7.

Soup Sandwiches

The girl’s gaze pierces me. I feel like a butterfly on a board. How could someone so young have the guts to do what she’s doing? What is she doing? She’s wearing a wig, but the Wolf seems as fooled as I was.

The girl puts her glasses back on and says, “So you have to wear a helmet and pads all the time? Even in bed?”

“Yes…ma’am,” I croak. “Pretty much 24-7.”

“Have you ever gotten hurt here? Broken any bones?” Her eyes bore into mine with an intensity that almost hurts. Her expression says something different than her words. But I don’t know what it means.

I don’t think she’s here to accuse me of anything, and that is a huge relief.

“No, ma’am,” I say, trying to catch my breath. “Not since I was little. I guess I broke bones pretty much all the time back then, but I don’t remember.”

“Regular swab, this one used to be,” the Wolf pipes in. “Before we got him broke in.” He snorts like this is funny.

“Do you like living here?” the girl asks me, ignoring the Wolf. “This place seems incredibly dangerous for someone with your condition, what with all the crazy halls and uneven floors. And I’m sure, with all the children living here, there’s a lot of roughhousing.”

“Oh, the kids here are very well-behaved,” I say, forgetting for a moment that she’s not a rich grown-up. “And I’ve been here so long, I could get around with my eyes closed if I had to.”

“I know there are a few other children here with…struggles. How do the other kids treat you—?”

In unison, the Wolf and I say, “Everyone gets along at Wolfgang Law’s Great Home for Good Girls and Boys.”

The Wolf and I exchange glances. I’m not sure if he’s pleased or pissed.

“Do you not have chairs in your rooms?” the girl asks, apparently not interested in our double Bullshit Bomb. Her heels click loudly on the wooden floor as she approaches the bed and perches on the mattress beside me. “I’d like to talk to this young man privately,” she tells the Wolf. “I want to hear more about his challenges.”

I hold my breath, hoping the Wolf will leave her alone with me. But also hoping he won’t.

“No can do, ma’am,” the Wolf says, shaking his head. “State regs.” He straightens his old-fashioned tie, as if calling attention to it makes what he’s saying true. “Can’t leave a kid alone with a stranger. But if we can reach some sort of financial agreement along the lines of what you suggested earlier, in terms of a home improvement fund, I’m sure we can arrange for all the visits you like. You’d be part of the family at said time, is what I’m thinking. Legally speaking.”

The girl’s eyes tell me she knows the Wolf is full of it. But instead of replying to him, she says, pointing into the closet, “I think we have company.”

Her words send a stabbing shard of ice into my chest. The closet door, I see, is partway open.

“What?” the Wolf cries, flinging the closet door wide open.

The Wolf has never gone into my closet before—not that I know of anyway, and suddenly I’m certain I’ve left the beam askew and the ladder down. My heart pounds, and perspiration breaks out on my brow.

The Wolf drags a little girl of five or so out by the wrist. Furious, he reaches for the Hotshot at his hip, only to realize he’s hidden it away for this fundraising opportunity. Seeing the appalled expression on his visitor’s face, he awkwardly pats the little girl’s head and forces a smile.

“Scram, Susie,” the Wolf says, shooing her out of the room. “Spying is a Violation of—it’s not nice!”

“I’m Franny,” the little girl calls from the hallway.

She’s going to get it later.

“Apologies, ma’am,” the Wolf says. “We usually have better manners around here.”

“Anyway,” our visitor says, rising to her feet. “I’m afraid I don’t quite have time to talk further with Felix at the moment anyway. I have an important business appointment in an hour, but I will return tomorrow to discuss a very large donation.” I cringe inwardly—now she sounds as ridiculous and phony as the Wolf, but he’s apparently buying it, hook, line, and sinker. “I will come tomorrow at ten o’clock,” the girl adds, looking at me pointedly over the rim of her glasses.

“Roger that, ma’am. I would just like to say again how on target your timing is in regards to the home improvement situation. We are in desperate need at this time. Financials are a real soup sandwich. Can’t even imagine what would happen to the Frea—to the special ones—if we go tits up.”

