The Ear, the Eye and the Arm (24 page)

"Now what?" said Tendai to no one in particular.

"Now she will get rid of the
muteyo,"
said the man who had given him water. "This was a very good ceremony. It's nice to have the village clean again."

"What do you mean, 'get rid of the
muteyo’?"
said Tendai.

"What doesn't go out one way will go out the other," the man said tranquilly.

"How horrible!" cried Rita.

"They're checking for baby bones." The man indicated the absent villagers with a sweep of his hands. "That will prove she ate her own babies."

"Or turned them into bogeymen. Then they'd still be around," remarked a woman.

"Yes. That's always possible."

Tendai noticed the man didn't look so relaxed anymore.

The Spirit Medium sank to the ground with a sigh. He stretched out on the dirt, jerked once or twice and lay still. His assistants quickly poured water over him.

"Mudzimu
has left him," the man explained. Everyone watched as the assistants cooled down the Spirit Medium's body. Garikayi sat on the chiefs stool, and his face seemed carved out of stone.

After a while, the medium recovered enough to sit up, point at the children and shout, "Those ones! They do not belong. Throw all three out!"

At last, thought Tendai. The man's voice — thin and suspicious — had returned to normal, and his old, envious personality was back. Tendai, Rita and Kuda were herded onto a path leading upward. Trashman immediately caught up with them.

"You don't have to go, Chedu," said one of the guards.

"Oh, you know him," said another. "Here one day, gone the next."

They climbed until they reached the gate. The torchlight gleamed on its mirrorlike surface and picked out the many locks and bolts. The guards were unsure what to do next. "Myanda always opened it," one of them said nervously.

"Filthy witch!" another spat out.

They stood before the locks, trying to look purposeful, until Tendai offered to do the job. They had to lift him to reach the upper bolts. But when he tried to pull the handle, the gate proved too heavy to move.

"Help me," he asked the guards. They were afraid to touch it. Rita was too sick, and Trashman merely gabbled at him.

"He says he's waiting for Mama," translated Kuda.

"Tell him Mama's busy," snapped Tendai. He pulled on the handle with all his might. The gate barely responded. Kuda knelt down and tried to work his fingers into the narrow opening. He only managed to fall over backward with his legs kicking in the air. Trashman laughed and slapped his knees.

"He thinks it's a game," Tendai said wearily. But Trashman suddenly grabbed the handle and pulled the great gate of Resthaven ajar.

"Hurrah!" shouted Kuda. Trashman grinned, scooped him up and strode out. The guards shielded their eyes from the dreaded sight of
Mwari’s
country. Tendai took Rita's hand — it was so hot it made his heart turn over — and gently led her to freedom.

"Aren't we going to close it?" she asked.

"That's their problem." Personally, Tendai didn't care if a gang of robocycles thundered through the opening, but the guards had apparently worked up enough courage to close the rift in their wall. The gate swung to with a
whump.
They were shut out of Resthaven forever.

"Lovely, lovely cement," said Rita, lying down to press her cheek on the cool sidewalk.

"We have to find a policeman," Tendai said.

"Just want to rest," muttered Rita. She spread-eagled herself on the walk. Tendai left her alone for a few minutes. She turned over to cool her back and to look up at the apartment buildings. The street was deserted. A clock stood at 2:00 a.m. over the entrance to a subway. Trashman chattered and pointed.

"He says the moon is shining," Kuda said. And so it was, at the end of the street. It looked dull and shrunken from what it had been in Resthaven.

"I wonder why they let him in and out," said Rita, looking up at Trashman's cheerful face.

"I suppose Myanda would say he wasn't corrupt," Tendai said.

"I suppose he isn't. Poor Myanda. Poor baby girl." Tendai pulled Rita to her feet before she could dwell on that distressing topic. She groaned when her feet touched the ground. "I ache all over. Even my skin hurts!"

"Come on. We only have a little farther to go," Tendai urged. But the truth was, he hadn't the slightest idea what to do next.

Twenty-four

Tendai pulled Rita along. He went to the security door on the nearest apartment building and tried to ring the bell. "I'm-sorry," said a robot voice from behind the metal grille. "All-our-tenants-are-sleeping. If-you-would-like-to-leave-a-message, please-speak-into-the-microphone-after-the-beep."

Tendai waited and said, "Please call the police and tell them General Matsika's children are waiting outside Resthaven Gate." He would rather have been more cautious, but Rita's illness worried him. He had barely finished speaking when the microphone clicked off.

"Thank-you-for-visiting. Have-a-nice-night," said the robot.

Tendai kicked the grille. "Maybe if I make enough noise, I can set off a burglar alarm." He rattled and banged as hard as he could, but it made no difference. He couldn't even find rocks to throw. "We may have to sit in a doorway till morning," he told Rita.

"What doorway?" she said dully. And Tendai saw that up and down the street all the doors were fitted with grilles. A cool breeze blew down the walk between the apartments and the wall.

"Hey! Where's Kuda?" said Tendai. "Wait, Trashman! Stop!" But the man had already reached the dark stairway to the subway. He disappeared down the steps with Kuda. Tendai pulled Rita along with him as he set off in pursuit. "Now what?" he groaned. "Doesn't he know the subway's dangerous?" The clock over the entrance read 2:15 as they went down.

