Grandfather (7 page)

Eventually, Edgar and Mae
came back to the table to finish their sandwich and apple. They
continued talking about getting new supplies and how they were
worried about the food shortage. And, of course, Grandfather came
up, briefly.

“Belladonna mentioned
there will be a new report soon.” Mae said.

“Yeah,” Edgar said. “We’re
pretty sure it’s just about the tracking law. People been
questioning it, so I imagine he’s gonna make something up about it,
just to get people feelin’ better.”

“Yeah,” Mae said. She
looked at me. “I’m assuming they told you everything?”

“Yeah,” Edgar answered
before I could swallow a bite of my apple to answer for myself.
“He’s havin’ a bit of a hard time believing it all.”

“Well, I do imagine it’s
hard to grasp at first,” Mae said, smiling at me. “But you’ll be
able to understand soon enough.”

I said nothing. I’m just
glad she didn’t try to force the idea on me like Edgar and Robert
had been doing.

She kept on. “Have you had
time to explore the place?” she asked, sounding as if the
underground facility was some sublime paradise.

“I’ve not had time,” was
my simple answer.

“Basically just got here,”
Edgar said. “Might be a good idea to check everything out, though,”
he continued, finishing off his sandwich. He picked up the apple,
tossed it a few inches in the air, and caught it.

“
With all these tunnels,
it’s like an adventure,” Mae said, snickering. “I think everybody
needs an adventure every now and then. Makes life
exciting!”

I didn’t
respond.

“
Maybe Marley here can give
you a bit of a tour,” Edgar said.

Marley smiled but didn’t
look at me. She probably knew I wouldn’t like the idea. I was
pretty sure I got the point across that I wanted to be left
alone.

“That’s a great idea!” Mae
said. “There are only two others your age down here. You might as
well get to know them.” I remembered the Ashton guy Marley had
mentioned.

“I guess,” I
said.

Edgar looked at me and
frowned. “You guess?” he said.

“Don’t sound so down about
it,” Mae said. “You probably just need to get some rest before the
tour. We’ll give him a few days.”

“Should be good by then,”
Edgar said.

Um, no. I wasn’t going to
be good by then. I wasn’t going to ever be good.

“And, like I said, you
never know what there is to discover down here,” Mae said.
“Certainly could be fun.”

After another thirty
minutes sitting at the table, awkwardly, just listening to the
boring conversation about Edgar’s and Mae’s high hopes to expose
Grandfather soon, I left to be alone in my room. When I got to my
bed, I found the clothes Belladonna and Edgar had mentioned. There
were a few pairs of jeans close in my size and several shirts and
sweaters. I still don’t know who brought them, but I was thankful.
Who knew people living underground would have decent
clothing.

I basically stayed locked
up in my room for the next few days. I’d usually wake up pretty
late because I never got the chance to do so at the orphanage. That
meant I didn’t make it to breakfast. But I did make it to lunch and
dinner. I tried to sit by myself, but that didn’t always go as
planned. Edgar would sometimes find me, and he’d have me sit with
him, Mae, and Marley. Other times, they would join me.

I continued not saying
much to anybody. I did, however, ask Edgar when I was going to be
able to go with him on one of their missions or whatever they
called them. He still wasn’t happy about me participating but
assured me that they would let me know when that time came. I
wouldn’t have been surprised if he was lying to me. I’d have to
bring it up to Belladonna at some point.

And speaking of
Belladonna, I hadn’t seen her at all those past few days. She
didn’t even come out to eat, so where was she getting food? I asked
Edgar where she was, and he told me she did things best when kept
to herself. I didn’t blame her.

Then, one day, I was just
lying in my room, actually reading a random book I had found about
a boy and his dog. I remembered seeing a copy of it at the
orphanage, but I never picked it up. A knock came at the door. I
assumed it was Edgar and hoped he was ready to take me with him and
Belladonna. I opened up the door to find Marley and Belladonna
standing next to each other.

“I hope you’ve been
adjusting nicely,” Belladonna said with a bright tone.

“Oh . . . yeah,” I
replied, glad to finally see her. “It’s been nice to have some
peace for once.”

“Orphanages can get rather
loud, I understand,” she said. “I don’t remember it ever being
quiet, unless everybody was sleeping.

“That didn’t happen very
often,” I said.

“Well, I’m glad you don’t
have to deal with any of that anymore,” she said.

“Yeah.” I looked at Marley
who was, of course, smiling. She must have been trying really hard
to get me to be her friend or something, and I just couldn’t figure
it out, especially if she already had Ashton, whoever that
was.

“It came to my attention
that you still haven’t explored the place,” Belladonna said. “You
know . . . it might help to get out of this old room and get to
know your new, temporary home.”

I didn’t say anything. I
knew exactly what Belladonna was getting at, and I was pretty sure
that Edgar had put them up to it. I didn’t like it one
bit.

“Marley, here, knows the
place really well, so I took it upon myself to bring her here to
give you the grand tour.”

I forced an obvious fake
smile.

“It’ll be alright,”
Belladonna said. “Now, Marley, don’t get him into any trouble or
anything.”

“I’ll try not to,” she
said. “But you know me.”

Belladonna chuckled and
took a step back. “I’ll leave you guys alone,” she said. “Just be
sure you’re in the dining room at six. Cornelius is addressing the
nation then.” Marley told her she would make sure of it, and
Belladonna left us alone.

“You ready?” Marley asked
me.

I wanted to tell her that
I wasn’t, but they were going to continue forcing it on me until I
actually went with her. “I guess,” I said, shutting the door behind
me and following her down the hall toward the dining
hall.

