All Good Children - Catherine Austen [68]
“You better get those giggles out,” I whisper. “Remember how you have to act at school.”
She relaxes her face and dims her eyes. We reach for the doorknob at the same time. She laughs, then turns it into a cough.
“Good girl. Who’s going to get the door?”
She points back and forth between us and whispers, “One potato, two potato, three potato, four. Five potato, six potato, seven potato, more.” She turns the doorknob.
Lucas and three other zombies await us. They wear bulky gray coats over their shapeless gray suits. There were more of them last week. They must be cleaning house at the trade school, herding kids into institutions for the uneducable. I wonder how many lower rungs there are on the ladder of childhood.
“Hello, Lucas,” I say. “Nice to see you.”
“Nice to see you too, Maxwell. And you, Alexandra. I hope you’re feeling better.”
“I’m much better, thank you.” There’s a smile playing behind her eyes, but I doubt the zombies can notice it.
“Goodbye, Ally,” I say as she joins them. “Be good.”
Dallas has a carefully disguised fit on the school grounds when I tell him we’re going to Canada instead of Atlanta. “They’re never going to let me across the border!” He keeps a straight face and an even tone but he still manages to convey that he’s shouting. “They don’t let minors leave the country without their parents’ permission.”
“We can get you a passport with the name Connors on it.”
“Oh, that’s royal. We look so much alike.” He’s so mad he has to turn away from me to regain control. “They’ll catch us, Max,” he says when he turns back. “They’ll catch us and they’ll send me back and my parents will find out that I’m not treated and they’ll turn me into a fucking zombie.”
“No. If we go to Atlanta—if we go anywhere in the States—any cop who wants to can ask for your id and send you back home when they find out who you are. You can’t change your fingerprints. You’ll be at risk every day of your life until you’re eighteen. But if you cross the border, it’s just one risk and you’re through.”
“It’s a big fucking risk, Max.”
“No, it’s not. We’re going to cross at Freaktown. They let anybody through there.”
“What are you basing that theory on?”
I shrug. “Rumors.”
He nods for so long that I think it might be some kind of tremor. “It’s another country, Max. They’re going to examine my passport. We can’t just glue my picture in it.”
“Maybe you look like the kid.”
“Maybe I don’t.”
“Then maybe we could take your real passport and forge a letter of permission from your parents.”
“They’ll call my home.”
“Then we’ll take the passport of someone a bit older who looks like you and you can come with us as an adult.”
He clears his throat and says calmly, “Yes. Of course. We’ll just make a wish in the passport fountain and all my problems will be solved.”
“Then we’ll—”
He walks away from me, into the school.
Dallas ignores me for two days. I finally catch him in the cafeteria, sitting alone with a buffer of empty seats between him and the zombies. “We’re visiting my cousin on Christmas Eve,” I tell him. I don’t whisper because that’s suspicious. We’ve learned to hide our words in other words. “That’s my birthday. I hope to do some shopping if the stores are open.”
He plays with the turkey sandwich on his tray and doesn’t respond. There’s a tremor in his jaw and a twitch in one eye.
“It’s the perfect place to shop because no one can find out what presents you’re buying.”
“It’s a long way to go just to get out of town, Max.”
“My cousin Rebecca went many years ago. She says the shopping is very good there.”
He shakes his head. “I want to shop in Atlanta.”
“It would be hard to find your parents a present in Atlanta.”
He eats in silence while I list all the wonderful presents I want to buy.
“Christmas is two weeks away,” he says at last. “I can’t prepare myself in time.”
“Yes, you can. And you know we deserve a break. You remember how Coach Emery said we did a good job cleaning the trailer.”
“Yeah, but…”
I put down my spoon. “I thought you