The place was every bit as dangerous-looking as Tendai had feared. They went along a tunnel with a row of dim lights at the top. Stale air drifted from black openings at the ends of the platform. Rails lay on either side.

"At least it's warmer," said Ritz. They had trouble keeping up with Trashman, who seemed to know exactly where he was going. The benches lining the platform were gouged with knives. Gang slogans covered the gray walls. Most of them were faded, but a few seemed painted yesterday. DON'T LOOK BEHIND A MASK, they said.

"This is where the Masks
live.
Come on, Trashman. Go find Mama," whispered Tendai. The man stopped before a candy machine. Behind smudgy glass hung chocolate bars, licorice whips and lemon drops.

"We don't have money," Tendai said.

"I want chocolate!" cried Kuda, suddenly waking up. Trashman searched the litter on the platform until he found a bottle cap. He straightened out the edge with his big strong teeth.

"Stop it! Don't you know that's bad for you?" Rita tried to take the cap from him, but he dodged her and kept chewing.

"Keep your voice down, Rita," Tendai said. Trashman inserted the flattened cap into the candy machine. It was exactly the size of a two-dollar coin. Kuda pressed a button, and four chocolate bars fell out. The man and boy laughed with glee.

"That's stealing," said Tendai.

"He can't understand. Money means nothing to him," sighed Rita as Trashman tore off the paper covering and began to eat. She helped Kuda peel his bar and perched him on a bench. Tendai frowned at her. "
I
didn't steal it," she said. "You can't even say Trashman stole it. He doesn't know the meaning of the word." Trashman had two chocolate bars and Kuda had one. Rita tried to eat, but her stomach was too queasy. Tendai refused to take part in what he considered a crime, so she gave hers to Kuda.

"More," said the little boy, fishing another bottle cap from the litter.

"No," Tendai said. Kuda clenched his little fist around the cap, and Tendai despaired of trying to explain why they couldn't use it as money. Father was absolutely against stealing, but Kuda was hungry. And so, of course, was he.

"Look!" cried Rita. Deep in the tunnel, so much in shadow Tendai couldn't be sure whether it was real or not, something large slunk along the wall. It flowed along as rapidly as a running man. As it approached, he saw a nightmare face suddenly shine as it caught the light. Then it disappeared as though someone had thrown a bottle of ink over it. At the same time, the wind in the tunnel increased, and the tracks began to hum.

The shadow reached the mouth of the tunnel and poured out. It had just reached the edge of the platform when a train shot from the tunnel at the opposite end of the station. The cars thundered to a halt. Tendai, Rita, Kuda and Trashman bounded in through the nearest door. The shadow at the end of the platform heaved up and threw itself at the train.

"The Masks! The Masks!" cried the train guards. They snapped the doors shut, and the passengers dove for cover. The train jerked away, gathering speed. A wild undulating cry broke out as the train sped for safety. The shadow broke up into a mass of black-cloaked men swarming over the outside of the cars. But that was not the most terrifying thing.

None of the men had proper faces. Some were swollen, with slobbering mouths. Some were long and cruel and had eyes that glittered red. The creatures tried to glue themselves to the sides of the train with suckers attached to their hands and knees. The cars whizzed past, the suckers failed to connect, the faces fell back. And then the men were gone as the train plunged into the tunnel.

"That was a close one!" breathed a guard.

"It's a disgrace!" an old man exclaimed. He was accompanied by his personal robot, a model Tendai hadn't seen in years.

"It's-a-disgrace!" the robot echoed in a cheap, tinny voice.

Tendai helped Rita climb onto a seat as he looked around the car. Some people, like the old man, seemed harmless. Others were not. A woman casually cleaned her nails with a switchblade. Her companion grinned, showing filed teeth. Tendai remembered that Father had broken up the Filed Teeth gang, but what happened to old gang members? Did they get jobs at the bank and move to the suburbs? Tendai suspected not. It was probably a bad idea to let someone with filed teeth find out General Matsika's children were lost and alone on the subway.

"The police will be too late," grumbled a train guard as he punched in the alarm. "They always are. The Masks travel around the subways like smoke."

"I had a boyfriend who joined the Masks," said the woman with filed teeth. "He had to kill ten people to pass the entrance exam." The other passengers became interested in watching the dark tunnel flash by outside.

"She's only bragging," the woman with the switchblade told the others.

"Tickets, please," called the conductor as he worked his way down the car.

"We don't have any," Tendai said.

"That will be a dollar for you, sir, and fifty cents for each of the children."

Maiwee,
he thinks Trashman's our father, thought Tendai. "We don't have money," he said aloud.

"No money! That will never do!" the conductor said. Kuda handed Trashman a bottle cap, and he began to flatten it with his teeth. "Stop that! You'll hurt yourself," cried the conductor, but Trashman held
 
him away with one hand while he turned the bottle cap in his jaws with the other. When it was flat, he handed it over.

"He says that's enough to pay for the train," translated Kuda.

"Don't be ridiculous!"

"We don't have another bottle cap," Kuda said crossly.

"Open your eyes," said the old man with the robot. "The big one's simple. They're a family of beggars. Where do you want to go, children?"

"Want-to-go," echoed the robot.

"Mazoe," Tendai said.

"We aren't going that way. See the map on the wall?" The conductor ran his finger along the stops. Tendai saw, with a sinking heart, that they were getting farther from Mazoe by the minute.

"Wait. We know someone in Borrowdale. That's the next stop," Rita said.