there.”
“We’re getting stronger,” I say.
“You don’t know that,” Michael says.
“They aren’t as strong as they think they are, and we’re stronger than they think we are. They aren’t invincible.”
“Okay,” Lauren says. “Maybe not. So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we have a chance to escape. We need to start thinking like prisoners who can escape. We don’t have to just accept we’re going to be slaves the rest of our lives. We have a choice.”
“Right,” Michael says. “We can be dead. What a choice.”
“I’m afraid he’s right,” Lauren says. “They conquered the world in ten seconds. We’re just four people.”
“But we aren’t the same as we were,” I say.
Everyone is silent. I can feel them considering this. Is it possible? What does it mean?
The Handler on duty, Anchise, interrupts our conversation and orders us back to work.
“I think your biological clock is off, Anchise,” I say. “We still have five or ten minutes.”
Lauren foolishly agrees with me.
Anchise picks us both up and shoves us roughly toward the door. Not physically. He does it with his mind. I can hear him thinking how nice it would be to turn us off and be done with it.
Are you reading me?
he thinks, stopping, holding me where I am. It’s like he’s pinching my arms with his fingers. Among all the big-eyed freaks, his eyes are the most frightening; something about them makes me think of a lake full of snakes. His mind closes. It’s like I was looking through a window and now it’s a wall. I feel him in me, and it’s all I can do to hide what I saw under another thought. It’s like I’ve thrown a blanket over it.
He frowns. I can tell he thinks he must have been wrong. I can tell he thinks it’s impossible for a human to read him. He lets me go.
Wrong again. Another of the all-powerful Sanginians is wrong. We
are
stronger. There’s a power in me that the aliens can’t believe I have. It’s come alive because of them, but it feels like something that was there all along. As I go back to work, I can hear my father say, “That’s your advantage, Grasshopper.”
The next morning is cool, the fog so thick it’s difficult to see. Lauren and I get out to the pool early for morning assignments. No one else is out there yet. We do this most mornings.
“You ever wish you could go back and do it again?” Lauren says.
“Do what?”
“Everything.”
“Maybe sometimes. I guess I wish I’d paid more attention.”
“You do pay attention. Most boys don’t pay attention at all, but you do.”
I allow her to criticize my gender without defense because she’s made me an exception. Still, I have to set the record straight. “Thank you, Ms. DeVille, but I missed a lot.”
A female Handler comes out. Then three girls. A boy. They start to line up.
“What would you change?” I ask.
“I would take more time just to be, I think. I was always doing something. Save the whales. Working at the animal shelter or Habitat for Humanity. Class president, all that school stuff. Volleyball. Big Sister. I was doing something every minute of every day. I just never was, you know, me. I don’t even know who me really was.”
More people come out the door. By then there are enough that the Handler orders us to make a line.
“There would have been time,” I say.
“What?”
“If they hadn’t come. There would have been time.”
We’re forced into the line then, pulled by the Handler. What I wanted to say was there would have been time for us to grow up.
Insomnia. I toss. I turn. Everyone else is asleep.
I need to see Catlin, but I can only see her when I dream, and I can’t dream if I can’t sleep.
And I can’t.
Catlin has information. I don’t know how, but she does. I need her information. I need to know more.
I try counting sheepdogs. My dog, Merlin, was a sheepdog, and I count them jumping a fence. I’m over five hundred before I finally slip off.
“It’s about
“We’re getting stronger,” I say.
“You don’t know that,” Michael says.
“They aren’t as strong as they think they are, and we’re stronger than they think we are. They aren’t invincible.”
“Okay,” Lauren says. “Maybe not. So what are you saying?”
“I’m saying we have a chance to escape. We need to start thinking like prisoners who can escape. We don’t have to just accept we’re going to be slaves the rest of our lives. We have a choice.”
“Right,” Michael says. “We can be dead. What a choice.”
“I’m afraid he’s right,” Lauren says. “They conquered the world in ten seconds. We’re just four people.”
“But we aren’t the same as we were,” I say.
Everyone is silent. I can feel them considering this. Is it possible? What does it mean?
The Handler on duty, Anchise, interrupts our conversation and orders us back to work.
“I think your biological clock is off, Anchise,” I say. “We still have five or ten minutes.”
Lauren foolishly agrees with me.
Anchise picks us both up and shoves us roughly toward the door. Not physically. He does it with his mind. I can hear him thinking how nice it would be to turn us off and be done with it.
Are you reading me?
he thinks, stopping, holding me where I am. It’s like he’s pinching my arms with his fingers. Among all the big-eyed freaks, his eyes are the most frightening; something about them makes me think of a lake full of snakes. His mind closes. It’s like I was looking through a window and now it’s a wall. I feel him in me, and it’s all I can do to hide what I saw under another thought. It’s like I’ve thrown a blanket over it.
He frowns. I can tell he thinks he must have been wrong. I can tell he thinks it’s impossible for a human to read him. He lets me go.
Wrong again. Another of the all-powerful Sanginians is wrong. We
are
stronger. There’s a power in me that the aliens can’t believe I have. It’s come alive because of them, but it feels like something that was there all along. As I go back to work, I can hear my father say, “That’s your advantage, Grasshopper.”
The next morning is cool, the fog so thick it’s difficult to see. Lauren and I get out to the pool early for morning assignments. No one else is out there yet. We do this most mornings.
“You ever wish you could go back and do it again?” Lauren says.
“Do what?”
“Everything.”
“Maybe sometimes. I guess I wish I’d paid more attention.”
“You do pay attention. Most boys don’t pay attention at all, but you do.”
I allow her to criticize my gender without defense because she’s made me an exception. Still, I have to set the record straight. “Thank you, Ms. DeVille, but I missed a lot.”
A female Handler comes out. Then three girls. A boy. They start to line up.
“What would you change?” I ask.
“I would take more time just to be, I think. I was always doing something. Save the whales. Working at the animal shelter or Habitat for Humanity. Class president, all that school stuff. Volleyball. Big Sister. I was doing something every minute of every day. I just never was, you know, me. I don’t even know who me really was.”
More people come out the door. By then there are enough that the Handler orders us to make a line.
“There would have been time,” I say.
“What?”
“If they hadn’t come. There would have been time.”
We’re forced into the line then, pulled by the Handler. What I wanted to say was there would have been time for us to grow up.
Insomnia. I toss. I turn. Everyone else is asleep.
I need to see Catlin, but I can only see her when I dream, and I can’t dream if I can’t sleep.
And I can’t.
Catlin has information. I don’t know how, but she does. I need her information. I need to know more.
I try counting sheepdogs. My dog, Merlin, was a sheepdog, and I count them jumping a fence. I’m over five hundred before I finally slip off.
“It’s about
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