Finding Alice (11 page)

After that, we gathered in front of the capitol, and several people gave deeply moving speeches about the atrocities of war and why we need peace so desperately. I clapped and cheered with the best of them. But as the afternoon progressed, it seemed to me that things got increasingly out of hand. It began simply enough. Someone started a fire in a trash barrel, and people were warming their hands over it. Then some guy got all excited and kicked over the flaming barrel, and it rolled into a crowd of people, and everyone started jumping and screaming as if they were being killed. Pretty soon people settled down again and got back to their pounding and shouting, but it seemed to me that the intensity had been ratcheted up a notch or two.

Now I am getting this feeling that something is going to happen before the day is over. Something bad. I can feel it in my skin—this creepy-crawly sensation, and I just want to get out of here. But I don’t know where to go. I’m not familiar with Salem, and I’m thinking if I could just get myself back up to Portland, back to my old apartment, everything would be okay. Phil and Lane promised to drop me off on their way back to Seattle, but that won’t be until tomorrow afternoon. I don’t know if I can wait that long.

So I am pacing, pacing, pacing on the perimeters of the boisterous crowd. I nervously glance at the group of protesters from time to time, trying to figure out what’s going on, but it’s as if I’m submerged under water. Everything is blurry, and I can barely move—like I’m in slow motion. My arms and legs feel weird, as though they’re not
attached to the rest of me, and this tingling sensation is buzzing through my brain. I see the policemen, and I know they’ve been around all day, but suddenly they are growing bigger than life. I notice their helmets and vests have become very imposing, and they appear to be agitated. As if they’re impatient for something to happen. Like me, they are pacing too.

“Just go home,” I keep telling myself. “Go home.” I think I am saying this in my head, but when a woman in a long denim jumper comes up and asks me if I’m okay, I realize I have been speaking out loud.

“I’m just nervous,” I tell her. She is looking at me closely now. I think she is suspicious, but I’m not sure why. Then I see the gold cross hanging around her neck, and I am sure that she’s been sent here by my mom or Mrs. Knoll or maybe even Pastor John. I begin to move away from her, but it seems she is following me.

“Leave me alone,” I tell her.

“Do you need something to eat?” she calls after me.

“No!” I yell as I break into a run. “Just leave me alone.” I run until I reach the van and am relieved to find it’s unlocked. I climb inside and bury myself in the damp, smelly blankets. I haven’t eaten anything besides a sweet roll and several cups of coffee today, and that’s only because it was free. Someone from the capitol brought these things out as a “goodwill gesture” this morning. Now I am worried they may have put something into the food. I’m not even sure why I ate it, probably because Cammie did, and I thought she knew what she was doing. Why am I so stupid?

After apparently falling asleep, I open my eyes, and it is dark. I get out of the van and hear the chanting and pot banging going even
louder than before. I wonder if they will ever stop. I wander toward the protest area with my hands pressed against my ears. I am curious what’s going on, but the noise is splintering my mind. I wonder if they’ve had their candlelight vigil yet. Feather said that it’s usually the last thing on the agenda but that it’s very beautiful, and they sing some good songs. I look around, but I don’t see any candles, and even with my hands pressed against my ears, I can still hear the noise.

I have just reached the edge of the crowd and feel very much like an outsider. It’s as if I have no idea why I’m here or what’s going on. I begin to imagine it’s a religious gathering of some sort. Several fires are burning in trash barrels now, and they send orange-and-red flames into the darkness. The smoke is illuminated by the street lamps, casting an eerie yellow light on the crowd.

I watch with a mixture of fascination and horror, standing on the edge of hell, just looking on. The crowd quiets down now, and someone is stepping up to the podium. He taps the mike and prepares to speak. He has long dark hair and a full beard, and suddenly I am certain he is Satan. He is talking now, but his words are getting jumbled as they pass over the heads of the crowd. I know without doubt that he is speaking to me, but I can’t understand him. I think he is using a foreign language. Hellish perhaps.

He points and gestures, and I am certain he is telling his servants to bring me up there, up to the front where he will humiliate me and have me thrown into the pit of burning flames—the eternal fire that never goes out. I take a step backward, away from him. My heart thunders in my chest. It is even louder than the clanging pots and pans, and I am sure everyone else can hear it too.

