Читать книгу Shelby and Shauna Kitt and the Dimensional Holes - P. H. C. Marchesi - Страница 6

After taking them through several corridors, the general finally marched through a double door that led into some kind of dining area, where boys and girls in their teens, sitting on long tables, were having lunch and chatting enthusiastically.

“There certainly is a lot of energy here,” said Lendox, cheerfully. “Perhaps fifty will be enough, after all.”

“Enough to eat us out of house and home,” retorted the general, looking with disgust at a boy who squeezed a whole dinner roll into his mouth.

“I feel like I’m back in school,” said Marina. “Where is everyone else from the base?”

“They don’t eat here,” answered the general. “For security reasons, we are trying to keep contact between candidates and army personnel to a minimum. It’s bad enough we have to teach them to fly our planes.”

“We get to fly?” cried Shelby, his eyes shining with excitement.

The general ignored Shelby, and turned to Lendox.

“Don’t you think it’s ironic,” he said, looking outraged, “that we have to depend on kids who aren’t even old enough to drive?”

“The universe has its own sense of humor,” Lendox replied.

The general’s face turned red, and he looked as if he were about to say something nasty, when a friendly voice interrupted them.

“There you are!” said a tall, thin woman with a pleated, dark brown skirt and an ill-fitting silver blouse. She had straight, dark hair combed carelessly into a bun, and light blue eyes peering from behind large glasses.

“This is my wife, Jeannie,” said the general, as she rushed to meet them. “Jeannie, you remember Marina.”

“We met once or twice,” she said, pleasantly. “I hope we get a chance to get to know each other better now!”

Marina smiled awkwardly and shook Jeannie’s hand. Shelby and Shauna were surprised – and relieved – to see that Jeannie Falconbridge was nothing like her husband. She was friendly and approachable, but Shauna noticed that her gaze always returned to Dale, as if to certify herself that he was really there. Dale, however, was either not aware of her constant attention, or had no wish to show it: his expression remained unchanged, and he did not once look at his mother. Shauna was just wondering whether Dale ever smiled, when she felt the weight of his gaze on her. She unconsciously tightened her grip on Tippy, who immediately started wriggling in her arms.

“And who’s that?” Jeannie Falconbridge asked, as Shauna eased Tippy down to the floor.

“It’s my cat,” Shauna replied, as Tippy trotted off towards the kitchen. “I think she’s kind of hungry, actually.”

“I’ll have someone from the base get some cat food for her,” Jeannie offered. “Meanwhile, how about some lunch?”

Shelby and Shauna could barely hide their enthusiasm at Jeannie’s suggestion. They were starving, and apparently they were not the only ones: Marina eagerly followed Jeannie Falconbridge, who was explaining to Lendox what macaroni and cheese was.

“The kids like it,” Jeannie said, somewhat apologetically. “I’ll have someone bring you some from the kitchen, since it looks like they already took everything away. Lunch is usually nearly over by now.”

She gestured towards five empty chairs at the end of one table, and started looking around, scanning for more empty seats.

“We have two places here, if you’d like to join us,” said a pleasant voice, which belonged to a man sitting at a nearby table.

“The two of you can sit there with Ian,” the general told Shelby and Shauna. “Off you go.”

Shelby gave the general a resentful look, but he was too hungry to pick a fight, and followed Shauna as she meandered over to where Ian was.

“Welcome to the detention table,” Ian said, brushing his straight, dark blond hair aside.

“Detention table?” repeated Shelby, shocked. ”There’s detention here?”

“The general seems to think there is,” replied Ian. “Whoever heard of not being able to play music after midnight?”

Shelby laughed. He already liked Ian.

“So where are you from?” Shelby asked.

“Hawaii, most of the time,” said Ian, fixing his name tag.

“Your last name’s Thurston?” asked Shelby, seeing Ian’s tag for the first time. “There’s a building in Manhattan called Thurston Tower.”

“It’s named after my dad’s company,” explained Ian. “He’s the one with all the money. All I have is positive energy.”

