Set In Motion

Chapter 6

        After that talk with Alexandra, I feel both relieved and worried. Relieved that Alex was my friend and that I had finally told my thoughts to someone but worried about what she had told me. Were there really some other specials out there that weren't as nice as these? Was there some here? Why was James keeping things from me?

            I had all these questions and no answers. I could go talk to Alex again but she had said that her shift at the nursery was all day and I didn't want to bother her. I could ask anyone else here that was older than ten but they would be suspicious and even maybe lie to me on purpose.

I couldn't talk to James; he hadn't told me about them yesterday what's to say he would tell me when I asked him about it. Nicole wouldn't know and Sam wasn't even conscious. The only other person I could ask would be Calico. She was really busy lately but I really wanted the answers. So I decide to talk to her the next time I see her.

            I head back to the hospital. Inside I find James waiting for me in my room. 
            “Liz! I was getting worried! The nurse told me that you went out of you re room a couple of hours ago and hadn't come back. Are you okay?”

            I'm touched that James is so worried about me. I mean I'd only been gone a couple of hours but he looked ready to send out a search party and post missing signs up. Maybe he liked me more than I thought he did. He seemed to care enough.

            “I'm fine James thanks for worrying about me. I just couldn't sleep, to many bad dreams. So I decided to take a little walk and watch the stars. I was only going to go out for a while but I met a girl named Alexandra in the park and we started talking, I lost track of time.” James looks relieved at this and smiled.

            “Yeah Alexandra's a good girl. She has a way of making friends with everybody she meets; no one can not like her. She's just that kind of person. Though she can sometimes be a little fierce when it comes to right and wrong.”James said with a laugh.

            I'd learned that first hand. Alexandra was the nicest person I'd met but I think she could fight if she really had to. Anyways I was losing track of my thoughts.

“So James why did you come here anyway? I thought you said you were going to be busy today with going out to get some more food.”

Though they had a bunch of gardens here, the reserves of store bought food like cereal and crackers were running low, and meat was even scarcer. They hadn't started hunting just yet.

            So a bunch of people were heading to the only store left, the metro just at the edge of town. According to James the power had gone out and all the perishable food was gone but there would be a bunch of shelves full of foods that don't go bad, ready for the taking.

            “Yeah were going there but I just wanted to make sure we brought you and Nicole to a dormitory before that. She's still sleeping though so we have to wait a little bit.

No surprise there. Before the disaster Nicole had always been late for school, because she could never wake up earlier then 9 o'clock in the morning no matter how high she put her alarm on. I knew we'd be waiting a VERY long time for her, especially if she didn't KNOW we were waiting for her to get up.

            This is the perfect time to ask James my questions but I just can't do it. He'd probably lie to me about it or just not say anything. Or if he did tell the truth, did I really want to know it? I mean for all I know his ability is X-Ray vision and he's been looking at me in my underwear since he met me. Or he could read minds and now knows how much I obsess about him in my head. And what if the reason he hadn't told me about the bad specials was because he was one.

            I know that's not true, James is way too sweet and charming to be a bad special but you never know why he didn't tell me about them.

            “Also, two of the other people from your school are awake, and if you still want to talk to them I’ll take you to them.”

            I nod, excited of to help anyone else who woke up in this place, with no one they knew. I’m also nervous about it, since I have no idea who I’ll see in those two rooms.

            “Yes please. Can we go before we go see Nicole? I don’t think she’d mind missing out on this; in fact she might be grateful. Nicole might not be able to handle seeing other people in trouble; she could barely see Sam in a coma.”

            James nods, serious. He brings me to the first room. In there, a little girl, she must be in seventh grade, is in a bed almost exactly like mine, with a bandage on her head. She’s so small in the bed, with bandages and bruises and red eyes that I instantly feel sorry for her and sit by her bed, forgetting about James for a second.

            “Hi my names Elizabeth, I went to Glebe High as well. In what year were you?”  I speak slowly, as though I was talking to a scared animal, making sure I don’t scare her. I gently take her hand, trying to show her that I was a friend and not an enemy.

