Half World (10 page)

“So, where are you in your cycle?” the whispery girl breathed.

“Most likely sevhentee pah-cent!” the wallaby-man enunciated.

“Ooooh!” the beauty pageant girl sighed admiringly. “You've made it last so much longer than last time! And I love what you've done with your head!”

“Vhell, vhell.” The wallaby shrugged, humbly but proudly. “Nothing laik you. You manage to ghet so maatch done before you ahhhre yanked back. Oh! Oh! Zehhhr he goze!”

Melanie looked across the sunken lobby just as something long and white stretched out, fast and elastic, like a chameleon's tongue.

Someone screamed, terrified. Hopeless.

Mr. Glueskin . . .

His tongue extended across several yards. And the white blob-by tip—

It encased the entire top of a young bellhop's head.

Mr. Glueskin yanked back with his tongue. The boy squealed as he flew through the air, to land at Mr. Glueskin's feet.

Mr. Glueskin began to drop his jaw, wider, a great maw, his mouth hanging open to his chest.

“Ahhhhhhhh,” the crowd of spectators sighed.

“So nasty,” the little girl whined. “It's not like anyone needs to eat, here. What with their Half Lives. He just does it to terrorize all the half-wits!” She giggled and returned to their original conversation. “The beauty pageants have been soooo much fun!” she cooed. “I'm going to play beauty pageant lots of times before I try something else.”

Mr. Glueskin was engulfing the bellhop, whole, like a python swallowing a pig.

“You are veree su-trong,” the wallaby-man nodded. “But, you vhill come ghet me vhen I end ahhp at zee kiddee zoo, again, yes?”

The little girl turned her eyes away from the spectacle. When her profile came into view Melanie could scarcely stop herself from making a sound.

The child's nose was missing. A hole in the middle of her face, it was as if it had been chopped off with an axe. She placed her perfectly manicured hand upon her friend's furry shoulder. She gave him a reassuring pat.

“Of course I will, darling. I'll always come for you.”

The wallaby-man dragged a small paw across his eye and cleared his throat. “Ahhh have alvays vondered,” he coughed, changing the topic, “vhy, vhen you have so much su-trength. You do not feex your nohhhze.”

“You're such a wallaby, still!” the child admonished, smacking his shoulder lightly, where she had been petting. “Isn't it obvious? It scares people. It keeps most of the bad men away.”

“Ahhhhh.” The wallaby-man nodded.

Mr. Glueskin's thin middle was bulging. He looked as if he were pregnant. His wet giggling rang in the sudden silence. He clutched his belly with two long arms. “Stop it!” he squealed. “That tickles!”

The chest area of his raincoat poked outward, once, twice, in different areas. As if something was trying to burst out.

Melanie, her hand covering her mouth to stop any sound, stared with horrified eyes.

The bellhop was still alive.

Mr. Glueskin began punching his own torso, hard. The squelching thuds were grotesque. And the entire time, he laughed gleefully like a boy.

The crowd of spectators began to politely applaud. Someone whistled. An overly eager voice sang out, “Encore!”

“I heard that Mr. Glueskin's organizing a party.” The beauty queen child fluffed her hair with a hand that trembled. “I hope we're not invited. The last party took me an entire cycle to get over.”

The wallaby-man tilted his head to one side, then the other. He raised his nose upward and sniffed the air. “Do you smell somezhing?”

The little girl punched her friend's arm, hard. “That's not nice,” she hissed, her voice suddenly vicious. “And your stupid accent is reeking putrid!”

“No! No! There is truly a strange smell. . . . ” The wallaby-man was turning his head around, toward the scarcely open door.

Heart quaking, Melanie began to close it shut. Just before it
snick
ed into place she thought she caught a glimpse of a woman in a sparkly dress, approaching Mr. Glueskin. Her back was toward her, but there was something about the slope of her shoulders—

Melanie desperately held the knob in place with both hands and fixed the side of her foot against the bottom of the door as someone tried to open it from the other side.

“I can't
smell
anything,” the muffled voice of the girl said indignantly, “but I can sense something in the air. It's
intoxicating
!”

A snuffling sound at the bottom of the door. The wallaby-man was on all fours, his fleshy nose poking through the small crack.

“Ohhhhhh! Yehhhhsssss!” he moaned, snorting and sucking in great puffs of air.

The door began to buck in the frame.

“What is that?” The girl's voice was rising. She sounded high. “It reminds me of something. . . . I want it! Open the door! Force it!”

They were making too much noise. The people and creatures in the lobby would notice. They would burst through the door and find her. In all her living color!

The doorknob was still in her white-knuckled grip.

Melanie released it and raced down the stairs. Another way out, Melanie thought wildly. Hide. Hide!

“Through this door!”

The familiar voice rasped before she felt the prickle of coarse fur and whiskers against her face.

Melanie shrieked.

“SHUT UP!” JADE
Rat hissed. “I can't smell anyone on the other side. But you'll draw attention if you're not quiet. Go!”

Melanie swallowed a sob and pushed on the door. It opened into the long empty hallway of the basement. She pressed her chin to her chest so that her clumpy hair obscured her face. She was never more grateful that her mess of hair was black. She thrust her betraying hands into the deep pockets and ran-walked down the flat floral-patterned carpet.

Jade Rat, hidden inside her hair, tugged her ear. “In here!” she said sharply.

Melanie veered into an empty women's changing room. She could smell chlorine in the air and hear the distant splash of water, a few echoey voices.

“What now?” Melanie gasped.

“Let me think,” the rat said curtly, leaping onto the counter in front of the long mirror.

