Lorien Legacies: The Lost Files (14 page)

Chapter Twelve

Maddy picks the planetarium for what Sandor has annoyingly started to call our “first date.”

I try to downplay it to him, explaining to him that Maddy and I are just hanging out, but he can tell how excited I am and that only encourages his teasing. The couple days before the date are filled with equal parts training and unsolicited girl advice.

“Tell her how pretty she looks.”

I stop a heavy bag from careening into me with my telekinesis.

“Ask her questions about herself.”

I duck under a swarm of projectiles.

“Make sure you look interested in what she’s saying, even if you’re not.”

I pivot around a drone, hitting it with a backhand swipe of my pipe-staff.

“Are you listening to me?”

I wipe sweat from my face and glare at Sandor. “Not really.”

“Good.” He claps his hands, powering down the Lecture Hall. “Then you’re ready.”

Maddy’s waiting for me outside the planetarium. Her smile is small and nervous as I approach. She’s wearing a light sweater and jeans, which makes me glad I didn’t take Sandor’s advice to dress up like we were going to the opera or something, opting instead for my usual hooded sweatshirt and jeans.

“I hope you don’t think this is nerdy,” she says as we buy tickets.

“No, not at all.”

Nerdy isn’t the word I’d choose. Ironic, maybe? I can’t explain to her how quaint I find the humans’ understanding of the known cosmos. I wonder if other aliens in hiding have had first dates at the planetarium. I doubt it.

“My dad used to take me to the planetarium all the time when I was a kid. I got pretty into it.”

As we take our seats in the domed auditorium and wait for the show to start, she tells me more about her family. Her father is some kind of renowned astronomer, her mother a professor of philosophy. They moved to Chicago so her mother could take a position at the university, but they still travel frequently, since her dad’s in high demand on the space-nerd lecture circuit. Maddy sounds sad when she talks about them, like they’re never around. Our situations are so different, yet somehow I feel like I know exactly where she’s coming from.

“I miss them,” she says, then waves her hands apologetically. “I mean, they’re not gone forever, but it’s like I hardly see them since we moved here.”

“Isn’t that weird? Being on your own?”

She shrugs. “It can be cool. No one to yell at me for staying up late on a school night.” She shoots me a playful glance. “Or to wonder why I’m bringing strange boys to the planetarium.”

I laugh, but I also wonder if she really thinks I’m strange. I hope not. I think I’m doing a pretty good job being regular Stanley.

“Ugh, I’m going on and on. I just unloaded all that on you and I don’t know anything about you.”

I’m disappointed that she’s done talking. Contrary to what Sandor thought, I didn’t have to feign interest. But now comes the part where I have to lie to her.

“What do you want to know?”

Maddy thinks this over. Around us, other people are taking seats. I notice that our shoulders are touching, sharing an armrest.

“Let’s start with where you go to school?”

I flash an embarrassed smile. “I’m homeschooled.”

She gives me a look that makes me think I might as well have told her I’m an alien from the planet Lorien. I remember the weird looks that the Mikes gave me at the rec center, like I was some kind of creepy shut-in. I could’ve come up with a cover story, I guess, but it feels better to tell her the truth.

“Huh,” she says, her eyebrow arched jokingly, “and here you seemed so normal.”

“It’s really not that weird,” I tell her. “My uncle, he, uh, keeps things interesting. Actually, maybe it is sort of weird, come to think of it. My uncle’s not exactly what you’d call normal.”

“So you live with him?”

“Yeah.”

“Where are your parents?”

I should have a convincing lie ready for that question. Sandor and I used to drill backstory when we were on the road, but it’s been a long time. Sandor would tell people that I was his nephew, and that he was taking me on a trip to show me the world, or so that my parents could have a second honeymoon, or that my parents would be joining us eventually. Sometimes he got closer to the truth, telling sympathetic diner waitresses that he was raising me after both my parents had died in an accident. That usually resulted in a bigger than normal slice of dessert. I want the Stanley that Maddy gets to know to be as close to the real me as possible.

“They died when I was young,” I tell her. “I never really knew them.”

“Oh,” she replies, clearly not sure what to say next.

Thankfully, the lights dim before the conversation gets any more depressing. We recline into our seats as the Milky Way comes alive above us.

A tinny recording begins describing the origin of the cosmos and running down the roster of planets in relation to Earth. I’m not listening. Lounging in the near darkness with Maddy is pretty much all my brain is capable of processing. I want to remember these details. Her hair smells like vanilla, or coconut, or some other girly thing. Whatever it is, it’s great. I concentrate on the space on the arm rest where our shoulders meet, imagining that her every shift in position is some coded message for me.

