The One Safe Place (28 page)

Kit told Devin to grab a backpack and fill it with things they might need later, once they were out. Warm clothes, a flashlight and penknife, any camping equipment he could find. Devin stood in his room after the others had left and tried to concentrate on the task.

In the two days he’d been away in the Dream, it had grown even hotter. Despite lavish watering, there was a brittle, dried-out quality to the plants in the courtyard. The leaves on the trees made a rasping, insect sound when the breeze stirred them, and the sun was small and pale, as though it had shriveled in its own heat.

Sweat prickled on his face despite the coolness of the room.

He grabbed his bag and started stuffing it as fast as he could.

The light had turned a pale, sickly yellow. It made the faces of the children in the dining room look drained of all blood. Kit, Luke, and Devin sat in front of their food, hardly speaking.

Caspar sat at the next table. He was working his way through a huge sandwich and looked a little healthier, although he was still wearing his suit.

I hope he can run in it, Devin thought.

“Get your stuff under the table!” Kit said, pushing her backpack out of sight. “Mrs. Babbage is coming!”

They did as they were told. Each had a bag except for Malloy. Luke was keeping Malloy’s for him because he was busy. When Mrs. Babbage entered, Malloy was walking around the dining room, pausing by each table to whisper something to the kids sitting there. The instant he caught sight of Mrs. Babbage, he straightened up and put on his most innocent expression. But she wasn’t looking at him. She made her way to the front of the room and clapped her hands for silence. She was staring straight at Devin, and when she caught his eye she gave him a tiny wink.

“Did you see that?” Kit whispered. “Has she told already? Is it too late?”

“I have an announcement,” Mrs. Babbage said. “A lovely announcement!”

The room stilled.

“I have just heard from the Administrator that Megs, Jared, and Pavel have been adopted! They will be leaving for their new homes tomorrow. So all of you have plenty of time to say good-bye and wish them good luck with their new lives.”

There was a scraping of chairs as the kids in the dining room rose to clap. Devin, Kit, and Luke rose with them. Out of the corner of his eye, Devin noticed Roman pushing his way toward the door; he looked quickly back at Mrs. Babbage. She was staring at Devin with a strange little smile on her face. He felt certain she was about to say something to him, but she walked right past and out of the dining room without another word.

As soon as she was gone, Malloy hurried over to their table. “I told everyone to hang around. Said there was going to be a show.” He looked very nervous.

“Oh, God,” Luke said. “You’d better have something good planned, Malloy. This has to work, it has to . . .”

“Stop it!” Kit said fiercely. “This is going to work and we’re going to get out of here. But we’ve got to keep our heads and not panic. I know we can do it.”

“What if you’re chicken? What if you’re more chicken than chicken soup?” Malloy said.

Kit gave him a long, hard look. “Then you pretend you’re not. You pretend so hard it comes true.”

Dessert had been laid out on the buffet table and kids were already helping themselves to it. “Okay, Malloy,” Kit said. “You’ve got fifteen minutes, max. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?”

Malloy paused, his eyes wide. Then he nodded.

“Remember where we’re going to meet?”

“Hill outside, behind the maze and bushes.”

“All right, then. Go!”

Malloy turned without another word and left the dining room.

Twenty-Five

THE MINUTES TICKED BY,
five and then ten. Devin, Kit, and Luke sat in silence, not looking at each other.

“He’s not going to be able to do it, is he?” Luke whispered in agitation.

Kit looked at her watch for the tenth time.

“It’s been fifteen minutes already . . .”

“Shut up Luke! You’re losing it.”

The kids around them were finishing their dessert and starting to get up from their seats.

“He’ll do it,” Devin said. “I know he will.”

Kit nodded, her lips tight.

There was a commotion at the window. Someone called out and kids were suddenly raising their heads to look. Devin heard a few gasps and then a muffled squeal of laughter.

“This is it!” Kit said, grabbing her bag. The dining room was abuzz with talk.

“I don’t believe it!”

“You’ve gotta see this!”

“Is that animal driving a car?”

The doorway was jammed with kids all trying to get out at once. They spilled into the courtyard, pushing and shoving to get a better look. Kit, Luke, and Devin followed behind, keeping close to the building. For a few seconds they couldn’t see anything, and then the crowd parted and they saw a red miniature car.

Malloy was in the passenger seat. He had raided the dress-up box and found himself a tuxedo and a shiny black top hat. He was grinning with terror. Fulsome was sitting next to him, hooves planted on the steering wheel of the car as if he were driving. Malloy had dressed him in a tiny white shirt with the top two buttons undone, and on his head, slightly askew, sat a dark, glossy wig.

The resemblance was unmistakable.

“It’s her!” Karen whispered.

“Oh my goodness!” Caspar exclaimed.

The children stared in disbelief. Around and around the courtyard went the car, Malloy steering it with his left hand. From the corner of his eye, Devin saw staff members running toward the commotion.

“This will get her out,” Kit said. “It has to.”

But there was no sign of the Administrator. Kit, Luke, and Devin eased their way behind the crowd, making for the door to the tower. Behind them, the car stopped in the center of the courtyard and Malloy got out. He stood uncertainly as if half paralyzed, then scuttled around to the other side of the car and opened the door.

“We have arrived, My Lady,” he told Fulsome in a voice that was meant to be grand but came out in a frightened squeak. A ripple of laughter ran around the courtyard.

