The Secret of Zoom (25 page)

Her father, rumpled and absentminded, patting her shoulder as he passed.

Her father, rustling the morning paper, setting down his coffee to draw out a math problem on his napkin.

Her father, anxious to do the right thing, carefully writing down her height, weight, dental appointments in the green scrapbook—knowing it wasn't enough, but trying his best; her father, whose greatest desire was to keep her safe.

Christina wanted nothing more than to run into the safety of his arms. If only he were here, right this minute, she would tell him everything and then he would come up with a good solution.

She blinked until the moisture was gone from her eyes. All right, then, so her father
wasn't
here. What would he do if he were?

Well, he wouldn't be sniveling uselessly. He would be looking at the problem step by step. Don't worry about the final answer yet, he would tell her. What do you know right now that you can build on?

Christina drew in the dirt with her finger. She knew a lot, actually. She knew all about Lenny Loompski's horrible plans for the orphans. And Lenny didn't know that she knew.

That was an advantage.

What else did she know that Lenny didn't?

He didn't know who she really was. A dirty face and no braids had fooled him completely. Christina's hand went to the back of her neck, touching her cropped hair, brushing against Taft's shock collar . . .

Wait! She had forgotten the biggest advantage of all! Lenny and his guards didn't know that her shock collar, the thing that kept the orphans penned up on the ridge, had been cut through and no longer worked!

She fingered the duct tape where it joined the two ends. She had to keep the guards from noticing it. Luckily the tape was gray—everything in this place was gray, it seemed—and her hair was just long enough to cover it, if she didn't bend forward.

That was her solution. She just had to wait for a moment when the guards weren't paying attention and then slip over the ridge and hike down the mountain. She would go for help—she would find her father—

She would have to be careful not to go off the cliff, though. The side of the mountain where she had been stranded in the plane was way too steep for anyone but a mountain goat. No, she would have to look for a safer way down. Of course she couldn't use the road.

But what if her father was still in jail?

And what if Lenny had guards waiting at her house?

Christina poked at a hole in the knee of her jeans. She did not want to think about guards that might be waiting for her somewhere.

There was a second hole on the other knee, and a jagged
rip just above it. Christina brushed the frayed edge back and forth, marveling.

She had never played hard enough to get holes in her clothing before. After all the times she had watched other children on the playground, skinning their knees and wearing holes in their pants playing Chase and Tap,
she
had finally gotten outside and done things, too—climbed trees, run after garbage trucks, explored caves, slid down into mountains.

But she had not wanted to be chased, or grabbed, or kept prisoner for real. And the kids at Dorf Elementary had a teacher to run to if they got hurt or were scared.

Christina lifted her head, struck by this idea. If she could find the school, could
she
run to a teacher for help?

Yes—yes, she could! She could ask for old Mrs. Lisowsky! Her music teacher would believe and help her, surely. All she had to do was find just one grown-up who would listen, who would tell the police and everyone else that Lenny Loompski was not what he pretended to be.

The fog was thinning. Christina stood up. She would keep her eye out for the best way off the ridge, but in the meantime, the most important thing was to blend in with the orphans. She had to get a tin can.

“Dorset!” she hissed, recognizing the girl passing a few yards away. Christina strode quickly toward her—and stumbled on a rock she didn't see. She staggered, twisting, and fell heavily on her right shoulder.

“Are you all right?” Dorset's concerned face appeared above
her. “You can't move fast in fog, you know.” She peeled back Christina's shirt and examined her shoulder. “You have to feel with your feet before you step. You'd better learn, because we get a lot of fog here, with all the streams running through the rock.”

Christina tried not to moan aloud. “Now you tell me,” she managed, gritting her teeth against the pain. “I think I broke my whole shoulder.”

Dorset's fingers pushed and prodded. “You're bleeding. And you'll have a good bruise. You might have pulled a muscle, too. But I don't think you cracked anything.”

“Stop—
moving
it,” Christina gasped. “I believe you.”

Dorset sat back on her heels. “If you tell a guard, they might give you an extra rag for a bandage.”

“No.” Christina struggled to sit up. “No guards. If they get that close, they might notice—”

“Notice what?”

Christina hesitated. Then she bent forward, lifting her hair off the nape of her neck.

Dorset took in her breath sharply. She touched the duct tape with reverent fingers. “Can you cut mine? Do you have a knife?”

Christina nodded. “But no duct tape. It's back on the truck.”

Dorset leaned forward. “What are you going to do?” she whispered. “How can I help?”

Christina told her. It took some time.

The last rags of fog drifted away. Dorset, her whole face alive with excitement, helped Christina to her feet. “I know where there's an extra tin can.”

“But that's Joey's can!” said a boy with a snub nose and dark thick hair. “She can't take it. You said we'd leave it there to remind us.”

More orphans gathered behind Christina and Dorset, staring mutely at the blackened entrance to the underground mine. To the left was a box of candles and matches; to the right, a small pile of stones, carefully stacked, and a battered and dented tin can. Someone had put the flowering tops of a few straggling weeds in it and filled it with water.

“Hey! Orphans!”

