We had science in the afternoon. Usually we did practical experiments, but that day Mr. Stravin had us doing theory, so Gilly and I didn’t speak all class until we were washing our hands at the end. Even if we hadn’t done any experiments in the class, Mr. Stravin made us wash our hands because he said it was a good habit for serious scientists to have. To him, we were all serious scientists in embryo, which was one of the things Gilly and I liked about him.
“You want to come to the movies on Saturday?” Gilly asked quietly, soaping her hands. “There’s an old horror movie marathon.”
I sighed and shook my head. “I have my own horror marathon on Saturday. Mrs. Barker told me this morning I’m supposed to sit for the two missed tests then.”
Gilly grimaced sympathetically. “You could come along after. You would still see a couple of the movies. And if not for the movies, you should come because the Valhalla has the world’s best stale cookies and soapy tea at intermission.”
I grinned. “Do I have to pay for the whole marathon?” A very Whitestarr question.
“No, but it’ll be my treat anyway,” Gilly said.
I might have refused, but I realized with a burst of plea sure that this was how it was with friends.
* * *
School went on being chaotic as the week progressed, and teachers trying to run regular classes must have felt like they were holding down the lid on a furiously boiling pot. Half of them looked on the verge of nervous breakdowns, and there was a lot more yelling than usual. I didn’t see Harlen up close, because English class stayed in two halves for the week.
Then, after class on Thursday, I was approaching the glass doors at the front of the school when I saw him standing by the school gates, talking to a couple of guys in expensive-looking clothes. He was as handsome and perfectly groomed as ever, and his black hair shone darkly in the sunlight. He glanced toward the entrance, and although he could not possibly have seen me through the reflector glass, I felt suddenly certain that he was looking for me. A wave of inexplicable fear flowed through me. Without thought, I turned and went back down the hall to a door that brought me out on the far side of the school. Once outside, I cut across the courtyard, knowing the school buildings would hide my retreat from Harlen. I went through a gate in the fence that led me into a lane that, a few minutes later, brought me to Stapleton Park.
It was only after I had passed into the shadows of the big trees there that I slowed down and thought with incredulity about what had just happened. The weird, powerful fear I had experienced must be my subconscious reacting to the memory of the awful smell he had given off. But why was I reacting to it now? Why not when I had seen him in class earlier in the week?
Even just thinking about what had happened made me feel uneasy, so I forced my thoughts away from Harlen and focused my attention determinedly on the carpet of red and yellow leaves that lay under the trees. I let my senses take me into their delicious fermenting smell, and before long I was kicking through them as enthusiastically as a little kid. By the time I reached the end of the trees, I was breathless but also relaxed. I walked up to the top of a small hill where people were flying kites and let my mind go into the kites. For a while it was as if I was there at the end of those fragile strings, bouncing and jerking and longing to go with the wind that tugged at me.
* * *
I did not allow myself to think again about what had happened that afternoon until I was in my room. Then I wrote, “It was like a documentary we saw at school about a gazelle who scents a hyena and flees. But what possible danger could Harlen Sanderson represent to me? It’s not as if he knows about my altered senses, and even if he did, what harm could he cause? In a movie, Harlen might want to sell his information to some shady government group of scientists who hunted down people with abilities that could be used as weapons and performed hideous experiments on them, but in real life he is a handsome, dark-haired guy with buckets of charm and a smile to die for.”
I thought some more, then I wrote, “Maybe it was actually the guys with Harlen that set off my danger sense. One of them had a shaved head, which always makes me think of neo-Nazis. They had both emanated a dangerous toughness, even though they were wearing nice clothes. I guess I’ll know for sure when I see Harlen again.”
I put the journal away and went downstairs for dinner. When I saw Serenity stirring a pot, I sighed inwardly. These days, the food she made was either totally tasteless or spiced with such impossible combinations that it was too peculiar to eat. She glanced up from stirring as I came in, and I caught the strong scent of licorice. Sybl, my mind whispered, and my skin rose into gooseflesh. On impulse, I asked, “Why did you change your name?”
“I told you why,” she said coldly.
“Yeah, but that was ages back,” I said, and realized that I was holding my hands up as if she was threatening to shoot me. She looked a bit as if she wanted to.
“Too bad,” she snapped.
I bit back the words that jumped to my lips and waited. Finally Serenity shot me an irritated look. “That name Mum and Da gave me. That’s their name. It’s their way of claiming me. But I belong to myself, and I want to name myself.”
They were good lines, but they didn’t ring true. The bit about Mum and Da wanting to own her would have sounded a lot more convincing if they were possessive or controlling parents. I wondered if she was quoting one of her beloved poets but knew better than to suggest it.
“But why Sybl?”
She hesitated. “The name doesn’t matter,” she answered finally, turning back to the pot. I thought she had finished, but she said in a low forceful voice, “Principles matter. The things you believe in. And they only matter if you act on them.”
Da and Mirandah came clattering in the door, and Serenity closed her mouth like a trapdoor.
“Smells good, Sybl,” Da said warmly.
Serenity glared at him and flung out of the room, muttering that we could help ourselves.
