they walked, slowly faded toward white. Jazzberry stopped at a featureless point in the corridor and sang two notes. A doorway opened into another room, this one small enough that when everyone was inside it felt a little crowded.
“This is another kind of conservatory,” Jazzberry said. “We’ve preserved hundreds of samples of every kind of life form we’ve ever encountered.”
“Like a zoo?” Dennis said.
“Not exactly. More like a library.”
“I don’t understand.”
“A DNA library. Other planets use different genetic schemes, of course, but whatever they use, it’s recorded here.”
“Can you show us?” Annie said.
Jazzberry floated a little higher and sang a short song. The wall across from the open doorway darkened and a complicated pattern of lights appeared. She sang another note and a three-dimensional picture of an Indian appeared beside the light show. He was wearing leather clothes and long hair that was tied back.
“This is the DNA pattern of one of the people who lived in this area when we first buried the ship.” She sang a note and another pattern of lights appeared beside a picture of an oak tree. “This is the DNA of the tree that guards the entrance to the ship.” Another note, and a completely different arrangement of lights shone beside the picture of a— Annie looked closer. It looked like an upside-down lobster with thick legs coming out of its head. “This is one of the aliens you were asking about, Annie, from the last world we visited before we came to Earth.”
“You have the DNA of every species on Earth?” Dennis said.
“Not yet,” Fidget said, “but we’re still gathering samples. There are too many, and new ones are evolving all the time. But we have a lot of them, including some that don’t exist anymore anywhere outside this library.”
“You mean extinct animals?” June said.
“Yes.”
“Not dinosaurs?” Annie said, thinking of Otto. When he’d first met Fidget, he’d thought he was a dinosaur.
“We haven’t been here that long,” Jazzberry said. “But we have mastodons and a lot of other things that used to live here, before your ancestors wiped them out.”
“Can you bring them back to life?” Dennis said excitedly.
“We could,” the fairy said. “But there’s no reason to. We don’t interfere with what happens on Earth except to protect ourselves. It’s your planet. If you want to destroy its ecosystem, that’s your business.”
Annie looked at the weird alien lobster. Something was tickling inside her head, trying to get out.
* * *
Another long walk, through greenish corridors that shifted to blue, took them to a dim room that Annie would have thought was large before she’d seen the conservatory. The wall to their right flickered, and Annie realized it was composed of hundreds of flat-panel TVs, or maybe one giant TV that could show hundreds of channels at once. Many of the channels showed the interior of the ship—empty corridors, the conservatory, dark rooms—but several showed the guardian tree and the woods around it. She had just caught a glimpse of their group on one of the channels when something moved in the gloom ahead of them. Before she could look up, June screamed.
It was a dragon, shaped something like Fidget, but enormous, like the dragons from fairy tales. The cute spikes and horns that sprouted here and there from Fidget’s body were exaggerated into killing weapons on the giant’s body. The ceiling here was high, but he still had to duck his head to move, and he was moving toward them.
Fidget flew forward and spoke in a strange voice that Annie had never heard him use before. His English voice sounded like a boy of her age, but his dragon voice—all clicks, hums, and low whistles—sounded much older, and she reminded herself that while Fidget looked and acted young, he was actually over three centuries old.
The giant dragon continued to lumber toward them as Fidget spoke, responding in the same language but in an even deeper voice. As he got closer he loomed over them, until Annie began to feel like an ant walking under an elephant.
“This is Claw,” Fidget said. “He’s the guardian on duty this shift.”
Claw dropped his head, which was bigger than Annie’s entire body, down to their level. The snout came closer and closer to her, and when it was almost touching her the dragon inhaled deeply, making her hair and clothes fly as if in a wind. Then the giant head turned and Claw examined her slowly with an eye the size of a dinner plate. When the head drew away, Annie realized that she was standing alone: Dennis and June had stepped back.
The giant took half a step and repeated the sniff and stare with the other two humans. Then he drew back and watched them silently.
“This is the control room,” Jazzberry said. “When the ship is running, there would be a dozen people working here, monitoring the automatic systems. For a long time, no one but the guardian has been in here.”
Claw spoke again in the strange mixture of rumbles and whistles. He sounded like a freight train starting up.
“He wants to know which is the little girl who volunteered to help us,” Fidget said.
Annie stepped forward nervously. “I guess that’s me.”
The guardian lowered his head again and stared at her for several seconds, then he turned away and walked slowly back the way he had come.
“How many of those did you say there are?” Dennis said.
“About a hundred,” Jazzberry said, “but only one is awake at a time. They do guard duty for a century or so, then they go back to sleep while another takes his turn. If your friends try to dig up this hill, Claw will awaken the others. When they detect a threat to the ship, they attack instantly, and it’s very, very hard to restrain them. I’m not sure how much damage they would do before we could stop them.”
“He’s very scary,” June said, “but do they breathe fire or something? What could a hundred dragons do against a whole army?”
