02 Seekers (20 page)

“Thanks a lot,” she said. “We’d better get back. You don’t think they’ll lock us out if we’re late, do you?”

“No,” I replied.

“Why?” she asked.

I pointed to my right. Spider poked his head from around a light pole then bobbed back, so we couldn’t see him.

“Oh. How long has he been there?” she asked.

“About a minute,” I said. “He’s trying to see if we’re talking about him. I think he likes you.”

“I think he likes anything with breasts,” Alex retorted.

“Spying on us?” I called to him.

“Sup?” he asked, ignoring the question and stepping out from his hiding place as casually as if we hadn’t caught him spying. “You almost missed our nightly tally of who got what during the day…”

“The ‘be back by dark’ thing is more of a command than a suggestion?” Alex asked.

“Course not, doll. It’s just…”

“You didn’t think we were coming back,” I said.

“My heart breaks easily, so I’ve learned not to trust easily. I’ve been loved and left before,” he said grandly.

“What? By an Xbox?”

“Ouch. And here I was worried you two had gotten in trouble.”

“Me? Trouble? Never,” I said dryly.

Alex laughed. Spider rolled his eyes at me. “Yeah, right…come on. I don’t want to keep the others waiting.”

Spider was already walking away. Alex pulled me off the bench, and, together, we followed him to our new home. It didn’t take us long to get back with Spider setting our pace. I didn’t get lost this time, at least.

Spider filled the walk with meaningless conversation along the way. He used the conversation to try and lower our guards, so he could learn more about us, but he had forgotten about my talent.

With the intelligence I saw in his youthful brain, there would be no guard lowering on my part.

Not until I was sure I could trust him – if trusting him was even possible. Trust made people easy to con…or so he thought. How do you someone who doesn’t trust in others?

Alex did most of the talking to him. He didn’t realize it yet, but he was dealing with someone almost as skilled at speaking and saying nothing. And, unlike him, Alex could learn his whole life story by what he wasn’t saying. She watched him with those razor sharp eyes, every shift in body weight, every word, telling her something about our new friend. I knew whatever

conclusion she came to about him would be the right one.

Once back at the hotel, he jiggled the chain off the heavy door again and gestured us inside.

“Will Eli be at this tallying of money thing?” Alex asked carefully as he held the door for us.

“Sometimes he is, sometimes he isn’t,” Spider said. “Eli does what he wants to do. He stays here at night sometimes. Other times…well, I don’t really ask.”

“How’d you meet him?” I asked.

“It was about a year after I ran away. I was starting to get into some things I shouldn’t have –

dangerous things – and he found me. He saved my life, gave me a home…gave me a big

brother.”

“You steal and beg for a living,” Alex said. “How bad were the ‘dangerous things’?”

We navigated the steps down to the lobby as he spoke. “Drugs. Boosting cars. Let’s just say those gang members weren’t the first gangs I’ve been around…or beaten up by.”

“God…” Alex said.

Spider made a wry face and led the way into the dimly lit stage area. The light was the same, the darkness spooky, but the place felt more alive than our previous visit. Laughter and talking bounced off the walls, coming back to us in strange, ghostly echoes. Spider whistled, and the figures on the stage stopped talking. As they turned to stare, I got a good look at my new roommates.

On the corner of the stage sat two girls. One was black, her hair slicked into a long, dirty ponytail. The other girl had flaming red hair, which was dulled by dirt and grease. Their tattered clothes fit their bodies poorly; it was obvious the clothes had been collected piecemeal, probably stolen or out of dumpsters. The black girl was familiar. She had been on the boardwalk the other day, eyeing us with that same look of suspicion she was eyeing us with now.

Her companion from the boardwalk, an older boy, sat with another boy, who fidgeted and

twitched almost constantly. Her companion had a dark tan, like he spent a lot of time outdoors, but he wasn’t black, leaving me to wonder how they managed to get away with their story of being brother and sister…probably, because no one ever really looked at them. The tattered clothes and skinny frames were universal to the group, though the boy who twitched was the smallest. The twitching boy also looked the most terrified. His eyes were wide, full of fear as he eyed us.

