Читать книгу Save the Dragons! - Martin Berman-Gorvine - Страница 10

Chapter 6

I was crying as I made my way through the gathering dark toward Gloria’s Gateway Books. I kept dabbing at the tears with the back of my stupid baby-blue mittens. Another example of how Mom thinks I’m still a little kid!

Did I want Tom to see me like this? His first glimpse of the girl who (I hoped) would be the love of his life to be an ugly snot-nosed mess? No, of course not. But I couldn’t stop crying.

At that moment I hated Mom and Dad and Heather for making me so miserable, and I’d always hated my classmates for treating me like a freak. Kylie was the worst of the bunch. The only person in this world who had ever really cared for me was Nana, and she was dead.

As soon as I met Tom, I would beg him to let me stay in his world with him. I would seek asylum, yes I would, in his British America! I’d never go back, and instead of fighting over me, everybody could fight over who had made me run away. All they wanted to do was fight anyway, so they’d be happy. And Kylie and her gang could go on being shallow self-absorbed little b-words, but they’d have nobody to be mean to any more.

Relax and enjoy the walk, Gloria’s note had said. There wasn’t much chance of that, and the crummy neighborhood I walked through seemed grayer and more run-down. But somehow my feet knew where to take me even if my head didn’t, and before it got completely dark I saw the welcoming light of the bookstore.

I ran to the door and pushed it open, startling Tiferet from her perch atop a stack of books that I hadn’t seen before. Maybe Tom’s already here, and these are all the books he’s going to buy! Tiferet turned into an orange streak and disappeared into the back.

“Sorry, kitty,” I called. “Tom? Tom, are you there?”

No answer. I followed the cat into the gloom, toward the secret back room. The doorway I’d made stood before me, and I heard someone moving around.

“Tom?” I called again, over the pounding of my heart. A hard rubber ball in my chest that kept bouncing against my rib cage.

Was that a muffled voice? I peeked into the hidden room, but no one was there. The bare light bulb dangled from its cord, casting sharp shadows on those heaps of incredible books.

The shadows shifted. I blinked once, twice. Could it be? Sure enough, the light bulb swayed, as if someone had just brushed past it.

“Tom?” I shouted.

A muffled voice said “Teresa?”

“Tom! Tom, where are you?”

“I am here in the back room!” the voice said.

“Huh? But I’m in the back room!” I said.

“Well, I am here as well. Right in the corner where the audio platters are.”

Audio platters? Oh, he must mean records! I turned. A stack of vinyl records sat in the far corner, all right, but no one was standing there. Where was the voice coming from? It sounded like whoever it was, was standing right beside me, yet the voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, even from inside my body.

Suddenly I started shivering so hard that my teeth clattered together, even though the room was too warm. A cat yowled and I jumped. That noise too seemed to be coming from everywhere at once, but then Tiferet bounded from of the corner where Tom had claimed he was standing. She leaped into my arms. Then things got really weird.

* * * *

It was harder bidding everyone farewell on Sunday afternoon than I expected. A good deal harder. In fact, it had not been so difficult for me to part with them since I first left for boarding school three years ago. I even shed a few tears.

“Stop crying, big brother, you look like a total idiot,” Jo whispered as she hugged me.

“I shall make you pay for that,” I whispered as I hugged her back.

“You’re not going to forget to send me that voicegram, will you, Tommy? So I can know if you found your Teresa?”

“Perhaps I shall,” I said.

Dad pretended not to notice that I was crying, but he patted me on the back in addition to his usual handshake.

“You keep those marks up, Tommy,” he said. “I’m holding a place open for you at the DRRAGON base. We’re doing exciting research that I didn’t have time to tell you about this weekend. And I have my own special side project as well. I just know you’ll want to be a part of both projects.”

“Thank you, Dad,” I said softly.

A hug from Mum was what I needed most. “I do not know what is bothering you, Tommy boy, but remember we all love you,” she said, softly so as not to give Jo ammunition or make me look unmanly in front of Dad.

And really, what was bothering me? I waved goodbye to the carriage as it moved slowly away down King George Boulevard, towards the Nanticoke Pike.

The question kept nagging at me as I carried my presents up to my room—of course Mum had insisted on buying me clothing that might have looked smart in the Home Islands around 1990, but was bound to make Curtis call me a ponce if I wore it. Maybe the trousers were salvageable. In fact, maybe I would wear them and my old Gingo Teag High blazer when I met Teresa tomorrow.

Was that what was making me nervous? The (admittedly small) chance that I was being played for a fool, and that Curtis would be waiting at the “bookstore” to laugh at me while Adams and his clique beat me up? It took me a long time to fall asleep that night.

* * * *

Which of course meant that I had trouble staying awake in class the next day. Mr Goldberg, the natural philosophy master, noticed me jabbing my wrist with a pencil to stay awake, and asked me to stay after class. My heart sank. His was the last class of the day, and I must leave soon if I was going to meet Teresa—or my ultimate humiliation.