“Money can’t help you against the klodians, anyway,” ventured Shauna.

“You’re absolutely right,” said Ian, smiling. “Try telling that simple truth to my father, though.”

“You should have told him you were going to save the planet,” said a boy who was sitting across from Ian, playing a video game. He had dark brown skin, and thick, wavy black hair. His jet-black eyes shone brightly, and Shauna was immediately struck by how handsome he was. She smiled shyly as she scanned the name “Jitendra Sengupta” on his name tag.

“That’s what happens when you’ve been here for a while,” said Ian. “You end up telling most of your secrets to a fourteen-year-old who plays electric guitar in the dining hall after midnight.”

“Hope the general doesn’t confiscate this as well, or I’ll go bonkers,” complained the boy, with an accent that Shelby and Shauna guessed was British. “I guess he’s never felt the artistic call in the middle of the night.”

“He doesn’t strike me as the artistic type,” said Ian, laughing.

“Are you from England?” asked Shauna.

“Yeah - from London,” said the boy, not taking his eyes off the video game. “I go by Jit.”

“Don’t they have a base in England?” asked Shelby.

“They do. That’s where most of her Majesty’s kids are.”

“So how come you’re here in Colorado?”

“I was already in the country,” explained Jit. “My dad’s a visiting professor at Carnegie-Mellon.”

“Cool,” said Shauna, watching him finish playing his game. She did not know anything about video games, but she could tell that he was really good.

“Are you two related?” Jit asked, when he finally put the video game down and looked at Shauna and Shelby.

“We’re twins, actually,” said Shauna. “Fraternal.”

“I thought you looked like each other a bit,” he said.

“Except for the different hair color, and the different eye color, right?” asked Ian, teasingly.

“It’s not my fault if you can’t see past the superficial stuff,” Jit told him. “People are not just looks, you know. Look at me, for example: underneath this extremely handsome exterior lies an even more gorgeous interior.”

“Ignore him,” Ian joked. Jit turned to Shelby now.

“So how come you only arrived today? Did your parents have a hard time letting you come?”

“Not exactly,” said Shelby. “Mom got attacked by a klodian.”

“She got killed?” asked Ian, appalled.

“No, but she’s gonna take a long time to recover,” added Shauna, as a man in an apron arrived with two plates of macaroni and cheese.

“If it hadn’t been for Lendox,” said Shelby, wolfing down several forkfuls one after the other, “she probably wouldn’t have made it.”

“Lendox is one of the aliens?” asked Ian.

“How did you guess?” asked Shauna, her fork stopping halfway in the air.

“Everyone’s looking at him,” Ian replied, nodding towards Lendox’s table. The mirian vice consul had a growing audience gathering where he sat. In his usual pleasant and polite manner, Lendox seemed to be answering questions one by one – much to the irritation of general Falconbridge, who looked furious at the lack of ceremony with which his conversation had been interrupted.

“I guess they finally figured out who he is,” said Shelby, going back to his plate. “Maybe he should have kept his sunglasses on.”

“Who’s that next to him?” asked Jit.

“That’s Marina,” Shauna said. “She’s awesome. She builds planes.”

“Is she single?” asked Jit.

“I think so,” said Shauna, surprised. “Why?”

“There you go, Ian,” said Jit. “There’s still hope for you.”

Ian smiled, looking highly amused at Jit’s apparent concern for his bachelor status.

“I think Lendox is gonna make some sort of announcement,” said Shelby, seeing Lendox stand up and wait patiently for everyone to quiet down.

“I knew you would be curious about my world,” the vice consul began, pulling what looked like silver key cards from his jacket. “I am happy to say that I brought some surprix tickets with me.”

“What are they?” asked the general, frowning.

“They are virtual tickets,” explained Lendox. “With them, one can visit all the most famous attractions on Miriax. We use them for virtual sight-seeing. The sand-people of Jumara, for example, cannot leave their habitat, so they do all their sight-seeing virtually.”