Their eyes all spoke of hard lives, lives that shouldn’t have been as hard. Abuse, neglect, drugs made up the foundation of their earliest years. They had seen things I couldn’t have imagined in my darkest thoughts. Alex gripped my arm at what she saw, fighting the tears of sympathy.

If Spider noticed our reactions, he didn’t mention it. He pulled himself on the stage and

addressed the group. “All right everyone. This is Clare and Alex. Eli said it was cool for them to hang for a while.”

“I seen them before,” the black girl said. “On the boardwalk.”

“That’s not a miracle, Sprint. We’ve seen lots of kids on the boardwalk,” Spider said. “Everyone agree to let them in?”

Even though Eli had given permission to let us stay, Spider knew the rules of good governing.

Let the others have a voice; even if that voice didn’t mean a whole lot.

“Eli said it was cool?” the boy from the boardwalk asked.

“Yep,” Spider agreed.

“Cool with me, then,” he said.

The others gave nods of approval. The girl Spider had named as Sprint eyed us suspiciously but agreed to his question without hesitation. Spider looked around the group, noticing the curiosity and suspicion they had about the two strangers Spider had brought into their lives. “Right. I should introduce you guys. The girl glaring is Sprint, and the redheaded, pasty creature next to her is Cora.” Cora rolled her eyes at Spider and gave a half wave to us. “That brown-haired boy there is Ethan and the boy twitching is Twitch.” The boy twitched more at the introduction and avoided my eyes.

“Creative name,” I said.

“No one knows his real name,” Spider admitted. “He doesn’t talk.” He looked around the group, and his green eyes narrowed. “Money down,” he said.

They all pulled wadded up bills and trinkets from their ragged clothes. The pile grew

impressively; impressively for only a day’s time. I threw my money into the pile, and they looked at me in surprise. I smiled slightly and stepped back. Spider started circling the group when everyone had finished emptying their pockets. His eyes were full of thoughtful suspicion as he watched our faces. He stopped in front of Cora. She was blushing, her pale cheeks full of color. She refused to look up and met his eyes.

“You’re holding something back,” he said.

“Am not!” she said.

“You know he knows,” Sprint said. “Just show him.”

Cora pulled a small necklace from a pocket. She held it up to show him.

“We could get twenty bucks for this,” Spider said letting the necklace dangle over his fingers.

Her hand tightened around the chain. “I just…”

“What?” Spider demanded.

Mama used to wear a rose just like this… Spider wouldn’t understand…
I heard her think. She ran a finger over the small steel rose.

“Can I buy it for her?” I asked Spider.

The others turned to stare at me again. Spider’s face was confused. “Why?”

“Can I?” I asked again.

“I guess…” he said.

I pulled out the last of the money Jackson had given me. “I didn’t get this from begging. It was all I had left from…before. This for the necklace.” I added the money to the pile.

Spider shrugged. “All right.”

He counted out the cash and put a value to the trinkets and jewelry. “This is a pretty good haul.”

He divided the cash into equal piles for us all. “Don’t waste it on frivolous crap,” he said to Alex and me.

The kids took their cash and stuffed it back into their clothes. Cora held her new necklace tight in her pale hand, staring at me in disbelief. Kindness was such a rarity in her world that she doubted the intention of my act. I turned away to avoid her eyes, embarrassed, pocketing my own money, and went to one of the red seats to rest. My legs were tired from spending all day walking around, and I had a headache from being immersed in people’s thoughts for so long. Even now I had the kids’ thoughts pounding into my brain. My neck throbbed from the wound Daniel had

doctored, not helping the headache.

Alex sat down on my right. “I never knew life could be like this,” she whispered.

“The world is full of all kinds of dark,” I replied. “This is just one kind.”

“The world is full of good things, too,” she said. “Friends, people who help others when their wandering the streets of New Orleans, chocolate, four course meals, family…”

“Hot showers, good books, Daniel…” I stopped at his name.

Cora, ignoring Sprint’s hiss of disproval, jumped off the stage and joined us at the seats. She sat down awkwardly, putting a chair between us as a buffer. She held the necklace out to me. “You should have it. You bought it.”