I glance over at her. Maddy notices and gives me a quick smile, her face bathed in whites and pale blues of the light presentation overhead. I’d spend the rest of this boring lecture staring at her if that wouldn’t make think I was a freak. Instead, I tune out the planetarium soundtrack and listen to her. Her breathing is slow and steady, but using my enhanced hearing I can tell her heart is pounding.

Or wait. Maybe that’s my heart.

I close my eyes and spend the rest of the show like that. Afterward, the planetarium stays dimmed, the stars still on display. The rest of the people begin filing out while we stay in our seats. Eventually it’s just the two of us and the stars.

Maddy leans close to me and begins to whisper, even though we’re alone. She tells me about constellations that weren’t covered in the recording, guiding my eyes from Orion’s Belt to Aquarius. She laughs softly and corrects me when I mistake the tail of Pisces for one of Pegasus’s legs. I already know everything that she’s telling me, but it’s all so much more interesting with her narrating.

At some point, without even realizing I’m doing it, I take her hand.

It’s only for a moment. Her hand is warm and a little damp from sweat. She quickly slips away and stands up.

“I’m sorry,” I start, realizing I overdid it, “I mean—I didn’t mean . . .”

“It’s okay,” she says, shaking her head, looking flustered but not mad or weirded out. “Come on. You can walk me home.”

Chapter Thirteen

Sandor isn’t in the penthouse when I get home, which gives me a couple hours of alone time to endlessly replay in my head what I’ve started thinking of as the hand-holding incident. I don’t think I even put this much thought into suckering in that Mog. Did I misread Maddy’s interest? When Sandor comes home with a soggy bag of takeout, he doesn’t even ask me about my date. Instead, he wants to talk about his day prowling the city.

“I drove all over the city with this thing,” he says, holding up his heavy-duty version of my iMog. “Nothing. Not a single blip. If that Mog had any friends looking for him, they’ve moved on. I think we’re in the clear.”

“That’s great,” I reply distractedly.

“To hiding in plain sight,” he toasts, raising a freshly mixed drink.

Over burgers, Sandor finally gets around to asking about Maddy. I tell him everything, not leaving out a single detail, even trying to recreate Maddy’s body language for him. For the first time since we’ve been in Chicago, I feel like I could really use my Cêpan’s guidance.

“Huh,” he says when I finish.

“
‘Huh.’
That’s it?”

He shrugs. “Women are mysterious creatures.” As he says this, he gives me a strange look, half smirking and half apprehensive, like I’m some kind of weird animal he’s afraid will bite him.

“What?” I ask.

“I just can’t remember the last time you talked this much. It’s nice.”

I wave him away. “You’re no help.”

Just then, my back pocket vibrates.

Immediately, my heart is in my throat. My iMog is signaling a warning. I practically tear the device out of my pocket, staring down at the screen.

But it’s blank. Just a solitary white dot in the center.

My cell phone, I realize. It was my cell phone. I carry my phone mostly out of habit; it hardly ever vibrates, unless Sandor wants me to pick him up a bagel on the way home from my run.

The screen blinks with a new text message.

“It’s her,” I announce, almost too nervous to open the message.

“What’s it say?”

“Had fun today,” I read. “For the next date, you’re picking the place.”

Sandor whoops and mimes a high five from across the table. So, she thought it was a date too. And if she had fun that means I didn’t screw up too badly with the hand holding. I don’t have long to savor these facts as a fresh wave of anxiety washes over me.

She wants me to plan a date.

“What’s wrong?” Sandor asks, reading distress in my expression.

“I have no idea where to take a girl on a date.”

Sandor cuts short a laugh. We sit in silence, both of us pondering.

“I could take her back to the Windy City Wall,” I suggest. “I could definitely kill that wall now.”

Sandor makes a face.

“You want to spend a date climbing rocks instead of talking to her?”

He has a point.

“You know,” Sandor muses, “if you really want to impress her, I have an idea.”

Chapter Fourteen

I make plans with Maddy for the following weekend, which makes the weekdays in between a slog through endless anticipation. I’m filled with nervous energy, but not the kind that I can channel into my training sessions with Sandor. The drones score more hits on me than they should, my mind occupied with cycling through wardrobe choices and practicing imaginary conversations. I can tell Sandor is annoyed as he powers down the Lecture Hall.

“Do you think the Mogadorians will care that you’ve got a girl on your mind?” he snaps.

I offer my best contrite headshake, knowing he’s right.

Later, Sandor summons me to his workshop. He’s got his feet up on his desk, crumpling a stack of old blueprints. He has a distant look in his eyes and for a second I think I’m interrupting some pleasant daydream. He looks me over with a wistful smile.