“Tom, have a seat. Don’t look so worried, I’m not going to give you detention,” he said in his heavy Yiddish accent. (Even teachers use contractions without a second thought! Why is Mum such a stickler?)

The scuttlebutt around the school was that Kirkwood had hired him “fresh off the boat from Palestine,” where the Emperor had decided that fewer Jews would make the Arabs happier and the province easier to control.

Of course His Royal Majesty Henri-Napoléon III could also have reduced the numbers of Jews pouring into Palestine by ordering his Russian provinces to stop imposing so many anti-Jewish laws, but the Imperial slogan these days was “local control,” so we Britons gained the benefit of some very motivated refugees with an axe to grind with l’Empire.

“Tom, what’s been bothering you lately? You seem distracted in class.” Despite his accent, Goldberg speaks English with pedantic correctness. Except for those contractions.

I squirmed and could not look him in the eye. “I’m having trouble sleeping,” I muttered.

“That may be the efficient cause of your distraction, young man—and you do remember what efficient cause means, yes?”

“The immediate cause, right?”

He gave an approving sniff and brushed his long brown hair back from his forehead—“young man” indeed, he cannot be more than five or six years older than me. “Very good, I think perhaps you shall not fail the final after all. And so, yes, the immediate cause, but I think there may be deeper causes behind this sleeplessness. Or am I off on the wrong track, as we English say?” Mr Goldberg became a naturalized British subject last year, and he is very proud of it.

All right, I would give him something to think about. I looked him straight in the eye, and said, “Mr Goldberg, what do you think the nature of reality is?”

He drew away, a puzzled frown on his face. His accent thickened even further. “Philosophical troubles you bring me?”

“You could call them that.” I told him much of what I had already told Reverend Marks, except I framed it as a series of hypotheticals: “Suppose there was a place full of impossible things…”

Why was I was reluctant to tell Mr Goldberg everything? Perhaps because I know the pastor better, and I wanted to be careful in case Mr Goldberg should be inclined to laugh at me or report me to the school’s Mental Hygiene Advisor. But he nodded thoughtfully.

“Tom, there is much about the world that our natural philosophy doesn’t truly understand,” he said, stroking his long, bushy walrus mustache. “And perhaps our history as well. Our minds are small and limited, and we must rely on the work of others who came before us, who had their own limitations. If I can inspire you and the others in this class to go beyond those limitations, to do away with some of the errors that hold men back—well, that is why I love to teach. So no, I don’t think you’re crazy to think there could be worlds that have taken a different path than ours. Or even communication with other—intelligences. I would warn you only to keep one eye on the ground while you’re learning to fly.”

I started. Did he know about Dad’s work? I hadn’t mentioned it. In fact, Dad had warned me not to talk about it in school.

“May I go now?” I asked after a pause.

“Oh, of course! Away with you,” he said with a smile and a dismissive wave. “Enjoy your evening.”

Outside it was already growing dark. I was going to be late, late to meet Teresa, and after I had taken the trouble of asking the pastor to agree to excuse me from advanced Bible studies! Which he had done without asking any awkward questions, but with a wink that made me blush.

I hurried towards the gate, but before I could get there Adams and two of his flunkies loomed out of the shadows.

“Where you going in such a rush, Purnell?”

“None of your business, Adams,” I snapped. What had I said?

The flunkies ooh’d and ah’d and whistled. Adams smirked, stepped forward and pushed me in the chest. Something in my snapped, and I punched him in the jaw. He lost his balance and fell onto the flunky on his right, who I think is called Jack Madison.

Adams must have been surprised, since I am known for going to great lengths to avoid a fight. Yet I could hardly have avoided what followed, regardless of my actions. The other flunky, Jim Monroe, grabbed me from behind while Adams rose, murder in his eye, and punched me in the gut. All the air rushed out of my lungs. I fell to the ground, my mouth opening and closing like the striped bass Dad catches on week-ends. Adams and Monroe yelled at me to get up and fight like a man, while Madison asked if Adams was all right.

At that moment Mr Thiel, the deputy headmaster and Latin master, ran up and began his useless blustering—we call him Squeal behind his back.

I peered up at his toadlike face, my vision going in and out of focus. Madison grabbed my arm and pulled me to my feet with exaggerated politeness.

“Fighting on the campus?” Mr Thiel shrieked. “This is antithetical to the spirit of cooperation and unity we expect from students fortunate enough to be allowed to attend St George’s!”

“Fighting? We weren’t fighting, Mr Thiel, sir,” Adams said, wiping away the blood on his chin. “Infernal here tripped, and we were just helping him to his feet. Isn’t that right, boys?”

The flunkies nodded vigorously.

“My name is Thomas Jefferson Purnell, Adams,” I growled, adding more softly, “And I shall give you a good reason to remember it!”

“This is unacceptable behavior!” Thiel said. “You are all confined to quarters for the evening! And tomorrow morning, you will report yourselves to my office for five strokes apiece!”