            She shakes a little bit when I touch her, than has a coughing fit.

            “My names Rachel. I’m or I guess I was, in seventh grade. Mrs Little was my homeroom teacher. I guess she’s dead, along with the rest of my friends.” She looks down, crying a little bit.

My heart goes out to her, this little girl who’s too young to have lost all her friends and family. I missed my mom, and my other friends were probably all dead, but I hadn’t really been close to anyone except for Chloe, Nicole and Sam. Chloe might be dead but I still had hope for her and my mom.  Besides, if I gave in to my sadness, I wouldn’t be able to do anything else but cry.

“Hey, that’s okay. You’re extremely brave and strong, you know that right?”  She looks at me with disbelief.

“How could I be strong? I left my friends there to die, I ran when my whole class was stuck in the classroom, and I didn’t even look back. There was just instinct that took over, and I just started to run. Then I got outside and I guess I fainted.”  She cries a little more.

“No! You are brave, because only someone extremely brave knows when it’s time to try to save someone, and when it’s time to save yourself. If you hadn’t ran, you wouldn’t be here right now, and trust me, no matter how lonely you are, dying would’ve been worse. You can make another life here.” 

She stops crying and listens as I tell her about the specials, and their houses, the park, and everything else. I’ve been talking for a good thirty minutes on all of the good things to do here when she yawns, and I can tell she’s exhausted by our talk.

“You know, you look tired I’m going to go talk to the other person from our school, I’m sure they’re as anxious as you were. So get some sleep, and in a couple of days you might get a spot in one of the condos.”

I leave her to sleep and turn to James, who’s been outside the door the whole time, not wanting to intrude on such a conversation. I smile at him, trying to show that I was fine, though inside my heart was breaking for all the lost things.

“To the next one!’’ I try to say it with a happy and careless voice, but it shakes a little, betraying my sadness. I guess seeing the other kids, and they’re stories, forced the hole to be real, something I had been avoiding the past day. Now though, the truth of it all came, and no matter how much I tried to hold it in, a little tear escaped my eye and slid down my cheek. I wiped it away quickly, blinking away the rest of my tears, knowing this wasn’t the time for it.

James seems to understand though, and he doesn’t lead me to the next kid right away, he steps up to me and gives me a reassuring hug. I sigh and place my head on his shoulder, just letting his heat engulf me, forgetting about everything else.

His heartbeat is steady, and slowly mine slows down to match his, calming me down enough for me to let go of him. I smile shyly at him, unsure what that meant. Was he just trying to pacify me, or did he want to give me that hug?

 “Thanks, I just needed to let some of that go, you know?’’ He nods knowingly, as though he’s already been there.

“Do you still want to see the other kid? He’s in the next room, a guy this time, a little older. He might be able to wait for you to explain things tomorrow, and Nicole might be awake by now.’’

I check the time on the clock. “I’m pretty sure Nicole is still asleep. We can go to the next guy right now, I’m sure he’d want an explanation now.’’

We head to the next room, were a guy around fourteen years old is in his bed. I explain to him all I explained to Rachel, maybe a little less gently, as he looks more tough then her.

In turn he told me his story, were he was already outside ditching class when the hole happened, and he was able to run away from it before he was dragged in. His name is Zach. We talk less than when I talked with Rachel, not really sure what else to talk about. I leave not even after fifteen minutes, because he’s also exhausted. 

Outside, James and I go back to my room, were we wait on my bed for Nicole in an awkward silence.

“I think what you did showed true courage and a good heart. Not many people could’ve been able to face other kids in that situation.’’ My cheeks flush, and I lower my eyes, an even more awkward silence following. Finally, to my relief, Nicole shows up still in her pyjamas with bedraggled hair and puffy eyes.

“Sorry I kept you guys waiting; I didn't know I had to wake up early for something.”

