She took it and shoved it along with the sand going over her hand. "Look out," she said to Sam and Amy. "Here it comes." She was tired of Amy building her House. Amy had a big one going, sand all piled up, and Amy made doors and windows in the House, and fussed and fussed with it. Which was no fun, because Sam put a tower on Amy's house and Amy knocked it off and told him go make a road up to her door, shewas making a house and herhouse didn't have towers. Amy got a spoon and hollowed out behind the windows and put plastic in so you couldn't see inside anyway. She made a wall in front and hollowed out an arch for the road. And they both had had to sit and wait while Amy built. So Ari looked at that arch where the road was supposed to come and thought it would be just the place, and the sand would all come down. "Look out!"
"No!" Amy yelled.
Ari plowed right through it. Bang. Down came the wall. The sand came down on her arm and she just kept going, because platytheres did, no matter what. Even if Amy grabbed her arm and tried to stop her.
Sam helped her knock it down.
Amy yelled and shoved her. She shoved Amy. Phaedra got there and told them they mustn't fight and they were all going inside.
Early.
So that was nasty Amy Carnath's fault.
Amy was not back the next day. That was the way with people she fought with. She was sorry about that. You fought with them and they took them away and you only saw them at parties after. There had been Tommy and Angel and Gerry and Kate, and they were gone and couldn't play with her anymore. So when Amy was gone the next day she moped and sulked and told Phaedra she wanted Amy back.
"If you don't fight with her," Phaedra said. "We'll ask sera."
So Amy did come back. But Amy was funny after that. Even Sam was. Every time she did something they let her.
That was no fun, she thought. So she teased them. She stole Sam's trucks and turned them over. And Sam let her do that. He just sat there and frowned, all unhappy. She knocked Amy's house down before she was through with it. Amy just pouted.
So she did.
Sam turned his trucks back over and decided they had had a wreck. That was an all-right game. She played too, and set the trucks up. But Amy was still pouting, so she ran a truck at her. "Don't," Amy snapped at her. "Don't!"
So she hit her with it. Amy scrambled back and Ari got up and Amy got up. And Amy shoved her.
So she shoved her harder, and kicked her good. Amy hit her. So she hit. And they were hitting each other when Phaedra grabbed her. Amy was crying, and Ari kicked her good before Phaedra snatched her out of reach.
Sam just stood there.
"Amy was a baby," Ari said that night when maman asked her why she had hit Amy.
"Amy can't come back," maman said. "Not if you're going to fight."
So she promised they wouldn't. But she didn't think so.
Amy was out for a couple of days and she came back. She was all pouty and she kept over to herself and she wasn't any fun. She wouldn't even speak when Sam was nice to her.
So Ari walked over and kicked her good, several times. Sam tried to stop her. Phaedra grabbed her by the arm and said she was wrong and she had to sit down and play by herself.
So she did. She took the grader and made sad, angry roads. Sam came over finally and ran a truck on them, but she still hurt. Amy just sat over in the other corner and sniveled. That was what maman called it. Amy wouldn't even play anymore. Ari felt a knot in her throat that made it hard to swallow, but she was not baby enough to cry, and she hated Amy's sniveling, that hurt her and made nothing any fun anymore. Sam was sad too.
After that Amy wasn't there very often. When she was she just sat to herself and Ari hit her once, good, in the back.
Phaedra took Amy by the hand and took her to the door and inside.
Ari went back to Sam and sat down. Valery wasn't there much at all. Pete wasn't. She liked them most. That left just Sam, and Sam was just Sam, a kid with a wide face and not much expression on it. Sam was all right, but Sam hardly ever talked, except he knew about platytheres and fixing trucks. She liked him all right. But she lost everything else. If you liked it most, it went away.
It was not Amy she missed, it was Valery. Sera Schwartz had gotten transferred, so that meant Valery was. She had asked him if he would come back and see her. He had said yes. Maman had said it was too far. So she understood that he was really gone and he would not come back at all. She was mad at him for going. But it was not his fault. He gave her his spaceship with the red light. That was how sorry he was. Maman had said that she had to give it back, so she had to, before she left the Schwartzes' place and said goodbye.
She did not understand why it was wrong, but Valery had cried and she had. Sera Schwartz had been mad at her. She could tell, even if sera Schwartz was being nice and said she would miss her.
Maman had taken her home and she had cried herself to sleep. Even if maman was mad at something and told her stop crying. She did for a while. But for days after she would snivel. And maman would say stop it, so she did, because maman was getting upset and things were getting tight around the apartment—tight was all she could call it. That made everything awful. So she knew she was upsetting maman.
She was scared sometimes. She could not say why.
She was unhappy about Amy, and she tried to be good to Sam and Tommy, when he came, but she thought if she got Amy back she would hit her again.
She would hit Sam and Tommy too, but if she did she would not have anybody at all. Phaedra said she had to be good, they were running out of kids.
iii
"This is the Room," the Instructor said.
"Yes, ser," Catlin said. She was nervous and anxious at the same time. She had heard about the Room from Olders. She heard about the things they did to you, like turning the lights on and off and sometimes water on the floor. But her Instructor always had the Real Word. Her Instructor told her she had to get through a tunnel and do it fast.
"Are you ready?"
"Yes, ser."
He opened the door. It was a tiny place with another door. The one behind her shut and the lights went out.
The one in front of her opened and cold wet air hit her in the face. The place had echoes.
She moved, not even sure where the tunnel was or whether she was in it.
"Stop!" a voice yelled. And a red dot lit the wall and popped.
It was a shot. She knew that. Her body knew what to do; she was tumbling and meaning to roll and find cover, but the whole floor dropped, and she kept rolling, down a tube and splash! into cold water.
She flailed and got up in knee-deep water. You never believed a Safe. Someone had shot. You ran and got to cover.
But: Get through,the Instructor had said. Fast as you can.
So she got, fast as she could, till she ran into a wall and followed it, up again, onto the dry. In a place that rang under her boots. Noise was bad. It was dark and she was easy to see in the dark because of her pale skin and hair. She did not know whether she ought to sneak or run, but fastwas fast,that was what the Instructor said.
She ran easy and quick, fingers of one hand trailing on the wall to keep her sense of place in the dark and one hand out ahead of her so she wouldn't run into something.