Darwen Arkwright and the School of Shadows (16 page)

But where? Were there orphanages in Atlanta? He supposed there were, the idea settling in his stomach like a cold and cavernous space. Or maybe he'd go to foster parents or get adopted. Maybe they'd send him back to England and he'd have to start all over again, trying to make friends, knowing no one. . . .

His pulse was starting to race as if he was being chased by scrobblers. If only he could explain to her that he wasn't acting out because he was sad or disturbed. If only he could take her by the hand and lead her through the oven door and into Silbrica. Then everything would make sense to her and they would be okay again. Perhaps he could just explain without actually trying to make her believe it all. But that would be just the push she needed to convince her that he was delusional and in need of help she couldn't give, the kind of home she could never provide. . . .

The bedroom door opened again, and his aunt's slim form appeared in the hall.

“I have to go in to work for a couple of hours,” she said. “Can you be trusted to be left alone?”

“Yes,” said Darwen. “Of course.”

“There's no
of course
about it, Darwen,” said his aunt, her face impassive. “No video games, no TV, no talking to your friends on the phone, no guests, and absolutely no leaving the apartment, you got me?”

“Yes, ma'am,” said Darwen, watching her carefully. The memory of the way she had raised her hand at school, the half snarl he had heard in her throat suddenly leaped to the front of his mind.

Normally his slightly pathetic, apologetic tone would have brought an affectionate smile to her face, but not today.

“See that you do,” she said, setting a sheaf of papers on the bed. “Homework,” she said, before turning and closing the door. He could hear her talking irritably on her cell phone even before the front door banged shut behind her.

Darwen sighed and flopped back on the bed. The worst thing about it was that she was right. He was a screwup, and if she had known that he had been out all night trying to assemble allies and rescue Mr. Peregrine, then she'd know that he'd failed at those things too. He wasn't even the only mirroculist anymore. In fact, what had looked like a unique gift actually seemed to rub off on anyone who spent any time in Silbrica. It was no wonder she was considering giving him up.

He thought of the Peregrine Pact. Rich was clearly the brains of the outfit, though Alex had her brand of smarts too. But she also had nerve and creativity. And Darwen contributed what exactly? Even Eileen had turned out to be more crucial to Mr. Peregrine and his plans.

He leafed through the homework assignments and groaned. This was going to take all afternoon.

It did. He had barely put his books away when he heard his aunt return. She put her head around the door—clearly just to ensure he was still there and hadn't set his bed on fire or something—and then ordered Chinese food for dinner. She didn't ask him what he wanted.

After dinner Darwen sat in the glow of his computer once more. He tried inputting portal numbers, references to the flesh suits and the laboratory where the conversion process was engineered, as if somewhere there might be some obscure conspiracy-theory site put together by people who'd had brushes with Silbrica, but there was—predictably—nothing. He went back to scanning newspaper accounts of his parents' death and found different images of the crash site taken a little while after the wreckage had been removed. It was hard to believe that something so terrible could be cleaned up so quickly and completely. The people in the photos were going about their business as if nothing had happened.

All but one.

The only thing that was the same as the earlier pictures was the little green Fiat. The picture was too grainy to see much, but this time, at least, he could make out the driver. The man appeared to be in some kind of strange getup, as if he was wearing something over his head, a helmet perhaps, or some kind of mask that had built-in goggles. . . .

His aunt tapped on the door and poked her head in to say good night, so Darwen closed the browser window hurriedly. If she saw him reading up on his parents' death, it would confirm all her worst fears.

“Bed,” she said crisply. “School tomorrow.”

Darwen braced himself for the lecture, but she said no more, and as the door snapped shut behind her, he felt his mind racing. He stared at the image on the computer screen, the peculiar man in the car, the gas-mask-like face, and he could make no sense of it.

