UnBound - Neal Shusterman Page 0,9
she’s in no hurry to get back to the petty squabbles and mind-numbing conversations.
No one on the fourth floor so much as glances out of the hallway window—but one level up, on floor five, Thor appears. They are partners in this mission, but he sent her down here alone, as he always does—this time, however, he didn’t tell her exactly what the mission was. Today he refused to tell her until she was in position—which means it’s probably something Brooklyn would balk at if she knew in advance. She wonders if Thor realizes how much more excited that makes Brooklyn at the prospect.
In the fifth-floor window, Thor flashes the sign for “all clear” and then “ground floor.” The next sign she misses. When she signals him to repeat, she reads impatience in his response. He moves his hands a little more slowly, exaggerating the gestures as if to an idiot.
Headmaster.
She swallows. Really? He wants her to snoop through the headmaster’s office? She spreads her hands. For what? And he better have a good reason. If she gets caught, it’s over for her.
She sees his answer—New state reports—then she thinks he signs Rumor. Not specific and not helpful. She cuts off another string of signs that are hard to read from five floors below with an abrupt Okay. Satisfied, Thor leaves the window to return to his room, and Brooklyn crosses the side yard to the unlocked stairwell door.
She moves through the ground-floor hallway, taking the long way to the headmaster’s office. In the distance she hears the cries of a younger child. The echo is hollow and ghostly. No way of telling exactly where the child is. No one will calm those cries anyway. Not enough staff. Toughen up, kid, thinks Brooklyn, or you’ll get eaten alive.
From outside comes the atonal sound of bouncing balls on the concrete playground. Then, from farther down the hall, she hears something different.
The musical tones of a piano.
A teacher playing? Perhaps, but Brooklyn suspects otherwise. She tracks the sound to one of the music classrooms. As it’s a Sunday, no classes are being taught. No one should be in here today—it’s against the rules. She quietly cracks the door just enough to peer inside.
Risa.
She should have known. Risa is Brooklyn’s age, but you wouldn’t know it. She seems to exist in a different place from most StaHo girls. And while other kids are terrified of breaking the rules for fear of getting unwound, Risa does whatever she pleases. A lot like Brooklyn—but unlike Brooklyn, Risa never seems to get caught. It’s infuriating.
And what makes it even more irritating, is that she’s good.
Brooklyn watches her dainty fingers dancing across the keyboard, playing a piece that seems too complex for two hands. Even though the practice piano is out of tune, Brooklyn finds herself soothed by Risa’s playing, and while part of her wishes that a guard would stomp down the corridor and haul Risa away for discipline, another part of her wishes Risa would just play and play and play.
Piano—or any other instrument—was out of the question for Brooklyn. She didn’t have the ear or know-how to infuse her playing with passion. In fifth grade Mr. Durkin actually grabbed her recorder and snapped the plastic instrument in half. I felt an overwhelming need to put the poor thing out of its misery, he said, and the other kids laughed.
But Durkin loved Risa. Risa was chosen for musical enrichment, while Brooklyn was hurled into the mob of kids relegated to “physical refinement.” In other words, they discounted her brain and set out to build her brawn, putting her on track to become a military boeuf. Not that Brooklyn minds the physical focus of her life. She likes sports and strength training, she scores high points in marksmanship—but to know that Risa was seen as somehow better than her still makes Brooklyn stew.
If it had been anyone else but Risa, Brooklyn might be able to stomach it, but they have a history. A history that goes back nearly sixteen years to their cradle days and exploded seven years later. Perhaps everyone else has forgotten it—perhaps even Risa has—but Brooklyn is not one to let wounds go, no matter how old they are.
Still, she enjoys Risa’s playing in spite of herself. So she lets the door of the music room stay open a crack and sits beside it, just for a minute or so, listening as Risa performs, taking guilty pleasure each time she stumbles and misses a