Chapter 9
I’M THE FIRST ONE OUT OF BED WHEN THE MORNING bell rings. I
always am. It’s not necessarily because I’m a morning
person but because I prefer being in and out of the
bathroom before anyone else.
I rush through making my bed, which I’ve gotten very
good at over time. The key is getting the sheet, blanket,
and comforter tucked deeply in at the foot. From there it’s
just a matter of pulling the rest to the head, tucking the
sides, and adding pillows to give it that clean, a-quartercould-
be-bounced-off-it finish.
By the time I’m done, across the room in the bed nearest
to the door, Ella, the girl who arrived on Sunday, is the only
other one up. Like the previous two mornings, she’s trying
to emulate the way I make my bed, though she’s struggling
with it. Her problem is that she’s trying to work from the top
down instead of the bottom up. While Sister Katherine has
been lenient with Ella, her rotation ends today and Sister
Dora’s weeklong shift begins tonight. I know she won’t
allow Ella to skimp on perfection, regardless of how new
she is or what she’s going through.
“Would you like help?” I ask, crossing the room.
She looks at me with sad eyes. I can see she doesn’t
care about the bed. I imagine she doesn’t care about much
of anything right now, and I can’t blame her, given the death
of her parents. I’d like to tell her not to worry, that unlike
those of us who are “lifers,” she’ll be out of this place within
the month, two at the most. But what consolation can that
be to her now?
I bend down at the foot of the bed and pull the sheet and
blanket until there’s enough to tuck them both beneath the
mattress, then I stretch her comforter over them both.
“Want to grab that side?” I ask, nodding to the left of the
bed while I go to the right. Together we give the whole bed
the same tight, clean look as my own.
“Perfect,” I say.
“Thank you,” she replies in her soft, timid voice. I look
down into her big brown eyes and can’t help but like her
and feel some need to look after her.
“I’m sorry to hear about your parents,” I say.
Ella looks away. I think I’ve overstepped my boundaries,
but then she offers me a slight smile. “Thank you. I miss
them a lot.”
“I’m sure they miss you, too.”
We leave the room together, and I notice she walks on
the balls of her feet so as not to make a sound.
At the bathroom sink, Ella grips her toothbrush near the
top, almost touching the bristles with her small fingers,
making the toothbrush appear larger than it really is. When I
catch her staring at me in the mirror, I grin. She grins back,
showing two rows of tiny teeth. Toothpaste pours from her
mouth and runs down her arm, dripping from her elbow. I
watch it, thinking the S pattern it creates is familiar, and I let
my mind wander.
A hot summer day in June. Clouds drift in the blue sky.
Cool waters ripple in the sun. The fresh air carries hints of
pine. I breathe it in and let the stress of Santa Teresa melt
away into nothingness.
Though I believe my second Legacy developed shortly
after the first, I didn’t discover it until almost a full year later.
It was an accident I discovered it at all, which makes me
wonder if I have other Legacies waiting to be uncovered.
Every year when school lets out for summer, to reward
those of us who have been what the Sisters deem “good,” a
four-day trip to a nearby mountain camp is organized. I’ve
always loved the trip for the same reason I love the cave
that sits hidden in the opposite direction. It’s an escape—a
rare opportunity to spend four days swimming in the huge
lake nestled in the mountains, or a chance to hike, to sleep
beneath the stars, to smell the fresh air away from the
musty corridors of Santa Teresa. It is, in essence, a chance
to act our age. I’ve even caught some of the Sisters
laughing and smiling when they think nobody’s looking.
In the lake, there’s a floating dock. I’m a horrible
swimmer, and for many summers I just sat and watched
from shore while the others laughed and played and did
flips off the dock into the water. It took a couple summers of
practicing alone in the shallow water, but the summer of my
thirteenth year, I finally learned an imperfect and slow doggy
paddle that kept my head above water. It got me to the
dock, and that was enough for me.
At the dock, the game is to try to push each other off it.
