Nicky quit dancing. “I’m starvin, Marvin. Come on, let’s eat.”
Luke lifted the top of the Coke dispenser. “Soft drinks are free, I take it. You just pay for booze, smokes, and snacks.”
“You take it right,” Kalisha said.
“And, uh . . .” He pointed at the snack machine. Most of the goodies could be had for a single toke, but the one he was pointing at was a six-token buy. “Is that . . .”
“Are you asking if Hi Boy Brownies are what you think they are?” Iris asked. “I never had one myself, but I’m pretty sure they are.”
“Yessum,” George said. “I got off, but I also got a rash. I’m allergic. Come on, let’s eat.”
They sat at the same table. NORMA had been replaced by SHERRY. Luke ordered breaded mushrooms, chopped steak with salad, and something going under the alias of Vanilla Cream Brulay. There might be smart people in this sinister wonderland—certainly Mrs. Sigsby hadn’t seemed like a dummy—but whoever made out the menus was perhaps not one of them. Or was that intellectual snobbery on his part?
Luke decided he didn’t care.
They talked a bit about their schools before they had been torn out of their normal lives—regular schools, so far as Luke could tell, not special ones for smart kids—and about their favorite TV programs and movies. All good until Iris raised a hand to brush at one freckled cheek, and Luke realized she was crying. Not much, just a little, but yeah, those were tears.
“No shots today, but I had that damned ass-temp,” she said. When she saw Luke’s puzzled expression, she smiled, which caused another tear to roll down her cheek. “They take our temperature rectally.”
The others were nodding. “No idea why,” George said, “but it’s humiliating.”
“It’s also nineteenth century,” Kalisha said. “They must have some kind of reason, but . . .” She shrugged.
“Who wants coffee?” Nick asked. “I’ll get it if you—”
“Hey.”
From the doorway. They turned and saw a girl wearing jeans and a sleeveless top. Her hair, short and spiky, was green on one side and bluish-purple on the other. In spite of this punk ’do, she looked like a fairy-tale child lost in the woods. Luke guessed she was about his age.
“Where am I? Do any of you know what this place is?”
“Come on over, Sunshine,” Nicky said, and flashed his dazzling smile. “Drag up a rock. Sample the cuisine.”
“I’m not hungry,” the newcomer said. “Just tell me one thing. Who do I have to blow to get out of here?”
That was how they met Helen Simms.
2
After they ate, they went out to the playground (Luke did not neglect to slather himself with bug-dope) and filled Helen in. It turned out that she was a TK, and like George and Nicky, she was a pos. She proved this by knocking over several pieces on the chessboard when Nicky set them up.
“Not just pos but awesome pos,” George said. “Let me try that.” He managed to knock over a pawn, and he made the black king rock a bit on its base, but that was all. He sat back and blew out his cheeks. “Okay, you win, Helen.”
“I think we’re all losers,” she said. “That’s what I think.”
Luke asked her if she was worried about her parents.
“Not especially. My father’s an alcoholic. My mother divorced him when I was six and married—surprise!—another alcoholic. She must have figured if you can’t beat em, join em, because now she’s an alkie, too. I miss my brother, though. Do you think he’s all right?”
“Sure,” Iris said, without much conviction, and then wandered away to the trampoline and began to bounce. Doing that so soon after a meal would have made Luke feel whoopsy, but Iris hadn’t eaten much.
“Let me get this straight,” Helen said. “You don’t know why we’re here, except it maybe has something to do with psychic abilities that wouldn’t even pass an America’s Got Talent audition.”
“Wouldn’t even get us on Little Big Shots,” George said.
“They test us until we see dots, but you don’t know why.”
“Right,” Kalisha said.
“Then they put us in this other place, Back Half, but you don’t know what goes on there.”
“Yup,” Nicky said. “Can you play chess, or just knock over the pieces?”
She ignored him. “And when they’re done with us, we get some sci-fi memory wipe and live happily ever after.”