The Shells Of Chanticleer (16 page)

“Isn’t this Paolo’s room anymore?”

“No miss, it isn’t.”

Oh, that was stupid. I read the number wrong. “What room is he in now?”

“Mr. Paolo is gone, miss. He tipped back this morning. We are making the room ready for the next person.”

“But he wrote me a note last night after the festival. How could he be gone already?”

The maid smiled sympathetically at my confusion. Gently, she said, “I am so sorry, miss. It does happen fast. Sunrise, sunset. That’s always the way. It’ll happen like that to you one day too.”

I backed out of the doorway and down the hall without remembering doing so. I walked down the stairs in shock, and out the door, heading nowhere in particular, letting it all sink in. Paolo was gone. The one person I could talk to about our fall off the bridge I would never see again.

I sat myself down on the edge of the walkway, dumbstruck, oblivious to the traffic of boys around me. The morning was overcast but already warm. I buried my forehead in my lap to think, my long hair providing privacy for my distraught face. I remembered Paolo saying softly to himself, “It’s over,” after we’d hit the earth. Naturally, I had assumed he was talking about that task, but then I wondered if he didn’t mean his time in Chanticleer. And I thought with dread that one day Violet and Zooey would be gone just as quickly, and I didn’t want any of my friends to leave me like that with no warning, alone.

And then I got it. I understood why Violet read her coursework slowly, why she wanted to drag out her stay, and why Bing encouraged it. I wondered, wherever he was at that moment, if Paolo even remembered our time in the Fir Forest. I had no idea what town he came from, or his last name. Maybe he lived five miles from me or maybe he lived on the other side of the world. Would we ever see each other again? Even if we did, would we recognize each other as friends or be limited to exchanging stilted smiles, brushing off our déjà vu because we were incapable of understanding its origins?

Someone touched my shoulder and I looked up.

“Miss is everything alright?”

Two grey-haired staffers were anxiously leaning over me, their friendly faces genuinely concerned about my welfare.

“Are you ill?” the woman asked.

I lifted my head from my lap and forced a smile. “Sorry, I’m fine. I don’t mean to scare you. It’s just that I lost a friend. He tipped back home.”

They exchanged knowing glances. “Is it your first time?” she asked.

I said yes.

“We fell off the bridge in the Fir Forest together yesterday.”

“Wouldn’t you like to sit somewhere more comfortable?” the man asked, pointing to a bench under a leafy tree on the lawn in front of the boy’s home. “We can talk about it.”

It was a pretty spot they were pointing to and I thought I might appease them, though I really just wanted to be left alone. I was going to say yes when I heard yelling.

“Macy!”

I looked past the staffers to see Sebastian hustling up the path toward me. Casually dressed in his Chanticleer-issued white sweater, he looked good with his loose blond hair freshly washed and still a little damp. He hadn’t forgotten me.

“What’s going on?” he asked, looking down at me.

“I’m ok. No, I’m not,” I confessed. “One of my friends tipped last night. I’m just sad.” I choked out the words with a sob.
Darn it.
As soon as someone is sympathetic to me, it makes the tears pour out. I had promised myself I wasn’t going to cry again. I definitely didn’t want to cry in front of Sebastian, but I did anyway.

A look of consternation passed over Sebastian’s face. He knelt down next to me and put his hands on my knee. He was so cute and he was being so nice, yet I did not want him that close to my slobbering face.

“Who was it?”

I took a deep breath and wiped my wet eyes with the back of my hand.

“It was Paolo. We fell off the bridge in the Fir Forest yesterday and then he tipped back home before we could even get together and talk about it.”

“I knew Paolo. He was a good one. I am glad for him. He worked really hard. He had a lot to overcome.”

Sebastian was quiet for a minute. Then, to the staffers he said, “She’ll be alright. We’re friends.” The staffers gave me encouraging smiles and walked away. Sebastian grabbed my hand and pulled me up. “I’m heading into town for a bite. Come with me.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t really feel like it.” I wanted to go back to my room and mourn Paolo in private but Sebastian persisted.