He got into bed—unassisted for once by his aunt, who normally tucked him in so tightly that he could hardly move—and lay there, thinking furiously. He had been told his parents' death was an accident. Could that be wrong after all? Who was the strange man in the car? Was it even a man at all? Because that gas mask raised an awful, baffling possibility in Darwen's mind, a possibility that hinged on a word he had not even known the day his parents died.

Scrobbler
.

Hillside Gets a Mascot

D
arwen marched from
school assembly in an exhausted daze, unable even to respond to the snide whispering of Nathan, Chip, and Barry about how he was sure to be expelled by the end of the week. Rich and Alex weren't much better, each moving in a surly fog of their own, grunting their hellos and then falling sulkily silent as they went from homeroom to classes, listening to the rumble of a gathering thunderstorm outside. Evidently they had all come up with the same strategy:
Keep your head down and just get through the day
.

But that, apparently, was too much to hope for.

They were in Mr. Iverson's science class, a place Darwen usually felt pretty comfortable, partly because Mr. Iverson had always been nice to him, and partly because if the work got too tricky, Rich could steer him around the curves. So his guard was down as Mr. Iverson put safety goggles on over his glasses and owlish eyebrows in preparation for the day's experiments. The teacher lit his Bunsen burner and arranged his glass beakers of colored fluid before indicating a piece of equipment Darwen had never seen before. It looked like a large glass cabinet surmounted by electronic controls.

“This,” said Mr. Iverson, “is our brand new fume hood, for which we were just able to find room in the end-of-year budget. It's the finest piece of equipment in the lab—a very expensive device—and I think you'll find it very exciting.”

And they did. Because at that very moment there was a crash of thunder, the whole cabinet wobbled, and something sat up inside the glass box. It looked at them: a furry face with a dark mask.

Weazen.

Half the class shrieked and several fell out of their chairs in shock. Mr. Iverson staggered back, knocking over two of the beakers of liquid and, as he tried to catch the third, the Bunsen burner. Immediately, it ignited whatever had been in the beakers, so that rivers of fire coursed over the work top. Weazen's eyes fastened on the flames, which were perilously close to the fume cabinet, and he leapt. The cabinet shook alarmingly.

“Get Mr. Stuggs!” shouted Mr. Iverson. “Call animal control!”

Chip Whittley bolted for the door.

“And close the door after you!” Mr. Iverson added. “We mustn't let it out of the room.”

“It's kind of cute,” said Princess Clarkson, putting one hand up to the glass and waggling her glittery nail-polished fingers in greeting. “Maybe we could keep it as a pet or a mascot.”

But at that moment Weazen hurled himself at the glass again, and this time the expensive fume hood—the finest piece of equipment in the lab—swayed, teetered for an agonizing second, then crashed to the ground. The glass exploded in all directions, and the students shrank back. Genevieve Reddock screamed, not because she had been cut, but because Weazen had come rocketing out of the wreckage directly at her.

She leapt onto her desk, and soon half the kids in the class were up on theirs too as Weazen looked madly around for an exit. Princess had abandoned the idea that he was cute and was up on her chair with the rest looking panicked.

“It's that raccoon you brought!” roared Nathan, pointing at Darwen.

“It's not a raccoon,” said Bobby Park. “It's a ferret.”

“Who cares what it is!” shouted Barry. “Kill it.”

So saying, he flung his book bag at Weazen, who dodged easily and shot between the legs of Barry's chair, just as lightning outside flashed through the room, followed by a deafening crash of thunder.

“You're scaring it!” shouted Alex. “Be quiet!”

But that wasn't going to happen.

“It's got rabies!” shouted Barry. “It will kill us all!”

There was a sudden whoosh as the last remaining beaker caught fire, so that there were now two separate mini-infernos raging at each end of the teacher's desk. Mr. Iverson leapt back, his hair smoking. The shattered fume cabinet gave an ominous pop and added a little smoke of its own.

“This is your fault, Arkwright!” yelled Nathan, hopping onto his chair as Weazen shot past.

