Brayden started making a humping motion.
He was facing me so he didn’t see Niko launch at him. Niko drove his head into Brayden’s side.
Jake was on them in an instant, trying to separate them, but Niko reared back, slamming Jake’s head into the metal cabinet, by accident I’m sure, but it sent Jake over the edge.
Jake started whaling on Niko. Punching.
Brayden already whaling on him, too.
The kids went totally berserk. Batiste ran off. Max was screeching. The twins, wailing and clutching at each other. Chloe, screaming and clawing at her head. It was insanity.
Niko was doing his best to fight back, but he was outmanned and overpowered. I stupidly scrambled over and tried to pull Jake and Brayden off Niko.
Brayden turned and smiled, like he was happy to see me, then he punched me in the side of my head.
I meant to just try to pull him off Niko but instead I started punching him. He had my head in a one-armed grip but that didn’t stop me from landing punches to his side and then—
BWRAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!
An air horn.
So loud.
BWRAAAAAAAAAAAAAM!
Everyone stopped fighting.
We looked up.
Josie had the air horn held high. She was standing on the counter.
She was in her grimy, stained clothes. Blood still crusted behind her ears, where Mrs. Wooly had missed. The cruddy gauze bandage stuck to her forehead by gore alone.
She looked like she had risen from the dead.
And she was totally in command.
“This fight is over,” Josie said.
Her voice was quiet, but you could have heard it a mile away.
“Tomorrow we are going to have a ceremony to honor the dead.”
We took that in.
“And then we’ll have an election to pick someone, just until Mrs. Wooly gets back, to be our leader.”
And that was that.
We had a plan.
CHAPTER TEN
MAMA DUCK
After dinner, which we ate with hardly any fuss and hardly any talking, really, Josie got up and put her plate in the trash.
Then Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline got up and put their plates in the trash.
Then Josie walked out of the Pizza Shack area.
And Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline walked out of the Pizza Shack area.
Josie walked to the Children’s Clothing section.
Chloe, Max, Ulysses, Batiste, Henry, and Caroline followed.
She asked them their sizes and picked out pajamas for them.
She handed each child a new pair of pajamas and they hugged the pajamas to them like they were a precious treasure. Like the pajamas were a dream come true.
Then Josie walked back toward the Media Department and they followed her. In a single-file line.
It was astounding.
“I think I’m gonna puke,” Sahalia said, breaking the calm Josie had left in her wake.
Alex won the last game of Monopoly, with his darn railroads and utilities and hotels on Connecticut, Vermont, and Oriental.
And when we went back to the Media Department, here’s what I saw:
Six little kids in new sleeping bags on new air mattresses with new pillows in new pillowcases. All in a circle around Josie, who was sitting on the floor. Josie had a candle in front of her, and it cast a warm, golden circle of light on their clean, scrubbed faces.
Why hadn’t I thought of an air mattress?
Josie had also (finally) cleaned herself up. She was wearing white pajamas and a pink robe and slippers. And her hair was back in its customary giraffe knots on top of her head. Her brown skin looked soft and glowing in the candlelight. The only thing that broke the spell was the big square of gauze taped over the gash on her forehead. But at least it was fresh gauze.
Josie was weaving an outrageous, preposterous, totally absurdist fairy tale. It went like this:
“When Mrs. Wooly comes, she’s going to have a big, new yellow school bus. And she’s going to open up the door and say, ‘Come on in, guys, time to go home!’ Henry and Caroline will get on first, of course, because they are the youngest.”
“I’m older by fourteen minutes,” Henry volunteered.
“Yes. Caroline will be first, then Henry. Then Max, then Ulysses, Batiste, and then Chloe, because she is the oldest of all of you. And then Mrs. Wooly will drive down the road. The sky will be so blue and the sun shining. She will drive on down the road to your house. Yes. And your parents will be there waiting.
“Oh! Imagine how worried they have been. No matter. Now you are safe. Now you are home. And Mrs. Wooly will take you by the hand and lead you up the front walk and in you will go.”
“And will you be in the bus?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Of course!” Josie said. “It’s my job, too, to make sure you get home safely.”
“And will you come in?” asked Caroline.
“Yes. If your parents invite me, then I will stay for dinner. Won’t that be nice? I wonder what we will have.”