“All of these doors are
rooms like yours,” she was saying. She then pointed at the door I
had used every day. “You know that leads to the dining
hall.”

I followed her down a
couple of other halls as she talked about the routine. Of course,
breakfast, lunch, and dinner were always at the same times because
it helped organize the small community. According to Marley, there
were about 150 people in the facility, but they were planning to
gather a few more, especially after the tracking law
passed.

Soon, the hall grew dark
as torches no longer lit up the place. Marley took out a flashlight
and shined it forward. I hadn’t been paying much attention to where
we were going, so I was pretty much lost. No surprise there. I
started seeing grass growing between the cracks again. The place
was starting to smell pretty muggy. There was obviously nothing
there being used, so why had Marley led me there. And how big was
this freaking place?

“This place is like a
maze,” I said, more to myself.

She took it as an
opportunity to have a conversation. “Yeah,” she said. “That’s what
I thought at first.” She slowed down to make sure we stayed
side-by-side as she talked to me. “It’s not too bad once you get to
know it.”

We were silent for a
while. I walked with her, wishing for the tour to be over. The
silence between us became awkward. Marley eventually asked what I
had seen of the underground facility.

“My room,” I told
her.

She laughed. “I knooow
that,” she said. “I mean anything else?”

“Nah,” I said. I thought
about the first room I was in. I had completely forgotten. “I did
meet Belladonna and Robert in this really nice room.”

“Yeah, it’s really nice,”
she said. “I’ve only been in it once. It’s mainly where Edgar,
Belladonna and Robert plan for things.”

“What do they plan?” I
asked.

“That’s where they plan
before any of them goes into the city to learn more about
Grandfather. They talk about any problems and concerns going on
with people down here and work out a way to fix them. They’re
really good at it.”

She turned down a hall to
the right. I forced myself to keep up beside her. It was a little
difficult since I didn’t know where we were going.

After a few minutes of
more silence, I figured I’d force myself to talk to her. Perhaps
that would make things less awkward. “What do you think about this
whole Grandfather thing?” I asked, not believing
I
was the one bringing
it up this time. But I was curious to see if she had the same
opinion as the others.

“What do you mean?” she
asked, sounding shocked.

“Well,” I started. “I
mean, do you believe it?”

“Do I believe it?” Marley
asked loudly, as if she had never heard anybody ask such a
thing.

“I mean . . .”

“Yeah I believe it,” she
said.

I said nothing.

“Don’t you?” she
asked.

I scratched my head, not
sure if she would be mad if I said no. Perhaps that was a terrible
question to ask. “I don’t really know.”

“How can you not know,
Carsyn?” she asked immediately.

“I don’t know,” I
repeated. Marley stopped in the middle of the hall. I did the same.
Her eyes narrowed, but she didn’t seem angry, really . . . just a
little suspicious. Or maybe she
was
angry, and I just couldn’t tell. I never got the
chance to talk to other girls. The houseladies were the only women
I was around, and . . . well, you know how I feel about them. I
wondered if all girls were like Marley.

“You can’t
not
know, Carsyn,”
Marley said. “There has to be a reason.”

I thought for a second,
making sure I didn’t say the wrong thing. “Well, I did just learn
about all of this yesterday.”

“So,” she said.

Now I was getting
annoyed.

“Okay. Well, Edgar tells
me that something big is going to happen one day. He pretty much
attacks me. Then, the president is killed. He and Belladonna then
tell me that these Grandfather people and their Imperial leader
dude needs me for something, which apparently means that I’m in
danger.”

Marley didn’t say
anything.

“
That all happened within a
day.”

Marley looked at the
ground. Then, slowly, she started walking again. If I had known how
to get back, I probably would have left. But I didn’t. I was lost.
I walked with her.

“I guess I didn’t think
about it like that,” she said. “Sorry.”

“I’ve not seen proof,” I
said. “I’ve not had time to see proof yet. The only thing I have is
that Edgar knew my name, and he said that something huge would
happen the night the president was killed.”

I had been talking to
Marley to try and take away some of the awkwardness, but if there
was one thing I did, it was make things more awkward. Oh well. I
wasn’t exactly taught how to communicate with people. That could’ve
been my fault too since I didn’t even try.

“Sorry,” she said. “I get
carried away sometimes.”

I shrugged my shoulders.
“I just want to see for myself and find out on my own. Nobody but
Belladonna seems to understand that.”

“I understand,” Marley
said.

I wasn’t sure if she
actually did or if she was just saying that to make me feel better.
Either way, we didn’t say much more during the next few
minutes.

It was pretty obvious that
there was nothing but tunnels ahead. I knew people didn’t sleep
this deep inside. There was absolutely nothing but darkness, except
for the little bit of light coming from Marley’s
flashlight.

“So where are you taking
me?” I asked, a little bit worried.

“The coolest place ever,”
she answered, excitedly. “I actually don’t think we’re supposed to
be there, but I don’t really care.”

Whoa. I definitely didn’t
get the vibe that Marley was a rule breaker. “What happens if we
get caught?” I remembered what Belladonna had told her. If there
was one thing I didn’t want to do, it was to mess things up with
Belladonna. She was the only person I actually liked.

Marley laughed. “They
won’t do anything unless we do something really bad. Like leave
this place for a few hours.”

“Oh,” I said. I assumed
Marley knew best since she had been there longer than
me.

“We’re almost there,” she
said. “Come on,” she stopped in front of an old door. “The good
thing is that nobody ever comes this deep inside because there’s
nothing here for them.