Groups team up until they’re the only ones left, and then it’s
every girl for herself. As the biggest and strongest at Santa
Teresa, I used to think it’d be an effortless victory for La
Gorda, but it rarely is; she’s often outsmarted by the
smaller, more wily girls, and I don’t think anyone has won as
many times as a girl named Bonita.
I didn’t want to play La Reina del Muelle, Queen of the
Dock. I was content to sit on the side and let my feet dangle
in the water, but Bonita shoves me hard from behind
anyway, sending me headlong into the lake.
“Play the game or go back to shore,” Bonita says, flicking
her hair over her shoulder.
I climb back up and rush straight towards her. I shove her
as hard as I can, and she falls backwards and crashes into
the lake.
I don’t hear La Gorda behind me, and suddenly two
strong hands shove me hard from behind. My feet slip on
the wet wood, and the side of my head and shoulder smack
against the edge of the dock, clouding my vision with stars.
I’m knocked unconscious for a second, and when my eyes
open I’m underwater. I see nothing but darkness and
instinctively kick upward, flailing my arms to reach the
surface. But my head smacks against the bottom of the
dock, and I realize there are only a few inches of space
between the water and the wooden boards of the dock. I try
to tilt my head backwards to put my nose and mouth above
the surface, but water instantly laps into my nostrils. I panic,
my lungs already burning. I scramble to the left but there’s
nowhere to go; I’m trapped by the dock’s plastic barrels.
Water fills my lungs while the absurdity of death by
drowning pops into my head. I think of the others, how their
ankles are about to be seared. Will they believe that
Number Three has been killed, or will they somehow know
it’s me? Will it burn differently than if I’d died at the hands of
the Mogadorians instead of my own stupidity? My eyes
slowly close and I begin to sink. Just as I feel the last
stream of bubbles escape my lips, my eyes snap open, and
an odd sort of calm sweeps in. My lungs are no longer
burning.
I’m breathing.
The water tickles my lungs, but at the same time satisfies
every desperate need I have to breathe, and that’s when I
know I’ve discovered my second Legacy: the ability to
breathe underwater. I’ve found it only because I was pushed
to the brink of death.
I don’t want to be found just yet by the girls diving into the
water looking for me, so I let myself drift down to the deep
bottom, the world slowly fading to black until my feet finally
sink into the cold mud. I can see through the brown, murky
water once my eyes adjust. Ten minutes pass. Then twenty.
Finally the girls swim away from the dock. I assume the
lunch bell’s been rung. I wait until I’m absolutely sure they’ve
all left, then I walk slowly along on the lake’s bottom towards
shore, my feet sinking into the mud as I inch forward. After a
while the icy water begins to warm and brighten and the
mud segues to rocks and then to sand, and finally my head
emerges. I listen to the girls, La Gorda and Bonita included,
scream and splash towards me in relief. I take inventory of
myself on shore, noticing a gash on my shoulder is
bleeding, leaving a trail of blood down my arm in the shape
of a subtle S.
The Sisters make me sit the rest of the afternoon at a
picnic table under a tree, but I didn’t mind. I had another
Legacy.
In the bathroom, Ella catches me watching the toothpaste
run down her arm in the mirror. She looks embarrassed,
and as she tries to replicate the way I brush my teeth, even
more frothy toothpaste pours from her mouth.
“You’re like a bubble factory,” I say with a smile, grabbing
a towel to clean her up.
We leave the bathroom as the others are arriving, dress
quickly in the room and walk out of it as the others are
coming in, keeping just ahead of the group, as I prefer to
do. We grab our lunches from the cafeteria and head out
into the cold morning. I eat my apple on the walk to school.
Ella does the same. I’m about ten minutes early today,
which will give me a little time to get on the internet to see if
there’s anything new about John Smith. The thought of him
makes me smile.
“Why are you smiling? Do you like school?” Ella asks. I
look over at her. The half-eaten apple looks big in her small
hand.
“It’s a nice morning, I guess,” I say. “And I have good
company today.”