Rumour has it Mr Thiel was dishonourably discharged from His Majesty’s Border Guards, the most corrupt and ineffective branch of the service, for being too useless even for mess-hall duty.

But he was still a master, and we all mumbled our yessirs and waited to be dismissed. As Adams headed off toward his dorm and I headed off toward mine, we looked each other in the eye.

This is only the beginning, mate.

Which still left me with the problem of getting to Gloria’s Gateway Books in—I looked at Curtis’s handcrafted silver alarum clock as I entered the room, and gasped—ten minutes!

“What’s the matter, Purnell?” Curtis asked.

I turned, slightly startled—I had not even noticed anyone else was in the room, I was so flustered—to see him lying on the bed with Martha, their arms around each other. Entertaining a member of the opposite sex in one’s quarters is strictly forbidden at all times at St George’s, but people like Curtis assume the rules are meant for others, and it seems they are usually right.

Martha smiled at me, her brown eyes kind, and for a moment I forgot all about Teresa. I told them what had happened, and Curtis clucked sympathetically.

“Thiel’s an ass. You need help getting over the wall?”

“Yes.” Thiel had doubtless told whoever was on gate duty not to let me, Adams, Madison, or Monroe out.

“All right then, Tommy boy, follow us,” Curtis said, rubbing his hands together. We all tiptoed out of the dorm and crept around to the back wall. Curtis helped boost me through the gap in the wall while Martha kept watch.

She winked at me just before I went through. “Have fun, Tommy. Bring Teresa back and introduce us to her when you have the chance,” she whispered.

I nodded and climbed over the wall to freedom.

* * * *

It was a cold night, but I barely noticed the wind as I darted through the streets, hoping desperately it would not take me too long this time to find the strange, vague neighborhood around the bookstore. Even using Gloria’s recommended method of not consciously seeking my way, it had never taken me less than an hour to get there before, and I was afraid Teresa would not wait.

But for some mysterious reason, this time the streets seemed to fall behind me as if I was an artillery shell in the Great War zooming straight to its destination, and I found myself standing in the doorway at one minute to five, stroking Tiferet’s head as she purred.

My heart thudded in my ears as I walked toward the secret back room, calling Teresa’s name. There was no answer. I had to duck my head to fit through the makeshift doorway through the bookshelves that led to the back room. A warm breeze scented faintly with oranges wafted from out of the darkness. On my previous visits, the back room had a warm orange glow from gas lighting, but now it was plunged in darkness.

Reaching up, I waved my arms around until I bumped into a gas sconce, on which I cleverly managed to scrape my hand. I muttered words that would have resulted in a caning at school as I fumbled around looking for the switch. At last I found it and turned it carefully to the left, striking the spark that lit the gas.

The shadows retreated. Was that a girl’s voice calling my name?

“Tom! Tom, where are you?”

“I am here in the back room!” I said.

“Huh? But I’m in the back room!” the voice said.

“Well, I am here as well. Right in the corner where the audio platters are,” I said.

She sounded as if she stood beside me, yet her voice seemed to come from everywhere at once, even from inside my body. I turned completely around, but no one was there except for Tiferet, who had wandered into the room in that offhand way cats have but was now trotting purposefully towards the opposite corner. I was looking right at her when she vanished.

I rubbed my eyes. I must be seeing things. In that instant came the sound of something heavy shifting, followed by a thump. Then two girls stood in the corner, a dark-haired, slightly plump girl my own age, and a tall, slim girl—no, a woman of about thirty, as far as I could tell in the shifting light—with long red hair and a mischievous gleam in her green eyes.

The dark-haired girl hugged the woman tightly, but then she yelped and did the most amazing double-take I have ever seen in my life, which made her lose her balance and go reeling backward toward the nearest row of bookshelves.

I leaned forward and caught her. She was out of breath and her skin was cold to the touch, as if she had just come in from outdoors.

“Teresa?” I said, my voice cracking on the second syllable. Her head was cradled in my arms and she looked straight into my eyes.

She nodded slowly. Her eyes were a much richer, warmer brown than Martha’s. Suddenly it seemed to be very hot in the room. I released her hastily, after ensuring she was standing steadily on her feet. Then we both turned and stared at the flame-headed lady, who grinned broadly.

“Hello. I’m Gloria,” she said, and curtseyed—she was wearing a long, bright green skirt, almost a gown. “I would ordinarily say how very pleased I am to make your acquaintances, but I feel we have already been on much too intimate terms for such formality.”

She smiled again and brushed what looked like orange cat hair off her sleeves. Her voice was warm and confiding, like your oldest and best friend in the world. Her accent was vaguely Home Islands, but not quite like Mum’s. It was impossible to place, I would have to say.

She began to chuckle, then threw back her head for a full-throated belly laugh, her arms clutching her bosom.

“Oh, my dears,” she said finally, dabbing her eyes on a corner of her skirt. “Look at you! You have positively turned to stone! You must accompany me to the front room for your tea and cocoa. This chamber is propitious for traveling, but not for proper introductions. And you must be properly introduced to one another. Much depends on it.”