Nadya Skylung and the Masked Kidnapper Page 9

  “Sure,” Alé says, “get us each whatever you’re having,” and he takes off. Tian Li follows a second later so he’ll have an extra set of hands, and Tam and Alé and Aaron and me just sit.

  Alé observes me, spinning her fork around. “You look like you’re thinking.” She’s a little older than me, and it shows sometimes. She hasn’t taken her eyes off me since we started talking about the kidnappings. “What about?”

  I cough, trying to decide whether I can trust her. But I figure I don’t really have a choice. My options for getting out and about are pretty limited right now, and this might be my only chance to ask some questions. “The kidnappings. We’ve gotta do something.” I nod at Aaron. “His whole village is gone. He’s a cloudling, from Cloudlington.”

  Alé stops twirling her fork, then whistles. “Wow. I’m sorry.”

  He shrugs. “Th-th-that’s okay. But can you h-h-h—” He stops and frowns. “Can you give us some advice or someth-thing?”

  Alé nods. “We can, but . . .” She looks up and down the table at all the other kids. Everyone seems absorbed in their own conversations, but there are a few who might be listening to us. She leans in closer. “Ask if you can spend the night. The Goss will need time to help you with your prosthesis anyway, and she’ll be fresher for the work tomorrow morning. Plus it’s dangerous on the streets after dark. We can talk more privately once everyone’s asleep.”

  I’m all set to agree, until I remember Tam and how uncomfortable he’s been. I look over at him, and he stares at his plate. But then he nods, and I figure we’ve got a plan.

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s surprisingly easy to persuade Thom to let us spend the night. He and Gossner are still talking when Tam and I go up to their table to ask, and he says it’s okay with him if it’s okay with her, and she says we’ll work on my leg tomorrow morning after breakfast, and that’s all the discussion there is.

  I get back to the table feeling excitement and dread swirling in my gut, like there’s cake and spinach mixing around in there—which, come to think of it, there is.

  Rash grins when we tell him how it went. “Killer!” he says. “You guys can bunk with us. There’s plenty of room and we’ve got some spare blankets and cots.” Kids are starting to put away their dishes, and he gets up to join them. “I’ve got clean-up duty tonight though. Alé, can you get them settled?”

  “I want to help,” Tam says suddenly. He gets up. “If you guys don’t mind, I mean.”

  “Me too,” Tian Li says. She starts gathering plates and forks and glasses around Tam.

  “Great!” Rash says. He claps Tam and Tian Li on the shoulders. “Come on, dish buddies! Let’s get scrubbing.”

  The two of them take off for the kitchen, leaving me, Alé, and Aaron at the table. Alé gets up and brushes her hands off on her overalls, then tosses a dark-green corduroy jacket with tons of pockets sewed onto it over her shoulders. “Well?” she asks. “You ready?”

  I scratch my head, looking around at all the kids cleaning up. It’s amazing how smoothly this place operates. Everybody gets along so well too. I miss Pep more than ever. She’d be right at home running around with Tam and Rash, asking questions about glide ratios and steam pressure. But instead I’m here, and she’s on the Orion, because she took the heat for all of us.

  Then Alé starts off toward the sleeping platform, and soon I’ve got other things on my mind again.

  * * *

  • • •

  It’s exciting bunking down with Rash and Alé. Alé scrounges up a couple extra mattresses from neighboring platforms, then spreads out blankets. “We use these in winter,” she says. “But this time of year we only need about one blanket each.”

  Their platform’s pretty small, so all the mattresses get jammed together. We’re basically all going to sleep in a big pile. The platform’s got railings everywhere except where the two catwalks enter and exit it, so I’m not too worried about falling. Alé catches me looking and smiles. “Rash and I will sleep on the edges,” she says. “Just in case. We’re used to it up here.”

  I nod, and then I settle down toward the middle. It feels great to get off my crutches and rest. Even though they got the swings set up by dinner, I’ve crutched farther today than ever before. My armpit’s rubbed raw, my hands have blisters, and my forearms and shoulders are killing me. My missing leg aches, and my other leg feels exhausted.

