Brass Monkeys (16 page)

Lilah shivered. “It means the kids are getting close to the front entrance.”

I cleared my throat nervously. “So what happens when they get there?”

“We’ve never seen any of it,” Lilah replied, “but the drones say she brings them inside for some kind of psychological evaluation. That goes on until noon blink, then they assemble in the gym for something called Kaleidoscope.”

“Then she gives them some Zorca to keep them calm and in line,” said Teddy.

“What’s Zorca?” I asked and watched Teddy sign it to Lilah.

“It’s a tranquilizer,” replied Lilah. “They give it to the kids in little cups just before they leave to come down, then after they get here. The effects of the music and incense begin to wear off, so they need something to keep them in line.”

“After Zorca,” said Teddy quietly, “Mingley sends them to their first class.”

“First class?” I could barely get the words out, it frightened me so much.

Lilah nodded. “It’s the start of the final preparation for the kids. The three days of classes make them so sick and desperate that all their Amberlight finally gathers into one spot, ready for extraction.”

The thought of Harriet losing her Amberlight made me physically ill. “We’ve got to hurry,” I said.

Teddy was signing this to Lilah when he stopped abruptly. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

“Look ahead,” said Lilah. Her even-toned voice rose with tension.

I turned and looked. In the distance, distorted a bit in the shimmering desert heat, was a strange sight. It looked like a giant pink ear rising from the sand.

“It’s the ruins,” Lilah whispered. Her voice shook a little. “I’d always heard there was a pink band shell near Adjana’s school. I just never dreamed I’d see it.”

The van surged ahead and my stomach muscles tightened.

“Why did Adjana have a band shell near the school?” I wanted to know.

Teddy smiled in a happy, distant way. “Because she liked to start each day of school with music. In fact, she used it all through the day.”

“Really?” I was astounded. “Man, that is too unbelievable. Imagine going to a school like that. Would I be flying or what?” Then I had a horrible thought. “Wait, Ming does that too. She uses music—that stupid ‘March of the Midnight Scholars.’“

Teddy finished signing that, but Lilah had read my lips and was way ahead.

“That’s because she also knows the power of music,” she said. “The difference is, Mingley chooses music that depresses and destroys the spirit.”

As we drew closer, I could see the ruins more clearly. Basically the school was nothing more than a jumble of charred wooden beams. A few broken panes of glass winked forlornly in the light. The band shell lay just a few yards beyond.

“It’s a little depressing,” I murmured. “How come Adjana built her school way out here—smack in the middle of nowhere? It’s so lonely.”

“You don’t understand, Billy,” said Lilah. “This used to be green country with lots of pines and grasslands. But it all changed when Mingley took over.”

“What’d she do,” I said, “breathe on everything and kill it?”

Teddy laughed and slapped his knee. “That’s a ripper, Billy. She breathed on it and killed the grass!” He signed and repeated this a second time.

“Teddy, for heaven’s sakes,” said Lilah, “I get the joke.” She gave me a wry look. “What happened was that Mingley destroyed the original source of light down here, which was an ancient set of lenses that brought the rays of the sun down from the surface.”

“See, Mingley was so dense in the belfry,” Teddy burst out, “that she and her dumb Stormie friends wrecked the lenses before they knew what they were doing. Then she was forced to construct all those big lights at the top. Then she had to cut down the trees in order to run the generators that make power for the lights. Dumb move after dumb move!”

We drove over the top of a small rise and the ruins were clearly visible now. We couldn’t have been more than a couple of hundred yards away.

“They say it was a beautiful building before the war,” said Lilah. Her voice had dropped to a hushed tone. “It was mostly glass, stone, and wood. And it wasn’t big either. Adjana wanted a school that was small enough to make you feel at home.”

We passed by the flattened ruins of the school building and came alongside the band shell. We were only a few yards from the steps leading up into the shell when I spotted the piano sitting on the stage. One leg was broken, but there it was, a black grand piano with the lid up.

“Boy,” whispered Teddy in awe, “I don’t think anyone has played that in a long time, but I’ll bet you’d like to.” He eyed Lilah after he signed this.

“Would I ever,” said Lilah. Her even-toned voice trembled ever so slightly.