 She says this with a dirty look at James and then sits on my bed. Great. Nicole waking up early always means she's as grumpy as a bear until someone gives her coffee. And coffee was one of the things we needed to get from the Metro this afternoon. So I'll be stuck with miss grumpy pants until they got back tonight. This was going to be a LONG day.
                                                        ***

            James told us to get all our stuff and meet him in the lobby but we just followed him there. I mean we hadn't exactly packed for a natural disaster that day so we only had the clothes we had on.

Even our school bags hadn't survived; they were still in our lockers at the bottom of the hole. So with that I realize I'm going to have to ask James for more clothes unless I wanted to wear the same underwear for the rest of my life. EW. Maybe he can get some when he goes to the metro today.

            Seeing we don't have anything else here we need to bring, James brings us in Sam's room again, only shortly to say Hi.

He's still not awake but his bruises already look less painful then they did the day before. Then we say goodbye to Calico who's still running around the rooms helping out the people who still haven't recovered. I can see it might take a while before she has the time to answer my questions. 

            Outside James leads us to the dormitories. There are five buildings in total. One of them is for girls only; one of them is for guys only. The two other ones are for both sexes who want to share a house, and maybe even a room.

The last one is for the people who need more help. Some of them just came out of the hospital but still have casts and stuff on their arms and legs, some people are in wheelchairs and one or two of them have mental problems.

            This is where Nicole and I will be staying until Nicole's arm heals and they find us a room in the girl’s only house. 
           

As we go inside I can tell right away that I'm going to like staying here. I can hear someone singing, though a little off tune and someone playing the piano. Inside the main room there's the comfiest looking couch and armchair with a TV.

Someone’s playing WII sports and I can tell they suck at playing tennis. I smell what has to be macaroni and cheese cooking in the oven and there's a pie on the kitchen counter, raspberry flavoured.

            Our room is as nice as the rest of this place, it's a baby blue color and there are clouds painted on the ceiling. It's small but a snug small, with two double beds squeezed right beside each other. There's a closet and dresser I hope to fill with new clothes soon and a window seat where I can sit and read a book.

            Actually there are three book cases filled with all the classics in our room. I go to read the titles. The books include, Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Huckleberry Finn, Sherlock Holmes, Black Beauty, Treasure Island, Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, the center of the earth. There are books by Agatha Christie, Lewis Carroll, T.S Elliot and every other author I'd ever heard of. I knew I'd have an awesome time reading all these books.

            James left us to get settled in and so we just stared out the window looking at someone flying around in the park until we were called to supper. Nicole and I didn’t talk much. There was really nothing to talk about. We were both still really worried about our families.

 Nicole had two little twin brothers and a mom and dad, I only had my mom, but we both couldn’t stop thinking about them. Plus there was Chloe, still stuck at the bottom of the hole, and Sam, still in the hospital where he might never wake up.

            At supper we had macaroni and cheese and pie until I couldn't eat one more piece. Everybody was really friendly and no one asked questions about what happened.

There was at least twelve other kids in the house, not including the ones that stay in their rooms for supper. They talked about their days and how their casts are itchy or about their powers but none of them talked about their family.

No one talked about a sister or a brother or their parents. I guess once you become a special those people don’t really matter anymore, especially for the people whose parents didn’t want them after they started changing. It must be an unspoken rule to not ask questions about the past, so we decided not to push our luck and just ate in silence.

            We had one person that seemed to be in charge, or at least she seemed to have more experience than the other kids. Her name is Katrina. She was also the oldest, around seventeen. She made the supper tonight and really is like a babysitter for the younger kids that live here.

            After supper, we played WII with George, an eleven year old with a broken foot until 10 o'clock at night. Then we went to our room and I sat in bed for a long time, reading the murder on the orient express, by Agatha Christie.

 Inspector Poirot had just started to put all the pieces of the puzzle together when Nicole closed the light to get her beauty sleep. James must've come back to the Metro by now and we can have better food tomorrow! My life finally seems to have finally straightened out a little bit, and I fall asleep with a contented sigh.