“C’mon Macy,” he urged, looking in my face earnestly. “It’s not good to mope over friends that tip home. You are not going back to your room to be sad and alone all day. Listen, I know it’s hard. No one likes to lose a friend. I’m terrible at it myself. But I found the best way to deal with it is to get busy, get your mind off of it. The worst thing is to dwell on it. It doesn’t bring them back. Believe me, I’ve been there.”

I knew he was right and that I was acting like a baby. I knew I wasn’t the first one to lose a friend. Everyone in Chanticleer went through it. Everyone understood. I was among friends who had lost friends. I was really starting to fit in, like I had always wanted to, although it was Paolo’s loss that was connecting me.

“Alright,” I conceded. “I’ll try it your way.” I forced myself to smile. Then, quite suddenly, a low gonging sound erupted, shaking up the quiet morning. I jumped, startled.

“What in the world? What is that? Did someone die?” I turned to Sebastian for an answer.

He spun away from me and looked toward the path to town. The bell kept clanging, deep and somber, like the sound of a funeral procession about to enter the church. I could see everyone around me stop to listen.

He turned back to me and said simply, “Not exactly. It means we have a new shell. Come on, we have to get there to see it.”

Everyone was swarming out of the residences and buildings, shops and cafes, the toll of the bell ending the party atmosphere that was still lingering from the night before. As we walked toward town Sebastian asked if I had seen a shell of Chanticleer before.

“No,” I lied, only because I couldn’t tell him everything. It was my secret.

Excitedly, he explained to me what I would be seeing, telling me that a student had failed to advance, and that an image had been created in his or her likeness to remind everyone who remained how important it was to work hard at improving.

“It’s always a little shocking when you see the face. Usually it’s a stranger, but sometimes you know the person.”

I listened to Sebastian and nodded at all the right moments, asked a few questions to appear curious, all the while knowing exactly what the shells were and how they were created. I wasn’t supposed to know. I had to play dumb. I think I pulled it off pretty well, but I didn’t want to get in the habit of playing dumb with him.

Sebastian and I joined the crowd filing into the town. It didn’t take long before people jammed the pretty square wall-to-wall. Crushed together, we waited. My anticipation was crazy. Sebastian kept wondering aloud who it would be.

“Here they come,” a voice shouted, and the crowd started craning their necks. The bell was still tolling. I saw the procession advancing from a distance. The shell stood upright, fastened to the middle of a large golden platform. Eight muscular men bore its weight on their shoulders. The shell was covered in black drapery, obscuring its identity. A gold coronet with tines of leaves and pearls encircled the covered head. The crowd noise hushed as the procession passed. A light breeze rustled the folds of the drapery.

The men paused for a moment, steadying their grip before they began their slow, coordinated ascent up the stairs toward city hall. It seemed as if the crowd held its collective breath as the men struggled to balance the platform. Reaching their destination, the men carefully lowered their load onto a small, raised stage. The bell continued to toll.

I stole a look at Sebastian. His eyes were green; I hadn’t noticed that at the festival. I whispered, “Isn’t this exciting?” To myself, I thought,
He will think I mean the shell, when secretly I mean being with him.
Suddenly, I was very glad I had failed to remove that splinter.

He whispered back, “I wonder who it is?”

I doubted I would recognize the shell, but Sebastian probably would. He knew more people than I did. I wondered if it would upset him to see a friend up there. Suddenly a strong voice came over the sound system.

I looked back to the steps. The voice belonged to Crispin Sinclair, who was standing next to the veiled shell. The bell ceased tolling. The crowd shushed immediately, out of respect.

“We gather this morning to mourn another stalemate of the soul. Last night, as a community we celebrated the gains we are proud of. With the dawn we are forced to face the grim reality of the inadequacies that bind us all together. Our flaws are not to be trifled with. They are real, they are happy to rob us of our talents, of all that is most dear, to imprison us.”

It was the first time I had heard Crispin Sinclair’s voice. He spoke with passion, pausing, enunciating, staring at the crowd, expecting agreement. I was far back from him and happy to be so. When he was finished, he walked to the covered shell and lifted the gold coronet off of the sheeting. With a great flourish, he yanked the fabric off and tossed it to the side of the stage. I was wrong to assume that I would not know who it was.