Suddenly all is chaos. Things are thrown, and people are running
in all directions. I have no idea what has happened, but I am sure I am the cause. I try to run, but my legs won’t move. My head is throbbing, and I begin to cry as I’m swept into the crowd. I close my eyes as I sink into the tide of arms and bodies running and jostling around me. I know that when I wake up, I will be burning in the fiery pit. My flesh will be melting away from my bones, and I will be in very serious pain. There seems to be nothing I can do to stop this evil thing. I have no resistance left in me, for I am very, very tired. So I simply give in to it.

chapter
FOURTEEN

The Mock Turtle’s Story

W
hen I come to, I am stretched out on a paper-covered bed, and I am certain I am back at Forest Hills, probably about to be sent to the Queen’s Prison again. But here’s what’s weird: I am so relieved.

“How are you doing there?” asks a woman with a stethoscope around her neck. Instead of the regular white nurse’s uniform, she is wearing a purple sweater and brown corduroy pants.

“Who are you?” I ask.

“I’m a volunteer nurse.” She smiles.

“Where am I?”

“This is a free clinic that St. Luke’s Hospital set up for the rally.”

I frown. “Am I still in Salem?”

She nods. “You took a blow to the head during the riot.”

“Riot?”

“Well, things got a little out of hand. No one’s totally sure what happened yet, but the peace rally forgot the peace part. It got sort of ugly. A number of more serious injuries have been transported to the hospital. We’re trying to handle the less severe ones in here.”

“Oh.” I struggle to sit up, but my head throbs with the motion.

“How are you feeling?” she asks as she looks into my eyes with a little flashlight. I vaguely wonder what she sees in there.

“Okay, I guess.”

“Do you have friends here?”

I consider the proper answer and finally decide on the affirmative. I am guessing that will lead to fewer follow-up questions.

“Do you know what the date is today?”

I frown at her.

“How about your name? Do you know your name?”

“Yes.”

“What is it?”

I frown again. No way do I want some nurse writing down my name.

“Okay, a lot of kids don’t want to give me their names. Let’s see. Can you tell me how many fingers I’m holding up?”

“Four,” I answer. “Five if you count your thumb as a finger.”

She laughs. “How about the president? Can you name him?”

I comply, and she seems satisfied.

“Make sure you get a good night’s rest and drink plenty of fluids.”

I tell her I will as I slowly climb down from the examining table. My head hurts, and the lights shine too brightly in here. All I want to do is to get away from all these people. I see a girl throwing up in a wastebasket, and it makes me feel I could do the same. I rush toward the green Exit sign and am relieved to step outside into the damp, chilly evening.

Suddenly the humid interior of the smelly old van sounds comforting to me. I am eager to crawl between the blankets and just
sleep. I hope nothing has happened to Cammie and the baby. As much as I disliked Poppy’s crying last night, I would feel terrible if she was hurt in the riot.

I walk to the area where I thought the van was parked but am unable to locate it. I wander around and around in search of the blue van with the Whirled Peas bumper sticker, but it seems to have disappeared. Has it fallen into a rabbit hole? Was it ever here at all? Am I simply asleep and dreaming now? I walk and walk, and before long I am desperate. I am so exhausted that I begin to cry. I stand next to the parking lot with my arms wrapped tightly around myself, just rocking back and forth and sobbing.

“You need some help?” asks a guy who’s walking by me. He has a cardboard takeout tray of steaming cups. He’s wearing a white mock-turtleneck sweater that seems to glow in the lamplight.

I look at him suspiciously, but somehow with his hands balancing the tray, I think he might not be too dangerous.

“I’m lost,” I finally tell him.

“What are you looking for?”

“A Volkswagen van.”

He laughs. “Well, there are a lot of those here this weekend.” I rub my head and groan. “I know, I know. I got knocked out during the riot, and the van I came in was blue with bumper stickers, and it’s not there anymore, and—” Then I start to really blubber. “I just wish I were dead,” I sob.

He comes over and puts a hand on my shoulder. This makes me jump, and I eye him with fresh suspicion. “Hey, it’ll be okay,” he assures me. “You want a hot chocolate?”

I look down at the steaming cups and slowly nod.

“Come on over to our camp, and tell us what’s going on.”