“That’s no fair!” Mirandah said, hands on her hips. “Serving is part of it, Da. Isn’t that right?”
On Friday, Mrs. Barker was teaching English as usual. I told myself it was a good thing, because it meant I would get near enough to smell Harlen. Of course, I was nervous that seeing him would set off my gazelle instinct, so when I stepped into the classroom, I clamped hard on all my senses to make sure I didn’t do anything crazy.
Clamping was a technique I had discovered that allowed me to bring the extended portion of my senses back to normal levels. But I was so rattled that I clamped too hard. The class hubbub immediately faded, and color bled out of everything. It was like I was stepping into a black-and-white movie. At the same time the whispering in the air that I had been noticing since the accident got much louder.
A black-and-white Mrs. Barker looked up and spoke to me, pointing to the seat next to Gilly I could not hear what she was saying because of how loud the whispering was, but the gesture was unmistakable. I headed for the seat. Along with everyone else in the class, Harlen was looking at me, and to my relief I felt no desire to flee. He smiled beautifully, and I felt a little shock of warmth as I sat down. Mrs. Barker was still looking at me and talking, but now she had an annoyed expression. I hastily released the clamp, and it was beyond strange to see her skin and clothes and the room behind her suffuse with sudden color.
“… had better get a new alarm clock, Alyzon,” she was saying sharply. “One that will wake you early enough to ensure that you are not still asleep when you arrive late to school.”
She swung back to the board without waiting for me to respond. I opened my folder and sat staring at it until I sensed that the other kids had lost interest in me. Only then did I dart a glance at Gilly She looked worried. I smiled at her sheepishly, and she visibly relaxed.
It was hard to concentrate on essays and books after that, because of my confusion over Harlen. I was almost relieved when, after the bell rang, I heard him call my name. I summoned up the thickest part of my s
creen as I turned and clamped down on my extended senses just in case they ordered me to do anything stupid. Dimly, I registered Gilly’s admiring look as she went out. Harlen was weaving through chairs toward me, his smile delicious. But when he got closer, my heart began to pound. The sick, horrible stench was still pouring off him. It was as if he had been carrying something dead in his pocket that had become even more rotten and decomposed.
“Hi,” Harlen said, coming to lean on my desk.
It took an immense effort of will to respond in a normal voice. In my agitation I began to clamp too hard again, turning Harlen to black and white and his voice to a thread I had to strain to hear above the whispering in the air about us. Despite my efforts to keep smiling, the strain must have shown, because puzzlement flickered in Harlen’s eyes.
Careful, ordered a soft, stern voice inside me.
I searched for something innocuous to say and blurted out that I had given the CD to Serenity. Harlen’s smile widened. “That wasn’t why I wanted to talk to you, Alyzon,” he said, his mouth caressing my name. “I was thinking we could partner for the field trip.”
“Field trip?”
Harlen laughed, and his hair moved over his scalp, soft and dark as a million spiderweb-thin strands of black silk. “The impressionist writing excursion. Didn’t you hear Mrs. Barker announce it in class?”
I could not think of a sensible reason to refuse to partner with him. I could hardly say, I can’t partner with you because you smell like you are dying inside.
Careful careful careful, the voice inside me urged.
“So, I’ll see you later,” Harlen said, and he sketched a wave and walked out of the room.
I leaned weakly against my desk, sick and shaking. The irony was that I loved impressionist writing. It was this thing Mrs. Barker invented where you went somewhere and sat with a partner, watching the world go by, writing without trying to force it. It wasn’t stream of consciousness writing, which is more about what you’re thinking. It was about recording life without imposing yourself on what you saw. A month ago I would have been in heaven to have Harlen want to partner with me. Now all I knew was that I had to get out of it, even if it meant faking sick and staying home.
I had a free period next. That was fortunate, because I could not have coped with a class just then. I went to the library, thinking that Harlen could not smell the way he did because he was sick, unless he had some sickness that had yet to make an impact on his health. That made me think about cancer. But could Dr. Austin also have cancer?
After I had bidden Gilly goodbye at the end of the day, I found myself thinking about Harlen again; about the perversity of his becoming interested in me now, when I could not bear to be near him.
I reached the Vietnamese greengrocers where I had got into the habit of buying an apple or plum to eat on the way home, but it was late and the neat little man who owned the shop was dismantling the displays of fruit and piling them into baskets. I stopped to watch him work. He was so old that his limbs and face were like lovingly waxed wood, but though his movements appeared slow, they were so precise that he was actually working very swiftly, one movement flowing seamlessly into the next. It was like a dance. When I let my screen fade, it didn’t surprise me that he smelled deliciously of lemon-tree leaves.
Mr. Rackett had read to us about the Japanese samurai who believed that all tasks, however small, ought to be performed as perfectly and completely as possible. They would have approved of this old man, I thought.
He turned to look at me, and I saw from his expression that he had been aware of my gaze all along. I was not screening and I ought to have felt the pressure of his attention, but I felt only a continuation of the peace that watching him had brought me. In a way, it was like looking into Luke’s face. He tilted his head sideways and squinted, as if looking at me in bright light, then he said something. Of course, I didn’t understand, but he went on for quite a while, his voice gentle but insistent, the lemon-leaf smell of him intensifying. Then he stopped, a question in his expression. I shrugged and smiled. He nodded as if I had spoken and took one of the persimmons from his basket, offering it to me with a low bow. Not knowing what else to do, I took it and bowed back. The man smiled and apple blossom infused the tang of citrus leaf. Then he went inside his shop.