The girl nods, still looking at me over her glasses. “It was very nice to meet you, Felix,” she says.

“I’ll show you out,” the Wolf says, and after a quick glare in my direction, he strides out the door.

The girl, alone in the room with me now, makes quick circles with each of her hands and places them over her eyes. She peers at me through them.

Binoculars.

My hands make circles too, and I stack them together over one eye.

A spyglass.

We look at each other through our fingers for a few moments.

She’s sure we recognize each other now, so she turns and leaves the room.

What just happened?

I lie down on my bed and turn onto my side. The faint scent of flowers lingers in the sheets—her perfume—so I pull the covers over me to trap the smell.

And just like that, I’m asleep.

In the junkyard behind Headquarters, a flash of red catches my eye. Passing a colossal heap of military medals, I see a girl with a braided auburn crown wearing a red hooded cape and swinging a basket full of money. She skips along, turns a corner, and makes for a little gingerbread house nestled in the forest of junk.

STOP! I call, but she doesn’t seem to hear me. She disappears into the gingerbread house, and I rush to the door to yank on the handle. The door is locked, but through the window, I see the girl bent over a figure reclining in the bed. It’s the Wolf, I realize, dressed up like a grandma, grinning and slobbering. I bang furiously on the window, and the Wolf’s black eyes meet mine. He grabs the girl, pulls her into his sheets, which are, in fact, a large leather Bag. The girl’s basket, which has fallen to the floor, spills money and the severed bald head of the Watching Man. The head is alive, and its glaring eyes watch the girl thrash inside the Wolf’s Bag. I bang on the window, but nobody pays me any mind. The girl is quiet now, the Bag still. I can hear the growl of the Wolf, a low, satisfied sound, almost a purring. I can’t stand to hear it, so I raise my hands to cover my ears.

Awake now, I find myself groping under my pillow, where something is purring or buzzing. I find a slim metal device with a screen, and I realize what it is.

A cell phone. I’ve seen pictures of these devices in several of the attic’s newer technology magazines. This cell phone, however, is much, much fancier. It looks like a small computer. The screen, I see, is lit up, and a name appears at the top: Willy Adelstein. A small image of a clock at the top of the screen tells me it’s two minutes past five. How strange it is to know exactly what time it is.

Clearly, the girl slipped the phone under my pillow when the Wolf ran into my closet. But why? And who the heck is Willy Adelstein?

I shove the phone back under the pillow and slide back down into my sheets. My heart is throbbing, so I try to take long slow breaths to calm myself. One. Two. Three.

What if the phone is some kind of integrity test? Maybe she left something valuable in every room to see if there’s an honest kid in the house, a kid who would dutifully return the phone. Maybe that kid would get adopted by her parents and live happily ever after as her brother or sister.

Stupid, I know.

Maybe she left the phone under my pillow so she could accuse me of stealing it. That way she’d have her revenge for my peeping at her without having to explain why she was peeping at me. Maybe the phone is blackmail material, and she’s going to use it as leverage to force me to hand over the priceless spyglass from pirate times!

Maybe I’m an idiot.

I roll over and retrieve the phone, tapping the screen to bring it to life.

A series of little boxes of text appear, all saying the same thing:

Hello?

Hello?

Hello?

My brain says, Do. Not. Get. Involved. You’ll wind up broken into a million pieces.

Little dots appear on the screen, and then a new message appears:

I’m a Freak too, Felix!

I desperately want to put the phone down, but my hand won’t obey my brain. Dots appear again, and then a longer message:

…I know you don’t know me but I really really need your help. My name is Annika Adelstein. You’re holding one of my father’s old phones. I was in my tower searching for a miracle when I saw you. Is it possible you were searching for one too?

I guess I was. I guess I always have been. How long have I imagined rescuing her, the imaginary her, prisoner in the tower, from the clutches of some evil overlord?

But how could she possibly think I could help her after meeting me?

…My father owns your Headquarters. It gets special “allowances” paid for by my dad from the legislature to experiment with “traditional” ways of raising orphaned children. I was adopted from that place myself when I was a few months old. My parents died in a car crash

“What?” I exclaim. Annika went from this dungeon to that castle?