The general looked as if he could not have cared less about the sand-people of Jumara.

“But how do the tickets work?” he insisted.

“Each ticket randomly picks a surprise location on Miriax,” said Lendox. “Surprix tickets are very popular. They make excellent birthday, wedding, and graduation gifts, as well as –”

“Is there any kind of risk involved?” interrupted the general, lowering his voice. “I don’t want a lawsuit here.”

“A lawsuit?” asked Lendox, raising his eyebrows. “Why would lawyers oppose sight-seeing?”

The general sighed in exasperation, and Marina stifled a laugh.

“Fine,” he said. “You can give them to the kids, but only if Dale gets one.”

Lendox glanced at Dale, who had his eyes fixed on the surprix tickets, and Shauna suddenly caught herself thinking that his eyes were like those of a dead fish, unblinking and still.

“You should see his room,” whispered Jit, noticing her staring at Dale. “I went past it the other day, and he was there with the door open. It’s so neat it’s disturbing.”

“He has a room here at the base?” asked Shelby, suddenly interested.

“A pretty large room, too,” said Jit. “His mum and dad both work here, so I suppose that makes sense. Anyway, when he saw that I was looking in, he shut the door right in my face.”

“Can you show me where it is?” asked Shelby.

“You want to go there now?”

“It’s the perfect chance,” said Shelby. “No one will notice, ’cause everyone wants those tickets.”

“Everyone including me,” said Jit, seeing that Ian was already making his way forward to stand in line for the tickets. “I’ll see you later.”

“But what about Dale’s room?” insisted Shelby.

“It’s on this floor, right next to the infirmary. You can’t miss it.”

Jit quickly caught up with Ian, and Shauna decided that she didn’t want to miss out on virtual sight-seeing, either.

“Wait – don’t you want to see what Dale’s room looks like?” asked Shelby, disappointed at her lack of enthusiasm for his brilliant idea.

“Oh, come on,” she protested. “Can’t we do that some other time?”

“We won’t get another chance,” he urged. “Look!”

Shauna saw that, as Dale received his ticket, he suddenly became still as a statue. Several whispers ran through the dining hall as Jeannie Falconbridge and her husband traded worried glances.

“He is perfectly safe,” said Lendox. “His mind is sight-seeing. He will be back once the tour is over.”

“See?” Shelby told his sister. “It’s perfect!”

“What if someone catches us?” Shauna asked. “The general already hates us, in case you haven’t noticed.”

“Dale’s the spy, Shauna!” protested Shelby, as quietly as he could. “I know it! I just need to get some proof.”

“Fine,” snapped Shauna, thinking that her brother could be really annoying. “Let’s get it over with.”

They sneaked out, and wandered for a few moments in the corridor before they walked past the infirmary, and then past another door that unceremoniously said “Dale Falconbridge: Keep Out.”

“Wow - even his door’s unfriendly,” observed Shelby.

“This was a stupid idea,” said Shauna. “I bet it’s locked, anyway.”

The thought that Dale might have locked his door had not occurred to Shelby, and he worriedly turned the handle. The door was open, however, and he triumphantly looked at Shauna. She rolled her eyes, and then went in after him, closing the door behind her.

Dale’s bedroom was large and plain, with plaid drapes, a blue comforter, and a desk with a computer.

“I guess he likes science,” Shelby said, seeing that there was a poster of the periodic table on the wall.

“Check out all this stuff,” said Shauna, walking towards a wall that had several diplomas displayed. She stopped in front of the first one, and read it aloud:

Dale Falconbridge

First Prize

2009 National Science Competition

Washington, D.C.

“He’s won a ton of competitions,” exclaimed Shelby, scanning all of the other certificates that were hanging on the wall.

“I guess it’s true that he’s a genius,” said Shauna.

“If it’s true,” said Shelby, “then he’s definitely smart enough to be the spy.”