I stared at Lilah. She was so pretty, sitting there with the light glancing off her dark hair. But I still wondered what music could possibly mean to her, if she couldn’t hear?

“So you play the piano?” I began hesitantly.

Lilah nodded. “I learned to play long before I lost most of my hearing,” she said. “I still have some hearing in my right ear, but now I mostly hear music in my mind, my memory of it. But it works really well for me.”

“Lilah was the best music teacher our school ever had,” said Teddy proudly, speaking and signing. “She was fantastic. She could tell simply by a student’s body language whether they were playing sharp or flat or too fast or too slow.”

Lilah smiled. “I made mistakes, but I’d developed a kind of sixth sense.”

“Mingley tried to get her fired,” Teddy went. “But the townspeople wouldn’t allow it. Mingley actually brought Fundabore in for a while, but the kids made such a fuss the school board had to let him go. So we never got too much of the “March of the Midnight Scholars,” just the incense and the rotten classes.”

“But that was enough,” added Lilah. She was staring hard at the piano as we passed by. Abruptly she turned and faced us. “I just remembered something Webster told us. He said McGinty liked to play the piano.”

“Jeezo-peezo,” said Teddy, “you’re right!” His eyes grew large. “I knew he was out here. I knew it. And Jack is going to be so sorry he didn’t stick with us.”

Teddy pulled to a stop near the edge of the stage and cut the engine. We sat there for a few seconds just peering around.

Teddy snuffed nervously, then spoke and signed, “I think it’s a little too—”

“Sshhh!” hissed Lilah.

“Quiet,” Teddy whispered.

“I’m getting out,” I said.

I opened the van door and picked up the trumpet I had stored under the front seat, then jumped out. Lilah and Teddy joined me, and we headed cautiously for the steps of the stage.

“There’s something weird in the air,” said Teddy. He signed slowly and whispered in an exaggerated way.

“Maybe your voice?” snapped Lilah.

The hair on my neck prickled. This was the moment for which I had come so far and risked so much. I reached inside my tunic and touched
Brass Monkeys
. I tried to imagine how excited McGinty would be when I handed the book to him. I just wished Jack were with us.

“Maybe we should call out McGinty’s name?” I said, tensely. “That way if he’s close …?”

Teddy signed this, but Lilah had read my lips and was already speaking right over it. “Good idea,” she said in a low voice. “Go ahead.”

They stopped and looked at me expectantly.

“Right now?” I asked.

The tension must have been too great for Teddy, because he suddenly blatted out in a hoarse and fearful voice, “McGinty!”

Lilah saw his mouth yaw open and hissed at him, “Teddy, not you!” She turned to me. “Billy,
you
. You have the book.”

I cleared my throat. “McGinty!” My voice sounded tinny in the desert air.

“You guys call too,” I said. “I sound stupid.”

They started for the far side of the band shell, Teddy calling out “McGinty!” every few feet. Now Lilah raised her even-toned voice and joined in.

I climbed the steps of the stage. “McGinty!” I yelled, my voice suddenly magnified by the shell. For a moment I just stood on the front part of the stage and looked out at the ruined school building. I wondered what it must have been like all those years ago, when Adjana and her teachers had taught there. What kind of music had they played?

On a sudden impulse, I raised my trumpet and blew a soft chromatic scale—low C up to middle C and back down again. It sounded great, just round and golden, and I knew it was caused by the shell. Teddy heard me, and he and Lilah popped into view below the lip of the stage. They grinned and waved at me.

“McGinty!” I called out. “I’m here!”

Suddenly something crazy rushed over me. Foolishly I raised the trumpet again, and this time I blew out a few bars of “Malagueña.” Man, I was rocking. I could have played a solo with the Boston Pops right at that moment. The next thing I knew, Lilah and Teddy were jumping up and down and pointing like crazy.

When I turned and looked, my heart started pounding like a hammer. A figure was just leaping off the far side of the stage. The person moved so quickly that I didn’t get a good look at him, but he appeared to be fairly short and was wearing some kind of colorful shirt and shorts, along with a strange, four-cornered hat.

I ran frantically along the stage. Near the edge I skidded to a stop and held the book over my head. “McGinty!” I screeched. “I have your book! I’m here!”