…Anyway, I need your help *please* I need you to find and take pictures of that sleazebag Wolf’s financial records. There’s some shady business going on over there I’m certain of it. Use the cell

No. Hell no. Absolutely not. Why should I care about this girl’s problems? Her entire life is the miracle I’ve always hoped for!

…My father is Willy Adelstein. He owns a chain of pawnshops all over Nevada called Battle Born Pawn. He’s a doctor and he’s obsessed with collecting antiques especially electrotherapy devices those goofy machines that supposedly cured medical problems with electricity way back when

Electrotherapy devices? I suddenly recall seeing something about those in an old copy of Harper’s Magazine from the fifties—there were pictures of large box-like contraptions with generators and cranks that customers could use to shock themselves out of Nervous Diseases.

I feel like I could use one now, because I’m starting to shake.

…My father’s so obsessed with electricity that he moved from Reno to Sparks because of its name! He doesn’t care about anything else, including me. Here’s what else I know about him—he’s old, even though he doesn’t look it. His entire family was murdered in the Holocaust, all but his teenage mother, who escaped from Germany pregnant with him after being raped by a Nazi soldier. She died giving birth to him and he was raised in an orphanage where they tortured him every day for being Jewish. He told me he started that place to give kids like him a better shot in life. But as far as I can tell, he has no involvement with it. And if he cares about orphans, if he cares about anyone but himself, I’m Charles Dickens

I know Charles Dickens. I’ve read Oliver Twist six times. And I read about the Holocaust in Time magazine. The photos inside made me physically sick, and for the first and only time in my life I was grateful to live at Headquarters. But Annika lives in a mansion, not a concentration camp. Sure, it’s strange that her dad loves electricity as much as the Wolf hates it, but so what? And maybe he had to adopt a child because he was too old to have one naturally—that was hardly a crime.

I don’t feel like writing anything back.

I’m not writing back.

But for some reason, I find myself watching for the little dots again.

…My father says the world is full of vermin and I need to be protected from it until I’m an adult able to protect myself. But that’s no excuse for treating me like a prisoner! It’s 2018! I’m literally trapped here Felix. I’m “protected” every waking hour by my psycho “manny” Adolf (fine his real name is Axel). He does nothing all day but make sure I cooperate with my teachers and coaches who come here—and make sure I don’t try to break into my father’s sacred workshop or jump out a window. I can’t stand it anymore. My teachers get fired if they discuss anything but their lessons with me but last year my history professor was telling me about the emancipation of the slaves. I told him I was a slave and he joked about the fact there’s something called minor emancipation nowadays. Sixteen-year-olds can petition the court for it. I WILL BE SIXTEEN NEXT WEEK!

She’s not even sixteen? A fifteen-year-old princess with the guts to fight dragons. But what dragons? A strict daddy? Too many private tutors? How dare she call herself a Freak! I’m tempted to suggest we trade lives.

But I don’t.

Because I’m not writing back.

Because I’m not getting involved. Period.

…If I prove that I can provide for myself I can be declared an adult and leave here forever. But my father has lots of lawyers and will never let it happen unless I have something over him. I’ve spent the last year searching this house for anything I could use against him but I found nothing. I only thought of your orphanage the other day when my father threatened to send me BACK ACROSS THE ROAD for being a bitch to him. He used to threaten me with that all the time when I was little. It scared the hell out of me since I knew about his orphanage days. But that got me wondering so I did some research and found out a girl died at Headquarters in 2008 so I decided to investigate that. But it was too long ago and there just isn’t much info out there about it

Wait. 2008? Oh god.

What girl? I type, feeling nauseous.

…I think her name was Charlotte?

Now my finger won’t move. It’s made of stone. I’m made of stone because I’ve looked right into Medusa’s eyes. I stare at the words, which no longer look like English.

Dots appear while my mind attempts to shut itself down. Then a message.

…Just double-checked. Charlotte “Charlie” Law. She died of a heroin overdose. There was an investigation and the home almost got shut down. Did you know her? You would have been pretty young…

Charlie is dead? Dead all these years? From heroin?