I gasped when I saw Poppy’s shell standing there exposed. The crowd remained silent, staring. Poppy’s brown ponytail floated off to the side, airborne, her body hunched over, a textbook in her hand. Her eyes were half closed; she was looking at the ground. She looked like an old crone. I immediately felt sorry for her but then that feeling passed, surprisingly. I thought it was embarrassing for her to be frozen in a position like that. It made me think less of her for not doing well, for not concentrating enough, for not trying harder than she did.

“I saw her all the time,” Sebastian said. “It looks just like her.”

“I knew her,” I whispered. “Poor Poppy.”

Crispin spoke again.

“Poppy Pullright came here with no more or less ability than anyone of us. But her mind was a fortress of fear. She could not rise above her worries and insecurities. She tried, yes, but her time ran out, as it does for all of us. Stop, now. Look inside yourself. Are you too afraid to follow what you know in your heart is right? Are you a prisoner to your every thought or fear? Will the prison gates fall around you too? Or do you believe there is more inside of you than was in Poppy? Remember, whether you think you can or think you can’t, you are right. Poppy, we grieve for you, we will miss you. Good Bye.”

The bell started to toll again. The eight men hoisted the platform back onto their shoulders. They carried it down the steps and around the square slowly so everyone could see Poppy up close. I couldn’t stop thinking of her floating in the water asleep, being stared at, unaware that she had failed here. As her shell got closer I had a hard time catching my breath; the town square started spinning. I grabbed onto Sebastian’s arm, but the dizziness was overwhelming.

“What’s wrong?” Sebastian was staring at me. “Are you going to be sick?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m too upset to see Poppy up close.”

“Let’s get out of here,” he said, and we pushed our way out of the crowd until I found an empty spot on the sidewalk and sat down, leaning my head on my hands, the second time that morning, I noted. In one morning I had lost two friends but it wasn’t only losing Paolo and Poppy that bothered me. It was also seeing that horrid Crispin Sinclair. Every time I saw him I could only imagine myself floating unconscious in that tank, Sinclair’s wretched face smiling in wicked delight at the power he held over us all.

Sebastian sat with me on the curb quietly as we watched my brittle friend finish taking her turn around the square. When everyone had had a look, the men loaded the platform onto a large flatbed truck that had been waiting nearby. They fastened the platform securely, and as the bell continued to toll, they carefully carted Poppy’s shell away. She was backwards, blankly facing us all as she drove off to her destiny in Sinclair’s museum of the mundane. I felt as if I should wave back at her, but it was not necessary. I knew that.

“Whew,” I said to Sebastian. “Was that weird or what?”

He laughed. “Is that going to be you one day?” he teased. Noticing the color drain from my face, he stopped laughing. “I’m sorry. Do you still feel sick?” Oblivious to the fact that we hardly knew each other, he reached under my hair and started rubbing my neck, a simple gesture of concern that sent shivers down my spine.

Without a second thought I let my guard down. “That Crispin Sinclair scares me,” I confessed.

“Really?” Sebastian was interested. “How so?”

“I don’t like how he looks at me. Like I’m a thing.”

“When does he look at you?”

Sebastian seemed to care, so I kept talking. “Every time I see him he seems to be watching me.”

“Oh, come on. You’re imagining that,” he said. “Why would you think that?”

“I don’t know.”

Bing had told me that Crispin thought I would make a pretty shell; that was why. Whenever Sinclair looked at me I was sure he was sizing me up. However, after the way Bing had acted the night before, I was afraid to bring his name up in front of Sebastian.

“Don’t worry so much,” said Sebastian, finally moving his hand from my neck only to begin running his fingers affectionately through my hair as he kept talking. “He probably only thinks you are pretty or notices your hair. I mean, yeah, he looks a little intimidating but he’s not, I’ve heard. He only wants what’s good for us.”

I looked Sebastian in the eye, wanting to believe him, but unable to. I couldn’t control that sinking feeling when Sinclair looked at me. Obviously, Sebastian had never caught Sinclair’s attention in the same way I had. He couldn’t relate. I sighed. Still, just talking with Sebastian about Sinclair calmed me. Keeping it all inside never helped.

Sebastian pointed. “Look, they are serving lunch now. Why don’t you get something to eat? I bet you’ll feel better.”