Vampires Never Get Old - Zoraida Cordova Page 0,54
fine.”
“I don’t understand how you’re so sure.”
Jude rarely told the truth, but she did now. “I talk to the animals, that’s how.”
Diwata waved at the cell phone sticking out of Jude’s front pocket. “That’s what happens when kids are raised by video games and Disney movies. Why do you carry around that old thing when the other kids have ports in their brains?”
Jude shrugged. She had no interest in the latest tech augments. And she didn’t need the phone. But her mother was somehow still paying for it for reasons that remained a mystery to Jude. Sometimes Jude liked to press the HOME button, liked to hear the phone say, “Ask me anything” and make random suggestions:
What is today’s date?
Google the War of 1812.
Will you get me a table for three tonight?
What are the symptoms of bird flu?
Will you find Brett?
Give me directions for home.
Jude said, “How do you know I don’t have ports in my brain? And who are you calling a kid?”
Diwata slurped from her own cup, smacked her lips. “You can’t be more than sixteen, so yeah, I’m calling you a kid, kid.”
Jude opened her mouth to lie or maybe blurt another truth, but Diwata was already marching through the tunnels behind the habitats, where many of the zoo’s inhabitants were still waiting for someone to release them to their outdoor spaces. Silently Jude greeted them, pressing cool fingertips to the glass. Hello, Jonas, Hello, Victor, hello, hello, hello. She knew their calls and their smells and their boredom, the beat of their hearts. And because many of the animals were ancient, she knew their aches and pains, too, felt them thrumming in her own body. A bad hip. A cracked hoof. Sore gums boiling with infection. Memories of a slow-moving herd in the desert, the blast of the gun that changed it all.
Over her shoulder, Diwata said, “It’s a school day. Why are you here?”
Diwata was also ancient but sneaky-fast, motoring along as if on wheels. Jude jogged to keep up. “I’m taking a gap year.”
“You do those after you graduate, not before.”
“If I went to school, who would help you with all the critters?”
Diwata grunted and kept marching. They’d been having this exchange ever since Diwata had taken Jude on as a part of the cleanup crew—just another pair of hands to sweep up after the stroller moms, just another drugged-out teenager who wouldn’t know honest work if it slapped her upside the head. And then came the morning after … well, the morning Diwata had found her curled up with the lionesses Olive and Nell, the three of them sleeping in a pile like kittens. Instead of calling the police, Diwata promoted her. And she’d protected Jude when management wanted to know why the hell some “goth-witch addict” was feeding the rhinos and the crocs by hand. Did the girl have a death wish? Did Diwata want them to get sued?
Jude did and Diwata didn’t, but then the rationing began and none of that mattered anymore.
“So,” Jude said, “who’s next? The penguins? The seals?”
“They’re all next. Them and their habitats. We’ve got to get everything in this place cleaned up.”
“With what? Mojo Joe?”
“With whatever we can find. The shindig’s this Saturday.”
“Shindig,” Jude repeated.
“Don’t tell me you forgot.”
“How could I?” Jude said. She side-eyed the little gaggle of suits taking pictures of the various habitats, drawing up plans on their tablets. Party organizers hired to put up lights and tables and decorations. One of them, a young, dark-haired man with coppery skin, stared at her so boldly and for so long that Jude flipped him off. He laughed and took a picture of her, then pouted when he got nothing but a blur.
Diwata said, “You should come to the party.”
“Right.”
“Seriously.”
Jude stopped walking, almost tripping over herself. “No way in hell I’m going to a ‘shindig’ for the asshat who turned off the water.”
Diwata stopped walking, too, turned to look at Jude, one gray and fuzzy eyebrow arched. “It’s the board’s position that the asshat didn’t technically turn off the water; he simply raised the price of said water.”
“That’s the same thing when no one can afford it.”
“Either way, they’re not going to say no to the CEO who could turn on the water, you get me?”
Though she wasn’t in the least bit cold, Jude rubbed her bare arms. “Is he going to turn it on now so that we can clean the place? Where are the water trucks we were promised?”