The Peace Hunter's eyes were wide and fixed as he sought for an opening, however narrow, that he could shimmy through. He was still wearing his backpack, but otherwise looked exactly like a cornered otter might: all trace of intelligence and his usual easy deliberation gone. Alex was right. He was out of Silbrica and he was scared. As Nathan tried to trap him in his carefully flung blazer, Darwen had an idea.

He turned to Alex.

“Diversion,” he said. “Quickly.”

“A diversion from what?” asked Alex, her eyes flashing from the shattered fume cabinet to the burning desk and the screaming children dodging the careening Weazen. “There's already quite a bit going on.”

“Get their eyes off him,” Darwen replied, nodding to where Weazen was now feinting and dodging as Barry Fails tried to corner him with a chair, like an old-fashioned lion tamer.

Alex got up without another word, leapt onto the counter in between the fires that burned at each end, muttering, “Never got to do this with special effects before,” and then she began to sing.

Well, I've got your attention now

You've gotta be wondering how

You never saw till . . . pow!

I got your attention now.

And she did. The class gaped at her stupefied as she crooned and danced between the little towers of flame. Mr. Iverson's mouth hung open, and he wasn't the only one.

“She really isn't bad,” Rich admitted.

Darwen wasn't watching. He had managed to catch Weazen's eye and had slipped his right arm out of his blazer suggestively. The little creature needed no further invitation. It dashed across the classroom and leapt into Darwen's lap. Darwen rotated slightly and Weazen vanished up the back of his jacket, clinging to the sides of Darwen's shirt with claws that made him wince.

Darwen bit back the pain and tried to sit very still as the class, recovering from the strangeness of Alex's impromptu performance, went back to hunting for signs of the supposedly rabid animal.

“It's gone!” said Simon Agu, sounding quite pleased. “It got away.”

“Can't have,” said Nathan. “There's nowhere for it to go.”

“Maybe it caught fire,” said Barry eagerly. “Just, you know, burned up to nothing.”

“Don't be stupid, Usually,” said Nathan. His eyes came to rest on Darwen. “Where did it go, Arkwright?”

“I didn't see,” said Darwen.

“This window was open,” said Rich, who had slipped to the back of the classroom in the confusion. The rain was coming down in sheets outside, but one of the windows was indeed open.

“No way,” said Nathan. “You just opened it.”

“No, I didn't,” said Rich, flushing flamingo pink.

“Miss O'Connor, get down from there immediately,” said Mr. Iverson, who was directing the pale smoky jet of a fire extinguisher at the little infernos on the desk. “Mr. Haggerty
,
did the animal escape through the window?”

“I'm not sure, sir,” said Rich, who looked almost hot enough to set his shirt on fire. “I wasn't really looking.”

At that moment the door cannoned open and Mr. Stuggs, almost as red-faced as Rich and breathing twice as hard, blundered in.

“Where is it?” he demanded. He was carrying a large wire trap that was almost too big to get through the door and a pole with a loop of cord at one end. “Where is the beast? I'll have it now.”

“Gone,” said Mr. Iverson. “We think.”

“Gone?” repeated Stuggs, fury and disappointment chasing each other through his fat face.

“Through the window,” said Nathan.

“Perhaps,” added Mr. Iverson. “Close the window, Mr. Haggerty, and let's double-check that it's not still in the classroom.”

Mr. Stuggs turned his eyes onto Mr. Iverson as if noticing him for the first time, saw the wreckage of the fume hood and the smoldering remains of the experiment on the desk, and said, “Just what kind of classes do you teach in here?”

“Can I go to the bathroom, sir?” said Darwen.

It was a terrible excuse, but his head was empty of everything but the desire to be somewhere else. He felt Weazen dig his nails deeper in his back.

“Bathroom?” repeated Mr. Iverson, whose hair was still smoking.

“I'm bursting, sir,” said Darwen, grimacing at the pain of Weazen's claws.

“Oh, very well,” said Mr. Iverson. “But close the door properly behind you and get back here in a hurry.”