  Alé sits next to me with a tired whuff while Aaron peers through the railings at the kids getting ready for bed above and below us. “Long day, huh?” she says. She pulls off her boots, and when she takes the left one off, her leg just pops straight out, no foot attached.

  I can’t help it. I stare, even though I hate it when people do that to me.

  Alé starts giggling. “I knew it! I knew it!” She rolls onto her side, then sits up. “I knew you didn’t know!” She grins. “Rash and I had a bet going, and now he’s got to make my bed for a week.”

  I nod, still not sure what to say. I’ve got so many questions, but I dunno how I’d feel if some kid I just met started asking me about my leg, even if she was missing part of hers too.

  “Want to see the prosthesis I made with the Goss?” Alé asks. I nod and she hands me her boot, which has a zipper down the front, and unzips it. “It’s all one piece to make it easier to get on and off, but it unzips so I can work on the mechanism. Sorry about the smell.”

  “What smell?” I mumble. It mostly smells like gear oil and leather, with just a little bit of funk. “My shoe stinks a whole lot worse after a day like today.”

  She laughs again and pulls her legs up underneath her. “I lost my foot to a car,” she says. “It came screaming around a corner as I was stepping off the curb”—she slaps one hand into the other—“and bang, that was it. I was already working for the Goss as a runner, so she paid for my doctors and helped me figure out how to build my own prosthesis. She’s a genius.” She grins. “She’ll do a great job with yours, I’m sure.”

  I nod, looking at the mechanism inside Alé’s boot. It’s a long piece of metal bent at an angle about the same as if you were walking and put your weight on the ball of your foot. It probably works like a spring, and it’s got another bit of metal beneath it that looks like a heel. On top of it there’s a complicated mess of springs, and then a cup and sleeve.

  “Yours will probably be a lot like that,” Alé says, pointing. “Just with a rod where your shin would be and a cylinder to fit your residual limb and knee.” She rolls across the sea of mattresses and rummages in her clothes until she finds something. “Here,” she says, “it’s clean,” and she tosses me a sock. It’s made of some kind of rubbery material. It stretches and shifts, but it’s super tacky, like it wouldn’t slip at all against metal or plastic. “This is the key to the whole thing, the biggest part I bet Tam’s prosthesis is missing. The Goss didn’t get the chemistry right till about six months ago, and it makes a huge difference in how well her stuff works.”

  “Thanks,” I say, and I return the sock. I look down at the Mighty Lady and flex her back and forth. She barks like she’s been jabbed with a needle, and that little bit of pain pokes a hole in a dam inside me, and suddenly there’s tears in my eyes. I’ve told myself over and over that I’ll walk again, run again. But I don’t think I’ve really believed it until now. Alé’s prosthesis is so good, and she’s so good at using it. Maybe I’ll be like that too someday.

  I glance up and she’s watching me, looking sympathetic. “I lost my leg to pirates,” I say quietly. It’s the first time I’ve told anyone. “They kidnapped Thom and Captain Nic, plus our tutor, Mrs. Trachia. Tam and me snuck onto the pirates’ ship to rescue them, but we found Aaron there too, and we got caught after I broke him free. The pirates shot at us and hit my leg, and it got infected. Nic had to amputate it.”

  I take a long, deep breath after I finish, sta
ring at the Lady. I can still remember what it was like to have my leg. It wasn’t that long ago. But I’m starting to get used to being like this, and if I’m totally honest with myself, sometimes I realize how big a change that is and it scares me.

  Alé stares at me, wide-eyed. “Goshend’s eyeballs,” she says. “That’s awful. But you saved that kid? From pirates? You’re a hero.”

  I shake my head. Nic thinks I’m so reckless I might be a danger to the crew. Pepper thinks I’m a terrible best friend. I might’ve saved Aaron, but I haven’t done anything to save his sister.

  So, no, I wouldn’t say I’m a hero at all.

  * * *

  • • •

  Our conversation turns to other things—I ask about the food, the city, and how Alé found Gossner, and she tells me they grow some themselves and get a big delivery every day, the city’s the best place in the world, and she was five years old when her parents died in a warehouse fire by the harbor, and Gossner knew them and took her in. I ask who does the laundry for all these kids and where the bathrooms are, and Alé smiles and says the bank of washing machines is the size of a bus, then points out a little room with plumbing pipes coming out of it a couple catwalks over and says there’s a few bathrooms on every level.