I lifted the persimmon to my nose and sniffed at its cool skin. Its fragrance made my mouth water, and as I bit into it I let myself take the flavor in with all of my extended sense of taste. The juice spurted into my mouth and a blissful laughter bubbled out of me. At the same moment, a bird poured a wonderful cascade of notes into the afternoon air. I caught sight of myself in a shop window greedily eating the persimmon and grinning like a village idiot, and it occurred to me that the changes in my senses had given me access to unusual joy as well as to mystery and darkness.
* * *
When I got home, Wombat was lying on the threshold of the kitchen door like a fat welcome mat. I stopped to stroke him, and his purr sputtered loudly to life like a little engine. He gave out a nice leather smell, which told me that he had been waiting for me to come home and stroke him. It was interesting how strongly his scents connected to meaning. I told him aloud how glad I was to see him, too, wondering suddenly if I was giving off a scent that echoed my words.
He gave off a freshly laundered shirt smell, which was a request to be scratched under the chin. I obeyed and sensed his awareness of my contentment as a sweet smell that reminded me of Da’s caramelized sugar smell. Is that how my contentment smells? I wondered.
I was absolutely startled to smell the cheesy fragrance Wombat always used to tell me yes. My pulse began to race at the thought that the cat had actually understood my question far more clearly than he would have understood the words I said aloud. Was it possible that I could make my scent messages as specific as his?
Can you smell this? I thought at him hard.
The cheesy smell! Then a burst of burnt toast.
Too … loud? I guessed.
The cheese smell again. Wombat was now sitting up and staring at me expectantly. He twitched his long tail and began to give off a series of smells. I forced myself not to think about what they might mean, but just to take in the smells. Gradually, the meaning was clear. Wombat was telling me that before, my smell communications had been weak and unfocused like those of other humans, then after I had come back from being away, they had suddenly become painfully loud. Just now, they were as precise as any animal’s—although still too loud.
I thought at him gently and very calmly, Pat me with your paw if this is better.
He patted at my knee at once, purring and giving off a strong fishy smell of approval. I grew hot with excitement and felt like cheering; maybe some bit of me did cheer, because Wombat hissed and sprang away. He would not be coaxed back, but sat by the fence twitching his tail in disapproval.
“Sorry,” I called and went inside, hardly able to wait to try communicating with other animals. For the first time I regretted our family aversion to owning animals. Wombat didn’t count, because he had just turned up on our doorstep as a full-grown cat and refused to leave. He chose us, Da always said.
I wanted to record what had just happened in my journal, but Mirandah was in the kitchen and she said dramatically, “You are not going to believe this! Jesse is writing!”
That got my attention. “Writing?”
She nodded. “Da says he has been at it on and off all this week, but today he didn’t even come down for a snack—and you know what a snacker he is. You don’t seem that surprised,” she complained. I didn’t have to respond, because the phone rang and she pounced on it.
I went up to my room, feeling excited at the thought of Jesse finally pouring his intense, bursting thoughts onto a page, and also smug because it had been my suggestion. I heard the clack clack of Mum’s old typewriter as I passed Jesse’s room and realized that it must have been him using it when I had heard it before.
Serenity was in our bedroom
, sitting on the rug on my side of the room with Luke, who was plucking the strings of her cello. There was a delicate scent of violet in the air, and on impulse, I asked, “Why don’t you play anymore?”
“Music doesn’t seem relevant,” she said, sounding tired and flat.
I sat on my bed. “Relevant to what?”
“To … to my life now,” Serenity said.
“Relevant to the life you would have as Sybl?” I asked.
She flinched and grew rigid, the violet smell metamorphosing into licorice. “What do you mean?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It just seems to me like you’re trying to make yourself into something but you don’t know what it means to be that thing, and when you do, it’ll be too late.”
She stood up with Luke in her arms. “I don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talking about.” Her voice was haughty, and aniseed began to infuse her smell. This was what I smelled whenever she was pretending to eat or sleep, and I thought of it as the scent of deception.
But what was she lying about?
Luke was laughing at me from her embrace, opening his mouth in a shape of joy that contrasted so sharply with the tight closed look on Serenity’s face that fear jabbed at me. Maybe my expression was too revealing, because abruptly she thrust Luke into my arms and left the room.
Luke gazed at me, and I let my screen fall and was instantly entranced by his smell. I had realized that its similarity to the smell of the house had something to do with how we all knitted together as a family around Luke. It was so delicious and compelling that it left no room for my concern about Serenity. Luke was like a flower opening its face widely to the sun and the rain and the wind. Utterly open, utterly absorbed, endlessly absorbing.
I was still playing with him when Da poked his head in. He dropped to his hands and knees and began to snuffle at Luke like a bear trying to reach up a tree to get at him. Luke gave a squeal of joy and stuck his belly out, and we both laughed.