Melanie caught sight of herself. Her face, tear-streaked and red, her small eyes wide with fear and helplessness. She reared back, as if she had been slapped.

She turned toward the sinks. She splashed cold water on her face and the coolness felt good. Her eyes fell upon something by the neighboring faucet.

A tube of lipstick.

Lipstick.

Makeup.

Melanie spun around and began opening lockers. Empty, empty, empty. Jackpot!

A gray stretchy tracksuit. A towel and large makeup bag! Making sure that no one was coming through the pool entry door or the one leading to the hallway, Melanie took the items out of the locker and set them on a bench. She unzipped the bag. Jars of foundation, lipstick, eyeliner and eye shadow spilled out. There was even a pair of oversized sunglasses.

Yes!

She quickly undressed, thrusting her reeking, dirty clothes into an empty locker. She pulled on the gray tracksuit then ran her fingers through her knotty hair so it hung more evenly around her face. She grabbed a tube of liquid foundation and poured a large amount into her hand. It looked pale gray, the color of clay. She smeared it all over her face and neck, remembering her ears at the last minute. She slathered her hands, wrists, everyinch of exposed skin. When she was done she looked in the mirror once more. She looked like a ghoul from a cheap horror movie. Melanie's mouth cracked open into a real smile.

The inside of her mouth looked luridly pink in the reflection. She quickly closed her lips. Dimly, she noticed Jade Rat nodding her head approvingly. Must not open my mouth too wide, Melanie thought. Don't forget. Don't open your mouth. Don't smile.

She rubbed eyeliner both above and below her eyes. Nice. She was looking more and more like someone from Half World. Never one to wear makeup, she overshot the edges of her lips with the lipstick, but it was perfect. She looked like she had applied it when she was drunk. Her lips looked almost black. She looked hideous. Lastly, she donned the sunglasses.

She was done. It was perfect. And she had thought of it herself.

“Good,” Jade Rat said. Her voice sounded rather faint. Without its usual sharp edge.

“Are you going to sit on my shoulder or do you want to go inside a pocket?” Melanie asked softly.

“Pocket,” Jade Rat managed before shivering back into an amulet.

Melanie, lips grim, unzipped a small pocket on the jacket and tucked the pendant inside. She did not zip it up, in case the rat needed to come out in a hurry.

How much life was left in Jade Rat she had no way of knowing.

Melanie's gaze dropped to her backpack. She didn't want to keep on carrying it about. She was out of food and water, anyway. The survival items Ms. Wei had packed weren't necessary in a hotel and the stupid Magic 8 Ball had done nothing to help her so far. In fact it was like an evil sibling, jeering, goading when she needed help the most.

Don't waste things,
her mother's voice echoed inside her mind.
You don't know if you might need them later.
When her mum was between jobs and had enough strength she had gone out on recycling nights to look for empty bottles in people's bins. “Look how much money they were throwing away!” she would say wonderingly when she returned home, the cash in her hands.

Tears welled in Melanie's eyes. No! She mustn't cry! Her makeup! She blinked rapidly until she had control once more.

“Don't waste things,” Melanie muttered. She emptied the survival items from the backpack and gently took out the Magic 8 Ball.

The entire plastic surface felt bumpy. The slide of liquid even heavier than before. Melanie took the towel and carefully wrapped the raccoon's gift, focusing desperately on not thinking in the form of a question. And returned the bundle and the remaining items into the backpack.

She slipped her arms through the straps. Glanced in the mirror one last time.

The tracksuit was good. She felt lighter. Soon she would be running as fast as Lali Vukov!

She smiled fiercely, with closed lips.

Melanie discovered that her hallway was in the smaller wing of a T-shaped building when she came to the juncture. People were strolling about, and she could hear music seeping out of some rooms, the jangle of slot machines, and jubilant shrieks.

No one whipped around their heads to stare at her with suspicion. But she couldn't stand there, in the juncture, forever. She had to explore, to figure out the rules of Half World. She had to find out on which floor Mr. Glueskin lived, where he was holding her mother hostage.

Melanie turned into the main hallway. She kept her head low, so that her hair fell partially over her face. Her disguise was holding; she could only hope that her smell would be lost in the cigarette and cigar fumes heavy in the air.

Hotel and casino patrons jostled past her. It was both a relief and terrifying to be among others.

Her neck prickled with dread.

She could feel someone staring at her, from behind. She was certain. Her back felt heavy with the sensation, but she didn't dare turn around, to let them know she knew.

She picked up her pace, but the feeling didn't go away. A middle-aged couple was just turning into a casino, so Melanie slipped in behind them to lose the person who was following her in the crowd.

The barrage of the casino engulfed her. The blipping, dinging, buzzing of slot machines was punctuated by the screams of gamblers winning and losing money. Coins clattered on top of coins with a metallic roar. In the dimmer lights of the room it was difficult to make her way. She twisted right, then left, pretending she was looking at blackjack tables and games of craps.

Someone banged hard into her shoulder and she heard a tray of winnings spill onto the sticky floor. Melanie yelped with terror.

“Watch it!” the person snapped, stooping to gather up his hoard.

Melanie looked down and saw right through the back of the bald man's skull, a small round entry wound that expanded into a hole the size of a baseball.

“Sorry,” Melanie whispered hoarsely.

She had to get out. It was unbearable.

She broke into a run, twining between people, and burst back out to the main hallway. Melanie ducked her chin into her chest and walked swiftly beside the wall.

Had she lost the thing that was tailing her? She wasn't sure.

A dark doorway seeped wisps of cigarette smoke and the sad notes of an alto sax.