“I—er—the book’s so huge and such a weird shape it won’t fit in my knapsack, and I’m afraid of leaving it behind,” I said, thinking fast. I was pretty sure I was supposed to have read the introduction, or else why had I hauled it home in the first place? Maybe I could do it at lunch. The introduction should be mostly words. I knew what it would say: that algebra was fun and easy and we were going to have a really good time together this year blah blah blah. Dreeping dreeping dreeping.
“It is a weird shape,” said Mom, pulling it toward her. “What on earth were they thinking when they made a textbook half the size of a coffee table?” She lifted the front cover. It opened, it seemed to me, lazily, like a cat stretching; the cover, when she let go of it, didn’t drop inertly to the tabletop the way it should, but subsided gently, and the pages started fanning themselves. They fell open, of course, about two-thirds of the way through, where the paper was silky and printed with something besides algebra. I could see x² + 6x – 8 = 3x + 7 all wound around a flowering vine: the x’s were tiny four-petaled flowerets. I didn’t know if the right answer was “ugh” or “awww.”
“How extraordinary,” said Mom, stroking one of the pages (which was stiffly standing straight up, like a cat being petted). “Whatever is the paper made of?”
I had no idea how I was going to answer that one, but fortunately she looked at the clock and said, “Oh, flastic, Ran has got to get up,” finished her coffee and went back upstairs to throw shoes at my brother (I wish. I’ve been known to do that, but it got me in trouble). I took my algebra book (and more coffee) back upstairs with me, got dressed in record time, and brought my knapsack downstairs again with the zootronic book, as camouflage. As I snapped Mongo’s lead on I was aware of Hix climbing up my arm from Mongo’s back and arranging herself around my neck in what I guess was becoming her standard position. I straightened up and glared at my algebra book. “You stay right there,” I said. “I’ll be back.”
I hadn’t noticed it in the house—maybe our remaining gruuaa had figured out how to block it?—maybe I just wasn’t awake enough. But outdoors I could still feel that creepy it’s-behind-you-and-it-isn’t-friendly new armydar. Were they still at it? Ugh. It was like finding out the playground bully was waiting for you when you’d been hoping he’d given up and gone home. Green pond scum. Smelly green dreeping pond scum.
And there were still soldiers at the end of our road. Bugsuck. Shimatta. We turned around. At this end Station butted up against what was kind of the edge of the barrens. There was a jagged hedge of little trees between the last of the houses and the scrub that gave way pretty soon to the barrens. You could make your way along the far side of the trees (it was pretty rough going but all the local dog walkers did it), and then duck back in again when you got to the next street. We went up Singh Lane. There were no soldiers at the end of it. We stopped on the corner and looked around. From there you could see five streets dead-ending into Ramage, this side of town’s main avenue through Station: Jaboli, Singh, Jenkins, Korngold, and Drisk. Only Jaboli had soldiers on it.
When we got back, Ran was eating cereal and my algebra book was still lying next to my knapsack. Mongo, who knew perfectly well what my school knapsack and rushing around in the morning meant, was doing his, You-don’t-mean-you’re-leaving-me-again-you-call-that-a-walk? and getting in the way. It seemed to me a little more intense than usual, but if he and Hix were now great friends, he probably knew she was coming with me, and I don’t suppose a dog gets it about semi-visible and mostly intangible being easier to sneak past the teachers.
I was stuffing a piece of toast in my mouth when I heard Jill’s wheels crunch on the driveway. “I will see you this afternoon,” I said, getting down on my knees to give Mongo a hug. When I stood up, Val was standing in the hallway. I hesitated. I didn’t really know what terms we were on with each other. Even remembering Takahiro—and the conversation coming home in the car—it was still really hard to stop thinking of Val as a villain and start thinking of him as a hero, like turning a page in a book. In books that kind of thing really annoys me. Even when the person who was wrong about the other person who is really a hero has been being a creepazoid, which I guess was me.
He gave me a little nod, as foreign as his shrug.
“Morning,” I said. “Sorry. Jill’s waiting.”
He stood aside immediately, but said, “How are you?” His voice was furry with sleep, and it seemed to me his accent was stronger than usual, like it took him a while to fit back into his Newworld life in the morning. I could relate to the fitting-back-into-reality problem. But I’d spoken to him yesterday morning too. I guessed I’d better get used to it.
“I’m okay,” I said. “Still kind of freaked out. Worried about Takahiro.” I paused. “You?”
“I am well, thank you,” he said, alien as a Martian. “You will see Takahiro today?”
“I’d better,” I said, picked up my knapsack and algebra book, and headed for the front door.
“You’ve got soldiers at the end of your road,” said Jill. “What’s up? This whole area is making my hair stand on end. It feels like invisible things with legs crawling on you. Ugh. It’s much worse near you than over where we are.” She’d got the short straw in the family vehicle lottery that day: she was driving the Mammothmobile. It had probably started life as a muscle car fifteen years ago for you and your eighteen closest friends to intimidate the locals in. You could get several kegs of beer in the back seat and maybe a small buffalo or the basketball team.
I glanced guiltily at Hix, who was a slightly odd pool of shadow in my lap. “Um—Val says it’s some kind of hyped-up armydar. Because of the cobey.” I’d put the algebra book on the floor, leaning against the wall of the footwell. When Jill turned out of our driveway it tipped over so it was leaning against my leg. It might just have been centrifugal force. (Yes. I know about centrifugal force. Yaay me.)
“Val says, eh?” said Jill. “So, you didn’t punch him out for talking to you, did you?” I didn’t say anything and she went on: “Where were you last night? I tried to call you but your phone was turned off. We all went to P&P again. Casimir was there and he asked after you. He said he’d seen you yesterday afternoon.”
“Yeah,” I said, trying to sound casual. “We ran into each other at the park. He gave me a ride home.”
“At the park?” said Jill, slightly distracted from the fascinating topic of Casimir. “There was a really big whizztizz at the park yesterday. Army all over the landscape. Steph lives in the street opposite the main gate, you know? She saw like forty units all rushing through the gate at once. She was afraid it was another cobey but there haven’t been any announcements or anything, and school’s not canceled—dreep it. I don’t know, I suppose it wouldn’t really be worth a cobey in the park to have school canceled.”
I tried to smile. “Yeah, we saw them arriving as we were leaving. I don’t know what they thought was happening.” Which was true enough. Although I knew it wasn’t what they were expecting. I wanted to tell Jill about yesterday but I didn’t know where to start. Or what I could say. I couldn’t tell her about Takahiro. Not even Jill.
Jill finished backing out of the driveway and turning around, and stopped so she could look at me. I tried to look at her steadily but it was hard. Sometimes it’s a big flastic pain to have a friend who sees more than most people. “Maggie—” she began, and stopped. She looked away from me, down at the steering wheel, as if only just noticing that she was driving the Mammothmobile. She sighed. “Okay, whatever,” she said, and put her foot back on the gas.