Shauna shrugged unenthusiastically, wishing she were on a virtual tour of Miriax. They looked through several picture frames that were scattered through the room. Shauna stopped in front of one that caught her attention more than the others did: it showed a younger Jeannie Falconbridge against an undefined background, holding the newborn Dale. She was smiling, but there was something unsettling – a kind of dread – in her eyes.

Shelby quickly left the picture frames behind, and went on to search Dale’s desk. Shauna, however, stood stubbornly in front of the pictures. Why were there not pictures of Dale’s birthday parties, or other family gatherings? Dale always seemed to be in front of some unidentifiable background, either alone or with his mother. Even the general – who was clearly so proud of his son – was oddly absent from the pictures.

“Shauna, look at this!” Shelby cried, pointing to the screen of Dale’s computer. On the desktop, off to one side, were two folders. One was called “Dale’s stuff,” and the other was ominously called “Klodian stuff.”

“Click on them!” cried Shauna, impatiently nudging him.

Shelby did, and immediately yanked his hand away.

“Ow!” he moaned. “It gave me some kind of shock!”

“Those files must be really secret,” she said. “You better not try again.”

Shelby, ignoring his sister’s advice, tried again and staggered backwards as a more painful shock pierced his hand.

“That was really smart,” said Shauna, crossing her arms in disapproval. “Keep trying, and eventually you’ll lose that hand.”

Shelby smirked at his sister, and decided to look through Dale’s science books. Shauna began to wander aimlessly through the room. She thought she heard something – was someone calling her? She stood perfectly still, and finally made out what the sound was: it was the word “help,” echoing persistently in her mind by a faint chorus of tiny voices.

“Oh, no,” she muttered. “Not again!”

“Did you find something?” asked Shelby, putting aside a physics book full of diagrams he couldn’t begin to decipher.

“I’m hearing voices calling for help,” she said. “They started right after I walked past the closet curtain.”

“Maybe it’s not a closet,” said Shelby, pulling the curtain aside.

To Shauna’s horror, Shelby was right. Instead of clothes, the nook behind the curtain had a small desk with a microscope, and the shelves had all types of animals imprisoned in glass containers. Most of them were insects, although there were some glass containers with frogs and mice.

“Ugh,” mumbled a disgusted Shelby. “He’s a total sicko!”

“I’m getting all these guys out of here,” said Shauna, grabbing the nearest glass container and marching to the window. Shelby tried to open it for her, but the thick, metal screen would not budge.

“What’s up with these windows?” complained Shelby, trying to open the other one with no success. “It’s like a prison in here!”

“We need to figure something else out,” said Shauna, seeing that the spider inside the jar was hardly moving. “Some of these guys won’t make it if they stay here much longer. We need someone else to help us with these windows.”

“Looks like I got here just in time, then,” said a flirtatious voice. “I can get in through any window.”

Shelby’s whole face melted into a smile as he saw Loola.

“I thought Lendox sent you back to Miriax!” he cried.

“He did, S,” said Loola, with a provocative smile. “I decided not to, though. Hanging out with you seemed more interesting.”

“We need to get these guys out of here,” said Shauna, showing Loola the closet. “Can you fly them out, and drop them someplace safe?”

“That’s it?” asked Loola, disappointed. “It’s not exciting enough!”

“It is for them,” said Shauna, shoving the jar she was holding towards Loola. To Shauna’s surprise, however, Loola jumped back, looking horrified.

“There’s a spider in there,” she said, shuddering. “Novians don’t like spiders.”

“I don’t, either!” said Shelby, enthusiastically. “How cool is that?”

“I’ll take all the other ones, but not him,” said Loola, staring at the spider inside the jar. Shauna could hardly believe it: Loola’s usually confident expression was horror-stricken.

“But it’s in a glass case,” protested Shauna. “It can’t even get close to you!”

“It’s too close already!” said Loola. “No, no, and no.”

“Please, Loola!” cried Shauna. “It’s gonna die if we leave it in here! Don’t you think that’s awful?”

Loola looked at Shauna for a moment, and then dramatically rolled her eyes.