Fulsome descended. He ambled forward and then stopped to have a look around him. His wig had slipped even further, exposing a large pink ear, and his shirt was now missing several buttons. His stomach strained against the fabric and his thick front legs almost burst the seams of the arms.

But the pig had dignity, there was no denying it. If Fulsome was humiliated by his appearance, he gave no sign of it. He walked with his snout up, his tail perky, and his eyes alive for good things to eat. He was so gloriously proud that he made it look as if he wasn’t dressed as the Administrator at all.

He made it look as if
she
were dressed like
him
.

“Good old Malloy,” Luke muttered. “I’m sorry I doubted him.”

“Seems to be a pattern with you . . . ,” Kit said. But Devin could tell she only partly meant it. The three of them were close to the tower by now, keeping to the wall and moving slowly to avoid notice.

“Would you care for a stroll, My Lady?” Devin heard Malloy say. Mrs. Babbage had now joined the throng along with several more staff members. “Get that disgusting animal out of here!” her voice shrilled. There was a scuffle around the pig, and suddenly Fulsome had broken through and was charging around in the flower beds.

“You go, Pig!” somebody yelled. In a minute, twenty kids had taken up the cry.

“Go, Pig! Go, Pig! Go, Pig!”

Fulsome, excited by the attention, got up on his hind legs and turned on the spot. Vanessa forgot to be grown up and gave a hysterical cheer. Somebody grabbed Jared’s teddy bear and flung it high into the air. The cries of the crowd became a roar.

GO-PIG! GO-PIG! GO-PIG! GO-PIG!

“Stop it at once,” Mrs. Babbage said, apparently addressing Fulsome himself.

PIG! PIG! PIG!

Malloy stood in the middle of it all, waving his hands vaguely as if horrified by the ruckus he’d created. Mrs. Babbage turned to a pair of burly staff members. “Do something! Catch it or something!”

Kit, Luke, and Devin had reached the tower. They stayed around the side of it, keeping to the shadows.

“Why isn’t she coming out?” Luke said. “This whole thing is pointless if she doesn’t come out.”

The two staff members had decided to use trickery to catch Fulsome. Someone had fetched a large bread roll and was now waving it in the pig’s direction. Fulsome stared at it thoughtfully. He took a couple of steps forward and sniffed.

“Don’t do it!” a kid cried.

But Fulsome was not one to ignore any kind of food. He took another two steps. He was now almost within grabbing range of the man holding the bread.

“No-o-o-o,” wailed the crowd.

The door of the tower banged open and suddenly the Administrator was there. Peering around the curved wall, Devin caught only a glimpse of her, her body rigid, her hands clenched into fists. For a second she stood there, perfectly still, and then, with terrifying speed, she moved.

When Fulsome had run loose before, the Administrator had thought Ansel was responsible. But she was not fooled now. Four or five swift strides brought her to her target. Her arm shot out and seized Malloy around the neck so tightly that his top hat fell off and his eyes bugged out.

A dreadful silence fell. The only sound was the gasping bark of Malloy trying to breathe.

Slowly, very deliberately, the Administrator bent her shining head as if to whisper something in Malloy’s ear. But before she could say a word, she was interrupted by Mrs. Babbage, sounding full of panic.

“Visitors!”

She waved her arms frantically, pointing.

Devin looked out past the courtyard to the large meadow and the gates beyond. Five large cars had appeared in a line, moving up the driveway.

It was another group, eager for a tour of the Home. Business was certainly booming.

The cars were still distant, and they were moving very slowly in order not to jar the fragile, ancient bodies of their passengers. But in a very few minutes they would be pulling in to the courtyard. And then the Visitors would step out, not into the orderly paradise they were expecting, but into a scene of total chaos.

Exactly the same thought must have occurred to the Administrator. Her head shot up and, for a second, her whole body froze.

Then several things happened almost at once.

Malloy wriggled wildly and freed himself from the Administrator’s grip. He leaped toward the miniature car, yelling for Fulsome. The pig halted in his tracks and then plunged after him, knocking a staff member to the ground. Mrs. Babbage screamed. Fulsome’s wig flew off and several children made a dive for it.

Malloy jumped into the car and took off recklessly down the path toward the corn maze with Fulsome crammed in beside him. All the children immediately stampeded after them, followed by the members of staff.

In sixty seconds, the only people left in the courtyard were Mrs. Babbage and the Administrator. Kit, Luke, and Devin shrank against the wall of the tower. If the Administrator had turned, she would have seen them, but her attention was fixed on the convoy of cars, which was advancing steadily.

“What’s she going to do?” Devin whispered.

“I bet she’ll try to head them off,” Kit said. “There’s another place for cars to park behind the dining room. She’ll try to redirect them there, then get them into the building quickly before they have a chance to see anything.”

As they watched, the Administrator gathered herself. She straightened, flicked an invisible mark off the front of her shirt, and nodded to Mrs. Babbage, who scuttled off without another word. Then the Administrator began to walk—very fast but with no apparent haste—across the courtyard and down the driveway toward the approaching cars.

Kit grabbed her bag. “Now’s our chance. Come on.”

The three of them made a dash for the tower door.

“Can we lock it?” Kit panted, slamming it closed.

Luke fumbled with the handle. “Not sure . . .”

“Never mind, then, leave it. Get in the elevator.”

Luke punched the button for the top floor. They crowded together, perfectly still, their bodies tight with tension, their faces looking desperately white in the elevator light’s glow. In the few seconds of silence as the elevator rose, they heard a soft, whimpering, scratching sound, very close. Luke’s whole body jerked.