“You know, I wasn’t much older than you are now when I was assigned to be your Cêpan,” he says. “That’s young for a Cêpan to be assigned to a Garde. I was good, though. I’d helped the engineers—much older, more experienced—with some tech projects. I think they wanted to get me in the field as soon as possible.”

I’d been expecting a lecture from Sandor. That’s something I’m used to. Annoyed Sandor was a familiar entity. Nostalgic Sandor, on the other hand, I’ve got no idea how to deal with. It’s so rare for him to talk about Lorien, I’m afraid to interrupt.

“I liked to think I was ready,” he continues. “It was a big honor, that’s for sure. Even if you were an unruly little piece of work.” He winks at me and I can’t help but smile.

“Bonding with a Garde, that’s a full-time responsibility. As ready as I wanted to be, I had other things on my mind too. I had a girlfriend. Things were getting kind of serious, you know? I was trying hard to balance it all.”

“What happened?” I ask, before realizing what a stupid question that is.

A shadow crosses Sandor’s face, although he’s quick to hide it. “You know what happened.”

Sandor sits up and tears a piece of paper out of a legal pad. He hands it to me, the lines filled with his precise writing. A shopping list.

“Since you’re no good to me in the Lecture Hall, you might as well go run some errands,” he says, stern Sandor resurfacing.

I take the list and head for the door, but Sandor stops me.

“I never figured out that balance,” he says. “Maybe you can. Until you do, just remember what your real responsibilities are. All right, man?”

This isn’t the first time I’ve run errands for Sandor. It isn’t groceries he sends me out into the world for; that’d be too easy. I’m after spare parts. It’s not like we couldn’t just order whatever high-tech items Sandor needs for his drones off the internet, but I think he enjoys the challenge of taking broken-down Earth junk and making it work again. He’s tried to get me more involved in his salvage projects, but it’s never really worked. I’m way more interested in smashing his inventions than putting them together.

I spend the afternoon dutifully patrolling downtown’s pawn shops and thrift stores. I find a few things on Sandor’s list—an ancient compact disc player and an automatic vegetable slicer with curving blades that I dread to see flying at me in the Lecture Hall. I also pick up some stuff I know he’s always on the prowl for, a fried circuit board here, an orphaned length of cable there.

It isn’t until the last thrift store on my route that I get the tingly feeling that someone is watching me.

Instinctively I make a discreet check of my iMog. There’s no sign of danger nearby. As I slip the device back into my pocket, I notice her. Standing two aisles over, next to a rack of vintage T-shirts, is Maddy.

At first, I think it must be my eyes playing tricks on me. She’s been on my mind so much that I’m starting to hallucinate. Then Maddy holds up her hand in a shy wave and I practically bound over to her.

“Hey,” I exclaim, trying not to sound too excited and probably failing. “What’re you doing here?”

“Hey,” she replies, glancing around like she’s as surprised to be in a musty thrift store as I am to find her here. “I’m, uh, stalking you.”

I grin like an idiot. “Seriously?”

“No!” She rolls her eyes. “My dad, he’s really into antique telescopes and stuff like that. I’m just looking around.”

“Oh,” I say, playing crestfallen. “I was actually hoping you were stalking me.”

Maddy glances at the bags I’m holding from other stores, each of them bulging with weird shapes. “What’s all that?”

“Science project stuff,” I say, thinking quickly.

“For homeschool?”

I shrug. “My uncle is weird.”

Together we wander the aisles of the thrift store. Maddy pulls a maroon leisure suit off a rack and holds it up to me.

“Maybe you should wear this on our date this weekend,” she says, cocking her head, trying to imagine me in the suit.

Sandor would probably burn this suit if I dared desecrate the penthouse with its presence.

“Would you even come outside if I showed up in this?”

“Probably not. Here, hold it up,” she orders, and I take the suit with my free hand.

Before I realize what she’s doing, Maddy’s held up her phone and snapped my picture. She laughs, looking at what I’m sure is my startled expression above the most hideous suit in history.

“Perfect,” she says. “Hello, new wallpaper.”

“Now I definitely have to buy it. You’ve talked me into it.”

When I jokingly check the price tag, a moth flutters out from the sleeve. I drop the suit, grossed out, and Maddy laughs again. We dart out of the store, the old man behind the cash register glaring at us.

“I hope I don’t have fleas,” I say once we’re out on the sidewalk.

“Actually, I think I see one,” she says. She leans close, inspecting, and then gives me a quick peck on the cheek.

She leans back and laughs again, this time at what must be the dumbfounded expression on my face.

“See ya Friday, Stanley,” she says playfully, adding, “Take a bath.”