“The battle would last only a few minutes,” Jazzberry said. “Enhanced admale dragons are smart, extremely strong, and horrifyingly dangerous. It’s not just their size. They have weapons that humans have never even imagined. It’s entirely possible they could sterilize the whole hemisphere before we could calm them down.”
The room was silent except for the muffled thumping of Claw’s retreat. Finally, Dennis said softly, “They’re not my friends. They’re business partners.”
“There’s more,” Jazzberry said. “The guardians have a last resort. They absolutely will not allow our ship to fall into the hands of a race that’s not ready for space travel yet.”
“You mean us,” Annie said.
“I’m sorry, but yes. It seems unlikely, but if your armies put up a reasonable fight, or if someone tries to use nuclear weapons against the guardians, they’ll blow up the ship.”
“That would kill you, wouldn’t it?” June said.
“We’d probably already be dead by then. Blowing up the ship wouldn’t just affect the American continents. It would most likely make the entire planet uninhabitable.”
“So,” Dennis said tiredly, “if they try to build those houses, humanity’s only hope for survival is to lose quickly against the guardians, without putting up a serious fight. Sacrifice a billion people so the rest can live.”
“I’m afraid so.”
Dennis sank to the floor and put his head on his knees. “I should have stayed out of real estate,” he moaned.
* * *
> No one spoke after that. Jazzberry led them to another set of corridors, a short-cut to the exit. When the hole beneath the oak tree closed behind them, Dennis started walking without waiting to be led. He was going the wrong way, of course, and Fidget had to steer him back.
It was a long, sad, quiet tramp through the woods to the places that were familiar to them. When they stood in the late afternoon sun in the middle of the quiet meadow that Annie knew so well, with butterflies stuttering from flower to flower and dragonflies zooming past on their inscrutable errands, Jazzberry and Fidget stopped.
“Dennis,” the fairy said, “listen to me. This isn’t your fault. You couldn’t have known what lay beneath this hill. And think about this. Suppose you had stayed out of it, and your partners found someone else. Then we never would have contacted Annie, and there’d be no hope at all. We still have over a week to figure something out.”
“Nine days,” Dennis said, and he turned and walked down the hill alone.
“I’ll think of something,” Annie said.
“I know you will, dear,” Jazzberry said, and that was how Annie learned that fairies could lie.
Chapter 10: Freak
“Is there something you want to tell us, dear?” Annie’s mother said at breakfast the next morning. It was Sunday. Annie had finished her strawberry waffles but wouldn’t touch the sausage links, which used to be her favorite. It was hard not to eat them—they smelled so good—but she remembered that adult fairies never ate meat.
Was it the sausages? Or had they found out about her going to the woods every day when she’d promised not to? Or was it something else?
“Yes,” Annie said. She folded her napkin and put it beside her plate. “I’ve decided to become a vegetarian. That’s why I didn’t eat the sausages.”
Her parents looked confused. So that wasn’t it.
“I mean about school, honey,” her mother said.
“Mrs. Longsnout called us,” her father said.
She called them because Annie passed a geography test? There was no way to win. Get in trouble if you flunk, get in trouble if you pass.
They waited, but she didn’t respond. Finally, her father said, “What’s the capital of Azerbaijan?”
“Baku.”
“What’s its population?”
“The city or the country?”
Her parents looked at each other. “Never mind. What’s the capital of Cameroon?”
“Yaoundé.”
Her mother leaned forward. “Dear, are you feeling all right? Have you had any headaches or blurry vision?”
“No. Why?”
“Honey,” her father said, “a week ago you hated geography and couldn’t make yourself study it. You flunked half your tests. Now you seem to know everything about it. That’s not normal.”
“I decided it was interesting,” Annie said. “I read a book.”
“What book?”
“Sweetie,” her mother interrupted, “Mrs. Longsnout thinks you might be sick.”
“Sick?”
“A brain t—. Something wrong with your head.”
“She thinks I’m crazy?”
Her father snorted and her mother frowned at him. “It’s Mrs. Longsnout who’s crazy,” her father said. “Wouldn’t Annie have told us if she didn’t feel well? Something weird is going on, but look at her. She’s perfectly healthy.”
“Annie, you can go play now,” her mother said.
Annie got up quickly and went to her room. She knew her parents were about to have one of their discussions, and she didn’t want to be there for it. Especially since it was about her and her brain. And especially because she only had eight days left to think of a way to save the world.
* * *
After school let out Monday, Annie and June were walking to the bus when Trevor Bridges, the bully, stepped in front of them.
“I heard you’re a real brain now, freak,” he said. “What happened, did your dad pump some gunk into your ears to fill up your empty head?”
His hyenas thought that was hilarious. They slapped each other on the back and made dopey faces at her.
“Remove thyself from our presence, varlet,” Annie said, “or I’ll thrash thee within a hair of thy life.”
“Huh?”
“She said, get lost,” June said.
