“I just thought I’d visit and see how you were doing,” I said, sitting down at the table. I wasn’t going to say how unhappy I was in Geo Quad — not with Venie sitting there listening to every word and ready to shout hallelujah.
I said, “Hi,” and everybody at the table said, “Hi, Mia,” back.
Mary said, “Gee, Mia. I didn’t expect you to turn up back here. Why didn’t you call and tell me you were coming?”
“It was a sort of a spur-of-the-moment thing,” I said.
“Well, it’s good to see you. Hey, how do you like it where you are now?”
“It’s all right, I guess,” I said. “I’m still getting used to things. I haven’t met everybody or been everywhere yet.”
“Hey, do you still do that crazy business of walking around in the collecting chutes over there?” one of the others asked.
“No,” I said. “I haven’t gotten around to it, but I expect I will.”
“Which quad did you move to, now?”
“Geo Quad,” Mary answered for me.
“That’s on the Fifth Level, isn’t it?” another of the kids asked.
“Yes,” I said.
“Oh, yes,” Venie broke in. “I remember. I’ve heard of Geo Quad. That’s where all the oddballs live.”
“Oh, you know that isn’t so, Venie,” I said sweetly. “You haven’t moved there yet. By the way, why don’t you? We’ve got a place on our third-string soccer team waiting for you.”
“I may not be very good,” Venie said, stung, “but I can outplay you any day of the week with both eyes closed.”
“Mary,” I said, “how has your family been?”
“All right, I guess,” she said unhappily.
“At least my parents didn’t dump me in a dormitory to get rid of me while they were still married,” Venie said.
Without turning to look at her, I said, “Venie, if you want another punch in the nose, keep saying those things. Mary, why don’t we go over to your place? Then we won’t have any interruptions.”
“Oh, don’t leave on my account,” Venie said. “I’m going myself. The air is getting a little close in here. You kids coming with me?”
She pushed back her chair and the other three girls got up and started after her as she eased her way out between the red, yellow, green, and blue topped tables.
I said, “Shall we go over to your place, Mary?”
Unhappily, she said, “Gee, Mia, I can’t. We were just about to go over and play soccer.”
“Well, that’s good,” I said and stood up. “Let’s go play.”
Mary said, “I don’t think Venie would like that.”
I asked, “What’s the matter with you? Since when did it ever matter what Venie thinks?”
Mary stood there looking at me, and finally she said, “Mia, I love you dearly, but you just don’t live here anymore. I do. Can you understand that? I’ve got to go now. Will you call me up sometime?”
“Yes,” I said, and watched her hurry out after Venie Morlock. “I will,” I said softly, but I knew I wouldn’t. I knew, too, that one more finger had just been pried loose.
4
Lacking anything else to do, I left the Common Room and went back to Geo Quad. I may have seemed outwardly calm — I think I did — but inside I was frantic. Once, when I was about ten, I had been on an outing on the Third Level and gotten into a patch of nettles. I didn’t discover what they were until I was well into them, and I had no choice but to continue pushing my way through. By the time I came out on the other side my legs and arms were itching furiously and I was dancing up and down, driven almost into a frenzy by the fiery prickling, wishing for anything that would make it stop. What I was feeling mentally now was something very similar. I had an itch I couldn’t stop and couldn’t locate, I was jumpy and unhappy, and very depressed.
I wanted to get away. I wanted someplace dark to hide. I wanted something to do to occupy my mind. When I got back to our apartment — a place that held the furniture but not the feel of home — I hunted up a piece of chalk and one of those small lights that dorm mothers use to count heads with, after lights-out. Then I went out again. It was about two o’clock in the afternoon then, and though I hadn’t eaten for hours I was far too agitated to think of food.
I didn’t just pick the nearest grate to our apartment and pop into it. I wandered a little until I found a quiet bywater of a hall not too far away. I was in no mood at all to try to explain myself to some uncomprehending adult, so I did some looking around before I decided on a particular grate to use as my entrance into the Fifth Level collecting chutes.
I knelt down by the grate and began to take it off. It was hung by clips on both sides and they hadn’t been worked for such a long time that they were stiff and unmoving. Once I started to use them regularly they wouldn’t be any problem, but right now they refused to yield to my prying fingers. I worked at it in a very slow-paced way, not feeling up to much more, and it was fully five minutes before my judicious wiggling of the left-hand clip unfroze it. I was about to start on the other when a voice asked, “What are you doing?”
I had my face in my hand at the moment, and I jumped guiltily at the sudden sound. I composed myself as best I could before I looked around. It was Zena Andrus standing there.
I said, “What are you doing?”
She said, “I live back there,” pointing to a door not so far down the way. “What are you doing?”
I pointed through the grate at the collecting chute. “I’m going down in there.”
“You mean down in the ducts?”
“Yes,” I said. “Why not? Does the idea scare you?”
She bristled. “I’m not scared. I can do anything you can.”
With deliberate malice, I said, “In that case, come on along with me.”
She swallowed a little bit hard, then knelt down beside me and looked through the grate, feeling the indraft and becoming conscious of the distant sound of fans. “It’s awfully dark down there.”
“I have a light,” I said. “We won’t need it much, though. It’s more fun running along in the dark.”
“Running?”
“Well, walking.”
Uncertainly, she looked back at the grate again. They say that misery loves company, and I was bound to make someone else miserable.
“Oh, well,” I said. “If you’re afraid to come along…”
Zena stood up. “I am not.”
“All right,” I said. “If you’re coming, stand aside and let me get the grate off.”
In a minute I had the other clip pulled to the side. I set the grate on the floor and pointed to the black hole. “After you.”
“You’re not going to shut me up in there?”
“No,” I said. “No, I’ll be right behind you. Go through feet first.”
Since she was a butterball, it was a tight fit for her, but after she did some earnest wriggling, she popped through. I handed the chalk and the light down to her and then I slid through myself. When I was standing on the floor of the duct, I took the chalk and light back.
“Put the grate on,” I said, and while she was doing that I made an X-mark and put a neat circle around it, the chalk squeaking lightly on the metal.
“That’s the mark for home,” I said. The ducts corresponding to arteries have pushing fans, the ducts corresponding to veins have sucking fans. Between the chalk marks I make and the direction and feel of the wind, I always have a good enough idea where I am, even in a strange place like this one, to at least find my way home again. There was certainly more similarity here to the ducts at home than there was in the layouts of Alfing and Geo Quads proper. I didn’t think it would take me long to get my bearings.