“Ok, fine,” she said. “But only if we can meet up later and do something really fun.”

“Deal!” cried Shelby. “When?”

“I’ll call you,” said Loola, giving him a brief but irresistible smile.

“How are you gonna call me, though?” asked Shelby. “I don’t have a phone!”

Loola, however, had already transformed herself into her water drop shape. She floated past the different glass containers, and each disappeared behind her emerald trail. When they were all gone, the emerald trail headed towards the window, getting smaller and smaller, until it floated right through the metal screen.

“I wish I could shrink like that,” said Shauna, admiringly.

“I wonder if she’s really gonna call,” said Shelby, sadly. “Do you think she even gets what a phone actually is?”

Shelby looked so worried about the possibility of Loola not calling that Shauna might have laughed, had she not heard footsteps by the door.

“There’s someone out there!” she gasped.

The door opened before they could do anything, and Marina walked in.

“You should see the look on your faces!” she said, with a chuckle. “I wish I had a camera!”

“How did you know we were here?” asked Shauna.

“Lendox asked me to keep an eye on you,” she said. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

“You gotta see this,” Shelby said, grabbing her hand and pulling her to Dale’s computer.

“Look at these folders here!” he cried, pointing to the folder entitled “Klodian stuff.”

Marina frowned, and touched the keyboard before Shelby could warn her. She jumped back, shaking her hand and wincing at the shock she had received.

“Sorry,” said Shelby. “I meant to tell you – my hand got fried too.”

“What kind of sick person would come up with that idea?” she cried.

“Can you figure out how to get through?” asked Shauna.

“Probably, but not right now. We need to get out of here before Dale gets back, and that’s going to be any second now.”

Shelby and Shauna had no choice but to leave with Marina, and hurry back towards the dining room’s double-door. As Shauna went in, she nearly ran into Dale as he walked out.

“Sorry!” she said, her cheeks flushing miserably.

“You didn’t go on a virtual tour?” he asked, his watery eyes fixed on her.

“No. Actually, we were…”

Shauna’s voice trailed off as her mind went blank. Under Dale’s unwavering stare, she couldn’t think of a single way to finish her sentence convincingly.

“We were looking for Tippy,” intervened Marina, to Shauna’s great relief. “Have you seen her?”

Dale shook his head, looked at Shauna again for a moment, and then walked away.

“Well, Shauna,” said Marina, with a teasing smile, “I think you got yourself an admirer.”

“Or a stalker,” said Shelby.

Shauna, thinking that either option was pretty awful, smirked at her brother and went into the dining hall. Everyone except for Lendox was standing absolutely still, with their petrified hands clutching the surprix tickets.

“They are all on virtual tours,” said Lendox, eating a plate of macaroni and cheese with enthusiasm.

“Can they hear us?” asked Marina, glancing at general Falconbridge, whose forehead looked as if it had been petrified in the middle of an unpleasant thought.

“No,” said Lendox. “Not at all.”

“In that case, I have something to say,” said Marina, smiling mischievously as she placed herself in front of the general. “Stephen Falconbridge is a moron!”

“And his son’s a whacko!” added Shelby. “You won’t believe what we found in his room, Lendox.”

The vice consul’s smile faded as Shelby told him about the forbidden folders on Dale’s computer.

“He’s definitely hiding something, Lendox,” Marina added. “No one would rig their computer like that otherwise.”

“You have to go back there and see,” urged Shelby.

“I cannot go into someone’s room without permission,” said Lendox, simply.

“Why not?” asked Shelby.

“It would be rude,” replied Lendox, as if this were the most obvious thing in the whole world.

Shelby, Shauna, and Marina stared at the mirian vice consul. How could he think about politeness at a time like this?

“Do not worry,” he said, amused at their expression. “We will find out what Dale Falconbridge is hiding. In the meantime, perhaps Shauna and Shelby can stay out of trouble.”

Shelby and Shauna glanced at each other, nervously. Too late for that.