Every face looked up. The shouting guard, silhouetted at the mine's top, put his hands on his hips. “Breakfast!”

“Listen,” said Dorset to the gathered children, rapidly and low. “We'll
always
remember Joey. Every one of us piled a stone here in his honor. But this girl needs a tin can so no one knows she's a spy.”

“A spy?” The word went from mouth to mouth like a whispering breeze.

“And she's going to help us get off this mountain. But we have to help her, first.”

“Orphans! NOW!” yelled the guard.

“Go, go!” urged Dorset. “And don't look so happy or the guards will know something's up!”

The children filed up the stairs, pulling their mouths down as best they could. But their eyes were bright and their backs straight with joy.

“Better tell them to slump,” murmured Christina. Dorset nodded, looking worried, and ran up the side of the line, whispering as she went.

Christina picked up the tin can. Gently, she laid the flowers to one side, poured out the water, and turned to go. Then, hesitating, she turned back.

She laid one more stone on the little cairn. She said a brief prayer.

She ran up the stairs after the orphans, a lump in her throat.

C
HRISTINA
cleared the rim and saw before her the flat sleeping space of the orphan camp and the dead remains of the night's fire, a pile of white flaky ash that smelled of smoke. She joined the line of orphans forming near the guardhouse, where a rough wooden table held a large, steaming pot and a stack of bowls. The garbage truck, parked in the small lot at the end of the road, added its own distinct aroma to the air.

Christina shuffled forward as the line moved, carefully shifting her eyes from side to side. Up above the cone with the opening to the cavern, the tall slabs of rock ringed the camp like prehistoric fangs. Beyond, she knew, was the cliff. She couldn't escape that way.

Of course the gravel road was on a more gradual slope and curved down into the forest. But she would be all too easy to catch on the road.

Splat
. Christina looked down at the thin, lumpy, whitish gruel in her bowl. It looked like library paste.

She dipped her spoon in. It
tasted
like library paste. No wonder Taft had been so enthusiastic about the blueberry pie. She gave her bowlful to the child next to her—the garbage truck had taken away her appetite, anyway—and glanced back over her shoulder.

On the far side of the terraced mines, the rocks weren't so high, and beyond them she could see trees sloping down. That would be the best way to go, if only she could get there without attracting notice.

But it was impossible to get to the far side with the guards watching at the rim.

The children worked the mines all day long, the heat baking off the bare rocks in shimmering waves. In her efforts to blend in, Christina sang just like the other orphans, collecting only a little zoom. She didn't want anyone to notice anything special about her.

Her shoulder ached steadily. Her socks were shredded from the hard, stony ground, and her feet, unused to going barefoot, were tender. At noon, she washed the blood off her shirt in one of the little rivulets that trickled through the rocks. Blood might draw someone's attention.

She got hungrier as the day went on. The half slice of stale bread at lunchtime was not what she had been hoping for, and by suppertime she was ravenous.

But it was almost sunset before the children were finally allowed to trudge up the wearisome steps, half asleep and faint with hunger, and told to line up in rows.

The pickup truck full of food—well, partly full—was now parked in the lot next to the garbage truck. Christina
stared at it with a mixture of dread and longing. Would anyone notice that some of the food was missing? And, more important, would she and the others get anything decent to eat, at long last?

The guard Barney was in and out of the garbage truck cab, cleaning the windows and side mirrors. He whistled between his teeth, first sloshing a rag into a sudsy bucket, then pulling a rubber squeegee across the windshield with a satisfying squeak.

He looked positively carefree. But as Lenny Loompski's long black car pulled up the gravel road, he stopped whistling. He polished a little harder.

Was he getting the garbage truck ready for tomorrow? Christina tried to remember everything she had heard. They'd had an order for zoom . . . it would be sung out of the plastic toys . . .

A car door opened with a creak. “Oh, wonderful!” cried a gentle, quavering voice. “An orphan choir on a mountaintop!”

Startled, Christina whipped around. Emerging from the car was a small, wrinkled woman, a little hunched over, with a fuzz of light red hair and the look of an inquisitive bird.

What on earth was
Mrs. Lisowsky
doing here?

“But I'm afraid I've lost my glasses.” The music teacher ducked into the car again and felt around with her hands.

Christina chewed on her lip. She had wanted to find her music teacher and ask for help. But she couldn't possibly say anything in front of Lenny and his guards.

“Attention, Happy Orphans!” Lenny got out of the car and stood with his arms open wide. “Now I know you have undoubtedly stuffed yourself full of supper—”

“We haven't had
any
,” said a small voice, instantly shushed.

Lenny gave a fierce scowl and a jerk of his chin, and one of the guards instantly clapped a hand over the speaker's mouth, hefted him like a sack of potatoes, and carried him off, struggling silently.

“As I was
saying
,” said Lenny. “I have brought you a whole truckload of food!
Extra
food! As a special treat!”

Every orphan was suddenly attentive. A hundred pairs of eyes swiveled in unison to the basket Lenny held up, full of bread. “Anyone who sings well, according to our distinguished guest—the lovely and musical Mrs. Lisowsky—will get a little snack. And anyone who sings
extra
well will get even more! Now, who wants to be first?”