It’s not true.

…When I saw you through my binoculars I knew right away I’d found an ally. So I snuck over. As soon as I met that Wolf guy I knew something wasn’t right. That’s why I need records! They’re my ticket to freedom! Will you help?

I will not help. I dreamed of fighting dragons, but my fantasy has turned out to be even more brittle than my bones.

Charlie is dead! I was going to find her when I got out of here! We were going to live together! All at once, my life feels pointless. Like an empty bag.

I think about my promise to find Mila’s and Klaus’s parents, and I realize suddenly that the reason why I’ve never much thought about finding my own isn’t because I preferred to focus on finding new parents. I’ve never expected to be adopted. It’s because I’ve always had Charlie. I knew she was out there somewhere, waiting for me. A wave of longing and loneliness swamps me, and for the first time in my life, I want to know who my mother and father are.

Have I been asleep my entire life?

Without thinking, I type: Is Axel/Adolf tall and bald with a face full of craters?

…OMG HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?!

…He followed you here. To the yard sale

…OMG. OMG. OMG. And he hasn’t told my father yet because he’s out of town searching for his “holy grail” in Europe somewhere. But my father’s due back tomorrow! I have even less time now! You’ve GOT to help me!

I’m trying to care. But I don’t care. All my life I’ve dreamed of helping a princess, but it never occurred to me that they might be spoiled little girls who get tired of their privileges. She has no idea how lucky her life is. At least she has a father!

I. Am. Not. Getting. Involved. Charlie is dead!

I toss the phone down and stare at the wall. Then I pick the phone back up.

…Wolf told me that kids who leave Headquarters get internships. I could ask any of my teachers to help find you something. They’re all top of their fields

She’s trying to bribe me.

I’m sorry, I type. I can’t. I’ll be leaving here forever in a matter of days

…I can give you money. My father keeps it all over the house in secret stashes in case another Holocaust happens and he has to run for it. I’ve been skimming from them for years so I can give you enough money to get you started anywhere you want

Anywhere. Nowhere. What’s the difference to me now? But…maybe money could help me find my parents. But, no… If I get caught stealing, I type. If the Wolf finds out. You have no idea what he’s like

…I can report that loser. Once I get the information I need I’ll get the whole place shut down. Literally everything he told me was an obvious lie

I’m sorry

… Shit. I really better go. Don’t worry. I promise it’ll be okay. I’ll see you tomorrow to get the phone. I wouldn’t want you to get in trouble for having it. Or for being in the attic if that’s off-limits. I wouldn’t want to cause any delays in your getting out of there

None of that will happen unless she makes it happen. She’s threatening me!

I swallow something sharp and sour. My future is at risk if I help her, but now it seems at risk if I don’t.

I’m sorry, I type one more time.

But there’s no reply.

And I am sorry—sorry I tried to see the junkyard when I was eight; sorry Charlie took me up to the attic and showed me the spyglass; sorry I ever saw that stupid mansion; sorry she made the Wolf give me her room. I’m sorry I’ve watched that place all these years, and I’m even sorrier that I happened to look at that tower when that girl was looking out. I’m sorry I watched Rags-to-Riches Princess Annika Adelstein flounce from her fairy-tale castle over to the lowly Headquarters. Where she didn’t have to spend her childhood. I’m sorry that little girl got into my closet. And I’m sorriest of all that I looked at this goddamn phone.

My heart is beating out of control. The room is blurring. I think my skull is going to implode.

I count twenty breaths, then get up and peek into the hall. The coast is clear, so I head quickly down to the second-floor Bag Room that’s full of tools. I find the table-mounted vise and set the phone into its jaws, then slowly twist the handle until the phone is crushed to splinters. Better it than me. I scatter the pieces in various boxes around the room. The evidence is gone. The princess can rat me out about the attic if she wants, but the Wolf can’t keep me here once I turn eighteen.

Emancipation.

Ten minutes later, I’m back in bed. There’s nothing more to do.

Except the one thing I’m good at.

So I pull my sheets up over my head and do it.