We walk through town as street vendors set up shop. The
snow hasn’t melted and is piled along both sides of Calle
Principal, but the road itself is clear. Up ahead on the right
Hector Ricardo’s front door opens, and out comes his
mother in a wheelchair, being pushed by Hector. She’s had
Parkinson’s disease for a very long time. She’s been in a
wheelchair for the last five years, and she’s been unable to
speak for the last three. He positions her in a sliver of
sunlight and applies her wheel brakes. While the sun
seems to bring her some comfort, Hector slinks away and
sits in the shade, dropping his head.
“Good morning, Hector,” I call out. He lifts his head and
squints one eye open. He waves with a shaky hand.
“Marina, as of the sea,” he croaks. “The only limits of
tomorrow are the doubts we have today.”
I stop and smile. Ella stops, too.
“That’s one of your better ones.”
“Don’t doubt Hector; he has a few nuggets left,” he says.
“Are you doing okay?”
“Strength, confidence, humility, love. Hector Ricardo’s
four tenets of a happy life,” he says, which makes no sense
whatsoever considering the question I asked, but it makes
me feel good anyway. He turns his gaze on Ella. “And
who’s this little angel?”
Ella grabs my hand and hides behind me.
“Her name is Ella,” I say, looking down at her. “This is
Hector. He’s my friend.”
“Hector is one of the good guys,” he says, though Ella
remains behind me.
He waves at us as we walk the rest of the way to school.
“Do you know where you’re going?” I ask her.
“I have Senora Lopez’s class,” she says, smiling.
“Ahh, you’re a lucky girl. I had her, too. She’s one of the
good ones in this town, like Hector,” I say.
I’m devastated; all three of the school computers are
occupied, a trio of younger girls from town are desperately
trying to finish a science assignment, their fingers flying
across the keyboards. I coast through the day, keeping to
myself as one thing runs through my mind. John Smith, on
the run in America, somehow staying ahead of the law, and
I’m stuck here, in Santa Teresa, an old, moldy town where
nothing happens. I’d always thought I’d leave when I turned
eighteen. But now that John Smith is out there, being
hunted, I know I have to leave as soon as I can, to join him.
The only question now is how to find him.
My last class is Spanish history. The teacher drones on
about General Francisco Franco and the Spanish Civil War
of the 1930s. I tune her out and instead write in my
notebook about John, what I know based on the most
recent article I read.
John Smith
Lived 4 months in Paradise, OH
Pulled over by an officer in Tennessee, driving
west in a
pickup truck. Middle of the night, with 2 other
people around
the same age.
Where were they driving?
One of the two people he was with is believed to
be Sam
Goode, also from Paradise, originally thought to
be a hostage,
now considered an accomplice.
Who is the third person? A girl with black hair.
Girl in my
dream had black hair.
Where is Henri?
How did they get away from 2 helicopters and 35
police officers? How did the 2 copters crash?
How can I contact him OR the others?
Post something on internet?
Too dangerous. Is there a way to do so that
eludes the Mogs?
If so, will any of the others even see it?
John is on the run. Ever checking internet?
Does Adelina know something that I don’t?
Can I bring it up to her without being obvious?
The pen hovers over the page. The internet and Adelina,
my only two ideas, neither of which seems promising. What
more can I do, though? Everything else seems as futile as
walking up the mountain and sending smoke signals into
the air. But I can’t help but feel like I’m missing something—
some crucial element that’s so obvious it’s staring me right
in the face.
The teacher drones on. I close my eyes and think it all
through. Nine Garde. Nine Cepan. An airship that brought
us to Earth, the same airship to take us back eventually,
hidden somewhere on Earth. All I remember about it is that
we landed in a remote place in the midst of a thunderstorm.
A charm was cast to protect us from the Mogadorians,
which went into effect only when we scattered, and that only
works if we stay away from each other. But why? A charm
that keeps us apart seems pretty counterintuitive in helping
us fight and defeat the Mogadorians. What’s the point in it?
While asking myself this question my mind stumbles on
something else. I close my eyes and let the logic carry me.
We were meant to hide, but for how long? Until our
Legacies developed and we had the tools to fight, to win.
What’s the one thing we’re able to do when that first Legacy
finally arrives?
The answer seems too obvious to be correct. With the
pen still in my hand, I write the only answer I can come up
with:
The Chest
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