The man paused and looked back. Then, very deliberately, he turned and ran into the desert.

I groaned, the sound coming out of the deepest part of me. I lowered the book and watched him disappear into the sandy hills.

A feeling of hopelessness flooded over me. I felt like sitting down and bawling. What had gone wrong? Why had he run away like that?

Panting and out of breath, Teddy and Lilah joined me.

“Was it him?” cried Lilah. “We couldn’t see him clearly.”

I nodded. “Had to be. He must have been here all along, but then he ran.”

“We kept yelling his name,” said Teddy, “but he wouldn’t stop.”

I felt sick. “Maybe I scared him when I started playing the trumpet.”

Lilah read my lips and was already shaking her head. “No, absolutely not,” she said firmly. “He acted like he didn’t want to see anyone, period.”

“Where the heck was he hiding anyway?” I wanted to know.

“I think behind the piano,” said Lilah.

I glanced over at the grand piano and saw a piece of paper on the music rack. I walked over and picked it up. It was a piece from a spiral notebook, and on the corner of it someone had sketched a picture of a unicorn. Riding on its back was a boy and a girl.

“What is it?” Lilah asked as she and Teddy joined me.

“It’s a drawing. I wonder if McGinty drew it.” I held out the paper.

“Hey, a unicorn,” said Teddy, brightening. “I used to collect them.”

“Maybe McGinty is trying to tell us something,” I ventured.

“Oh, yipes,” said Teddy softly.

I glanced up, expecting to find out what the drawing meant, but instead Teddy was staring out over the desert.

“Somebody’s coming,” he said.

I turned and saw the clouds of dust in the distance. Lilah knew immediately what they were.

“Stormie trucks,” she burst out. “Coming this way.”

We fell into a terrible panic. Teddy bolted behind the piano, evidently thinking he could hide there. Lilah grabbed him and we scurried down the stage steps.

Lilah and I made it down, but Teddy got his feet tangled and fell heavily.

Lilah and I stopped to help him up, but he lunged to his feet and went galloping off toward the van. When we got into the van, he was already at the wheel, pumping the gas pedal. He turned the key, but the engine wouldn’t start.

“You flooded it!” yelled Lilah.

Teddy looked amazed. “I think I flooded it,” he said.

Lilah cried out something that made no sense to me, but I knew what she meant:
it was too late to run
. Two trucks filled with Stormies were bouncing straight toward us. They were so close I could see the grill on the lead truck.

Lilah pulled out the test gun and thrust it at me.

“Take it! You still have a chance!”

“No way,” I said. “We’re in this together.” I started to repeat it with lip motions, but she cut right over me.

“Not anymore,” she said. Her dark eyes were fierce. “You have the book?”

“Inside my tunic.” I patted it to be sure.

Teddy, who had been searching for a weapon under the seat, came out with a map pointer, a little wooden thing with a metal tip.

The big trucks rumbled to a stop and the drivers killed the engines. My eyes were bugging out as I watched the hulking Stormies jump down.

“You guys run for it,” Teddy cried. “I’m going to charge ‘em!”

“Teddy, no!” Lilah tried to grab his arm, but he shook it off.

“Sometimes in life, even though you’re scared,” he said, “you have to take a stand.” He drew a shaky breath. “For me, this is one of those times.”

Both Lilah and I cried out, trying to hold him back, but it didn’t help. Without another word he jumped out of the van, then broke into a stiff-legged run toward the oncoming Stormies. They stopped, obviously surprised at the sight of a lone man charging them. Then, calmly they leveled their eraser guns, and I heard the terrifying
thwwut thwuut
as the first round came flying toward Teddy.

He ran for several yards before he was hit. He cried out and fell hard, then rolled over and began clutching his leg.

“No, no, Teddy,” I heard Lilah moan. I watched in horror as the Stormies prodded him with their weapons, then turned and looked at the van.

Lilah gave me a desperate look. “Stay out of sight,” she hissed. “I’ll lead them off, then you run for it.” She gripped my arm fiercely. “Get the book to McGinty!”

“Lilah, don’t do this,” I cried. “They’ll shoot you!”

She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the cheek.
“Find him
,” she said. Without another word, she jumped down from the truck and began running across the sand. For a few fleeting seconds the plan seemed to work.