“My nana makes a lasagna that’s out of this world!” Chloe proclaimed loudly. “Everyone says so.”
“If we go to my mom’s, she’ll gets us Popeyes,” Max conceded. “If we go to my dad’s, he’ll get Mickey D’s. Wendy’s is his favorite, but he don’t go there anymore because one time, my dad, he went through the drive-through at Wendy’s in the middle of the night and you’ll never guess what happened because this lady was working there and he says to her, ‘You’re too pretty to work the graveyard shift,’ and she goes, ‘You bet your sweet ass I am,’ and he puts his arm out and she grabs on and he pulls her right outta the window, through the opening and she gets in his truck. And now she’s my auntie Jean. She sleeps over. And she has a gold tooth.”
“My goodness,” Josie said.
Then there was a pause.
I imagine Josie was trying to compose herself.
“Is it real gold?” Chloe wanted to know.
“Yep,” Max answered. “But it doesn’t come out. Anyways, I like Popeyes better, anyway.”
“Whether it’s Popeyes or McDonald’s, I think it will be a great feast,” Josie said, smoothing down Max’s unruly hair. “We will all be so happy, when Mrs. Wooly comes to take us home. And now it is time for rest and sweet dreams.”
Josie tucked Henry’s sleeping bag in around his shoulders and kissed Caroline on the forehead.
Josie was a natural.
Where Astrid had that kick-ass camp counselor thing, Josie was a mom. A sixteen-year-old, middle-aged mom.
Her story just about put me to sleep, too.
Alex was snoring.
We had followed Josie’s example and gotten ourselves those self-inflating air mattresses.
The difference was mighty. Mighty comfortable. Settling onto it, I realized how sore and tired my bones felt. The adrenaline and the shock of, well, everything had had me flying high.
Now I was starting to feel my body again. And it was a wreck. Also I had a bitch of a headache from Brayden’s punch.
Josie came over and knelt down next to my bed.
“Can you write something to say tomorrow?” she asked me.
“At the ceremony?”
She nodded.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re a good writer.”
“How do you know?” I said.
She rolled her eyes.
“It’s just … I’m not a public writer. What I write is just a record. For me,” I told her.
Josie sighed. The endless patience and gentleness she had seemed to have with the kids was gone. She rubbed her eyes agitatedly.
“We need a ceremony, okay? They need it. And it needs to feel like it’s coming from everybody. Not just me. Do you see what I mean? It can’t just be some dumb thing that I’m making everybody do. If it’s going to work, to actually help us, it’s got to come from us all.”
“Okay, okay.” I gave in. “You’re right, Josie. I’ll write something. I’ll do it.”
I had some thoughts already, to tell the truth.
“And thanks for organizing it,” I said. “We do need to do something. For them.”
She got up and stepped away from me, then turned back.
“No,” she said. “It’s me who should say thanks. So … thanks.”
For the company, I guess.
“Hey, Dean, can I ask you something else?”
“Sure,” I answered.
Josie looked down, as if she were inspecting her slippers.
“What day is it?” She laughed self-consciously. “I mean … I lost some time there. Everything was sort of fuzzy. It feels like we’ve been here for a long time, but I don’t think so.”
“It’s Thursday.” I said. “And we got here on Tuesday.”
“Three days?” she said in shock. She started to laugh. “Three days?! That’s totally insane.”
“What’s insane?” Niko said, approaching us silently, as usual. His left eye was swollen shut and though he was tidy in general, I could see the faint outline of nose-blood crusted in his nostrils.
“Wow. You okay?” Josie asked him.
“I’m fine,” he said. The stoic Niko. Brave Hunter Man. “But thanks for asking.” Polite, too.
“Did you know it’s Thursday!” Josie said. “We’ve only been here for three days. Doesn’t it seem like a lifetime?”
“It really does,” Niko said.
I agreed. I thought of all that had happened—the bus crash, learning about the megatsunami, the earthquake, the compounds, me attacking Alex, the guy at the gate, Astrid attacking Batiste …
Three days.
“I’m glad you’re feeling better, Josie,” Niko said.
“Yeah,” I agreed. I rolled onto my back. I was sleepy and ready to go to sleep.
Niko stood watching Josie, who was lost in thought.
There was something going on with Niko that I’d never seen before. His usual detached, intelligent gaze was softened. He seemed more open.