  Eventually Rash, Tam, and Tian Li show up. Rash and Tam laugh like old friends, and even Tian Li’s in a better mood. She and Alé stay up talking about the city for a while before we turn in for the night, and I borrow some paper and a pencil and write a note to Pep. Rash says Gossner has little flying messenger machines I can use to send it out, and I’d like to get it to her tonight if I can.

  Hey, Pep,

  Wish you were here. Gossner’s tower is pretty cool. There’s a lot of machines and stuff, and the kids are all into gears and steam like you. I miss you. Tam’s doing okay, I think. He and this kid Rash we’re with get along really well. I met a girl named Alé I think you’d like too. After Nic stops being such a jerk, we should come back and all hang out or something.

  I sigh. So much for the easy part.

  I’m still trying to figure out why you’re mad at me. I want to be a better friend, I just don’t know how. I don’t know if I can help it if people don’t listen to you around me, but I guess I can try. Maybe they’ll listen.

  My stomach crunches up. I don’t feel like this note is going very well. But if I don’t finish it now, I’ll just get stuck trying to get the words perfect, so I finish it as quick as I can. Better to say something than nothing, right?

  Anyway, I hope Nic isn’t being too hard on you, and you’re having a good time with Sal. It was really awesome when you saved us all from getting in trouble. I think you’re a great friend.

  Rock on,

  Nadya

  I fold the note up and hand it to Rash, who attaches it to a little iron bird with a clockwork heart. He winds it, then flicks a few levers and drops it off the edge of the platform. My heart jumps, but a second later its wings start to flutter, and it sails out an open vent at the top of the workshop.

  I thank Rash, then lie down and stare at the ceiling, thinking about Pep, Nic, and kidnappings. Rash and Alé don’t want to tell us what they know until everyone’s asleep, and I figure with how busy my brain is right now, I’ll just stay up until they’re ready.

  But the sound of a few dozen other kids dropping off one by one, breathing soft and slow or snoring, is pretty hard to resist, and eventually I fall asleep anyway.

  * * *

  • • •

  I dream about Aaron’s sister calling for help, and my gills burn. I’m trying! I call out to her. I’m trying, but it’s hard!

  The shadowy man holding her turns toward me, and I try to run, but I fall down and have to scramble away on my hands and knees. He grabs me, and I hitch in my breath to scream—

  “Hey,” Tam whispers urgently. “Hey, Nadya, wake up!”

  I take deep breaths and open my eyes. I’m facedown, tangled in a pile of blankets. My head’s about three feet from a gap in the railing at the edge of the platform. Rash, who was supposed to be guarding it, must’ve rolled away in his sleep. Tam’s got me by the arm, and my foot’s against his chest, so I think maybe I’ve been kicking him.

  “You awake yet?” he grunts.

  “Yeah,” I whisper back. “Sorry.” I move my foot, and he lets go of my arm and rubs his chest.

  “Geez, you kick like a backfiring dump truck,” he says.

  My gills burn, but I decide to take that as a compliment. “Thanks,” I say. Next to me, Rash lets out a loud snore. “Think we should wake the sleeping engine boiler over there?”

  Tam grins. “Probably. I’ll get the others.” He turns to crawl over to Tian Li, Aaron, and Alé, but I realize this might be the last chance we get to talk alone for a while, and I grab his ankle before he goes.

  “Hey,” I say, “are you okay? Being here, and all?”

  His grin fades, and his eyes dim. The soft orange light of the boilers down below hits his face like sunset on a cliff. “I think,” he says. He runs a hand through his hair. “I mean, most of the time I am. Rash doesn’t blame me at all, says if he’d listened to my rules in the first place he never would’ve lost his arm. Goss doesn’t either, although she seems a little mad I left without saying anything. And the other kids don’t look at me like I’m a monster anymore. They want to ask me all kinds of questions about the Cloud Sea and cloudships and pirates and the world outside Far Agondy.” He shrugs. “So if I let myself, I can feel like everything’s okay. But every time I do that I feel guilty, like I shouldn’t be getting off so easy. So I dunno. I’m okay. But I’m not great.” He glances up. “Thanks for asking, Nadya.”

