A Map of Days (Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #4) - Ransom Riggs Page 0,4

The unair-conditioned garage was sweltering.

“When they wake, I’ll wipe their recent memories and send your uncles home.”

“But what will they—”

“I’ll explain that we’re distant relatives from your father’s side of the family, here from Europe to pay our respects at Abe’s grave. And as for your appointment at the asylum, you’re feeling much better now and no longer require psychiatric care.”

“And what about—”

“Oh, they’ll believe it; normals are highly suggestible following a memory wipe. I could probably convince them we’re visitors from a moon colony.”

“Miss Peregrine, please stop doing that.”

She smiled. “My apologies. A century of headmistressing trains you to anticipate questions for the sake of expediency. Now come along, children, we need to discuss protocol for the next several days. There’s much to learn about the present, and no time like the present to start learning.”

She began herding everyone out of the garage while they peppered her with questions and complaints:

“How long can we stay?” said Olive.

“May we go exploring in the morning?” said Claire.

“I would like to eat something before I perish from the earth,” said Millard.

Soon, I was alone in the garage, lingering partly because I felt bad about leaving my family there overnight, but also because I was anxious about their impending memory wipe. Miss Peregrine seemed confident, but this would be a bigger wipe than the one she had performed on them in London, which had only deleted about ten minutes of their memories. What if she didn’t erase enough, or erased too much? What if my dad forgot all he knew about birds, or my mom forgot all the French she learned in college?

I watched them sleep for a minute, this new weight settling upon me. I felt suddenly, uncomfortably adult, while my family—vulnerable, peaceful, drooling a bit—looked almost like babies.

Maybe there was another way.

Emma leaned in through the open door. “Everything okay? I think the boys are going to riot if dinner doesn’t appear soon.”

“I wasn’t sure I should leave them,” I said, nodding toward my family.

“They aren’t going anywhere, and they shouldn’t need watching. With the dose they got, they’ll sleep like rocks into the middle of tomorrow.”

“I know. I just . . . I feel a little bad.”

“You shouldn’t.” She came and stood next to me. “It’s not your fault. At all.”

I nodded. “It seems a little tragic, is all.”

“What does?”

“That Abe Portman’s son will never know how special a man his father was.”

Emma took my arm and draped it over her shoulders. “I think it’s a hundred times more tragic that he’ll never know how special a man his son is.”

I was just leaning down to kiss her when my uncle’s phone buzzed in my pocket. It made us both startle, and I pulled it out to find a new text from my aunt.

Is crazy J in the loony bin yet?

“What is it?” Emma asked.

“Nothing important.” I returned the phone to my pocket and turned toward the door. Suddenly, leaving my family in the garage overnight didn’t seem like such a bad idea. “Come on, let’s figure out dinner.”

“Are you sure?” Emma said.

“Very.”

I flipped off the lights as we left.

* * *

• • •

I suggested we order pizza from a place that delivered late. Only a few of the kids even knew what pizza was, and delivery was a totally foreign concept.

“They prepare it remotely and bring it to your home?” said Horace, as if the idea were vaguely scandalous.

“Pizza—is that Floridian cuisine?” asked Bronwyn.

“Not really,” I said. “But trust me, you’ll like it.”

I called in a massive order and we settled onto couches and chairs in the living room to wait for it to arrive. Miss Peregrine whispered in my ear, “I think it’s time to make that speech.” Without waiting for a reply, she cleared her throat and announced to the room that I had something to say. So I stood up and began, somewhat awkwardly, to improvise.

“I’m so glad you’re all here. I’m not sure if you know where my family was taking me tonight, but it wasn’t a good place. I mean—” I hesitated. “I mean, it might be good for some people, you know, with real mental problems, but . . . long story short, you guys saved my ass.”

Miss Peregrine frowned.

“It was you that saved our . . . bums,” said Bronwyn, glancing at the headmistress. “We were only returning the favor.”

“Well, thanks. When you all first arrived, I thought you were a dream. I’ve been dreaming about you visiting me here ever since