Trevor pushed June so hard that she fell to the ground, spilling her books. Papers flew in the air like butterflies in Jazzberry’s meadow. Annie looked at Trevor and his idiot followers laughing and felt something snap inside.
She dropped her own books and took a step toward the bully. He stopped laughing, but a smirk creased his fleshy face. He raised his fists.
“I owe you one, Rusty,” he said, and he threw a slow, clumsy punch.
Annie knocked his fist aside with the back of her hand, turned into him so her back was toward him, grabbed his outstretched arm, and ducked. Trevor went flying and landed in a heap beside Annie’s books.
“Now we’re even,” she said.
She helped June up and started collecting her papers. The circle of kids that had formed around them gasped, warning her to step quickly to one side. Trevor went charging past her and crashed into the onlookers, falling down and taking three of them with him. Annie handed June the papers she’d picked up and turned to face Trevor, who was picking himself up. His face was all red.
“Toro,” Annie said, waving an imaginary bullfighter’s cape.
He charged again. She whirled out of the way and hit him hard and high in the back as he went by, sending him sprawling. He wasn’t so quick to get up this time. She calmly picked up her things and took June’s arm, and they walked though the crowd to get on the bus.
“When did you learn kung fu?” June whispered when they were settled.
“I need to have a serious talk with Jazzberry,” Annie said. “I think Willowleaf may have given me more than geography.”
* * *
Her parents kept her home from school the next day. Her father went to work as usual, but her mother stayed home with her, working in the garden until noon. She said nothing about the fight, and asked no more geography questions. After a quiet lunch together, she told Annie to get in the car.
“Where are we going?” Annie said.
“To the doctor’s.”
“To get a shot?” she said nervously. She hated needles.
“No, dear, she’s just going to examine you.”
They had to wait a long time at the doctor’s office. Annie kept picking up magazines from the table beside her. Her mother would look up from her own book several minutes later, see what Annie was reading—People, Redbook, Ladies Home Journal—and quietly take it away. Then Annie would find another one and they’d do it again. Annie would have preferred something more interesting to read, but vexing her mother at least passed the time.
A nurse took them to a small, ugly room. The walls were the color of Silly Putty, and the ominous metal bed was covered with a sheet of thin paper. After a moment, the doctor came in, a woman a few years older than Annie’s mother. The two of them went out into the hall together, leaving Annie sitting on a chair in the room.
She didn’t stay there long. With her ear pressed against the door, she could hear almost everything.
“Well, something’s wrong. All of a sudden she knows things no child could know, things that I don’t know. She’s been distracted and furtive for weeks. She’s always stealing away to her woods. And yesterday after school she beat up a bully twice her size, and came home without a scratch.”
“Any number of things could explain all of that,” the doctor said.
“Like what? A brain tumor?”
“Oh, I doubt that. What makes you think she’s ill? Has she had any headaches, blurred vision, seeing spots, muscle spasms? Anything like that?”
“No. But I know something’s wrong.”
“Well, let’s take a look.”
Annie scurried back to her chair.
The doctor wa
s friendly as she did the usual doctor things: made Annie stick out her tongue, listened to her heart with the stethoscope, checked her blood pressure, looked into her eyes, ears, and nostrils, thumped her back, hit her knees with the little rubber hammer. Then she told Annie to walk up and down the hallway outside the room, wave her arms in a funny way, touch her nose with alternate hands, and do lots of other stupid stuff. She asked her questions about spots, ringing in her ears, and a dozen other things.
“You’re perfectly fine, Annie,” the doctor said at last.
“But—” her mother said.
“I can do a blood test if you want, but it’s expensive and I don’t think it’s necessary. She has no motor impairments, no vision or hearing problems, nothing wrong with her balance or coordination. There’s been no pain, no symptoms at all that I can see. She’s perfectly healthy.”
“What about a CAT scan?”
“Very expensive, and definitely uncalled for.”
Annie thought her mother looked disappointed. Did she want her to be sick?
They went home, and Annie spent the afternoon in the backyard, swinging, looking at the neighbor’s trees, and trying to think of something to do about Jazzberry and Fidget.
After a quiet and tense dinner that night, her father was reading the paper while Annie and her mother watched TV. Suddenly he laughed and crumpled the pages in his hands.
“What’s funny?” her mother said, but not as if she really wanted to know.
“You know that drilling rig they’re building in Alaska?” Her mother grunted. “They had to stop work on it because they found a rare kind of fox. Apparently, the construction guys were taking a coffee break and this strange little animal just wandered into the camp.”
“What happened?” her mother said.
“It’s Alaska: what do you think happened? Somebody shot it. But when they showed it to some professor who was up there consulting for the government, he got all excited. It’s supposed to be extinct, I guess. So they have to stop while they survey the place again to make sure there are no more around. It’ll set them back weeks, maybe a month.”
“Good,” her mother said listlessly, and turned back to the TV.
Annie didn’t see any more of the show they were watching. Something was tickling inside her head again, trying to get out.
* * *
“What did you do to her?” June said.