  “No problem, Tam,” I say. “We gotta stick together, y’know?”

  “Yeah,” he says. He smiles. “Yeah, I do.”

  * * *

  • • •

  It takes a few minutes for everybody to wake up. Alé gets her prosthesis on, and I find my crutches. Soon we’re all standing by the stairway leading up from their platform.

  “Okay,” Rash whispers. “We’re headed to the third level. We’ve got a spot there where we can talk without anybody hearing us.” He looks at me apologetically. “We won’t be able to use the swings, because they’re so loud. Think you can crutch it?”

  I nod. I’m still sore, but I’m not gonna let that stop me. “Of course,” I say. “Let’s go.”

  Alé grins. “Follow me,” she whispers, and she leads the way out.

  She takes us on a long, winding path that keeps us from running through other people’s sleeping nooks. “It’s great sleeping wherever we want,” she whispers as we stop for breath on a platform full of buckets of rusty bolts and scrap metal, “but it makes sneaking around at night pretty hard.”

  When we get up past the second level, Rash pulls me aside and points out our destination. It’s the room I saw before, a big black rectangle probably a hundred feet long and thirty feet wide, suspended from the roof in one corner of the building. Only one catwalk leads up to it. There’s no lights shining there and the boilers are far below, so I can’t see any details.

  “What is it?” I ask.

  “A surprise.” He gives me a big, goofy wink. “Remember that thing I wanted to show you? That’s where we’re headed.”

  I stare at it as we work our way up, trying to figure out what it is. Some kind of room, obviously. But what could be in there? A swimming pool? It’s definitely big enough. But why would they put a swimming pool up by the ceiling?

  I still don’t have it figured out by the time we get there.

  The entrance is kinda spooky. We’re up by the windows, so there’s a great view of Far Agondy’s electric night, all those skyscrapers with their dandelion brightness, but it’s still pretty dark up here. The room we’re entering is made of cast iron, welded together so tightly I can’
t even see the seams. It must weigh a bazillion pounds—there’s support rods attached to it every six feet or so in a grid. I’m amazed the roof can take all that weight, but I guess they must build things pretty strong around here.

  The door’s design is really familiar. It’s got a big wheel in the middle that looks like it has to be unlocked and cranked open and shut. Just in front of it there’s a shelf with a bunch of masks.

  “Here, put one of these on,” Alé says. She starts handing them out.

  I stare, blinking. The masks are made of black rubber, with little glass eyepieces so you can look out. They cover your mouth, and attached to the mouthpieces are black hoses about a foot long, with canisters at the end. Rash and Alé show Tian Li and Tam how to get theirs on.

  I stand patiently and wait my turn, but when Tam and Tian Li are done, Rash just grins. “You and Aaron won’t need them,” he says. I recognize the design of that door, and my stomach twists up in a knot. This can’t be what I think it is. It can’t.

  “Come on,” Alé says. We bundle into a waiting room just like the one on the Orion, and Rash cranks the outside door shut. Alé pushes a big green button. The air hisses and whooshes as it’s sucked out, and then there’s a chime and the inner door unlocks. My gills open up, and we step into something that’s definitely, one hundred percent, undeniably a cloud garden.

  CHAPTER 9

  IN WHICH NADYA WRESTLES WITH HER FEARS, AND LEARNS ABOUT A MAN NAMED SILVERMASK.

  I can’t believe my eyes. The cloud garden up here in the roof of Gossner’s workshop looks as bright and green as any I’ve seen on a cloudship. The trees stretch to the ceiling. Birds in dozens of colors flit between them, chittering and chirping happily. A lizard skitters up an iron support beam next to me and sticks its tongue out to taste my cheek, then runs away. There are two sun-in-a-jars, one at each end of the garden, and food crops take up about a third of the space. I see tomatoes and corn and beans and lettuce and spinach and carrots and more. I scoop up some soil and run it through my fingers. It feels moist and heavy, perfect for growing.