The One Safe Place (16 page)

She paused. “There is no dirt in Paradise. There is no untidiness.”

She turned her focus on the children.

It was so quiet in the courtyard now that not a single whisper or rustle could be heard. Even the flock of birds above the tower, disturbed, perhaps, by the unusual size of the crowd below, had fallen completely silent.

“You will be perfect in dress and perfect in manners. My father does not wish to see brawling children and he does not wish to see crying children. Above all, he does not wish to see dirty children. No scabs, sores, or runny noses. Clean, washed faces, and clean, washed hands and—”

She was interrupted by a soft sound coming from the far side of the courtyard. It began as a snuffling and grew to a series of throaty grunts. The Administrator paused abruptly and frowned. The grunting came louder and more eager, then rose to a crescendo of snorts and squeals.

A fat, foul-smelling, and familiar shape charged headlong into the courtyard.

Fulsome’s skin, normally the color of well-chewed bubble gum, was half hidden beneath a rich coating of mud, manure, and old leaves. A thistle dangled from his left ear. His legs dripped an oily substance, and there was a large stick wedged firmly in his mouth.

When he reached the center of the courtyard, he stopped, grunted, and looked around inquiringly, then began to turn excited circles on the spot.

In the dreadful silence, two things were instantly obvious. The first was that Fulsome had been rolling in the rankest, filthiest substances he could find. The second was that this rolling had only partly wiped away the words written large in black marker pen on his side. And what remained was clear enough for everyone to see.

CA . L OUT ARMY P . L ICE!

WE . R . PRIS . N . RS H . RE.

H . LP!!!!!!!

For half a second, the Administrator, Mrs. Babbage, and the entire crowd of staff and children appeared completely paralyzed. Malloy’s eyes bulged with horror. Luke’s face froze midtwitch. Then all the children (and some of the staff) broke into a huge shout of laughter that nothing, not the Administrator’s terrible glare nor Mrs. Babbage’s flapping arms, could prevent.

“Oh Fulsome, Fulsome!” Malloy shrieked, bent double with laughter.

He stopped laughing, however, when the pig, tiring of showing off, took a firmer grip on the stick between his teeth and advanced confidently into the crowd.

“Oh no,” he said, “Oh no, oh no, he’s coming straight at me. She’ll know I’m the one to blame.”

He darted behind Devin and stood cowering, tugging on Devin’s shirt in an effort to hide himself. But Fulsome had other things on his mind. Not long before, he had received a tasty treat for depositing a stick of roughly this length and weight at Luke’s feet. He trotted through the crowd, which parted eagerly to let him pass.

He reached Luke, but Luke ducked away at the last moment and the stick fell to the ground at Ansel’s feet instead.

“Ansel Fairweather!” The Administrator’s voice cut through the hubbub like a knife.

“You are to report to my office at once!”

They were meant to be tidying their rooms in readiness for the great Mr. Penn’s visit, but Devin, Kit, Luke, and Malloy were too busy wondering what had happened to Ansel to do much work. After issuing her order, the Administrator had turned on her heel and disappeared into the tower, and Ansel, with the eyes of the crowd fixed pityingly on him, had trailed in after her. The children dispersed, and a staff member, still grinning, led Fulsome away.

“Bet they hose him down,” Malloy commented. “He hates to be washed. It isn’t natural for a pig, you know.”

“What were you thinking, pulling a stunt like that?” Kit asked.

“It was such a genius idea,” Malloy said. “After you’d gone back to the tents last night I went to the pigsty and took Fulsome out and I wrote that rescue note on his body. Even though he’s little, there’s a lot of room on Fulsome’s body. He’s chubby, you know.

“Not fat,” he added hastily, “just nicely chubby.”

Kit rolled her eyes.

“I led him to where we’d been sitting, near the posts,” Malloy continued. “I looked him straight in the eye and I told him to go fetch. But I meant fetch help, not an old stick. I should have been more specific, I guess. I mean, even Fulsome can’t read minds.

“One little word,” he mourned, “between triumph and disaster . . .”

“You really think that if you’d told him to fetch help, Fulsome would have come galloping back with a rescue team?” Kit asked.

“Something like that, yeah.”

“You’re a moron, you know that?”

Malloy slumped forward, his head in his hands. “I should go, shouldn’t I? I should go and own up and say it was me. It’s not right for Ansel to take the blame.”

Devin didn’t know how to answer. It was awful thinking of Ansel being punished for something Malloy had done, but he didn’t want to say that.

“I’d go like a shot,” Malloy said, “except I’m too much of a coward. I’m more chicken than chicken pot pie. I’m more chicken than fried chicken with a side of chicken. I’m more chicken—”

“Okay, okay,” Kit said. “We get the point.”

“I should go,” Malloy repeated. “Do you think I should go? I really ought to go . . .”

Whether Malloy would have owned up or not, it was already too late. Ansel had been sent to the Place. Perhaps it was a punishment, or perhaps it was simply his turn again. As usual, it was Vanessa who had all the information. She sat in the common room looking self- important. Devin noticed that she had undone the top two buttons of her shirt, perhaps in imitation of the Administrator. She fingered the neckline, showing off her marker-made red nails.