So I follow him. I know that this could be a trick, or the cocoa could be poisoned, but I am so weary I don’t think I care.

I sit down on a canvas campstool and drink the hot chocolate while the guy in the mock-turtleneck sweater proceeds to tell his friends how he found me.

“A lot of people cleared out of here after the riot,” explains a girl with mud-brown dreadlocks.

“Yeah, that’s probably what happened to your friends,” agrees Mock Turtle. He blows on his cocoa. “Some people get a little freaked about being arrested. They’re the ones who usually just split when the going gets rough.”

“Not me,” says Dreadlock Girl. “I’d love to be arrested.”

“Really?” I stare at her in wonder. “Why?”

“Just to make a statement.” She nods. “I’m not afraid to be persecuted or locked up for something I believe in.”

I consider this and wonder what exactly I believe in and if I would be willing to go to jail for it. Then I realize that I was recently locked up. Come to think of it, that was because of my beliefs. “Yeah,” I finally say. “That’s cool.”

“So where are you from?” asks another guy who’s been quiet until now. He has long dark hair that hangs down over his shoulders.

“Portland,” I answer, trying to sound like one of them and not just an impostor fresh from the loony bin who happened to get picked up by a van going the wrong direction.

“Hey, that’s where I’m heading tomorrow,” says Mock Turtle. “You can ride with me if you want.”

I study his short bleached hair and light-colored sweater. In
some ways he looks out of place with this motley crowd, as if he’d be more at home on an Ivy-League campus somewhere. Even so, I’m not sure I want to ride with him. Yet at the same time I’m afraid I won’t get any better offers. For some reason the idea of hitchhiking is beginning to unnerve me. I can’t believe I did that—was it only yesterday?

I look at Mock Turtle again and try to assure myself he doesn’t look too bad. And the mere idea of getting back to Portland, back into my old apartment, suddenly seems well worth the risk. “Sure,” I tell him. “I’d appreciate that.”

“You need a place to sleep tonight?” asks Dreadlock Girl.

I shrug.

“Well, we’ve got room in our tent,” she offers. “There are three of us already, but it’s supposed to be a four-man tent, and you don’t look too big, so we could probably squeeze you in.” She laughs. “Besides that it might help increase the body heat temperature.”

So this is how I find myself wedged between two sleeping bags—complete strangers—with nothing but a spare army blanket to keep me warm. However, Dreadlock Girl was right. Packing the bodies in does manage to create some heat. Somehow I manage to sleep in short spurts throughout the night, but most of the time I’m awake, and once again my mind is racing in all directions at once. I know there are things I must do—a calling on my life. God has started talking to me again. Since leaving the makeshift medical area, I’ve heard his voice become louder and clearer. There is so much that I must write down. I need to get back to Portland. I try to count myself to sleep and get to 1,782 before I give up.

The following morning Mock Turtle is ready to go as soon as we
are up. I am relieved. I can’t wait to get away from this place. He asks if I have a bag as we climb into his Subaru.

“No, I like to travel light.”

“That’s cool.”

As he heads down the freeway, I tell myself I am playing a game. The just-be-normal game. I will pretend that I am who I used to be, back in BC, back before everything changed. I hope I can carry it off.

“So are you in school?”

“Yeah.” I try not to cringe as I watch the signs and trees and other vehicles whizzing past us at what seems the speed of light. The fluid colors speeding by are making me a little queasy. “How about you?”

“I’m about to get my master’s at PSU.”

“Me too.” I think about this. “Well, not the master’s part, but I am at PSU. A senior.”

“What’s your major?”

I try to remember. I know it has to do with books. “English lit,” I finally manage to say. Then as a cover-up, I throw in, “I think getting knocked on the head has scrambled my brain a little.” I am clever to have thought of this.

He laughs. “Yeah, you should probably take it easy. I’ll try not to ask so many questions. I’d put on some music, but my CD player got ripped off last month.”

“Bummer.”

“Yeah. I forgot to take it out one night, and the next morning it was history. But at least they didn’t get my CD case. I’ve got this really great collection of jazz and R&B, but it was under the seat, and they didn’t see it.” He turns on the wipers as it begins to rain, and I amuse myself by watching them go back and forth. The rhythm is hypnotic.