“It’s a gift,” I said.

She shook her head. “I don’t want to owe anybody anything.”

“It’s not an obligation,” I told her. “Seriously. I won’t collect.”

She hesitated then brought the necklace to her neck. She fastened around her pale skin and hid the rose under her dirty shirt. “We’ll see,” she said.

“I guess we will,” I agreed.

“I like your tattoo,” Cora said.

“The angel?” I asked.

She nodded an affirmative.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Are you from here?” Cora asked.

Spider was eavesdropping. “What’s one of our rules?” he called from where he and Ethan were talking next to Twitch.

“Don’t ask for people’s stories. Let them tell you first,” Cora said promptly. “I’m not an idiot.”

“No, just ugly,” Spider teased.

“We’re not from around here,” I said in answer to Cora’s question.

She nodded, but left her questions there, Spider’s words reminding her that she didn’t want me to ask her questions about her past.

“Eli’s back!” Sprint said from the stage.

Cora turned around at the words, and her face lit up as Eli stepped through the double doors.

In his arms, he carried four boxes of pizza. Though his face was emotionless, I sensed a feeling of peace as he looked at the kids; there was a release of his dark emotion for their sake. They circled around him, taking the food from his arms in excited anticipation. They took the boxes back to the stage, chatting happily. Eli’s eyes turned arctic when he caught me staring. I shrugged, his attitude not my problem, and turned to watch the kids swarm the pizzas. It was like watching Shark week on the Discovery Channel, only the sharks on TV were more civil.

“If you want some you’d better dig in,” Spider said as he stuffed pepperoni pizza into his mouth.

“I’m not hungry,” I said.

Alex was already up. She pulled the pepperonis off and gave them to Spider, then sat down next to me with a hard thump. Her face was contented as she smelled the cheesy goodness. “I never thought I could lust after a pizza so much. I mean, I honestly think I’ve never felt about a boy the way I feel about this pizza.”

“Says a lot about your taste in men,” I said.

“Says a lot about hunger,” she corrected.

The other’s conversation swirled loud against my ears. Not up to taking the energy to block them out, I listened in.

“And then he actually apologized to me!” Spider said around the other sounds the theater was producing. Everyone in the group laughed.

“What a tool!” Ethan said.

“Seriously! He never even knew what hit him. It was a seventy dollar watch, too!”

Different sounds invaded my mind – the sounds of their thoughts.

I can’t believe she just gave it to me.

Why would Eli let them stay? They don’t look like the type that needs to be rescued…
This from Sprint.

And the animals were there singing together, all their voices singing, with big strong voices
rising from even the filthiest animals. I mean, I've seen animals come together and sing before,
except in high fancy vaults where bits of colored glass are pieced together into stories…Some
days I want to sing with them.

The voice of the last thought was strange – soft and beautiful. It was a voice I hadn’t heard from any of the kids. I searched for the owner with my eyes eventually landing on the one Spider had called ‘Twitch’. He picked at his food and looked on at the others with jealously. The thoughts he left me with were beautiful, and I vaguely remembered them from a poem. Twitch read

poetry.

The soft sound of Eli taking the seat on my other side drew me from my fascination of Twitch.

Unlike Cora, he did not fearfully put a seat between us; he was more confident in his abilities.

For a long moment we sat in silence. Per my combative nature, I turned it into a contest of wills to see who would speak first. The only sign that Alex was aware of Eli was her awkward

shifting. She, too, was determined to make him speak first, though I sensed it was for different reasons.

“I tried to look for this nest you mentioned,” Eli finally admitted.

“Oh, yeah?” I asked.

“I had an idea,” he said.

“I’ve had several. I’m pretty sure they’re all illegal,” I replied. “Well, they would be if this were
1987
”

He dug at the armrest with his fingernail, his lips clamped together in irritation.

“She’s sorry,” Alex said for me. “Clare thinks she’s clever. It gets her in trouble more than you know. What were you going to say?”

He relented at her apology. “The clubs around here would be a good place to check. They hide a lot of other illegal activities, why not this nest you mentioned?”

“Oh, well, Alex…” I started to say.