According to Vanessa, Ansel had been sent to the Place. But he hadn’t gone willingly.

“You mean he put up a fight?” Luke asked.

Vanessa shook her head. It hadn’t been like that. “It was more like he went crazy,” she said. “He yelled things nobody could understand and fell down and wouldn’t get up. Two staff members had to pick him up and take him away.”

Malloy hung his head and went very quiet. He trailed off to the farmyard in search of Fulsome, and nobody else felt in the mood for talking. Devin wandered by himself for a while. The Home had become a scene of frenetic activity in preparation for Gabriel Penn’s visit. Staff members were everywhere. The lawn mowers were out in force, leaf-blowers blasted the pathways; buckets and mops filled the dining room; hedges were being trimmed, horses brushed, and gravel raked. The air was full of the smells of fresh paint, soapy water, and cut grass. But the children themselves were stiller than ever. They moved listlessly, fearful of messing up their clothes, bewildered by the turn of events.

A small girl was swinging alone in the playground. Devin could see at once that she was in the Dream. She plunged back and forth, rising so high that her seat jerked in the air and hung slack-chained for a second before hurtling back down again. One of her shoes had fallen off. Her hair flew back, and her eyes were closed as if the swing was carrying her to a different world, a place so full of joy that she would stay there forever if she could. Apart from the heavy, rhythmic creak of the swing, there was no sound.

Jared was sitting alone on one of the benches by the carousel. Devin stared at him curiously. Nobody seemed to know Jared very well. They always referred to him just as “the boy with the teddy bear,” and sure enough, there it was, sitting beside him on the bench. Jared was a tall boy, but he had his knees up so his legs didn’t touch the ground. As Devin passed by, Jared waved at him, then picked up the bear and made it wave too, waggling the bear’s paw playfully. Spoiled, Devin thought with a stab of pity and fear. He waved quickly and hurried away.

It was early evening when he got back to the courtyard, and he stopped, astonished. The courtyard had always been an impressive area, but now it was transformed. An army of staff members must have been working on it all day. The driveway had been raked—Devin could still see the lines in the gravel—and the expanded flower beds were an explosion of color. Torches had been planted all around the open area, and moths flickered in their pools of light, and the curved walls of the tower were striped with twisted shadow. It looked beautiful, Devin thought. Almost magical.

As he stood there, a car pulled up. It was different from the car he’d arrived in, far larger, with a sleek silver ornament on the hood, in the shape of an eagle. In the same instant, almost as if she had been waiting behind the tower door, the Administrator appeared on the threshold.

She had changed her clothes. Instead of her usual severe skirt and shirt, she wore a dress, pale blue and floaty. The pretty, rather girlish barrette pinned in her hair made her whole face look softer. She stepped forward and then stood waiting, her arms by her side. The car stopped and the front door opened and a man got out.

Devin held his breath. Was this the famous Gabriel Penn?

He was wearing a navy jacket with gold buttons and had a cap on his head. Not Penn, Devin thought. Just his driver; Penn must be still in the car.

Devin was too far away to hear. He stepped a little closer, keeping to the shadows. The Administrator said something and the driver shook his head. “I’ve been instructed . . . ,” Devin heard him say, and then, “. . . purely a business visit . . .”

The Administrator glanced at the darkened windows of the car: “. . . a meal,” she said, “all prepared . . . I was expecting . . .”

The driver shook his head again and spread his hands. He turned and got back into the car and in a second it was moving away toward the adult accommodations on the other side of the courtyard.

For a second or two, the Administrator simply stood there, watching it leave. Then she turned and Devin got a glimpse of her face, lit by the torches. Was it pain and disappointment that he saw? Was it rage?

It was impossible to tell. Her face was as blank as a slammed door.

Devin knew she couldn’t see him, but her gaze seemed to find him as he shrank back against the dark wall.

I need you to be healthy, Devin.

He hurried back to his room and lay down on his bed, hugging his pillow, his insides hollowed out by dread.

I’m saving you for something special.

Fourteen

DEVIN COULDN’T SLEEP, AND
after a while, he stopped trying. He sat, fully dressed, on the edge of his bed, watching as dawn crept over the sky. There was a tiny knock on the door.

“I’m the messenger,” Karen said.

Devin nodded.

Karen twisted her hands together. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”

“You don’t have to apologize. It’s not your fault.”

“I know. It’s just that I’m always the messenger. It makes me feel . . .”

“It’s okay,” Devin said. “I’ll be fine. Look out for Kit for me, will you?”

He left the room and went downstairs. The courtyard was empty. There was still dew on the grass, the faintest trace of moisture. It would be gone soon, when the sun rose. Devin looked up into the clear blue sky, wondering suddenly what it had been like to live in a world where clouds were common, everyday things. Where all kinds of plants grew without any help and there was always hay for the horse and grain for the chickens. It hadn’t been as easy as that on the farm—they’d had to work for everything—but it had been better there. A pocket of richness, his grandfather had called it. There were seasons on the farm; spring brought a scattering of flowers in the hedgerow, and autumn, color to the trees. And one January morning, when he was very small, his grandfather had woken him up to show him a miracle: a glittering sheet of ice, paper thin, on the top of a bucket of water by the back door.