Carefully, Darwen got up, walking stiffly so that Weazen wouldn't be dislodged and trying to not to present the bulge under his blazer to the class as he walked. Mr. Iverson watched his pained movements and almost smiled. “If you're that desperate, boy, you might want to go a little quicker,” he said.

“Right, sir,” said Darwen, opening the door, sidling through, and closing it quickly behind him.

He began to run. “Where to?” he muttered.

Muffled words came from the small of Darwen's back.

“What?” Darwen demanded. “I can't hear you . . . ow!”

Weazen scrambled up the back of Darwen's blazer and then stuck his head out of the collar so that his bristly snout was right against Darwen's neck. “Same place we came in,” said Weazen. “The window. It's not online to non-mirroculists yet so I need you to open it.”

Great
,
thought Darwen
. The most visible place in the school: a platform overlooking the quadrangle, the place where I got caught and suspended twenty-four hours ago . . .

“Where do you think you're going, Arkwright?”

Darwen stopped and turned, feeling Weazen shrink back into the cover of his blazer, clawing at his back as he went. It was Chip Whittley.

“Bathrooms are that way,” he said.

Darwen just stood there, feeling a rising sense of dread in his chest. Something about Chip reminded him of the shadow school, and though he couldn't pinpoint why, he felt an unexpected sense of alarm.

“What are you looking at, Arkwright?” Chip demanded.

“Nothing,” Darwen managed, his skin crawling as the other boy got close enough to touch him.

“Nathan's right,” said Chip, eyeing him knowingly. “You brought that thing here. But it's not a raccoon, is it?”

Darwen was cold. Chip's voice was low and his gaze was watchful.

“What do you mean?” Darwen said.

“You know what I mean,” said Chip. “It's not from around here. You brought it from . . . that place.”

Weazen had become very still. Darwen's mouth was dry.

“What place?” he said, willing his brain to come up with something. This was not good at all. They had always wondered just how much Chip remembered from that awful night on the school trip when Darwen and his friends had freed several children from Greyling's generators.

“From Costa Rica,” said Chip, extending one foot and putting it carefully down on top of Darwen's right shoe, then putting his weight on it till Darwen winced. “You brought it back from the jungle somehow, didn't you? It's one of those coatis or something, isn't it?”

He pressed harder with his foot, and Darwen felt his eyes prickle with pain. Chip grinned, a hard little grin that did not reach his blank eyes, so that for a moment Darwen saw something cruel and heavy in his face.

“Exotic animal trafficking,” he continued, twisting his foot slightly so the pain in Darwen's flared. “Which is illegal, so you're trying to get rid of it. Sell it maybe, you and your pauper friends. That's right, isn't it?” He pressed harder with his foot. “Isn't it?” he insisted.

It was a strange moment, and in spite of the pain, Darwen found he was more confused than angry or afraid. Because the more Chip said, the more Darwen was sure the other boy didn't really believe it. He had other suspicions that he wasn't saying, suspicions he didn't want to think about, memories, perhaps, memories of a terrible night in an impossible place. . . .

“Don't tell anyone,” said Darwen. “I found a buyer, but the coati escaped, so I'll lose the money.”

Chip grinned, pleased by Darwen's misfortune but also—just maybe—by something else, by the idea that this was all rational and didn't reinforce those awful half-remembered images that had been rattling around in his head since Costa Rica. He removed his foot from the top of Darwen's shoe, momentarily satisfied, even relieved.

“We'll see,” said Chip, back to normal and laughing his woodpecker laugh. “Maybe I'll tell, maybe I won't. Better be on your best behavior, Arkwright.”

So saying, he turned and made back for the classroom, whistling through his teeth.

Darwen shuddered as he watched him go, then made for the clock tower as fast as he could, desperate to get Weazen out from under his jacket before things got any worse.

“Here,” he muttered, fumbling for the miniature blaster in his pocket and thrusting it up the back of his jacket where Weazen snatched it. “You'll need that.”